Lionel Asbo: State of England (26 page)

‘And with a big bonk on.’

‘Dawnie,’ said Des (and he hadn’t told her about the lipstick). ‘Yeah. Like that pissed demigod. Bacchus.’

‘Or Nessus,’ said Dawn. ‘The centaur. Who kidnapped the wife of Hercules.’

‘Yeah. Dejanira … Dejanira Pepperdine. Niobe. Echo. Echo Pepperdine.’

Dawn said, ‘Bloody hell. Why’d they go along with it? And Gina giggling away in there. Jacob.’

‘Jacqueline. I don’t know. Must be for the money. See, there’s all Jayden’s debts. And Marlon’s a gambler. But Gina. She sounded – all keen. I don’t get Gina … Tina. Nina. Zina.’

For a moment Des tried to think like a criminal (this was in any case becoming a professional habit). And he realised that in the little encounter at ‘Wormwood Scrubs’ he had dangerously strengthened an enmity – as a witness to the unmanning of Marlon Welkway. That would be remembered.

‘And he had her strip in the library! … Des, remember his speech? At the wedding?’

‘Oh yeah. How’d it go?
With her trousseau up round her waist and her knickers round her
… Must’ve done a sort of re-enactment. Mary. Eve. Dawn, this chicken smells funny. And the broccoli’s all bitter.’

‘… You love your chicken and broccoli!’

He reached for the jar of pickled onions and speared a big one with his fork. ‘Miriam.’

‘… Mean Mr Mustard. What’d he say about the rent? Tell me again? Hector.’

‘Antigone. He said he’d help out. Whatever that means. I’ll believe it when I see it. Callisto.’

‘Mm. If it’s a girl I want it to sound … ethereal.’

‘Ethereal. Okay. Let’s call her Frenody.’

They laughed. Despite everything, which was saying something, they were both, for the most part, irresponsibly happy.

‘But what if it’s a boy? Go on, Des. Let’s phone Iqbal and find out.’

Iqbal was the enormous Punjabi warrior who – immaculate in his green rompers – oversaw the sonogram at the Maternity Centre. Des and Dawn loved Iqbal. They loved Mrs Treacher, the head midwife (she looked like the Nurse in Zeffirelli’s
Romeo and Juliet
: a ravenous, eager-eyed rustic – ravenous for life, life). And they loved the Maternity Centre. Unlike all the other hospitals they’d ever been in, the Maternity Centre was eerily odourless. Hospitals, in their experience, smelled of school dinners. As if pain, mortality, death, birth, all the great excruciations, subsisted on a diet of boiled carrots and semolina …

‘Why should
Iqbal
know what sex it is when we don’t?’

‘
Iqbal
doesn’t care. He’s not sitting there gloating over it. Sniggering and rubbing his hands. To him it’s just another baby!’

‘Oh, let’s, Des. Then we’ll only spend
half
the time talking about names. Edward.’

‘Edwina. No, Dawnie. It’s better not to know.’

‘Why is it?’

‘Just because you
can
find out doesn’t mean you should.’

‘Well it doesn’t mean you shouldn’t. Either.’

Twisting in his chair, he said, ‘Cilla never knew. Gran never knew. And
her
mum, and
her
gran – they never knew.’ Meaning what? Meaning something like: you oughtn’t to separate yourself from your predecessors – your predecessors, in their countless millions. ‘Angelina.’ And there was another reason too (he was superstitiously convinced), though he hadn’t yet quite fathomed it. ‘Some kinds of knowledge it’s better not to have, Dawnie. Angeletta.’

‘Andrew. D’you think he’ll do anything for Gran, Lionel?’

‘He might. He might well. He’s worried about his image. Gudrun.’

‘Gudrun Dawn Pepperdine … No. Then she’d be GDP! Gross Domestic Product. Sounds horrible. You got to keep your eye on the initials, Des … And Daphne?’

‘Daphne? Nah. Oh. You mean
Daphne
.’

‘Yeah, Daphne.’

‘She was …’

He again unscrewed the jar of pickled onions … For obvious reasons Des had never regaled Dawn with the story of his application to the famous agony aunt. And Daphne’s reply, back then (
You are both committing statutory rape
) was so durably terrifying that Des almost fell over backwards when Lionel, looking up from his lounger, said airily,
This is you Auntie Daphne. Daphne – from the
Sun.

‘I’d imagined an avenging angel,’ he said. ‘You know – a judger. But she seemed a nice little dear. Maybe she’ll send Uncle Li one of her pamphlets.’

‘Mm. Dos and don’ts for lotto louts. Prostitute your best mate’s wife. And make him watch.’

‘I reckon she’ll write an honest piece. Sympathetic.’

‘Sympathetic? I hope she gives him a right slagging.’

‘Dawnie! No, don’t. Don’t start. Angelica.’

‘… Des, I’ve decided. Boy or girl, let’s call it Toilet.’

‘… Good, Dawnie. Toilet Pepperdine. That’ll do.’

She got to her feet and said, ‘So goodbye to those bathers.’

‘Looks like it. We got any ice cream?’

‘… Your cravings are back!’

‘It’s not a craving! I just fancy some ice cream!’

‘Ice cream. Strawberry ice cream, Des. And pickled onions.’

‘Yeah well I know.’

He leaned down and stroked the cat. Goldie’s arched and ribby back, her tingling tail. He wasn’t going to tell Dawn about his other cravings – his cravings for ash and notepaper and laundry starch. His secret cravings, and his secret aversions too, like mental allergies, his dreads, his nightsweats. And now, unbelievably (there must be some mistake), this mess of fears – Des, Desi, Desmond – was being asked to take receipt of a whole new human being …

‘Cats are girls.’

‘And dogs are boys,’ said Dawn Pepperdine.

On the following Tuesday, May Day, at seven in the morning, a uniformed tipstaff or beadle, with rainwater dripping from his shovel hat, delivered a forty-page document, stamped and sealed with the imprimatur of Lord Barcleigh’s chambers.

It took them an hour to make any sense of it.

‘What can we do? The flat’s in his name … Here. He’s going to pay a third,’ said Des. ‘By banker’s order.’

‘A third. I bet he’ll cut it to a
quarter
once Toilet’s here.’

‘He’ll
have
to clear out once Toilet’s here. I’ll reason with him. Wish me luck … Still, Dawnie. It’s money coming in. Not money going out. Like with Horace.’

‘See that? He told you it was just for a while. See that?
In perpetuity
! And look at the penalties if we even …’

‘He’s using the law! Against
us
.’

‘Christ. He could buy the whole Tower. What’s he want the room for anyway?’

9

NOW THINGS STARTED speeding up.

Lionel’s cellphone was switched off or otherwise deactivated, so Des called the house. He hoped to hear Carmody’s emollient murmur – but no. He got ‘Threnody’.

‘Ooh,’ she said, ‘you’re lucky it’s me who answered.’

‘Why’s that?’

‘Have you seen the fucking
Sun
?’

The
Sun
lay open on the kitchen table. With Goldie asleep on it.

‘Absolutely terrible he’s been,’ ‘Threnody’ went on. ‘This morning he wrecked the barn. And that barn’s
scheduled
. And then Tommy Trumble came over. For their sparring session – you know, they sort of shadowbox each other? Anger management? And Lionel went and knocked him out! And Tommy’s sixty-seven! We thought he was
dead
. And it’s all your fault. According to Lionel.’

‘How’s he work that one out?’

‘Threnody’ lowered her voice. ‘According to Mr Mastermind, if
you
hadn’t wandered in he might’ve come across not that bad. But you. He reckons they’re up your arse because you’re black. You’d better steer clear. I’m off out of the country, me. Let him calm down … I tell you, he hated it like fucking poison,’ she said, ‘the way they impugned his intelligence. You know. The way they implied he’s a cunt.’

‘Yeah. They did a bit.’

‘And look what the arsehole said about
me
!’

Late that night (and this would be widely covered in the press), ‘Threnody’ boarded a plane for Kabul.

At work the following lunchtime Des received a text:
2 a clock some lads coming dont worry they movers
. He went straight home and found them already there: a team of men in sharp white overalls and mining helmets. Des looked on as with military thoroughness they stripped Lionel’s bedroom of all its stolen property. When they were gone he tiptoed in. The teetering, beetle-chewed wardrobe, the chest of drawers with its missing knobs and warped runnels. In the corner lay a heap of trainers, all parched and curled in on themselves; and there on the hooks were Lionel’s three or four mesh vests.

On Thursday they received a postcard from Cape Wrath. An artist’s impression of the great frayed tray of the North Sea, under a pouting sunset. And on the other side a short message, evidently dictated.
A nice young couple came and moved me into this lovely new home
. And there was her toiling
G
., plus a spidery kiss.

Towards the end of that week the Pepperdines, enveloped in a faint yellow glow of unreality, were reading about the doings of ‘Threnody’ in Afghanistan.

She had flown there on a morale-boosting mission, along with the Formula 1 Pit Pets and an all-girl glamour rock band called Shy. ‘Threnody’ gave a poetry reading and a frank Q and A at the base in Kandahar. It was rumoured that for the signing session she would shed her burqa to reveal an offering from ‘Self Esteem’, her new line in underwear. She didn’t. There was also the visit they all made to an orphanage in Badroo, where ‘Threnody’ had what sounded like a tantrum of compassion.

Meanwhile, in the offices of Megan Jones and Sebastian Drinker, Lionel held a kind of press conference – attended by the
Sun
, the
Mirror
, the
Star
, the
Lark
, the
Lark on Sunday
, and the
Daily Telegraph
. Extract:

So ‘Threnody’ has your full support, Lionel?

Lionel Asbo:
Absolutely. Anything for our boys. Okay, I don’t see eye to eye with John Law. Obviously. Everyone knows that. But Her Majesty’s armed forces? 100 per cent. And I know they’ll look out for my ‘Threnody’ and send her home safe and sound
.

Is it true about the Cobra, Lionel?

Megan Jones:
Mr Asbo wanted to donate a case of Cobra to every British soldier serving in Afghanistan, all 5,182 of them. But we were advised against it
.

Lionel Asbo:
See, over there, lads, they don’t touch a drop. Not even beer. Getting s***faced on heroin’s okay but show them a can of –

Sebastian Drinker:
Mr Asbo is considering various alternatives
.

Are you going out there yourself, Lionel?

Lionel Asbo (laughing):
What, and leave England? No chance. I’ll never set foot outside my motherland. Well, Scotland and that. You know, maybe Wales. But I’m not going over that water, mate. I love this f***ing country. It’s England, my England, for Lionel Asbo. England. England. England
.

And even as he spoke, a flag of St George (measuring over two thousand square feet) was billowing high over the searchlights at ‘Wormwood Scrubs’ …

‘It’s improving,’ said Dawn. ‘Their image.’

‘Yeah. Queen and country. They can’t knock that.’

‘And she’s stopped going on about how clever he is.
Let’s face it, Lionel’s not the brightest of sparks
… It’s improving.’

And you couldn’t deny it. The famous young couple, so recently known as (say)
the Jugjob Jezebel and the Diston Dingbat
, were now referred to, alliteratively but without capital letters, as
the courageous covergirl and her patriotic paramour
.

‘Yeah,’ said Des. ‘Some thought’s gone into all this. I wonder how long it’ll last.’

The interview with Ringo Pepperdine in Sunday’s
People
sparked little controversy. Ringo’s complaint –
Lionel never gave me a penny piece
– counted for nothing when set against the revelations in the text: over the course of thirteen years, Ringo had cost the taxpayer well over half a million pounds in benefits and disability allowances. And the colour photograph, with its waxwork effect, won him few admirers: a dishevelled Mongolian, with sunken red-spoked eyes, a needle-thin moustache, and a watchfully parasitic leer.