Utopia Avenue Page 10

  A bus flings a spume of spray onto the windscreen.

  Dean’s driving blind until the water’s run off.

  “You can’t end on that cliffhanger,” says Griff.

  “First, he hauled me inside and gave me an earful ’bout how I’d just nearly killed myself but I was thinking, This is amazing, I’m getting a bollocking off of Little Richard. Then he asked who was in charge of me. I said my brother but he was in the pub. I told him my name and said I was going to be a star too. That softened him up a bit. ‘Son,’ he said, ‘ain’t no star ever went by the name of Moffat.’ I said my mother’s maiden name was Moss and he said, ‘Dean Moss, that’ll work,’ and he wrote on a photo, To Dean Moss, Climber to the Stars—from Little Richard. Then one of his people escorted me out past the bouncer who hadn’t let me in and my adventure was over. Ray ’n’ the others thought I was making it all up till I showed them my photographic evidence.”

  A sign says it’s twenty-seven miles to Brighton.

  “Do you still have it?” asks Griff. “The photo?”

  “Nah.” Do I tell them? “My old man burned it.”

  Elf’s horrified. “Why would your dad do such a thing?”

  The middle classes have no bloody idea.

  Dean’s lip scar throbs. “Long story.”

  * * *

  —

  “NINA SIMONE AT Ronnie Scott’s,” says Elf. The Beast rattles through a village called Handcross. “I was seventeen. My parents would never have let me go into Soho alone, but Imogen and a boy from church chaperoned me into Satan’s Lair. I’d been sneaking off to the Folk Barge at Richmond since I was fifteen but Nina Simone was in a higher league. Way higher. She floated across Ronnie Scott’s like Cleopatra on her barge. A black orchid dress. Pearls the size of pebbles. She sat down and announced, ‘I am Nina Simone,’ as if daring you to contradict her. That was it. No ‘Thank you for coming,’ no ‘I’m honored to be here.’ It was our job to thank her for coming. We were honored to be there. A drummer, a bassist, and a saxophonist, that was it. She played a bluesy, folkie set. ‘Cotton-eyed Joe,’ ‘Gin House Blues,’ ‘Twelfth of Never,’ ‘Black Is the Color of My True Love’s Hair.’ No banter. No jokes. No fake heart attack. Once, a couple were whispering too loud. She eyeballed the offenders and said, ‘Pardon me, am I singing too loud for y’all?’ The couple combusted on the spot.”

  A sign says Brighton is twenty miles away.

  “In awe of her as I was, I never wanted to be Nina Simone,” continues Elf. “I’m a white English folk singer. She’s a black Juilliard-trained genius. She plays blues with her left hand and Bach with her right. I saw her do it. All I wanted was a few ounces of her self-assurance. I still do. Heckling Nina Simone would be like heckling a mountain. Unthinkable. Pointless. At the end she told the audience, ‘I will sing one encore, and one only.’ It was ‘The Last Rose of Summer.’ I was by the cloakroom with my sister when she left. One woman held up an album and a pen but Nina just said, ‘I am here to S-I-N-G, not S-I-G-N.’ A minder opened the door and off she departed to her secret London palace. I used to think you became a star by having hits. After that show, I started to think, No—you are a star first, therefore you have the hits.”

  The Beast’s wheel thumps into a pothole.

  The vehicle jolts but carries on at 40 mph.

  “Which is probably why I’m not a star.”

  “Until tonight,” says Griff. “Until tonight.”

  * * *

  —

  A CHERRY-RED TRIUMPH Spitfire Mark II overtakes the Beast on a downhill stretch lined with orchards. If Utopia Avenue ever makes real money, thinks Dean, I’m getting one o’ them. I’ll drive to Gravesend and slow down outside Harry Moffat’s flat and I’ll rev the engine once to say, “Screw” and again to say, “You”…

  The real Triumph Spitfire drives away, into the future.

  The road is patchy with puddles mirroring the sky.

  “What about your best show, then, Zooto?” asks Griff.

  Jasper thinks. “Big Bill Broonzy once played ‘Key to the Highway’ just for me. Does that count?”

  “Give over,” says Griff. “He’s been dead donkey’s years.”

  “I was eleven. It was 1956. I was spending the summer in Domburg in the Netherlands. My Dutch grandfather was an old friend of the vicar in the town, and every year I’d stay with the vicar and his wife during the school holidays. That summer I made a model Spitfire out of balsa wood. It flew beautifully. It was the best I’d ever made. One evening, I launched it on my final throw and the breeze carried it over the high wall of the last garden in Domburg you’d want your prize glider to land in. The garden of Captain Verplancke. He had been in the wartime Resistance and had quite a reputation. The other boys told me I should go and get the vicar. Kids didn’t just knock on Captain Verplancke’s door at eight o’clock at night. But I thought, The worst he’ll do is just say no. So in I went, up to the house and knocked. Nobody answered. I knocked again. Nothing. So I walked around the back and there, on Walcheren Island, a stone’s throw from the North Sea, was a scene off a Mississippi whiskey label. Porch, lantern, rocking chair, and a big black man playing a guitar, hoarsely crooning in English and smoking a roll-up. I’d never spoken to a person who wasn’t white before. I hadn’t heard of blues guitar, let alone heard any. He may as well have been a Martian playing Martian music. Yet I was transfixed. What was it? How could music be so sad, so sparse, so dilatory, so jagged, so many things all at once? Pretty soon the guitarist noticed me, but he carried on playing. He played the whole of ‘Key to the Highway.’ At the end, he asked me in English, ‘So, what’s the verdict, Shorty?’ I asked if I could ever learn to play like that. ‘No,’ he told me, ‘because’—I’ll always remember this—‘you haven’t lived my life and the blues is a language you can’t lie in.’ But if I wanted it enough, he said, then one day I’d learn to play like me. The vicar arrived at this point to apologize for my intrusion, and my audience with the mystery stranger was over. The next day, Captain Verplancke’s housekeeper dropped by with the Big Bill Broonzy and Washboard Sam LP, signed with the words ‘Play It Like You.’ ”

  A sign says Brighton is only ten miles away.

  “I hope nobody burned that LP,” remarks Griff.

  “I’ll show it to you when you’re next over,” says Jasper.

  “Did you get your model Spitfire back?” asks Elf.

  There’s a pause. “I don’t remember.”

  * * *

  —

  THE BEAST PULLS into the Students’ Union car park, where Levon is leaning against his 1960 Ford Zephyr. Dean steers the Beast into the adjacent space and kills the engine. There’s no sign of Shanks’s van. We’re still early. The silence is sweet, as is the air as they climb out. Dean stretches. “Tomorrow Never Knows” escapes from a nearby window. The moon is a chipped cue ball. The Beast is attracting attention: one passing joker calls, “Oy, pal, where’s Batman?”

  Levon, too, assesses the band’s new purchase with interest. “Well, it’s definitely not a joyrider’s magnet.”

  “She’s a sturdy workhorse, is the Beast,” states Griff. “And, thanks to my uncle, it’s a fookin’ bargain.”

  Levon scratches his ear. “How does she handle?”

  “Like a tank,” says Dean, “ ’cept on corners, when she handles like a coffin. Won’t go above fifty, either.”

  “We bought her for lugging gear,” says Griff, “not for setting land-speed records. When did you get here, Levon?”

  “Early enough to collect our check from the Students’ Union. Once bitten by the we’ll-post-it-on-Monday line, twice shy.”

  A gum-chewing girl passes Dean and eyes him up as if she’s the guy and he’s the girl. Yes, he thinks. I’m in a band.

  “Well,” says Levon, “this lot won’t lug itself up the stairs.”

&nb
sp; “Give our roadies the evening off, did you?” asks Griff.

  “If you get a gold disc,” says Levon, “we’ll talk roadies.”

  “If you get us signed,” growls Griff, “we’ll talk gold discs.”

  “Play a hundred scorching shows,” replies Levon, “and recruit a legion of fans, you’ll get signed. Until then, we all lug the gear. Three journeys’ll do it. One of us stands guard. If you never trust anyone older than five and younger than a hundred not to steal your gear, you might just hang on to it. What is it, Jasper?”

  “Us.” Jasper’s pointing at a noticeboard.

  Dean’s eyes skip over posters for ANTI-VIETNAM WAR SIT-IN; BAN THE BOMB, JOIN CND TODAY!, and WHY NOT TRY BELL-RINGING? before finding his own face in a 2x2 grid of the band’s portraits, taken by Mecca. The reproductions have come out cleanly. UTOPIA AVENUE is printed in a fairground font with an empty rectangle below for location, time, and price, if applicable.

  “Welcome to the big time, boys and girl,” says Griff.

  “It came out pretty nicely,” declares Elf.

  “It looks like a Wanted poster,” says Dean.

  “Is that a good thing or a bad thing?” asks Jasper.

  “It’s the rock ’n’ roll outlaw thing,” says Elf.

  “Less ‘outlaw,’ ” Griff scrutinizes Elf’s portrait, “more ‘Employee of the Month.’ No offense.”

  “None taken. Less ‘outlaw’ ”—Elf studies Griff’s portrait—“more ‘Third in the King Charles Spaniel in a wig contest.’ No offense.”

  * * *

  —

  THE VENUE IS a long thin hall, like a bowling alley, with a bar up near the door and a low stage at the far end. Windows run down one side with evening views of a treeless campus. To Dean, the whole place looks like it’s made of Lego. The decorator was keen on glossy sewage brown. If full, the venue would hold three or four hundred. Tonight, Dean guesses, there are fifty. Ten more are gathered around the bar-football table. “I hope nobody gets hurt in the crush when we start.”

  “We’re not on till nine,” says Elf. “Plenty of time for a cast of thousands to walk on. Any sign of the Gravesend mob?”

  “Obviously not.” Stupid question.

  “Excuse me for existing.”

  Two students approach from the bar. He has a musketeer’s beard, a mauve satin shirt. She has a black bob, big mascaraed eyes, and a zigzag sleeveless one-piece that barely reaches her thighs. I wouldn’t say no, thinks Dean, but she’s staring at Elf as the musketeer speaks first. “I’m Gaz and my powers of deduction tell me you’re Utopia Cul-de-Sac.”

  “Avenue.” Dean rests his amp on the ground.

  “Just my little jest,” says Gaz. Dean thinks, He’s stoned.

  “I’m Levon, the manager. I’ve been dealing with Tiger.”

  “Ah, well, Tiger’s otherwise engaged. He asked me to stand in and guide you to the stage. It’s”—he points—“there.”

  “I’m Jude,” says the girl. She’s not stoned and speaks with a West Country twang. “Elf, I adore ‘Oak, Ash and Thorn.’ ”

  “Thanks,” says Elf. “Though the music we’re playing tonight’ll be a little…wilder than my solo work.”

  “Wild’s good. When Tiger told me you were in the band, I said, ‘Elf Holloway? Book them now.’ ”

  “She did.” Gaz puts a proprietary hand on Jude’s rear.

  Dean thinks, A pity. “Better do the sound check.”

  “Just play loud,” says Gaz. “It’s not the Albert Hall.”

  “Could I ask…” Elf peers at the stage, “…where’s the piano?”

  Gaz’s eyebrows fuse when he frowns. “Piano?”

  “The piano Tiger promised to have ready onstage and tuned for the show tonight,” says Levon. “Twice.”

  Gaz whistles softly. “Tiger promises a lot of things.”

  “We absolutely need a piano,” says Elf.

  “Bands bring their own instruments,” adds Gaz.

  “Not a piano they don’t,” says Griff. “Not unless they turn up in a fookin’ removal van.”

  “I don’t care if Tiger’s otherwise engaged or not,” says Levon. “He’s paid to do the logistics. Just get him here.”

  “Tiger’s undergone a metamorphosis,” explains Gaz. “His Third Eye’s opened. Here.” Gaz touches his brow. “He set out last Tuesday and no one’s seen him since. On the cosmic scale—”

  “Look, Gaz,” says Levon, “I don’t give a shit about the cosmic scale. We’re on the we-need-a-piano-now scale. Get us a piano.”

  “Man, your aggro is bumming me out. I’m not your skivvy. Wrong attitude. I’m doing Tiger a favor just by being here. I’m not the ents officer. Bugger this, man.” He glances at Jude, who looks pained, and heads for the exit.

  “Oy, Fuckface!” Dean steps after the departing stoner. “Don’t—”

  “Don’t waste your energy.” Levon grabs Dean’s arm. “I’m afraid it happens with student unions from time to time.”

  “You booked us this gig. Why are we even bloody here?”

  “Because student unions pay relatively well, relatively reliably, for relative nobodies. That’s why we’re here.”

  “But Elf needs a piano. How do we do our set?”

  “I knew we should’ve loaded up the Hammond,” says Griff.

  “If yer knew that, Mr. All-Knowing Wise One,” says Dean, “why didn’t yer bloody say so when I said, ‘Shall we load up the Hammond?’ and everyone was all, ‘No need, Levon’s checked twice and there’ll definitely be a piano’?”

  Griff comes to within head-butting distance of Dean. “If anyone has the right to be pissed off, Mr. Arseypants, it’s Elf. You’re fine. You’ve got your bass.”

  “It’s spilled milk,” says Elf. “Next time, we’ll load the Hammond. Levon, what do we do now? Cancel the gig and go?”

  “Problem is, if the Students’ Union cancel the check, I can’t really get legal on them. If you can play for an hour, the money’s ours. Forty quid. Divided by five.”

  Dean thinks about his debts and his bankbook.

  “Let’s think of it as a band practice,” says Jasper. “It’s not as if any press or reviewers are in the audience.”

  “But what do I play?” Elf scratches her neck. “If I had a guitar, I could at least do a couple of folk numbers.”

  A rowdy cheer explodes over at the bar-football.

  “Sorry to butt in,” it’s Jude, who hasn’t gone off with Gaz, “but I have a guitar you could borrow. If you like.”

  Elf double-checks this. “You brought a guitar here?”

  Jude looks sheepish. “I was hoping you’d sign it.”

  * * *

  —

  THERE’S STILL NO sign of Ray, so Dean calls Shanks’s flat from a phone booth in the lobby—Ray has no phone—to see if they even left. Nobody replies. They’re late, they hit traffic, they got a flat, they forgot…could be anything. Back in the venue, night has blacked out the long glass wall. This place must bleed heat. A basic lighting rig hangs above the stage, but the lighting officer is on strike, so the bleak striplights stay on. “I’ve known morgues with better vibes than this,” says Dean. Griff makes a few final adjustments to his kit. Off to one side, in a storeroom that smells of damp and bleach, Elf has finished tuning Jude’s loaned acoustic guitar and is retouching her lipstick in a hand-mirror. “Any news of your brother?”

  Dean shakes his head. “We may as well start.”

  “I don’t think anyone else is going to show up,” says Jude.

  “The sooner we start,” says Griff, “the sooner we’ll get home.”

  “Break a leg,” says Levon.

  “Give me a list of legs to break and I’ll work through it,” mutters Dean. They walk up the three steps to the stage. Sixty or seventy people stand i
n a loose clump nearby. A few of them clap, led by Jude. Dean walks up to the mic. The room is 90 percent empty space. He’s suddenly nervous. He hasn’t performed live since the 2i’s show, and that was all crowd-pleasing R&B standards. Tonight’s set list is based on their own songs: Dean’s “Abandon Hope” and his Potemkin-era “Dirty River”; Jasper’s untested “Darkroom” and an instrumental, “Sky Blue Lamp”; Elf’s “A Raft and a River,” written for piano, performed without a piano, plus “Polaroid Eyes” and a few folkier numbers. “Okay,” says Dean, “so we’re—” The speakers howl feedback and the audience winces. That’s why yer do sound checks. Dean fiddles with the mic and shifts it forward a foot. “We’re Utopia Avenue. Our first song’s ‘Abandon Hope.’ ”

  “We already have done, pal!” yells a wag at the bar.

  Dean flicks an amiable V in the right direction, triggering a few gratifying “Wooo!”s. Dean makes eye contact with Jasper, Elf, and Griff. Griff takes a swig from his bottle of Gold Label. “When yer ready,” says Dean. Griff flashes him the finger. “And a-one,” says Dean, “and a-two, and a-one, two, three—”

  * * *

  —

  GRIFF BURIES THE end of a lurching “Abandon Hope” under a rockfall of drums. It’s never sounded so shit at Pavel’s, thinks Dean. The half-arsed applause is more than they deserve. Dean goes over to Griff and says, “Yer played too fast.”

  “You played too fookin’ slow.”

  Dean looks away in disgust. Elf’s strumming was pointless and her harmonies were off. Jasper’s solo failed to ignite. Instead of a three-minute firework display he offered a minute of squibs that went nowhere. Dean can’t blame anyone but himself for fluffing the lyrics in the third verse, or for the croaked, wobbled, missed notes. Until this evening, he believed “Abandon Hope” was the best song he’d ever written. Was I kidding myself? He pulls Elf and Jasper into an emergency huddle, which Levon joins. “That was bollocks.”

  Levon starts: “Oh, I didn’t think it was all that—”