Martin Amis - Lionel Asbo

To Jon and Joel … Jon and Joel were affectionate and intelligent animals — and how could these qualities be combined and brought to bear on Lionel Asbo? Their glossy backsides keenly shimmied but their foreheads were creased with apology and strain. Dawn said,

‘They don’t know whether to …’

After a moment the dogs seemed to wither into themselves, and they turned away.

‘Yeah. Turn away. I hate yuh. I’m disgusted with yer. Yer …’

Dawn tried to say it brightly. ‘Lovely suit, Lionel.’

‘Where’s Des?’

Des was taking the stairs three at a time.

‘… Ah. The traveller returns. Tears hisself away from carting pissers round Diston. To keep his meet with his Uncle Li … I want a serious talk with you, Master Pepperdine. Dawn, girl. Why don’t you take the uh, “the dogs” for a bit of fresh air.’

‘Yeah, might as well, Dawnie. It’s nice out.’

She picked up her keys and reached for the leads on their hook. ‘I shall,’ she said. Joel and Jon were already milling at the door. As Des saw them off, Dawn confusedly whispered,

‘Ask him to clear his room.’

‘Well not yet ,’ he whispered back.

Des used the toilet and splashed his face with cold water. Behind him the kitchen waited and glared.

‘Peace at last. Relax. I’ll be chewing you arse off, Des, in due course. But for now you can just uh … kick off you shoes. After you hard day’s toil.’ He was leaning on the fridge with his hands in his trouser pockets. ‘It’s different round here. A woman’s touch, if you like.’

Dawn’s touch: cushions of eye-pleasing colours, framed reproductions on the walls, a spray of scarlet poppies in the glass vase, and, in general, a different standard of order and cleanliness and with something like the promise of confectionery in the air. Lionel took a cigar from its gunmetal tube and lit it with a kitchen match, saying,

‘Oy. Where’s me TV?’

‘Uh, we traded it in. The picture got even hazier. To make anything out, you had to go and sit halfway up the passage … This one’s still your property, Uncle Li.’

‘Well put the kettle on. I don’t read that rubbish.’

He was referring to Saturday’s Daily Mirror (page five), where Lionel was to be seen signing autographs outside the South Central Hotel.

‘I run me eye over it. See, Des, I’ve hired me own PR team. Megan Jones Associates. Of Acme Talent. Bit steep, but I don’t mind paying for the uh, for the expertise. Sounds funny, Des, but what you got to do is — I know this sounds mad, but with the press what you got to do is, you got to show them a bit of respect . You know, be friendly! And when you think about it, what’s that cost you? Listen, lads. You got you living to earn. I got me life to live. Fair do’s. All right? They good as gold now. Get on me nerves and that, but … See, Des, they was trying to provoke . They wanted me back inside!’

Des said, ‘And why was that, Uncle Li?’

‘Envy! Would you credit it. Anyway. Pressure’s off. I found meself a decent hotel at last. Not like them other dumps. In this place they know how to let a man breathe.’

The Lotto Lout coverage was in any case easing off. Lionel was safely installed in the South Central, and never went out except on business. So. A photograph of the Westminster townhouse Lionel had made an offer on; a photograph of the yacht Lionel was supposedly thinking of buying; a photograph of the Threadneedle Street boardroom where Lionel was introduced to his investment team. And there was occasional stuff from the past. A jocular piece about John, Paul, George, and Ringo (but not Stuart); references to (and photos of) Marlon and Gina Welkway (on the day of their wedding), to Des himself, and to the precocious matriarch Grace Pepperdine …

‘Oh yeah. Be sure to pop in and say goodbye to you gran.’

‘What you mean?’

‘I’m slinging her in a home,’ he said. ‘Just been round there. I told her, Mum? Pack you nightie . They coming for her in the morning. Two nice male nurses.’

Des had seen Gran as recently as Friday afternoon. It was a visit well caught, he felt, by the musical accompaniment — the jaunty, wonky rhymes and chimes of ‘Maxwell’s Silver Hammer’. She was in her chair by the window, with a Silk Cut in one hand and the Kwik crossword in the other — and with a kitten on her lap (a gift from old Dudley’s granddaughter). The kitten, tiny Goldie, was so young it could hardly open its eyes. Isn’t she gorgeous, Des? Mwa . The crossword, he ascertained, was all filled in; but the answers were just alphabet soup.

‘A home, Uncle Li? Where?’

‘Up a bit. North.’

‘How far north?’

‘Scotland.’

‘Scotland?’

‘Cape Wrath.’

Cape Roff . Des happened to know that Cape Wrath, a famously desolate spot, lay on the kingdom’s topmost left-hand tip. ‘How’d she take it?’

‘Oh, you know. On come the waterworks. I’ll miss me sister! All this. I said, Woman — you forty-two. You can’t fight the march of time! … She’ll love it once she’s there.’ Lionel went on expansively, ‘See, Des, there’s something new in my life. A new uh, dimension . And it’s — what? What?’

‘The money?’

‘No. The future! The future, Des. See, before, it was just day by day. The proverbial wing and a prayer. If you like. No thought of the morrow. The future? What fucking future.’ (Whoff fucking future .) ‘Nothing weighed anything. Everything just uh … So Gran — Gran, she ain’t that bad now . But what’ll she be like in a year or two? Eh? Eh?’

‘Worse.’

‘Worse. Let’s face it, Des. Her bonce is going. And when you bonce goes … I had a long talk with the bloke who runs the home. He’s a uh, specialist. Specialist in old people. And he reckons she could be coming down with that German disease.’

‘Alzheimer’s?’

‘Yeah. That German lurgy that rots you brain. And if she’s got that, then it’s all off. They start babbling , see. And we can’t have Gran babbling, can we Des. Can’t have her babbling. Might say … something she’ll regret.’

Lionel turned and strolled out on to the balcony. Des joined him. Diston, in the gritty shimmer of late July, with its slopes and tiers.

‘But Uncle Li, she won’t have anyone to talk to up there.’

‘That’s the point.’

‘You had a look at the place?’

‘Why waste me time? The prices tell they own story. She needs skilled care, Des.’ Lionel rinsed his mouth with saliva before saying, ‘It’s … pathetic.’ Puffeh ic-cuh . ‘She repeats herself. Says one thing. Says it again. You repeating youself, woman! … This home, Des, it’s like a five-star hotel — but with doctors. Okay, four-star. She’ll be as happy as a pig in shit up there. Mum. Where’s me tea?’

As Des warmed the pot Lionel’s eyes settled on the burnished metal tank. ‘As for that ,’ he said wearily, ‘open now, is it?’

‘Yeah. Shut for weeks. Then it opened … Better open than shut. Once it shuts, you can’t open it.’

‘You been sitting —’

‘No I never .’

‘… Oh. Oh. So this is the way he talks to his own uncle now, is it? His own uncle. Who raised him. Take a seat there. There.’ He reached out for the yawning lid (serrated, like the upper jaw of some black-gummed deep-sea fish) and smacked it shut.

‘There,’ he said. ‘On the tank .’

BEFORE MAKING ITS drop over the shoulder of the next block along, the sun took a last look at 33F Avalon Tower — the balcony with its litter tray and water bowls, the sliding glass door, the kitchen and the two silent silhouettes …