Utopia Avenue

by David Mitchell

  “Yer such a bloody shit-stirrer,” mutters Dean.

  The reporter is amused. “Just doing my job.”

  Elf hesitates. “Obviously, a band’s a democracy.” Elf taps ash from her Camel. “You get your own way sometimes, but if you want your own way every time, you have to not be in a band anymore.”

  Amy Boxer transcribes the quote. “You’re sitting quietly at the back, Jasper. First, that surname, ‘de Zoet.’ Am I saying it right?”

  “No. ‘Zoet’ rhymes with ‘loot,’ not with ‘poet.’ ”

  “Noted. Is it true you’re from aristocratic stock?”

  “Once upon a time, my father was sixtieth in line to the Dutch throne, but recent babies expelled him from the top hundred.”

  This is news to the others. “Yer never told me,” says Dean.

  “The subject never came up,” says Jasper.

  “Why the fook would it?” asks Griff.

  Jasper shrugs. “Does it matter?”

  Dean nearly tells Amy Boxer, “That’s Jasper in a nutshell,” but she’s asking, “Do you think of yourself as British or Dutch?”

  “I don’t think about it at all, unless people ask.”

  “And when people ask, how do you respond?”

  “By saying, ‘I feel both.’ Usually, they reply, ‘You can’t be both.’ I say, ‘I feel both.’ And the conversation grinds to a halt.”

  She taps her teeth with her biro. “What does Bishop’s Ely school think of an alumnus on Top of the Pops?”

  “No idea,” says Jasper. “TV sets are banned there.”

  “Several musicians I’ve interviewed in the last month used the word ‘genius’ to describe your guitar work. How do you plead?”

  “People should listen to Jimi Hendrix and Eric Clapton before lobbing language like that at me.”

  “How gratifying was it when ‘Darkroom’ hit the Top Twenty?”

  It peaked at number sixteen, thinks Dean, then sank like a bloody stone, despite Top of the Pops.

  “Dean and Elf write too,” Levon reminds the reporter. “That’s why Paradise is so varied and devoid of padding.”

  “I’m curious,” says Amy Boxer. “The first time you played the LP to your record company, how did they react?”

  * * *

  —

  GÜNTHER MARX SAT in his office, framed by a view of Tower Bridge, and uttered not one syllable. Squally rain tumbled up the Thames. Victor French sat beneath a canvas of red and yellow dots. Publicist Nigel Horner sat by a state-of-the-art Grundig turntable. Paradise Is the Road to Paradise pumped through four Bose speakers. Günther’s gnarly index finger might have tapped during “Smithereens.” He tilted his head during Elf’s piano solo in “Mona Lisa Sings the Blues.” He made a turn-it-over gesture to Nigel Horner at the end of side one. Jasper’s “Wedding Presence” and Elf’s ballad “Unexpectedly” came and went without prompting a flicker. Dean found himself sweating during “Purple Flames.” Elf did a Procol Harum–esque organ solo, which Dean loved and had got Digger to splice onto an earlier take. It ruled the song out as a single, which cut Dean’s field of contenders for the glory and publishing money down to “Abandon Hope” and “Smithereens.” Halfway through Jasper’s song “The Prize,” Günther’s head began, very slightly, to bob in time. Dean felt sick. “The Prize” finished. The stylus lifted. The Grundig clicked off.

  Neither Victor French nor Nigel Horner was going to commit to an opinion before their overlord had spoken. Which he did not do before Dean ran out of patience. “Do yer like it or not, Günther? Or are we s’posed to guess?”

  Nigel Horner and Victor French winced.

  Günther made a steeple of his hands. “ ‘Darkroom’ did well. Most bands would follow the proven formula. Correct?”

  “Very often,” said Victor French, “in general, yes.”

  “Yet the only song on the LP that sounds like ‘Darkroom’ ”—Günther leaned back—“is ‘Darkroom.’ This album sounds as if three separate bands recorded it. Not one.”

  “Is that a good thing or a bad thing?” asked Dean.

  Günther removed a wooden box from his desk. He opened it. Dean noticed Victor French swap a look with Nigel Horner. Günther took a cheroot from the box and scalped it with a tiny guillotine. Dean crossed his legs. Günther announced: “Paradise Is the Road to Paradise will be in the shops and the album chart Top Forty by Christmas. Well done.”

  A wash of relief passed through Dean’s body.

  “I have no doubt it’ll perform very well,” said Levon.

  Günther is scalping cheroots. “We’ll throw everything we have at Paradise and a new single. Radio, gigs, magazine interviews, everything. Let us now smoke a cheroot.” He handed one to everyone. “It’s a little custom. It goes back to my U-boat days.”

  “Does it say ‘Cuban’ on that box?” asked Elf.

  “They fell off a boat,” said Günther.

  * * *

  —

  “ILEX ADORED THE album,” Levon tells Amy Boxer. “Every time a song finished, Günther the managing director said, ‘That’s the masterpiece.’ When the next song came on, he did the same. At the end, he said, ‘It’s a whole album of goddamn masterpieces.’ ” Levon speaks so persuasively, Dean almost remembers it happening.

  “Isn’t Ilex a brave choice? They’ve got a strong classical catalogue but you’re their first pop signing, pretty much.”

  “EMI and Decca made overtures,” replies Levon, “but we thought, No. The future belongs to swifter, hungrier labels.”

  Amy’s pressed-together lips reply, If you say so. “Let me turn to you now, Griff. What’s your story?”

  The drummer lifts his cowboy hat and opens one eye. “Five pints at Ronnie Scott’s, a chaser or two, then things get hazy.”

  “I’ve already noted you’re the band joker. But seriously.”

  Griff growls, swivels upright, and slurps coffee. “The Drummer’s Tale. I was a sickly boy and I spent a lot of time in Hull Royal Infirmary. There was a children’s band, and I took to the drums. When I got out of hospital, I got roped into a brass band as the drummer-boy. Later, Wally Whitby took me under his wing.”

  “My dad likes Wally Whitby. ‘Yes Sir, That’s My Baby.’ ”

  “Wally took me around the northern circuit. Pontin’s holiday camp at Southport. Butlin’s in Skegness. I liked the life. The ladies liked me better with my drums. Wally’s an old pal of Alexis Korner, so when I came to London to seek my fortune, Alexis got me work in blues and jazz clubs. That led to Archie Kinnock’s Blues Juggernaut. Several misadventures later, Archie gave Jasper a tryout for his new band, the Blues Cadillac. That didn’t last…”

  “The 2i’s bar incident is becoming the stuff of legend,” says Amy. “Do the ladies still like you with your drums?”

  “Ask Dean about the ladies, Miss Cheeky.” Griff lies down again. “ ‘The Goat of Gravesend,’ they call him. Fookin’ shameless.”

  “They’ll be calling him ‘The Songsmith of Gravesend,’ ” says Levon. “Thanks to ‘Abandon Hope.’ Out today. Which Dean wrote.”

  “Mmm…” Amy Boxer finishes transcribing Griff’s story before looking at Dean. She has a screw-you-ness that Jude lacks. Jude is nice, sweet, and loyal, and if Dean had never left Gravesend and wanted a nice girl to settle down with, a Jude would’ve been perfect. But fame changes the rules. Melody Maker reporters understand that, but hairdressers from Brighton don’t. “So,” says the reporter. “ ‘Abandon Hope.’ It’s a brave choice for a second single.”

  “Why would that be, Miss Boxer?”

  A sharp little smile. “ ‘Amy’ is fine. I’m not my mother. It’s a straight R&B number. No psychedelic jiggery-pokery.”

  “Nothing straight about its hook. Once its hook’s in yer, there’s no swimming off. One in the verse, one in
the chorus.”

  “And a song’s only as good as its hook, do you think?”

  By way of answer, Dean da-dahs the hook of the Kinks’ “You Really Got Me” until Griff names the track. Then Griff da-dahs a different song, adding air drums. After a few seconds, Jasper says, “ ‘Taxman,’ off Revolver.” Jasper thinks, then sings the tune of his chosen hook for three lines before Elf lays the “Hound Dog” lyrics over the fourth. “Though the way you sang it,” Elf adds, “it sounded more like the theme to Born Free.”

  “Looks as if you play that game often,” notes Amy.

  “Thanks to ‘Darkroom,’ ” Elf replies, “we’re doing more longer journeys in the Beast. Our van. The Hook Game is a staple.”

  “Dean’s well known for his hooking talents,” Griff tells Amy. “ ’Specially in the men’s bogs in Soho Square.”

  “Griff is, of course, joking,” says Levon.

  Amy jots something down. “What I meant about ‘Abandon Hope’ being brave was: Don’t you think fans of ‘Darkroom’ will hear ‘Abandon Hope’ and feel flummoxed?”

  “On Sergeant Pepper’s, that Indian track of Harrison’s sits cheek-by-jowl with ‘When I’m Sixty Four.’ Sitar to oboe, like…” He snaps his fingers. “Does that flummox yer? Or do yer think, Bloody Nora, that’s clever?”

  Amy Boxer looks unconvinced. “Neither of those songs is a single. Did Ilex choose ‘Abandon Hope,’ or was it a band decision?”

  “We chose it.” Dean looks at the others. Jasper is off in Jasperland. Elf studies her nails. Griff is under his hat. Thanks a bloody bunch, thinks Dean.

  A little silver dagger hangs in the hollow of Amy Boxer’s throat. “Did Ilex agree? Or did you have to twist their arm?”

  * * *

  —

  “CONCERNING THE NEXT single,” declared Günther Marx at Ilex HQ, “I am in two minds.” His office was infused with cheroot smoke. “Either ‘Mona Lisa Sings the Blues’ or ‘The Prize.’ Opinions?”

  “The band,” said Levon, “nominate ‘Abandon Hope.’ ”

  “The first song on the first side,” said Dean.

  Günther wrinkled his nose. “It is too nihilist.”

  Dean didn’t know the word. “It’s just nihilist enough.”

  “It’s a strong opener for an album,” said Victor French, “but that doesn’t necessarily make it the best single.”

  “The question, Dean”—Nigel Horner wrinkled his whippet face—“is why would today’s teenagers go nuts for a song about getting mugged and evicted and none of it mattering because the Russians’ll nuke us anyway?”

  “They do go nuts for it,” said Dean. “At our gigs.”

  “ ‘Mona Lisa’ will put Elf in the spotlight,” said Victor French. “I see girls buying it in big numbers. They’ll identify with a woman battling the odds in a hostile world.”

  “I agree with Victor,” smarmed Nigel Horner, “about ‘Abandon Hope’ and I’d vote for ‘The Prize’ as the next single. Any kid dreaming of stardom’ll dig it—and if there’s one type of song DJs love to play, it’s the type that praises DJs.”

  Dean looked at Levon. Levon looked like a man working out if he wanted a shit or not. Dean wanted to shout, ‘We agreed this! The bloody dice!’ “No. We’ve chosen ‘Abandon Hope.’ It’s gritty, it’s got the end-o’-the-world stuff in the air right now. And if we do another Jasper song, people’ll think we’re a poor man’s Pink Floyd.”

  “The reality is this.” Günther stubbed out his cheroot. “Ilex spent thirteen thousand pounds on Paradise Is the Road to Paradise. Therefore, Ilex chooses the singles.”

  Dean stubbed out his cheroot. “No.”

  Günther, Nigel Horner, and Victor French looked at Dean first like men checking they’d heard right, then like men realizing they had. Günther spoke quietly: “What do you mean, ‘No’?”

  “The band chooses the single.”

  Levon jumped into action. “Moonwhale and the band are grateful for the investment, Günther, of course—”

  “Quiet.” Günther made a Halt sign. “Elf. Do you not wish to prove the band is not men with a novelty keyboardist in a frock?”

  “Divide ’n’ rule, Günther?” Dean sniffed. “Subtle.”

  Elf looked out of the window. “I agree to wait my turn.”

  “Thank you,” said Dean. “So you see—”

  Günther wasn’t going to be distracted. “What is this ‘agree’? This ‘turn’? Do I detect”—he drew an oval in the air—“a plot?”

  “The band is keen to…” Levon chose his words, “…nip jealousies in the bud by treating its songwriters equitably.”

  Günther studied the words. “So…you conspired—between yourselves—to release first a de Zoet song, then a Moss song, then a Holloway song. Is this the…” he searched for the word, “…gist?”

  “It’s a gentleman’s agreement,” said Dean.

  “And my opinion is”—Günther pfffed—“immaterial? And, Elf, why do you come after the boys? Is this the modern feminism?”

  “Elf’s not last because she’s female,” said Jasper. “She’s last because she only rolled a one.”

  Dean cursed the educated idiot’s honesty.

  Günther flinched. Nigel Horner and Victor French looked askance. “What are you talking about?”

  “When she rolled the dice,” explained Jasper. “I got a three, Dean a two, and Elf a one. That’s why her single is third.”

  Günther released a “Hah?” “If you believe I decide a major commercial decision on a dice, you’re living in the Cloud Cuckoo Land. No. In a padded cell in the Cloud Cuckoo Land. Listen—”

  “You fookin’ listen!” Griff leaned forward. “It’s us lugging our arses up the M2 night after freezing fookin’ night while you’re tucked up in bed. Us. It’s us dodging bottles, or not”—he touched his scar—“flung by mods on hoppers. Us. So if you want your thirteen thousand quid back, we choose the fookin’ single. Not you. Us. And ‘Abandon Hope’ ’s the next single.”

  Thank you, thought Dean. At bloody last.

  “So your threat,” summarized Günther, “is this. ‘Do what we say, or we sabotage our own careers’?”

  “Nobody’s threatening anyone,” said Levon, “but I’d ask you just to give us this one. It’s how the band want it.”

  “I sign the checks and we”—he indicates Victor and Nigel Horner—“choose the singles. That is how I want it.”

  “Fook this.” Griff stubbed his cheroot out on the sofa’s arm, dropped it on the carpet, got up, and left the office.

  “He’s bluffing,” stated Nigel Horner. “He’ll be back.”

  “Don’t be daft,” said Elf. “He’s from Yorkshire.”

  “Drummers are two a penny,” stated Victor French. “If he just quit, which he appears to have done, we’ll simply hire a new one.”

  “No, yer bloody won’t.” Dean stood, defiantly. Elf stood, resolutely. Jasper stood. Levon stood, mumbling, “Oh, great.”

  “What?” Günther Marx’s voice soared. “A walkout? A strike? Not so clever. Simply, I’ll fire all of you.”

  “And kiss yer thirteen grand goodbye?” asks Dean. “How’ll that look when yer speak to Toto Schiffer at Berlin HQ?”

  Günther’s face changed. “Blackmail?”

  * * *

  —

  “I’VE NEVER KNOWN a label so eager to accommodate its artists as Ilex,” Levon tells Amy Boxer. “Günther Marx is a visionary. He’s a member of the Utopia Avenue family. Quote me on that.”

  “My my,” says Amy. “That’s a glowing review. Back to you, Dean. You’re not related to royalty as well, are you?”

  “I’m the Duke of Edinburgh’s love child. Shh.”

  “The band have deep respect for the Royal Family,” said Levon.

  Amy sipp
ed her coffee and shot a He is a worrier, isn’t he? look at Dean. “Your titles are nihilistic. ‘Smithereens,’ ‘Abandon Hope,’ ‘Purple Flames.’ Are you the Angry Young Man of Pop?”

  That word again. “How d’yer mean, ‘nihilistic’?”

  “Bleak. Fierce. A belief that life is meaningless.”

  “Oh. Right. Yeah, well, if something pisses me off, I might write a song about it. That don’t mean I think life’s meaningless.”

  “What kind of thing pisses you off?”

  Dean lights a Dunhill and takes a drag. The hammering downstairs starts up. “What pisses me off? Music critics who play God. People who use fancy words to lord it over yer. Men who hit women. Bent coppers. Old men who think ‘I fought the war for you lot’ ends any argument. The nobs who killed pirate radio. Anyone who shits on someone’s dream. Pies that’ve got more air than filling, The Establishment, for skimming off the cream. The rest of us, for letting the bastards get away with it.”

  “Well, I did ask,” says Amy. “Isn’t Jasper ‘Establishment’?”

  Dean’s housemate looks his way. “No. Jasper’s cool.”

  “And I’m as common as muck,” says Griff, “so when Dean needs to talk ferrets, outdoor bogs, or socialism, I’m right here.”

  Amy Boxer’s silver dagger glints. “If you all hit the big time and are buying mansions in Surrey as a tax write-off, will you still be ‘common as muck’? You’ve had a nibble of stardom. Haven’t things started to change already?”

  * * *

  —

  “STONE—THE—SODDING—CROWS, DEANO!” Stewart Kidd stood in the hallway, gawping at Jasper’s flat. “Talk ’bout landing on yer feet.” Kenny Yearwood was speechless. Rod Dempsey’s eyes darted from item to item, fitting to fitting. Dean guessed he was totting up the value. “Yer not going to do the place over, are yer, Rod?”

  Rod just cackled as his eyes kept scanning.

  “This really is yer digs?” checked Stew.

  “This is my digs,” replied Dean.

  “It’s like out o’ Playboy,” said Stew. “Yer’ve got the telly. Yer’ve got the stereo. Got a helicopter pad on the roof, have yer?”