In early autumn Sebastian Drinker announced that Lionel was probably going to take a financial interest in West Ham United Football Club. The season was by then in its seventh week, and the Hammers had yet to win a point or even score a goal. From the directors’ box at Upton Park (unaccompanied by “Threnody,” who was still bedridden with grief) Lionel witnessed the monotonous calamities in east London; but he also witnessed the monotonous calamities in stadiums as far flung as Stoke, Bolton, Portsmouth, Sunderland … And the following morning you’d see, on the back page of your Sunday tabloid, a foggy photo of the dripping car park at, say, Wigan Athletic, with Lionel sorrowfully finishing his meat pie and his mug of Bovril before scaling the charcoal Venganza (or bending into his new Ferrari). By October, the credits of Match of the Day were closing with a clip of Lionel as he shuffled from the ground, in slow motion, to the strains of the lugubrious West Ham anthem, “I’m Forever Blowing Bubbles”: I’m forever blowing bubbles, Pretty bubbles in the air, They fly so high, nearly reach the sky, Then like my dreams they fade and die … And so Lionel became a kind of national symbol of intransigence, of peculiarly English intransigence in the face of relentlessly blighted hopes.
Which was the more unexpected, because Lionel always insisted that he didn’t give a fuck about football. Basically, he often used to say, only cunts give a fuck about football. Maybe, Des thought, maybe Lionel supported West Ham just to get out of the house—or maybe he took a Lionel pleasure in drinking in the pain of thousands upon thousands … Anyway, the running story on Lionel Asbo and West Ham United was soon at least partly overshadowed by weightier concerns—not least the attempted burglary in Short Crendon, which became known, in the spring of 2013, as the Case of the Chav Chauffeur.
Cilla’s eyes turned from blue to brown. This they had been told to expect. But then she developed another abnormality … Her parents stared. Des said,
“It’s like the way the royal family wave. During parades.”
“Yeah. As if they’re unscrewing a lightbulb.”
“But she’s doing it fast. With one in each hand!”
This was Cilla’s latest initiative: she’d raise her wrists to head height and wiggle them in swift rotations. She couldn’t stop doing that either—while of course still smiling. Dawn said,
“Like that black-face singer. Al Jolson! … Oh, Des, what have we done to deserve this?”
“You know, we’re duty-bound to have another. I mean not now, but … We’re duty-bound.”
“We are. It might be another Cilla.”
She spent most weekdays in the vast crèche at St. Swithin’s, where she hobnobbed with the innumerable babies of the schoolmarms and the schoolgirls.
And her eyes turned imperceptibly from blue to brown.
• • •
During the winter quarter Grace Pepperdine received three sets of visitors at Cape Wrath … Lionel and “Threnody” went up there first, in late November, as was duly recorded in the Sun, the Star, the Mail, and the Daily Telegraph. Lionel’s physiognomy, it turned out, had a talent for the sombre. It was basically his West Ham face (post-match, soaked car park, nil–six), but in a more elevated style: the photographs showed someone taking his grief like a man while maintaining a kind of yokel hopefulness, with broadened jaw and crinkled orbits. “Threnody,” for her part, was unveiled but still in the strictest black. Out on the cliffs together, with the breakers exploding steeple-high, they were an arresting study, “Threnody,” a woman who knew how to suffer (and endure, and avenge), under the burly arm of a more optimistic presence, one that gazed out through the mist and the spume and trustfully awaited the white sails of the new ships.
I don’t know why we go up there, said Lionel from under his baseball cap when Des passed him on the twenty-first floor of Avalon Tower (Des coming home, Lionel off out). Why do we bother? She didn’t know me from “Threnody.” Lionel spoke further about “Threnody.” Oh she loves it. Says being a tragedy queen’s good for her poetry books. You know, for they sales.
… Grace talking, Uncle Li?
Oh yeah. Talking to the ceiling. About Tommo. About Gunther.
Mm. Doing the dads. Tommo, or Tomorbataar: father of Ringo. Gunther: father of Stuart (pronounced Goonter by Stuart and Gunter by Gran, with Lionel settling for the no-nonsense Gumfer). Be back to Dominic in a minute, said Des. You could follow what she said then?
Yeah, if you bent over. Gurgling on about Tommo and bleeding Gunther. Lionel adjusted the peak of his cap. Then she’ll say something really … really mad.
What, when her language goes funny?
Yeah well I’ll give her funny. She said—and it stuck in me mind. She said … she said, Insect violation? Like it was a question. Then she said, Six, six, six … Insect violation? Now what the fuck’s that meant to mean?
Search me, Uncle Li.
Here. I worked it out. Lionel gave his pumpkin grin, and explained. Unless the Hammers won their next two games (away to Chelsea, away to Manchester United), they’d be doomed to relegation by Christmas.
Me new image, Des. It’s killing me with the skirt. And who can blame them? These birds want a bloke with a bit of the devil in him, not … Not the good son. The grieving father. The caring partner—with his empathy. Not the sad cunt who gives a fuck about West Ham. Des, it’s killing me with the DILFs.
But you’re uh, you’re sticking it out with “Threnody,” Uncle Li?
With Lynndie? Yeah. She says another four months. Four months … I’m forever blowing bubbles, eh Des? Jesus.
And, no, Lionel never did take that financial interest in West Ham United Football Club.
The three Pepperdines went up there in mid December (and again in mid January). Cilla was profoundly impressed by her forty-five-year-old great-grandmother; and Grace, too, seemed struck. Falling silent, she gazed at the eager figure held there at the bedside; again and again the baffled creases of her brow hesitantly rearranged themselves; and then her mouth (now bent in a tick, like the Nike logo) sought the shape of a smile. With Cilla reaching up to her.
Des believed that this was the true measure of his daughter: the way she reached up to the old (or to the old-seeming—she did it everywhere), her softly moved and forgiving look as she reached up to them.
They were leaving. Grace took Dawn’s hand. Hello, dear, she said and averted her face as if for a kiss. Cilla was a difficult birth. Well. She was my first. And I was only twelve. Cilla, difficult. John, Paul, George—easy. Ringo, a bit difficult. Stuart—easy. But Lionel. You remember those knights in the olden days? It was like having one of them. He turned me inside out, he did. Lionel came in full armour. Goodbye, dear.
In February, under a day-long downpour, John, Paul, George, Ringo, and Stuart drove to Cape Wrath for their biennial visit in Stuart’s two-door VW Lupo.
In the small hours of March 2, the police were called to the Welkway residence at 44 Blagstock Road, where they dealt with a domestic involving Marlon and Gina and Gina’s youngest sister, little Foozaloo. Gina was treated for hypothermia. It was twelve degrees below, and she had been locked out on the roof in her underwear.
The announcement came in late April. “Threnody” and Lionel Asbo had agreed on a trial separation. They find they are unable to get past the loss of Lovechild: this was what Dawn and Des read in the press release. They desperately want to make it work, Megan Jones was widely quoted as saying. There are only the tenderest feelings on both sides. For now, “Threnody” returned to her rented mews house off Kensington High Street. Lionel stayed on at “Wormwood Scrubs.” They remain very close, said Sebastian Drinker. To be honest, Lionel’s taking it hardest. First the loss of Lovechild, now the loss of “Threnody.” It’s tearing him apart.
In a brief statement (prior to going on the road with her story) “Threnody” said, I wasn’t able to succour him. Nor he I. It’s tragic. Because I still love the guy to death.
Death was awake, death was going about its business (in the Northern Lights, in Diston Gener
al), but during this time there was only one proximate casualty: Joy Nightingale. Joy—Ernest’s widow, Rory’s mother.
Des saw the notice in the Diston Gazette. He was having one of his days with Cilla, so he strapped her to his chest and they took the bus to the cemetery beyond Steep Slope. Yews and apple blossom against a middle distance of breezy sportsfields and pennanted pavilions, the lay churchwarden, the little group of friends and neighbours guardedly blowing their noses and clearing their throats … It was the kind of funeral where a mound of sand abuts the grave and where the mourners themselves begin the work of burial, throwing in their handfuls over the sunken casket. His turn came. As Des bent forward Cilla too reached into the pyramid of orange grit, and looked stern as she released her share through splayed and stiffened fingers.
The summers of 2012 and 2013 came early, but the winter in between was petrifyingly cold.
PART IV
2013 Who? Who?
The Week Before
“… Eh, are you all right? What’s wrong with you voice?”
“No, I’m coming down with something. I just told them. I’m going home sick. I’m dropping.”
“Yeah? Well hear this, Des. Half an hour ago. I’m lying in bed. The phone rings. Gina picks up—and starts having a little chat. How are you, love? All this. Oh, Marlon’s fine. Want a word with him? You coping with the weather? All this. Then she hands me the phone and says, It’s you mum!”
Des raised a hand to his brow. “Grace?”
“Grace. I felt this tingle go up me spine. Like she returned from the dead … Lionel? Listen, love. The end is near. Come and see you mother, love. We need to talk. Come and see you mother.”
“She said it like that?”
“She said it like that. Haven’t heard her talk proper English for what? Five years? I’ve got something on me conscience, Lionel. And I ain’t got long now. Come and see you mother, love.”
“… So you’re going up there?”
“Well I can’t get out of it, can I. What you reckon’s bothering the old …? Rory Nightingale? Here, who’s that nurse? The boiler with the white hair and the big tits.”
“Mrs. Gibbs.”
“Mrs. Gibbs. I had a word with Mrs. Gibbs. Says she’s seen it a thousand times. They get like that—you know, just before they pop off. Lucid. And they want—they want forgiveness.”
On the stairs Des paused to catch his breath, and he looked down through the window (as he often did) at the little skulk of foxes on the corrugated tin roof in the alley beneath Avalon Tower. One was curling up into a whorl of off-white and ginger, one was slowly stretching its rigid back legs. They peered this way and that with their usual scrawny apprehensiveness. Did it ever lift, their fear? In all weathers they seemed to shiver.
“Ooh, Des … Okay, that’s it. I’m not going.”
“No, go. Maybe it’ll pass,” he said faintly. Dawn was off to Diston General—to be with her mother. “Don’t be long. And don’t look so hopeful, Dawnie. What’re you hoping for anyway?”
“You know. I want his blessing. His blessing and his goodbye.”
“Horace’s blessing? Well good luck, Dawnie. And give my love to Pru.”
… Cilla was asleep in the basket on her free-standing perch. And for once he was hoping that she wouldn’t wake up. His main symptom was a feeling of helpless stupefaction—and the child, the four-limbed figure in its Babygro, looked forbiddingly complicated and mysterious: how to wield her, wash her, feed her? How to do all that, above all, without smearing her with his emanations, his moist whisper, his sickening breath? … He sank down on the couch. Goldie prowled towards him. She was four, but she still looked liquid in movement, and as light as air when she jumped, and it always surprised you—the weight of her when she landed on your lap. He reached out.
The cat sniffed his fingernails, gave a sneezelike snarl, and tore from the room.
Then Des knew he had it.
• • •
“UVI.”
“UVI. What’s that then?”
“Urban Vulpine Influenza,” said Des. “You know, the fox flu.” The fox flu: popularly referred to as breakbone—and also as fascist fever, because UVI showed a shameless preference for people of colour. “Can last a month. You get six weeks off. Automatic. Which is scary in itself. Comes in waves.”
Lionel smiled and said, “The fox flu. That’s old Horace, that is. Sending you his lurgy. You possessed by Horace. Seriously though, Des. You want to watch that with the baby. Her being half black and all.”
“Yeah. They say you’re only infectious before and after. Not during … Jesus.”
“Don’t worry, Des. You come to the right place.”
They were in the Spa Bar at the Pantheon Grand … Lionel had spent three nights up in Cape Wrath. From his taxiing aircraft, at City Airport, he summoned his nephew to what he called a family meet. He sent a car. Des found Lionel at his ease against a background of bamboo and marble, with his feet up on an embroidered pouffe, scanning the Financial Times and drinking a tawny liquid from a fluted glass.
“Uh—uh, Geoffrey? I’ll have the same again. Gin and carrot. And give the boy here a treble Bloody Mary. With masses of spice.”
“My pleasure, Mr. Asbo.”
“No, Des, it’s the only answer. We’ll get that down you, and then we’ll do some weights. Have a rub and a sauna. Sweat it out. It’s the only cure.”
… Now they lay side by side on black leather benches. Lionel was pressing a hundred kilos. Des was doing what he could with fifty-five.
“Arch you back a bit. Oy! Lock you elbows on the upthrust! … She was transformed, Des. Grace. She was sitting up and talking to me. To me. Not the wall. Not the lightbulb. Me. Her lastborn son. And guess what. Just so you know me state of mind when I come in the room … Well, I suppose it’s only natural. The old niggles just melted away and I felt all—I felt all sad, Des. All melancholy. Okay. She had her faults, Grace. But she did her best. Okay. She could be a bit wild.
Like your mum. But she did her best … And she said, she said, I’ve got something on me conscience, dear. And she looked away. And a tear rolled down her cheek. I said, Come on, Mum. You can tell me, for goodness’ sake! Come on, Mum. What is it? And she says …”
Desmond went still.
“She says …” Lionel, too, went still. “Oy. Keep you rhythm there. She says … Daddy Dom. Daddy Dom. She reckons she should’ve made a proper go of it with Daddy Dom. Instead of messing around with all them foreign blokes. A proper family, she says. Just me and Dom, and you and you sister. I humbled you, Lionel, from the day you was born. With them brothers all shapes and sizes. Can you ever forgive me? … Okay. Two hundred more and then we’ll do the squats and the deadlifts.”
… Now they were chin-deep in the frothing jacuzzi.
“I said, Ah, love. This is no time for hard feelings! For rancour! The past is past. And, Mum—look at me now! … I’m a wealthy businessman. The people of this country have taken me to they hearts. No, you boy’s at peace with the world. Rest, Mum, rest. You had it hard too, don’t forget. Seven kids. And I told her something I remembered from Sunday school. I said, God can’t be everywhere at once. So he sends us mums … A nice touch, don’t you think Des? Rest, Grace, rest! Okay. Sauna.”
… Now they sat on slatted wooden stools with plump white towels round their waists. It seemed to the younger man that the air was not unbreathably hot—it was just unbreathably thick.
“So you were up there three nights, Uncle Li.”
“Yeah. At the hotel. Got distracted. With a DILF. Jesus, is that you teeth chattering? Des, look at yer. Sweating and shivering at the same time! Stay clear of the baby, Des … Where’s she sleep anyway? In the kitchen?”
“Yeah. You’ve seen her. In her basket on the trestle table.”
“You ever have her in with you at all?”
“No. Never.” Des effortfully explained. “Dawn’s cousin. Marigold. She lost a youth that way. Crushed it by accide
nt.”
“What you do for ventilation? In these temperatures.”
“There’s the fan. And we keep the balcony door back. And sometimes we open the window in your room, Uncle Li. Just for the flow.”
“… You know, Des, I been thinking. When you uh, when you gran passes away, it’ll be the end of an era. How about I get a flat—at the Tower. And the baby’ll have her own nursery!”
“Well, that’d be massive, Uncle Li.”
“And I’ll go on uh, defraying you rent.”
“Uncle Li … You’ll still look in on us, I hope?”
“Course I will,” said Lionel, slapping his knees and getting to his feet. “Course.”
They then submitted to the expert cruelty of the masseur.
… In one of the ground-floor lounges Des looked on with a glass of water (even water tasted foul) as Lionel quietly consumed, in its entirety, the Restoration Tea for Two—crustless egg-and-cress sandwiches, buttermilk scones with strawberry jam and clotted cream, apricot tarts, and sherry trifle, washed down with four or five tankards of Black Velvet … Des was not alert that afternoon. Had he been, then certain aspects of the Asbo performance might have struck him. The elevations—of appetite, vocabulary, sentiment. But Des was not alert that afternoon.
“I still keep me penthouse at the South Central,” Lionel was saying as he finished up. “But it’s getting ridiculous. There’s a prank fire alarm almost every fucking night. And we all milling around the foyer in our bathrobes.” He glanced over his shoulder. “The Pantheon’s got other strengths. Good order, Des. Good order and restraint.”
… Bouncing his lighter in his palm, Lionel led the way out into the squarelike street or streetlike square that served as the hotel forecourt, with its doormen, its question-mark lamp posts, its dedicated taxi rank. Desmond’s courtesy car stood by.