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 welclass="underline" women, in general, should be very pleased that Lionel wasn’t bothered about them. One woman bothered him — yes, but she bothered everyone. She was a promiscuous beauty named Gina Drago …
‘Des. That Cynthia,’ said Lionel with a surfeited leer. ‘Christ. Even uh, during the uh, you know, during the other, I was thinking, Lionel, you wasting you youth. Lionel, go home. Go home, boy. Go home and watch some decent porn.’
Des picked up the Mac and got smartly to his feet. ‘Here. I’m off out anyway.’
‘Yeah? Where? Seeing that Alektra?’
‘Nah. Meet up with me mates.’
‘Well do something useful. Steal a car. Eh, guess what. You Uncle Ringo won the Lottery.’
‘He never. How much?’
‘Twelve pounds fifty. It’s a mug’s game, the Lottery, if you ask me. Oy. I’ve been meaning to ask you something. When you creep off at night …’
Des was standing there holding the Mac in both hands, like a waiter with a tray. Lionel was standing there with the Cobras in both hands, like a drayman with a load.
‘When you creep off at night, you carry a blade?’
‘Uncle Li! You know me.’
‘Well you should. For you own security. And you peace of mind. You going to get youself striped. Or worse. There’s no fistfights any more, not in Diston. There’s only knife fights. To the death. Or guns. Well,’ he relented, ‘I suppose they can’t see you in the fucking dark.’
And Des just smiled with his clean white teeth.
‘Take a knife from the drawer on you way out. One of them black ones.’
Des didn’t meet up with his mates. (He didn’t have any mates. And he didn’t want any mates.) He crept off to his gran’s.
As we know, Desmond Pepperdine was fifteen. Grace Pepperdine, who had led a very demanding life and borne many, many children, was a reasonably presentable thirty-nine. Lionel Asbo was a heavily weathered twenty-one.
… In dusty Diston (also known as Diston Town or, more simply, Town), nothing — and no one — was over sixty years old. On an international chart for life expectancy, Diston would appear between Benin and Djibouti (fifty-four for men and fifty-seven for women). And that wasn’t all. On an international chart for fertility rates, Diston would appear between Malawi and Yemen (six children per couple — or per single mother). Thus the age structure in Diston was strangely shaped. But stilclass="underline" Town would not be thinning out.
Des was fifteen. Lionel was twenty-one. Grace was thirty-nine …
He bent to unlatch the gate, he skipped down the seven stone steps, he knocked the knocker. He listened. Here came the shuffle of her fluffy slippers, and in the background (as ever) the melodic purity of a Beatles song. Her all-time favourite: ‘When I’m Sixty-Four’.
3
DAWN SIMMERED OVER the incredible edifice — the stacked immensity of Avalon Tower.
On the curtained balcony (the size of a tight parking space), Joe lay dreaming of other dogs, enemy dogs, jewel-eyed hellhounds. He barked in his sleep. Jeff rolled over with a blissful sigh.
In bedroom number one (the size of a low-ceilinged squash court, with considerable distances between things, between the door and the bed, between the bed and the wardrobe, between the wardrobe and the free-standing swing mirror), Lionel lay dreaming of prison and his five brothers. They were all in the commissary, queuing for Mars Bars.
And in bedroom number two (the size of a generous four-poster), Des lay dreaming of a ladder that rose up to heaven.
Day came. Lionel left early with Joe and Jeff (business). Des dreamed on.
For six or seven months now he had been sensing it: the pangs and quickenings of intelligence within his being. Cilla, Des’s mother, died when he was twelve, and for three years he entered a kind of trance, a leaden sleep; all was numb and Mumless … Then he woke up.