The Book of Dave

by Will Self

  A great acclamation went up from the galleries, where the diehard spectators were mostly those who desired to see the full weight of the Law descend upon the malefactors. Above this, Carl heard the Lawyer of Blunt clearly exclaim: O my Dave! Now all is lost! He spoke too soon – there was, for him, far more to be lost. Inspector after Inspector now hitched up his robes to climb up from the pit to the bench and make his depositions. Statements had been taken from witnesses to every stage of Antonë and Carl's journeying – toffs in the Lawyer's own circle were turncoats, Missus Edjez had been broken by torture, the gaffer of the Trophy Room had had his say – and it transpired that no run out to the sticks had been too long for the Inspectors to undertake. The Plateists of Bril had been examined, and seeseeteevee men had been to Chil and even Ham itself, for the words of Mister Greaves and the Driver were read out in open forecourt.

  The evidence of flying was overwhelming, not merely against the accused but also the Lawyer of Blunt. If he had been hoping to escape the censure of the Public Carriage Office by reason of his status or connections, then he was rudely mistaken. To the accompaniment of loud didduloodoos double doors were opened into the inspection pit and a cab was lugged in. Carl gasped, for through its barred windows he could see a sharp, commanding profile, a pendant earring, a clawed hand and a bloody gash where an eye should be. It was the Exile – the Luvvie Joolee Blunt herself. Seeing his wife so arraigned, the Lawyer made haste to quit the gallery. Sturdy chaps seized him and the few remaining members of his circle. The Chief Examiner's voice boomed out over the forecourt:

  – No daddy or mummy may defy the Changeover! He gestured at the cab: The evidence of this contemptible wretch has been extracted under torture. All over London – he rose and his mirror flashed – the members of your chellish conspiracy are at this very moment being arrested! Take these flyers to the Tower!

  Once the Blunts and their followers had been removed the Chief Examiner turned his attention on Carl and Antonë. He pushed his mirror away from his face and confronted them with his sweaty and distorted sneer. Judgement was nigh:

  – Az 2 U 2 – the harsh Mokni consonants cut like knives through the thickening atmosphere of the forecourt – U lì, U cheet, U R trayters, U R fliars. U raze up ve toyist an drag dahn ve dävyn! He drew a scrap of black cloth from a fold of his robe and slapped it on to his bald wig. He parted his robe so that the sign of the Wheel was clearly visible on the sweaty breast of his T-shirt. He drew himself up to his full height and pronounced terrifying anathema on them:

  – U wil B taykun bakk 2 ve Towa an brökun on ve Weel. Yaw tungs wil B cú aht. U wil B brandid an ung aht 2 dye inna box! Tayk em dahn! Ware2, guv? he bellowed.

  – 2 Nú Lundun, the forecourt responded in a subdued fashion.

  When the sweatbox door was yanked open, booze reek surged into its boiling confines. It was only the middle of the second tariff, but the warders at the Tower were already mullered. They left Böm chained in the sweatbox, then lashed and kicked Carl along narrow brick corridors and up spiral stone staircases, until they reached a cell high up in the white keep. There they taunted him while swigging their jack. Yaw juss annuva lyttul mummy, cried the ringleader, a burly bloke with thick, black stubble, an thass wy Eyem gonna fukk U up ve garri. He grabbed Carl's mop of hair and banged his head against the wall.

  Oodoo U luv, mummy?! he yelled. Oodoo U luv?!

  Carl, through blood and tears, screamed back, Dave, Eye luv Dave!

  Mercifully, by the time the third warder stepped forward and undid the heavy wheel-shaped buckle of his belt, Carl Dévúsh had lost consciousness.

  He regained it to the sound of a peculiar neighing sound. Looking up from where he lay on the stinking straw, he saw Antonë's bare, bulbous chin trembling in the gloom. The teacher was sobbing. Seeing that Carl was awake, he crawled over to him, his fetters chinking, and, taking the lad's battered head, cradled it against his tank. They stayed like that for a long while, Carl drifting in and out of the hateful present. He was a toddler once more, beneath him was the broad, bristly back of old Gorj rising and falling as they bumbled through the woodlands of beloved Ham.

  Midway through the third tariff the heavy bolt rasped and the cell door was yanked open. Looking up, Carl and Antonë saw familiar foxy features nose into the cell – it was Terri. Blymee, he exclaimed, seeing them huddled on the floor, dishevelled and filthy, U R fukkedup orlrì! He had a bottle of jack, and, even though the fumes made Carl retch, Terri forced him to take a swig. Then he did vomit. O Dave! Terri cried, ees onlì gon an lunged up, iss gonna stink in ere! Böm glanced nervously towards the open door. Noticing this, Terri gave a bitter laugh:

  – Vat Ió? Veyv ad vair legovah an nah vair sleepin.

  – But what if we were to –

  – Escayp? Terri laughed again. Ardlee lyklee – ware woodjoo go 2? U R gafferless, U av no Lawd aw Dryva, no estayt aw manna aw Shelta. Evree standard an decco in ve ole cittee as yer böts on í – ware woodjoo scayp 2?

  Pulling himself to his feet and brushing the soiled straw from his clothes, Antonë confronted the sinister little dad:

  – Who are you? he demanded. Just tell us, who are you?

  – Oo am Eye? Terri cackled again. Oo am Eye? Thass gúd, thass veri gúd. Eyl tel U oo Eye am – tel U in pertikular. He fixed his gaze on Carl. C viss? He pulled a thong from his T-shirt. From it dangled a Davework identical to the toyist one that Salli Brudi had found by the giant's house on Ham. It spun in the dim light that came from the cell door. Eym yaw öl mans fare, thass oo Eye am. Terri's eyes shone. Eym ve Geezers bloke 100%. Eye woz wivvim ere, Eye sayvd im from ve Weel az long az Eye cúd, an wen … an wen … he said, faltering, wen vay tookim Eye kepp ve fayf.

  – But why? Böm expostulated. Why, dad? Why did you tell us none of this until now? He stepped forward threateningly, but Carl's croaky voice stopped him:

  – U, U say vey tookim, Terri – tookim ware, ware2, guv?

  – Wy oam, ovcaws, oam 2 iz manna. To Terri it seemed the most natural thing in the world. Bak 2 Am, thass ware vey tookim.

  Carl and Antonë looked at each other first in shock, then in wonderment and finally in shameful despair. The pathetic figure with his matted hair clambering over the rocks of Nimar to get a cuddle from the motos. The red cave of mouth, the stump of tongue struggling to form the most significant of words.

  – Ve Beestlimun! Carl gasped. Í woz ve Beestlimun awl ve tym, an we woz rì vare wivvim … an vey, ve dads, vey nú, vey awlways nú!

  – Caws vey nú! Terri snorted. Caws vey nú, vey ad ve powa, mì sun, an powa iz nolidj.

  Now Böm did advance and grab the potman's arm:

  – The Book, Terri, the Book given to Symun Dévúsh by Dave, the Book he called over – the Book he said Dave took back. Do you know of it? Do you think it ever existed, did you see it? Tell us, dad, tell us!

  Terri shook himself free and said:

  – Eyel tel yer, ee ad a chaynjyngbag, yaw dad, ee awlways kepp í wivvim – sepp 4 iz peerunces, ven Eye kepp í 4 im.

  – Did you look in it?

  – Nah, nah, Eye nevah did, coz í wurnt abaht ve Buk, í woz abaht im. Ee woz a grayt bloak, yaw dad, ee ad reel bottul. Ee nevah Btrayd no 1, nó eevun wen vey … wen vey ad im on ve Weel… The tough old cockney couldn't go on; he took a slug of jack to mask his intense emotion, for he was crying.

  Carl was crying as well. Eyel nevah av ve bottul ee did – Eye no vat. Eym skard, Eym skard uv ve Weel – ítul brayk me . . .

  Terri shuffled through the straw and laid an arm on the lad's shoulders:

  – Doan U wurri abaht vat, mì sun, he said. U aynt gonna B on no bluddë Weel. Eyev gó í awl sawtid – yaw goin oam inall.

  Terri had, it transpired, followed the fugitives every step of their way in the capital. He was no potman: he was an embezzler and an angler, he ran a gang of headlight cursers, and he had made a small fortune in barratry. He was one of a select group of dads who, from deep in the waste lands of the East End,
defied the authority of the Public Carriage Office. Terri saw no anomaly between his lawlessness and the teaching of the Geezer – for he served neither lawyer nor Driver, only Dave-beyond-the-screen. So when Carl and Antonë bombarded him with questions – How would they escape the Tower and evade the seeseeteevee men? How would they be able to leave London, let alone journey back to Ham? – he was quick to silence them:

  – Simma dahn! he said, raising his hands. Eyev payd ve scroos, Eyev payd ve seeseeteevee men, Eyev payd ve gaffer uv a privateer inall. Ees layin off Tilbury 2nyt an ee sayls fer ve Swizz mayne at furst foglamp wivva commishun from ve King imself, 2 ava crakk at vair traydin pedalos. Eel ava cuppuluv xtra passinjas on bawd, a cuppuluv Inspektahs wiv a mös unUshul creetyur –

  – Tyga! Carl cried. Cannit B tnú?

  It was. Terri had sought out the warden at Bedlam and paid him generously for the freakish beast.

  – Yaw dad, he explained to Carl, ee toll me abaht ve motos, an ee sed vey eld ve kë. Ee sed vey woz dävyn creetyurs, appi an surcúre lyke kiddees wúd av bin wivaht ve Braykup an ve Chaynjova. Ee sed wotevah Ls appened, az longaz vair wur motos on Am vair woz stil oap fur ve wurld.

  As he struggled out of the filthy cloakyfing and into the Inspector's robes Terri presented him with, Carl began to sob again. He was cursing himself for a fool, thinking of how he had travelled all this way to find a father who had been there all the time. There all the time, on the far side of the sound, looking towards Ham. Perhaps even in his shattered mind Symun Dévúsh had been seeking for the son he'd never even known he'd had, while Carl, even when he'd come face to face with his dad, had failed to recognize him.

  Böm's thoughts were upon other things, for even in the midst of flight his speculative mind had got the better of him and he was drifting inside of himself to where he could hear the second Book screaming from the rocks of Nimar. If it's still there … Böm was thinking … if it's still there it might yet have the power to shake the PCO to the very core. It might explain us to ourselves … Ingland – even the world entire … For in these turbulent times is there not a rabid curiosity for such things, and would not even the most dävine Dävists be forced thereby into a novel apperception of history? A second Book could prove beyond any doubt that Ham was the cradle of our faith … Undermine the pretended claims of the dävidic line … Circumscribe the very turning circle of the PCO itself…

  There were misty halos around the few letrics along the Ratcliffe Highway. Behind the fences parked cars were blistered with drizzle. Carl and Antonë's flight from the Tower had been effected without a hitch. As they slipped along the corridors and down the staircases, the warders turned their faces to the walls. As they crossed the central ward, heading for the side gate on to Tower Bridge Approach, Terri's chaps fell in with them – the heavy mob, their trainers slapping on the yok flags like hard hands on taut flesh.

  At South Dock, under the blank face of No. 1 Canada Square, there was a pedalo waiting for them. The posse formed a protective circle around the fugitives, who exchanged hurried embraces with their saviour.

  – Wot wil appen 2 U? Carl asked, but the wily cockney only laughed:

  – Nevah U mynd, Eyev lastid viss long in Lundun, Eye rekkun Eyel stä ve disstunce.

  – Fanks 4 evryfyng! Carl called across the widening watery gulf – but he could not have said whether Terri heard him, for the ebb tide had already caught the frail craft and they were being swept around the Greenwich peninsula beneath the massive curved walls of the Millennium Dome. Within units the Barrier was in sight and the pedalo, like the common shag flying close to the swell that Carl had seen upon his arrival in London, shot between the two central pontoons and out into the Thames estuary. Ahead the foglamp was switching on, its beam dabbing the racing waters with bloody smears, while behind New London – with all its madness and cruelty – sank in their wake.

  The Fairway was a three-masted ferry built for speed with long, clean lines. It was armed with twenty shooters for the cut and run of combat on the high seas. The crew were the usual band of rapscallions – chavs, pikeys, coloureds and gafferless dads. Mercifully many of them had been snipped, so even if they could mouth off among themselves, they were prevented from asking the odd pair of Inspectors awkward questions. The gaffer, a hard-faced dad with a wooden leg and long jet-black hair, played along with Carl and Antonë's imposture. He's a freebooter, Böm explained when they were alone in their cabin, he owes no more fealty to the King than you or I.

  The Fairway lay off Tilbury another day until the wind was in the right quarter and the tide was on the turn. Then it weighed anchor and slipped downstream. This was a hastier, more purposeful voyage than the long slog the Trophy Room had made up from Bril. With a strong northeasterly wind bellying the privateer's sails, the prevailing westerly currents could do little to hamper it; and with every timber creaking and rope straining, the Fairway carved a deep, white path through the booze-dark sea. The ferry shot along the coastline of Durbi; Nott Bouncy Castle was raised at first tariff on the third day out from London, and the long, low island of Chil sighted before the foglamp dipped at the end of the second.

  Antonë Böm spent the short voyage below decks, still immersed in his speculations, covering page after page of his notebook with inky grooves. His fingers were numb, his mental capacities exhausted. The escape was no relief for him, no life after life, but an antechamber that debouched into yet more tense anticipation. By contrast Carl had been returned to the encompassing present, the snuggled-up, cuddled-down now. For on the foredeck stood a large cage, and in it, wounded and wary, was Tyga. To begin with it was bad between them. Upon their reunion Tyga had rejected Carl – a thing the lad had never even heard of a moto doing. Tyga curled his thick top lip and flared his nose flanges. His eyelids dipped, he rolled over on the straw and, in so doing, showed the criss-cross scars of the beatings he had received at the Bedlam freak show.

  It took several tariffs of gentle coaxing, Carl moving slowly closer and closer, until he could stroke Tyga's jonckheeres, and then the tale emerged in sibilant phrases: U leff me … Eye hayt U … Heeth thwapped me … Hith thingee … Eye wath thor … the broken-off narrative of vile abuse. The sly kicks and pokes that the chav lads set to tend to the moto had administered gained in frequency and intensity, until the horrific night when the warden had come in and thrust the bottle of jack halfway down Tyga's throat. Then, when the moto was mullered, his arms and legs buckled, the warden used him in dreadful ways.

  Carl held the moto's huge head in the cage, which was redolent of the beast's sweet shit. They were surrounded by the creak of the Fairway's rigging, the snap of its sails, the groan of timbers caulked with moto oil. As they gently rocked into reconciliation, Carl felt the hardening muscles of his arms. His hand strayed to his top lip, where last year's transparent down was hardening into stubble. He looked down and in the parting of his Inspector's robe saw the wiry hairs that were creeping up from his wally to his navel. Seven months they had been gone from Ham – the other three motos were dead and Carl was, he realized, irrevocably changed. He held Tyga's head with fierce love as the world turned about the still point of the ferry. Soon Carl would be a dad – there was no stopping it.

  The lights of the dashboard twinkled serenely in a screen free of London smog or the orange glow of its countless letrics. The JUN night was warm yet the sea still chilly – and when Tyga's hands and feet dabbled in the water, he struggled, twisting in the offloading sling. Carl was alongside in the Fairway's pedalo. He stroked Tyga's jonckheeres and calmed him, whispering: Cummon, Tyga, nó long nah, Ure goin oam, gonna C yaw wallö mayts, gonna B on Am.

  They splashed ashore in a narrow inlet, and the pedalo's crew slung their evian skins and changingbags after them, before shoving off without any further ceremony and heading back to the Fairway. The privateer came about with a cracking of canvas and under a headlight so vast and bigwatt that all its flyspecks were clearly visible. Then it beat off up the sound, heading for the ope
n sea and the mysteries of Úro. The two blokes were left standing by their moto, so near to their journey's end yet utterly abandoned.

  They slept that night on the rocky foreshore and were awoken past first tariff by the foglamp burning down on them. Carl cracked open his stinging eyes and saw a few clicks away across the waves the green crown of the isle-driven-by-Dave. Despite all their travails his heart seemed to accelerate, until with a surge it broke from his chest and flew up to join a whiff of golden cloud floating in the pink screen of morning.

  They took two tariffs to work their way along the rugged coast. The rocks were even bigger here than those they'd encountered on the westward flight from Nimar – great piles of brick and yok, whole jagged clumps of crete. There were many twisted prongs of irony, and spikes of other corroded metalwork lay treacherous in the shallows. Tyga, denied proper wallowing in Bedlam, had never really recovered from the journey to London. His fresh wounds smarted in the seawater, and his old wounds reopened as he bucketed along. Yet he bore it all with great fortitude – it was enough that he was going home. Carl, for his part, tried to comfort the moto, wading out into the water again and again to cuddle him. But whatever intimacy they had recovered on the Fairway Tyga had repudiated; again and again the moto flipped Carl off with a shake of his massive shoulders, and, turning his pathetic, scarred muzzle seawards he plodded on.

  At the beginning of the third tariff, with the foglamp dipping in the screen, they rounded yet another promontory and came, quite suddenly, upon Nimar. The gulls were in tumult. It was the breeding season and the ferociously cawing blackwings and oilgulls were fighting to preserve their nesting sites from bonkergulls that dived down from above to harry them. There was nothing unusual about this dense mobbing, the ever-mutating fractals of wing and beak. Nevertheless, as the travellers drew closer to this feathery riot, Carl saw a sinister focus to their botheration, where the concentration of seafowl was so great that their sharp wings cut the air into wedges of white, grey and black.