Дэвид Митчелл - Utopia Avenue

‘A real archaeologist might point out,’ says an Australian woman, ‘that a fact is only a fact if it’s derived from proof.’

‘How lucky we are,’ says the ufologist, ‘that the anarchists can spare Aphra Booth for the day. The Ivory Tower Brigade did indeed bleat at my book and I gave them the response I now offer Miss Booth . “ My book contains six hundred pages of proof: piss off and read the damn thing! ”’ He pauses to enjoy the laughter. ‘Did they take my advice? Of course not. Academics are thought-policed from cradle to grave. During my lost years at Oxford, I attended their conferences. I had but one question: how did human societies as far-flung as the Nile Valley, China, the Americas, Athens, Atlantis, India, et al. , invent metallurgy, agriculture, law and mathematics within decades of one another? Their answer?’ The ufologist mimed someone with Parkinson’s looking up a word. ‘“Oh, let me check my textbook …”’ He mimes turning a page. ‘“Ah, yes, here it is … Coincidence!” Coincidence. The last refuge of the bankrupt intellectual.’

‘If the skies over Stonehenge once swarmed with little green men,’ asks Aphra the Australian, ‘where are they now?’

‘They fled in disgust.’ The ufologist’s smirk fades. ‘The Visitors gave us the wisdom of the stars. We used it for warfare, slavery, religion and trousers for women. And yet, and yet. Our myths, legends and literature are replete with entities from other planes of being. Angels and spirits, Bodhisattvas and fairies. Voices in the head. My hypothesis unifies these phenomena: these beings are extraterrestrial in origin. For millennia they’ve visited us, to see if Homo sapiens is ready for the Final Revelation. The answer has always been “Not yet.” But that “Not yet” is turning into “Very soon.” UFO sightings are multiplying. Psychedelics are guiding us to higher states. Soon, extraterrestrials will initiate a sea-change. Or, as I call it in my book, a “star-change”.’

A thoughtful silence settles. Someone says, ‘Far out.’

The expression is new to Jasper. He guesses it means ‘Wow’.

‘If you were a sci-fi writer,’ Aphra Booth taps her cigarette, ‘I’d think, Well, it’s clichéd drivel, but his fans’ll go, “Far out.” Or, if you’d fabricated a cult, I’d think, Scientologists, Hare Krishna and the Vatican peddle their hogwash, you may as well peddle yours. But what sticks in my craw is how you tosh up your drivel in the lexicon of science. You piss in the well of knowledge.’

‘We should thank Miss Booth,’ says the ufologist, ‘for revealing how academia thinks. If I don’t believe it, it’s not knowledge. ’

Aphra Booth exhales smoke. ‘Fifty years from now, you’ll look back at this horse-shit and cringe with embarrassment.’

‘ You ’ll look back in fifty years, and think, Why was my thinking so shackled and anal? ’

‘Shackled and anal?’ Aphra Booth stubs out her cigarette. ‘My God, how we give ourselves away …’ She walks off, stepping aside for Elf who is with an exotic looking young woman in black velvet with silver designs.

‘Jasper, there’s someone I’d like you to meet. This is Luisa.’

‘Hello Luisa,’ says Jasper.

‘I love your music.’ Luisa sounds American. ‘I adore Elf’s songs, I hasten to add’– the women exchange a bright look –‘but I played “Wedding Presence” so often, I wore out the track. It’s numinous, if I can use that word.’

Numin , thinks Jasper, from ‘divine will’. ‘Thank you. Are those comets embroidered on your jacket?’

‘Uh, yeah. Stylised ones.’

‘Luisa did them herself,’ says Elf. ‘I got an “E” for Needlework and the remark, “ Could try harder ”. Scarred for life.’

‘Are you a ufologist?’ Jasper asks the American. ‘Or a fashion designer?’

Luisa finds the questions amusing. ‘Neither. I’m a journalism student, here on a Fulbright Scholarship. Lucky me, right?’

‘I doubt luck has anything to do with it,’ objects Elf.

‘Aw, shucks. I was in Three Kings Yard when Elf had her Martin Luther King moment.’

‘God, that all went by in a blur,’ says Elf. ‘I don’t recall what I said, but I sure as heck know it wasn’t “ I have a dream …”’

‘Too modest, Elf. I covered the story for Spyglass magazine, and I quoted you, and hey presto – my first by-line in an international publication. So. I owe you.’

‘Ah, stuff and nonsense.’ Elf’s smiling in a way Jasper hasn’t seen since before the death of her nephew.

‘Do you guys have any plans to tour in the States?’ asks Luisa. ‘They’d eat you with a spoon in New York, in LA.’

‘Is that a good thing or a bad thing?’ asks Jasper.

‘Oh, it’s good,’ says Luisa. ‘Definitely good.’

‘Our label’s mooting a short US tour,’ says Elf, ‘now Paradise is selling in reasonable numbers. Who knows?’

Halfway down the curving stairwell, Jasper hears a voice. ‘Hello, Mr Famous.’ Its owner has one blue eye and one black eye. He’s dressed in a black suit with silver buttons and white piping. ‘We met on the stairs last time, too,’ says David Bowie. ‘I was on my way up, then. Now I’m going down. Is that a metaphor?’

Jasper shrugs. ‘If you want it to be.’

David Bowie looks behind Jasper. ‘So … is Mecca here?’

‘Her last letter was from San Francisco.’

‘Where else? Ninety-nine people, you forget instantly. Mecca’s one in a hundred. Five hundred. She shines.’

‘I agree.’

‘Jealousy is not a demon that tortures you.’

‘Women go with who they want to go with.’

‘Precisely! Most men are “Me Tarzan, you Jane”. I’m jealous of your sales, though. If it’s not a cheeky question,’ David Bowie leans in, ‘did Levon cook the whole Italian affair up?’

By chance, Levon is in Jasper’s line of sight, topping up Peter Sellers’s wine glass at the foot of the stairs. ‘Not unless he’s ten times craftier than we know.’

‘Mine’s ten times crappier than I thought. My singles got no airplay. My label didn’t promote the album. It flopped, too.’

‘I bought it, David. I found a lot to admire.’

‘ Ugh . A glass of whisky and a revolver would be kinder.’

‘Sorry if I’ve offended you.’

‘No. Excuse my thin skin.’ David Bowie runs his hand through his ginger hair. ‘I’ve been the Next Big Thing since I left school, but I’m still broke. Hobnobbing with stars at Anthony Hershey’s Midsummer Ball is nice, but tomorrow I’ll be Xeroxing reports in a shitty office. What if my only talent is kidding people I have talent?’

Two women in thigh-length boots pad by.

‘Overnight success,’ says Jasper, ‘takes a few years.’

David Bowie swirls the ice in his glass. ‘Even yours?’

‘Three years of busking in Dam Square. After –’ can I trust him? ‘– a long spell in psychiatric care.’

David Bowie meets Jasper’s gaze. ‘I didn’t know.’

‘A discreet clinic in Holland. I don’t advertise it.’

David Bowie hesitates. ‘My half-brother Terry’s in and out of Cane Hill Hospital, near my parents’ house.’

Jasper shakes his head, like a Normal might. Or should I nod?

‘I was with him when his first episode happened. We were walking down Shaftesbury Avenue, and he started screaming about the tarmac cracking and magma oozing up. For a few seconds I thought he was joking. I was like, “Okay, Terry, it’s gone far enough.” But he meant it. These two coppers thought he was high so they wrestled him to the ground – into the magma that was now burning Terry’s flesh. Fucking terrifying stuff, psychosis.’