Lionel Asbo: State of England Read Free

gap-toothed smile. Well, the upper incisors were widely spaced, yet Lionel very seldom smiled. You only saw them when he sneered.
    ‘… What you doing there with that pen ? What’s that you writing? Guiss it.’
    Des thought fast. ‘Uh, it’s about poetry, Uncle Li.’
    ‘ Poetry ?’ said Lionel and started back.
    ‘Yeah. Poem called The Faerie Queene .’
    ‘The what ? … I despair of you sometimes, Des. Why aren’t you out smashing windows? It’s not healthy. Oh yeah, listen to this. You know that bloke I bashed up in the pub the other Friday? Mr “Ross Knowles”, if you please? He’s only pressing charges. Grassed me. Would you credit it.’
    Desmond knew how Lionel was likely to feel about such a move. One night last year Lionel came home to find Des on the black leatherette sofa, innocently slumped in front of Crimewatch . The result was one of the longest and noisiest slappings he had ever received at his uncle’s hands. They asking members of the public , said Lionel, standing in front of the giant screen with his arms akimbo, to fink on they own neighbours . Crimewatch, it’s like a … like a programme for paedophiles , that is. It disgusts me . Now Des said,
    ‘He went to the law? Aw, that’s … That’s … the lowest of the low, that is. What you going to do, Uncle Li?’
    ‘Well I’ve been asking around and it turns out he’s a loner. Lives in a bedsit. So there’s no one I can go and terrify. Except him.’
    ‘But he’s still in hospital.’
    ‘So? I’ll take him a bunch of grapes. You feed the dogs?’
    ‘Yeah. Only we’re out of Tabasco.’
    The dogs, Joe and Jeff, were Lionel’s psychopathic pitbulls. Their domain was the narrow balcony off the kitchen, where, all day, the two of them snarled, paced, and swivelled – and prosecuted their barking war with the pack of Rottweilers that lived on the roof of the next high-rise along.
    ‘Don’t lie to me, Desmond,’ said Lionel quietly. ‘Don’t ever lie to me.’
    ‘I’m not!’
    ‘You told me you fed them. And you never give them they Tabasco!’
    ‘Uncle Li, I didn’t have the cash! They’ve only got the big bottles and they’re five ninety-five!’
    ‘That’s no excuse. You should’ve nicked one. You spent thirty quid, thirty quid , on a fucking dictionary, and you can’t spare a couple of bob for the dogs.’
    ‘I never spent thirty quid! … Gran give it me. She won it on the crossword. The prize crossword.’
    ‘Joe and Jeff – they not pets , Desmond Pepperdine. They tools of me trade.’
    Lionel’s trade was still something of a mystery to Des. He knew that part of it had to do with the very hairiest end of debt collection; and he knew that part of it involved ‘selling on’ (Lionel’s word for selling on was reset ). Des knew this by simple logic, because Extortion With Menaces and Receiving Stolen Property were what Lionel most often went to prison for … He stood there, Lionel, doing something he was very good at: disseminating tension. Des loved him deeply and more or less unquestioningly ( I wouldn’t be here today without Uncle Li , he often said to himself). But he always felt slightly ill in his presence. Not ill at ease. Ill.
    ‘… You’re back early, Uncle Li,’ he repeated as airily as he could. ‘Where you been?’
    ‘Cynthia. I don’t know why I bestir meself. Gaa, the state of that Cynthia.’
    The spectral blonde called Cynthia, or Cymfia , as he pronounced it, was the nearest thing Lionel had to a childhood sweetheart, in that he started sleeping with her when she was ten (and Lionel was nine). She was also the nearest thing he had to a regular girlfriend, in that he saw her regularly – once every four or five months. Of women in general, Lionel sometimes had this to say: More trouble than they worth, if you ask me. Women? I’m not bothered. I’m not bothered about women . Des thought that this was probably just as well: women, in general, should be very pleased that Lionel