Lionel Asbo: State of England

by Martin Amis

  “It’s too hot for them,” mouthed Des drily.

  Now Lionel flung his irons aside. He turned and stiffly extended his legs, and folded his arms with a grunt. Minutes passed. He stood, and took several turns round the room, staring critically at his shoes. Minutes passed.

  “You know, I’m ever so slightly concerned,” he said, “about you gran.”

  “Yeah?” Des swallowed. “Why’s that?”

  “Her morals.”

  “Her morals?”

  “Yeah, you know old Dudley.”

  “Dudley. Yeah.” Dudley was the cheerful racist in the next granny flat along.

  “Dudley. Old Dud. He reckons he hears noises.”

  “… What sort of noises?”

  “Groans.” Lionel looked ceilingward. “As if, God forbid, someone’s giving her one …”

  Des managed to say, “Uh, that’s prejudicial, that is, Uncle Li. Could be groaning from something else. Pain.”

  “You know, Des, that’s exactly what I thought. That’s exactly what I thought. In fact, I give old Dud a thump for the uh, for the insinuation. She’d never do that to me, Mum. Not Mum, mate! Not my mum!”

  For a moment Des believed that Lionel was about to start crying; but his face cleared and he said conversationally,

  “I know she used to see the odd bloke. Toby and that. But when Dominic passed away she had a change of heart. Turned over a new leaf. She said to me, Lionel? When you dad died, he give up his life for his little boy. He’d’ve done the same for you. Or for Cilla. And I’m going to respect that, Lionel. Respect Dom’s memory. So no more of me blokes. And she has a little laugh and says, And look at me. I’m well past it anyway! … But now—but now there’s these groans.”

  Des said, “I’m in and out all the time. And I never see anything.”

  “Mm. Well keep you eyes peeled, Des. Look in the bathroom. Razor. Extra toothbrush. Anything uh, untoward.”

  “Course I will.”

  “Mm … The groaning granny. It’s pain. That’s all it is. It’s her time of life. Gaa, Des, you wouldn’t believe what they suffer. During the Change. It’s they insides. You creeping off again tonight?”

  Des had a date with Gran. He scratched his chest and said, “Nah. I’ll stop home. Watch the football. Might take the dogs out. In a bit.”

  “… It’s they insides. There’s all this stuff down there raring to go wrong … My mum some GILF? No. My mum some bonking biddy? No.”

  Minutes later Des reeled down the infinite staircase with Jeff and Joe. Now this really did do his head in—because Gran never groaned. Not with pain, not with passion. He brought his fingertips to his temples and searched the windtunnels and the echo chambers of his aural memory. He heard her laughter (the long-ago laughter), he heard her sing scraps of Beatles songs, and again he heard her laughter (the more recent laughter, abandoned, and with an unnerving edge to it). But Gran never groaned. It was Jade and Alektra who kicked up a racket (at least when their mums weren’t indoors)—not Gran. Gran groan? Never …

  In the forecourt he ducked into the sketchily vandalised phonebox.

  Does Gran groan because she’s got some wasting disease she never told me about? Or does she groan because she—!

  The thought stopped dead.

  He made the call and postponed their meeting for twenty-four hours. He didn’t tell Gran anything, yet, about Dudley and the groans.

  7

  Day came. He heard a snatch, a twist, of weak birdsong; slowly the city heaved into life; and by eight o’clock the whole Tower was a foundry of DIY—hammers, grinders, the gnawing whine of power sanders … Des took a shower and drank a cup of tea. Lionel was sleeping in; he had gone out late and stayed out late (boisterously returning just after five). His door was open, and for a moment Des paused in the passage. This was once his mother’s room. That tall swing mirror: she used to appraise herself in front of it, with a palm flat on her midriff, full face, in profile, once again full face; and then she’d be gone. Now Lionel rolled on to his back—the heaving chest, the dredging snore.

  Outside it was bright and dry—and drunkenly stormy. Gates flapped and banged, dustbins tumbled, shutters clattered. And Des, today, felt that he would give his eyesight for a minute’s peace, a minute’s quiet. Just to get his head straight. But his thoughts wandered, and he wandered after them, under a swift and hectic sky. Women, mothers, noticed it, the density of trouble in the childish roundness of his face. Long-legged in shorts and blazer, carrying a satchel, and stopping every ten yards to run tremulous fingers through the close files of his hair.

  … On the streets of Cairo the ambient noise, scientifically averaged out, was ninety decibels, or the equivalent of a freight train passing by at a distance of fourteen feet (the ambient noise caused partial deafness, neuroses, heart attacks, miscarriages). Town wasn’t quite as noisy as Cairo, but it was famous for its auto-repair yards, sawmills, and tanneries, and for its lawless traffic; it seemed also to get more than its fair share of demolitions, roadworks, municipal tree-prunings and leaf-hooverings, and more than its fair share of car alarms, burglar alarms, and fire alarms (the caff hates the van! the bike hates the shop! the pub hates the bus!), and, of course, more than its fair share of sirens.

  In this sector of the world city, compact technology had not yet fully supplanted the blaring trannies and boom boxes and windowsill hi-fi speakers. People yelled at each other anyway, but now they yelled all the louder. Nor were Jeff and Joe the only neighbourhood dogs who suffered from canine Tourette’s. The foul-mouthed pitbulls, the screeching cats, the grimily milling pigeons; only the fugitive foxes observed their code of silence.

  Diston, with its burping, magmatic canal, its fizzy low-rise pylons, its buzzing waste. Diston—a world of italics and exclamation marks.

  On his way to school Des slipped into the Public Library on Blimber Road. This was a place where you could actually hear yourself cough, sigh, breathe—where you could hear the points and junctions of your own sinuses. He made straight for the radiant Reading Room with its silvery motes of dust.

  First, naturally, he wrenched open the Sun, and thrashed his way to “Dear Daphne.” Worries about getting an erection, worries about keeping an erection, the many girls whose married boyfriends wouldn’t leave their wives, the many boys who loved the feel of women’s clothing: all this, but nothing about a fifteen-year-old and his nan. Eleven days had passed since he posted his letter. Why hadn’t Daphne printed it? Was it too terrible? No (or so a part of him still wanly hoped): it was too trivial.

  Des closed his eyes and saw himself in the granny flat at the age of thirteen. He was, as usual, weeping into his sleeve—while Gran stroked his hair and softly hummed along with that emollient melody, “Hey Jude.” Hey Jude, don’t make it bad, Take a sad song And make it better. The hugs, the hand-clasps, the vast and trackless silences. Gran said that grief was like the sea; you had to ride the tides (So let it out and let it in, hey Jude, begin), and then, after months, after years …

  Now in the sidestreet two hammer drills revved up, atomising his thoughts. And just then an old janitor (the one with the ponytail and the dented cheeks) stuck his head round the door.

  “Why you not in school?”

  “Got a project,” said Des. And reapplied himself to his Sun.

  International news. Slaughter in Darfur. N. Korea’s breakout N-test? Dozens slain in Mex drug clash … After a look over his shoulder, he reached out an unsteady hand for the Independent (which was at least recognisably tabloidal in size). He expected the spidery print to exclude him. But it didn’t; it let him in … Des read all the international news in the Independent, and then moved on to the Times. When he looked at his watch it was half past four (and he was keenly hungry).

  He had spent eight hours in the place called World.

  “I’ve been reading the papers.”

  “What papers?”

  “The proper ones. The Guardian and that.”

  “You don’t w
ant to read the papers, Des,” said Lionel, turning the page of his Morning Lark and smoothly realigning its wings: Hubbie Nabbed Over Wheelie Bin Corpse Find. With a look of the sharpest disapproval, he added, “All that’s none of you concern.”

  “So you don’t follow it—all that … Uncle Li, why are we in Iraq?” Lionel turned the page: Noreen’s Lezbo Boob Romp Shock. “Or don’t you know about Iraq?”

  “Course I know about Iraq,” he said without looking up. “9/11, mate. See, Des, on 9/11, these blokes with J-cloths on they heads went and—”

  “But Iraq had nothing to do with 9/11!”

  “So? … Des, you being very naïve. See, America’s top boy. He’s the Daddy. And after a fucking liberty like 9/11, well, it’s all off, and the Daddy lashes out.”

  “Yeah, but who at?”

  “Doesn’t matter who at. Anyone’ll do. Like me and Ross Knowles. It’s the moron theory. Keeps them all honest.”

  Lionel turned the page: Knife Yobs Dodge Nick, Proves Probe. Des sat back and said wonderingly,

  “When it started, Uncle Li. I mean don’t we have allies in the region? They can’t’ve been too happy about it. The instability. Our allies in the region.”

  “Allies?” said Lionel wearily. “What allies?”

  “Uh, Saudi Arabia. Turkey … Egypt. I bet they weren’t too pleased.”

  “So? Jesus Christ, Des, you can’t half bang on.”

  “They’re our allies. What did we tell them?”

  Lionel dropped his head. “What you think we told them? We told them, Listen. We doing Iraq, all right? And if you fucking want some, you can fucking have some and all.” He levelled his shoulders. “Now shut it. I’m reading this.”

  And Des entertained the image of a planet-sized Hobgoblin at twelve o’clock on a Friday night. This was the place called World.

  “Gaa. Look, Des. More GILFs.”

  The cat was there again. The cat was there again—at the end of the tunnel that led to Grace. Hairless and whiskerless, as bald as a white hotwater bottle, with its soft, ancient, ear-hurting cry … He pressed the bell, and heard the fluffy pink slippers padding towards the mat (as the tape played “Dear Prudence”).

  “Gran,” he was almost immediately saying. “The groans.”

  “Groans? What are you talking about?”

  He told her. “And you don’t groan, do you,” he said. “Do you?”

  “… I do groan,” she said carefully. “Now and then. You just don’t notice. Ah, old Dud, what would he know?”

  “Stop laughing like that! How many Dubonnets’ve you had?”

  “Now you stay just where you are, young sir.”

  “No, Grace … Well get a pillow then. In case you groan. And put the Beatles up!”

  Later, as she smoked a thickly appreciated Silk Cut, Grace said mysteriously (and she would not enlarge on it), “Oh, Des, you’re gorgeous. But the trouble is … The trouble is, love, you’ve been giving me ideas!”

  8

  Another week passed. Then it all came to a head—on a day of three-ply horror for Desmond Pepperdine.

  Another week passed, and by now Des had more or less given up on Daphne, on Daphne and her counsel. And yet there it was, in the Sun on Saturday (on Saturdays Daphne commanded a two-page spread). All the other letters bore headlines (I Feel Like a Tart As I Can’t Stop Bedding Strangers, Trapped in a Man’s Body, I Want to Wed My Dead Hubbie’s Dad, Heartbreak at Text Cheat, Grief Over Mum Won’t Lift); but Des’s plea was untitled, and appeared in the bottom left-hand corner against a funereal background of dark grey.

  Dear Daphne, I’m a young man from Kensington in Liverpool, and I’ve been having sexual relations with my grandmother. Could you explain the legal situation?

  DAPHNE SAYS: This must end at once! You are both committing statutory rape, and could face a custodial sentence. Write again urgently with a PO address, and I will send you my leaflet, Intrafamilial Sexual Abuse and the Law.

  Des spent the rest of the day on Steep Slope, stumbling from bench to bench. He could hear the brittle fairground music swirling up from Happy Valley; and the air was dotted with spores of moisture that couldn’t quite become rain. Something dark seemed to be growing bigger on the other side of the rise.

  At seven o’clock Lionel shouldered his way into the kitchen with a great load of dog gear in his arms. He halted and his head jerked back.

  “… The tank’s open.”

  “Yeah, I tried it,” said Des quietly, “and the lid just came up. But now it won’t shut.”

  “There you are then.” With a crash Lionel dropped the tangled mass on to the counter—lunge poles, break sticks, and four thick leather collars with pyramidal steel spikes. “You been sitting on it.”

  Des’s brow never rippled when he frowned, but tonight his eyes felt (and looked) very close together, like a levelled figure eight. He now saw that Lionel had a newspaper in his sweatpants pocket: not the Morning Lark, not the Diston Gazette (also a red-top tabloid)—but the Sun!

  Lionel uncapped a Cobra three inches from Des’s left ear, saying,

  “Dire news about you gran.”

  His voice cracked as he whispered, “Oh yeah, Uncle Li?”

  “The plot thickens … I had another talk with old Dud. It’s not only groans, Des.”

  “Uh, what else?”

  “Giggles. Giggles. So it’s not pain, is it. It’s not pain. And you know what else?”

  Des was scratching his chest with both sets of fingernails.

  “She’s started turning the music up loud! … Tuesday night Dud said he heard giggles. Then the music went up. And that ain’t the clincher.” He stuck his tongue out and removed a hair from it. “You won’t believe this, Des, but the old …”

  Lionel fell silent. He went to the glass door, pulled back the curtain, and gazed down at Jeff and Joe; they lay there side by side, humped in sleep.

  “I placed a bet today,” he said in a surprised voice. “See for youself.” And with a flourish he produced his newspaper and fanned it out on the table.

  “Reading the Sun now are we?”

  “Yeah. Gone uh, gone boffin for the day.” A new beer can sneezed. “No, Des, Page Three Playoffs. And I’ve put money on Julietta. See, she reminds me of someone … I’m not a gambler, Des. Never was. I leave that to fucking Marlon.”

  The odds on the gypsyish Julietta were duly noted and briefly discussed. Lionel turned the page, moving on to the Sun’s TV Guide. Again he turned the page: Dear Daphne!

  “I Feel Like a Tart As I Can’t Stop Bedding Strangers.” Lionel read on (with his lips slowly shaping the words). “Well you are a tart, darling. Get on with it … Here, Des. Daphne reckons—Daphne reckons that a bloke dressing up as a bird is uh, is an attempt to create a marriage of one … Can a widow get hitched to her father-in-law? … Here. Here Des. There’s this lad from Liverpool … ”

  And Des gave thanks to the half-forgotten dream or dread that had prompted the stuff about Liverpool and Kensington. How was it he knew about Kensington and “Kenny”?

  “Gaw. This dirty little Scouse git’s been giving his nan one! His own nan … Funny old world, eh Des?”

  Des nodded and coughed.

  “… Yeah, too right, Daph. Custodial sentence. Definitely. Où, they’ll love him inside. You know what they’ll do to him, Des? When he goes away?”

  “No. What’ll they do?”

  “Well. First they’ll fuck his arse off. Then they’ll slash his throat in the showers. They got nans too mate! … Kensington. ‘Kenny’—that’s where I did me Yoi!”

  The room quietened and stilled as a passing cloud lent it the colour of slate.

  “Mum’s visitor, Des. He comes in, he goes out. Just as he pleases. He comes in, he goes out.”

  And Des felt obscurely moved to say, “Half the time it’s probably just me, Uncle Li. I’m always in and out.”

  Lionel detonated another Cobra. “You? Oh, sure. Listen. When you go calling on Grace, Des, is it you
habit … Is it you habit to come in whistling at half past midnight? And go out whistling at ten? After another quickie and you English breakfast?”

  She came hurrying down Crimple Way, quicker, busier, head tipped forward but chin outthrust, she’d had her hair shaped and trimmed and tinted, she wore a red sweater and a tight trouser suit of metallic grey. The gripped thinness of her mouth and the scissors of her legs were asserting something—asserting her determination to thrive. And she looked younger, he thought (he was leaning on her gate); but now, as she crossed the road, every six feet she got six years older.

  “Des,” said Grace quietly as she moved past him. “Well come in, love, but you won’t want to stay.”

  She laid out the shopping on the kitchenette counter: bread, eggs, tomatoes, a packet of bacon, a tin of baked beans (and her Silk Cut and a fresh bottle of Dubonnet). She was eyeing his reflection in the window above the sink.

  “What’s going on, Grace?”

  “Don’t say another word, dear. Everything’s as it should be.”

  “No, Grace,” he said with his pleading frown, “everything’s changed. Lionel—he’s got old Dud with his ear jammed up against the wall!”

  “Lionel? Bugger Lionel. Listen. I’ll be forty any minute and all right I’m past it—yeah, past caring! … Ah, Des. I’ve got something to tell you, dear. I’ve got something to tell you.”

  Outside, it had rained and grown dark under a lilac sky, and a film of water swam on the flagstones. Orange blotches of mirrored streetlight kept pace with him as he walked down Crimple Way. The awe of his relief was sumptuous, hallucinatory … Des Pepperdine was fifteen years old. And he supposed it was a good thing to get this learned early on. Now he bowed and threw his head back and almost laughed as he consented to the Distonic logic of it.

  It’s better this way, Des. You can start calling me Gran again. You and me, we’ll just go back to how we were before. And no one’ll be any the wiser. It’s better this way.