Lionel Asbo: State of England

by Martin Amis

  You know what, Des? He put me here. Marlon. He done me! For Gina! Des left him there, the tense slope of the back, the chainlit Marlboro Hundred … And even before Lionel regained his freedom the Diston Gazette announced that Mr. Jayden Drago’s firstborn child, Gina Maria, was officially engaged—to Marlon Welkway! The day was already named. It was to be a Whitsun wedding …

  As he continued on his journey, his journey from boy to man, Des found that the thoughts that stayed with him about his uncle were getting a little bit harder to file away. For instance. Lionel, sitting in prison, and hating it as thoroughgoingly as any sane and innocent man would hate it (but for completely different reasons). Or again. The unexpected element in his response to the defection of Gina Drago. Together with the hurt, the rage, the humiliation, and the tearing need for vengeance, there was the furtive glimmer of relief.

  Things were at least much simpler now. On the day he came out Lionel challenged Marlon to what was called a garage meet (bare-knuckle, stripped to the waist, with paying spectators, no ref, no rules, and no limit) and Marlon of course accepted—but that’s another story.

  On his seventeenth birthday (in January 2008) Des threw a little party all for himself. The only guests were the pups, Jon and Joel (who were given a fresh bone each). Well, they were hardly pups any longer. On the move they were like missiles of muscle … He bought two flagons of Strongbow, and sprinkled a pinch of keef into a rolled cigarette. Des only knew a handful of things about his father. Edwin (as he continued to think of him) was a Trinidadian, and a Pentecostalist; he refrained—earlier on, anyway—from harmful liquors; as against that, though, he didn’t deny the clarifying effects of a pensive burn of keef. So Des sipped his cider, and smoked the sparkling grass; and he felt the spirit of Edwin darn its way through him: the smell of thick damp foliage, a vast church on a village hilltop, a fat moon sliced and swallowed by the sharp horizon. He knew another thing about his father—that he referred to babies as youths. Des knew too that Edwin was gentle. Cilla said.

  It was just a little slip. Her legs shot out in front of her, her head twanged back and then twanged up again—but she was laughing when she got to her feet. As they walked home arm in arm the sun hit the thin rain, turning each drop into a gout of solder, and a fabulous rainbow of blue and violet bandily straddled the roofscapes of Diston Town … It was just a little slip. The autopsy report spoke of blunt impact to the head and epidural haematoma. But the phrase that held him was massive insult to the brain. And it was unfair, he felt, to say such a thing about Mum—because, this time, it was just a little slip.

  As he rinsed the glass and cleaned the ashtray (and put the dogs out) and vaguely dreamed about Queen Anne’s College (the one poem, the cosmos of the University), something struck him as suddenly as the sun struck the rain on that last day with his mother: It will take a whole new person to make me whole. A whole new person. It can’t come from anything within. I’ll just have to … I’ll just have to wait. I’ll wait.

  Where is she?

  I’ll wait.

  She was sitting next to him on a hardbacked chair. There were about twenty young people in the room (down from about thirty-five), and she was the only one present who was doing something sensible: she was reading (he stole a glance—The Golden Bough) … The rest of them, Des included, were merely helplessly and dumbly waiting, like patients waiting for the doctor’s nod. Every fifteen minutes or so a name was called … The setting was a panelled antechamber in Queen Anne’s College, London. A fat bee kept bluntly knocking against the window pane, as if seriously expecting the viny garden to open up and let it in. What was that doing here? It was early February. Des’s mind was clogged and wordless; the vertical ribs of the radiators, he felt, were giving off the acrid tang of a dry-cleaner’s. He wiped the sweat off his upper lip, and reached with both sets of fingers for his brow.

  Are you nervous? she said, tilting her head an inch or two, but without looking up. I don’t mean in general. I mean at the minute.

  Nervous? he said. I’m giving birth!

  Oh don’t be …

  Now he saw her face, under its weight of golden hair—the gold of sunlight and lions. And her exorbitant eyes, fairy-tale blue, and ideally round.

  Well you know, she said, I was in a terrible condition this morning. Then I had a thought whilst I made my tea. I thought: What’ll they be looking for in myself? And I felt all calm. I’m Dawn.

  I’m Desmond. They shook hands. Her voice was high and musical, but her diction, her choice of words, put him in mind of a category he could not yet name: the minutely declassed. And what was that thought? Dawn.

  It suddenly came to me. Well, we’ve all got the grades, haven’t we. So what is it they’ll be looking for in ourselves? And it suddenly came to me. Eagerness to learn. Simple. I’ve got that. And I don’t doubt you’ve got it too.

  Yeah, he said. I’ve got that.

  Well then. Desmond.

  She shrugged or shivered; her body sighed and realigned. And he saw her crossing the road, crossing one of the many roads of the future, and quite differently dressed, with her jeans tucked into knee-high boots, and in a tightish top—crossing the road, strongly stepping up to the island and then stepping down from it and walking on … He experienced a gravitational desire, just then (as his blood eased and altered), to reach out and touch her. But all that happened was that his face gave her its clearest possible smile.

  Desmond Pepperdine, said a voice.

  So it was his turn first, and when he came out, twenty minutes later, they bent their heads and winced at each other …

  Dawn Sheringham, said a voice (a different voice).

  As she gathered her things he said, “I’ll wait. If you like. I’ll wait and we’ll go for some tea.”

  “Ooh, I’d love a cup,” she called out. “I’ll be needing one!”

  He watched her walk off. He hesitated, and said, “… I’ll wait!”

  As a result of a further steepening of Ernest’s depression, the Nightingales moved to Joy’s mother’s place in Hull. Des looked up Hull on the Cloud. Its sister city was called Grimsby. The fog that came in at night smelled of fish.

  It seemed to Des that now would be the moment to get shot of Rory’s lip ring. But it stayed where it was. He opened his desk drawer: the sealed white envelope with the circular indentation, and the evil little heaviness at the bottom of it.

  In September 2006, there was a much-studied but in the end unfathomable traffic jam which enchained West Diston—all the way from Sillery Circle to the Malencey Tunnel—for five days and five nights (it was relieved only by hundreds of grapple-hoists from RAF helicopters). In April 2007, there was an outbreak among local schoolchildren (all morbidly obese) of deficiency diseases not seen for generations (pellagra, beriberi, rickets). In October 2008, there was a weeklong nine-acre blaze in Stung Meanchey, enveloping the site in a layer of diaphanous smoke like the sloughed skin of a gigantic dragon (it was said to be very beautiful from the air).

  The winters were unsmilingly cold.

  PART II

  Who let the dogs in? That was going to be the

  question. Who let the dogs in?

  Who let the dogs in—who? Who?

  2009 Lionel Asbo, Lotto Lout

  1

  It was as he was mucking out—which is to say, it was as he was passing his spoutless kettle of shit to the aproned orderly—that Lionel Asbo first got wind of the fact that he had just won very slightly less than a hundred and forty million pounds.

  “Yeah, you’ve had a bit of luck. Apparently. Don’t know what,” said Officer Fips (who wasn’t such a bad bloke). “The Light wants a word. You’ll be sent for.”

  “The who?”

  “The Light. You know, light of your love. Guv. Love. That’s rhyming slang.”

  “… Jesus, you need you head seen to, you do. And rhyming slang’s all crap.”

  Officer Fips continued to go about his tasks. “According to him, you’ve had a bit
of good fortune. And he was well fucked off about it and all.”

  “Yeah? What’s this then?”

  “You’ll be sent for.”

  Lionel turned to his cellmate, Pete New, and said, “Dropped charges. Looks like they’ve seen reason and dropped charges.”

  “Yes, Lionel. Could very well be.”

  Stallwort was a remand prison—for those awaiting trial or sentence—and its inmates were banged up on a colourful array of charges. Banged up for non-payment of alimony, banged up for serial rape, banged up for possession of marijuana, banged up for knifing a family of six.

  “Well, let’s hope so,” said Pete New.

  Pete New was banged up for having a fat dog.

  Banged up for having a fat dog? said Lionel on his first day there.

  I know, said New. Sounds stupid. Yes, well. Twelve Reprimands and five Final Warnings. From the Social.

  Tinkerbell, New’s basset hound, was fourteen stone. She could only sleep and eat; she lay there on the mattress with her limbs splayed out flat.

  She has to be turned, see, Tinkerbell. Or you try. And she creates. She makes a right old racket. And then the neighbours …

  Lionel said, What you have a fucking dog for if you let it get into that state? You ought to give it a uh, an appropriate diet.

  New shrugged humbly and limped back to his bunk. He had his left leg in a light cast: Pete New had managed to snap a ligament while watching TV. Eleven hours in the same position, and when he readied himself to get to his feet, he said, he heard it pop.

  You snapped a ligament watching TV?

  I know. Doesn’t sound too clever either.

  You want to brush up you ideas, mate.

  Well you know how it is, Mr. Asbo.

  Call me Lionel.

  It was June.

  Pete New was banged up for having a fat dog.

  And what was Lionel banged up for, along with four Pepperdines, eleven Welkways, and twenty-seven Dragos (including Gina)?

  Why were they all in prison—prison, with its zinc trays and iron trolleys, its tame spiders, and its brickwork the colour of beef tea?

  Ah, but to answer that question we must go back in time—back to May, and to Whitsun.

  2

  “It’s a family reunion, as well as a wedding. You know, Dawnie, I’m going to change subjects. I can’t stand German.”

  “… Des, at this do, are they all going to be bent?”

  “No,” he said with some show of indignation. “Mm. Well … No. Not quite. Uncle Paul’s straight. Uncle Stuart’s straight. But yeah. I suppose they’re all up to something or other. The men anyway. They’re all doing a bit of this and a bit of that.”

  “And the bother with Marlon?”

  “It’s sorted out. I told you. Uncle Li’s best man. He’s best man.”

  “Here,” she said. “Kiss.”

  Des was almost eighteen and a half; he stood just over six foot tall; his face had lengthened and narrowed, but he still had a smile whose hooded brightness of eye made others smile. And here on his arm was Dawn Sheringham—her slender shape in the white print dress, her dandelion hair.

  “Mum says you’re too thin.”

  “Well she’s right. It’s the late hours. And the customers.”

  “Mm. It’s Goodcars. And it’s all my fault.”

  “It’s nothing, Dawnie. Everyone our age worries about money.”

  Money had certainly become very tight—what with Lionel being so often away. Lionel was currently at large, but when he was away Des got no weekly tenners (for doing all the housework), no chicken tikkas or rogan joshes, no KFCs. And no rent (he was obliged to apply to the Assistance). He also had to feed Joel and Jon: when he was away, Lionel’s only contribution to their upkeep was the odd pint of Tabasco and the odd plastic bagful of Special Brews that Cynthia sometimes hauled round. More pressingly and mysteriously, there was Dawn’s credit card and the logarithmic debt now clinging to it. Six nights a week, therefore, from seven to midnight (and all day Sunday), Des minicabbed for Goodcars. Goodcars, their poster said: You Drink, We Drive …

  “I never liked Marlon,” he went on. “His nickname’s Rhett Butler. And he’s handsome. But there’s something … There’s a phrase in that book of short stories. It really sums him up. Uh, a vague velvety vileness. That’s Marlon.”

  “And they used to be such great mates, him and Lionel. Since they were little.”

  “Oh, yeah. They were like twin brothers.”

  “Until Gina.”

  “Mm. Then it was all off.”

  “That can happen.”

  At King’s Cross they changed from the Piccadilly line to the Metropolitan. They continued west, holding hands, with books on their laps. Dawn was reading Jessie Hunter. Des was reading Emile Durkheim.

  He said, “Modern History. Or Sociology. Criminology.”

  “Des, they don’t like it if you change. And it costs. Means you do another year.”

  “Not necessarily. And lots of people change … I can’t stand German.”

  “What’s wrong with it?”

  “Well. Okay. In French, Wednesday is mercredi. In Spanish, it’s miércoles. In Italian, it’s mercoledi. And in German, it’s Mittwoch! Midweek. What kind of language do you call that?”

  Holding hands. Books on their laps. Kisses. Civilisation, thought Des Pepperdine.

  It was to be a Whitsun wedding. People got married at Whitsun—the maypole, the fertility rites of spring. Whitsun: white Sunday. And today was Whitsun Eve. Des stretched and loosened his shoulders. It was Saturday: meaning Dawn would be spending the night. And no minicabbing till Sunday.

  “Young women dancing round the maypole,” he said. “Is that the origin of pole dancing?”

  “Yeah, but nowadays you get lessons in it. Empowerment.”

  Suddenly the train unsheathed itself from the black tunnel and soared out into the light of the May noon. And the weather—the air—was so fresh and bright, so swift and busy. Dawn said,

  “Look, Des.” She meant Metroland. The orderly villas, the innocent back gardens, all aflutter in the swerving wind. “I once came this way at night,” she said. “And you look and you think, Every light out there stands for something. A hope. An ambition …”

  The carriage was thinning out, and their kisses were growing more frequent, and lasting longer … Dear Daphne, he said to himself. How are things? Me, I’m still having an affair with an older woman—I’m eighteen, and she’s twenty! And it’s not even an affair—not yet! I’ve been with Dawn for fourteen months, but we’re slightly holding back—on the physical side. You see, Daph, Dawn’s “unawakened.” And we want to be “ready.” I’m ready. She says she’s nearly ready. And the foreplay’s out of this world. But there’s a real problem with her parents. Her mum, Prunella, is a darling, but her dad, Horace, is a right old—

  “Des? What was that fight they had? That garage meet.”

  “Well hang on. It’ll sound a bit … See, Uncle Li reckoned Marlon finked on him. Got him jugged—to put him out of the frame with Gina. But why would he? Gina only went with Uncle Li to make Marlon jealous. Nah. He just cooked that up, Uncle Li. To soothe his own pride.”

  “His pride? This is over my head, this is. This is Criminology.”

  “To soothe his own pride. And to give him someone to hurt when he got out. So they had the garage meet. Bare-knuckle. Stripped to the waist. With a paying audience.” It must have been like the Lady Godiva—but all-male. “Lasted an hour.”

  “Who won?”

  “Uncle Li. On a technicality. He was in hospital for a week. But Marlon was in hospital for a month. I heard they were still going at it in the ambulance.”

  “Bit stupid, isn’t it?”

  “Yeah.”

  “But now it’s all patched up.”

  “Supposedly. Daggers drawn, but they buried the hatchet.”

  “Smoked the pipe of peace.”

  “They had a rendezvous. All very stiff to start with
. Then they shook on it. Then they hugged. All weepy. And the next thing you know—Uncle Li’s agreed to be best man!”

  Dawn said, “Then why’re you so worried about it all?”

  “I’m not!” he said, and kissed her. “It’s just that … Burying the hatchet—I can’t see him doing that, Uncle Li. That’s not his way.”

  “Look outside. Oh Des,” she said, and kissed him back. “Des, imagine we were getting married today.”

  “Yeah. Imagine. And jetting off to Malta for our honeymoon.”

  “… You know those candles Mum gave us? I’ll make a cottage pie when we get back. Let’s have dinner by candlelight. And let’s go mad and get a little packet of vin de table.”

  Three pound ninety-five! he thought.

  With a stern look she kissed him again, on the lips, the cheeks, the brow, the eyes … “Tonight,” she said. “Tonight. I’m ready. I’m ready, Desmond my love.”

  His head lolled on to her shoulder, and he gasped and smiled and closed his eyes.

  “Yeah, that’s it, darling. Have a little drowse. That’s it. Lie down. There. On my lap. There you are. There.”

  He closed his eyes and was immediately encircled by the familiar moods and memories that came to him whenever he neared sleep—the time he touched tongues after Sunday school with the girl in the white beret, the time Cilla cut her hand on the prised lid of the tin of soup (her fingers under the cold tap with their gaping mouths of red and white), the time he stole that fiver from Uncle George and made himself sick on sherbet lemons, the ruby wine and his fairy grandmother in her pink babydoll, the sticky sweets and sticky drinks, and the lord of his world of half-dreams, a hooded shape (always one size bigger than expected, broader, deeper), and the panting dogs …

  “Come on. Come on, Des. End of the line!”

  “We here?” He sat up straight and rubbed his eyes with both sets of knuckles.

  “Who made the first move?” Dawn was asking as she rummaged in her straw bag. “Did Lionel reach out to Marlon? Or the other way around?”