“The authorities beg to differ.” The consul scans the newspaper article. “I quote, ‘Captain Ferlinghetti of the Polizia Fiscale told reporters, “Our handling of these hooligans sends a message to foreign celebrities: if you flout Italian laws, you will regret it.” ’ ” Symonds looks up. “You’re facing jail, Mr. Moss.”
“But I didn’t do what they said I did.”
“It’s your word against that of an Italian police captain. You’re facing a minimum sentence of three years, if found guilty.”
It won’t come to that. It won’t come to that. “Do I get a lawyer? Or is it trial by witchcraft?”
“The state will engage a lawyer. Of sorts. But Italian justice is more glacial than British. You’ll be held for at least twelve months.”
Dean pictures his cell. “Bail?”
“No chance. The judge will assume you’re a flight risk.”
“So why’re yer here, Mr. Symonds? To gloat at an oik with girl’s hair? Or d’yer help people who didn’t go to Oxbridge too?”
Symonds is mildly amused. “I’ll submit a standard plea for clemency, citing your youth and inexperience.”
“When’ll I hear if the plea’s worked or not? Today?”
“Monday’s a slow day in Italy. Wednesday, with luck.”
“Are there any fast days in Italy?”
“No. The upcoming election doesn’t help.”
“How long can they hold me before charging me?”
“Seventy-two hours, unless a magistrate grants an extension. Which is amply possible in a case like yours.”
“Can I see my friends?”
“I’ll ask, but the captain will tell me that he can’t have you orchestrating your stories.”
“The only story is, ‘A bent little Mussolini planted drugs on an innocent Brit.’ Can I have a toothbrush—or access to my suitcase, for clean clothes? My cell’s a bloody khazi.”
“It was never going to be the Hilton, Mr. Moss.”
Twat. “I’m not asking for the Hilton. I’m asking for a mattress that isn’t crawling with bedbugs. Look at these bite marks.”
Symonds looks. “I’ll mention your mattress.”
“Yer wouldn’t have a packet o’ fags on yer, would yer?”
“It’s against the rules, Mr. Moss.”
* * *
—
HOURS DIE SLOWLY back in Dean’s cell. He imagines Ferlinghetti imagining him starting to crack. The prisoner’s only countermove is not to crack. He imagines his Fender around his neck and works through the bass parts on Paradise Is the Road to Paradise, song by song. He plays “Blues Run the Game” on an imaginary acoustic. He imagines the flat in Chetwynd Mews and surveys it, room by room, searching for details he didn’t know he’d stored away: smells; the feel of the boards through his socks; the spider plant; the tobacco tin he keeps his weed in; the pirate on that tin; the resistance of the lid as you open it. He imagines having to do this for three years. He senses a crack. Stop it. A jug of water is put through the hatch, with a sliver of soap and a used toothbrush. He drinks half of the water, then uses the remainder to give himself a stand-up wash over the shithole. He gives the toothbrush a miss. Through the gridded window, his second evening of captivity fades. The lamp flickers on. Dean hears another mosquito; sees it; tracks it; kills it. Sorry, mate, but it’s you or me. Dean does a hundred sit-ups. His underpants stick to his skin. The light clicks off. What if I don’t get out? What if I don’t see Elf ’n’ Ray ’n’ Jasper ’n’ Griff ’n’ Nan Moss ’n’ Bill again?
Dean lies down on the bed. It squeaks.
But I will see them again. Griff won’t see his brother again. Imogen won’t see her son again. Elf won’t see her nephew again. Those candles’re snuffed out. Mine are still burning…
* * *
—
IN A HEART of the eternal labyrinth known as Rome, Dean came across a hidden square. A rust-speckled blue sign read PIAZZA DELLA NESPOLA. Old men played chess in the shade of a tree. Women talked. Boys bragged, laughed, and kicked a ball about. Girls watched. A dog had three legs. The piazza was warm in a way Gravesend is never warm. Its flagstones and cobbles gave up the stored heat of midday. Dean heard a clarinet, but he couldn’t work out through which window, over which balcony, the melody was calling. He wished he could notate it, like Jasper or Elf. Dean knew it would be gone, later. He knew he should get back to the hotel, over the river, over the bridge, but some spell made him linger. On the offal-pink wall, on crumbling plaster, on terra-cotta bricks, graffiti read, CHIEDIAMO L’IMPOSSIBILE and LUCREZIA TI AMERÒ PER SEMPRE and OPPRESSIONE = TERRORISMO. Starlings streamed through gaps of sky. A tall, narrow gateway drew Dean up a half-dozen steps and into a church. Gold glittered on darkness. Incense hung in the air. People came in, lit candles, knelt, prayed, and left like customers in a post office. Dean didn’t believe, but here it didn’t matter. He lit a candle for the dead: for Mum, for Steven Griffin, and for Elf’s baby nephew, Mark. He lit another for the living: for Ray, Shirl, and Wayne; for Nan Moss and Bill; for Elf, Jasper, Levon, and Griff. A small choir sang. Pure vocal stacks rose all the way to the distant roof. Dean had to leave, but a part of him never would. In memory and in dream, he’d revisit this lacuna in time and in space. The place was a part of him now. Every lifetime, every spin of the wheel, holds a few such lacunae. A jetty by an estuary, a single bed under a skylight, a bandstand in a twilit park, a hidden church in a hidden square. The candles at the altar did not burn out.
* * *
—
DAY THREE BEGINS. Tuesday. Elf and Bethany must know by now. Bedbugs have snacked on Dean again. He wonders if Symonds mentioned the mattress to Ferlinghetti. What wouldn’t I give for one cigarette? Rod Dempsey told Dean that a British prison is like a rough hostel. There are tribes and gangs, but if you keep your head down, you get through it. Would an Italian prison be as survivable? He doesn’t speak the language. When he’s out, what then? Johnny Cash managed a career after prison, but Dean’s no Johnny Cash. Jasper and Elf couldn’t be expected to sit around twiddling their thumbs until 1971. Footsteps approach. The hatch in the door slides open. A breakfast tray is pushed through.
“My friends? My lawyer? Ferlinghetti?”
Everything on the tray is the same as yesterday.
“New cell?” Dean asks through the hatch. “New mattress? Ambassador? Cigarette? Acknowledge my sodding existence?”
The hatch snaps shut. Dean eats the bread. He scoops off the froth and chances the coffee. He thinks of Nan Moss’s apple pie and battered cod and chips. He puts the vassoio by the hatch. “Don’t make an enemy o’ the screws,” Rod Dempsey told him. “The fuckers’ve got the power o’ life ’n’ death over yer…”
Dean wonders if Symonds has lodged that appeal for clemency yet. He wonders if Elf or Bethany believes he was stupid enough to take drugs through an airport. He wonders how things are at Elf’s sister’s. Footsteps approach. Dean’s pretty sure it’s Big Cop. The hatch snaps open. The tray is exchanged for a half-roll of toilet paper. The hatch snaps shut. There’s more paper on the roll than yesterday. Does this mean I’m not going anywhere?
Dean thinks about the thing called “freedom.”
All his life he’d had it but didn’t even notice it.
Time passes. Time passes. Time passes.
Footsteps approach. The hatch in the door snaps open.
A tray is pushed through. Bread, a banana, and water.
Lunch. The banana’s old and foamy. Dean doesn’t mind.
Symonds said he has to be charged within seventy-two hours.
Ferlinghetti made it clear whose word is the real law.
Dean leaves the tray by the hatch.
Yes, sir, no, sir, three bags full, sir…
Good prisoners might get an extra banana.
I thought I knew boredom: I n
ever had a bloody clue.
Small wonder half the prison population’s on drugs.
It’s not to get high: it’s to kill time before time kills you.
Armed columns of days, weeks, months, and years march toward Dean out of the future. A first hearing. Transfer to a real prison. I’ll look back at this boredom when I’m banged up with a psycho cellmate with sexual frustration and pubic lice and I’ll think, “Christ, those were the days…”
Dean sets himself the task of doing a hundred sit-ups.
As if that’ll keep yer safe in a real prison wing.
His underwear feels disgusting. A bag of clean washing is waiting for him at the launderette near Chetwynd Mews. It’ll be clean and smelling of soap powder. It may as well be on the moon.
* * *
—
GRIDDED MOONLIGHT LIES on the concrete floor. The whole of Day Three passed with no word from anyone. Dean should be at Fungus Hut this week, recording a demo for “Nightwatchman.” Or “The Hook.” Dean’s stomach growls. Supper was a jug of water, a stale roll, an inch of salami, a cup of cold rice pudding. A conversation would be nice. No wonder people lose their sanity in prison. People say, “Where there’s life there’s hope,” but every saying has a B side and this one’s is “Hope stops you adapting to a new reality.” Dean is an inmate. Inmates can’t be pop stars. He wonders if his arrest is in Melody Maker. He expects Amy’s line will be “Let’s hope the Italians throw away the key.” Fleet Street will agree, if anyone notices that Utopia Avenue’s lesser songwriter has been detained in Italy. “Bravo, Italy! Lock the bleeder up!” The public won’t believe the cannabis was planted. The public believe what the papers tell them. Nan Moss and the aunts might not, but Harry Moffat will. He’ll want to believe it…
What if Harry Moffat dies while I’m in prison?
Alcoholics aren’t known for long lives.
Dean tells his cell, “Harry Moffat’s dead to me already.”
If that’s true, why do you think ’bout him so much?
Once upon a time in Gravesend, a gang of kids threw Dean’s schoolbag down the railway embankment and Dean came home in tears. His dad put him in his car and they drove around Gravesend until Dean identified the bullies. “Wait here, son.” Harry Moffat got out and went over. Dean couldn’t hear what his dad said, but he watched the kids’ faces. They went from cockiness to ashen dread. Harry Moffat returned to the car and said, “I doubt they’ll be bothering you again, son.”
It was simpler when Harry Moffat was a monster.
The moonlight’s gone. The cell is darker.
Maybe the night sky has clouded over.
Maybe the moon has shifted its position.
* * *
—
THE SOUND OF rain. Day Four. Tuesday. No. Wednesday. Wednesday? Something has to happen today. Why?
Why must something happen today?
The toilet smells worse. Dean folds his prison blanket and scrubs his teeth with the prison toothbrush. Now what?
What wouldn’t I give for one cigarette?
Or a notebook and pen. He’d like to work on a song, but if he thinks of brilliant lyrics and forgets them, it’ll torment him.
Then I’ll just have to remember them. Dean starts off with the old blues trope: Woke up in the Hotel Shithole. That’s no good. The BBC will ban it and kill the single. What about—
There’s a jangle of keys in the lock of the door.
Here is Big Cop, making a bored come-with-me gesture.
* * *
—
LEVON STANDS UP as Dean enters the interview room. He’s freshly shaved in a clean shirt. A good sign. Big Cop locks them in. “Bloody hell,” says Dean, “I could hug yer.”
Levon opens his arms. “I promise not to lose control.”
Dean hasn’t smiled in three days. “I am one stinky bastard. Yer might pass out if I come closer. What’s happening? Where’re the others? Are yer in the clear?”
“I am. Jasper and Griff are well—just worried about you.”
“Elf?”
“She’s been in touch with Bethany. It’s awful, of course. One thing at a time. Are you holding up okay?”
“Depends on what happens next. That guy Symonds was talking ’bout a three-year sentence.”
“Bullshit. Günther’s lawyers have taken to the air. Even prior to the fake drugs bust, your arrest was riddled with errors. Time’s short, Dean, so let me get to the point. Very soon Mr. Symonds and El Capitano will walk in with a confession-cum-apology. ‘Sorry for punching the nice policeman. I didn’t know cannabis was illegal. Let me go and I’ll mend my ways.’ Sign it and you’ll be free to go…”
Relief floods through Dean. I’m going home.
“And yet I’m asking you to refuse to sign it.”
“Yer kidding.” Oh no he isn’t. “Why?”
“On Sunday I placed a call to the Canadian consul and had him place a few calls to London. On Monday, Bethany got busy and contacted a few allies, including a certain Miss Amy Boxer.”
Dean winced. “Amy? ‘Ally’?”
“When she stopped laughing, she wrote a three-hundred-word piece about Utopia Avenue’s mistreatment by the dastardly dagos—and sent it to a pal at the Evening Standard who ran it in Monday’s edition.”
Dean’s confused. “Amy did that for me?”
“Amy did it for Amy, but she did it, and that’s the main thing. After the Standard hit the stands, the Mirror came calling.”
“The Record Mirror?”
“The Daily Mirror. National circulation, five million. By mid-morning tea break yesterday, all five million readers knew that Dean Moss, working-class hero of British pop, was facing thirty years in a foreign jail for a crime he did not commit.”
“Thirty? Symonds told me to expect three.”
Levon shrugs. “Is it my fault if they don’t check their facts? Better yet: a two-page exclusive in the Standard with Dean Moss’s fiancée, pop journo Amy Boxer: ‘Star’s Sweetheart Says “God Help My Dean in Third-World Hell-Hole.” ’ It’s a publicist’s wet dream.”
“Her last words to me were, ‘I’m dialing nine-nine-nine.’ ”
“Only in reality: not in print, where it matters. Amy had the shoot done at that Catholic church off Soho Square while she was praying for you.”
“Amy’s as religious as Chairman Mao.”
“I know she’s talented, but that was genius. Bat Segundo dedicated his show to you and played ‘Purple Flames,’ ‘Mona Lisa,’ and ‘Darkroom’ back to back. The Financial Times cited your case in a piece on British citizens in corrupt foreign jurisprudences. Then—I’ve saved the best until last—we have the vigil.”
“What vigil?” says Dean. “In fact, what is a vigil?”
“A dawn-to-dusk gathering of two hundred fans outside the Italian Embassy. ‘Free Dean Moss’ placards. A fan in a flat opposite is playing Paradise nonstop through the window. Harold Pinter’s said he’ll pitch up tomorrow. Brian Jones, if he can get out of bed. Elf’s going to make a speech, despite the awfulness at Imogen’s. Even the weather’s on our side. It’s embarrassing the shit out of the Italians.”
Dean tries to grasp all this. “Why don’t the fuzz move in?”
“A municipal peculiarity. The Mayfair cul-de-sac through which the embassy is accessed isn’t a public thoroughfare, so the landlord has to serve an eviction notice. It’ll take weeks. So the police can guard the building, but they can’t disperse the vigil.”
Dean begins to grasp it. “And in the meantime, we’re getting coverage, glorious coverage.”
“Bethany’s been fielding press calls every hour. Including American stringers. Orders are flying in. Vinyl is flying out. Günther called. He says hi. Ilex is printing thirty thousand Paradises. And”—Levon places his fingertips together—“if you’re
still behind bars tonight, the London Post is flying Felix Finch out first thing tomorrow. He’ll interview us, then join us on your grand homecoming. You should be out on Friday.”
“And will the Post be paying us for this interview?”
“Initially they offered us two, but I played them off against the News of the World and we agreed on four.”
“Four hundred pounds for one interview? Bloody hell.”
Levon smiles sweetly. “Bless his heart. Four thousand.”
Dean stares. “Yer never joke about business.”
“I do not. I propose this. Half the four thousand pounds goes to you. You’re the one doing bird. The remaining two thousand pounds replaces the tour fees that Ferlinghetti took, so you’ll get twenty percent of that, too. Acceptable?”
Two thousand quid for six days picking my arse in a police cell? That’s more than Ray earns in a year. “Shit, yeah.”
Symonds and Ferlinghetti make their entrance.
“Mr. Symonds and Captain Ferlinghetti,” says Dean.
They sit down. Symonds speaks. “I trust Mr. Frankland has explained how lucky you are, being allowed to scuttle out of this with a rap on the knuckles?”
Ferlinghetti puts a pen and a typewritten page in front of Dean. The paragraphs are in English and Italian. Dean scans it, finding the words confess, wrongdoing, unprovoked, possession of cannabis, apologize, and treated with dignity.
Dean rips the confession down the middle.
Ferlinghetti’s jaw drops like a cartoon villain’s.
Symonds takes a carefully controlled breath.
Levon’s face is telling him, That’s my boy.
“You no want go home?” demands Ferlinghetti.
“Of course I do,” Dean addresses Symonds, “but I never hit a copper, and that cannabis was planted. P’rhaps yer’ll believe me now. If I was guilty, yer’d not see me for dust. Would yer?”
Symonds looks troubled. “The Italian state is handing you a pardon. I must advise you to take it.” Ferlinghetti unlooses a string of pungent-sounding Italian at the consular official. Symonds sits calmly until the captain is finished. “He’s saying that there’s no guarantee this pardon will be repeated.”
Utopia Avenue Page 38
