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

two months for Extortion With Menaces, two months for Receiving Stolen Property, two months for Extortion With Menaces, and two months for Receiving Stolen Property. There was also, in the spring of 2009, his arrest and incarceration on the rare charge of Grievous Affray (plus Criminal Damage) – but that’s another story.
    When Des turned seventeen (by that time he had found a way of coexisting with his conscience), Lionel gave him a course of driving lessons in the Ford Transit. Quietly discounting Lionel’s general advice (overtake whenever you can, use the horn as often as possible, never stop at zebra crossings, amber always means go), Des saved up for the Test, memorised the Highway Code, and conducted himself, on the day, with elderly sanctimony – and passed first time! … It was the way they’d always seemed to manage it. The anti-dad, the counterfather. Lionel spoke; Des listened, and did otherwise.
    During these years Grace Pepperdine’s life became a monothematic saga of anxiety, weight loss, heart palpitations, insomnia, depression, chronic fatigue, and osteoporosis. In addition, she kept mislaying things. Her phone would find its way into her bathroom cabinet; her doorkeys would hide behind the frozen peas in her fridge. Someone went round there every day – almost invariably Des, but often Paul, and frequently John, George, and Stuart (though seldom Ringo, and never Lionel).
    Joe was shot dead by an Armed Response marksman in the summer of 2008. Out for a stroll with Cynthia (Lionel was away), Joe attacked a police horse, with a policewoman on it, in Carker Square. He was under its clattering hooves for the entire length of Diston High Street and for seven and a half miles up on the London Orbital, with the heavy chain slithering and scintillating in his wake. With Joe gone, Jeff inconsolably pined and sickened. And when he was next out of prison Lionel decided to make a fresh start. He sold Jeff for a token sum to one of Marlon’s brothers (Troy), and purchased two pedigree pitbull pups – Joel and Jon.
    There were no further developments in the Rory Nightingale case (which, all the same, was not yet officially closed) … Des started calling on Rory’s parents, Joy and Ernest; he drank a mug of tea with them every couple of weeks, and ran errands; they said they found comfort, and not anguish, in his youth, his purple blazer, the space he filled. During his visits he thought many things, most often this: what an hourly mockery and misery it could be – the name Joy.
    Meanwhile, Des had set about astonishing Squeers Free. In 2006 he sat his GCSEs – and got eleven A’s! He was transferred, on the Gifted Programme, to Blifil Hall, where, in 2007, he sat his A-levels – and picked up four distinctions! He was sixteen. Next, he was offered a provisional place (he would have to survive the interview) at Queen Anne’s College! Queen Anne’s College – of the University of London … It took him a long time to break the news to Lionel. Lionel was bitterly opposed to higher education.
    Des continued, off and on, to see a fair bit of Alektra, then a fair bit of Jade, then a fair bit of Chanel (who was Irish). Try being gentle, Chanel , he said to her late one night. All soft and romantic. Go on. You’re adventurous. Try being gentle. See what you think . A week later she said, I like it with you, Des. All romantic. All soft and dreamy. I don’t know why, but it’s just a better ride .
    And then, in 2008, when he went for his interview at Queen Anne’s College, Des met Dawn Sheringham, and everything changed.
    For a while it seemed that a similar transformation had already surprised Uncle Lionel. What happened was this. In the Indian summer of 2008, Gina Drago broke up with Marlon Welkway. The problem was as always Marlon’s gambling (and rumour spoke of a tooth-and-claw catfight between Gina and a croupier named Antoinette – one of Marlon’s exes – in a Jupes Lanes spieler). Anyway, the next