Lionel Asbo: State of England by Martin Amis Read Free Book Online Page B

groans.’
    ‘Groans? What are you talking about?’
    He told her. ‘And you don’t groan, do you,’ he said. ‘Do you?’
    ‘… I do groan,’ she said carefully. ‘Now and then. You just don’t notice. Ah, old Dud , what would he know?’
    ‘Stop laughing like that! How many Dubonnets’ve you had?’
    ‘Now you stay just where you are, young sir.’
    ‘No, Grace … Well get a pillow then. In case you groan. And put the Beatles up!’
    Later, as she smoked a thickly appreciated Silk Cut, Grace said mysteriously (and she would not enlarge on it), ‘Oh, Des, you’re gorgeous. But the trouble is … The trouble is, love, you’ve been giving me ideas!’

 
    8
    ANOTHER WEEK PASSED. Then it all came to a head – on a day of three-ply horror for Desmond Pepperdine.
    Another week passed, and by now Des had more or less given up on Daphne, on Daphne and her counsel. And yet there it was, in the Sun on Saturday (on Saturdays Daphne commanded a two-page spread). All the other letters bore headlines (I Feel Like a Tart As I Can’t Stop Bedding Strangers, Trapped in a Man’s Body, I Want to Wed My Dead Hubbie’s Dad, Heartbreak at Text Cheat, Grief Over Mum Won’t Lift); but Des’s plea was untitled, and appeared in the bottom left-hand corner against a funereal background of dark grey.
    Dear Daphne, I’m a young man from Kensington in Liverpool, and I’ve been having sexual relations with my grandmother. Could you explain the legal situation?
    DAPHNE SAYS: This must end at once! You are both committing statutory rape, and could face a custodial sentence. Write again urgently with a PO address, and I will send you my leaflet , Intrafamilial Sexual Abuse and the Law.
    Des spent the rest of the day on Steep Slope, stumbling from bench to bench. He could hear the brittle fairground music swirling up from Happy Valley; and the air was dotted with spores of moisture that couldn’t quite become rain. Something dark seemed to be growing bigger on the other side of the rise.
     
    * * *
    At seven o’clock Lionel shouldered his way into the kitchen with a great load of dog gear in his arms. He halted and his head jerked back.
    ‘… The tank’s open.’
    ‘Yeah, I tried it,’ said Des quietly, ‘and the lid just came up. But now it won’t shut.’
    ‘There you are then.’ With a crash Lionel dropped the tangled mass on to the counter – lunge poles, break sticks, and four thick leather collars with pyramidal steel spikes. ‘You been sitting on it.’
    Des’s brow never rippled when he frowned, but tonight his eyes felt (and looked) very close together, like a levelled figure eight. He now saw that Lionel had a newspaper in his sweatpants pocket: not the Morning Lark , not the Diston Gazette (also a red-top tabloid) – but the Sun !
    Lionel uncapped a Cobra three inches from Des’s left ear, saying,
    ‘Dire news about you gran.’
    His voice cracked as he whispered, ‘Oh yeah, Uncle Li?’
    ‘The plot thickens … I had another talk with old Dud. It’s not only groans, Des.’
    ‘Uh, what else?’
    ‘Giggles. Giggles. So it’s not pain , is it. It’s not pain . And you know what else?’
    Des was scratching his chest with both sets of fingernails.
    ‘She’s started turning the music up loud! … Tuesday night Dud said he heard giggles. Then the music went up. And that ain’t the clincher.’ He stuck his tongue out and removed a hair from it. ‘You won’t believe this, Des, but the old …’
    Lionel fell silent. He went to the glass door, pulled back the curtain, and gazed down at Jeff and Joe; they lay there side by side, humped in sleep.
    ‘I placed a bet today,’ he said in a surprised voice. ‘See for youself.’ And with a flourish he produced his newspaper and fanned it out on the table.
    ‘Reading the Sun now are we?’
    ‘Yeah. Gone uh, gone boffin for the day.’ A new beer can sneezed. ‘No, Des, Page Three Playoffs. And I’ve put money on Julietta. See, she reminds me of