David Mitchell

 

from Utopia Avenue

1
Abandon Hope

Dean hurries past the phoenix theatre, dodges a blind man in dark glasses, steps onto Charing Cross Road to overtake a slow-­moving woman and pram, leaps a grimy puddle, and swerves into Denmark Street where he skids on a sheet of black ice. His feet fly up. He's in the air long enough to see the gutter and sky swap places and to think, This'll bloody hurt, before the pavement slams his ribs, kneecap, and ankle. It bloody hurts. Nobody stops to help him up. Bloody London. A bewhiskered stockbroker type in a bowler hat smirks at the long-­haired lout's misfortune and is gone. Dean gets to his feet, gingerly, ignoring the throbs of pain, praying that nothing's broken. Mr. Craxi doesn't do sick pay. His wrists and hands are working, at least. The money. He checks that his bankbook with its precious cargo of ten five-­pound notes is safe in his coat pocket. All's well. He hobbles along. He recognizes Rick "One Take" Wakeman in the window of the Gioconda café across the street. Dean wishes he could join Rick for a cuppa, a smoke, and a chat about session work, but Friday morning is rent-­paying morning, and Mrs. Nevitt is waiting in her parlor like a giant spider. Dean's cutting it fine this week, even by his standards. Ray's bank order only arrived yesterday, and the queue to cash it just now took forty minutes, so he pushes on, past Lynch & Lupton's Music Publishers, where Mr. Lynch told Dean all his songs were shit, except the few that were drivel. Past Alf Cummings Music Management, where Alf Cummings put his podgy hand on Dean's inner thigh and murmured, "We both know what I can do for you, you beautiful bastard; the question is, What will you do for me?," and past Fungus Hut Studios, where Dean was due to record a demo with Battleship Potemkin before the band booted him out.