Martin Amis - Lionel Asbo

Lionel ordered drinks: treble Martell, half a shandy. Business was slow, that night, in the Lady Godiva. As a commercial concept, the strip pub, it seemed, was a generation out of date. Lone middle-aged men with their barley wines; on the low stage, the thonged dancer resignedly regathering her clothes …

‘Say what you like about Lynndie England, Des, but Christ she’s got push. And it’s not just the knickers and that. I said this morning, What’s the matter with you? She says, What’s the matter with me? I’ll tell yer. Some other cunt’s just won the … Just won the … What’s that prize, Des? Poetry.’

‘The T. S. Eliot Prize, Uncle Li?’

‘That’s it. She says, Some other cunt’s just gone and won the T. S. Eliot Prize! Fifteen grand. What’s wrong with My Love for Azwat? That’s her book, see — My Love for Azwat . She wants to be massive , she does Des. I want to be massive in America. I want to be massive in China . She wants to be massive all over the world. And even then she wouldn’t rest. One planet’s not enough!’

Lionel fell silent for a while (his head giving the odd sideways swipe of endorsement), and his nephew, warmed by old affections, was dreamily thinking: ‘Threnody’ — massive on Mars, and then massive on Mercury; first she’d do the terrestrial planets, and then she’d surge through the asteroid belt to the gas giants, to Jupiter, to Saturn. ‘Threnody’, massive on Pluto …

‘She said, I’ll make you famous . I said, I’m already famous . She said, Yeah, but you famous in the wrong way. You hated. I’ll work on you image and I’ll make you loved! Loved … Jesus. She’s after me to do an I’m a Superstar . Now normally, Des, you’d have to go down the fucking jungle for that. But they seeing if they can find somewhere bad enough in England. Isle of Mull. Nailsea.’ Lionel paused. ‘Wants me to start a line of clothes . Chav uh, Chav Chic . Wants me wearing earrings and a big gold chain round me neck. And a T-shirt with Whatever on it. Or Innit on it. Now tell the truth, Des. Is that Lionel Asbo? Seriously now. What’re you thoughts?’

‘A T-shirt with Innit on it? The chavs,’ he said, ‘they’re proud of being stupid.’ And Lionel (for professional reasons) used to be proud of being stupid. But the chav was a type. And Lionel was not a type. ‘I don’t think that’s really you, Uncle Li.’

‘Mm. See, that I’m a Superstar stuff, that reality stuff — it ain’t reality. They just get famous people to make cunts of theyselves.’

‘Yeah, but give her credit. It’s worked. You’re popular now. You’re — you’re loved.’

‘… In the street, cabbies and that, they say, Take care, Lionel. Watch out, Lionel . They say, Look after youself now Lionel … Being loved. I don’t know.’

At Lionel’s lift of the chin they stood to leave. The thonged dancer was coming round with her collection pouch. Lionel said,

‘ Get you tits fixed for the boys — ooh.’

She slowed. Des smiled at her as unpointedly as he could (a youngish mother, he guessed, trying to make ends meet). She gave Lionel a quick but level glance and moved on.

‘Wait,’ he said. ‘Hang on, darling. Here’s fifty quid. I’ll stick it in you sock for yer. Fifty quid … towards you operation. There.’

On the crossroads outside they had to raise their voices.

‘Where you off to now Uncle Li?’ yelled Desmond, and with his thumb he made a gesture homeward.

‘Ah, don’t go yet Des!’ Lionel yelled back. ‘Come and have a nightcap at the Sleeping Beauty! I fancy a chat! About me sexuality!’

THE SLEEPING BEAUTY, Diston’s lone place of lodging (apart from a wide variety of flops and Marmite-dark B & Bs), was on Murdstone Road — a thirty-minute walk, due east, through Saturday night. They started forward, sliding sideways through the clenched teeth of the locked cars.

‘There’s certain strains in me relationship with Gina!’

‘How’s that Uncle Li!’

‘Well it’s a fine line! Marlon — he keeps raising his prices! Soon he’ll be richer than I am!!’

Forward they kept on moving, past the knots and strings of the crowds, Des on his toes, Lionel with his implacable trudge. In their ten-year duologue, Des had never had to hear in any detail about his uncle’s sexuality. And it scared him. Now he felt that a moist cobweb was being dragged across his face. He looked down and saw that his hands and forearms had turned a tone deeper with moist subcutaneous warmth.

‘The other, Des! You know they call it that? I always wondered why! Till now!’

But here was Carker Square, impressive in scale, certainly — the two swathes of brown grass the size of football pitches (with a stout treestump each) and the crazy-paved spoke-shaped walkways converging on the defunct fountain, and the whole space as densely peopled, Des imagined, as São Paulo or Bangkok, but nearly all of them white, as white as Cynthia … It came to the ears as a scene of celebration, the willed guffaws of the men, the abandoned cackles of the women. But if you could turn the sound down (if you could turn the volume off), then the Distonites would resemble the survivors of a titanic calamity, random wanderers in the aftermath of an earthquake, say, and the ground still lurching beneath their feet. Lionel put his face up close and thickly and hotly whispered,

‘Look at them — Christ. Decks awash. Full as a fairy’s phonebook. Can’t hold they drink, Des. Simple as that.’

The two of them reached Jupes Lanes, a quieter and naturally much more dangerous entanglement of curling alleyways that moled its way out of the far end of Carker Square.

‘With Gina and Marlon,’ said Lionel (his voice once again at room temperature), ‘I’m in a uh, a delicate situation.’

‘Delicate in what way?’

‘Yeah. See, I used to make him just listen. Now I make him watch. Question is — how much can he take? And then what?’

The slam of a door, the clatter of lowered grillwork, a male howl, a female shriek abruptly smothered; Des kept stepping back, allowing the transit of various speckled and shadowy scowlers and sidlers in ones and twos and threes. Lionel said,

‘And that’s not all I got on me plate.’ He rubbed his palms and gazed skyward. ‘You know, Des, you be amazed by what fame and money does to skirt. And I’m not just talking about the usual little bints,’ he said with a primly dismissive shake of the head. ‘The little bints at the parties. With they tattoos and they tongue studs. And if you do one of them, Des, they tell the papers! And the next thing you know, you a love rat! … Nah, boy. Oh no. I’m talking about rich MILFs.’

‘Rich MILFs, Uncle Li?’

‘Yeah. Posh MILFs, Des. Toff MILFs. They unbelievable! You in a jeweller’s in Mayfair or you parking the “Aurora”. Or you at some do. And this MILF’ll go, You the one, aren’t you . She’ll go, You the one in the Telegraph. You the one . And they ain’t housewives, Des. They like gentry .’ Lionel’s face took on a look of gratitude and wonder. ‘And who’d’ve thought that these rich MILFs, who can speak French and play the violin … See, this is uh, this is the paradox , Des. Who’d’ve thought that these rich MILFs were the dirtiest fucking goers you ever come across in you …’ Lionel’s pace slowed. ‘Hang on. They ain’t MILFs. Not exactly. They DILFs!’

‘DILFs, Uncle Li?’

‘Yeah. See they all — Hold up … Have a look at this, Des. Look at this. A uh, a cultural contrast if you like.’