Martin Amis - Lionel Asbo

I don’t know why we go up there , said Lionel from under his baseball cap when Des passed him on the twenty-first floor of Avalon Tower (Des coming home, Lionel off out). Why do we bother? She didn’t know me from ‘Threnody ’. Lionel spoke further about ‘Threnody’. Oh she loves it. Says being a tragedy queen’s good for her poetry books. You know, for they sales .

… Grace talking, Uncle Li?

Oh yeah. Talking to the ceiling. About Tommo. About Gunther .

Mm. Doing the dads . Tommo, or Tomorbataar: father of Ringo. Gunther: father of Stuart (pronounced Goonter by Stuart and Gunter by Gran, with Lionel settling for the no-nonsense Gumfer ). Be back to Dominic in a minute , said Des. You could follow what she said then?

Yeah, if you bent over. Gurgling on about Tommo and bleeding Gunther . Lionel adjusted the peak of his cap. Then she’ll say something really … really mad.

What, when her language goes funny?

Yeah well I’ll give her funny. She said — and it stuck in me mind. She said … she said , Insect violation? Like it was a question. Then she said , Six, six, six … Insect violation? Now what the fuck’s that meant to mean?

Search me, Uncle Li .

Here. I worked it out . Lionel gave his pumpkin grin, and explained. Unless the Hammers won their next two games (away to Chelsea, away to Manchester United), they’d be doomed to relegation by Christmas.

Me new image, Des. It’s killing me with the skirt. And who can blame them? These birds want a bloke with a bit of the devil in him, not … Not the good son. The grieving father. The caring partner — with his empathy. Not the sad cunt who gives a fuck about West Ham. Des, it’s killing me with the DILFs .

But you’re uh, you’re sticking it out with ‘Threnody’, Uncle Li?

With Lynndie? Yeah. She says another four months. Four months … I’m forever blowing bubbles, eh Des? Jesus .

And, no, Lionel never did take that financial interest in West Ham United Football Club.

The three Pepperdines went up there in mid December (and again in mid January). Cilla was profoundly impressed by her forty-five-year-old great-grandmother; and Grace, too, seemed struck. Falling silent, she gazed at the eager figure held there at the bedside; again and again the baffled creases of her brow hesitantly rearranged themselves; and then her mouth (now bent in a tick, like the Nike logo) sought the shape of a smile. With Cilla reaching up to her.

Des believed that this was the true measure of his daughter: the way she reached up to the old (or to the old-seeming — she did it everywhere), her softly moved and forgiving look as she reached up to them.

They were leaving. Grace took Dawn’s hand. Hello, dear , she said and averted her face as if for a kiss. Cilla was a difficult birth. Well. She was my first. And I was only twelve. Cilla, difficult. John, Paul, George — easy. Ringo, a bit difficult. Stuart — easy. But Lionel. You remember those knights in the olden days? It was like having one of them. He turned me inside out, he did. Lionel came in full armour. Goodbye, dear .

In February, under a day-long downpour, John, Paul, George, Ringo, and Stuart drove to Cape Wrath for their biennial visit in Stuart’s two-door VW Lupo.

In the small hours of March 2, the police were called to the Welkway residence at 44 Blagstock Road, where they dealt with a domestic involving Marlon and Gina and Gina’s youngest sister, little Foozaloo. Gina was treated for hypothermia. It was twelve degrees below, and she had been locked out on the roof in her underwear.

The announcement came in late April. ‘Threnody’ and Lionel Asbo had agreed on a trial separation. They find they are unable to get past the loss of Lovechild : this was what Dawn and Des read in the press release. They desperately want to make it work , Megan Jones was widely quoted as saying. There are only the tenderest feelings on both sides . For now, ‘Threnody’ returned to her rented mews house off Kensington High Street. Lionel stayed on at ‘Wormwood Scrubs’. They remain very close , said Sebastian Drinker. To be honest, Lionel’s taking it hardest. First the loss of Lovechild, now the loss of ‘Threnody’. It’s tearing him apart .

In a brief statement (prior to going on the road with her story) ‘Threnody’ said, I wasn’t able to succour him. Nor he I. It’s tragic. Because I still love the guy to death .

Death was awake, death was going about its business (in the Northern Lights, in Diston General), but during this time there was only one proximate casualty: Joy Nightingale. Joy — Ernest’s widow, Rory’s mother.

Des saw the notice in the Diston Gazette . He was having one of his days with Cilla, so he strapped her to his chest and they took the bus to the cemetery beyond Steep Slope. Yews and apple blossom against a middle distance of breezy sports-fields and pennanted pavilions, the lay churchwarden, the little group of friends and neighbours guardedly blowing their noses and clearing their throats … It was the kind of funeral where a mound of sand abuts the grave and where the mourners themselves begin the work of burial, throwing in their handfuls over the sunken casket. His turn came. As Des bent forward Cilla too reached into the pyramid of orange grit, and looked stern as she released her share through splayed and stiffened fingers.

The summers of 2012 and 2013 came early, but the winter in between was petrifyingly cold.

‘… EH, ARE YOU all right? What’s wrong with you voice?’

‘No, I’m coming down with something. I just told them. I’m going home sick. I’m dropping.’

‘Yeah? Well hear this, Des. Half an hour ago. I’m lying in bed. The phone rings. Gina picks up — and starts having a little chat. How are you, love? All this. Oh, Marlon’s fine. Want a word with him? You coping with the weather? All this. Then she hands me the phone and says, It’s you mum !’

Des raised a hand to his brow. ‘Grace?’

‘Grace. I felt this tingle go up me spine. Like she returned from the dead … Lionel? Listen, love. The end is near. Come and see you mother, love. We need to talk. Come and see you mother .’

‘She said it like that?’

‘She said it like that. Haven’t heard her talk proper English for what? Five years? I’ve got something on me conscience, Lionel. And I ain’t got long now. Come and see you mother, love .’

‘ … So you’re going up there?’

‘Well I can’t get out of it, can I. What you reckon’s bothering the old …? Rory Nightingale? Here, who’s that nurse? The boiler with the white hair and the big tits.’

‘Mrs Gibbs.’

‘Mrs Gibbs. I had a word with Mrs Gibbs. Says she’s seen it a thousand times. They get like that — you know, just before they pop off. Lucid. And they want — they want forgiveness.’

On the stairs Des paused to catch his breath, and he looked down through the window (as he often did) at the little skulk of foxes on the corrugated tin roof in the alley beneath Avalon Tower. One was curling up into a whorl of off-white and ginger, one was slowly stretching its rigid back legs. They peered this way and that with their usual scrawny apprehensiveness. Did it ever lift, their fear? In all weathers they seemed to shiver.

‘Ooh, Des … Okay, that’s it. I’m not going.’