Martin Amis - Lionel Asbo

Mrs Gibbs gave him a weary glance as she turned to go.

‘How d’you do it, Mrs G? At your age? That chest! You got the figure of a beauty queen.’ Lionel grinned as she bustled past. He called out after her, ‘Yeah, but I bet it’s all off as soon as you undo you bra … Gaa, Des,’ he said as the door jerked shut, ‘remember the GILFs? Horny Hilda. The Bonking Biddies … Jesus Christ. Look .’

Her eyes were open. Her oystery eyes were open, and straining up into the red rinds of the lids, with terror, as if she was falling over backward. Falling over backward and trying to see if there was anyone there to catch her when she fell.

Des had time to hope — to pray — that when Grace fell she would fall like a feather falls, in drifting rockabye. But Lionel was already on his feet, leaning over her with his hands in his trouser pockets and tightly saying,

‘Off with yer. Go on. Go and meet you maker. Go and —’

‘ Bill! ’ screamed Grace.

‘… Fuck ing hell.’

‘ Bill! ’

‘What she …? Who’s Bill? Another fucking schoolboy?’

‘Bill,’ wept Grace. ‘Love, love. But it’s forbidden!’

‘What’s this, Des?’

‘Chandler reacts badly to predator! Sex, ate!’

And suddenly Des understood: he understood what there was to understand. Not sex, ate . Six, eight: 6, 8.

‘Crossword clues, Uncle Li. Remember she always did the Cryptic? They’re crossword clues.’

And Des found he could solve them. Chandler reacts badly to predator (6, 8) ; anagram: cradle snatcher … Bill, love, love, but it’s forbidden (5) ; bill = tab; love, love = nil, nil = zero, zero: taboo .

With a desperate wail Grace cried, ‘Unresisting, even so! Fifteen!’

‘What’s that?’

‘Crossword clue. The answer’s notwithstanding .’

‘What’s this fifteen business?’

‘Fifteen letters, Uncle Li. Notwithstanding.’

‘Predator. Fifteen. Forbidden … Ah. Here we go.’

This referred to Grace. Who was now engaged in a levitational struggle, with curved back, as if her nerves were being unplucked, a stretching and then a slower unwinding, a sudden retch, a jolt — and the trail of life had frayed.

‘How’d he take it?’

‘Hard to say. You never know with him.’ Des sprawled back in his seat and cast his eyes round the Alexander Selkirk Bayview Bar. Seen side on, the waves filed past the leaded window in orderly droves. The lighthouse throbbed above the boulders strewn round its base. In a white tuxedo the beanpole pianist played ‘O sole mio’ with noodly fingers … Lionel was over in the corner, his third bottle of champagne propped in its bucket; he was talking to Mr Firth-Heatherington, and to a Mr John Man — the funeral director. ‘He seemed plain angry at first. But when she went, he just stared down at her and said, Look at that in the bed there …’

‘And you, darling?’

‘I can’t tell, Dawnie. Everything seems to be happening to someone else. As if I’m not here. Or only watching. How’s that Horace?’

She said, ‘I’m being good. I’m not getting my hopes up. But Mum thinks he’s wavering.’

‘Well fingers crossed.’

They were about to sign off for the night when Dawn said suddenly,

‘Oh Des — the dogs. They’re not the Jak and Jek we knew.’

‘Yeah, that’s right. They’re not.’

A synchronised tingle in the ears and the armpits made Des realise that this had been in the back of his mind all day — the dogs. Twelve hours ago, when the tearful charioteer swept into 33F, Des’s immediate worry was that Jek and Jak would make much of him in a way that Lionel could be expected to resent. But the dogs just brushed by him with stiff shoulders, Jak turning his head for a moment with a rictus of scorn — a kind of canine false smile. And once they were out on the balcony they rolled into a muscular heap, growling, snapping, champing. Clearly, Jek was one thing, and Jak was one thing too, but Jak and Jek, or Jek and Jak, were something else again.

‘And guess what. They’re queer for each other. And they’re brothers. That’s incest.’

She laughed, so he laughed too, but it came to him like a pang in the brain. Incest. Insect violation? (6). I scent tangled crime (6). No-no disturbs sin, etc. (6) .

‘Jak’ll climb on Jek. And Jek’ll climb on Jak. With their back legs quivering. Not that I mind that. Much. It’s the way they look at the baby.’

Des said, ‘Tell.’

‘They look right through me. But with Cilla — they stare at her, all panting and drooling. Not friendly. As if she’s a rival . And of course she wants to pet them. I’m not having them in here, I can tell you that.’

‘No, keep them out, Dawnie. Sling them their meat, but keep them out.’

Something made Des turn. Lionel, leaning over him from behind, opened his palm for the phone.

‘Uh, Uncle Li wants a word …’

‘Dawn? Sorry for the uh, imposition, girl. No alternative.’ He nodded as he heard her out. ‘Well. She lived life to the full. Ripe old age and all that … Listen. Give the dogs they steak tonight — but no Tabasco … That’s it. But give them the lot tomorrow. The whole bottle … Yeah, well, they on a controlled diet. For the hare coursing. All right? And latch that door. Leave it open even a crack and they get they snouts in there and they worry away at it. Keep the dogs out, Dawn. Shut it tight.’

Before very long Lionel led Des to the Dunbar Dining Room.

‘Eat something substantial, son. You’ve lost weight from you flu. Here, have the duck.’ The duc-kuh . ‘Or the pork.’

‘… Jesus, it’s twenty past nine and it’s still light out!’

‘Mm. Reckon I’ll have game. The woodcock … Okay. Now tomorrow I’ll be doing the necessary with uh, with Mr Man. While you twiddle you thumbs. Take the car, Des. Go to Cape Wrath on the ferry. We’ll plant her first thing Saturday. Be back in London by teatime.’

Their shrimp cocktails came, and the first bottle of claret.

‘You know, I’m ever so slightly concerned’, said Lionel, taking out his phone and briefly and dubiously consulting its screen, ‘about Gina. See, these days, Des … I know it’s naughty, but these days I go and pick her up in the Ferrari. With the roof down. And her poor old lord and master, I make him follow along behind. On a moped … So of course now it’s all over Town. Bit naughty. See, I fancied giving Marl the extra niggle. But now I’m concerned he’ll go and do the obvious.’

‘What’s the obvious?’

‘Whoop. Don’t look now, son, but there’s me DILF … Me Dunbar DILF. Bruise healing up nicely,’ he said, giving a wave and a smile. ‘Ooh. She doesn’t seem best pleased to see me. Dear oh dear. Quick — there. In the red gown and the fishnet stockings. Feast you eyes … Yeah, the DILFs’ve come flocking back, Des. That’s down to uh, changing perceptions, that is. That’s down to the Chav Chauffeur.’

‘Oh yeah. The Chav Chauffeur.’ And Des recalled the much-discussed case of the Chav Chauffeur. In late May a young car-tuner and stunt driver (who was once on the Asbo payroll) broke into the cellars at ‘Wormwood Scrubs’. The next morning he and his two accomplices were found in a heap on the village green, all mauled and maced and tasered. Mr Asbo will not be pressing charges , said Sebastian Drinker in a terse statement to the press . He believes he has made his position perfectly clear … ‘That changed things, did it? The Chav Chauffeur?’

‘The Chav Chauffeur? Completely turned it around with the DILFs. See, you DILF, Des,’ said Lionel, as he addressed himself to his main course, ‘she wants a bit of piss and vinegar. Not all that Love child nonsense. Not bleeding West Ham. Not the mother’s boy. No no. But jamming a cattle prod up a burglar’s arse — you DILF can respond to that. Anyway. Fuck me image. No more Goody Two Shoes. It’s going to be Lionel Asbo from here on in.’