Дэвид Митчелл - Utopia Avenue

Lawrence, his parents, Bea and their parents greet her in the living room. Everyone is whispering. Imogen is upstairs, ‘resting’. Her husband is miserable, broken and looks five years older than he did a fortnight ago, when Elf was last here. She tells him she’s sorry, appalled by the inadequacy of the phrase. Lawrence nods. Elf’s father and Mr Sinclair exude uncertainty about what to exude. Her mum, Mrs Sinclair and Bea are red-eyed and weepy. Bea takes Elf to the kitchen. ‘Mark had started sleeping through the night. Immy gave him his last feed at midnight on Friday and put him down for the night. She and Lawrence fell asleep. Immy woke at six thirty. She thought, Great, Mark’s slept through , and went to see him.’ Bea shuts her eyes and tears well up. She breathes in, breathes out, breathes in, breathes out. Elf holds her. ‘So, yeah. Mark was where she left him. But … not alive.’

The electric kettle boils and clicks off.

‘Lawrence called the ambulance, but … Mark was gone. They sedated Immy. Lawrence called his mum and dad first, who called ours. They got here yesterday. I came up this morning. Dad called the hospital where Mark –’ Bea swallows noisily ‘– was taken. The coroner said he may have had a cardiac defect but until the autopsy – tomorrow or Tuesday, depending on … uh …’ Bea’s focus lapses ‘… how many people died in Birmingham over the weekend. Sorry. I couldn’t think of a nicer way to say it. I didn’t sleep.’

‘Me neither. Don’t worry.’

Bea grabs a tissue. ‘We’re getting through boxes and boxes. I shouldn’t bother with makeup for a while.’

Elf asks, ‘Have you seen Immy?’

‘Only for a few minutes this morning. She’s an awful mess. She was asleep for much of yesterday. Being awake is torture. She’s taking Valium. She saw Mum for a few minutes. Lawrence is in and out of her room. Just keeping an eye on her. I called Moonwhale yesterday at, uh … I don’t know, two-ish. Bethany put a call through to your Italian promoter’s office, and called me back to say she’d left the message with his secretary in Rome … What is it, Elf?’

Elf realises that Enzo Endrizzi knew about Mark before they performed at the Mercurio Theatre but had said nothing. So the show would go ahead . ‘I didn’t know until … midnight.’

‘Well, it wouldn’t have made any difference. I’ll make that cuppa. There’s ginger nuts somewhere …’

Footsteps come down the stairs. It’s Lawrence. ‘Elf? She’d like to see you. Just you, for now.’

Elf feels trepidation and guilt that she and not Bea or the two mothers-on-tenterhooks are being summoned. ‘Now?’

Lawrence nods. ‘Yes, if that’s, uh …’

‘Of course,’ says Elf. ‘Of course. Of course.’

‘I’ll put a cup of tea on a tray for her, too,’ says Bea.

‘It’ll be a comfort to speak to her sister,’ says Mrs Sinclair.

Elf climbs the carpeted stairs to the landing. The letters M, A, R and K are on the nursery door. The only pain worse than seeing the letters , Elf guesses, would be taking them down. She takes a quick look inside. The same two blue and two pink walls. The mobile of little ducks, the simple cross on the wall, the pile of nappies on the changing table. Talcum powder still scents the air. The teddy Elf had bought and named John Wesley Harding still sits on the chest of drawers.

Mark is dead. Him, and all Mark’s future selves – a toddler mastering verticality, a boy bunking off school, a youth fixing his hair for his first date, a man leaving his hometown, a husband, a father, some old bloke watching the TV and declaring, ‘The entire world has lost its mind!’ None would now exist.

She puts down the tray. She composes herself.

Elf crosses the landing to the bedroom. ‘Immy?’

‘Elf?’ Grief-scooped, wrung-out Imogen is propped up in bed. She’s wearing a nightie under a dressing-gown. Her hair is dishevelled. It’s the first time in years Elf has seen Imogen without a dab of makeup. ‘You’re here.’

‘I’m here. Bea made us tea.’

‘Mm.’

Elf brings the tray to the nightstand. She notices an ashtray and a packet of Benson & Hedges. Imogen quit smoking three years ago. ‘I’m taking Valium,’ says Imogen. Her voice is dulled and plodding. ‘Is it like marijuana?’

‘I wouldn’t know, Ims. I’ve never taken Valium.’

‘Did you really fly back from Italy today?’

‘Of course I did.’

‘You must be tired.’ She indicates the upright armchair in the window bay. Their mother had nursed Imogen, Elf and Bea on it and, for eight weeks, Imogen had breastfed Mark.

Sunlight passes through daisies on the curtain.

Elf remembers to breathe. ‘I have no idea what to say.’

‘I’ve had, “I’m so sorry.” I’ve had, “It’s just awful.” I’ve had, “It’s like a bad dream.” Mostly, people just cry. Dad cried. It was so weird that for a few seconds I didn’t think about Mark. People are … are … Oh, sorry. I can’t finish my sentences very well.’

‘Valium and grief will do that, I suppose.’

Imogen lights a cigarette and slumps into her pillow. ‘I’ve started smoking again.’

‘I’m on no high-horse. I’m on twenty a day.’

‘You can cry yourself dry, Elf. Did you know that?’

‘I did not.’ Elf opens the window to let a little air in.

‘It’s like when you vomit and vomit until there’s nothing left, but you still vomit, and it’s only air. Like that, but with my tear glands. Like that song, “Cry Me A River”. Who sings that?’

‘Julie London.’

‘Julie London. I’m learning all sorts of things. Mark was wrapped in his Winnie-the-Pooh blanket, and when it was time for the ambulance man to take him, my arms, my body, wouldn’t let go. My arms just gripped. As if that was any use. At that stage. Where was I when his heart was stopping? Here. Sleeping.’

Elf tries to hide her eyes. ‘Don’t think that way.’

‘How, Elf? Can you control what you think?’

‘Not very well. Distraction helps, a little.’

‘My breasts get sore. They’re still making milk. They haven’t cottoned on. I have to express it by hand, the doctor said, or I’ll get mastitis. If you ever want to write the saddest song in the world, you can use that.’

Elf feels her tears starting. She helps herself to a Benson & Hedges. ‘I’ll never ever write a song like that.’

Imogen looks at Elf across a void. ‘Do I sound mad?’

The blossom outside the window in the late sunshine is heartbreakingly beautiful. ‘I’m not a psychologist,’ says Elf, ‘but I’m pretty sure that people who are mad don’t ask, “Am I going mad?” I think they just … are .’

Imogen’s shallow breaths grow further apart. She murmurs, ‘You always know the right thing to say, Elf.’

Elf watches her sister fall asleep. ‘If only.’

The Cricketer’s Arms Hotel by the Sparkbrook roundabout is adorned with cricketing memorabilia, photographs and signed cricket bats mounted in small glass-fronted boxes. Bea, Elf and their father are staying at the hotel and eating dinner in its restaurant. Elf gives a potted version of the band’s Italian tour, and her dad musters an account of the Richmond Rotary Club’s gala. Bea talks about her upcoming role as Abigail Williams, villainess of The Crucible. Arthur Miller the playwright is due to give a couple of classes at RADA next week. Small talk , thinks Elf, is Polyfilla you fill cracks with so you don’t have to watch them widening . The food arrives. Shepherd’s pie and peas for their dad, salad and an omelette for Bea, and a bowl of minestrone soup for Elf. The soup contains bits of everything else on the menu.