by Will Self
It was the middle of the third tariff when the birth pains eventually came. There had only been a dipped headlight – and it was long since switched off. Low cloud blanketed the island and from behind it a reddish tinge suffused the screen. Making her way down the stream bed from the Bulluk gaff, Effi Dévúsh came across the Driver, a black-clad and minatory figure. He was muttering in an undertone, but Effi, who had work to do, did not hail him – she knew what he was doing, calling over, countering the wavering paths of Ham with the certainty of his Knowledge.
The Driver remained there until the foglamp was switched on. In all he called over a hundred runs. Such rigour spoke of the deep conflict within him – for did not Dave honour all new life? When at last he heard the bellows of the expectant mummy give way to the reedy cries of the infant, he turned on his heel and lurched along the foreshore to the tumbledown semi of the old Driver. There he fell into a fitful slumber, and dreamed that he flew with Dave over the silvery immensity of New London.
In the days following the birth of her son Caff's fatalism foundered on the rocks of love. A savage love for the manikin she cradled, whose twinkling blue eyes and fierce ruff of fine brown hair recalled to all Symun Dévúsh. The other mummies understood this emotion, even if they would not acknowledge it. No infant born on Ham was even named until it had survived its service. It was as if these first eleven days of life were only a final stage of incubation, and the thick coating of moto oil it would then be slathered with was the final membrane through which it must pass into independent life. For inasmuch as a Hamster was born of woman, so he was also born of the island itself.
On the eleventh day, when Effi Dévúsh came with the moto oil and loomed in the doorway of the Dévúsh gaff, Caff, unable to contain herself, began first to whimper and then cry out. Caught between zoolatry and love, she let go of the infant and, dragging her withered leg behind her, crawled into the far corner, where she lay sobbing on the yok flags. Effi, who was attended by two other boilers, ignored her. They went about the ritual with steely efficiency. Her assistants removed the swaddling and held the thrashing limbs, while Effi spread the viscous grease, paying particular attention to the raw wound of the navel. The infant, which at first howled in protest, responded to the mysterious embrocation of the moto oil, struggling less and less, until when it was finally released it lay silent and still in the foglight that streamed through the door, another of Ham's miraculous and shiny fruits.
Outside the Hamsters stood in silence, the dads' shaggy heads bowed, the mummies worrying at their cloakyfings. Now began a time of waiting. If the new infant survived the next blob, it would receive a name. More likely, on the third or fourth day after the service, it would refuse the suck of its mummy's pap, and on the fifth or sixth its tiny pink gums would lock shut. Then the fits would begin – convulsions, which would rack the tiny body with increasing severity – until on the seventh or eighth day it expired. By then, such would be the mite's torment that death would seem a deliverance, even to its own mummy. The Driver stood unregarded among the islanders. Once more he was calling over the runs and the points, for whatever the outcome – torment or release – his faith required above all that he bear witness to the once and future London.
To call them cells would have been wrong – they were stalls rather, crudely partitioned with heavy wood beams. Wealthier prisoners, or those who had special influence, were able to secure one of the tiny chambers on the upper gallery, but for those such as him there was only the nightly squabble to get into one of the stalls, then burrow into the stinking straw to find some warmth. Squabbling went on all the time and there were also full-scale fights. The other prisoners had blades and coshes, they spat, kicked and gouged. Symun had never experienced any real violence: the cuffs of the Ham daddies were as mere caresses compared to the savage blows traded here as a matter of course. The first time Symun was attacked, he was so shocked that he relapsed into a vacant stupor, staring at the livid pink impress the kick had left on his leg. Without the coaxing of the prisoner who became his mate, he would have expired then and there, because to survive in this place a dad had to fight.
The Tower was a world in its own right, with its own economy and politics, law and religion. For Symun, this was the only realm he'd ever seen outside of his island home. He was chained in the ferry's hold for the voyage from Wyc. On the rare occasions the gaffer allowed him to exercise on deck he saw distant estates and manors along the coast. When they docked at London, he was taken off and driven through the streets in a sweatbox. If he peered between the irony shutters, he caught glimpses of vast buildings, yet he was unable to comprehend what it was that he was seeing – nothing tallied with the descriptions he had heard, and the tumult was such – of cars, people and beasts – that he recoiled in fear and confusion.
In the Tower, under the tutelage of Terri, a convicted cockney thief, Symun Dévúsh slowly came back to life. The trauma of his birth into this frightening world, where he shared a huge yard with ten times as many men as he'd ever seen before, was followed by a period of infancy. Symun asked questions; Terri supplied the answers. The yard was but one of three in the gaol. There was a smaller one for mummies and a third for alien chaps, who had been taken prisoner in the continuous skirmishing between the King's army and the wild tribes of Jocks and Taffies to the north and the west of the archipelago.
In the dads' yard all the prisoners – regardless of their offence, their sentence, or even if they had been tried or merely remanded – were thrown together: flyers, traitors and murderers alongside petty thieves, debtors and vagabonds. Terri thought there might be as many as a thousand fares confined in the Tower, and each day their numbers were swelled by Londoners, who came from without the walls to ply their trades and even barter for the use of skilled prisoners in their own workshops. Thus there was much commerce in the Tower, which was furnished with its own shops, a bakery, even the services of a notary. For a price a dad might wed in the gaol and lie with his wife. He could engage in his own trade and reap the reward. If imprisoned for debt, he could even fall into debt again, and so be confined in the Tower's own debtors' gaol, a prison within a prison. He could drink and whore, cock fight and game. During the tariffs of foglight the yard was a frenetic arena, and on its beaten earth dads in all manner of strange costumes – suits, striped and checked, jeans tight and flared, tattered cloakyfings and formal robes – strutted and preened like caged birds.
Once he began properly to observe his fellow prisoners Symun was amazed to discover how little religion there was among them. His automatic requests for directions from Dave were met with derision and laughter. One dad, in full view of the warders, squatted down and broke wind, proclaiming: Eye fart on yor polstrë, O Dryva! They took no action against him, but then this dad was not held on a charge of flying. The warders, Symun soon learned, interfered little in the lives of the prisoners, except to take bribes for services given and dole out privileges for those rendered. The prisoners themselves ran the gaol while their gaolers merely looked on – only in the matter of flying were they truly vigilant. The flyers – who numbered a few score – were distinguished by the large, two-spoked wooden wheel they were obliged, on pain of beating, to carry about their necks. Symun Dévúsh had never seen a real wheel before coming to London – to him it was a sacred symbol. Now one hung around his neck, galling him no matter how carefully he moved.
The warders made sure that the flyers were overheard when they spoke, either by themselves or their seeseeteevee men. Should they utter any further word against the writ of the PCO, or the Dävinanity it promulgated, they were summarily punished. The big steering Wheel was brought out into the yard and set upon its column. The flyer was trapped and lashed to its spokes. Then the Wheel was spun and spun, until the unfortunate dad was bleeding from his nose and mouth, and his innards were mangled. Within a blob of arriving at the Tower Symun had seen two flyers die upon the Wheel. Then his own appearances began.
The flyers' appearances
took the form of questioning their Knowledge. No flyer could secure his release from gaol by passing his appearances – for once accused of flying you were banished from the cab for ever. However, by calling over the runs and points demanded, he might at least secure a remission. He wouldn't have another appearance for fifty-six more days, during which time he could struggle to improve his Knowledge. If a flyer failed an appearance the consequences were harsh – their next would be in twenty-eight days. A second failure and this was reduced to twenty-one, a third to fourteen. After a fourth failure the flyer went for judgement before the PCO itself, then sentence would be carried out.
The least severe punishment was branding and exile, followed by the cutting out of the tongue and exile. The most severe penalty – which was frequently applied – was death. Dads were wheeled until their brain haemorrhaged, then they were disembowelled. Then, as the poor unfortunate was mindlessly gawping at his guts lying on the ground at his feet, his genitals were cut off and thrust in his mouth. Death came within units. The dead dad's head was then severed and stuck on a spike at the water gate; beneath it a placard was hung that read: VIS MANNE SPEEKS BOLLOX. Mummies – who were not deemed worthy of the Wheel even in death – were burned on the barbie. If they were guilty of evading Changeover, their moribund exhalations were employed in gassing their own children.
All the daddies' executions were held publicly in Leicester Square; the mummies' at Marble Arch. A large enthusiastic crowd would gather to watch and keenly observe the comportment of the condemned; they would lay bets on how long each would take to expire. A common criminal might sway the crowd with his brave demeanour, and the Inspectors would grant him pardon at the foot of the Wheel, but however well a flyer behaved he was doomed.
This much Symun was soon made aware of – yet there was little he could do to prepare himself for his ordeal. He'd had scant opportunity to read the Book since acquiring his phonics. While, like all Hamstermen, he'd been accustomed since boyhood to call over the runs and points, this oral recounting was haphazard and imprecise. In the broad Mokni of Ham the runs were strings of meaningless gibberish – and while Symun knew enough to differentiate one from the other in his own mind, he was by no means certain that he could convince a prejudicial examiner that his was the correct version. It was the same for any cockney or hick – with the consequence that while well-born flyers often survived in the Tower for years, the illiterate were dispatched with great expeditiousness.
Symun's first appearance took place a couple of blobs after he'd arrived in London. He was dragged from the yard by two warders, hauled up the external staircase into the White Tower, then marched along passages, the damp walls of which were green with moss. Finally he was shoved into a chamber where at a table sat the Examiner. His black-robed back was turned, his hair cropped very short at the neck. His eyes hung in his mirror, swollen and veined. He spoke Arpee in a bored monotone:
– Symun Dévúsh of Ham, you are held in the Tower, arraigned on a charge of gross and flying conduct. The testimony of Mister Greaves, my Lawyer of Chil's Hack, is held to account in this matter and acknowledged accordingly. This is your first appearance – he looked down at the A4s on the table in front of him and read – List eighteen, run eleven.
Symun tore his eyes away from the mirror. There was A4 on the walls, covered not with phonics but a curious pattern of leaves. In places it peeled back from the plaster beneath, plaster that had fallen away in powdery chunks to reveal the ancient London brick beneath. Through a high slit-window Symun could see another tower, a crooked edifice mounting to a wonky campanile. Hawks were circling this, riding the smoky exhalations from the fires of the city below. Only the hawks and the leaf pattern were recognized by Symun: the rest of it was a conundrum he could not interpret. The warder who had brought him to the chamber stood against the far wall, his long railing held sloped between his big hands. He stared blankly at Symun.
The Examiner repeated his request:
– List eighteen, run eleven.
Symun took a deep breath and began:
– 4wud Kenzingtun Mal, rì Kenzingtun Chirch Stree, leff Nó-ing-ill, rì Pemrij Röd, fawud Pemrij viwwers –
– Viwwers? the Examiner broke in, viwwers, what pray are those?
Symun gulped:
– Beggin yer pardun, Reervú, thass juss ve wä we sezzit on Am.
– Well, you aren't on Ham now, my good fellow, this is London and in London you speak Arpee, and you call over the runs like a Londoner. I'll give you another fifty-six days to improve your diction before your next appearance. Take him away.
– B-but, Reervú, vass nó rì.
– You what? The Examiner was so incredulous at such impertinence from a flyer that an amused expression lurked at the corners of his severe mouth. Not right, you say? How so?
– 'Iss nó rì 2 eggspekk a dad 2 no vem fings, issit? Eyem sposed 2 B a fliar, nó a Dryva, sew owz a fliar sposed 2 av ve Nolidj? I doan mayk senss.
The Examiner laughed at this and marked the A4 in front of him. Don't bandy doctrine with me, my fellow. For your impudence I reduce your next appearance to twenty-eight days. And warder –
– Reervú?
– Give this gaol-yard brief a turn or twenty on the Wheel to make him mind his manners in future.
Terri gave Symun the rind of a fruit unfamiliar to him as they stood waiting under the murky screen. Byte dahn on vis, mayt, the cockney said. Ven ve weel gess goin, U gotta keep yer teef clamped tyt, uvvawyse yul swaller yaw tung an suffercayt . . . thass rì … thass rì. Symun only just had time to get the bitter thing between his teeth before the warders led him to the middle of the yard. They laid him down almost tenderly on the square central boss of the Wheel, and Symun felt the raised phonics 'Lti' pressing between his shoulder blades. His arms were lashed to the two padded spokes and his legs stretched and tied to the far rim of the wheel. Orlrì! the Guvnor of the Tower shouted to his subordinates. Ryt an dahn!
To begin with, the big Wheel turned slowly. Symun felt first one pair of hands, then the next, impelling it faster and faster, while prone as he was he could see nothing save the screen above him. The long streak of cloud immediately overhead began to revolve as if there were an axle set in it. He tried to concentrate on its wisps and veils so as to prevent the sickening dizziness. It was impossible – Symun's eyes bulged, the blood pounded in his temples, and the whole glassy panel stretched. He tried to picture Dave behind the screen, looking down on him with stern benevolence, but the figures standing along the balustrade of the upper gallery kept getting in the way. They jeered at the torture being enacted below, their individual mouths merging to become a single elongated O howling derision. The prisoners yelped and shouted: Spin ve fukka! Spinnim! Nausea came breaking over Symun in a wave and crashed into his clenched teeth.
O Dave! Ees onlë gonnan lungdup! cried one of the warders as Symun found himself ascending on his twirling rack, lifting up out of the yard like a sickseed caught by the wind and whirled out over London, over the islands and sounds of Ing, across the sea to where Ham lay, a soft pallet of mossy woodland and neat green field strips. At the blurred edges of his ruptured vision appeared the faces of his loved ones: Caff and Fred, Effi, his mummy, Fukka Funch, the Brudi sisters and Ozzi Bulluk. Symun could feel the rough tongue of a moto lick the puke and gore from his burning face. He dimly entertained the notion – for consciousness was speeding away from him – that the Wheel truly had conducted him back home, and that when it stopped turning everything would be as it had before, before the Ferbiddun Zön, before the Geezer, before the Second Book. Then all was darkness and pain.
The Driver addressed all the Hamsters from behind a fence that had been erected around the Shelter.
– See this, he told them, it is a bar the purpose of which is to keep the toyist beast of the field from profaning the sanctity of Dave's Shelter. It has been drawn to my attention – he scanned the faces of his listeners, noting their guileless countenances, their credulous eyes �
� that before I came among you your kine … your motos … ranked up here and even entered the Shelter. This is now forbidden. If I cannot wholly detach you from your unsavoury relation with these creatures, I shall nonetheless proscribe the anointing of your infants with their oil. The only true service is the Wheel, and whatever your interpretation of the Book may have been, I say to you now that the moto is excluded from Dave's cab to New London, these beasts being not real and in the view of the PCO toyist!
There was a stifled cry from the Hamsters.
This was not the full extent of the Driver's prohibitions. Rapping and cavorting were forbidden, and the telling of Daveworks was forbidden. There was to be no work at all on the island from first tariff FRI until the end of the second on SAT: for is not the blob-end a higher tariff, with time-and-a-half for calling over the points and the runs? The Driver's impositions were as onerous as his prohibitions: daily calling over for the daddies, while lads were also to attend the Shelter and remain silent. Even the Council was affected – at least ten runs now had to be called over before any business might be conducted.
Fred Ridmun, who had been responsible for the black crow coming to roost on Ham, blanched when he heard this, yet his own Dävinanity was to be still further tested. The Driver saved his most severe remonstrance for last:
– You gossip, you chatter, you flirt and you whisper – don't think I haven't heard you! Daddies to mummies, lads to girls. This is a most revolting congress, and it must cease at once! Dave ordained the Breakup, and the Breakup must be entire! Only at Changeover can there be any communication between noble Dave and perfidious Chelle! O Hamstermen! Speak only of childsupport to your mummies, as it is ordained in the Book!