The Book of Dave (10 page)

When old Dave Brudi knew that he was dying he called Fred Ridmun to him in the Brudi gaff and handed over his Guvnor's cap
and the Council cudgel. The screen was tinting earlier and earlier in the second tariff, while the final darkness was fast
approaching, for the old Guvnor as well. Passing by the door on cold mornings, when the ground was irony hard and his breath
misty, Symun saw his mate bent low over the old granddad's sofabed and heard Dave grunting:

– Iss nó nó, iss no-
t
, no-
t
. Ve Búk iz awl in Arpee, C. Vese wurds wiv
ough
in em – vair trikki. Sumtyms vair
off
sahnds lyke coff, uvvatyms vair
ow
sahnds lyke plow. Nah less ear yer kee wurds, mì sun.

It was a testament to the departing Guvnor's bearing and fortitude that he had enough strength at the end to instruct Fred
in these phonics, for, by the time the kipper season came, Dave was dead and buried in the little graveyard behind the Shelter,
where the wheels on top of the headstones spun crazily in the mournful winds.

Symun made a point of always being the last to leave the Shelter after the dads had called over the runs and points. He helped
Fred to tidy up the tincans, swab the table and straighten its cover, then put the Hamstermen's sole copy of the Book away
in the micro. Fred was usually preoccupied – the office of Guvnor brought heavy responsibilities and only modest rewards.
He was entitled to an extra tank of moto oil from every slain beast, an extra rip of land in the home field, and an extra
share of both feathers and seafowl whenever the pedalo went out to the Sentrul Stac or Nimar. In turn he had to be the first
to make the leap on to the rocks when the dads were birding, and he had to be first up the stack – a dizzying, dangerous ascent.
He also had to settle all disputes on the island, thus making himself the focus of much resentment. When the Hack came, it
was Fred who would have to negotiate with him, bartering the Hamsters' produce for the rent, and this too was a thankless
task.

Fred thought it a bit odd the way Symun would open the Book whenever they were alone together and, pointing to this or that
word, ask him to read it out; yet not very, for Symun had never been like the other Hamstermen. Where they adapted themselves
to the rhythms of their island, its seasons and its tides, he jibed against them. Where they found certainty in the Book and
its Knowledge, he was always questioning, his dancing eyes piercing to the core of things.

As autumn progressed, the island's multitudinous greens changed to a cascade of copper finery, which then faded to tawny browns,
dull silvers and mossy blacks. The equinoctial gale rose one night and come lampon the trees were bare, their branches making
thin cracks in the clear, kipper screen. The mums retreated to the mummies' gaffs, where they wove rough bubbery with the
woolly the Hack had brought that summer. The dads also retreated to their own gaffs, where they turned this coarse stuff into
cloakyfings, jeans, T-shirts and jackets; for just as weaving was mummies' graft, so was tailoring daddies'. The motos were
brought into the byres that took up half of each gaff, and the kids hunkered down with them for warmth. So the Hamsters drew
in upon themselves in their little manor. All the Hamsters save one, for Sy Dévúsh began to spend more and more time in that
peculiar state, so unfamiliar to his fellows, of being alone.

All that kipper Symun haunted the foreshore. The blisterweed lay on the ground, hollow, papery reeds that crunched harmlessly
beneath his feet. The tide was never that high or low on Ham – even at dipped and full beam it only rose a matter of a few steps.
This moderation was seemingly in harmony with the temperate clime of the isle. When the tide was out at the curryings on the
north coast of Ham, Symun could gain the shallows, then wade unobserved, either to the east, under the Gayt, or to the west
beneath the bluffs of the Ferbiddun Zön. Here, on the most isolated promontory of Ham, facing due south, stood the Exile's
pathetic semi. Often Symun would see Luvvie Joolee wandering up and down one of the groynes, her gaunt face set, her eyes
fixed on distant and unattainable prospects.

In buddout and summer Symun would have been with other Hamstermen, out netting prettybeaks, or else gathering the mussels
that clung to the weedy flanks of the groynes. The mummies came on to the foreshore as well, if there were particular herbs
they needed, or a dead seadog had been washed up. And all the Hamsters went there from time to time to gather fresh Daveworks,
although this task was mostly left to the children, who, it was believed, benefited from it. Every Hamster had his or her
Daveworks, strung on to lengths of thread. Now that the Driver was long gone, the dads would tell theirs as they sat in the
Shelter and called over the runs and the points. The mums wore theirs as necklaces. Daveworks were also nailed to the lintels
of the Hamsters' gaffs and garlanded their motos. Field strips were marked out by poles from which Daveworks dangled, serving
both to scare off the birds and to sanctify the crops. Certain groves in the woods, because they were the site of an ancient
calamity, had become shrines, adorned with posies, scrawled messages and Daveworks. Here the Hamsters came to speak to Dave
through the intercom.

Real Daveworks were most prized, because they bore phonics and were therefore fragments of the Book. Toyist Daveworks, if
they were particularly fine and realistic, were also kept by some, in the belief that sooner or later Dave himself would come
to redeem them for that which they depicted. Daveworks came in many shapes: there were straight ones and bent ones, T-shaped
and H-shaped, circular and square, spherical and triangular. These were all designated accordingly: strayts, bentuns, tees,
aytchez, sirkúls, skwares, bawls and trys. Most were too convoluted to be given a name; even the term 'plastic' – for a great
many Daveworks bore these phonics, or at least some – could not serve to differentiate them, for as it was written in the
Book, plastic was only the vital clay from which the world had been moulded.

What the Hamsters did know was that the supply of Daveworks was inexhaustible, continual proof of the immanence of Dave. They
were more common on the southern coast, where whole reefs lay offshore. After a storm fresh Daveworks would be freed and come
floating in to lodge in the sand and shingle. The Hamsters could simply have waded out to the reef and gathered as many as
they wanted, if the crabs in their thousands hadn't deterred them. Not because of their claws – which could deliver at most
a nip – but because their presence suggested that the reef was toyist. Dävwurks cum in Daves oan tym, said Effi Dévúsh, no
Rs.

Symun's expeditions in search of Daveworks were quite different. He sought only real Daveworks, and he looked for them with
great single-mindedness. He was searching for those that bore discernible words, and when he found one that duplicated those
already in his collection, he discarded it. For there were many bearing the phonics M-A-D-E, H-O-N-G or .-C-O-M; and quite
a few that had E-N-G-L-A-N-D and C-H-I-N-A. 'England' he knew to be Dave's term for Ingerland, but of .COM there was no mention
in the Book – at least not in the runs he knew. Symun kept his Daveworks in the hollow trunk of a dead groovebark on the fringes
of the Ferbiddun Zön.

With the alphabet he had gleaned from Fred, Symun was able to decipher his Daveworks. By matching the words he had himself
found to those words he could see on those rare occasions he could handle the Book, he came to be able to read. Symun was
intelligent, formidably so, and while the first few phrases had cost him whole tariffs of frustration, once he had cracked
the code entire rants of the Book leaped off the page at him.

Naturally Symun was familiar with the Book; all Hamstermen were. Its runs and points were called over by them in unison, in
the Shelter. Its doctrines and covenants were constantly on their lips as they disciplined their mummies, opares and boilers.
Its Ware2, guvs were what they welcomed one another with, and its farewells to the Lost Boy were their valedictions. Yet much
of what they recited was gibberish to them – deprived, as they were, of the good offices of a Driver. Now that Symun could
read he could provide his own interpretation: he could see how the Book explained Ham, its shape, its isolation, its peculiar
character. This was the true revelation: the island, which had for all his life been an immutable given, now became fluidly
legible. Then he knew what he must do. He understood what his mummy had implied but dared not openly state: he should use
the Book to penetrate the mysteries of the Ferbiddun Zön.

It was a fresh, breezy day. Mountainous clouds passed over Ham, dark grey at their flat bases, brilliant white at their lumpy
peaks. To the south the Sentrul Stac rose from the choppy sea, its crenellated sides streaked white and brown with gull shit;
while beyond it the far islands of Surrë were a bright green streak along the horizon. Beams of foglight fell on the land
and on the white-capped waves, yet there was a damp tang to the air – there would be screenwash before nightfall. Frogwash,
the Hamsters called it, because they believed that at this time of the year the showers were sticky with spawn. The crinkleleafs
and smoothbarks above the home field quickened with buds, and their limbs tossed in the breeze. The land birds had begun to
return at the new headlight, and as they worked the Hamstermen hailed them, Orlrì, Bob! Orlrì, Jen! Orlrì, Tom! while the
kids ran at them with flails, scaring them away from the newly sown seed.

Gari Funch had finished his changebag of seed and gone up into the trees to relieve himself when he saw Symun Dévúsh coming
along the Layn from the moto wallows. Later on, Gari said there was an aura about Symun that struck him as soon as he saw
the other young dad. His mates teased him about it, saying, Ure lyke awl ve Funchis, Fukka, so shortarsed anifyngs up in ve
air 2 U! Yet he stuck to his recollection of Symun floating above the ground, with a wisp of mist wrapped around him like
a cloakyfing, while his jeans and T-shirt were rent.

– Ware2, guv? Gari had hailed him, and then, as Symun wafted closer, he said, Orlrì, mayt?

Symun only looked straight through him, his blue eyes glassy. Gari stepped forward and made to take his shoulder, but Symun
twisted away and blurted:

– Bakkoff! Eyem nó Symun no maw, Eyem ve Geezer nah, Eyev ung aht wiv Dave, C, an ees toll me ve troof.