Utopia Avenue : A Novel

by Mitchell, David

  Dean sees the family resemblance. ‘I’m Dean. Jasper’s flatmate. Thought yer were burglars. Sorry ’bout that.’

  Jasper appears with a towel around his waist, dripping onto the floor. He exchanges a few Dutch phrases with his father and half-brother. The reunion looks joyless. Dean is referred to. Jasper tells them all, ‘Give me a minute, I’ll be right out,’ and retreats to the bathroom.

  Maarten de Zoet picks up the coat-stand. ‘You play bass in Jasper’s band, I think.’

  ‘Utopia Avenue isn’t ’xactly Jasper’s band. If yer’d just’ve rung the doorbell, I wouldn’t’ve, uh, jumped to the wrong conclusion.’

  ‘I telephoned,’ says Guus de Zoet. ‘An hour ago. Nobody replied, so we assumed nobody was at home.’

  Oh, thinks Dean, so that was you.

  ‘How long have you been my tenant, Dean?’ asks Guus de Zoet.

  Tenant? Rent? Awkward. ‘I’ll let Jasper answer that.’

  ‘Surely you can remember when you moved in?’

  ‘Have a seat. I’ll make a pot o’ tea.’

  ‘Very English,’ says Maarten.

  Tiffany was eavesdropping in case she had to scream into Chetwynd Mews for help. She’s worried about being trapped in the flat. The Hershey nanny is expecting her home by seven p.m., and it’s now gone five. Dean returns to the kitchen, where the two visitors are smoking Chesterfields, Jasper is smoking a Marlboro, and conversation is in Dutch. Dean turns to go, but the kettle is starting to boil and none of the de Zoets is making a move. Dean prepares the tea. During what feels like a lull in the Dutch dialogue, Dean asks, ‘What brings yer to London, Mr de Zoet?’

  ‘We are here three or four times a year.’

  ‘And this is the first time yer drop in?’

  ‘I come to London for business, not pleasure.’

  Dean’s about to ask, ‘What about family?’ but remembers the unvisited Harry Moffat, pushes away the thought of Mandy Craddock’s son, and brings the teapot over.

  ‘We are expanding,’ says Mr de Zoet. ‘I may visit more.’

  ‘Great.’ Dean pours the tea. ‘Uh … milk?’

  ‘Milk is acceptable,’ states Jasper’s father.

  ‘How ’bout you … uh, do I call yer Maarten or Mr de Zoet too?’

  ‘Our ages are close, so you may use my Christian name. Milk is acceptable for me also.’

  ‘Okey-dokey,’ says Dean. ‘Beans on toast? Bowl o’ Shreddies?’

  Missing the irony, Guus checks his wafer-thin watch. ‘We are dining with the Dutch ambassador soon, so we will resist the temptation. It is best we address the matter in hand and leave.’

  ‘Soon’ and ‘leave’ sound good. ‘Address away,’ says Dean.

  ‘You must vacate this flat by the end of July.’

  Yer what? ‘But me ’n’ Jasper live here.’ Dean looks at Jasper who is not surprised. They must have told him in Dutch.

  ‘Yes, and from the first day of August,’ says Guus de Zoet, ‘Maarten and his bride will live here.’

  Jasper asks his half-brother something in Dutch.

  Maarten replies in English. ‘In April, in Ghent. Zoë’s people are in banking. She’s the daughter of a friend of Mother. My mother, I mean, of course.’

  This family is screwed up, thinks Dean, even by Moffat-Moss standards. Jasper says, ‘Congratulations.’

  Maarten answers with a few calm Dutch words.

  ‘Hang on a mo.’ Dean is not calm. ‘Yer did say Jasper was yer son and not some random tenant? I didn’t dream that bit?’

  Guus de Zoet sips his tea. ‘Jasper has discussed his … origins?’

  ‘There’s a lot of hours to fill ’n’ kill if yer in a band. Yer talk. So, yeah. I do know how yer got his mum up the duff in India. And how yer acted like he didn’t exist till his granddad bloody well made yer.’

  Guus de Zoet puffs on his Chesterfield. ‘You paint me as the villain of this movie.’

  ‘How d’yer paint yerself, Mr de Zoet? The victim?’

  ‘Not entirely. I acknowledge Jasper in law. We, the de Zoets, allow him to use the family name.’

  ‘Yer want a sainthood for that, do yer?’

  Guus de Zoet makes a face like a reasonable man in vexing circumstances. ‘Young men make mistakes. Don’t you?’

  A bloody ton, thinks Dean, but bugger me if I admit it.

  The Dutchman blows smoke away. ‘I paid for Jasper’s education. For his summers in Domburg. For a sanatorium. I presume you know?’ He looks at Jasper, who nods. ‘For his conservatory in Amsterdam. And for this flat.’

  ‘Which yer now kicking him out of.’

  ‘The fact is,’ says Maarten, ‘Jasper is illegitimate. That is not his fault. But he cannot have the same claims on the de Zoet name as I. Sorry, but this is how the world works. He accepts that.’

  ‘There’s only two real bastards here.’ Dean folds his arms and looks at Maarten and Guus de Zoet.

  ‘I am pleased Jasper has an –’ Jasper’s father tap-taps on the ashtray ‘– advocate. But, Jasper, I was clear that your tenancy was likely to be temporary? Correct?’

  Jasper inspects the calluses on his fingers. ‘Correct.’

  Oh, for fucksake, thinks Dean. Why do I bother?

  ‘You were not entitled to sub-let,’ adds Maarten.

  ‘I didn’t,’ replies Jasper. ‘Dean paid no rent.’

  ‘Ah,’ smirks Maarten, ‘no wonder he’s so upset.’

  ‘And with all your success,’ adds Guus de Zoet, ‘you will not have to sleep on a bench in Kensington Gardens, I think.’

  Maarten stands up. ‘I will inspect the two bedrooms.’

  Dean stands up. ‘No, yer won’t.’

  ‘You are forgetting who owns this flat.’

  Dean sizes Maarten up. He’s a couple of inches taller, pudgier, better teeth, smooth skin. And more afraid o’ getting hurt. ‘We’ll leave by September the first. But till then our rooms’re private, matey. So yer can fuck off.’

  De Zoet Senior stubs out his Chesterfield. ‘Perhaps Dean is hiding an embarrassing secret, Maarten. The inspection can wait.’ He converses in Dutch with Jasper and the language-shutter falls. Dean retreats to his room, where Tiffany’s getting ready to leave …

  The unwelcome de Zoets are gone, Jasper is in the bath, and Janis Joplin is on the turntable. Dean washes up the tea things, telling himself that any similarities between his recent conduct and the younger Guus de Zoet’s are superficial. He never lied to Mandy Craddock. He didn’t get her pregnant knowing he already had a family. He has no proof that he is her baby’s father. Dean opens a beer and sinks onto the sofa. So we need a new flat by September. He could afford a place of his own now. I’d miss Jasper, Dean realises. When Dean first met this unsmiling, public school, half-Dutch weirdo he was a free place to stay, a great guitarist and that was that. Eighteen months later, he’s a friend. There’s so much in that word. Dean tunes his new acoustic Martin and feels around for the ‘Sad Eyed Lady Of The Lowlands’ chords. D … A … G … A? He fetches the double album from his room, where Tiffany’s scent still lingers, and puts side four on the stereo in the lounge. ‘With your mercury mouth in the missionary times’ is D, A, G, A7. ‘And your eyes like smoke and your prayers like rhymes’ has the same pattern, but the third line is different, as third lines tend to be. G … D … E minor? Dean tries picking instead of strumming. Better. Better. Try an F minor instead of the G. No, F. One spoon of Dylan makes a gallon of meanings. Why don’t I try to write lyrics like this? A song about how one brief phone call can change what you are. How a call from Tiffany Hershey – ‘Join me for a cocktail at the Hilton’ – turned them into adulterous lovers. How stability is illusory. How certainty is ignorance. Dean gets a biro and starts writing. Time slips. Jasper’s out of the bath. Time slips again. The doorbell rings. Jasper’s getting it. It’s probably Elf.

  Jasper’s saying, ‘It’s for you.’

  It takes Dean a moment to recognise the scrawny, zombie-eyed couple at the door
as Kenny Yearwood and his girlfriend, Floss. ‘Hey, Kenny. Floss. It’s been ages.’ Dean’s mind boomerangs to the day of the riot in Grosvenor Square, and back to now. He stops himself asking, ‘How are yer?’ The answer’s clear: They’re junkies. Kenny’s tense. ‘Has Rod Dempsey called?’

  ‘Not recently, no. Why?’

  ‘Can we step inside?’

  They want money. ‘Sure, but me ’n’ Jasper’re off out.’

  ‘We won’t be staying.’ Floss glances around the mews.

  Dean lets them step into the hallway. They both have rucksacks. ‘We want our thirty quid,’ declares Floss.

  What thirty quid? ‘Yer what?’

  ‘Kenny lent it you at the 2i’s,’ says Floss. ‘Last year.’

  ‘That? That was a fiver. Kenny, I paid yer back at the Bag o’ Nails. The night Geno Washington was playing. Remember?’

  Kenny turns away his bloodshot eyes.

  ‘Thirty, it was.’ Floss pushes back her hair, revealing the crook of her elbow, a lesion and needle damage. ‘You can’t plead poverty now, pop star.’

  Dean asks Kenny, ‘Mate, what’s going on?’

  Kenny looks barely alive. ‘Give us a minute, Floss.’

  Floss is no longer the head-in-the-clouds hippie girl Dean met. She’s fractured and sharp-edged. ‘Don’t let him fob you off. Give me the cigarettes.’

  ‘Yer smoked the last one on the tube, Floss.’

  Dean has a packet in his shirt pocket and offers her one. Floss takes five and goes outside. Kenny says, ‘She’s nicer than that. Nothing fucks yer up as bad as shame. So I’m learning.’

  ‘Kenny, what’s happened?’

  Jasper is noodling on his Stratocaster in his room.

  ‘Crash us a ciggie too, would yer?’ asks Kenny.

  ‘Take the pack. What Floss left, anyway.’

  Kenny’s hand’s trembling. Dean helps him light up. Kenny takes a grateful drag. ‘When did I see yer last?’

  ‘March. Grosvenor Square. Day o’ the big demo.’

  ‘Yeah, me ’n’ Floss tried smack a bit after that. Ever done it?’

  ‘I’m scared o’ needles,’ admits Dean.

  ‘Yer can cook it on a spoon and suck the fumes up a straw, but … whatever yer do, don’t go near the stuff. Yer know how everyone tells yer, “Don’t touch drugs”, and yer do ’em, and yer think, They were feeding me bullshit? Well, smack’s the one where it’s not bullshit. First time, it was … a-fucking-ma-zing. Like coming. With angels. Can’t describe it.’ Kenny rubs a sore on his nostril. ‘But yer have to get that feeling back. Not “want to”. “Have to”. Only the second time, it’s not as good. Third time’s not as good as the second. Down it goes. Now … yer gums’re bleedin’, yer feel like shit, yer hate it, but … yer need it to feel normal. Lost my job. Flogged my guitar. Rod gave us a few bags o’ weed to sell. To pay for the smack, like. As a favour. I kept it under the floorboards in our room.’

  ‘The commune in Hammersmith? Rivendell?’

  ‘Nah, there was a bust-up.’ Kenny flinches. ‘Rod got us into a place he owns on Ladbroke Grove. A no-questions-asked sort o’ bedsit. A friend o’ Rod’s minded the door, day ’n’ night, so Floss felt safe. All our earnings from the weed, though, went on smack. But yer need more ’n’ more o’ the stuff. So, last week, Rod said he’d pay us a fiver plus an ounce o’ Afghan White a week for “storage”. Meaning, he stored a stash o’ coke under the floorboards in our room. It was our job to mind it.’

  Why’d Rod Dempsey trust two junkies to mind a stash of drugs? Dean is afraid he can guess.

  ‘The Afghan was the purest we’d had in ages. The high wasn’t like the first time, but it was like the fifth or sixth. Better than it’d been for ages. Two days later –’ Kenny sucks the life out of his cigarette ‘– the coke was gone. The floorboards’d been lifted. I told Rod. Straight away. He’s got a psycho side. He screamed at me. Asked if I thought he was stupid. But we never nicked it. I swear on my life. On Floss’s life. On bloody everybody’s life. We never.’

  Rod Dempsey nicked it, Dean thinks. ‘I believe yer.’

  ‘When Rod calmed down, he told me that me ’n’ Floss owed him six hundred quid. I told him we didn’t have six quid. Six bob. So Rod said, me ’n’ Floss could pay him back by …’ Kenny’s finding it hard to talk ‘… going to parties.’

  ‘What kind o’ parties?’

  Kenny’s breathing speeds up. ‘Yesterday night, we were taken to a … a place in Soho, behind the Courthouse. Quite classy. Me ’n’ Floss was separated. I was given a bath, scrubbed down, shaved … They gave me a dab o’ smack – and … there was three men …’

  ‘What?’

  ‘Don’t make me spell it out. F’fucksake, Dean. Use yer imagination. Yeah? What yer thinking, that’s what they did. In turns. Get the fucking picture?’

  The words are ‘drugged’ and ‘raped’, realises Dean.

  Kenny wipes his eyes on his sleeve. He tokes on his cigarette, sharply. ‘Floss was in the car. After. She didn’t speak. I didn’t. The driver did. We’d earned back ten quid of our debt, he said. Five hundred and ninety more to go. He told us to forget the police. They’re paid off. If we ran away, he said our families’d be liable. He showed Floss a photo of her sister and said, “Lovely little thing, ain’t she?” Back at Ladbroke Grove we had a sleeping tablet ’n’ ice-cream and this morning we got Methadone. Floss told me to get her out o’ this or … she’d kill herself. I know she’s not bluffing. ’Cause I’m the same.’

  ‘D’yer want to hide out here?’

  ‘This’ll be one o’ the first places he’ll look.’

  ‘Why didn’t yer ask for help off the bat?’

  ‘Floss didn’t think yer’d believe me. Do yer?’

  ‘I didn’t know Rod did this – but … I’ve seen how he puts hooks into people. Plus, how could yer make this up? Why would yer?’

  Kenny, in the half-gloom, grips Dean’s wrist.

  Dean takes everything he has from his wallet – over eleven pounds – and puts it into Kenny’s hand. ‘The heroin. I’m no expert, I know from Harry Moffat that just saying, “Quit what’s killing you,” does nothing. But if yer don’t get clean …’

  Jasper’s noodling turns into his ‘Nightwatchman’ solo.

  Kenny stuffs the money into his pocket. ‘I’ll get us out to the middle o’ nowhere. Somewhere there’s no dealers. Isle o’ Sheppey maybe. I dunno. Find a bit o’ shelter, and … we’ll try cold turkey again. Yer feel like yer bloody dying. But that house in Soho, it was worse than dying.’

  The telephone rings. Kenny stands up, pale and shaking.

  ‘It’s okay,’ says Dean. ‘It’ll be Elf to say she’s late.’

  Kenny crouches, like a frightened animal. ‘It’s him.’

  ‘Honest, Kenny. Apart from at a party last month, I’ve hardly seen him.’ Dean picks up the receiver. ‘Hello?’

  ‘Dean, how the hell are yer? Rod Dempsey here.’

  The air is sucked out of Dean’s lungs. ‘Rod?’

  Kenny’s backing off, shaking his head.

  Rod Dempsey does a friendly little laugh. ‘Yer sound … funny. Case o’ speak o’ the devil, is it?’

  If I needed proof, this is it.

  Kenny’s left the flat. The front door’s half open to the pale dusk. I can’t help him, ’cept by lying well enough to fool a world champion. ‘Yer must be a bloody mind-reader, Rod. Swear to God, ten minutes ago – no, five – me ’n’ Jasper were talking ’bout the best dope we ever smoked, and we thought o’ that Helmand Brown. Yer brought it over last autumn, with Kenny ’n’ Stew? Remember that?’

  ‘An unforgettable night. I can get yer some more, if yer want. Different batch, but just as good.’

  ‘Perfect. Yeah. Uh. We’re just finishing the new album, but soon after, maybe? I’ll give yer a call.’

  ‘Will do. Speaking o’ Kenny, have yer seen him? I’m trying to track him down.’

  ‘So’m I, actually.’ Hide yer lie
in a haystack of facts ’n’ half-truths. ‘Not since Grosvenor Square. He was in a commune out Shepherd’s Bush way. Have yer seen him? Is he okay?’

  Rod Dempsey calculates. ‘I met him ’n’ his lady friend last month. The Commune was giving him grief, so he asked me to keep my ear to the ground. A pal’s renting a place in Camden, all mod cons, good price. It’s perfect for him ’n’ Floss. Problem is, I’ve lost his number. Could yer track him down for me? Urgent, like.’

  Rod Dempsey’s hiding his lies in half-truths too. ‘I’d like to help. I’m trying to think who might know. But I’m drawing blanks.’

  ‘That’s the thing ’bout London,’ says the drug dealer, pimp and God knows what else. ‘There’s no knowing who’s coming round the next corner. Is there?’

  The only signs of Kenny and Floss are two cigarette stubs on the bottom step. Evening is pooling in Chetwynd Mews. Dean’s mind is a noisy Top Five chart of problems and crises. He opens the garage doors to visit his Spitfire. He switches on the bulb and stares at her. The new place has to have a lock-up garage, he thinks, or a beauty like you won’t last fifteen minutes. It’s too late for a drive, but Dean climbs in and tries to find a moment’s peace. He doesn’t. He could be some kid’s dad. That’s the last thing I want. An affair with Tiffany Hershey’s a gratifying thrill, but How’s that going to end? Being turfed out by Jasper’s father is a pain, but it won’t end in homelessness. Kenny ’n’ Floss, though, that’s another matter. Nothing can ever undo what’s already been done to them. Even if – when, if, if, when – they kick the heroin, Dean knows their peace will always be frayed, will always have shadows at the edges. Floss is right to hate me. I’ve got a part in this. Kenny came to London because of Dean, and Dean did nothing to help him. Nothing. A figure crosses the mouth of the garage, stops, and looks in. ‘Hello, Dean.’

  It just comes out: ‘Oh, yer’ve got to be bloody joking.’

  Harry Moffat takes a shallow breath. ‘Been a while.’

  He steps into the yellow light. Dean has a good view.

  Harry Moffat is both the same and different.

  His liver-spots are splotchier. His eyes have sunk.

  He’s shaved. His hair’s neat. He’s made an effort.