Lionel Asbo: State of England (11 page)

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 Two

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
! Mid-week. 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 –