Lionel Asbo: State of England (21 page)

Right
, said Lionel, as he sauntered round the exercise yard.
Take sixty out of the one
-
thirty and have a punt
.

Depressed bank stock?
he said, while watching TV in the rec room.
Yeah, give it a crack. Fifty. No. Sixty
.

Vend
, he said, activating the flush toilet in the privacy of his cell.
Now take ninety and have another punt. I fancy oil. And get me eight per cent on the principal
.

Good effort, boys and girls
, he said as he ate chocolates in the commissary (Quality Street and Black Magic).
Me gains’ll be reflected in you bonuses
.

On August 2, 2011, Des and Dawn were informed that they’d both got Two Ones!

‘Well, after all that graft, we’d’ve looked like bloody fools if we’d got Thirds.’

‘Yeah, or even
Desmonds
,’ said Desmond (a
Desmond
was a Two Two – after Desmond Tutu). ‘Complete bloody fools.’

‘And you’d’ve got a First if you’d had the three years. Easy.’

Dawn took a teaching job at an enormous girls’ school in Pentonville called St Swithin’s.

Des wrote to every newspaper in London, enclosing a sample of his work (it was an eyewitness description of two simultaneous but unrelated inicidents – a non-fatal stabbing and an acid-attack blinding – in a local takeout). And he was summoned to two interviews, one at the
Diston Gazette
– and one at the
Daily Mirror
!

Grace Pepperdine had a minor stroke on Guy Fawkes Night of that year. Her mouth seemed to be torqued round on its axis – and yet she was now lucid. That is to say, she could explore little air pockets of her very distant past. Her childhood – before the days of Cilla, and John and Paul and George …

‘She can’t stay in this place, Des,’ said Dawn (who hadn’t been up there for over a year). They were taking a breather in the street. ‘Look at it. Smell it.’

He looked at it. The home had let itself go – it was like a tea trolley rattling down a hillside. And he smelled it. In 2009 it smelled of deodorant and cabbage; by 2011 it smelled of urine and mice.

As dusk was falling, in the early afternoon, Grace took Des’s hand and met his eye and whispered:
I smell something … I scent tangled crime. Six, six, six
.

Lionel was whiling away the last months of his sentence at Wormwood Scrubs – the desolate rain-steeped stronghold that presided over a huge stretch of common land (brush and stunted forest growth) in Hammersmith, west London. It was his first prison and, as he sometimes said, probably his favourite.

When Des next went to see him (in January, 2012), he was led not to the commissary but to an administrative office evidently dedicated to Lionel’s use (there were warm beers, damp sandwiches, and silent pretzels). Pale Cynthia sat at his side. Dressed in the usual navy overalls, Lionel was reviewing country properties – properties thought worthy of a whole brochure each.

An extensive paddock?
he was saying (with the full plosive on the terminal
k
).
Why would I want a fucking paddock?

… Uncle Li. Gran’s home. She can’t –

Jesus
.

It’s
you
I’m thinking of. Partly. What if the –

Oy!
Des, give you face a rest, all right? You depressing me … Here, Cynth, look at this one. A bit over the top? Des – what’s a ha-ha?

In January Dawn Sheringham fell pregnant! …
Fell pregnant
: how awful and beautiful that phrase sounded:
fell pregnant
. Beautiful, but full of awe. Over and above everything else, though, it meant that Des would now have to tell Dawn about Grace.

He sat her down in the kitchen, and began. Ten minutes later he was saying,

‘I can’t excuse it, I can’t even explain it.’ He sniffed and wiped his cheeks. ‘… Will you still have me, Dawnie?’

Slowly her eyes narrowed and her mouth broadened, and she said, ‘But nothing actually happened. All right, you got dependent on the cuddles. You might’ve … But nothing actually
happened
.’

He sank back in his chair. It was, at least, immediately clear that this avenue would remain forever closed. ‘Don’t be silly,’ he said. ‘Course not. Nothing
happened
. Just got dependent on the cuddles. That’s all.’ There was a silence, a silence that only he had the power to break. ‘Knock knock,’ he heard himself say.

‘Who’s there?’

‘Little old lady.’

‘Little old lady who?’

‘Didn’t know you could yodel!’

And somehow that got them to the other side.

Later he went out and walked as far as the canal … Was this a version of what they called
cognitive dissonance
? Because Dawn had only ever known Grace as a thoroughgoing little old lady (a
viejita
, as the Spanish so economically put it). And today, almost six years on, he himself found it close to inconceivable that he had ever kissed those eyes, those lips. That mouth, which now looked as though there was a toy boomerang wedged into it … Des turned on his heel and started back. And imagine! He had planned to tell Dawn about Rory Nightingale too, and about what Lionel did to him. No. His head shuddered in negation as he walked. All that – the whole bad dream. All that was his to hold.

With Vincent Tigg as best man, and with Prunella Sheringham in proud attendance, Des and Dawn were married on Valentine’s Day in Carker Square Registry Office. And then Uncle John, Uncle George, and Uncle Stuart whisked them off for a surprise slap-up Chinese – hosted and paid for by Uncle Paul!

The baby, at this stage, was a fifth the size of a full stop.

‘Now the blastocyst’, said Des the next morning (he was reading a huge baby book in the Bachelor’s Occasional), ‘has completed its journey from Fallopian tube to uterus.’

‘Don’t call it that! … I don’t
feel
pregnant. And anyway. Who wants a blastocyst?’

That same day he was hired as a trainee reporter on the
Diston Gazette
!

De-leverage
, said Lionel into his phone, and snapped it shut.
No, tell them this
, he went on coldly.
Tell them I’ll be on the same money as me namesake, Lionel Messi. European Footballer of the Year. Tell them that
.

They were in Lionel’s office in Wormwood Scrubs, wondering what, if anything, to say to the world about the true dimensions of the Asbo fortune – Lionel, Megan Jones, and Sebastian Drinker.

And tell them that’s just the
interest.
On me principal. Lionel Messi gets paid for running round a fucking football pitch. I get paid for sitting on me arse. Tell them that
.

We shouldn’t stir them up, Lionel
, said Megan.
It’s nobody’s business but yours
. She laughed and went on,
As it is you’ve got every gold-digger in England after you!

More fanmail? Go on then, sling it over
. Lionel’s fanmail consisted of letters of introduction from young women, with photographs enclosed.
No, the fanmail’s – it’s all right. It’s good. See, it’s like a brothel. It’s you privilege to choose. It’s you uh, prerogative. You know. Like in a brothel
. Lionel raised a finger.
Except I won’t be paying for it. You don’t want to pay for it, Megan. Starts you off on the wrong foot
.

The first time he said
brothel
he pronounced it
broffle
, and the second time he said
brothel
he pronounced it
brovvle
. But that wasn’t why Megan Jones and Sebastian Drinker were glancing at each other from under their brows.

I’ll make a pile of the ones I might fancy. You can drop them a note, Megan. Say I look forward to making they acquaintance
, Lionel specified,
upon me release
.

One warm May Saturday (the baby, in recent weeks, had grown from olive-size to prune-size to plum-size to peach-size), Des and Dawn went boating on the Serpentine in Hyde Park. And guess who they ran into. Jon and Joel!

It had been three years – but the dogs went completely berserk. And they had a brilliant half-hour with them out on the green. And when the new owners (a dad and his daughter) took them off again, it was murder watching them disappear, Jon and Joel, with their crestfallen ears, their brimming eyes …

After they were gone Des dropped to his knees and rolled on to his side. It wasn’t the dogs, not really; but the air was so fast and free, and he felt he was being roughly tickled from within, by his own heart, his own blood … That afternoon the lake was minutely runnelled by the wind, like corduroy; Dawn sat and soothed him, and they both stared out at the corded water.

Later that week Des was summoned to Canary Wharf. For a second interview at the
Daily Mirror
!

Old Dud died. Brian ‘Skanker’ Fitzwilliam died. Yul Welkway was left paralysed after a fistfight behind the Hobgoblin. Grace Pepperdine had another minor stroke. Uncle Ringo (a southpaw) was run over by the moped of a trainee taxi driver (who was out acquiring the Knowledge) and lost the use of his left arm. Pete New was again sent to prison for having a fat dog. Uncle Stuart suffered a stress-induced nervous breakdown. Troy Welkway was blinded by an oxyacetylene burner in a worksite accident. Uncle John’s wife left him, taking four of the five kids. Horace Sheringham was hospitalised with violent pains in his abdomen (it was by now quite widely known that Horace was a secret drinker). Jayden Drago died. Ernest Nightingale died. This was the loose, the floating world of Diston Town.

The winters were medievally cold.

Part Three

Who let the dogs in? Oh, who let the dogs in?

Who let the dogs in? Who,
who
?

2012: Cilla Dawn Pepperdine, Babe in Arms

1

‘“ELIZABETH SHERINGHAM-PEPPERDINE”. WHAT d’you think? … Des, he’ll call you when he calls you. Don’t feel hurt. He’s busy with his birds.’

‘Yeah. Funny, isn’t it. Not that bothered before. Now it’s a new one every night.’

‘The Lotto Libertine. The Lotto Lecher.’

‘The Lotto Lothario. The
Mirror
called him that. They even called him the Lotto Lancelot!’

‘The Lotto Ladykiller. Ah, but now he’s moved on. And found
true love
…’

‘You know I’m a feminist, Dawn,’ he resumed. ‘And all that. But it just won’t work. “Elizabeth Sheringham-Pepperdine”? That’s – ten syllables. No.’

‘Mm. And we’re only delaying the problem, aren’t we. What if she grows up and marries someone whose parents did the same thing?’

‘Yeah. She’d be uh, “Elizabeth Sheringham-Pepperdine-Avalon-Fitzwilliam”. That goes right across the page!’

‘All right. “Elizabeth
Dawn
Pepperdine”. No hyphen. Just a middle name.’

‘Ooh. I like it. Wait. What if it’s a … Hang on. “Desmond Dawn Pepperdine”. I wouldn’t mind that. I’d be proud. Yeah. Good, Dawnie.’

‘“Robert Dawn Pepperdine”. Nothing wrong with it.’

‘“Georgia Dawn Pepperdine”. “Sybil”. “Maria”. “Thea”. I like “Thea”. But then Uncle Li’ll call her “Fea”.’

‘We can live with that, surely to God … Des, go and tell him our news. And say we need the space. For the baby.’

Des sighed. And the flat itself, roosting atop Avalon Tower, endeavoured to go on seeming stoical: the tidy kitchen with its balcony, the windowless bathroom, the smaller bedroom – and Lionel’s commodious lair, still crammed with contraband (though long since sealed by a new plywood door).

‘And admit it,’ said Dawn. ‘You’re upset. You’re pining. He’s been out a month and you haven’t heard a single word.’

‘Yes I have. He sent his change-of-address card.’

‘Yeah. Change of address. From Wormwood Scrubs to “Wormwood Scrubs”.’

‘You know, I ought to go up. Tell him our news. I ought to. Now that you’re showing.’

‘I’m
not
! Why is it, Des? I still don’t
feel
I’m expecting. Even when he flutters.’