Martin Amis - Lionel Asbo

Oh yeah? He doesn’t give a monkey’s about his mum. I haven’t seen him this century! And what’s he going to do about it? If this gets out, who’ll suffer more? Him ! What’s he going to do? What’s he going to do?

LIONEL HAD A lock-up or godown on Skinthrift Close. You approached it crunching on a snowfield of shattered glass, and skirting your way past scorched or smouldering mattresses and swamps and copses of outlandish junk and clutter, including a wide variety of abandoned vehicles. Scooter, camper, tractor; there was even a dodgem, clog-shaped, its electric pole like a withered shank; and a lifesize rocking horse, with the eyes of an ageing barmaid … Des was summoned to this address by mobile phone: his sixteenth-birthday present had been brought forward, in response to the general emergency (and issued to him like a piece of military equipment).

‘I’m in here!’

The shop, as Lionel called it, was not looking its best — partly because Lionel had just finished smashing the place up. It comprised a double garage (housing the sooty Ford Transit), a congested office, and a chilly cubicle containing a deep sink and a cracked toilet. Des heard the jerk of the chain; and now a singleted Lionel emerged, mopping himself down with a length of kitchen towel. He said equably,

‘I’m over it now.’ He pointed to his left: a broken chair, splintered racks and brackets, stoved-in tea chests. ‘Because this isn’t a time for anger, Des. It’s a time for clear thought. Come in here.’

Lionel’s office: heaps of jumbled drawers full of watches, cameras, power tools, game consoles; a low bookcase full of bottled drugs (for bodybuilders — synthetic hormones and the like); a fruit crate full of knuckledusters and machetes. All of it swiped, blagged, hoisted … How intelligent was Uncle Li? Even the most generous answer to this question — which had bedevilled Des since the age of five or six — would have to include a firm entry on the debit side: there was no evidence whatever that Lionel was any good at his job. He was a subsistence criminal who spent half his life in jail.

‘Gran. Christ. I know it’s Town,’ he said, ‘but this is ridiculous.’

They faced each other across a raw table strewn with knocked-off jewellery and sold-on credit cards. Without warning Lionel gave one of his tight little sneezes: it sounded like a bullet fired through a silencer. He wiped his nose and said,

‘There’s been a sighting. It’s a schoolboy, Des. Purple blazer. The Squeers blazer. She’s doing it with a schoolboy.’

Des tried to look surprised. Because he wasn’t surprised. This was the Distonic logic of it: he was fifteen years old — and Gran had passed him over for a younger man. Lionel said,

‘Dud saw him. Purple blazer. Dud saw him taking his leave.’

Feeling an unfamiliar latitude, Des asked, ‘Sure it wasn’t me?’

‘He said it wasn’t you. He said, And not you spearchucker nephew, neither . Squeers Free. So, Des, you’ll be lending a hand with me enquiries.’

‘What d’you reckon you’ll do, Uncle Li?’

‘With such a matter as this, Des, you got to consider you objectives.’ He sat back. ‘Which are. One. Put an end to the nonsense with the sexual relations. Obviously. Two. Keep it quiet. Fucking hell, I’d have to emigrate . The States, I suppose. Or Australia. A paedo for a mum? A nonce for a mum. Nice … Three. Ensure, beyond doubt, that nothing of this nature happens again. Ever … It’s like — like a puzzle. A labyrinth. You consider you objectives. Then you turn to you options.’

From experience Des half-subliminally sensed that something fairly bad was on its way. Lionel’s linear style, his show of rationality, even the modest improvements in his vocabulary and enunciation (‘labyrinth’, for instance, came out as labyrinf , rather than the expected labyrimf ): whenever Lionel talked like this, you could be pretty certain that something fairly bad was on its way. Now he reached for a torn pack of Marlboro Hundreds, on which a clump of capital letters had been grimly scored.

‘Long black hair. Wears a lip ring. And cowboy boots. And shorts . Who is he?’

‘Uh, let me think.’

‘Ah come on. How many kids wear cowboy boots with they shorts? I ask again. Who is he?’

Des had no doubt: it was Rory Nightingale. It could only be Rory Nightingale … Rory was a chronic truant (and just fourteen), but everyone at Squeers Free was aware of Rory Nightingale. Shapely-faced, and sidlingly self-sufficient, and far more than averagely wised up. He always reminded Des of the youths you saw behind the scenes at funfairs and circuses — in their own sphere, with their own secrets, and with that carny, peepshow knowledge in the thin smile of their eyes.

‘Yeah, I know him.’

‘Name?’

‘Name?’ The window of latitude — of air and freedom — was already closing. ‘Uh. Uh, put it down to your influence, Uncle Li. But this is like grassing someone up. You know. Playing Judas.’

Lionel arched his eyebrows as his gaze rolled slowly ceiling-ward, and he joined his hands round the back of his neck (revealing two vulpine armpits). ‘Fine words, Des. Fine words. But you know, son, life’s not as uh, straightforward as that. Sometimes, sometimes you high ideals have to … Okay. How often’s he go to school? Cowboy boots and shorts. Lip ring. I can pick him out meself.’

‘About once a fortnight.’

‘… Well I’m not going to stand there at the gates for a fucking fortnight, am I. Think of the effect that’d have on me temper … Listen, Des. I want to put you mind at rest. I’m going to do this neat . Clean. And I won’t lay a finger on him. All right? So next time he shows up, you give me a call on you nice new phone. Will you do that at least for yer own uncle? Bloody hell, boy. She’s you fucking nan.’

A rough-edged wind frisked him down as he made his way back up Skinthrift Close. The dumped rocking horse, the dumped dodgem. And now, in just the last half-hour, a consignment of dumped kiddies’ dolls, heat-damaged, in a gummy pink mass.

The new development entailed a new perplexity. Although Des very seldom engaged with Rory Nightingale, he happened to be on friendly terms with his parents — with Ernest and Joy. It was nothing out of the way: Mr and Mrs Nightingale used the corner shop, under the shadow of Avalon Tower, and they first hailed Des simply on the strength of his Squeers blazer. And so it went on — greetings, small talk, encouraging words …

Rory himself was on the very tideline of the modern, but his parents seemed to have waddled out of the 1950s. Both about forty-five, both about five foot four, and both unprosperously but contentedly tublike in shape. You never saw them singly; and on the streets they always walked in step, and hand in hand. Once, as he ate an apple that Joy had just given him, Des watched the Nightingales negotiate the zebra crossing. Halfway over, a dropped handkerchief and a passing truck contrived to separate them; Ernest waited attentively on the far curbside, and then off they went again, in step, and hand in hand. And Rory (Des knew) was their only child.

How’s it going to go? he wondered as he approached the main road. Ahead of him a succession of white vans flashed past. There were many white vans in Diston, and many white-van men — and they were white white-van men, too, because Diston was predominantly white, as white as Belgravia (and no one really knew why). Lionel had a white van, the Ford Transit. Amazing, thought Des, how all the white vans wore the same thickness of soot, just enough to coat them in a shadow of grey. Clean Me , a wistful finger had written on the Transit’s smudged breast.