As Des slid to his feet the tank gaped open.
‘… You been sitting on it.’
Lionel changed into sweatpants, trainers, and mesh vest. Then the two of them spent three and a half hours ferrying packing cases, tea chests, and cardboard boxes from Lionel’s lock-up in Skinthrift Close to Lionel’s bedroom at Avalon Tower — which, by the time they were done, was an impenetrable mass of stolen property. They couldn’t even get the door shut.
‘You be all right,’ said Lionel. ‘Just squeeze round it.’
‘I can. But what about you? How’ll you get out?’
Fuming, glowing, throbbing (they had relied on the Ford Transit and the stunted lift), Lionel surged into the kitchen and toppled on to the couch.
‘You look downhearted, girl. Now why’s that? Here, Des. Seen the brothers at all?’
Sitting at the table with Dawn’s hand on his shoulder, Des looked up as he wiped his face with a paper towel. ‘They’re ill. All five of them. I saw Uncle Paul.’
‘Yeah?’
‘Yeah. Uncle John’s been served with an Order of Distraint. They’ve seized his flat. And they’ve gone and repossessed Uncle George’s —’
‘Yeah. Well I made me contribution.’ He gave one of his masterful sniffs. ‘If it wasn’t for me they’d still be inside.’
‘They wouldn’t’ve been inside in the first place,’ said Dawn, ‘if it wasn’t for you.’
‘Dawnie …’
‘Don’t worry, Des, I won’t take offence. I’m uh, immune. See, that’s what happens when you win a hundred-odd million quid. You go numb. Not happy. Not sad. Numb. … Here. Jon and Joel. Cost a fair bit to feed.’
‘Well yeah. They do.’
‘Okay. I told you I’d relieve you financial situation. And I’ll be as good as my word,’ he said, rising. ‘I’m taking the dogs off yer.’
‘But Dawn loves the dogs!’
This weak cry, with its leapt octave, came from Des (who of course loved them too). Dawn sat down suddenly and said,
‘What you going to do with them?’
‘Cut me losses. I got a buyer. Four hundred quid. Think youself lucky, Des. No more shelling out for they Tabasco.’
Now Lionel bathed (causing a not very serious flood in the passage). Ten minutes later, they heard a mighty uprush and downflow of water; and then with a towel round his waist he squelched into the kitchen.
‘I don’t understand how you can live in these conditions. And there’s nowhere to change. Go on. Get the dogs in.’
Dawn gave Des a meaning nod and he said, ‘We’ll match it, Uncle Li. We’ll match the four hundred.’
Lionel squelched out again. ‘Get them in.’
Jon and Joel were coiled up under the table. They were painfully aware that they were the cause of a dreadful misunderstanding — which, surely, would very soon be resolved. Leaning forward, Dawn was stroking them with purposeful fingers, as if kneading hope into their harrowed brows.
When Lionel re-entered he was knotting his tie. He said,
‘Fair enough. How can any reasonable man refuse?’
Dawn said, ‘Oh thank you, Lionel. Thank you, thank you.’
‘You welcome. Let’s have it then. Four hundred … Oh. You haven’t got it on you?’ he said. ‘Oh dear. How unfortunate. See, Des, I need the cash tonight.’ He threw on his jacket and held out his hand. ‘The leads. Come on, yer … Come on, yer fucking little wankers. Come on, yer fucking little slags.’
The dogs lay on their sides with their forepaws bent as Lionel hooked them to the steel hawsers. They rose and their leg muscles stiffened; and there was a terrible minute while they cowered and wheeled. Des half turned away from their beseeching smiles.
‘Go with Uncle Li,’ he said unsteadily. ‘Good boys.’ He felt, just now, that if Lionel hit the dogs in front of her then Dawn might give up utterly. ‘Go with Uncle Li.’
Lionel shortened his grip with a sudden tug and the dogs, leaning backward, skidded from the room. There came the sounds of wrenching and rending, the giddy-up of the steel reins, the slammed front door.
‘… Maybe I should’ve stood up to him.’
‘Don’t talk bloody stupid,’ said Dawn. ‘D’you see his eyes?’
‘Yeah. What’s happened to his eyes?’
‘He’s stopped blinking! … They’re murderer’s eyes.’
Des and Dawn went and looked: the bedroom door torn off its hinges, the room itself stacked deep from floor to ceiling, Lionel’s sweats and mesh vest in a loose knot in the passage …
‘There goes our nursery,’ said Dawn.
‘No. No. I want a youth. And he’s not stopping us.’
‘Oh, Des, you’re mad. The things you say.’
‘I want a youth,’ he said. ‘And he’s not stopping us. I want a youth.’
Just before midnight Des spent a largely speechless half-hour with his gran. Grace sat facing the window, and when he spoke to her she just waved him away … There were no pets allowed — in the old people’s home singled out by her son. And so Des returned to Dawn with the kitten Goldie zipped up and purring in his windbreaker.
9
‘THAT’S ABSOLUTELY FINE, Mr Asbo. Don’t give it another thought, sir. And have a fantastic day.’
It wasn’t hard to see why Lionel was so very much happier in the South Central — the asymmetric ninety-suite high-rise that loomed like a whimsical robot over the stubby bohemia of north Pimlico. As fancily priced as the Pantheon Grand (and the Castle on the Arch and the Launceston), the South Central described itself, in its publicity material, as the heavy-metal hotel. It catered to rock stars, and not just to heavy-metal rock stars. And not just to rock stars: in its candyishly bright and airy public rooms you might glimpse a recently imprisoned bratpack actor, an incensed fashion model, a woman-beating Premiership footballer — and so on. In brief, the core clientele was rich and famous; and none of them got that way by work of mind. Lionel, at last, had happened upon his peers.
There were never fewer than three plasma TV sets at the bottom of the swimming pool on the back terrace, plus a selection of iPod docks, camcorders, laptops, and minibars. Day-Glo crime-scene tape frequently adorned the entrance to this or that forbidden passageway — illegal firearms, assaults, investigations of rape (statutory and otherwise). There were often fire engines snorting and sneezing in the forecourt — but no ambulances: the hotel deployed its own medical teams to cope with all the pharmaceutical misadventures and the more serious self-mutilations. Similarly, the floodings, the wreckings, the sometimes storey-wide devastations were taken care of by squads of discreet and cheerful young men in sky-blue jumpsuits.
Thrown out of the Pantheon Grand, thrown out of the Castle on the Arch, and thrown out of the Launceston, Lionel was intrigued to learn that nobody had ever been thrown out of the South Central. Zero Ejections, it said in his desktop brochure. Anti-social behaviour, among the guests at least, was considered a civic virtue; and the incorrigible monotony of Lionel’s criminal record (often reinventoried in the press) was widely admired. His prestige, here, was boundless, his legitimacy beyond challenge. But it hadn’t gone away — the internal question mark, like a rusty hook, snagged in his innards.
* * *
He made several good mates during his short time there. Scott Ronson, the arthritic, lantern-jawed rhythm guitarist of a band called the Pretty Faces. Eamon O’Nolan, the two-time World Snooker Champion (who was always doing community service for various unambitious misdemeanours — roughing up referees, relieving himself in pot plants, and the like). Lorne Brown, the winner of a huge reality telethon (a month in the South Central was one of his prizes). Brent Medwin, the (teenage) cokehead Manchester City midfielder, both of whose parents were in jail (the mum for living off immoral earnings, the dad for manslaughter). Hereabouts, Lionel Asbo could just relax and be himself, freely mingling with his fellow superstars.