Lionel Asbo: State of England (9 page)

‘… Yeah, I’m okay.’

‘Oy. You not eating you dinner.
Eat
you dinner.
Eat
you dinner.’

Desmond ate. Ate the chicken, fried just as he liked it, Kentucky-style, the way Colonel Sanders himself prepared it, and normally so answeringly luscious to his taste. But now … He thought of the only time he ever had a tooth filled, four or five years ago, and afterwards, as promised, Cilla took him to the caff for his favourite, mushrooms on toast, and his mouth was full of novocaine and he couldn’t distinguish anything more than a presence on his frozen tongue – his tongue, which he then caught in his jaws without even feeling it, and there was blood on his chin but no tears on his cheeks …

‘You know, Des,’ said Lionel, with unusual thoughtfulness (with unusual difficulty in his worked brow), ‘Sunday morning. I’m lying there Sunday morning. I’d just had this dream about Gina Drago. And she was all dark and uh,
glowing
. Beautiful. Then I open my eyes and what do I see? Cynthia. Like a dairy product. Like a fucking yoghurt. And she says,
What’s the matter with you? You had a nightmare?
And I said,
No, love. It’s just me guts playing up
. Because they all got feelings, haven’t they, Des. All got feelings. God bless them.’ He swiped a hand across his mouth. ‘Kay Yeff
Cee
, Kay Yeff
Cee
, Kay Yeff
Cee
.’

From KFC they went on to the Lady Godiva.

‘
Get
yuh tits fixed,
Get
yuh tits fixed, Get yuh tits-fixed-for-the-boys!’ sang Lionel. ‘
Get
yuh tits fixed
For the boys
–
OOH
… Attend to the performance, Desmond. I paid a fiver at the door for yer, and you not watching. Attend to the performance.’

A visit to KFC traditionally entailed a visit to the Lady Godiva. The boozy hues of amber and mahogany, the hangings of mirrored cigarette smoke. The shallow stage, and the listlessly undulating dancer. Des’s whole being hated it here (the worst bit, for him, was when the girls went round with their collection bags for the tips, and the customers felt them up for an extra fifty pee). But tonight he was hardly aware of the Lady Godiva – just as, earlier on, he was hardly aware of KFC, with its bank of illustrated edibles above the service counter (each plateful, it seemed to him, in a different stage of garish putrefaction), and the presiding icon of Colonel Sanders himself, like a blind seer.

‘Ten years I been with her – Cynthia. Ten years. More. And I don’t even … I reckon something must’ve put me off skirt. Something in me childhood. Everyone else is at it. Why aren’t I? Eh?’

‘… You’re too busy, maybe,’ said Des with a gulp. ‘And you’re away a lot.’

‘That’s true.
Anyhow
. Let’s not spoil the celebration. The scales of justice, son. The scales of justice. She’s had it coming for years. Grace has. Now, Des. I know you slightly concerned about uh, young Rory. But it doesn’t matter what happens to Rory. That’s immaterial. Totally immaterial. What matters is putting the right fucking wind up you gran. Besides,’ he said with a grunt and a smile, ‘Rory’s adventurous. He’ll try anything … Hang on darling, here’s a quid for yer. All right? I won’t touch!
Get
yuh tits fixed,
Get
yuh tits fixed.
GET
yuh tits fixed
For the boys
–
OOH
.’

Now all this began to take on shape and form in the world of the manifest.

As early as Wednesday morning Des passed the corner shop and saw a familiar face staring helplessly out at him through the sweating glass: Have You Seen This Boy? The same sign was tacked to the door of the sub-post office. At school, a greatcoated police officer stood at the gates and, within, there were eager rumours about the two plainclothesmen who were questioning everyone in year ten. Des sat bent at his desk beneath his personal thunderhead; but nothing happened, and Wednesday passed. On Thursday there were stickers gummed to every other lamp post in Carker Square – plus a filler in the
Sun
(Another Diston Lad Missing). And in Friday’s
Gazette
there was a report, on page twelve, entitled ‘We Are At Our Wits’ End’.
Already on Tuesday morning
, Joy Nightingale was quoted as saying,
I knew something terrible had happened. I felt it here in my throat. Because he always calls in, without fail. No matter wherever he is, he always calls in
. Two photographs: Rory between his parents on a park bench at Happy Valley, smiling over a cloud of candyfloss; and Joy and Ernest at home, on a low settee, and hand in hand.
If anyone knows anything, then please, please, please …

‘He’s standing there at the door. I hadn’t seen him in five years. Five years. Not since he smashed up poor Toby. And he says,
Hello Mum. Here. Hold this
. And he’s put this
sticker
on my face, this thing
sticking
to my face … And my knees went and I sank down. I sank down, dear.’

Entirely unadorned, entirely undisguised, Grace was sitting by the window in her usual chair. But no music played, no folded
Telegraph
rested on her lap, no teacup steamed on the little round table, no Silk Cut twined its spirals in the saucer ashtray.

‘Look at me, Des.’

He looked. The fluffy pink slippers huddled together, the arms leanly and stiffly folded, the notched mouth, the sepia ringlets, the weak grey stare. And he imagined the blank grid of a crossword, with no answers and no clues.

‘Oh, it’s all up with me now, love,’ she said, and hugged herself tighter. ‘I can’t close my eyes. The boy. I can’t close my eyes for fear of what I’ll see.’

11

LIONEL WAS ON the balcony with Joe and Jeff. With Joe, Jeff, the break stick, the lunge pole, the plastic bucket, the twelve-pack of Special Brew, the sagging cardboard box. Beyond him, the usual London sky. The white-van sky of London.

Des dropped his satchel and went on out.

‘Seize. And hold,’ said Lionel. ‘Seize. And hold.’

‘… You giving them a drink tonight?’

‘Yeah. I’m doing a deep-eye in the morning. For Marlon. There’s a nasty nip in the air over in Rotherhithe. And I’m going to go and sort him out. See the new doll?’

Lionel’s sagging cardboard box contained half a dozen joke-shop rubber effigies, a black, a brown, a tan, a pale. The new doll was Fu Manchu-ish, with tendril moustache.

‘Why?’ said Des, with an edge in his voice. ‘What for?’

‘
I
don’t know. I didn’t ask.’ He shrugged. ‘We cousins. We help each other out. You don’t ask
what for
.’

Des went back inside and sat down hard on a kitchen chair. He had just seen Joy Nightingale on Creakle Street – Mrs Nightingale, alone. With his heart thudding in his ears he watched her plod by, eerily and wrongly alone; no Ernest matched her step, no Ernest held her hand …
Clutch. And clench
, said Lionel, wielding the lunge pole, with the drool-soaked Chinaman speared on its pointed end … Now Des closed his eyes – and what did he see? Rory. But Rory wasn’t dead; he was deathless; the immortal boy kept disappearing and reappearing – kept being plucked apart, and put together again, and plucked apart again …
Straddle, grab, sunder
, said Lionel, wielding the break stick. The break stick was a kind of hardwood chisel. In it went between the dog’s back teeth. Then came the vicious twist.

One by one the twelve tall cans of Special Brew were primed like grenades and upended over the plastic bucket.

‘Here. Ringo won the Lottery again. Guess how much.’

‘… How much?’

‘A tenner. The Lottery’s a mug’s game if you ask me.’ Lionel was leafing with quiet satisfaction through the
Diston Gazette
(the
Diston Gazette
had had time to fill up again, like a sump). Behind him, their tails high, Joe and Jeff licked and lapped with clopping sounds. ‘It’s funny. A missing girl – that’ll hold they attention for a bit. But a missing boy? It’s as if he’s never been … See this, Des? Jesus. That’s
senseless
, that is. That’s
senseless
.’

Des now had before him the front page and a headline saying THE LOOK OF GUILT and the dismally mesmerised faces of six young men, all of them black.

‘Six of them. Gangers,’ Lionel went on. ‘So six London Fields Boys come down here. They come down here to put theyselves about. And they go and top this fifteen-year-old. All six of them! That’s
senseless
, that is. And he wasn’t even white!’

On page four there was a photograph of the mother, Venus, and a photograph of the boy, Dashiel.
A parent never expects their child to die before them
, said Venus in her statement at the Old Bailey,
especially when they are taken away so suddenly, the victim of the violent brutality of others
. The mother, in the photograph, still young, elegantly earringed, lawyerly in a woollen coat with what looked like a thick velvet ruff. And the boy, Dashiel, his skin the colour of rosewood …

‘Now they going down for fifteen years. Six of them. That’s what?
Ninety
years for one little kid!’

All he would do was look at you with those big eyes and your heart just melted. Everyone loved his eyes
. The boy, against a green setting, with his hair in tight rows, his spearmint teeth, his eyes, flirtatiously sunlit.

‘That goes against all reason. Violates all reason.’

Dashiel was a ‘free spirit’ who enjoyed the sun, the sea and Mother Nature on summer holidays in Jamaica with his grandmother …

‘All right. Say uh, Dashiel was being a bit annoying. Needs to be taught a lesson. Fair enough. But you don’t
all
go and do it. You turn to you mates and say,
Any volunteers?
You say,
Whose turn is it?
But oh no. All
six
of them get life! That’s
senseless
, that is.’

‘Did you kill him Uncle Li?’

‘Come again?’

‘Did you kill him?’

‘Who?
Rory
? Now Desmond,’ he said soberly. ‘Why would I do that? I mean he’s nothing to me is he.’

‘Yeah. Nothing.’

‘All he is is some little slag who goes to you school. What am I, a ganger? Out boying? Like a wild animal? … No, Des. I just fixed him up with a uh – with a circle of new friends. I didn’t kill him. I
sold
him.’

And Des had a vision of another grainy gallery, in the
Gazette
or the
Sun
or the
Daily Telegraph
, with six faces on it, all white this time, but not otherwise similar (a beard, a shining pate, a pair of rimless spectacles) – no, with nothing else in common except pallor, unreadable eyes, and a fixity of sullen purpose in the thinness of the lips. Lionel said,

‘Reset. I didn’t kill him. I sold him. Ooh.
Où
– I gave him sexy.’

Left alone, Des gazed out at the pissed dogs. They reeled in circles, worrying one another’s tails, and listing sideways as if on sloping ground. Joe turned, and they both reared up in a ragged clinch, and then, with their claws scraping for purchase, collapsed in an entanglement of haunch and crotch and snout. Finding his feet, Jeff began to make moan, a song or dirge addressed to the evening gloom.

Now Lionel filled the doorway in shell top and baseball cap. ‘Off out,’ he said. ‘And be reasonable, Des. What you expect? He gave my mum one. And if you
fuck my mum
, there’s going to be consequences. Obviously. Here. Catch.’

As he moved off Lionel lobbed something in the air. Des caught it: tiny, gluey, heavy. He straightened his fingers – and the trinket seemed to leap from his palm. Warily he crouched to pick it up. A metal loop smeared with dried blood and an additional gout of pink tissue. Rory’s lip ring.

For those who harmed him, one day they will understand the meaning of love and the pain that you feel when you lose a loved one
.

A knot is in our hearts that will not undo. A light has been dimmed and put out of our lives
.