The idiocy of rural life. Who said that? Lenin? And is it idiocy, he asked himself (in his new editorial voice), or is it just innocence? What he sensed, in any case, was a bewildering deficit of urgency, of haste and purpose. And, somehow, a deficit of intelligence. For it was his obstinate belief that Town contained hidden force of mind—nearly all of it trapped or cross-purposed. And how will it go, he often wondered, when all the brain-dead awaken? When all the Lionels decide to be intelligent? … Meanwhile, here was Short Crendon and its pottering and pootering. I suppose I’m just a creature of the world city, he thought, and walked on.
Up ahead a battered blue Mini rounded the corner, shuddered and veered, and rolled to a halt with brown smoke funnelling from its hood. Traffic—and there was at least no shortage of traffic—started to accumulate in the blocked lane, and a horn or two tentatively sounded. As he passed by, Des took a look at the young couple in the front seats: they were yelling inaudibly at each other while trying to nudge the car forward with spasmodic jerks of their loins. And it was Marlon and Gina Welkway! Gina all in white, with those slender ribbons in her hair, as she was on the day of her wedding. And the little Mini (extracted, perhaps, from the forecourts of the late Jayden Drago) did in fact jolt gamely forward, and the traffic duly stirred and oozed free and eventually caught up with itself.
As he approached, and as he took in the childish scale of the station (he was used to the termini that you shared with millions upon millions), Des was struck by an unpleasant thought. A tedious thought: he had left without his bathers (now he remembered the bench by the plunge pool and the parallelogram of sunlight where he had laid them out to dry). Habits of thrift and good order made him at once turn on his heel. He now faced the minor idiocy of retracing his steps, steps that would then need to be re-retraced, for the five thirty-five.
On the way he diverted himself by going over his uncle’s deeply conflicted response to the news about the Daily Mirror. Writing about law and order for the Daily Mirror was in a way much worse than writing about law and order for the Diston Gazette, because of the greater reach (You be doing you narking on a national scale!); as against that, though, Lionel argued, the Mirror was a traditional friend of the working class, and was therefore comparatively soft on crime.
Are you telling me the Mirror’s pro-crime, Uncle Li?
Don’t talk stupid. They not pro-crime as such. But they not going to make a to-do about a little bit of theft. It serves equality, Des. The uh, the redistribution of wealth.
And how pro-theft are you? With your guards and your razor wire?
Ah, but that’s on me own initiative, he said. They were in the echoing entrance hall, and Lionel was standing in one of the pools of three-petalled sunlight. That’s different. See, I don’t use the law, Des. And I get threats all the time! They say, Guiss ten million quid or we’ll fucking kill yer. I say, Come and get it. You welcome to try. And if some bleeding thrusters fancy they chances, then we’ll take it from there. See, Des, this is it. You don’t let money change yer. You don’t let money change you deepest convictions. And I never use the law. This is it. This is it.
No, it couldn’t have been a coincidence. The old Mini, which now had a flat back tyre, was cravenly slumped alongside the imperial contours of the “Aurora” … Des was silently admitted by Carmody (who soon withdrew). He advanced to the library and was halfway across the darkened room before he noticed Marlon, on a low settee, with a glass in one hand and a decanter of brown liquor in the other.
“Marlon.”
“Ah. Little Des,” said Marlon thickly.
And the air itself was thick. Thick and weak, as if the room was about to faint. Des recognised this atmosphere—its wrongness, its deafened, bad-dream feel.
“I, I left something next door. I’ll just pop through and …”
“No. Don’t do that, mate. Don’t do that.”
Marlon dragged a hand across his forehead, which was frosted in sweat, and grey-pale against the damp black blade of his widow’s peak. With a heavy tongue he said,
“You, you’re like a canary. A little yellow canary. You fucked me in court.”
“Well so did Yul and Troy.”
“Yeah, and look what happened to them.”
With his adapted vision Des now saw that there were items of white clothing strewn across the black carpet, white ribbons, a brassiere, a pair of knickers, a slip, a stained trousseau …
“Little yellow canary.”
Marlon was making an attempt to suffuse his smile with menace. But then came Lionel’s reverberating bawl from beyond (Get you fat prat in that sauna!), followed by the blast of a whistle and Gina’s scandalised screech.
The wide door swung open in blinding light. And there was the stippled, mottled nudity of Lionel Asbo. Des’s eyes sought what they could not but seek: and Lionel was rawly and barbarically erect … Beyond him, through the curved glass, greenery trembled, foxtail, flowering rush, the leaves of trees and their shadows.
Obliviously Lionel pushed past him (what after all was Des doing in this dream?).
“Marlon! You all right in the dark there, Marl? I’m not neglecting you needs?”
There was no answer. Lionel moved forward.
“Look up, son. Meet me eye. Meet me eye. And see this? See the lipstick on it? See it?”
Marlon looked up—then dropped his head. And Des again was gone.
8
“Nice. I hope you’re proud of him. That’s really nice, that is. Charming.”
“Can we change the subject for a minute? I’m still in recovery.”
“Okay. How about … Matthew?” she said. “Matthew. Mark. Luke. John.”
“John,” he said. “John, Paul, George, Ringo. Please. No names.”
“Yeah. No names. No more names … I hate names.”
He had just come in (train delay caused by a suicide on the sunken tracks a mile or two from Liverpool Street), and Dawn was about to serve up dinner. In the meantime he was enjoying a saucerful of pickled onions.
“Rachel. Delilah. Gaw, you should’ve seen his cars, Dawnie.” Des listed some of the makes. “And he’s got this mammoth SUV. It’s called a Venganza. Spanish for revenge. Carbon-black—no shine. It’s like an Armoured Personnel Carrier. For Special Forces. And it’s split-level! You press a button and this little steel ladder comes down. Headlights the size of dustbin lids. Does three miles to the gallon. Esther. Ruth.”
“Nahum. Solomon. So you reckon he was at it with Gina in the sauna. Peter.”
“Looked that way. Not Peter. Peter Pepperdine? That’s like Peter Piper picked a peck of … Giving Gina one in the sauna. There he was. Mother-naked.”
“And with a big bonk on.”
“Dawnie,” said Des (and he hadn’t told her about the lipstick). “Yeah. Like that pissed demigod. Bacchus.”
“Or Nessus,” said Dawn. “The centaur. Who kidnapped the wife of Hercules.”
“Yeah. Dejanira … Dejanira Pepperdine. Niobe. Echo. Echo Pepperdine.”
Dawn said, “Bloody hell. Why’d they go along with it? And Gina giggling away in there. Jacob.”
“Jacqueline. I don’t know. Must be for the money. See, there’s all Jayden’s debts. And Marlon’s a gambler. But Gina. She sounded—all keen. I don’t get Gina … Tina. Nina. Zina.”
For a moment Des tried to think like a criminal (this was in any case becoming a professional habit). And he realised that in the little encounter at “Wormwood Scrubs” he had dangerously strengthened an enmity—as a witness to the unmanning of Marlon Welkway. That would be remembered.
“And he had her strip in the library! … Des, remember his speech? At the wedding?”
“Oh yeah. How’d it go? With her trousseau up round her waist and her knickers round her … Must’ve done a sort of re-enactment. Mary. Eve. Dawn, this chicken smells funny. And the broccoli’s all bitter.”
“… You love your chicken and broccoli!”
He reached for the jar of pickled
onions and speared a big one with his fork. “Miriam.”
“… Mean Mr. Mustard. What’d he say about the rent? Tell me again? Hector.”
“Antigone. He said he’d help out. Whatever that means. I’ll believe it when I see it. Callisto.”
“Mm. If it’s a girl I want it to sound … ethereal.”
“Ethereal. Okay. Let’s call her Frenody.”
They laughed. Despite everything, which was saying something, they were both, for the most part, irresponsibly happy.
“But what if it’s a boy? Go on, Des. Let’s phone Iqbal and find out.”
Iqbal was the enormous Punjabi warrior who—immaculate in his green rompers—oversaw the sonogram at the Maternity Centre. Des and Dawn loved Iqbal. They loved Mrs. Treacher, the head midwife (she looked like the Nurse in Zeffirelli’s Romeo and Juliet: a ravenous, eager-eyed rustic—ravenous for life, life). And they loved the Maternity Centre. Unlike all the other hospitals they’d ever been in, the Maternity Centre was eerily odourless. Hospitals, in their experience, smelled of school dinners. As if pain, mortality, death, birth, all the great excruciations, subsisted on a diet of boiled carrots and semolina …
“Why should Iqbal know what sex it is when we don’t?”
“Iqbal doesn’t care. He’s not sitting there gloating over it. Sniggering and rubbing his hands. To him it’s just another baby!”
“Oh, let’s, Des. Then we’ll only spend half the time talking about names. Edward.”
“Edwina. No, Dawnie. It’s better not to know.”
“Why is it?”
“Just because you can find out doesn’t mean you should.”
“Well it doesn’t mean you shouldn’t. Either.”
Twisting in his chair, he said, “Cilla never knew. Gran never knew. And her mum, and her gran—they never knew.” Meaning what? Meaning something like: you oughtn’t to separate yourself from your predecessors—your predecessors, in their countless millions. “Angelina.” And there was another reason too (he was superstitiously convinced), though he hadn’t yet quite fathomed it. “Some kinds of knowledge it’s better not to have, Dawnie. Angeletta.”
“Andrew. D’you think he’ll do anything for Gran, Lionel?”
“He might. He might well. He’s worried about his image. Gudrun.”
“Gudrun Dawn Pepperdine … No. Then she’d be GDP! Gross Domestic Product. Sounds horrible. You got to keep your eye on the initials, Des … And Daphne?”
“Daphne? Nah. Oh. You mean Daphne.”
“Yeah, Daphne.”
“She was …”
He again unscrewed the jar of pickled onions … For obvious reasons Des had never regaled Dawn with the story of his application to the famous agony aunt. And Daphne’s reply, back then (You are both committing statutory rape) was so durably terrifying that Des almost fell over backwards when Lionel, looking up from his lounger, said airily, This is you Auntie Daphne. Daphne—from the Sun.
“I’d imagined an avenging angel,” he said. “You know—a judger. But she seemed a nice little dear. Maybe she’ll send Uncle Li one of her pamphlets.”
“Mm. Dos and don’ts for lotto louts. Prostitute your best mate’s wife. And make him watch.”
“I reckon she’ll write an honest piece. Sympathetic.”
“Sympathetic? I hope she gives him a right slagging.”
“Dawnie! No, don’t. Don’t start. Angelica.”
“… Des, I’ve decided. Boy or girl, let’s call it Toilet.”
“… Good, Dawnie. Toilet Pepperdine. That’ll do.”
She got to her feet and said, “So goodbye to those bathers.”
“Looks like it. We got any ice cream?”
“… Your cravings are back!”
“It’s not a craving! I just fancy some ice cream!”
“Ice cream. Strawberry ice cream, Des. And pickled onions.”
“Yeah well I know.”
He leaned down and stroked the cat. Goldie’s arched and ribby back, her tingling tail. He wasn’t going to tell Dawn about his other cravings—his cravings for ash and notepaper and laundry starch. His secret cravings, and his secret aversions too, like mental allergies, his dreads, his nightsweats. And now, unbelievably (there must be some mistake), this mess of fears—Des, Desi, Desmond—was being asked to take receipt of a whole new human being …
“Cats are girls.”
“And dogs are boys,” said Dawn Pepperdine.
On the following Tuesday, May Day, at seven in the morning, a uniformed tipstaff or beadle, with rainwater dripping from his shovel hat, delivered a forty-page document, stamped and sealed with the imprimatur of Lord Barcleigh’s chambers.
It took them an hour to make any sense of it.
“What can we do? The flat’s in his name … Here. He’s going to pay a third,” said Des. “By banker’s order.”
“A third. I bet he’ll cut it to a quarter once Toilet’s here.”
“He’ll have to clear out once Toilet’s here. I’ll reason with him. Wish me luck … Still, Dawnie. It’s money coming in. Not money going out. Like with Horace.”
“See that? He told you it was just for a while. See that? In perpetuity! And look at the penalties if we even …”
“He’s using the law! Against us.”
“Christ. He could buy the whole Tower. What’s he want the room for anyway?”
9
Now things started speeding up.
Lionel’s cellphone was switched off or otherwise deactivated, so Des called the house. He hoped to hear Carmody’s emollient murmur—but no. He got “Threnody.”
“Ooh,” she said, “you’re lucky it’s me who answered.”
“Why’s that?”
“Have you seen the fucking Sun?”
The Sun lay open on the kitchen table. With Goldie asleep on it.
“Absolutely terrible he’s been,” “Threnody” went on. “This morning he wrecked the barn. And that barn’s scheduled. And then Tommy Trumble came over. For their sparring session—you know, they sort of shadowbox each other? Anger management? And Lionel went and knocked him out! And Tommy’s sixty-seven! We thought he was dead. And it’s all your fault. According to Lionel.”
“How’s he work that one out?”
“Threnody” lowered her voice. “According to Mr. Mastermind, if you hadn’t wandered in he might’ve come across not that bad. But you. He reckons they’re up your arse because you’re black. You’d better steer clear. I’m off out of the country, me. Let him calm down … I tell you, he hated it like fucking poison,” she said, “the way they impugned his intelligence. You know. The way they implied he’s a cunt.”
“Yeah. They did a bit.”
“And look what the arsehole said about me!”
Late that night (and this would be widely covered in the press), “Threnody” boarded a plane for Kabul.
At work the following lunchtime Des received a text: 2 a clock some lads coming dont worry they movers. He went straight home and found them already there: a team of men in sharp white overalls and mining helmets. Des looked on as with military thoroughness they stripped Lionel’s bedroom of all its stolen property. When they were gone he tiptoed in. The teetering, beetle-chewed wardrobe, the chest of drawers with its missing knobs and warped runnels. In the corner lay a heap of trainers, all parched and curled in on themselves; and there on the hooks were Lionel’s three or four mesh vests.
On Thursday they received a postcard from Cape Wrath. An artist’s impression of the great frayed tray of the North Sea, under a pouting sunset. And on the other side a short message, evidently dictated. A nice young couple came and moved me into this lovely new home. And there was her toiling G., plus a spidery kiss.
Towards the end of that week the Pepperdines, enveloped in a faint yellow glow of unreality, were reading about the doings of “Threnody” in Afghanistan.
She had flown there on a morale-boosting mission, along with the Formula 1 Pit Pets and an all-girl glamour rock band cal
led Shy. “Threnody” gave a poetry reading and a frank Q and A at the base in Kandahar. It was rumoured that for the signing session she would shed her burqa to reveal an offering from “Self Esteem,” her new line in underwear. She didn’t. There was also the visit they all made to an orphanage in Badroo, where “Threnody” had what sounded like a tantrum of compassion.
Meanwhile, in the offices of Megan Jones and Sebastian Drinker, Lionel held a kind of press conference—attended by the Sun, the Mirror, the Star, the Lark, the Lark on Sunday, and the Daily Telegraph. Extract:
So “Threnody” has your full support, Lionel?
Lionel Asbo: Absolutely. Anything for our boys. Okay, I don’t see eye to eye with John Law. Obviously. Everyone knows that. But Her Majesty’s armed forces? 100 per cent. And I know they’ll look out for my “Threnody” and send her home safe and sound.
Is it true about the Cobra, Lionel?
Megan Jones: Mr. Asbo wanted to donate a case of Cobra to every British soldier serving in Afghanistan, all 5,182 of them. But we were advised against it.
Lionel Asbo: See, over there, lads, they don’t touch a drop. Not even beer. Getting s***faced on heroin’s okay but show them a can of—
Sebastian Drinker: Mr. Asbo is considering various alternatives.
Are you going out there yourself, Lionel?
Lionel Asbo (laughing): What, and leave England? No chance. I’ll never set foot outside my motherland. Well, Scotland and that. You know, maybe Wales. But I’m not going over that water, mate. I love this f***ing country. It’s England, my England, for Lionel Asbo. England. England. England.
And even as he spoke, a flag of St. George (measuring over two thousand square feet) was billowing high over the searchlights at “Wormwood Scrubs” …
“It’s improving,” said Dawn. “Their image.”
“Yeah. Queen and country. They can’t knock that.”
“And she’s stopped going on about how clever he is. Let’s face it, Lionel’s not the brightest of sparks … It’s improving.”