Lionel Asbo

by Martin Amis

  “Oh, boo-hoo. Where’s you violin.”

  “Listen. The minute you’re earning they stop the Assistance. So we’re paying the rent.”

  Now something happened to Lionel’s eyes: their blues glowed and swelled, like a pair of headlights going from dipped to full. “Ah but Des!” he cried. “That room’s me—me only … It’s my only …”

  “Your only what? Your only—your only link?”

  “Yeah, I suppose. Something like that … Okay, Desmond. You win.”

  And then and there Lionel undertook, in future, to pay a half—no, a third—of all the outgoings that pertained to Avalon Tower.

  “We’d rather have the room.”

  “Jesus. There’s no pleasing yer, is there. Okay,” he said, “I’ll pay the lot. The whole whack … Come on, Des. Humour me. It’s just for a month or two. Till I’m settled.”

  He held out a hand, and Des took it.

  “Well. You got what you come for. Mission accomplished. Now are you happy? … Ooh, it’s hot, isn’t it, Des. D’you know how dear it is, Dom Perignon?”

  “No, I don’t.”

  With a grunt Lionel got to his feet. He hoisted the bottle out of the ice bucket: it was five-sixths full. With a hooked thumb he tugged out his waistband, and poured.

  “Ooh, that’s better. Où. Nice little tingle and all. Well. It deserves it! … Who you grinning at?”

  “No one, Uncle Li!”

  Rolling the spent bottle on to the tabletop, Lionel threw himself raggedly into the water and pounded down to the shallow end.

  5

  It was half past one.

  His bare legs cooled by sprinklers, his bare feet on the feathery and succulent grass, and his mobile phone in his hand (he was awaiting Lionel’s summons), Des took a turn round the grounds. They were landscaped, he assumed—giant hands had taken them and moulded them. The three lawns were girt on either side by tall thicknesses of electrified steel grilling, but the view of the valley and beyond was uninterrupted—maybe a hidden barrier, he thought. While he made his way down there, motion-sensitive CCTV cameras, on branches, in bushes, indignantly craned their necks to watch him pass; and he was also politely accosted by three different security men (all of them early middle-aged, with capped teeth and fresh suntans: they looked like minor filmstars, or their stand-ins or body doubles). As the land flattened out towards the pasture, and as the horses now nobly loomed, he came to a deep trench perhaps twenty feet across. Within was a thrill ride of twirling razor wire; it squirmed like a barber’s pole, and faintly crackled.

  His phone gave its pulse. Des? said Lionel briskly. Have a word with Mrs. Lucy in the kitchen. She’ll give you a turnip for you lunch. And then come to me office. You can say hello to “Threnody.” Have a little chat about you future. Three. There. As he pocketed his phone Des noticed the twin searchlights on the gabled roof (the mansion’s staring antennae), and he thought he heard the muffled or subterranean shouts of dogs … But for now he was far from Diston—distant Diston and its savage rhythms. Look how gently the ancient tree decayed, losing its green needles, its slow fall broken by its own struts and stays. All was quiet, except for birdsong and the subliminal murmur of heat and fertility; and all was still, except for the shoals of frantic white butterflies.

  Having done what he could with an old-style ploughman’s lunch (root vegetables, lightly steamed), he went from the kitchen to the library. It was two forty-five … The books: some of them might have been bought by the yard (fifty-odd leather-clad volumes of Bulwer-Lytton), but there were many treasures—Macaulay, Gibbon, the Churchill–Roosevelt letters, Trotsky’s History of the Russian Revolution … At the far end of the room, gazing at one another across the length of the billiard table, were two gilt-framed paintings—the current master, the current mistress. In a cream singlet against a rich blue sky (and strenuously idealised), Lionel resembled a Young Pioneer of early Soviet propaganda, the humped shoulder muscles, the corded forearms, the sheen of honest exertion on his open brow. As for “Threnody,” seen against the same background, she could have been a survivor from the Old Regime—a high-born harpist, say, now tempered by a year or two of forced labour.

  “Mr. Pepperdine?”

  He took one last look around. Yes, the luxury of the garden was the luxury of space and silence; and the luxury of the library was the luxury of thought and time.

  Carmody led him through the entrance hall and down a wide stone-flagged passage and came to a halt in front of a wall of mirrors.

  “You just push the door, sir, and it opens outward.”

  Des pushed, and went on through the looking glass.

  He entered a long, low room, parched of all natural light, and with treated air (cooled, humidified)—the scene, he immediately sensed, of a grim and singular preoccupation. Lionel sat on a square-shouldered swivel chair in the far corner, wanly illumined by a bank of TV screens. And now it was Des’s turn to think of James Bond—of Bond, James Bond, and his licence to kill. Of course, Lionel would not be the secret agent, would not be 007; he would be the talented maniac bent on world domination. Where was his moat full of shark or piranha? Where was his bushy white cat, his chessboard, his monorail? And, having achieved world domination, what would Lionel do with it? … The burgundy smoking-jacket, the stout cigar, and the brandy balloon were all of a piece; on the other hand, the likes of Mr. Big and Dr. No, with their planetary ambitions, would not normally be seen frowning down at a tousled copy of the Diston Gazette. This Lionel now put aside.

  “Sit there, would you?” He nodded at a low couch of studded red leather. “… How could you do it, Des?” he asked. “Something so sick. So twisted.”

  Fear, like a terrible old friend, took Des Pepperdine and hugged him close.

  “Look at you eyes. Says it all.” He ran a thumbnail across his brow, from temple to temple. “The eyes of guilt. Tell me why, Des. You know what I’m talking about. Why, Des, why?”

  With his face tipped back (and wearing its smile of pain), Lionel described a full circle in his swivel chair.

  “See, I’m a man in a predicament. I got this nephew. After his mum sadly died, I raised him meself. As best I could. Not a bad lad, I thought. Here and there he let me down. Loose tongue. Such is youth … Then what’s he do? Turns bent on me. Goes to the university, gets his head full of ideas. Studies uh, Criminology. And now he’s finking for a living …”

  It took Des a moment to work out that Lionel did in fact mean finking (and not thinking). His tension seeped away—to be replaced by a kind of sumptuous boredom. All this would be nothing new.

  “D’you remember, Des, years and years ago, when I come home and caught you red-handed in front of Crimewatch? And I give you a smack? Well, I thought you’d learned you lesson. Apparently not.”

  “What’re you driving at, Uncle Li?”

  “What am I driving at? I open me Diston Gazette,” he said, opening his Diston Gazette—“and you on the crime desk!”

  “Yeah. Sort of.”

  “Look at this. Gutsy Grandma Thwarts Ganger Getaway. By Desmond Pepperdine. Look at this. Brave Bank Guard Frees Trapped Raid Blonde … No. No. You got to walk away from that, Des. Forthwith,” he said (with difficulty). “You betraying you own class! And I can’t have it, son. I can’t have it.”

  “You can’t have it. So what should I do?”

  “No need to ask. It’s simple. You tender you resignation.”

  “… Yeah. That makes a lot of sense. These days there’s loads of jobs.”

  “Oh. Sarcastic. All right,” said Lionel, with the air of someone perhaps already prepared to seek a compromise. “All right. Ask to be transferred to other duties. Away from the uh, the crime desk.”

  “Uncle Li, every desk at the Gazette’s a crime desk. It’s Diston.”

  “Crap. There’s sport.”

  “Sport?”

  “Yeah. Look at this. At the back. They got football. Snooker. Bit of darts …” Lionel turned boldly to the centre pag
es. “Or the Xtra Section. Look … TV Guide … Do It Youself … Signs of the Zodiac … You Problems Solved … Or there’s the small ads.”

  “Yeah, there’s the small ads. Sorry, Uncle Li, I’m happy where I am.”

  “Are you now. Well you lost to shame. You lost to shame. And I ain’t … Okay. Okay.” Lionel’s face now took on a leer of naked cunning—cunning undisguised, cunning entirely uncontained. So much cunning—even Lionel didn’t know what to do with it all. “Uh. Now Des. Obviously I been meaning to put something aside for you and uh, little Dawnie. Obviously. All that’s stayed me hand,” he said, staring at that hand (its scarred knuckles, its bitten tips), “is the best way to go about it. You know. Lump sum. A uh, an annuity. Shares. I’m a wealthy man and it’s a worthy cause.” Welfy, wervy. “But there’s no chance, no chance, if you go on doing what you doing at the Diston Gazette.”

  Des smiled and said, “Forget it, Uncle Li. You know me—I’m a socialist. Don’t hold with unearned income. Anyway. I’m going up in the world. I’m being taken on by the Daily Mirror!”

  “… The Mirror? Well now. The Mirror’s a bit different. The Mirror’s—”

  With an electric flurry the overhead lights came on.

  “Ah, ‘Threnody’!”

  6

  She said from the doorway, “Does he want a lift in? I wouldn’t mind the company. I’ll give him a lift in. I’m driving.”

  “Driving? Where’s Mal?”

  “His kid’s sick. So I sent him home … Does he want a lift in?”

  “Him? No. He’ll have his ticket, ‘Threnody.’ He’s eaten. Mrs. Lucy give him a nice slice of peat for his lunch. No, he’s going in a minute but he’s got his cheap ticket, ‘Threnody.’ He doesn’t believe in free rides. He’s got his cheap return.”

  “Well I’m off.”

  She stood quite still; then, as if released, she strode forward. In a sharply waisted black jacket, a tight hoop-striped black-and-yellow skirt, and yellow stockings, she reminded Des of a thought that had once or twice surprised him: the unlooked-for prettiness of young wasps … Lionel angled his cheek to receive her kiss, and she remained there fragrantly murmuring over him and smoothing the stubble of his hair. There were more kisses, more murmurs. Des took this in with approval. They seem to be making a real go of it, he could already hear himself telling Dawn. You know. Mutually supportive. Really caring and …

  “Threnody” straightened up and said, “I’ll give them three per cent. For the credit line. And the exposure.”

  “Sounds about right.”

  “They can reapply.”

  “Go on then. Oy. Are you seeing that bloke tonight?”

  “What bloke?”

  “The yacht salesman. The J-cloth. Where’s he from?”

  “Raoul? Beirut. And he’s a Christian if you must know. You bet I’m seeing him. I’m gasping for a shag.”

  “I know the feeling.”

  “Well don’t look at me.”

  “I won’t.”

  “Yeah yeah yeah yeah.”

  “Yeah yeah yeah yeah yeah yeah.”

  “Yeah yeah yeah yeah yeah yeah yeah yeah.”

  After this (at least) numerical victory, “Threnody” turned to Des and said,

  “Here. Les. You’re young. You work for the papers. How come they don’t go on about me like they go on about Danube? It’s always Danube. Danube Danube Danube.”

  “Jesus,” said Lionel with a passionate groan. “Danube.”

  “Danube. Yeah, Danube. Why’m I the wannabe Danube, Les? Why isn’t Danube the wannabe ‘Threnody’? Why? Why?”

  “All them foreign blokes,” said Lionel. “It’s because you been out with all them foreign blokes. No Englishmen.”

  “What about you? You’re an Englishman and no fucking mistake.”

  “Yeah. You first one.”

  “Yeah yeah yeah yeah. Come on, Les. Tell me. Why’s it always Danube? Go on. Why?”

  “Uh,” said Des, “you’ve put me on the spot here. I don’t know, maybe it’s because she’s a mum. Celebrity Mum of the Year, wasn’t she? She’s got children. Whatever else she is, she’s a mum.”

  “Threnody” narrowed her eyes at him. And with that mouth, like the zip on a lady’s purse: for a moment she looked like a rock-hard oil-rigger recalling some murderous offshore blaze. “Hear that, Lionel? I got to have a fucking baby now!”

  And away she scissored with her swift, fussy stride—and Des thought of Gran, coming back from the shops that time, with egg and bacon for Rory Nightingale. That same determination, and yet with something precarious in it. That same determination to thrive.

  “Love you,” snapped “Threnody” over her shoulder as she pushed on the door.

  Mournfully Lionel called out after her, “Not the ‘Aurora,’ ‘Threnody.’ Take a Merc.” A Mer-cuh. “Or a BM! … Ooh Des,” he said, with decided admiration, “remember that bird in that prison in Iraq? Lynndie England? That’s what I call ‘Threnody.’ Lynndie England. She’s torture. It’ll take about a year, she says. Then we’ll both have what we want … Okay, any other business?” Not for the first time he looked intently at his watch. “Jesus, it’s always later than I think. Tick-tock goes the clock. You better be on you way, boy.”

  “There’s all these barebacked plugs and the fire doors are all jammed. She’s got rope burns on her wrists. And frozen joints and pressure sores. And I saw a tin of Whiskas on her bedside table.”

  “Whiskas?”

  “She needs better care, Uncle Li.”

  “Well it’s not for fairies, is it. Old age.”

  “She’s just turned forty-five.”

  “Then what she expect? Comes to us all. And anyway, why bother moving her? It’s all one to Grace. She’s past caring.”

  They were now in the domed entrance hall—the size of a quarry, with its sluggish echoes, and the chutes of sunlight coming through the fleur-de-lis windows up above the orbital gallery. Des said,

  “I see Ringo—I see Uncle Ring’ll be in the People. Next Sunday.”

  “Yeah, Megan told me they was flagging it. Who cares. Let him spill his guts for fifty pee.”

  “Still, that might get picked up on, Uncle Li. All over again. You and the five brothers. They might want something on Grace. And they could make it look bad. You here—and her there. Picture it.” Des pictured it: a Shock Issue of the Daily Mirror, on Gran’s home. “You on your lounger by the pool. Grace strapped to her mattress in the attic. Could make it look bad.”

  “… They could and all. Yeah. They’d distort it and make it look bad. That’s what they do, Des. Consistently. Distort it and make it look bad … Christ, how come Megan never thought of that? She costs enough. Or Seb fucking Drinker.”

  “There’s a better place, Uncle Li. I went up there. Couple of miles out of Souness. On the promontory. Called the Northern Lights. It’s dearer, mind.”

  “How much dearer? Jesus, you a one-man Black Monday, you are.”

  “It’s up on Clo Mor Bluff. There.” He reached into his shoulder bag and handed over the sleek brochure. “Looking down on Lochinvar Strand.”

  “… All right. All right, I’ll have it taken care of. Well. I can’t be angry today, Des. No I can’t be angry today.”

  “And why’s that?”

  “It’s not often, Des, it’s not often you get you chance to right a wrong. To strike a blow for justice. And to do it nice, Des. With a bit of style.”

  “… Uncle Li, is that dogs I can hear?”

  “In the cellar. Jak and Jek. They good boys, but they pining for me now.” From deep in its alcove a grandfather clock struck four. “Okay. Off with yer. Back to you crime desk. On you cheap return.”

  “Got some news for you. From the crime desk,” he said boldly as they headed off towards the vestibule. “About Rory Nightingale.”

  “Oh yeah?” said Lionel, his breeziness in no way compromised by this turn. “What about him?”

  “They found a body in an allotment in
Southend. Uncovered by the rains. It wasn’t Rory. It was another kid. But he had Rory’s school ID on him. And his gold toothpick. They did the DNA. Guess what else was in there. Wigs.”

  “Wigs … You know, Des, I haven’t forgotten. Rory—he said something.” And here Lionel produced his rictal false smile. “Des did it and all, he said. What he mean by that?”

  But Desmond was more or less ready for this. Careful to keep a faint smile on his lips, he said, “Probably just meant I set him up. Don’t you remember? You had me finger him. Had me fink him. Remember?”

  There was a moment of stillness. Then Lionel violently applied himself to all the locks and bolts, all the chains and ratchets that shackled the front doors.

  “Rory Nightingale got off light. He gave my mum one. Take care, boy.”

  Des went forth.

  “Uh, hang on.” Lionel was looking at his watch. “Quick. Show you me cars.”

  7

  In Diston—in Diston, everything hated everything else, and everything else, in return, hated everything back. Everything soft hated everything hard, and vice versa, cold fought heat, heat fought cold, everything honked and yelled and swore at everything, and all was weightless, and all hated weight.

  In Short Crendon, on the other hand, everything contemplated everything else with unqualified satisfaction. As if the whole village was leaning back, hands on hips, and lightly rocking on its heels. Or so it seemed to Des Pepperdine as he made his way to the train station, feeling exotic and conspicuous among the whites and greys, the farm voices, the bicycles and hatchbacks—tea shop, greengrocer, family butcher. Two illustrated road signs caught his eye. One showed a pair of stick figures edging along, with infinite difficulty, all jagged and aquiver, as if in mid-electrocution (ELDERLY PEDESTRIANS). The other was an uncaptioned mugshot of a cow.

  The idiocy of rural life. Who said that? Lenin? And is it idiocy, he asked himself (in his new editorial voice), or is it just innocence? What he sensed, in any case, was a bewildering deficit of urgency, of haste and purpose. And, somehow, a deficit of intelligence. For it was his obstinate belief that Town contained hidden force of mind—nearly all of it trapped or cross-purposed. And how will it go, he often wondered, when all the brain-dead awaken? When all the Lionels decide to be intelligent? … Meanwhile, here was Short Crendon and its pottering and pootering. I suppose I’m just a creature of the world city, he thought, and walked on.