Lionel Asbo: State of England (16 page)

Lionel heard the gulp of five Adam’s apples in five shrivelled throats.

‘Tension. It’s only natural. You kid brother’s been tipped the wink by Lady Luck. And you asking youself, What’s he going to do for his own?’

Lionel heard the soft seethe of five intakes of breath.

‘John. Paul. George. Ringo. Stuart. You lives are about to be transformed.’

Lionel turned. Five pairs of feet staggered back.

‘You number-one headache – from now on, completely taken care of. You needn’t give it another thought. Ever. That shadow that never goes away? That nagging concern that wakes you up in the middle of the night? A thing of the past.
Over
.’

Lionel looked forgivingly from face to face.

‘And what’s that worry? Well. Come on, let’s not be shy. Begins with an
em
. Say it.
Em
. Mm. Mmuh …’

Lionel lifted his gaze to the night sky.

‘Mum,’ he said.

The brothers. As pale, still, and silent as the statues.

‘Mum.
Mum
. “Mum”. Our mum, in her declining years – what’s going to become of Mum? … They not having our mum mate!’ Lionel dipped his head and wiped his eyes. He sniffed richly. ‘Ah, look. I can see the lovely glow in you faces. You feeling better already. Knowing I’ll take care of Mum. Our mum. Us against the world, eh lads? Us for Mum!’

… So. Stunned hugs in the foyer. Then, one after the other, the five Pepperdines shot out through the revolving doors, ran a brief sprint, and stumbled to a halt.

Sharply watched by Lionel Asbo. Whose head abruptly jerked forward as something interesting seemed to develop with the skeleton staff of press – but it was just Stuart rebounding off a lamp post and falling over backwards, and John and George kneeling down to be sick.

7

‘THEY CHUCKED HIM out on Sunday morning. He set fire to his suite. But apparently they’re only using that as an excuse!’

‘Jesus,’ said Des. ‘What else did he do?’

‘Well he … Jesus. Hang on.’

Des lay on the couch in the kitchen, wrapped in a white sheet. He was having one of his neurasthenic episodes (for half a day at a time, the world seemed too much for him, too many for him, too full, too rich, too strong). Dawn’s wide eyes were staring at the
Sun
.

‘He was groaning his head off in the Bolingbroke Bar. And releasing wind from both ends … He swam in the pool in his Y-fronts … And he asked the masseuse for “relief” … He watched a film in his room called
MILFs Gone Mad
. Then he went and watched more filth in the business centre!’

‘The business centre?’

‘Where they have the computers. And Lionel was watching it with the sound up!’

‘With the sound up?’

‘That’s what it says. He was sitting there with all these bankers and diplomats and sheiks. Watching something they can’t print about
facials
. Facials? Des, what’s
that
all about?’

‘Uh, I’m not sure. With the sound up?’

‘The manager came and … There were
two
fights at dinner. The first just a bit of face-slapping. But the second one … Ringo, they think it was, crashed into the dessert trolley … John and George vomited in the street. And Stuart fell and smashed his head open. And then Lionel goes and dozes off with a fag in his hand. All the sprinklers came on … Drink your cocoa!’

‘I am!’

‘Ooh. They say the hotel’s suing him. Not for the physical damage.
The untold detriment to our reputation and goodwill
. That was yesterday. And listen. On Saturday … On Saturday there were these two elderly couples standing in the foyer. Minding their own business. And Lionel goes up and says … See it? Lionel goes up and says,
What are you lot still doing here? Why don’t you all just f*** off and die
!’

It was a while before Lionel looked in at Avalon Tower. But in the meantime they always knew exactly what he was up to. They stayed abreast of his remarkably unvarying activities (fights, expenditures, admissions, ejections), hour by hour, in the tabloids (and in the
Daily Telegraph
).

Sunday. 10.00
. Lotto Lout Lionel Asbo chucked out of the Pantheon Grand.
11.15
. Asbo checks into the Castle on the Arch.
12.45
. Asbo caught up in a brief brawl in a pub called the Happy Man in Leicester Square.
15.15
. Asbo enters La Cage d’Or in Dover Street and spends £1,900 on lunch for one.
18.40
. Asbo becomes a provisional member of the Sunset Strip Lounge on Old Compton Street.
21.50
. Asbo becomes a provisional member of the Soho Sporting Club (where his losses at craps and blackjack are said to be prodigious).

‘I can’t stand it, Dawnie,’ said Des. ‘What’s going on? Uncle Li – he’s disappeared into the front page!’

Monday. 2.05
. Lotto Lout Lionel Asbo becomes a provisional member of the Taboo in Garrick Street.
4.15
. Asbo returns to Soho Sporting Club.
7.50
. Asbo chucked out of the Castle on the Arch.
9.35
. Asbo checks into the Launceston in Berkeley Square.
11.15
Asbo caught up in a brief brawl in a pub called the Surprise in Shepherd Market.
13.00
. Asbo orders a Bentley ‘Aurora’ at the Piers Edwards Showrooms on Park Lane (£377,990).
15.20
. Asbo chucked out of the Launceston.
16.10
. Accompanied by his financial adviser, Jack Firth-Heatherington, Asbo checks into the South Central Hotel in Pimlico.
17.30
. Asbo takes delivery of a consignment of merchandise, mostly clothing, valued at –

Then the story went cold.

* * *

‘Hello?’

‘Dawn. Lionel. I’ll be round in fifteen minutes. Get Des.’

It was teatime on Saturday. Des was out cabbing (the medium-late shift) and was expected back in good time for
Match of the Day
. With a hot face Dawn rang the pointman at Goodcars, and waited. The dogs smiled up at her. They, too, always seemed gripped by
Match of the Day
, and sat side by side in front of the screen, lightly panting, like a pair of old-fashioned hooligans thirsting for the final whistle and the post-match maul …

Lionel used his own keys.

‘That you, Lionel?’

He approached, he appeared, he gave a slow nod, and stood there with his head dropped and his arms folded. Three different organisms – one human, two canine – stared out at him.

To Dawn he looked like one of the huge but semi-retired or injured or (more likely) suspended footballers who occasionally deigned to contribute to the analyses on TV: a squarely powerful, low-slung, much-punished body, now swathed in a suit of truly presidential costliness (as if cut from some liturgical material used for hassocks or surplices). He raised his chin and she saw his sky-blue silk tie and the lavish equilateral of its Windsor.

‘Well welcome. Settle down, boys!’

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?’