Lionel Asbo: State of England (19 page)

‘Good evening, sir,’ said a resonant and resolute voice. ‘Welcome. Your table.’

‘Ah. Lovely.’

‘If you don’t mind my asking, sir, are you going on somewhere after your meal? To the amateur boxing at the Queensbury perhaps?’

‘Amateur boxing?’

‘Yes, sir. I hear Prince Philip’s going to be there. You know – for the Duke of Edinburgh Awards.’

‘The Duke of Edinburgh? … Yeah well I follow the boxing. That’s a proper sport, boxing. Not like all the other rubbish. What’s you name, mate?’

‘… Well, here they call me Mr Mount.’

‘No.’ Lionel looked him up and down: a tall and mournful figure in lounge suit and tie, with an icecap of thick white hair. ‘What’s you first name?’

‘… Cuthbert, sir.’

And Lionel said simply, ‘Cuthbert.’

Mr Mount took a step backwards. He hadn’t heard
Cuthbert
pronounced quite like that for thirty years. Not since 1979, when he stopped going to Billingsgate Market (at five o’clock on Monday mornings) to assess the catch. He now said,

‘Yes. Cuthbert Mount.’

‘Well I’ll tell you what, Cuthbert. I’m starting me new job! Bouncing in a bingo parlour! And tonight I’m calling the numbers!’

For some reason all this came out much, much louder than Lionel intended – as if through a stadium bullhorn. He grew aware that thirty or forty faces, crowned with wisps of hoar and rime, were staring his way.

He thought, Must be cold, getting old. Old, cold: like poetry. ‘Evening all!’ he found himself hollering as he lowered himself into his chair.

‘… Would you like a drink before your meal, sir?’

‘Yeah. Guiss a uh, give us a –’

But Mr Mount stepped aside, and was instantly supplanted by a knowing youth in a white dinner jacket.

‘What’s up with you?’

‘Sorry, sir?’

‘You amused,’ said Lionel.

‘Amused, sir? No, not at all, sir.’

‘You look too light on you feet, mate …’ Lionel sniffed and said, ‘Okay. Fuck it. Guiss a pint of …’ In the South Central you could get champagne by the pint (and by the half-pint – very popular with the ladies); and Lionel had in any case come to regard champagne as rich man’s beer. ‘Bubbles, son. What kind you got?’

A ribboned wine list was opened and handed over. Lionel pointed to the most prohibitive of the vintages, and the waiter bowed and withdrew.

The restaurant was something of a surprise. Earlier that day, when he poked his head round the door, his sunstruck stare registered a grotto of pulsing shadow, and he imagined a kind of family brasserie. But Mount’s … The furnishings were plump and plush, the walls practically panelled with paintings, with haywains and cloudscapes and cavaliers. Yeah, the place was like some fat old cavalier, buttoned up far too tight. Lionel hefted but did not yet open the crested red-leather menu.
England’s Oldest Restaurant. Established by Clarence Fitzmaurice Mount. 1797
. And Lionel thought: 1797!

‘Your champagne’s on its way, sir.’

Lionel had intended to make a start on the
Morning Lark
while enjoying his aperitif. Catch up on current events. But now he was having his doubts. He already knew that the cover was devoted to a truly mountainous blonde; and it might look a bit … The
Lark
, that day, appeared for the first time in two editions, tabloid and broadsheet, and Lionel had succumbed to the novelty of the larger format. Anyway, he slipped the thing out of his trouser pocket, unfolded it under the table, and awkwardly searched for a page that didn’t have a topless model on it. Page two usually contained the day’s news, but today the day’s news was about a topless model (bust-up with childhood sweetheart) … Looks a bit like Gina, he thought – and Lionel was abruptly transfixed by an unpleasant memory.

As he was finishing off with Dylis, he happened to glance sideways at the closet mirror. And there it was, his body, all hammer and tongs, like the driving mechanism of a runaway train. The expression on his face. Teeth bared, and furious eyes, and his –

The champagne arrived in its steel bucket. Lionel calmly compressed the
Morning Lark
between his knees, and said,

‘Got a bigger glass? You know, like a beer mug.’ Lionel grimly monitored the waiter’s movements. ‘… Yeah, that’ll do. Fill her up, boy.’

Then it started happening. For just half a minute or so, Lionel’s mind became a vertiginous succession of false bottoms, of snapping trapdoors …

Champagne in a beer mug?
he fiercely subvocalised.
Are you a cunt? They staring now! No they ain’t! They thinking you off to the boxing with the Duke of Edinburgh! No they ain’t! They laughing at yer – they pissing theyselves! Why’d you say that about the bingo? They thinking you some cunt of a bingo caller! No they ain’t! They see they
Daily Telegraph
! They know you the Lotto Lout! They know you a cunt anyway! They – they …

Lionel looked up. The diners were dining, hypernormally. The soft echoes and vibrations, the pings and chimes, of tableware, the drones and murmurs of polite conversation …

‘May I take your order, sir?’ said his waiter.

‘Hang on … Hang on. I don’t see no meat.’

‘This is a fish restaurant, sir.’

‘What,
just
fish? … Oh well. So be it.’ He chose the most expensive starter (caviar), to be followed by the most expensive entrée (lobster). ‘Fresh, is it?’

‘Oh yes, sir. Alive and kicking. Flown in today from Helsinki.’

Helsinki! thought Lionel.

‘And how would you like it dressed?’

‘Uh,’ said Lionel. He’d only ever had lobster in cocktail form, when Gina made it for him in traditional Maltese style: with lashings of ketchup. ‘As it comes,’ he said from under half-open eyes …

‘Shall we shell it for you, sir?’

‘Shell it?’ said Lionel with sudden and inscrutable venom. ‘I’m not helpless, son. Do I look helpless? I’m not helpless. Do I look helpless? … Ah, don’t cry. Here, do me napkin.’ That’s what they did in decent restaurants – smoothed it over your lap. ‘
Où
,’ said Lionel.

He finished his pint and ordered another. The caviar came. He’d had caviar before, because it was often the most expensive starter, and caviar, he found, was tasty enough so long as you seasoned it with Tabasco and plenty of … Not that he was feeling weak or giddy or anything, but he noticed that the salt cellar was heavy, was implausibly heavy. The knife in his hand was implausibly heavy. That was when you … The rich world was heavy, rooted to the ground. It had the weight of the past securing it. Whereas his world, as was, Diston, things were …

‘May we serve your lobster with some melted butter, sir?’ said Mr Mount.

‘Go on then. And some tomato uh, some tomato sauce, Cuthbert. Of you own preparation. On the side.’

Mr Mount seemed to be frowning at Lionel’s suit, and he said, ‘That’s a truly remarkable cloth, sir, if you don’t mind my saying. And I do know something about cloth. Is it … pashmina wool? Is it – my God, is it shah
toosh
? Why, I’ve never heard of such a thing. Must have cost you an absolute –’

‘Wasn’t cheap.’

‘May I?’

‘Course you can.’ Lionel held up his right arm. ‘Take you time, Cuthbert,’ he said. ‘Don’t stint youself.’

Mr Mount bent, straightened, bowed and said, ‘So extraordinarily
fine
… I hope you enjoy your meal with us tonight, sir.’

After much cramped contortion Lionel found a page without a topless model on it, page forty-eight, up near the classifieds. He carefully flattened the paper out on the table. He settled. He drank … And with miming lips he started on a report about a
two
-year-old who was already in trouble with the law! … This little minx, this little … This little monkey – she was striping all the cars with a doorkey … She was stealing cash and smashing windows … And she got pissed on her mum’s vodka and when the woman from the Social come round she bit her one on the …

Lionel’s frown deepened.

This little terror was being served an
ASBO
… There goes me record!

‘There goes me record!’ he shouted out, and hunched himself forward.

Let’s see: two years and three hundred and sixty days. Pips me by a week! … Well, fair’s fair. No, come on, you got to give her credit. Yet to celebrate her third birthday, and this little bleeder’s already …

Lionel became aware of a silence, a silence of considerable purity, no voices, no background tittle-tattle of tumblers and tines. He peered up and out. It seemed he had the undivided attention of every pair of eyes in the room. Whitely shining spectacles. Raised lorgnettes. Even two sets of opera glasses.
What’s all this then?
And Lionel now realised that in his innocent absorption he was holding the
Morning Lark
at shoulder height. Savagely he yanked it round.

11

AND SAW WHAT? A
whole page
of GILFs!

He took it all in with his frozen eyes … The sheet was dominated by a huge small ad – and even the most hardened readers of the
Morning Lark
were seldom expected to contemplate anything quite as dreadful as this. A blubbery, curly-haired old woman, wearing nothing but gumboots, pictured from the rear, on all fours, her lower haunches half-obscured, her rustic features contorted in a snarl of agony. HORNY HILDA, 74. TEXT HER NOW AT –

With a single galvanic convulsion Lionel wrestled and scrunched the
Lark
to his lap. Then he blushed. And it was as if all his blushes, all the blushes of a lifetime, had come to him at once. Like flames they plumed and hummed, wave after wave … Indeed, for the next five minutes or so, Lionel bore certain affinities with what was soon to be his fateful supper – the brick-red lobster boiling to death in its pot. Another fistfight, another riot of thought; and then at last (in that way he had) Lionel calmed and cooled.

Come on now, son, he told himself – steady. The
Lark
ain’t
illegal
or anything. On sale everywhere – great big stack of them in you corner shop. The
Lark
’s just a bit of fun. Everyone knows that. No harm in it. Just a bit of fun. Everyone knows that …

He sternly regrouped. He finished his caviar and, with some show of insouciance, ordered another pot. And another round of toast: soldiers, if you like. And another pint of champagne. Lionel steadied again. He ate all that and he drank all that. He rose.

‘Uh, Cuthbert,’ he said, making a tremendous effort to control the volume of his voice. ‘Uh, Cuthbert,’ he croaked. ‘I’m just going out for a quick burn, okay? Back in a minute, Cuthbert. Back in a minute.’

The photojournalists from the
Morning Lark
, the
Sun
, and the
Daily Telegraph
, Lionel saw with a pang, had disappeared.
Gone for a bite theyselves, most likely
, he mused out loud.
Be along later
. And this was good anyway: he wanted to tackle that massive spliff Scott’d rolled up for him. The alley dead-ended to his left, under the frosty sheen of the coach-house lantern. Perfect: no passers-by. He stuffed his
Lark
into a rubbish bin, tamping it down. Might even dash off in a minute and get a
Sun
(or even a
Daily Telegraph
!) to have a read of with me lobster.
No. They’ll think you doing a runner. Or fled in shame! … Nah. You being uh, oversensitive mate. The
Lark
’s just a laugh – they all know that. Just a lark. Even
calls
itself as much. A laugh won’t hurt yer. What’s wrong with a laugh?
… There came another memory of Dylis. When he flipped her over, to give her a lovepat or two, how suddenly the spank became a clout, became a wallop.
Managed to exercise restraint
, he whispered. And, throughout, that whining noise in his ears – and in his chest too, somehow.
That’s what happens when you up and pay for it. Gives you funny notions. Master–slave, you could say. She’s like a pet animal you got it in for … Frighten meself sometimes
. So he just got on with his joint (seemed to be tastier than the other two). He took a last inch-long drag … the crackling buds, the sizzling Rizlas … and held it in as long as he could before exhaling through his nose. And then he went back inside to confront the scarlet fortress of the crustacean.

* * *

Now the creature lay in front of him on its oval dish. There were two skewers (one with a curved tip) and a nutcracker. He picked up the gangly device: like the bottom half of a chorus girl made of steel … Fucking ugly-looking bugger, this fish. The shrunken, horror-comic face. And the monstrous hydraulics of the forearms. Was that the lobster’s mitt or its – its pincer? Bending low over the table, he positioned the jagged limb in the instrument’s clench; then he applied maximum force – and caught a jet of hot butter right in the eye!