by Will Self
'You what?' Dave was incredulous. The little man pointed at the bumper of the Carlton. 'You fe damage me moto, mun, issall bashedup an vat. Seen.' There was a collective sucking of cheeks, 'tchuk', and a murmur of assent. 'Twenny pahnd,' said the little man. Dave's mobile rang.
'It could be nosebag,' began the Skip Tracer, 'but there's definitely a bird.'
'You what?'
'Your man, I've 'ad that team on him an' they've come up trumps, seems 'e's aht an' abaht all the time, up west, down souf, in and out of fucking crack houses, pubs, clubs, knocking shops, squats – there's no kind of lowlife he won't stoop for, but 'e's always picking up the same bird. Pretty thing – young enough to be his daughter.'
'Twenny pahnd,' the crash victim reiterated. He was standing right up against Dave now, his face almost resting on the bigger man's sternum. His fellow revenue men had closed in as well – a barrier of bloodshot eyes which blocked out the entrance to the Reliance Arcade. Over one man's velour shoulder Dave could see women sitting at little tables in the nail parlour, their taloned hands splayed for the manicurists. He took the phone away from his ear and mouthed, 'I'm on the phone', and such was the obeah of this that his taxers fell back, muttering 'foufou, mun' and 'raasclaat'.
'Perhaps it is his daughter,' Dave said to the Skip Tracer. 'He has got one, y'know.'
'Oh, no, no, no, that I do not think. My team saw them in a very compromising clinch, her tongue right down 'is fucking throat. Oh, no, no, no. This changes everything, right, yes, because I don't think your ex is gonna be too happy wiv this – do you? Might have a bit of a debt-tree mental effect on the old happy home. Gotta go, my son – sweat's lashing offa me.' It was lashing off Dave as well. I can feel cold drips on my ribs, what the fuck am I doing here? This is bandit country. It was, because, despite the solid Baptist ladies trundling bags as big as pantechnicons, and the Saturday afternoon shoppers, no one even noticed the extortion being practised on the cabbie. 'Twenny pahnd.' The little man persisted – and Dave just gave it to him. But once he was back in the cab and heading to safety down the Brixton Road, the humiliation welled up and overflowed.
On the midget location where his hit show Blackie was being filmed, Cal Devenish accepted a cup of sparkling mineral water from one of the gofers and stood sipping it in the shadow thrown by the catering truck. I'm paranoid … spend too much time round miniature cameras and you're bound to think you're being watched . . . and yet. . . and yet… what if someone had seen that occasion when Daisy, caught in a dizzying fugue of mania and rising up, up, up and over the rooftops of Shoreditch, had grabbed her father's head in both hands and slammed her mad mouth into his. I pushed her away – threw her away from me … It was disgusting … repellent … she tasted of me … Yet she'd hung on to him, they'd teetered, slammed into a wheelie bin with a hollow 'boom'. Cal had been desperate to get her out of the foul alley, into the car and away to safety, so for one minute of yawning perdition … I responded, I kissed her back … I felt that bolt in her tongue with mine…her hands on me… mine on her… When the clinch was finally broken she was calmed, and he could lead her to the car. Then, emerging into the flambéed sodium of Great Eastern Street, Cal saw a back that moved away … too fast. That was all, the ordinary back hadn't done anything, it was merely that it accelerated too fast, got away too quickly … got away with it.
Even in sleep Dave Rudman couldn't escape. His mobile vibrated on the bedside table, hungry rats' claws drumming on tree bark. He groped and drew it down into the darkness of the undercovers, into his man reek. 'Meet me at Wagamama in Canary Wharf,' said the Skip Tracer.
'B-but why?' Dave gagged.
'Why not?' the Skip Tracer snapped.
'It's … it's Sunday.'
'Sunday? Sunday! Whaddo I care about fucking Sunday, only bloke who can't get out of his crib on a Sunday is one oozebin doing nosebag on a Saturday night –'ave you?'
'No, 'course snot.'
'Right, see you there innanour.'
It was a flashback to the mid 1980s when the vast development was a deserted, newly built ruin. The whole of Canada Square couldn't have had more than thirty people drifting across it. Dave ranked up at the foot of No. 1 and sauntered through the precinct. Au Bon Pain was shuttered up – Starbucks as well. In the tiny ornamental garden a languid Somali tweezered leaves from the lawn with a grabber, while a brushed steel fountain plashed to itself. The designer vents from the tube lines below sent waste pages soaring like gulls up the glass sides of the HSBC building.
Dave crossed to the shopping centre on the far side, descended, then mounted a theatrical staircase into Wagamama, which was an aircraft-carrier flight deck of an eatery. The open-plan kitchen full of hiss, steam and clatter gave on to long wooden tables and benches laid out with the simplicity of ruled lines. Dave ignored the girl in the Mao tunic who asked him, 'Is it just you, sir?' because the place was all but empty, and he could see the Skip Tracer sitting in the far corner by the window that looked out over the shopping mall, a big bowl steaming in front of his pink, boyish face. 'Look at this Jap food,' he said when Dave sat down opposite him, 'noodles, dumplings, veggie-fucking-nibbles.' He poked at it with his chopsticks. 'Issa little world in that bowl, innit just.' The Skip Tracer was wearing a heavy, three-piece, herringbone suit and a lilac silk shirt. Beneath the table mirror-shined shoes tapped on the tiling. His queer features – the ski-jump nose, the parboiled brows – were sharply defined by his razor-cut fringe. He was unshaven and the sweat was lashing off him, dripping down through the steam into the bowl like rain from low cloud.
'I saw a dwarf on the way over,' the Skip Tracer said. 'I only mention it 'coz she was stacked, man. Stacked.' Dave ordered a beer. 'Aren't you gonna eat, son?' the Skip Tracer snapped. 'You gotta eat, else people'll think you're on – '
'I don't care what people think.'
'Please yourself.' The Skip Tracer wasn't himself; he kept darting little glances away to each side of them. He dipped at the noodles with his wooden bill, yet never raised one to his mouth. His bitten-off statements lacked their usual emphasis – he was no longer the candour man, the sincerity daddy.
Eventually he gave a deep sigh and, mopping his brow with a yard of white cotton handkerchief, said, 'It's gone tits up, mate. Tits up. Thought I could help you – but I can't. Devenish … Devenish…well, turns out it was'izdorta. Surprised – you could've fucked me up the Gary. She's mental, mental, mentally – '
'III? I could've told you that.'
'Well, you'll understand, then. Call me sentimental, but I can't be doing with that. Not gonna hound the man – wouldn't be effical.'
'There's still the money angle – his company. We know he fiddled the Channel Devenish buyout, don't you remember? The geezer in my cab. What about all the leg work you did, the bins, the shreddies, the calls – all of that?' Dave was close to tears.
'Good work, sound work, not gonna knock it – my people are professionals. Few corners cut, zoom-zoom.' The Skip Tracer zoomed his hand under Dave's nose. 'Still, at the end of the day there's gotta be a point… when – '
'When what? What?'
'When you call – well, when you call it the end of the day.'
Finally, Dave allowed his own eyes to leave the Skip Tracer's face and follow the direction of his darting eyes. Two tables away sat a girl of twelve or thirteen. She was wearing a bright pink tracksuit with a red spangly heart embroidered on the back. Her thick blonde hair was tied back in a pink scrunchie. She was working at a colouring book with an elongated novelty pencil, on the end of which wavered a pink flashing heart. She looked up as Dave gazed at her and smiled, her braces a zipper in the soft, oval bag of her face. It was the girl in the photo on the filing cabinet in Belgravia. Dave's eyes swivelled to the Skip Tracer. 'Yours, is she?'
'Yeah, yeah, obviously, only get her for the afternoon. Problems – difficulties, court order thingy – you'll appreciate that. 'Er mum's a lawyer, as it 'appens – got me by the bollocks. Alright, love?' he called o
ver to the girl. 'Won't be long now, then we'll go shopping.' He turned back to Dave. 'colouring,' he said, jerking a thumb at the girl and speaking in an uncharacteristic undertone. 'Bit babyish, but makes 'er feel, I dunno, secure.'
'Have they got to you in some way?' Dave's eyes bored into the Skip Tracer's. 'Is that it? Have they got something on you?'
'Nah, nah, you're paranoid, you are, son. If I didn't know better I'd say you were – '
'Whatever. I'm fed up with this, I'm fed up with you.' Dave got up abruptly and began making his way between the tables towards the exit. The Skip Tracer called after him: 'Just a sec, Rudman!' It was the first time he'd ever called Dave by name.
Dave came back to the table. 'What? What is it?'
'Bill, my son.' The Skip Tracer passed him an envelope. 'All there, shitshape, tits fashion.'
'You wha– you. You said not to worry about the money.'
'There's worrying about money and there's paying it, son, two different things entirely. And remember what I said,' he called to Dave's retreating back. 'Don't go to those sharks, matey, the vig'll fucking kill yer.'
That following Tuesday, as usual, Dave Rudman went to his Fathers First meeting in the Trophy Room of the Swiss Cottage Sports Centre. He went even though he'd spent the last two days in bed, Zopicloned into inanition. It was a mistake – he couldn't meet anyone's eyes. The venue didn't seem right – it looked like the inside of a cabbies' shelter, the glowing trophy cabinet a steely urn, a ghostly table rising up between the men's knees, on it a plastic cloth patterned with plastic fruit. 'Those fucking coloureds,' said Daniel Brooke; 'they don't pay no bleeding road tax, no insurance, whassit all abaht, eh?'
'An' those speed bumps,' Keith Greaves put in. 'I tell yer my wishbones is shot t'shit.'
'Shot t'shit,' some of the other dads chorused.
'What's going on?' Dave asked Fucker Finch. 'Are these blokes dads or drivers?'
'Snap ahtuvit, Tufty,' Fucker said, shaking Dave's shoulder. 'You look bloody awful, mate. Where you bin all weekend? I woz calling you.'
'Bin sleeping,' Dave muttered. 'Bin laden – laden wiv dreams.'
Daniel Brooke stood up to address the group. He was sporting an outsized black T-shirt that draped down almost to his knees. On the front there was a big white fist. 'This is the new T-shirt, chaps – hot off the press. I hope you like it, there are six sizes, this is the XXXL I'm modelling, a little on the large size for a slender fellow such as myself.' He gave them a twirl and across the back of the shirt ballooned the white letters FIGHTING FATHERS. 'Hold on, hold on, Dan.' Keith Greaves was on his feet. 'That's not what we agreed, that's not the logo we all voted for – and you know it. It's far too aggressive.'
'This is not the only Fathers First group, Keith – you know that.'
'I tell you what I do know,' Greaves said, shaking with rage. 'I know you've been trying to hijack this particular group for ages now. You, you, you're a bloody extremist you are, you're vindictive, you're resentful – '
'You're sounding pretty resentful yourself, Keith,' Daniel Brooke said smoothly, a smile playing round his wet lips.
'We aim to reconcile parents, we aim to forge links – you want to bring the whole thing crashing down! You don't care anything for your own kids at all – it's all about you and your cronies. Why don't you take off and start your own bloody group? Then you can do these direct actions you're always going on about.'
'Maybe I will,' said Daniel. 'Maybe I will do that.'
'D'you know something, Fucker,' Dave whispered to Finch.
'What, Tufty? What?'
'I've written a book.'
Dave ran home down Adelaide Road and along England's Lane to Gospel Oak. Right Haverstock Hill, left Prince of Wales Road, left Queen's Crescent . . . He puffed over inside his own skull as he ran, staggering to a halt every fifty yards because a stitch had been sewn in his diaphragm and Fanning, the GP, was yanking on it to give his words emphasis: At your AGE, Mister Rudman … a SMOKER . . . with a SEDENTARY OCCUPATION … you ought to consider some EXERCISE … which would help you with your DEPRESSION. Take some RESPONSIBILITY for your LIFE. Dave wasn't running for his health, he was running because he could no longer trust himself to drive the cab. He couldn't control this behemoth vehicle, with its chassis of reinforced-steel girders, its pre-stressed concrete bodywork, its York stone carpets and carriage work of herringbone London bricks. When he looked in the rearview he saw that he had more passengers than he was licensed for. Far more – approximately seven million in fact. They're all back there, the whole population of the fucking city … it's gonna kick off. . .
Back in the flat it was no better. He sat on the side of the bed in his rancid underwear, all his medication held in his cupped hands. Please, sir, can I have some more, sir? Not a good idea. Then, on his sausage hands and burger knees, his nose in the greasy carpet, Dave Rudman butted the radiator under the window with a mournful 'clang'. If only I could see him for a few minutes, half an hour, give him a little cuddle, read him a story … Yet it wasn't Carl that he truly wanted; his desire was for competent arms to hold him, smooth skin to smear on oily love, insulation against the terrifying, heaving green swell of madness. On the floor were pieces of ripped-up card, blood from his cut head spattered across them. Thinking again of that cunt, the Skip Tracer, and, for want of anything else to do until I die, Dave began to solve the puzzle with the calm ease of a man with a brain that was scientifically proven to be bigger than normal… so full of Knowledge . . . The lettering steadily emerged from the shreddies – D-R-J-A-N-E-B-E-R-N-A-L-C-O-N-S-U-L – until he'd cracked it. Then he thought: I better go looking for the lid so I can check the picture on it's the same.
It wasn't until 3 a.m. that Dave Rudman … comply Pond Street, right access road … finally walked into the reception area of Heath Hospital's Accident and Emergency Department. He showed his painstakingly taped-up jigsaw to the woman at the desk. 'Dr Bernal?' she queried. 'You won't find her here at this time of night.'
'I can wait,' replied the man, who for some reason had a dirty bath towel tied round his head.
'I don't even know what days she comes in,' the receptionist flannelled. 'She's on a rotation.'
'I can wait,' he reiterated, sitting himself down by a Camden Town tart who'd been beaten up by her pimp. 'Give over,' she said through pain-puff lips, and he moved to a different moulded tractor seat. 'You can't – ' the receptionist began – then caught herself. He wasn't making any trouble … why not leave the poor bastard alone?
Dave Rudman waited and waited. He quit his seat only for tea and piss. He filled in the gaps by scanning over and over the same copy of Take a Break: 'Sharon Finds a Lump', 'Don't Snip it, Dave', 'Lonely Dad's Last Text – Without Them I am Nothing'. He was the subject of scribbled notes passed from receptionist to receptionist, secretary to secretary. He sat among the victims of street fighting and the casualties of domestic warfare. Patients waiting in queer déshabillé for transport to other hospitals were still more refugees, in their outdoor shoes and bathrobes, their raincoats and nighties.
Late on the following day, when he'd been waiting for nearly fourteen hours, Dave Rudman was summoned to the eighth floor and, accompanied by an orderly, rode the lift up. Insanity stank out the confined space like an eggy fart. There was a bird-beaked woman with a pot plant; a limp technician carrying a tray silently chattering with plaster casts of teeth; a yellow-faced girl in a yellow dress eating a yellow aerated cream dessert in a yellow plastic pot – but the stench came from the cabbie.
Even so, Dave wouldn't have been admitted if he hadn't attacked the orderly and clumsily tried to throttle him outside the door of Jane Bernal's office. She stepped out into the pedestrian horror of it: one big white man trying to bang the head of a small Asian one against an institutional wall. 'You fucking terrorist!' Rudman was screaming. 'You wanna cut my fucking head off or what!' A framed watercolour of Betws-y-Coed, allocated by a distant committee, rattled on the brickwork, then fell and sh
attered at their feet.
Had Dave Rudman been in any state to appreciate it, he would have. Would, perhaps, have been pleased by the whirl of activity his breakdown generated. After thirty milligrams of Chlorpromazine he was lucid enough to give up his keys, his address, Gary Finch's and his parents' phone numbers. A psychiatric social worker was assigned, calls were made, pill pots were collected from the flat in Agincourt Road. A pathetic flight bag was brought up to where cabbie 47304 was ranked up for the next seventy-two hours. Jane Bernal interviewed him, a standard risk assessment: reality testing, cognitive function, a physical once-over that had the functionality of a car service. The gash on his head was sponged and taped by a nurse. But Rudman wasn't interested in any of it; he only wanted to tell her about –
'A book, he says he's written a book.'
'Hmm.' Dr Zack Busner stood by the window in his office, which faced out over the Heath. Gulls were riding the thermals over Whitestone Pond. What is it with these seafowl? he wondered. Have they come inland because they anticipate a deluge? Should we get Maintenance to start building an ark? 'What sort of book is it, a novel?' He wasn't really concentrating on the conversation, rather trying to dangle a paperclip from the snub nose of an Arawak Indian head carved from pumice, which had been given to him by a grateful Antiguan student. He succeeded for a split-second, then the clip fell, tinkling, into the ventilation duct. 'Damn!' Busner turned from the window.
