The Book of Dave (20 page)

Bert Ridmun waded out into the chilly water to hail the returnees: Orlrì?! And when his dad's voice boomed back, Orlrì! a
whoop went up from the Hamsters on the shore. Another few units and they saw that the gunnels of the vessel were within a
hand's breadth of the waterline, so overloaded was it with blackwings. Carl was standing up in the bow, a triumphant grin
on his face. As the keel grounded on the sandy shingle, he leaped into the waiting arms of the Hamsterwomen, who petted and
caressed him with many tender cries. Salli Brudi was with them, and she had a special intensity as she brushed his cracked
lips with the back of her freckled hand. Looking up from the unaccustomed cuddle, Carl was confronted by the mirror: in it
were the hooked beak and mad yellow eyes of the Driver. The old crow glared hatred at the lad. Nevertheless, he understood
the situation well enough: in the Hamsters' minds such bounty drove out any thoughts of Breakup for the moment. The Driver
turned and stalked away towards the Shelter.

To be replaced, on the fringes of the crowd unloading the pedalo, by the rubicund face of Antonë Böm, who came forward at
once to assist. He was greeted with much warmth by the fowlers. Orlrì, Ant, they said clapping him on the shoulder, lookívis 1, and they thrust into his arms the floppy carcass of a blackwing. However, there was little time for chitchat since
the fowl had to be unloaded and stored in the fridges for the night. At first tariff the serious business of dividing the
catch, plucking, gutting and currying them would begin.

The following evening there would be a Dave's curry – the last of the year. Fred Ridmun would offer up half his own share,
together with half that of the stack jumper, for the consumption of the rest. A further quarter portion of the Guvnor's would
be snuck away to the Gayt and placed before the monumental bronze head that lay near the southern shore. Despite the calling
over of the Driver, most Hamsters remained convinced that this enigmatic, bearded visage was that of Dave himself. The quantifiable
offering was significant, for, as exact as they were in all aspects of their property – according ownership to the last peck
of wheatie and drip of oil – so their cohesion was preserved by gifting. Power resided not among those who retained their
bounty but among those who divested themselves of it.

Eased by the hottest cupasoup the opares could provide, his aching limbs massaged with oil, his curry-cracked feet bathed,
Carl sat in front of the fire in the Brudi gaff and absorbed the warm fug. He had recounted his jump and the scramble up the
stack. He had frightened the little ones with his vivid enactment of his near-fall, as he leaned low to grab the sentinel
blackwing and his hands slipped on the rope. He told how he had hung from a buddyspike root for long units and the memory
ghost had visited him, so that he saw the Sentrul Stac sheathed in golden glass, and through this translucent skin appeared
beautiful angels, clad in jeans and jackets of the finest cut. They were playing upon curious plastic instruments and their
silent airs were kaleidoscopes of imagery on sparkling mirrors.

The Guvnor looked on approvingly, for this too was the way of it: the stack jumper's tale was a vital addition to the story
the community told of itself, one of humans spitting in the indifferent face of Nature. After Carl had recounted it in this
gaff, he would sally forth and retell it in all the others, until the entire manor was buzzing with his accomplishment.

Pausing, flushed with this approbation, and preparing to dive under the stone lintel of the Funch gaff, Carl saw a pale flash
at the end of the manor. For an instant he wanted to ignore the signal, but what then? He sloshed down the sodden bank of
the stream. Screenwash was falling, softening the night, and his feet were numb. Antonë Böm was waiting for him at the seaward
end of the Dévúsh gaff, his broad back propped against the mossy brick. It was so dark that Carl could only make out his mentor's
beard, wavering like a moth.

– Eyev bin bizzë, he said without any preamble, Eye gó ve geer awl stashed up bì ve wallos. Takeaway, oil an evian – awl Eye
cúd nik wivaht bein sussed. We gotta go nah, Carl, rì nah.

– But Eye onlee juss gó bak, innit. Eye onlee juss toal mì storë an vat … As Carl trailed off, Böm's hand tightened on
his arm, his face came up close, the lenses of his spectacles were two owlish discs.

– Carl, he said simply, we go nah aw nevah. Nah aw nevah.

The night pressed in on them, a nightjar chirred, the sea snatched at the shoreline. Carl felt the whole of his life slipping away – perhaps it would have been better to have fallen from the Stac? He had a sudden image of his body lying in the milky
waves, the gulls pecking at his bloody face.

Tyga and Sweetë, old Runti's mopeds, had been easy to drive. They always foraged in the woodlands immediately beyond the wallows.
Hunnë and Champ, Pippin's mopeds, were a trickier proposition. Carl left Antonë with half the rank and the changingbags,
while he ventured down into Sandi Wúd. Foglight streamed between the trees, while up above them piled brilliant white clouds,
their undersides glowing mauve and orange. New leaf fall swished beneath Carl's feet, and, despite his haste to find the motos,
he was still awed by the beauty of his homeland.

At last, Carl found the two motos on the shoreline below the thick undergrowth of Turnas Wúd. They were sunk deep in a slough
covered with dead brack and leaves. He roused them by gently stroking their jonckheeres, then brought them fully to consciousness
by whispering his plan into their floppy ears. He knew that any resistance on their part would thus be forestalled, for motos
would accept any idea – no matter how unusual – as simply an aspect of the new world they'd awoken to. Weer goin onna big
wallo, he cooed, me an U 2, an Ant an Tyga an Sweetë. Biggist wallo evah, gonna B luvverlë – yul C.

Hunnë drew her legs up beneath her bulk, rolled sideways on to her slopping tank and then hefted first her front and then
her rear end upright. Champ followed suit, with much snorting and gobbling, until he too was on all fours. Wegonna wawwow,
Cawl? he asked. Thass rí, said Carl, grabbing a handful of each beast's wattles, and with expert tugs moved them off along
the coast towards Mutt Bä. Although the big creatures were still only half awake, they were as surefooted as ever, their long
fingers and toes neatly grasping the tree roots that snaked underfoot. Their shuddery breathing smoked the air, and their
hot, damp withers gently steamed. Carl buried his hands deeper in the clammy neck folds. Nothing else in the world gave him
a feeling of such secure content, and even if he had to leave Ham then at least he'd be taking with him its unique natives.
Surely, with four motos to accompany them, the journey to London could not prove too arduous?

He settled Tyga and Sweetë at Mutt Bä, then returned to the wallows, where he found Böm pacing nervously and casting fearful
looks towards the manor. Fyahs iz smoakin, he said, vey muss B up, we gotta moovit, Carl. Then all was a pell-mell descent
through the woods back down to the shore, Tyga and Sweetë jogging, tanks and changingbags bouncing against their thick necks.
The two humans struggled to keep up with them, and Carl was frantic that when the two halves of the rank met up their nuzzling
would dislodge the loads.

As it was, Carl and Antonë slithered between the last few trees to find not only the motos butting and bumping but a far more
disturbing sight: the Driver. His beard and hair were in wild disarray, his robe was hitched up above his legs, and he wasn't
even wearing his mirror. He was brandishing a staff. Oi, U! he screamed as he clapped eyes on them. U – U! He was quite beside
himself, swishing the heavy staff back and forth in the air, turning to confront first the motos, then the escapees. Wot djoo
fink yaw doin? he managed to say at last. Böm backed off, placing a stand of blisterweed between himself and the hysterical
man of Dave, but Carl was suddenly enraged. He ran over and grabbed Tyga's ear, then drove the moto off the rank. Sorlrì,
Tyga, he told him, weer juss goin 4 vat big wallo lyke Eye sed. They advanced together on the Driver.

Carl knew that, despite his long stay on Ham, the Driver had never lost his initial revulsion for the motos; now, in this
charged moment, Tyga's gaping jaws and peg teeth struck terror into him. Dropping his staff, the Driver reared back, tripped,
then fell headlong to the ground, where he lay motionless. Wassamatter wivim, Cawl? Issë urtë? Tyga goggled at the black stain
of the Driver's robe on the carpet of leaves. Antonë knelt and lifted up the Driver's head. Ees it a brik, he said, ees aht
cold. Nah we reelë gotta moovit. Swiftly the two men stripped and coated themselves with a slather of moto oil.

Carl had splashed in the shallows with the motos, yet he had no idea if the beasts would consent to bear him and Antonë into
open water. The rank was orderly if excitable as he led them down to the shoreline. Only Sweetë moaned:

–
Eye wanna fowidj, lemme fowidj.

– Plennë uv fowidj ovah vare, Carl told her, pointing to the distance, where the rocks of Nimar rose up above the waves. Cummon
nah.

He coaxed Tyga a few paces into the sea, then, grasping a handful of neck wattle, swung himself on to the moto's broad back.
Behind him Antonë followed suit with Champ. Cummon nah! Carl urged Tyga on, and, feeling the rising water buoy up his body,
the moto began to paddle strongly. Eye thwimmin! Eye thwimmin! he lisped. Looking back, Carl saw the two other motos enter
the water after Antonë and Champ. As they came out of the bay, then scraped across the reef, the waves began to break over
Tyga's back, and Carl was instantly soaked. His anger had drained away with the advancing sea to be replaced by a naked terror.
Yet, looking back at the shore, he saw the Driver still lying prone, final confirmation – if any were needed – that there
was no going back.

6

The Skip Tracer

April 2002

'I honestly think he's mad,' Michelle had said to the lawyer, whose name was Blair. 'There's already a restraining order to
prevent him coming near to the house.' She felt comfortable with the 'honestly'; it sounded right for this dark wood panelling
and thick, turquoise carpet.

'But he's breached it, yes?' Blair took notes on a yellow legal pad with a gold propelling pencil. He was leaning far back
in his leather swivel chair and had to stretch to reach the notepad. This emphasized his petiteness.

'Well … yeah … I mean pretty drastically so far as I can see. My … partner and I saw him in the garden, at night,
but he ran off.'

'And this was in December?'

'Yeah.'
Yeah? You sound like trailer-park trash.

'You didn't report it to the police?' Blair raised one plucked eyebrow on his sallow forehead.

'That's what Fischbein – the other lawyer – asked us. We were so shocked, it'd never happened before.' Michelle took a sip
of coffee: it was tepid, and she put the bone-china cup down next to a plate of refined shortbread. 'When he broke the order
again we did call the police, but there was nothing we could get him for, because … because … my son … he wouldn't.
. .' Michelle gulped down hot tears with more tepid coffee.
I'm gonna start crying
now
… the thought of being offered a tissue by Blair – who'd asked her to call him 'Mitchell' – nauseated her. Not that Blair
made any move to dispense tissues; he remained recumbent and tapped his unnaturally small teeth with the tip of his pencil.
Michelle controlled herself and went on: 'My son wouldn't say anything against his father – that's what he told me. Still,
he doesn't want his dad turning up like that, outside his new school. It upsets him … his dad acts … I dunno, crazy,
but Carl's very loyal … He's angry with both of us.'

Then it came pouring out of her, the whole sorry, stereotypical tale. Yet even as Michelle recounted the clouts Dave Rudman
had aimed at her and the crockery he'd hurled, the way the volume of the rows had risen into a vacuous silence, followed by
the lawyers' letters and the fruitless mediation, she was aware that this was precisely what Mitchell Blair required. He might
have spent hours extracting this evidence from her; instead it came bagged, tagged and slammed down on his Moroccan leather
desktop. The gold pencil raced across the narrow feint to keep pace with her.

When Michelle had finished – or at any rate ceased, for there could be no end to such a litany – Blair cleared his throat:
'Erhem.' 'Ms Brodie,' he said, 'may I summarize?' He smiled. 'Your ex-husband was physically and mentally abusive within the
marriage. You divorced on those grounds and your only son, Carl, initially stayed with you at the family home. Your husband moved to
a rented flat near by. To begin with they had normal contact, alternate weekends and Wednesday visits, half school holidays
when Mr Rudman's … ah, work, permitted. During this time he, ah, behaved himself well enough. Then, when last year you
began a relationship with Mr Devenish, and you and your son moved in with him to a new house in Hampstead, your ex-husband
became abusive again. Increasingly so. He turned up at your house and banged on the door; he also made threats which led to
… Mr Fischbein obtaining a non-molestation order through the County Court, although your son continued to have contact
with his father.'

'Carl's old enough to go to see his father by himself. I didn't want to stop them seeing each other.'

'Quite so. But now the situation has changed again, your ex-husband's behaviour is highly erratic, and you feel that – '

'I dunno what I feel, but I'm worried about what Dave might do. Fischbein said it was difficult to get a further injunction
unless Dave had been arrested – I don't want to wait for that to happen, I don'tthinkitsrightthat – ' Michelle's words tumbled
out, Blair caught them in his plump hands, set them down in the opulent solemnity of the office. The air was stilled by leather-bound
precedents – they might have been anywhere, or even in another, quieter era.

'What Mr Fischbein says of the Family Division at County Court may well be true, but, given the right approach' – Blair paused
to emphasize that such an approach was a Blair speciality – 'it is entirely possible to obtain a total exclusion order from
the Principal Registry in the High Court. If this is breached, a power of arrest is automatically invoked carrying a committal
warrant for six months' imprisonment. As to visitation rights, if you insist on these continuing, there can be supervised
access.'

'Me?' Michelle was nonplussed. 'If
I
insist?'

'That's right, but you may regard it as in your best interests for any contact between your son and your ex-husband to be
stopped at once.'

Michelle had sat through years of deliberations with lawyers, mediators, court welfare officers and Child Support Agency assessors:
'your best interests' was not a phrase she had heard during all this time; 'the child's best interests' certainly; there had
also been much talk of'the relationship's interests', as if it were an entity in its own right; but her own, unalloyed, selfish
interests had never been alluded to. 'I'm sorry … Mister Blair.'

'Mitchell.' He smiled again with the titchy gnashers.

'I'm not used to what I want being talked about so … so …'

'Bluntly, Ms Brodie? If you retain me I act in
your
interests. There's a lot of nonsense talked in family law, and I'm not in the habit of contributing to it. If you require an order against
your ex-husband with more' – he tapped them with the pencil – 'teeth, that is something I can arrange. The law – like any
other art – is one of the possible.'

Michelle shuffled on past the cut-and-shut architecture of Oxford Street – the top storeys of Loire chateaux cemented to provincial
car showrooms. In Selfridges she lost herself in the Food Hall among others of her kind: trim, middle-aged, nouveau riche
women, anatomizing the ideal snack under lights of operating-theatre strength. This, surely, was what had been meant for her
all along? The Queen Anne house in Hampstead, the coffee breaks with interior designers, and the trip home from the West End
where she'd been visiting her expensive lawyer, bearing no malice but instead a glossy paper bag, inside it a bottle of L'Occitane
Lavender Body Cream.

The mineshaft of the Northern Line gave way, once Michelle had been winched up through the heavy hill, to the pithead of Hampstead.
She walked up Heath Street, which was shining under April sun after a low-pressure hosing. The shop windows were clotted with
affluence – the pavements busy with the economically unproductive. Halfway up the hill Michelle passed Liberation, the lingerie
shop she owned in partnership with her new friend Peter Prince. The window was thronged with knickers: flesh pink, organdie
and eau-de-Nil scraps, worth, weight for weight, more than currency and
hardly flying out of the place.

Two flights of stairs curled up from each side to the glossy maroon front door of Beech House. Twelve twelve-paned windows
looked down on the narrow lane below – a gross of affluence. Michelle was still thinking about pants.
Dave didn't take them off
when he came to bed … disgusting paisley Y-fronts with white piping
…
I couldn't bear to touch them, if he guided my hand there I yanked it
away. I could do it with him after exactly three glasses of wine, but his
prick always felt small inside me, like a pip I could squeeze out… Then
later, when the rows got violent, I lost all feeling in my tits
…
That GP
said I should do a regular self-examination for lumps … Sod the fucking
lumps – with Dave pawing me my tits were numb … numb with
disgust…

The way that Beech House had been freshly tricked out could have been wholly deduced from the lacquered Chinese box full of
decorative walking sticks that stood beside the front door. Michelle looked across the hall to where a door opened on to a
kitchen fitted with slate worktops, quarry-tiled floor and oaken units.
To be fair,
he was always lying down in the hollow Cal had left in my bed
…
When
Cal came back and we made love for the first time after so many years I
thought I'd be embarrassed – him seeing what having a kid had done to
me
…
my floppy white belly, my stretch marks. It wasn't like that at all
…
Shucking off her shiny mac, Michelle hugged her own baby-soft cashmere shoulders.
Being naked in the daylight with him
…
it made
me as young as a child
…
He felt like a father as much as a lover when
he took off my dress .
. . Sweat prickled her brow as she sheathed her umbrella in the box.
My father and Carl's. Then afterwards we slept so
sweetly, such sweet dreams …

In the humming silence of the mid-afternoon house, redolent of beeswax, Michelle Brodie stared hungrily at the television
in the kitchen: a packet of humdrum delights. From outside in the road she heard a tinkling 'Byeee!' and could imagine the
girl in the brindled uniform of an exclusive Highgate school, her glossy mane and chocolate shoes. But before she could move
towards the kettle and the television, Michelle sensed a presence in the house, faint but threatening. She rushed into the
drawing room to find Cal bedded down in the Eames chair, the pink and black patchwork of the
Financial Times
spread on his slow-rising chest.

Michelle woke him up with a cup of Earl Grey. She told him about Blair and the letter he was going to send to her ex – he
made the right noises, but his mind was in two other places. 'I can't face another day like today,' he sighed when it was
his turn. 'There are consultants and accountants all over the offices like flies on a fucking corpse … and… and I
told Saskia I'd go to find Daisy …' Michelle switched her grimace into a smirk of sympathy. If Cal noticed this, he chose
not to remark on it; he understood. Daisy stank.

Cal Devenish – former writer, former hell raiser, now the emollient yet forceful face of Channel Devenish – was exhausted.
The production company he'd taken over six years ago was being sold to an American media conglomerate. The business had been
a wrinkled little thing when Cal got it; now it was a taut balloon of gassy cash. Devenish had developed a series of hit programmes:
Tumour Swap, TWOC Rally, Whorecam –
and especially
Blackie,
a kids' show featuring a depressed spaniel that had been Globally syndicated. As well as being a shrewd purveyor of eyetrash
to the myopic, Cal was also a panellist on arts review shows and current events forums, a wag and a wit. He'd skilfully blended
his waning creativity with orange foundation cream, then slapped it all over his face so that it didn't shine under the studio
lights. He bestrode the steadily narrowing gulf between high culture and low entertainment like a credible, shrinking colossus.
Even if he managed to flog Channel Devenish – and this was by no means in the bag – he was still going to have to do a management
workout, three years in the shafts of corporate carters, while maintaining his public profile because they wanted that as
well.

Devenish's career change had come with his recovery from addiction to cocaine, alcohol and commercial sex. Not that he pursued
this recovery actively any more. There had been the predictable treatment centre, a Jenga of gables in the Greenbelt, where
counsellors nutty as walnuts cracked other nutters with their shells. After that he did therapy for a while – both individual
and group – so that he might irrigate his costive immaturity. Then he took to the gym, which tempered his skinny limbs, and
acquired a goatee like a neat hairy portcullis, which, oddly, gave him gravitas. Now Cal worked all the hours he could, and
when he wasn't working he was dealing with his troublesome daughter or moping around the house, never saying – although clearly
thinking…
what
the fuck have I got myself into with this woman and her mad bloody
ex-husband. Her sulky son … where will it all end?