Дэвид Митчелл - Utopia Avenue

Elf breathes. ‘Okay.’

Ted Silver escorts her through the crush to a crate under a lamppost. Victor French puts a mic in her hand. What if I forget my speech? Bethany clasps her shoulder: ‘You memorise entire folk songs word-perfectly, remember. You can do this.’ Elf nods and climbs onto the crate. The ‘ Elf! Elf! ELF! Elf! Elf! ELF ! ’ becomes another cheer, louder and longer than the first. A needle is lifted off ‘Smithereens’. Hundreds of faces look back. Dozens of cameras click. People watch from the surrounding windows. She quietens the roar with a hand gesture.

Breathe. ‘Morning, all.’ Elf’s voice issues from an amp lashed to the lamppost. Her words echo off the walls of Three Kings Yard. ‘I’m Elf Holloway from Utopia Avenue and I’m here—’

A woman shouts, ‘ We know ’oo you are, Elf darlin’! ’

‘Oh, hi, Mum, thanks for showing up.’ Elf’s quip gets a warm laugh. ‘Seriously, everyone. Thanks for your support. I’m here because my friend Dean is rotting in jail in Rome …’

A braying chorus of ‘ Boooooo! ’ and ‘ Shame! ’

‘… where he has been beaten and denied access to a lawyer. The Italian police called him a drug smuggler.’ Short sentences , Bethany advised. Hemingway not Proust. ‘That – is – a – lie. Dean was given a choice. Confess to that lie and walk free – or refuse to sign the confession and return to his cell. He refused.’

A medium-sized roar and nodding, approving heads.

‘Some call Dean Moss a publicity seeker. Some say Dean goaded the Italian police into arresting him, for the publicity. That – is – nonsense. Who , of sound mind, would risk getting banged up in a foreign prison for years for a few column inches?’

A man is aiming a mic at her, adjusting levels on a box .

‘Some call Dean Moss a yob and a thug. That – is – a – lie. Dean hates violence. Let’s follow his example – please. For Dean, be friendly to the embassy staff. This isn’t their doing. Likewise, give the police guards an easy day’s work. They’re Londoners too.’

Don’t forget to breathe. ‘That’s what Dean Moss isn’t. Here’s what Dean Moss is. He’s a working-class boy. He knows what it’s like to not have enough. Dean is no saint, but he’d give you the shirt off his back if you needed it more than him. He’s decent. He’s kind. He’s a writer of songs that show life in its pain and its glory. Songs that tell us we’re not alone. Dean is my friend. So please. Can we bring our friend home?’ A mighty roar fills the courtyard.

‘Can we bring him home?’

The crowd replies with a bigger roar.

Third time is the charm: ‘Can – we – bring – him – home?’

The roar is mighty. Elf steps off the crate. The crowd surges forward. Cameras click and flash in her face. Ted Silver, Victor French and Bethany and a few big guys Bethany has dragooned form a phalanx to get Elf out of Three Kings Yard and into the taxi. It moves off. Elf’s heart is beating like crazy. ‘How did I do?’

Sound Mind

Anthony Hershey’s house is a big Edwardian residence on Pembridge Place. The wall is high and topped with spikes. Two bouncers at the wrought-iron gates check off partygoers’ names on a list before letting them in. Jasper sees the top of a striped marquee in the back garden. ‘Someone’s not short of a few bob,’ says Griff. ‘House like that in a posh street like this … what d’you reckon, Deano? Hundred grand?’

‘Easy. Cop a load o’ them cars. An Ace Cobra. Austin Healey … a Jensen Interceptor. D’yer think they’re all his?’

‘Wipe the drool off your chin,’ Elf tells him. ‘When the new album sells a million, you’ll be able to buy your very own.’

‘On our royalties? I’ll be lucky if I can stretch to a rusty Mini. D’yer reckon there’ll be film stars ’n’ that at this party?’

‘Stands to reason,’ says Elf. ‘He is a director. How officially single are you, again? I lose track, rather.’

Dean acts being shot in the heart. Comedy , thinks Jasper. ‘The only film of his I saw was that Gethsemane ,’ says Dean. ‘All that stuff about Jesus ’n’ drug addicts ’n’ whatnot. Over my head.’

‘The film club at Amsterdam conservatory put on an Anthony Hershey retrospective,’ says Jasper. ‘His best work is phenomenal.’ Jasper checks the time: 5.07. ‘Levon’s late.’

‘Maybe he’s stuck in a Colm- plicated situation,’ says Griff. Elf winces. Dean half smiles and growls. Jasper’s not sure what’s going on but is saved by a taxi pulling up. It’s Levon. He pays and jumps out. ‘Wow, you’re all here on time.’

‘What d’yer take us for?’ huffs Dean. ‘A bunch o’ knob-head rock stars who think the world’s at our beck ’n’ call?’

Irony? Jasper doesn’t find out because the others take full note of Levon’s sharp new suit with turquoise trimmings.

Griff wolf-whistles softly.

Elf says, ‘Someone’s been shopping.’

Dean feels the lapel. ‘Savile Row?’

‘You have to look the part to cut the deals, my friends. How’s “Roll Away the Stone” shaping up?’

‘We’re up to take twenty,’ says Jasper.

Levon makes a face Jasper can’t read. Disappointment? ‘Soon is good, folks. Victor’s serious about it being a single.’

‘Tell him he’ll hear it when its melodic genius is at peak perfection,’ states Dean. ‘It’ll be worth it.’

Levon lights a cigarette. ‘ Please don’t blow the album budget on one tune. Your credit with Ilex is better now Paradise is in the Top Thirty, but it’s no bottomless overdraft.’

‘Looks like the bagpipes and Bulgarian choir are out, Dean,’ says Elf. ‘So why are we here?’ She nods at the Hershey house. ‘Bethany didn’t have any details. We’re thinking “soundtrack”.’

‘Or,’ says Dean, ‘did Mr Hershey see my rugged good looks in the papers last month and think, There’s my leading man ?’

‘Aye, that’ll be it,’ says Griff. ‘He’s making The Ugly Wanker from the Black Lagoon , and thought, He won’t need makeup .’

‘ Ooh , yer bitch,’ says Dean. ‘Or does Hershey want the band in a film, like the Italian guy who put the Yardbirds in Blow-Up ?’

‘Michelangelo Antonioni,’ says Levon. ‘Elf’s barking up the right tree – soundtrack. Think of today as a pre-interview for a job yet to be defined. Enjoy yourselves. But not too much.’

‘Why’re yer looking at me when yer say that?’ asks Dean.

‘You’re paranoid. Let’s step into the lion’s den, shall we?’ Levon looks both ways and crosses the road.

On Jasper’s second day at Rijksdorp Sanatorium, Dr Galavazi issued a diagnosis of severe aural schizophrenia and searched for a drug to alleviate the symptoms. Queludrin, a German anti-psychotic, emerged as the most effective treatment. The sense of Knock Knock’s tenancy remained, but the ‘interior hammering’ ceased. It felt to Jasper that his mental intruder had been confined to an attic. The sixteen-year-old was now free to take stock of his new surroundings. The psychiatric facility was hidden in a forested area between the town of Wassenaar and dunes fringing the North Sea. A single-storey clinic connected two large 1920s houses, which served as Rijksdorp’s male and female wings and housed a total population of only thirty. A high wall surrounded the site and the gate was guarded. Residents’ private rooms could not be locked, though ‘Niet Storen’ signs were generally respected. Jasper’s top-floor room was furnished with a bed, a desk, a chair, a cupboard, shelves and a washbasin. The mirror was removed at his insistence. The barred window looked onto canopies of trees.