The Book of Dave

by Will Self

  – U bin a long tym ear nah, Tonë, innit? Effi began.

  – Long enuff – nyn yeers cum nex JUN.

  – Anjoo no a Ió abaht uz bì nah, innit?

  Böm shifted to Arpee:

  – I like to imagine that I have studied your ways thoroughly, if that's what you mean, Effi.

  – Vares sumffing U av no Nolidj uv, sumffing big.

  – Oh and what's that? Böm was altogether without guile – he had no thought of trying to gain any advantage over Effi. He had learned to respect these Hamsterwomen, who, despite being treated like beasts of burden by their menfolk, kept the community alive and functioning.

  Effi Dévúsh leaned close in, her own eyes were lost in deep wrinkles, her nose was a knife blade, her fingers talons that suddenly swooped on Böm's plump thigh and pulled up the leg of his jeans. He didn't flinch as the welts of the old branding scar were revealed.

  – Vare í iz, Effi breathed – and Caff sighed as well. U nevah spoakuv í, didja?

  – No, no, I saw no need.

  – An ve Dryva – ee sed nuffing neevah.

  – No, no, I believe he thinks it will do nothing to further his work among you.

  – Av U evah erred tel ov ve Geezer?

  Effi and Caff sat back while Böm straightened his clothes. There, their expressions seemed to say – it's out now. The Geezer! Böm was aghast. You mean the dad who said he'd found a second Book, the flyer?

  – Ve verrë saym.

  – Yes, well … Böm said, hanging his head, you could say he's the reason I'm here at all. It was his calling over in London that had me branded.

  This intelligence was of no concern to the mummies; the London of which the teacher spoke was a remote – near mythical – realm. When Symun Dévúsh had been taken from them, he was gone for ever.

  – Didjoo no, Effi continued, ee woz a sunuv Am, didjoo no vat?

  – The Geezer, from here, from this Ham? Böm was incredulous. Surely not?

  – Nah, Effi sighed, iss ve troof

  – An mì Carl, Caff broke in, mì Carl … ees … ees iz lad.

  The Geezer. To Antonë Böm it was an age ago and half a world away. He had carried the Geezer's teaching locked up inside of himself, along with his mummyself, for all the dank days of his exile. The tenets of the new faith were as close to his heart as the first time he had heard them from the lips of his fellow teacher at the City of London School: No Breakup or Changeover, mummies and daddies to be with one another, touch one another, speak with one another, care for one another, with all the gentleness of a young opare tending to her infant charge. No PCO, no Knowledge, no Dävinanity – Dave himself disavowed it all, and had seen fit to tell this young, near-illiterate peasant that the first Book had been naught save the ravings of a dävine mind misshapen by anger and hatred.

  Dave bore no hatred towards mummies – not even Chelle. He truly wanted His fares to be fulfilled by whatever manner of life that they pursued. He did not wish them to build New London; only to live in the cities and towns that they themselves founded. And if they wanted to speak with Him, to reach up through the screen and touch Him, to sit back, give Him directions and let Him drive them to their destination – then that was what Dave wanted as well. He was there for all daddies and mummies – whatever their estate. He could be reached with the intercom – or even a loud call. No Drivers or Inspectors were needed to intercede – no laborious recitation of arcane Knowledge was required.

  It was to this Dave that Antonë Böm called over each night in his mean semi. Settled on a low stool, his arms held out straight in front of him, feeding the Wheel as he opened his heart. Expressing his innermost thoughts and secret yearnings to a perfect and loving Supreme Driver. Often, upon falling silent, he would become aware of that mundane Driver, a scant distance away, who called over to a very different Dave, a savage, hate-filled Dave, who wished nothing for his fares save toil and strife, the Breakup and the Changeover.

  No one in London had known precisely where the Geezer had hailed from – the name Ham was whispered, yet this meant nothing, for there were thousands of Hams scattered over the archipelago of Ing. In the time before the dävidic line was established in the city that came to be called London, many of these places were claimants to be the true cradle of the faith. Antonë had never conceived of the Geezer's Book as having a material reality, any more than he had imagined it being found in the same place as the first. Now two kinds of Knowledge joined together in Antonë Böm's mind, two worlds irrupted into each other. If … if the Geezer spoke the truth … Böm could barely formulate the thoughts … Then then, this … this is Ham- Hampstead … and that … beyond the reef… below the lagoon … is … is London. For did not Dave speak of a mighty flood, a great wave transforming the city's streets into raging rivers?

  Böm held the Knowledge of Ham as completely as any native granddad or grannie; it was his Knowledge of the Book that had faded. Its runs and points had been sing-songed into mere sounds by the lads in the Shelter. For tariff after tariff, then blob after blob, and finally year after year. While Böm leaned his weary head on the doorjamb and gazed out to sea, to where the stacks were spray-dashed in the swell, what was it that the lads had chanted? Rì Wyldwúd Röd. Leff Norfend Wä. Compli Spanyads Layn, Forrud Eef Street … The area of dense woodland along the north shore was known as the Wyldwúd. The lane that ran down from the moto wallows between Wess Wúd and Sandi Wúd was called Norf to differentiate it from the Layn that ran along the spine of the island. That these old tracks, worn by the feet of Hamsters and motos, conformed to the runs, conformed to the Knowledge – could it mean anything?

  Which had come first: the Knowledge or Ham? Surely it was more likely that the ancient Hamsters had named their rustic tramps after the majestic thoroughfares described in the Book? Yet… and yet… Forward Heath Street… then into the Zön, then left Beech Row … and was that where the Book had been disinterred some five hundred years before? If there was an answer to the conundrum it lay in the shrub-choked Ferbiddun Zön. It lay here on Ham.

  Antonë Böm did not sleep that night. When the first tariff came and the foglamp was switched on in the east, he was down at the shore pacing back and forth. A rank of motos nosing down from the Layn sighted him. Knowing better than to approach the teacher, they hung back, shrouded by the mist, their slushy calls muffled by the damp air. Alwyt, Tonë, alwyt, they cooed, hoping he had overcome his old revulsion enough to come and pet them. Instead Böm walked on along the shore, past the dim box of the Driver's semi, which seemed to suck solidity out of the nebulous atmosphere, then on around the bay to the manor. All was silent and still, the occasional cooee chew-chew-chew of a gull banking over the beach as mournful as the wail of an abandoned child.

  Antonë Böm stood by a stand of blisterweed and regarded the Hamsters' humped and mossy gaffs. It wouldn't be long before the first mummies and opares were up, stoking the fires with fresh wood, heating up cracked wheatie and moto gubbins for the dads and kids. The Hamsterwomen's labours began early and were never done. The boilers and mummies told Böm that before the Driver came there had been little or no violence on Ham. Now he understood – it was the Geezer's fault, the daddies were punishing the mummies for what had happened during the time of the Geezer, and the Driver was inciting them.

  Ware2, guv! It was Caff Ridmun who called to him, jerking the teacher away from his thoughts. She'd come out from the Bulluk gaff and was heading over to the spring to fetch evian. 2 Nú Lundun! Böm called back – and in that unit his mind was made up. He would penetrate the Ferbiddun Zön and discover its secrets – whatever the consequences might be.

  The screenwash came late that autumn – not until NOV was almost over. The climate on Ham was always temperate, but this year it seemed as if kipper would never arrive. The motos were still sleeping out in the woodland, while fat flies doodled in and out of the shack where the Hamsters made waste of their natural products. The community became uneasy. The oldest of the grannies and
granddads told tales of former times, when during such spells freakish waves had reared up out of the Great Lagoon, drenching the home field with curry and destroying the soil's fertility for a generation. On one occasion Ham had been almost completely depopulated. When the Hack arrived from Chil, he found only a few mummies and kids huddled in the empty byres – almost all the Hamstermen had died, some from starvation, others during a desperate fowling trip out to the stacks. The motos too were severely reduced in numbers. Daddies had to be brought forcibly from Chil to settle on the island. It was said that it was then that the decline began, and the Hamsters shrank until they were naught save pygmies compared to their mighty forefathers.

  Against a backdrop of flaming autumnal leaves, the Driver called over the Book – while Antonë Böm scurried away from the Shelter as fast as his chubby legs would carry him. Yaw blankin me! Carl Dévúsh called after him. Yaw blankin me, Tonë! The lad ran, his bare feet sure on the slippery turf, and caught up with his mentor. Oi! Wossup? Ware U goin? Carl's hand was on Antonë's arm, and in its pressure the older man could feel all the weight of the responsibility he sought to avoid, the daddystuff, the daddytime, the need to work and build, to make a better world. He shrugged the hand off, turned from the expectant eyes, walked on hurriedly up to the Layn and went on down into the woodland. Carl was not to be so easily discarded. He followed behind, crying out: Wot ve mummies bin tellin yer, Tonë? Eh, wot vey bin tellin yer? Vey töl U abaht me dad, iz vat í, iz vat í?

  Böm blundered in and out of boggy sloughs with no care for the state of his jeans. As the lad pursued him, he became increasingly hysterical – the whirl of speculation about Ham and the agitation in his feelings it provoked sucked him into a vortex of abandonment. Why? he implored aloud. Why O Dave have you dropped me off? He had never wanted it this way: to be queer was bad enough, to be exiled as a flyer worse, now these chellish mummies conspired to place him for ever outside the Shelter. Whippystalks tore at his beard and hair, the wind rose and the yellow leaves flashed against the deep, blue sky – the whole spherical space of Ham was in motion, a flickering between faith and faithlessness. Sweetë, startled by Böm's thrashing through the underbrush, started up from where she'd been lying and trundled off into a thicket. The sight of the moto's vast and brindled flanks set Böm on another course: The motos … grotesque mutants … slobbering, giant babies … are we not all babies, mired in our own ordure, babbling nonsense? Böm sank down in a boggy patch, and his hands drove into the brackish morass. He moaned and brought clutches of the muddy weed up to his face, squeezing the sludge between his fingers. You fucking bitches! he blubbered. You fucking bitches … You've taken – you've taken ev-ery-thing!

  Carl stood a little way off, his slight figure camouflaged by his bubbery cloakyfing. He looked at Böm with a curious expression, concerned yet almost contemptuous. A fulcrum had been wedged beneath their association – and the balance was tipping in Carl's favour. Eventually he moved towards the teacher, bent down and stared into the muddy face.

  – Vey töl djoo, diddun vey?

  Böm nodded; there was a smear of blood at the corner of his mouth.

  – U no wot cums nex … Carl took his shoulder, shook it. U no, Tonë, we gotta go an fynd out. We gotta go intah ve zön … U no … ware mì dad went… We gotta fyndaht ve troof.

  – No, Böm said feebly. No, we mustn't… we can't.

  Two days later, in the middle of the second tariff, Antonë Böm and Carl Dévúsh stood at the brow of Wollötop, where the Layn plunged into the dense undergrowth of the Ferbiddun Zön. At this, the highest point on Ham, the view in all directions was of waves frothing over the reef, as if it were the island itself that was disturbing the sea. Further out to the south, the white caps curled away across the Great Lagoon to the Sentrul Stac; while to the north the deeper sound between Ham and Nimar was like buckled irony plates under the ragged racing clouds.

  A chill wind moaned between the pines that guarded the moto wallows, and further along the Layn to the northeast the twisted branches of crinkleleafs scratched at a tinted screen within which pinprick dash lights gleamed. For three full tariffs the storm had lashed Ham, blowing every single leaf from the trees, the screenwash hosing the paths into muddy chutes. Now the screen was clearing, and the wind scoured Antonë's and Carl's faces. They both carried the Hamsters' heavy mattocks on their shoulders. Böm also had a flaming bundle of oil-soaked reeds, but the brand would shed little light – they were counting on the headlight, which wouldn't dip until well into the third tariff.

  – Ready, then? he said.

  – Reddë enuff, Carl replied.

  Böm hefted his mattock. Come on, then, he said through pursed lips. Let's go.

  Within a few paces the quiet of the zön enfolded them. The hill sloped steeply, and they first slipped, then fell. Struggling on, the pair pushed through a bank of dead pricklebush and found themselves in a gully between high banks over which swarmed the spiky roots of rhodies. Looking up, Carl saw the dark blue rift of the screen fringed by their glossy evergreen leaves. Böm was reverently calling over and over: Forward Heath Street… Forward Heath Street… Forward Heath Street, as he edged his way deeper in the Zön. He could see a gap in the bank to their left and, thrusting his way into it under the bushy overhang, called back to his companion: Hampstead Square, this should be the last turn-off before we reach Beech Row.

  Carl came slithering through the mud to reach Böm's side, and supporting each other they pressed forward. Djoo bleev í? the lad whispered, overawed by the mystery of the place. Djoo bleev viss iz Lundun? Böm cast anxious glances about him at the dark banks. Here and there the soil had crumbled away in the rain, and even through the gloom they could make out the exposed courses of brick. After they'd skidded another hundred paces there came a second gap in the bank to their left. This is it, Böm sighed. If we truly are in Hampstead, then this is Beech Row. Follow me.

  Bent double beneath the dense press of the undergrowth, they squeezed into the ditch. After a score of paces they scrambled up the bank to the right. On top the rhodies were quite low, and, upon rising up, they found themselves head and shoulders above the canopy. The headlight was full beam, its silvery letric illuminating the eerie scene. Spreading out below was a lap of land in the hillside; over it shimmered the shiny, purple-black masses of the rhodies, while here and there pinnacles of brick rose up, stark against the night screen.

  This mound – Böm indicated the tumulus immediately to their left – must be the gaff. There's Knowledge of this in the Book, Carl. A gull swooped past, coasting on its airy ramp. Böm started and dislodged scree, which pattered down into the ditch behind them. Carl, remembering the granddads' tales of rat colonies in the Ferbid­dun Zön, clutched Böm's shoulder. Steady, lad, the teacher calmed him. Be steady.

  They clambered down the slope and on to the flat area below the mound. Then Böm began his peculiar search on hands and knees, seeking out first the long-buried remains of the ancient wall, then rising to check its orientation with the mound, then sinking down again. It was eldritch, the queer rustling about in the dark shrubbery, the gulls scooting overhead, the full-beam headlight bearing down on them from the south, smoky cloud roiling across its fly-specked glass. Suddenly Böm's scurrying ceased, and he let out a single, low moan. Carl crashed through the bushes to his side. Böm was kneeling before a gaping pit. The vegetation had encroached on it, the rain had washed down into it – yet still the clay streaks and sand dashes at its edges made the hole appear freshly dug. L-look, Böm stuttered. L-look here … and here … Where the fill from the pit had been scattered among the rhodies, there were neat piles of Daveworks, twisted bits of irony, bricks and lumps of crete. Th-this is it . . . Böm managed to splutter. This is where the G-geezer, your d-dad dug. This is where he claimed he found the second Book!

  – Mebë iss stil vare, said Carl, and, since Böm at first did not acknowledge him, he said it again: Mebë iss stil vare – ve Búk.

  – W-what d'you
mean?

  – Me dad, ee sed Dave túk ve Búk bak, diddunee? Mebë ee ment ee put í bak, bak in viss ole.

  – Oh, no, no, surely not – it couldn't be, there's nothing there, look … look …

  They stared down into the pit, and the muddy puddle at the bottom held the reflections of their two heads outlined against the screen above – as if they were two creatures who had come there to drink, and were now frozen in contemplation of their own, misunderstood image.

  – We gotta lúk innit, Carl said after a while. We gotta dig, thass Y we brung vese … He held up his mattock. Cummon nah, Tonë, lettus dahn.

  As Böm tried to lower the lad carefully into the pit, the sides gave way, and they were both precipitated into the chilly quag. They wallowed there, at first working their mattocks deep into the sludgy pit bottom; then, when that yielded nothing, they sank down, plunged their arms in up to the shoulder and grabbed handfuls of the muck. Finally, exhausted, they abandoned the search and heaved themselves back up the sides of the pit, to lie wet and cold under the dashboard. There's nothing there, Böm gasped. But there was once something – there must have been. This, the very empty pit itself, was enough of a revelation for him; and so, along with its eroding sides, the last vestiges of his loyalty to King Dave and the PCO crumbled away.

  They came back down through the home field to the manor in the harsh foglight of the first tariff. The pod-shaped gaffs were silent and brooding, for the Hamsterwomen and children had been shut up, while all the Hamstermen were waiting for them at the Council wall. Through the thicket of dead withies Carl could make out the figure of the Driver, standing tall and still as a statue among the crouched figures of the dads and staring at them with his yellow eyes.

  He had no need to summon them: cold, soaked, caked with mud, as if they were primordial men, reborn from the very soil of Ham, the two recusants limped towards their destiny. In stony silence the dads watched them approach and in stony silence they listened while the Driver pronounced his anathema: