Des looked to his family tree—to his personal Tree of Knowledge.
Well, Grace Pepperdine, Granny Grace, had not attended all that closely to her education, for obvious reasons: she was the mother of seven children by the age of nineteen. Cilla came first. All the rest were boys: John (now a plasterer), Paul (a foreman), George (a plumber), Ringo (unemployed), and Stuart (a seedy registrar). Having run out of Beatles (including the “forgotten” Beatle, Stuart Sutcliffe), Grace exasperatedly christened her seventh child Lionel (after a much lesser hero, the choreographer Lionel Blair). Lionel Asbo, as he would later become, was the youngest of a very large family superintended by a single parent who was barely old enough to vote.
Although she did the Telegraph crossword (not the Kwik but the Cryptic—she had a weird knack for it), Grace wasn’t otherwise a sharp thinker. Cilla, on the other hand, was as bright as a barrelful of monkeys, according to Lionel. “Gifted,” they said. Top of her class without even trying. Then she got knocked up with you. She was six months gone when she sat her Eleven Plus. Still passed. But after that, after you come, Des, it was all off. Cilla Pepperdine didn’t bear any more children, but she went on to have as riotous a youth as was humanly possible with a baby in the house—a baby, then a toddler, and then a little boy.
What did he know about his dad? Very little. And it was an ignorance that Cilla largely shared. But everyone knew this about him: he was black. Hence Desmond’s resinous colour, café crème, with the shadow of something darker in it. Rosewood, perhaps: close-grained, and giving off a distinctive fragrance. He was a sweet-smelling youth, and delicately put together, with regular mint-white teeth and mournful eyes. When he smiled in the mirror, he smiled sadly at the ghost of his father—at the ghost of the lost begetter. But in the waking world he only saw him once.
They were walking up Steep Slope, hand in hand, Des (seven) and Cilla (nineteen), after a spree at the funfair in Happy Valley, when she said suddenly,
“It’s him!”
“Who?”
“Your father! … Look. He’s you! … Mouth. Nose. Christ!”
Very poorly dressed, and shockingly shod, Des’s father was on a metal bench, sitting between a soiled yellow rucksack and five empty flagons of Strongbow. For several minutes Cilla tried to rouse him, with violent shakes and nails-only pinches and, towards the end, alarmingly loud wallops delivered with the flat of her hand.
“D’you think he’s dead?” Cilla leaned down and put an ear to his chest. “This sometimes works,” she said—and intently, lingeringly, kissed his eyes … “Hopeless.” She straightened up and gave Des’s father one last deafening clout. “Oh well. Come on, darling.”
She took his hand and walked off fast and Des stumbled along beside her with his head still veering wildly round.
“You sure it’s him, Mum?”
“Course I’m sure. Don’t be cheeky!”
“Mum, stop! He’s waking up. Go and kiss his eyes again. He’s stirring.”
“No. It’s just the wind, love. And I wanted to ask him something. I wanted to ask him his name.”
“You said his name was Edwin!”
“That was a guess. You know me. I can remember a face—but I can’t remember a name. Ah, Crybaby. Don’t …” She crouched down beside him. “Listen. I’m sorry, sweetheart. But what can I say? He came and went in an afternoon!”
“You said it lasted a whole week!”
“Ah, don’t. Don’t, darling. It breaks my heart … Listen. He was nice. He was gentle. That’s where you get your religion from.”
“I’m not religious,” he said, and blew into the tissue she was pressing to his nose. “I hate church. I just like the stories. The miracles.”
“Well it’s where you get your gentleness from, my love. You don’t get it from me.”
So Des only saw him once (and Cilla, apparently, only saw him twice). And neither of them could possibly know how excruciating this encounter would become in Desmond’s memory. For he too, in five years’ time, would try very hard to wake someone up—to wake someone up, to bring someone back …
It was just a slip, it was just a little slip, just a little slip on the supermarket floor.
So Des (now rising from his bed, in the great citadel)—Des thought it would be rash to attribute any great acuity, any great nous, to his father. Who, then, was the source of these rustlings, these delightful expansions, like solar flares, that were going about their work in his mind? Dominic Oldman—that’s who.
Grandpa Dom was barely out of primary school when he knocked up Granny Grace with Cilla. But by the time he returned (and stuck around long enough to knock her up with Lionel), he was at the University of Manchester, studying Economics. University: it would be hard to exaggerate the reverence and the frequency with which Des murmured this word. His personal translation of it was the one poem. For him it meant something like the harmony of the cosmos … And he wanted it. He wanted university—he wanted the one poem.
And here was the funny thing. Cilla and Lionel were known in the family as “the twins,” because they were the only children who had the same father. And Des believed that Lionel (despite his dreadful CV) secretly partook of the Oldman acumen. The difference, it seemed, was one of attitude. Des loved it, his intelligence; and Lionel hated it. Hated it? Well, it was plain as day that he had always fought it, and took pride in being stupid on purpose.
When Des went to his gran’s, was he being stupid on purpose? And was she doing it too—when she let him in? After the fateful night came the fateful morning …
Got you some milk, he said at the door.
She turned. He followed. Grace took up position on the armchair by the window, in her granny glasses (the circular metal rims), with her powderless face bent penitently over the Telegraph crossword. After a while she said,
Frequently arrested, I’m heading east at the last minute. Two, three, four, two, four … In the nick of time.
In the nick of time. How d’you work that one out?
Frequently arrested—in the nick oft. I’m—i, m. Heading east—e. At the last minute. In the nick of time. Des. You and I. We’re going to go to Hell.
Ten minutes later, on the low divan, she said, As long as no one knows. Ever. Where’s the harm?
Yeah. And round here, I mean, it’s not considered that bad.
No, it’s not. Uncles and nieces. Fathers and daughters all over the place.
And at the Tower there’s that pair of twins living in sin … But you and me. Gran, d’you think it’s legal?
Don’t call me Gran! … Maybe a misdemeanour. Because you’re not sixteen.
What, like a fine? Yeah, you’re probably right. Grace. Still.
Still. Try and stay away, Des. Even if I ask … Try and stay away.
And he did try. But when she asked, he went, as if magnetised. He went back—back to the free-fall pantomime of doom.
“The main role of the semicolon,” he read in his Concise Oxford Dictionary, “is to mark a grammatical separation that is stronger in effect than a comma but less strong than a full stop.”
Des had the weight of the book on his lap. It was his prize possession. Its paper jacket was royal blue (“deep, vivid”).
“You can also use a semicolon as a stronger division in a sentence that already contains commas:
What has crippled me? Was it my grandmother, frowning on my childish affection and turning it to formality and cold courtesy; or was it my pious mother, with her pathological caution; or was it my spineless uncle, who, despite numerous affronts and wrongs, proved incapable of even …”
Des heard the dogs. They weren’t barking, he realised, not exactly: they were swearing (and the rooftop Rottweilers, faintly and almost plaintively, at this distance, were swearing back).
Fuckoff! yelled Joe (or Jeff). It was almost a monosyllable. Fuckoff! … Fuck! … Fuck! … Fuckoff!
Fuckoff! yelled Jeff (or Joe). Fuckoff! … Fuck! … Fuck! … Fuckoff!
4
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“Dogs,” said Lionel, “they descended from wolves. That’s they heritage. Now wolves,” he went on, “they not man’s natural enemy. Oh no. You wolf won’t attack a human. That’s a myth, that is, Des. A total myth.”
Des listened. Lionel pronounced “myth” miff. Full possessive pronouns—your, their, my—still made guest appearances in his English, and he didn’t invariably defy grammatical number (they was, and so on). But his verbal prose and his accent were in steep decline. Until a couple of years ago Lionel pronounced “Lionel” Lionel. But these days he pronounced “Lionel” Loyonel, or even Loyonoo.
“Now I know you reckon I’m harsh with Jeff and Joe. But that’s for why. To make them attack humans—at me own bidding … It’s about time I got them pissed again.”
Every couple of weeks Lionel got the dogs pissed on Special Brews. Interesting, that, thought Des. In America, evidently, pissed meant angered, or pissed off; in England, pissed just meant drunk. After six cans each of potent malt lager, Jeff and Joe were pissed in both senses. Course, they useless when they actually pissed, said Lionel. They come on tough but they can’t hardly walk. It’s the next morning—ooh. That’s when they tasty … That ooh sounded more like où. Nor was this the only example of Lionel’s inadvertent French. He also used un—as a modest expletive, denoting frustration, effort, or even mild physical pain. Now Des said,
“You got them pissed Saturday before last.”
“Did I? What for?”
“You had that meet with the shark from Redbridge. Sunday morning.”
Lionel said, “So I did, Des. So I did.”
They were enjoying their usual breakfast of sweet milky tea and Pop-Tarts (there were also a few tins of Cobra close to hand). Like Lionel’s room, the kitchen was spacious, but it was dominated by two items of furniture that made it feel cramped. First, the wall-wide TV, impressive in itself but almost impossible to watch. You couldn’t get far enough away from it, and the colours swam and everyone wore a wraithlike nimbus of white. Whatever was actually showing, Des always felt he was watching a documentary about the Ku Klux Klan. Item number two, known as the tank, was a cuboid gunmetal rubbish bin, its dimensions corresponding to those of an average dishwasher. It not only looks smart, said Lionel, as with Des’s help he dragged it out of the lift. It’s a fine piece of machine-tooled workmanship. German. Christ. Weighs enough. But this item, too, had its flaw.
Lionel now lit a cigarette and said, “You been sitting on it.”
“I never.”
“Then why won’t it open?”
“It hardly ever opened, Uncle Li,” said Des. “Right from the start.” They had been through this many times before. “And when it does open, you can’t get it shut.”
“It sometimes opens. It’s no fucking use to man or beast, is it. Shut.”
“I lost half a nail trying to open it.”
Lionel leaned over and gave the lid a tug. “Un … You been sitting on it.”
They ate and drank in silence.
“Ross Knowles.”
There followed a grave debate, or a grave disquisition, on the difference between ABH and GBH—between Actual Bodily Harm and its sterner older brother, Grievous. Like many career delinquents, Lionel was almost up to PhD level on questions of criminal law. Criminal law, after all, was the third element in his vocational trinity, the other two being villainy and prison. When Lionel talked about the law (reaching for a kind of high style), Des always paid close attention. Criminal law was in any case much on his mind.
“In a nutshell, Des, in a nutshell, it’s the difference between the first-aid kit and the casualty ward.”
“And this Ross Knowles, Uncle Li. How long’s he been in Diston General?” asked Des (referring to the worst hospital in England).
“Oy. Objection. That’s prejudicial.”
Panting and drooling, Jeff and Joe stared in through the glass door: brickfaced, with thuggish foreheads, and their little ears trying to point towards each other.
“Why prejudicial?”
“Hypothesis.” Hypoffesis. “I give Ross Knowles a little tap in a fair fight, he comes out of the Hobgoblin—and walks under a truck.” Truck: pronounced truc-kuh (with a glottal stop on the terminal plosive). “See? Prejudicial.”
Des nodded. It was in fact strongly rumoured that Ross Knowles came out of the Hobgoblin on a stretcher.
“According to the Offences Against the Person Act,” Lionel went on, “there’s Common Assault, ABH, and G. It’s decided, Des, by you level of intent and the seriousness of the injury. Offensive weapon, offensive weapon of any kind, you know, something like a beer glass—that’s G. If he needs a blood transfusion—that’s G. If you kick him in the bonce—that’s G.”
“What did you use on him, Uncle Li?”
“A beer glass.”
“Did he need a blood transfusion?”
“So they say.”
“And did you kick him in the bonce?”
“No. I jumped on it. In me trainers, mind … Uh, visible disfigurement or permanent disability—that’s the clincher, Des.”
“And in this case, Uncle Li?”
“Well I don’t know, do I. I don’t know what sort of nick he was in before.”
“… Why d’you smash him up?”
“Didn’t like the smile on his face.” Lionel gave his laugh—a series of visceral grunts. “No. I’m not that thick.” (Thic-kuh.) “I had two reasons, Des. Ross Knowles—I heard Ross Knowles saying something about buying a banger off Jayden Drago. And he’s got the same moustache as Marlon. Ross has. So I smashed him up.”
“Hang on.” Des tried to work it out (he went in search of the sequitur). Jayden Drago, the renowned used-car salesman, was Gina Drago’s father. And Marlon, Marlon Welkway, was Lionel’s first cousin (and closest associate). “I still don’t get it.”
“Jesus. Haven’t you heard? Marlon’s pulled Gina! Yeah. Marlon’s pulled Gina … So all that come together in me mind. And it put me in a mood.” For a while Lionel gnawed on his thumb. He looked up and said neutrally, “I’m still hoping for Common Assault. But me brief said the injuries were uh, more consistent with Attempted Manslaughter. So we’ll see. Are you going to school today?”
“Yeah, I thought I might look in.”
“Ah, you such a little angel. Come on.”
They refilled the water bowls. Then man and boy filed down the thirty-three floors. Lionel, as usual, went to the corner shop for his smokes and his Morning Lark while Des waited out on the street.
“… Fruit, Uncle Li? Not like you. You don’t eat fruit.”
“Yeah I do. What you think a Pop-Tart is? Look. Nice bunch of grapes. See, I got a friend who’s uh, indisposed. Thought I’d go and cheer him up. Put this in you satchel.”
He handed over the bottle of Tabasco. Plus an apple.
“A nice Granny Smith. For you teacher.”
To evoke the London borough of Diston, we turn to the poetry of Chaos:
Each thing hostile
To every other thing: at every point
Hot fought cold, moist dry, soft hard, and the weightless
Resisted weight.
So Des lived his life in tunnels. The tunnel from flat to school, the tunnel (not the same tunnel) from school to flat. And all the warrens that took him to Grace, and brought him back again. He lived his life in tunnels … And yet for the sensitive soul, in Diston Town, there was really only one place to look. Where did the eyes go? They went up, up.
School—Squeers Free, under a sky of white: the weakling headmaster, the demoralised chalkies in their rayon tracksuits, the ramshackle little gym with its tripwires and booby traps, the Lifestyle Consultants (Every Child Matters), and the Special Needs Coordinators (who dealt with all the “non-readers”). In addition, Squeers Free set the standard for the most police call-outs, the least GCSE passes, and the highest truancy rates. It also led the pack in suspensions, expulsions, and PRU “offrolls”; such an offroll—a transfer to a Pupil Re
ferral Unit—was usually the doorway to a Youth Custody Centre and then a Young Offender Institution. Lionel, who had followed this route, always spoke of his five and a half years (on and off) in a Young Offender Institution (or Yoi, as he called it) with rueful fondness, like one recalling a rite of passage—inevitable, bittersweet. I was out for a month, he would typically reminisce. Then I was back up north. Doing me Yoi.
On the other hand, Squeers Free had in its staff room an exceptional Learning Mentor—a Mr. Vincent Tigg.
What’s going on with you, Desmond? You were always an idle little sod. Now you can’t get enough of it. Well, what next?
I fancy modern languages, sir. And history. And sociology. And astronomy. And—
You can’t study everything, you know.
Yes I can. Renaissance boy, innit.
… You want to watch that smile, lad. All right. We’ll see about you. Now off you go.
And in the schoolyard? On the face of it, Des was a prime candidate for persecution. He seldom bunked off, he never slept in class, he didn’t assault the teachers or shoot up in the toilets—and he preferred the company of the gentler sex (the gentler sex, at Squeers Free, being quite rough enough). So in the normal course of things Des would have been savagely bullied, as all the other misfits (swats, wimps, four-eyes, sweating fatties) were savagely bullied—to the brink of suicide and beyond. They called him Skiprope and Hopscotch, but Des wasn’t bullied. How to explain this? To use Uncle Ringo’s favourite expression, it was a no-brainer. Desmond Pepperdine was inviolable. He was the nephew, and ward, of Lionel Asbo.
It was different on the street. Once a term, true, Lionel escorted him to Squeers Free, and escorted him back again the same day (restraining, with exaggerated difficulty, the two frothing pitbulls on their thick steel chains). But it would be foolish to suppose that each and every gangbanger and posse-artist (and every Yardie and jihadi) in the entire manor had heard tell of the great asocial. And it was different at night, because different people, different shapes, levered themselves upward after dark … Des was fleet of foot, but he was otherwise unsuited to life in Diston Town. Second or even first nature to Lionel (who was pronounced “uncontrollable” at the age of eighteen months), violence was alien to Des, who always felt that violence—extreme and ubiquitous though it certainly seemed to be—came from another dimension.