The Book of Dave

by Will Self

  – You have always known of such queers, then?

  – Oh, yes, Böm laughed. When I was a lad I dreamed of running away to become a Plateist. You see, like me – or the Drivers – the Plateists are all queers, men and women who have no thought of being mummies or daddies. They live together in perfect accord, yet with no congress between them. In truth, they do not hold with that understanding of the Book at all – they owe no allegiance to King Dave or to the PCO, they live not in mummytime or daddytime but in their own time. They say they love one another the way all did before the Breakup.

  – Then what do Plateists think the Book means? Do they call over the runs and the points? Do they believe New London will be built? Do they think Dave will come again?

  – Come again! Böm laughed even more uproariously. So far as the Plateists are concerned, Dave is already here among us, each one of us is in Dave's cab and Dave is in ours. No, no, their understanding of the Book is very ancient, perhaps the oldest there is. See their plates? Well, each Plateist takes those letters and numbers and uses them to divine Dave's word from a series of calculations, the numbers referring to the pages of the Book, the letters to particular lines and verses. Each Plateist writes their own commentary according to these rules of interpretation and this is added to the great scriptoria of the Order. In former times, before Ing arose in its present form, the Plateists had mighty Shelters at Stok and Nott, Lank and Mank, large estates grew up around them of perhaps five hundred or a thousand queers, all of them scratching away with their biros, and decorating their scripts with elaborate doodles.

  – So, what happened?

  – When the dynasty of King Dave arose and the PCO was established in London, they rightly saw the Plateists as a threat. The Plateists' estates were raided, their Shelters pulled down, their lands confiscated, and many of the peaceable queers were slaughtered. Countless Plateist A4S were burned and the remaining fares driven to the furthest parts of the King's dominion. Now only a few Plateist manors remain, here at Bril, at Barf, at Bäzin and a few more to the far west that I do not know the names of – Böm broke off, for one of the remaining Plateists had clanked over to them.

  – The Shelter has been cleared for the night, he said. You can kip here if you wish; however, it would be more seemly if you removed yourselves to the men's dorm.

  – Alright, mate, Böm said, rising from the edge of the sofabed where he'd been sitting. Come on now, Carl.

  – And be so good as to remember, the Plateist continued as he guided them out into the cold night and towards a low building some paces off, you will be required to reach your decision during the first tariff. Such has been determined by the plates.

  Decision? Carl asked when the Plateist had left them alone in the dorm. What does he mean?

  – Well. Böm settled himself down on the pallet he'd been allocated. He means whether we go to New London or stay here with them.

  – Stay? You mean become a Plateist?

  – There could be worse fates for two such as us. The manor here at Bril may be a shadow of its former self, yet the community has endured. The order has its stronghold here and estates beyond at Farin. There are even some Plateist lands left on Cot itself that the Lawyer has, as yet, been unable to sequestrate.

  Böm spoke casually concerning this prospect, as if it were of no great importance.

  – Bu-but Carl stuttered, what of my dad, Tonë, what about 'im? Woss this all bin abaht if we don't make it to London? You must be taking the piss!

  – Of course, of course. Böm reached out a hand, a soft, white appendage that fluttered in the gloom. He patted Carl's shoulder. Don't worry, lad, we're going on to New London. Queer as I am, I have no more tank for the Plateists' initiation rite than I did when it first became known to me – and I'm sure you won't either.

  – Initiation rite?

  – More of a chop than a rite, really, so far as these folk are concerned. Böm settled down on his pallet and yawned insouciantly. The Plateists view all dads as raging burgerkine, all mummies as complacent, lustful milchers, so, if you wish to join their order you must be gelded.

  10

  The Riddle

  August 2002

  A cormorant came flying downriver between the two central piers of the Thames Flood Barrier. Dave Rudman watched its black felt-tip body as it drew a line through the piles of containers and metal-jacketed warehouses on the far bank. Rust-grey, pearl-orange, sky-pink – the jumbled-up squares and oblongs of a shredded colour chart. The bird zigged and zagged to avoid a jetty, then merged with the brown velvet of the Thames where it was cinched by the Woolwich Ferry before draping into Gallions Reach. A poxy little plane full of poxy little getters lifted off from the City Airport. Banking, it caught the full force of the afternoon sun and blared white-gold in the sky. Dave sucked on the piebald nipple of a filter tip. His throat grated, and painful sludge oozed over his tongue, then down his gullet. His face felt swollen, his fingers when he plucked the bung from his hole were half-cooked sausages splitting at the knuckle and oozing grease.

  It was an oppressive day, the sky so low it threatened to crawl beneath the ground. Gulls were fucking about, their 'cooee chew-chew-chew' cries evoking seduction followed by consumption. Towards the visitor centre for the Flood Barrier – a glass rotunda capped with grey concrete – the landscaped lappet of lawn held a picnic party, a spew of kids, all shapes and sizes but mostly piccaninnies in T-shirts, jeans and useless cagoules. Rishawn, Shinequa and Shemar, dragged down here from Peckham for a sugar rush … They were being fed ice lollies and cans of Coke by a couple of young women. As Dave watched, one of them stooped to snag a sweet wrapper from the grass and he saw a tattoo of the sun rise out of her fucking arse. Disgusted – not aroused, merely disgusted – Dave turned away. Down on the walkway beside the safety railings stood his fare, scrawny thighs lost in his baggy khaki shorts. He was chatting with a dude who was festooned with techno bling: a digital camera, a brace of mobile phones, a light meter – it was a necklace of shiny circuitry like the Barrier itself, shrunk then wrapped.

  Dave had picked the fare up on Wardour Street. 'I'm a runner,' the lad explained as they scooted along the Embankment to the City. 'We've got two units shooting today.' Bully for you. 'One down at the Thames Barrier and one all the way up at Shepperton. I gotta get the rushes from the one down east and take them up west 'coz that's where the director is …' He went on gabbling, enthused by his mission, as Dave fed the cab through the ancient jaws of the City, past Billingsgate, up and over Tower Hill, down through Shadwell and Wapping, the old English syllables as solid and clunky as the Fairway's suspension.

  'It's sortuva awfurred film about the Thames. This guy, see, he thinks the river's gonna flood and all the like' – the fare's downy lips twisted in the rearview – 'well, like shit an' that, is gonna come y'know … bubbling up to the surface.' He didn't seem to notice that Dave never said anything, only grunted in the appropriate patter gaps. Nor did he notice the state of the cab: the oblong eye of the windscreen lidded with road dirt and squashed flies, the cobwebs festooned on the wing mirrors, the dashboard strewn with the clear plastic triangles of discarded sandwich containers, the floor of the front compartment knee high with rubbish. And Dave – Dave stank.

  Mornings now he pulled on whatever soiled rag came to hand from the tangled ball in the corner of the bedroom. He drank thick, sweet dietary supplements while doing wratery shits. He couldn't tell any more what was making him feel this dread foreboding, see jagged neon at the periphery of his vision, experience the hand tremor and knock-knee, feel the locked jaw and sore throat, suffer the swollen face and wiener fingers. Was it the Seroxat, the Carbamazepine or the Zopiclone?

  Before the final bludgeon of the day hammered Dave into teary unconsciousness, he would uncrumple the patient information leaflets that lay balled on the carpet and read them over. As his tired eyes limped along the parlous print Dave found it impossible to divine whether his dry mouth, upset stomach, diarrhoea, c
onstipation, vomiting, sweating, drowsiness, weakness, insomnia, loss of appetite, rash, itching, swelling, dizziness, faintness, muscle spasms and sudden mood changes were the symptoms of his depression, the effects of the medication or its side-effects. The drugs had become collaborators with the disease, and together they had carved up the cabbie's mind into zones of delusory influence.

  It was all coming to a head – Dave knew that. The annual vehicle inspection was pending, the cab needed servicing, his own badge would have to be renewed, and the meter had to be recalibrated in line with the new tariff bands. It all meant paper work, officialdom, meeting with those lairy, racial gits … his fellow drivers. The PCO would have his badge, they'd fuck him over, they'd break him on the wheel and tear his fucking tongue out.

  A muthafucking giant speed-knitting a chain mail scarf… changed into the whirr of a passing motorbike, as Dave Rudman surfaced from his reverie long enough to clock the wavering mirage of Canary Wharf, before the black rat scuttled down into the Lime-house Tunnel. Where's Carl? Where are you, mate? Who're you with? Dave pictured him at the mercy of devilish nonces, shooting up smack with scuzzy junkies, getting the shit beaten out of him by a bunch of faceless fucking bruvvers, their hoodies pulled down over their mad yellow eyes … Or maybe Carl had left London altogether and was heading north up the M1 like a tramp or a pikey, all his worldlies tied up in a … inna … changing bag … What if Dave had found his son, seen his glistening face jump from the pedestrian millrace of London's streets – what would he do then? I'd give him a fucking clump – that's what I'd do, the grief he's put me through …the grief. . .

  In his distress the cabbie found it difficult to hang on to mobile phones. He threw them out the Fairway's window if he was driving and a conversation with a lawyer, mediator or assessor became too contentious. If he was standing, he dropped them to the pavement and ground out the butt-ends of talk. Three or four had ended up like this: pay-as-you-throw. But now he was the Skip Tracer's client Dave hung on to his mobile – because the detective, while refusing a meet, called often, as if he and Dave were gossipy teenagers.

  On the mobile, which Dave crammed to his ear as the cab shuddered at the lights in Chiswick, Cheam or Chorleywood, the Skip Tracer's queer rap sounded still stranger: 'Could be nosebag.'

  'What?'

  'Your man – I say he could be doing nosebag. He's done it before ain't 'e, he's got form. Could explain the dosh sloshing round his accounts.'

  'I thought you were gonna do some traces, find out if it was him who ramped up the share price before his company was bought out – '

  'Tricky, son, tricky. Don't get me wrong – I'm on the case. But he's sold the bizzo now, so it's aynchun wotsit.'

  'History.'

  'Whassat?'

  'Ancient history.'

  'Yeah, yeah, knowwhatyoumean. His-tory. Hor-sey. Horse. Stable. bolted. I'll spin his bins, though – see what we come up with. But nosebag – that's another matter. He can't be messing with your kiddie if he's wearing a nosebag. Get me?'

  The calls came at odd hours and in peculiar places – when Dave was eating at Two Worlds, or as he sat in the automated car wash, the nylon conifers whirling past the Fairway's windows: 'Freddy's done his bins.' The Skip Tracer always began without any preamble or pleasantry.

  'Whaddya mean?'

  'Freddy, top bin man, a fox he is – a fucking fox. Slunk up to Hampstead, spun your man's bins. Slunk down to Charlotte Street, spun Channel Devenish inall. No one's seen 'im, no one knows 'im, 'e don't exist. Got everything, got the shreddies.'

  'Shreddies?'

  'Stuff that's been through the shredder – top product, that. Top product. Nosebag for us.'

  'But what… what can you do with stuff that's been shredded?'

  'Betty. Sweaty Betty. Top shreddies girl, is Betty. Don't matter how they shred it – vertical, horizontal, fucking zigzag – same difference to her. She just loves it! Does it like a fiddly little jigsaw. Beautiful to watch, really – you should see it. Not her mindjoo not her. She's skinny as a fucking parking meter – got, I dunno, got anoxia – '

  'Anorexia.'

  'Whatever. Still, bit of a headfuck – sweat lashes offa her when she's working. Hence the moniker.'

  Dealing with the Skip Tracer, Dave Rudman got the impression that he was only the smallest piece in a citywide jigsaw of horrendous fiddliness. Sitting under the Dutch Antilles in his office suite in Belgravia, the Skip Tracer spent the morning feeding the pages of the A-Z into the shredder and watching the papery spaghetti curl up and over. Then he changed his shirt and spent all afternoon putting London together again, breaking off only to make these preposterous calls: 'Got a tail on your man. Only a small team 'coz he's a know-nothing. A steerer, a sweeper, hands-free, no bovva, find out what he's up to – best way.'

  'Are you serious?'

  'Never seriouser, wassermatter you got frostbite have you, son? Tippy-toes plopping off? Been at the nosebag 'ave you – warned you 'bout that.'

  'B-but the money, your fee – the tail's fee, Sweaty Betty's bloody fee – I can't afford all this.' There was a sound like a waste disposal being activated in the ether – so loud and sudden that Dave held the mobile inches away from his ear. When it stopped he realized that it had been the Skip Tracer laughing. 'Fee? I'm not bothered about the fee now, son, I told you from the off where there's daddies and kiddies involved … I dunno … call me sentimental … call me sentimental… GO ON – DO IT!'

  'You're sentimental.'

  'Maybe, maybe, scenty-mental like a fucking comedown, son. Race over, nosebag ripped off, trotting round the paddock, feeling fucking awful. Sweat all foamy on me flanks. I dunno … I dunno … just don't go borrowing on me, son, don't do that. The vig'll kill yer.'

  'Like it did Phil Eddings.'

  'You say something, bruv?' The kid in the back of the cab hunched right forward and stuck his fluffy snout through the hatch. Dave resisted the urge to scream, 'Bruv? Bruv! Whothefuckareyoucalling bruv?!' Because there was a long way to go to Shepperton and thirty-odd quid already on the meter. Dave's reverie had swept him downriver and now it was driving him back up. They were snarled up by roadworks in Greenwich, trapped exactly at the point where time begins – the Maritime Museum to one side, the Royal Naval College to the other. In the town centre the masts of the Cutty Sark lifted a tracery of rigging into the haze of exhaust fumes, while in the roadway stood a dumb fucking paddy with a big green lollipop sign that bellowed 'GO', while forty metres further on, past the clumsy incision the gangers had cut in the tarmac, a second man stood with a 'STOP' sign. Jobs for the boyos … and mine – as 'e gotta summer job?

  Whatever his father's anxieties Carl was having a pedestrian summer. Michelle had taken him away for a week to a white-tiled compound on the shores of the Med. Here the boy mooched by the pool, or straddled a bulgy, inflatable beast that bobbed on the dilute chlorine. It was the summer when he shed his baby names – or rather, Michelle stopped calling him Sweety, Honey, Bunny or Gorgeous. She addressed him, curtly, as Carl, and when the waiters weren't looking allowed him surreptitious sips from her fruit-choked cocktails.

  When they got back to London and his mother's days were taken up, Carl ranged over the Heath or trekked down to the West End, where he snuck into the lobbies of the smart hotels, sitting for whole afternoons unregarded on divans, filching smoked salmon sandwiches from cast-off plates.

  Sunk in his own sebaceous ooze, growing like a human weed, his head spinning when he rose too fast – Carl had no conscious mind for mummies or daddies of any stripe or hue. With limp passivity he'd accepted that he could no longer see Dave. What good is that wanker to me anyway? And yet he couldn't stop tracking every black cab he saw, checking to see if the driver's window framed that battered head and those bat ears.

  The only drama came one evening when Michelle was out at a Kenwood open-air concert – Chablis in a plastic sleeve, deli sandwiches, music on the half-shell. The phone rang at Beech House, and Carl answere
d the extension upstairs. It was Saskia, Cal's ex. It often was. Cal got on the line, and, although he'd replaced the receiver, Carl could hear him even from way upstairs, because Cal was shouting: 'What the fuck – ! Couldn't you have – ? Where is she – ? Now – ? ' Bitten-off yelps of anguish. Without quite understanding why he did so, the lad padded back down the carpeted sweep of stairs to hang over the banisters. When Cal came off the phone, he started, aware of eyes at his back.

  Turning, he saw her son with an expression on his half-Rudman face that seemed, to Cal, oddly familiar – like déjà vu incarnate. On impulse he said, 'It's my daughter, Daisy, she's been arrested again. She's down at some police station in South London, I've got to bail her out – d'you want to come with me?'

  They rode in Cal's Beamer through the night-time city. Men stood on every street corner wearing England football shirts printed with the number 10: fat Beckhams, thin Beckhams, young Beckhams, black Beckhams. Scores of unsuitable substitutes for a never-ending game. It wasn't the football chitchat, the complicity of the car ride, or even the grown-up stuff at the police station that did it. They rode over to her mother's flat with Daisy gurning in the passenger seat while Carl kept his head down in the back. It was one short exchange as they rolled home at 1 a.m. up Haverstock Hill. 'It must be tough,' Cal said, 'your dad being … I dunno … so disturbed.' And Carl said, 'It must be tough on you too – with Daisy.' That was it, a bond forged in the maddening furnace of summertime London.

  Where was Carl? Where was Dave: the cabbing was all tangled up – the city itself was ductile in the furnace, it warped and curled, becoming overwrought. His Faredar tricked by human chaff, Dave found himself breaking rules, heading south, dropping off some fucking rude boy on the Railton Road. Then, backing into a tight space in back of Brixton Market, the chrome bumper of the Fairway kissed the rubber bumper of a mustard Vauxhall Carlton. Dave clambered out of the cab and, more out of reflex than because he felt responsible, went to examine the rear. No dink – no mark even. When he straightened up, he was surrounded by bredren in their saggy-arsed tracksuits and LA Raiders jackets, yellow gold on their fingers and in their teeth. Mad golliwog hair … Along Electric Avenue, outside the butchers', there were counters piled high with pigs' trotters. One of the men took a step forward, his hair was shaved suede-close, he had a sock puppet's stubbly muzzle. 'Tax, mun,' he said, poking a stiff little trotter right into Dave's chest.