Utopia Avenue : A Novel

by Mitchell, David

  ‘Yeah?’ Dean bites his half-eaten apple. ‘What’s the part?’

  ‘Funny.’ She takes his apple and bites the last big chunk. ‘“Tiffany Moss” has a nicer ring to it than “Tiffany Hershey”.’

  She’s just toying with you, Dean assures himself.

  ‘I’ll need a bigger engagement ring than Tony’s when we go public. People notice these things.’

  Dean chews more slowly. Just let the joke die away …

  ‘My lawyer says my chances of getting the Bayswater house go up if I establish Tony’s adultery. I’ve kept notes, but it’s best if you buy a place for us in the meantime. One needs a roof.’

  Dean looks at her to check she’s joking.

  ‘Chelsea’s nice. Somewhere big enough for parties. A flat for a housekeeper and an au pair. The boys need rooms of their own. Crispin likes you. Martin’ll stop hating you eventually …’

  The apple sticks in his throat.

  ‘Or sooner, if we give him a little brother.’

  The deeply unpleasant thought of a certain young woman named Mandy Craddock and her baby son arrives first; and is shoved aside the next instant by the equally unpleasant thought that Tiffany is not toying with him to get a rise, but is, in fact, stone cold serious. Dean sits up and backs away. ‘Look, Tiff … I-I-I … I don’t think—’

  ‘No, no, you’re right. Chelsea’s a frightful cliché. I’ll settle for Knightsbridge. We’ll have Harrods on the doorstep.’

  ‘Yeah but … I mean, we only just … but …’

  Tiffany sits up, covering her breasts with a sweaty sheet. She’s frowning, genuinely puzzled. ‘But what, darling?’

  Dean stares at his adulterous lover. How the bloody hell do I get out o’ this? Tiffany’s face changes – into a big, naughty grin. Relief dissolves through his bloodstream like sugar. ‘You evil, evil bloody witch.’

  ‘It’s a basic exercise at drama school.’

  ‘You totally bloody had me.’

  ‘Why thank you. I—’ Her face changes to iffy disgust. ‘Just a minute.’ Tiffany snatches Kleenexes from the box, swivels away and wipes herself. Turning back, she notices a yoghurty smear on the back of her thumb. ‘Look at that.’ She peers at it. ‘Stuff of life.’

  Ten mornings ago at their flat, Jasper was playing Dean a rough version of his new song when the phone rang. It was Levon, for Dean, sounding grim. ‘So here’s the story. A girl called Amanda Craddock just visited Moonwhale with her mother, a family-law solicitor and a three-month-old baby boy. They’re claiming you’re the baby’s father.’

  First, Dean felt sick. Then, he tried to place the name. ‘Amanda Craddock’. It wasn’t familiar – but it wasn’t unfamiliar.

  ‘Dean? Are you hearing this?’

  Dry mouth, tight throat. ‘Yeah.’

  ‘Is this girl lying or isn’t she?’

  ‘Dunno …’ He croaked. ‘I … dunno.’

  ‘“Dunno” isn’t an option. We need a “yes” or “no”. Both are problematic, but one is much more expensively problematic than the other. Can you come to the office?’

  ‘Right now? Is she still there?’

  ‘No, she’s gone. Yes, right now. Ted Silver’s leaving for his golf weekend after lunch. We all need to talk.’

  Dean hung up. Jasper carried on strumming in the sunken lounge. Amanda Craddock? Three months plus nine equals June or July last year, around the time of Imogen’s wedding, or the Gravesend gig. He was with Jude. There had been extracurricular encounters. Dean had made it clear – or clear-ish – to the women involved that he wasn’t in the market for a steady girlfriend. Casual sex with a celebrity stays very very casual. That’s the unwritten contract. Unfortunately, Dean now realised, unwritten contracts have as much fine print as the written variety.

  Dean set off for Denmark Street on foot, telling Jasper, an unreliable liar, he had an errand. As he walked through a warm and muggy Mayfair, he tried to put last summer’s girls in order. There were two groupies he met at the party of a pal of Roger Daltrey in Notting Hill. Was that May? There was the girl in the Land Rover round the back of the Young Farmers’ gig at Loughborough. Was she a Craddock? Izzy Penhaligon in June. Or July. Dean had to admit, he had no idea. He hoped that he could sort this out before Nan Moss and Bill got to hear. In their world, if a guy gets a girl ‘into trouble’ he marries her, plain and simple. Like Ray and Shirl. That’s not Dean’s world now, though. He would’ve paid for an abortion, if he’d known. They’re legal now. Girls don’t have to risk bleeding to death over a bucket in an old maid’s back parlour somewhere. Dean trudged up Greek Street and entered the short tunnel under the Pillars of Hercules pub into Manette Street.

  ‘Got the time, sir?’ asked a girl. By Soho street-corner standards she was pretty. Dean paused. Her pimp emerged from the soot-encrusted shadows, mistaking Dean’s hesitancy. ‘Lotta’s fresh up from the country. Nice ’n’ clean. Plump ’n’ juicy.’

  Nauseous, Dean hurried into the seedy sunlight, past Foyles bookshop, wishing this was a film. Wishing he didn’t have to face Bethany at Moonwhale, who would look at him over her typewriter and say, ‘Good morning, Dean’ – almost as if nothing was the matter at all.

  Side two of Blonde on Blonde clicks off with a clunk. Tiffany’s thigh is glued to his. He thinks, If I had to get anyone pregnant, why couldn’t it have been you? You five years ago minus husband ’n’ kids, obviously, that is. She says, ‘A penny for your thoughts.’

  That phrase was starting to grate. ‘Uh … Bob Dylan.’

  ‘Close friend of yours, is he?’

  ‘Nah. Saw him at the Albert Hall a couple o’ years ago.’

  ‘Tony had tickets for that concert, but Martin had chickenpox, so he took Barbara Windsor instead. I heard the show was stormy.’

  ‘Half the audience was expecting, “Blowing in the Wind”. They got crash bang wallop! instead. And were not happy.’

  ‘I never quite grasp Dylan. When he’s singing how “you fake just like a woman”, then – what was it? – loving like a woman, and aching like one, but then breaking like a little girl, is he criticising his girl’s fragility in particular? Or is he saying that all women are fragile? Or what? Why isn’t he clearer?’

  ‘It’s open to interpretation, I s’pose. But I like that.’

  She traces a circle around his nipple. ‘I prefer your songs.’

  ‘Oh, I bet yer say that to all the boys.’

  ‘Your lyrics are stories. Or a journey. Elf’s too.’

  ‘Jasper’s?’

  ‘Jasper’s songs are a bit Dylan-esque, in a way …’

  ‘Now I’ll have to kill him out o’ sheer jealousy.’

  ‘Don’t. This flat’s perfect for these liaisons.’

  ‘I liked the Hyde Park Embassy.’

  ‘One should vary the scenes of one’s liaisons …’ Sounds like she’s done this before, thinks Dean. ‘The staff are discreet – if you tip them – but it’s a gossipy town, and Tony’s not a nobody.’

  ‘When’s he due back from Los Angeles?’

  ‘The end of the month. It keeps changing.’

  The phone ring-rings in the hallway.

  It’s Ted Silver, thinks Dean, with Mandy Craddock news.

  The phone ring-rings in the hallway.

  ‘Aren’t you going to get it?’ asks Tiffany.

  The phone ring-rings in the hallway.

  ‘Stuff it. I’m enjoying you too much.’

  The phone ring-rings in the hallway.

  ‘Tony would be sprinting down the hall,’ says Tiffany. ‘He’s Pavlov’s dog when the phone goes.’

  The phone ring-rings in the hallway.

  Dean guesses Pavlov’s some arty Russian filmmaker. The phone stops ringing. Tiffany lets out an odd sigh. ‘It’s been a while since I was valued more than a telephone call.’

  They hear the key in the door of the flat. Tiffany tenses. ‘It’s only Jasper,’ says Dean. ‘My DO NOT DISTURB sign’s up.’

  She’s still ne
rvy. ‘You said he’d be out all day.’

  ‘I guess his plans’ve changed. He won’t come in.’

  ‘Nobody must know about us. I’m serious.’

  ‘Me too. I don’t want anyone to know either. I’ll go ’n’ tell Jasper I’ve got a coy visitor. When you leave, he’ll hide. He’s the opposite of nosy. It’s fine.’

  Dean pulls on his underpants and dressing-gown …

  In the kitchen Jasper is drinking a glass of milk.

  ‘How was the exhibition?’ asks Dean.

  ‘Impressive, but Luisa had an interview with Mary Quant so she and Elf went off to that, and I came back early.’

  ‘Elf’s seeing a lot of Luisa.’

  Jasper studies him. ‘You’ve had sex.’

  ‘Why’d yer ask?’

  ‘Love-bites, underpants and dressing-gown and …’ Jasper sniffs strongly ‘… the smell of overripe Brie.’

  Ugh. ‘Look, the young lady’s shy, so if yer’d retreat to yer room when she leaves, I’d be obliged.’

  ‘Sure. Elf’s coming over at six so your friend ought to be gone before then. I won’t peep, but Elf will.’

  Bethany at Moonwhale looked at Dean over her typewriter and said, ‘Good morning, Dean’ – almost as if nothing was the matter at all.

  ‘Morning, Bethany. So, um …’

  ‘Ted’s in with Levon now.’ Tappety-tap-tap-tap.

  Dean knocked and opened Levon’s sliding doors. His manager and the lawyer sat at the low tables, smoking.

  ‘Speak of the devil.’ Ted looked amused.

  ‘Have a seat.’ Levon looked a lot less amused.

  Dean propped his Fender against the filing cabinet and sat down. He lit his fifth Marlboro of the morning.

  ‘So,’ said Ted, ‘to ask one of humanity’s oldest questions, are you the daddy-o?’

  ‘I dunno. I don’t remember an Amanda. I meet a lot o’ girls. But I don’t keep a desk diary o’ their names or nothing.’

  Levon reached for his desk diary and took out a snapshot of a young woman holding a baby. She had dark hair, dark eyes and an ambiguous smile. The baby looked like any baby. Dean would file its mother under ‘Wouldn’t Say No’.

  ‘Well?’ asks Levon. ‘Jog any memories loose?’

  ‘Nothing specific.’

  ‘Miss Craddock is specific,’ says Levon. ‘July the twenty-ninth. The Alexandra Palace Love-in. You played a slot between Blossom Toes and Tomorrow. She says you met backstage during the Crazy World of Arthur Brown’s set, that you went back to her flat, above a launderette, and that nine months later,’ Levon held up the photograph, ‘Arthur Dean Craddock was born.’

  Abruptly, Dean’s big vague cloud of doubt dwindled to a little white dot, like the TV at shutdown – and disappeared. Shit shit shit. The launderette. ‘Mandy’ not ‘Amanda’. She’d asked, ‘So do I get to see you again?’ Dean used his ‘Let’s not spoil a beautiful night’ line. Her mother was folding clothes downstairs. She looked at Dean and said nothing. He escaped onto the quiet Sunday road. ‘We slept together.’

  ‘Which is neither legal nor hereditary proof,’ said Ted Silver, ‘that young Arthur sprang from your loins. Unmarried mothers have been known to lie.’

  Dean looked at the baby with fresh hope and fresh guilt. Was there a Moss-ness – or Moffat-ness – about him? He wished he could show the photo to Nan Moss, and feared doing so. She’d be furious. ‘I heard there’s a blood test yer can do …’

  The lawyer waggled a hand. ‘The blood group test rules out paternity in thirty per cent of cases. It’s no smoking gun.’

  ‘So what are my choices?’

  Ted Silver picked up a ginger biscuit. ‘You could claim that you never met Miss Craddock. Inadvisable. If it went to court, you’d have to perjure yourself.’ Munch on the ginger biscuit. ‘You could agree that you and Miss Craddock were in concubitus on the night, but refuse to acknowledge paternity of the child.’ Munch munch. ‘You could acknowledge the child as yours and talk turkey.’

  ‘What’s the price tag on this turkey?’

  ‘Figures are contingent upon negotiations, naturally.’

  ‘Naturally. But.’

  ‘But if I were representing the Craddocks, I’d demand a lump sum equal to what a tabloid newspaper would pay, plus index-linked monthly support payments until the child turns eighteen.’

  ‘Bloody hell. What year’ll that be?’

  ‘Nineteen eighty-six.’

  The date belonged to an impossibly distant future. ‘All in, then, we’re talking …’

  ‘North of fifty thousand pounds. Index-linked.’ The office tilted and whirled like a spinning tea-cup at a funfair. Dean shut his eyes to make it stop. ‘Fifty thousand quid for one shag? For a kid who may not even be mine? No way. She can fuck off.’

  ‘Provisionally, then,’ says Ted, ‘we’re looking at option two. You admit that you and Miss Craddock shared physical intimacies, but you do not acknowledge paternity of the child.’

  Dean opened his eyes. The room was back to normal. ‘Yeah. Do that. And, why didn’t she come after me till she saw I’ve got a few bob to my name? Smacks o’ gold-digging, does that.’

  Ted looked at Levon. ‘Thoughts? Concerns? Consequences?’

  Levon lit a cigarette. ‘If we’d marketed the band as the Stones, people would just say, “True to form.” If we’d sold you as a sort of British Peter, Paul and Mary, it would kill you. But Utopia Avenue? It could go either way. There may be an element in the press saying, “We should have let him rot in an Italian jail after all.” Elf’s female fans may wonder why she stays in a band with a love-cheat sperm-gun. On the other hand, Dean’s more red-blooded followers will think, “Nice one, my son.” Nor are these reactions mutually exclusive. It’ll add up to column inches, that’s for sure.’

  ‘Agreed. Right now, we play for time. I’ll tell the Craddocks’ solicitor that Dean’s in a state of shock. I’ll ask for, say, a fortnight’s grace for us to put together a proposal regarding the next step. I’ll make it clear that if the Craddocks speak to the press, any deal will be off the table. I also propose we do this blood test now. If Miss Craddock is a gold-digger, she may be spooked into backing off. Either way, the blood test will cast Dean in a responsible light if we go to court later.’

  Court. Newspapers. Scandal. Ugh. ‘They’re piss-poor, right, the Craddocks? Do they have the money for legal action ’n’ that?’

  ‘Awash with money they certainly are not.’

  ‘So if suing me looks like it’ll cost an arm ’n’ a leg …’

  ‘They may cut their losses.’ Ted Silver tapped his pipe. ‘Mind you, if thirty years of legal practice has taught me anything, it’s that a plaintiff is a fickle beast.’

  Side three of Blonde on Blonde clicks off. ‘When Martin came along, Tony and I did a deal.’ Tiffany taps her cigarette on the ashtray. ‘I’d take a hiatus from my career and be Tony’s ideal stay-at-home mother. In return, after five years, he’d make a film and cast me as the lead. Quid pro quo. I am an actress. Thistledown was one of the British movies of 1961. People know me from Carry On, from The Tempest at the National, from Battleship Hill. I’d missed being Honey Ryder in Doctor No by a whisker. So, it was agreed. I did the nappies, bottles, nanny-organising, sleepless nights, while Tony made Wigan Pier and Gethsemane. My agent had enquiries, but Tony said I should keep my powder dry for the big Tiffany Seabrook comeback. Last year he finally started writing Narrow Road. By “he” I mean “we”. I wrote more of it than Max, Tony’s co-writer. Piper – the rock star’s dead sister – is a peach of a role and it was mine. Until a fortnight ago. The day you bought your car.’

  ‘What’s my Spitfire got to do with it?’

  ‘Nothing. But when I got home, Tony was waiting with the news –’ Tiffany’s jaw clenches ‘– that Warner Brothers love the script. They’ll put in half a million dollars if Jane Fonda plays Piper.’

  ‘Jane Fonda? On a spiritual odyssey to the Isle of Skye?’

 
‘They want to shoot in LA and call it The Narrow Road to the Far West. It’ll be all tits, mojitos and bimbos.’

  Dean hears Jasper run a bath. ‘That’s bloody nuts.’

  ‘It’s a betrayal! So I told Tony to tell the Yanks where to shove their half-million dollars. Guess what his answer was.’

  I doubt you liked the answer, whatever it was. ‘What?’

  ‘That he hadn’t paid for his house, my jewellery, “my” Midsummer Balls and nannies by turning down half a million dollars. End of conversation. A fait accompli.’

  Fay what? Fay Who? ‘That’s a knife in the back.’

  ‘He tried to fob me off with a new role Warner Brothers want to add – a demented lesbian psychopath. I told Tony to piss off. So he did. Off to LA. To put starlets through their paces.’

  So, thinks Dean, I’m a revenge shag. Do I mind?

  ‘I didn’t mean to tell you all this,’ says Tiffany. ‘A secret lover who moans about her husband can’t be very—’

  Can’t say I do. Dean kisses her – and hears a key in the front door – and abruptly pulls back from the kiss, listening.

  ‘What’s up?’ asks Tiffany.

  ‘Jasper’s in the bath. So who just came in?’

  Dean hears voices. His body redistributes blood, instantly. He slips on his trousers and a T-shirt and grabs a wine-bottle candlestick that might, at a push, function as a club. He slips out into the hallway. Jasper’s got the radio up loud in the bathroom, so he may not have heard. Up ahead Dean sees two intruders through the curtain of beads …

  Dean yells as he bursts through the beads. One of the burglars yelps, jumps back, terrified, hits the coat-stand, knocks it over and trips backwards. The older one is calm. About fifty, in a conservative suit and tie, he stares at Dean as if he owns the place. Dean brandishes the bottle. ‘Who the fuck are yer and what’re yer doing in my flat?’

  ‘I own the place,’ says the older man in a foreign accent. ‘I am Guus de Zoet. Jasper’s father.’

  ‘Yer what?’

  ‘Did you think he was made in a lab? This is my son Maarten.’ Maarten, who looks about thirty, picks himself up, scowling. ‘So we ask you the same. Who are you? What are you doing in my flat? Put the bottle down. You are embarrassing yourself.’