Lionel Asbo: State of England (13 page)

Lionel half turned. The bride was smiling at the groom in coquettish reproach; Marlon’s wet eyes were shut and his shoulders were shaking. Des, too, half turned, and noticed Ringo slipping out through the tall double doors.

‘Now I always thought, Marl? Marlon Welkway? He’s not the marrying kind. Marl? No danger. Ladies’ man. Confirmed bachelor if you like … Ah, but then he goes and falls under the spell … of the gorgeous Gina.’ Cheers, whoops, and ear-stinging whistles. ‘Gina Drago. Look at her. Pretty as a sunset on a waterfall. Yes, there’ll be gloom in the pubs of Diston tonight. As it sinks in with all the blokes that the jewel of the manor, Gina Drago, has now become Gina Welkway.’

Lionel solemnly clapped his hands, and was joined by the entire company. This went on for a minute and a half.

‘There’s been a lot of talk about the so-called
garage meet
.’ An affirmatory murmur. ‘Didn’t mean a thing. See, we
always
rucked. As babies, toddlers, kids, youths, grown-ups – always rucked. Long fights, serious fights. Why? Out of
respect
. To keep ourselves honest. Yeah, we fought, Marl and me. Well,’ he said, with a comparatively lenient sneer, ‘no one
else
was any good at it.’ Deferential clearing of throats.

‘Now I’ve gone on long enough. Without further ado – let the celebrations begin! … Oh yeah – before I forget. You know, friends, half an hour ago I happened to pop up to the first floor. And there was a queue of uh, hotel staff on the stairs. Not them handsome young waiters in they cream jackets. No. Kitchen skivvies. Horrible bloody old geezers from the boiler rooms and the compost heap. With flies buzzing round they heads. And they all undoing they belts.’ Silence. Lionel frowned. ‘I said,
What’s happening, gents?
And one of them points down the corridor. And what do I see? Gina.’ Extreme silence. ‘With her
fucking trousseau up round her waist and her fucking knickers down round her shins and her great big fat arse in the air and her
– !’

… So, no. No, Marlon and Gina did not spend the evening hours drinking Girgentina and eating
bebbux
on the poolside veranda of their rented villa on the Maltese islet of Gozo.

And, no, Desmond and Dawn did not spend the evening hours drinking
vin de table
and eating cottage pie, by candlelight, on the thirty-third floor of Avalon Tower.

No. Each and every one of those present, even the bridesmaids, even the grandmothers, spent the night in the copshops (and clinics) of Metroland, on preliminary charges of Criminal Damage and Affray.

The cost of the repairs to the Imperial Palace would eventually run to six hundred and fifty thousand pounds.

Dawn was released the next morning, and Des the next afternoon. It was made clear to them that they would have to testify in court. Four days later, Dawn’s body stopped shaking.

And Des remembered his last glimpse of the Imperial Palace (he had his bleeding face crushed up against the back window of the Black Maria). He saw a sign saying
Eats. Drinks. Beds. Decent Rooms At Decent Prices
. And he saw the white-ribboned Austin Princess, with its starred and cratered windscreen and the brick still lying on its bonnet – Ringo’s contribution to the Whitsun wedding.

4

AT TWO IN the afternoon Officer Fips came to fetch him.

‘Best of luck, Lionel,’ said Pete New from his bunk.

Asbo sauntered freely down the stone passage. He was led up four flights of steps, then through a hall bracingly redolent of vomit and carbolic, and then out on to the colonnade with its dripping arches. The Governor’s door stood wide open.

Slight, bald, with frizzled eyebrows and a bulging forehead, Governor Wolf did not at all resemble the bearer of good news as he said drily,

‘Ah. Here he is. The estimable Mr Asbo … I suppose you just plug away at it, don’t you, Lionel. Month after month. With your brain hurting. And your tongue sticking out of the corner of your mouth. Plugging away at the Lottery.’

‘The Lottery? Course I don’t. Think I’m stupid? And what about it?’

‘What
about
it?’

Lionel barely remembered; he had only filched the coupon to give a certain old lag a niggle (and it was all a load of bollocks anyway). He stood there with his hands in his pockets. Governor Wolf – who had long ago stopped trying to make Lionel call him
sir
– said again,

‘What
about
it?’

Sighing, Lionel said, ‘Okay. You got me up here because I won fifteen quid. It’s a mug’s game, the Lottery. If you ask me.’

Governor Wolf threw his pencil on to the desk and said, ‘Well. I suppose this proves that God’s got a sense of humour.’

Lionel grew alert.

‘It’s more than fifteen pounds, Asbo. It’s a substantial sum.’

Like a soldier Lionel went from the at-ease posture to full attention.

‘How substantial? Sir!’

Owing to an earlier infraction, Lionel was confined to his cell. But the next morning Pete New was carted off to the san for an hour of physiotherapy, and when he came back he said,

‘You’re on the front page of the
Sun
.’

A recumbent Lionel was examining his fingernails. He said, ‘Headline?’

‘Lionel Asbo, Lotto Lout.’

‘Photo?’

‘You outside the Bailey. Being led away and giving the finger.’

Lionel merely shrugged, and New ventured to say,

‘Wasn’t there a box you could tick, Lionel? You should’ve ticked it.
Confidential
or whatever. Now you’ll never get a moment’s peace.’

‘I’m not bothered. By the publicity. I can handle it … You know, Pete, the funny thing is, I never done the Lottery in all me life! Fucking mug’s game, if you ask me.’

That afternoon Lionel received an official visitor: Dallen Mahon, the lawyer assigned to him by Legal Aid. They sat at a square table in the commissary, Dallen with her briefcase and her mineral water, Lionel, in his navy overalls, drinking coffee and eating Toblerone.

‘It’s simple,’ she said. ‘Pay off the civil suit, and they’ll prosecute you on a lesser charge. Say Drunk and Disorderly. A fine and a caution. And you walk.’

‘What, I pay
all
of it?’

‘Well no one
else
has got any money, have they. Mr Drago’s willing to make a modest contribution. I mean Gina’s still inside. Not to mention’ – she took out her notebook – ‘Dejan, Namru, Oreste, and Vassallo. And all the uncles and cousins.’

Lionel’s face assumed a fond expression. Gina, after it went off at the Imperial Palace, had certainly caught the eye. With a chair leg in one hand and half a violin in the other. ‘She’s a spirited girl, that Gina … Listen. I’m prepared to pay me share. I worked it out. Eight thousand. And that’s it.’

‘Lionel. You’re a millionaire a hundred and forty times over.’

‘Yeah, but seven hundred k!’

‘Nine hundred. Lost custom.’

‘Jesus Christ. Some people …’

‘Lionel, your financial situation has changed. Has this sunk in?’

‘Wait. If I stump up, does Marlon walk?’

‘Marlon walks. And so do … and so do Charlton, Rod, Yul, Burt, Troy, and Rock.’

‘Well I’m not having that, am I. It was Marlon started it. And now he
walks
? On my hard-earned … Marlon poncing off my success? Enjoy you daydream, Dallen.’

‘You all walk. John, Paul, George, and Stuart. Sleep on it. In your cell.’

‘I’ll do that.’

‘And tomorrow morning, when you and your colleague are mucking out,’ she said, ‘you might have second thoughts.’

‘I might. Now where’s this uh, adviser?’

Dallen made a come-nearer gesture to the guard, who went off and shortly returned with a suntanned forty-year-old in a pinstripe suit.

‘Lionel Asbo? Jack Firth-Heatherington.’

‘Excuse us, would you, Dallen? We going to have a little chat. About cash streams. And uh, me portfolio.’

Des was in the kitchen, with Jon on his lap. Dawn sat opposite, with Joel on her lap. That day’s
Sun
lay between them, open at pages four and five: a bullet-point retrospective of the whole career, with more photographs, including two mugshots (full face and profile) of Lionel at the age of three. Dawn said,

‘Ring rang. Again. He’s all on pins. He said,
How much d’you reckon he’ll be giving away? How much should I ask for?
’

‘Ask for? Ask Lionel for? Ringo’s off his nut. You never
ask
Uncle Li for money. He’s been that way since he was a nipper. You ask him for money and he’ll smash your face in.’

‘… Ooh, Mean Mr Mustard. And you say you love him. He’s a truly dreadful person. And you love him.’

‘Dawn, he’s worse than you know. But I can’t help it. It’s like you and Horace. He’s a truly dreadful person too – and you love him. You can’t help it either.’

‘Yeah, and I wish I could. Help it.’

‘Look on the bright side. No more of those bleeding dinners up Jorliss.’

Horace Sheringham?

It’s nothing personal, Desmond
, he would typically begin as he settled down to his bowl of Heinz tomato soup (to be followed, invariably, by Bird’s Eye fish fingers),
but you see, you and Dawn have different brains
.

Oh come on Dad
, groaned his daughter.

Please love, don’t start
, groaned his wife.

Different how, Mr Sheringham?

And Horace, who was an unemployed traffic warden (in Diston – where traffic wardens were in any case unknown), would patiently proceed.
Well. Your brain’s smaller and a different shape. Whilst hers is normal, yours is closer to a primate’s. Nothing personal, lad … Oh
, I
see. I can’t even state a scientific fact. In my own home
.

Horace’s home was a low-ceilinged flatlet above an electrics shop on Jorliss Parkway. After a few months of this Des started saying,

What about
your
brain, Mr Sheringham? Is yours bigger than mine too?

Course it is. Stands to reason. It’s why you’ve got such a childish face
.

Horace’s face was dark red, and twisted and seized, a crustacean face (with nose and chin shaped like a claw), and tiny black eyes.

You see, Dawn, he’s different from you and I
.

You and me
, said Des.

Pardon?

You and me. You wouldn’t say
, He’s different from I
, would you?

Of course not. But
you and me
’s rude
.

It’s not rude. It’s right. How’s your French, Mr Sheringham?

My
French
?

Oui. Ton français, c’est bien?
How’s your Italian?
Puedes hablar español?

Whatever is he going on about? No more of your mumbo-jumbo, Desmond my lad … Well then. Thank you. Thank you very much indeed. There’s my dinner ruined
.

So after the business in Metroland, it was all very simple. Des was not a witness to that climactic scene – Horace scrawnily gasping and coughing and falling over as he bundled great armfuls of Dawn’s clothes and books out of the first-floor window, Prunella Sheringham weeping on her knees …

Off! I’m disowning you, my girl. Go and live with your darkie. In jail! That’s where you both belong. Go on. Off with you. Out!

Des sipped his tea and said, ‘He’ll look more kindly on me now. Now there’s a millionaire in the family.’

‘Seriously, Des. We’ve got our pride, and we’re not coming cap in hand. But seriously. He’s
got
to give you something. He wouldn’t have won a penny piece if it wasn’t for you! … Look at this. Okay. He can keep the hundred and thirty-nine million. He can keep the nine hundred and ninety-nine thousand. What about the nine hundred and ninety-nine pounds fifty! … It’s only right, Des.
You
filled in the numbers.’

This was true enough. On one of his prison visits, a month or so earlier, Lionel said,
Hang on to this for us, Des. Load of bollocks. I’ve signed me name and that
. And Des, looking at it, said,
It’s the new one, Uncle Li. You got to fill out the numbers and post it in
. After an affronted moment Lionel said,
Well fill it out youself, Des. Yeah. Nah, wouldn’t soil me hands
. You
fill it out. It’s a fucking mug’s game, the Lottery. If you ask me
.