Lionel Asbo: State of England

by Martin Amis

  … Every time Lionel crashed in at night (as if returning to an empty house) Des thought how restful it must be (if you could imagine such a thing)—to have no consciousness of others.

  13

  “Cheer up, boy. It hasn’t happened yet.”

  “Yeah but I’m all alone.”

  Des was all alone: his wife wasn’t there, and his baby wasn’t there either.

  “Where she gone then?”

  “Gone to look after her dad.” Des reached into the fridge for a can of Cobra. “Well, she doesn’t look after her dad exactly. The old bastard still won’t let her near him.”

  “Only natural in a way. Someone like Horace. His only daughter marrying a brother … No offence meant, Des.”

  “None taken, Uncle Li. No. So she just sits in the hospital and looks after her mum.”

  “Yeah? What’s up with him then?”

  A secret drinker, Horace Sheringham had secretly given himself acute cirrhosis—diagnosed that Saturday morning.

  “He’s turned yellow. His liver’s packed up.”

  “How old is he?”

  “Fifty.”

  “Oh, so he’s getting up there. Tell you what then. We’ll have one of our nights out, Des. Okay?”

  “Yeah. Yeah, wicked, Uncle Li.”

  “Yeah. Like in the days of you youth. Back in a minute.”

  He finished his beer, poured himself a beaker of Rebel Yell, gave the (open) tank a kick, and went shouldering off to his room.

  “Talking KFC. KFC. KFC. KFC. KFC …”

  These words were spoken almost conversationally, and not with the incantatory force of earlier days. Lionel’s mood appeared to be unusually bright, even festive—as he dropped his tray and attended to the little sachets of mustard and relish. Round about them, the milkshake colours, and the hamburger girths, of KFC.

  • • •

  “Talking KFC. KFC. Wealth, Des. Wealth … Remember when you was a kid, thinking, What’ll I be when I grow up? It’s like that. You think—I know, I’ll be an engine driver! I’ll buy a, I’ll buy a fucking train and steam around in that. But then you think, Where to? What’s the point? Then you think—I know, I’ll buy one of them hot-air balloons. Or a plane. Fuck it, I’ll go to Cape Canaveral and have a spin in the space shuttle.”

  Des said, “You’d have to go to Russia for that. These days. Or maybe India.”

  “Be all right. Cape Bollywood. Blast-off. Have a crafty smoke in the toilet. Weightlessness. See the globe from on high. Why not? You can do anything, see. So you don’t—you never … You just think, What’s the point?”

  Lionel gazed incuriously at his drumsticks and reached for his chips.

  “What about your boxing?”

  “Ah now. Me boxing. I got quite far with that. Planned it out. Set meself goals. Like—like full ABA member in eighteen months.” Lionel shrugged and went on, “I talked it over with old Tommy Trum. He says, Lionel? You got the aggression, son. But celebrity fighters never last! They ain’t hungry enough, see. And you fame’s like a red fucking rag to you opponent. So what’s the point? Nice smelly gym in Middlesbrough. With some ex-SAS trying to stove you nose in. Okay, fair enough. But then you got all the papers the next morning saying you a cunt! What’s the point? … Come on, Des. Suggest something.”

  “Well. There’s reading.”

  “Tried it. You know—bit of history. D-Day. Omaha Beach. Seems all right. Then after a page or two I … After a page or two I keep thinking the book’s taking the piss. Oy. You taking the piss? Then you temper’s gone, and you can’t uh, regain you concentration. Keep thinking the book’s taking the piss. It’s weird.”

  “Uh, what about good works? Charities.”

  “Charities? Charities—that’s the only thing me and her ever agree about. We can’t stand charities … Remember what I said? Not happy. Not sad. Numb. Des, I tell you the truth. The only time I know I’m breathing is when I’m doing some skirt. Not uh, problem-free there either. With the minge.”

  “Get you tits fixed, Get you tits fixed … You know, Des—‘Threnody.’ Say what you like. Say what you like about …”

  Lionel ordered drinks: treble Martell, half a shandy. Business was slow, that night, in the Lady Godiva. As a commercial concept, the strip pub, it seemed, was a generation out of date. Lone middle-aged men with their barley wines; on the low stage, the thonged dancer resignedly regathering her clothes …

  “Say what you like about Lynndie England, Des, but Christ she’s got push. And it’s not just the knickers and that. I said this morning, What’s the matter with you? She says, What’s the matter with me? I’ll tell yer. Some other cunt’s just won the … Just won the … What’s that prize, Des? Poetry.”

  “The T. S. Eliot Prize, Uncle Li?”

  “That’s it. She says, Some other cunt’s just gone and won the T. S. Eliot Prize! Fifteen grand. What’s wrong with My Love for Azwat? That’s her book, see—My Love for Azwat. She wants to be massive, she does Des. I want to be massive in America. I want to be massive in China. She wants to be massive all over the world. And even then she wouldn’t rest. One planet’s not enough!”

  Lionel fell silent for a while (his head giving the odd sideways swipe of endorsement), and his nephew, warmed by old affections, was dreamily thinking: “Threnody”—massive on Mars, and then massive on Mercury; first she’d do the terrestrial planets, and then she’d surge through the asteroid belt to the gas giants, to Jupiter, to Saturn. “Threnody,” massive on Pluto …

  “She said, I’ll make you famous. I said, I’m already famous. She said, Yeah, but you famous in the wrong way. You hated. I’ll work on you image and I’ll make you loved! Loved … Jesus. She’s after me to do an I’m a Superstar. Now normally, Des, you’d have to go down the fucking jungle for that. But they seeing if they can find somewhere bad enough in England. Isle of Mull. Nailsea.” Lionel paused. “Wants me to start a line of clothes. Chav uh, Chav Chic. Wants me wearing earrings and a big gold chain round me neck. And a T-shirt with Whatever on it. Or Innit on it. Now tell the truth, Des. Is that Lionel Asbo? Seriously now. What’re you thoughts?”

  “A T-shirt with Innit on it? The chavs,” he said, “they’re proud of being stupid.” And Lionel (for professional reasons) used to be proud of being stupid. But the chav was a type. And Lionel was not a type. “I don’t think that’s really you, Uncle Li.”

  “Mm. See, that I’m a Superstar stuff, that reality stuff—it ain’t reality. They just get famous people to make cunts of theyselves.”

  “Yeah, but give her credit. It’s worked. You’re popular now. You’re—you’re loved.”

  “… In the street, cabbies and that, they say, Take care, Lionel. Watch out, Lionel. They say, Look after youself now Lionel … Being loved. I don’t know.”

  At Lionel’s lift of the chin they stood to leave. The thonged dancer was coming round with her collection pouch. Lionel said,

  “Get you tits fixed for the boys—ooh.”

  She slowed. Des smiled at her as unpointedly as he could (a youngish mother, he guessed, trying to make ends meet). She gave Lionel a quick but level glance and moved on.

  “Wait,” he said. “Hang on, darling. Here’s fifty quid. I’ll stick it in you sock for yer. Fifty quid … towards you operation. There.”

  On the crossroads outside they had to raise their voices.

  “Where you off to now Uncle Li?” yelled Desmond, and with his thumb he made a gesture homeward.

  “Ah, don’t go yet Des!” Lionel yelled back. “Come and have a nightcap at the Sleeping Beauty! I fancy a chat! About me sexuality!”

  14

  The Sleeping Beauty, Diston’s lone place of lodging (apart from a wide variety of flops and Marmite-dark B & Bs), was on Murdstone Road—a thirty-minute walk, due east, through Saturday night. They started forward, sliding sideways through the clenched teeth of the locked cars.

  “There’s certain strains in me relationship with Gina!”

  “How�
�s that Uncle Li!”

  “Well it’s a fine line! Marlon—he keeps raising his prices! Soon he’ll be richer than I am!!”

  Forward they kept on moving, past the knots and strings of the crowds, Des on his toes, Lionel with his implacable trudge. In their ten-year duologue, Des had never had to hear in any detail about his uncle’s sexuality. And it scared him. Now he felt that a damp cobweb was being dragged across his face. He looked down and saw that his hands and forearms had turned a tone deeper with moist subcutaneous warmth.

  “The other, Des! You know they call it that? I always wondered why! Till now!”

  But here was Carker Square, impressive in scale, certainly—the two swathes of brown grass the size of football pitches (with a stout tree-stump each) and the crazy-paved spoke-shaped walkways converging on the defunct fountain, and the whole space as densely peopled, Des imagined, as São Paulo or Bangkok, but nearly all of them white, as white as Cynthia … It came to the ears as a scene of celebration, the willed guffaws of the men, the abandoned cackles of the women. But if you could turn the sound down (if you could turn the volume off), then the Distonites would resemble the survivors of a titanic calamity, random wanderers in the aftermath of an earthquake, say, and the ground still lurching beneath their feet. Lionel put his face up close and thickly and hotly whispered,

  “Look at them—Christ. Decks awash. Full as a fairy’s phonebook. Can’t hold they drink, Des. Simple as that.”

  The two of them reached Jupes Lanes, a quieter and naturally much more dangerous entanglement of curling alleyways that moled its way out of the far end of Carker Square.

  “With Gina and Marlon,” said Lionel (his voice once again at room temperature), “I’m in a uh, a delicate situation.”

  “Delicate in what way?”

  “Yeah. See, I used to make him just listen. Now I make him watch. Question is—how much can he take? And then what?”

  The slam of a door, the clatter of lowered grillwork, a male howl, a female shriek abruptly smothered; Des kept stepping back, allowing the transit of various speckled and shadowy scowlers and sidlers in ones and twos and threes. Lionel said,

  “And that’s not all I got on me plate.” He rubbed his palms and gazed skyward. “You know, Des, you be amazed by what fame and money does to skirt. And I’m not just talking about the usual little bints,” he said with a primly dismissive shake of the head. “The little bints at the parties. With they tattoos and they tongue studs. And if you do one of them, Des, they tell the papers! And the next thing you know, you a love rat! … Nah, boy. Oh no. I’m talking about rich MILFs.”

  “Rich MILFs, Uncle Li?”

  “Yeah. Posh MILFs, Des. Toff MILFs. They unbelievable! You in a jeweller’s in Mayfair or you parking the ‘Aurora.’ Or you at some do. And this MILF’ll go, You the one, aren’t you. She’ll go, You the one in the Telegraph. You the one. And they ain’t housewives, Des. They like gentry.” Lionel’s face took on a look of gratitude and wonder. “And who’d’ve thought that these rich MILFs, who can speak French and play the violin … See, this is uh, this is the paradox, Des. Who’d’ve thought that these rich MILFs were the dirtiest fucking goers you ever come across in you …” Lionel’s pace slowed. “Hang on. They ain’t MILFs. Not exactly. They DILFs!”

  “DILFs, Uncle Li?”

  “Yeah. See they all—Hold up … Have a look at this, Des. Look at this. A uh, a cultural contrast if you like.”

  They had reached a circular clearing. Well lit, trash-strewn … Her head pillowed on a glistening rubbish bag, and with her dress up around her halter top, a large adolescent redhead was trying to climb to her feet, scraping and clawing for purchase like a supine skier with the two broken wine bottles she held in her freckled fists … Coming towards her down the facing slope was a file of densely veiled figures, a mother and her three, no four, no five daughters, each smaller than the next, like Russian dolls. They fanned out and stared. Lionel lingered, saying,

  “Don’t worry, ladies. I know it don’t look too clever, but you in England now. And it’s different with our birds. Our birds, they can lie around all stripped and helpless. And us blokes don’t turn a hair. Why? Because they that rough. Come on, son.”

  Lionel and Desmond again fell into step.

  “DILFs, Des. All divorcees. The lot of them! You know how they do it? First they—first they get theyselves hitched to some old banker for ten minutes. Then they independent for life! And oh, they in gorgeous nick, Des. Superb. And I said to her, I said to this DILF, How old are you anyway? And guess what she said.”

  “What.”

  “Thirty-seven! Which means she’s probably forty-three! Think. She’s almost Gran’s age—and there’s not a mark on her. Pampered all they lives, they are. Beauty treatments. Massage. Yoga. Okay. Okay. You in a smart hotel room. Now it’s got this lovely sneer on its face and it’s saying, Let’s—”

  “Uh, Uncle Li …”

  Up ahead, where the lane narrowed to the width of a council-flat corridor, an enormous shape awaited them. Even for Jupes Lanes it was an exceptional sight (and people, now, had to try harder and harder to be exceptional). This alley-filling apparition was about twice Lionel’s mass, grossly bloated but also dynamic, and gasping mechanically for air. As they got nearer they saw that the young man’s face was like a pizza of acne or even eczema, and his loose damp smock was similarly encrusted and ensmeared, with a thick gout of blood or ketchup running from armpit to armpit. He held a bulky mallet with a nubbled head, and his free hand was rummaging around in the crotch of his khaki shorts.

  “… You going courting?” asked Lionel mildly. “Well out the way then. Out the way then. Step back and to the side. By them dustbins … Look, we can’t get round you, mate. You too fucking fat. Jesus. Out the way then.”

  The young man held his ground—and Lionel folded his arms, lowered his head, and exhaled … Now, in Desmond’s considerable experience, Uncle Li, as combat neared, had three distinct styles of mobilisation. With his peers he gathered about himself a fury of self-righteousness, with his near-peers he opened and widened his mouth and brightened his eyes in quasi-sexual avidity (this was the Marlon Welkway approach), and with everyone else he just rolled up his sleeves and got on with it. But here in Jupes Lanes he just seemed tragically bored, bored to the point of psychic pain—like one eternally diverted from all fascination, all delight … The young man said,

  “Fuck you.”

  “Okay,” said Lionel. “Well relish the moment, mate. You not going to feel half this good—ever again … So you worked that one out did yuh, you thick cunt? Jesus. Uh, this DILF toff, Des, she’s taking about forty grand’s worth of togs off and she’s called me a—she called me a yoik. What’s a yoik? I mean I can tell it’s not nice. But what’s a yoik?”

  Des hesitantly suggested that it was a conflation of yob and oik. Yoik.

  “You reckon? Thought it was because of me Yoi. You know. Yoi. Yoik … Des, I got a feeling I’m in over me head. On the DILFs. What with me class hatred. And them saying, Come on, you yoik, come on, slumboy … That could get well out of hand, that could. That could get well out of hand.”

  Murdstone Road, Des saw, was now just a block away. “It’s all beyond me, Uncle Li. I can’t imagine the type.”

  “Well that’s not surprising, living round here. They no DILFs in Diston, Des.”

  “Wonder what’s in it for them … No offence meant, Uncle Li.”

  “None taken, Des. It’s a good question.” In a speculative spirit Lionel went on, “People say, Toff birds fancy a bit of rough. They fancy rough blokes. And I always thought, Yeah, it’s only rough blokes say that. Don’t flatter youself. But there’s something in it. See, what they fancy’s a change.”

  “A change from their own kind?”

  “Yeah, they own kind, they own blokes, with they degrees and that. Now. They wouldn’t normally act on it. Just a uh, a fantasy. But they can act on it with Lionel Asbo.”

  “Why’s that?�
�

  “Okay, he’s rough. But he’s famous. He’s worth a couple of bil. He’s in the public eye. He’s safe. Eh, and what you make of this? They pay for everything, Des. Consistently. It’s a uh, it’s a DILF trademark. They pay for the room and the champagne and that … She’s controlling her own little treat, see. Which is?”

  “I don’t know.”

  “The joy of messing around with someone stupid.”

  “You’re not stupid, Uncle Li.”

  “Yes I fucking am.”

  “Welcome back,” said the man at the glass door. “How’re you tonight, Mr. Smith?”

  15

  In the firmament of London hotels, the Sleeping Beauty (like the Imperial Palace in Metroland) was a brown dwarf, and not a blue giant (like the Pantheon Grand) or a spasmodic “flare star” (like the South Central). But it was modern, or at least recent; and Des was somehow reassured (everyone was somehow reassured) to see all the men and women in airline uniforms, having a last few rounds of stiff drinks before proceeding by minibus to Stansted for the small-hours package flights (to the Scillies, the Balearics, the Canaries). The pilots and co-pilots in suits of martial serge, the stewardesses in orange overalls, like detainees.

  After checking in (and submitting a cash deposit), Lionel procured a half-pint of cider and a whole bottle of Wild Turkey. They settled at a table in the corner of the Beanstalk Bar.

  “Ever wondered, Des, how I amuse meself in Diston?”

  “Yeah. Sometimes.”

  “Well I’ve run out of grudges. None left. So when you toddle off tonight I’ll go and do a couple of NEETs. Go and do a couple of NEDs.”

  NEETs were those Not in Employment, Education or Training. NEDs were Non-Educated Delinquents.

  “Nothing serious. Give them a tap or two. And then sling them in the canal. Tonight I’ll go looking for that fat cunt we seen in Jupes. Maybe that’ll put me in the mood.”