The Book of Dave (3 page)

The Driver addressed the Hack:

– Mister Greaves, come and have a cuppa at my gaff; there's matters we must talk over before tonight's do.

– And tomorrow's Council. Greaves looked over at Carl as he said this.

– Yes, and tomorrow's Council. Shall we go?

They walked away, the Driver taking his first few paces backwards before spinning on his heel; yet neither – in the mirror
or directly – gave the slaughtered moto so much as a backward glance.

Once the off-islanders were all gone, the Hamstermen set to work with a vengeance. From an oilcloth bundle Fred Ridmun drew
out a hooked knife the length of his forearm. Fukka Funch dragged a large piece of oilcloth beneath Runti's dangling head.
Carl put his weight on the dead moto's arms. Ozzi Bulluk pulled the rope that kept one of its hind feet lashed to the gibbet
as tightly as possible, splaying the moto's legs. Its genitals, tank and ribs were all thrown into prominence. Taking a deep
breath and crying out, Stikk í 2 im, Dave! Fred thrust the knife into the notch beneath the rib cage and, sawing vigorously,
yanked it up. Hide and flesh parted with a loud popping sound, and Runti's guts flumped down in a tangled mass on to the cloth.
Fukka moved in at once with a shorter knife and, feeling around in the moto's abdominal cavity, cut the intestines away. Behind
him came Carl with a pail of sea water, which he sloshed up into the gory hole, slooshing out any shit or half-digested fodder.
Carl was laughing as he barged Fukka out of the way, and instead of clumping him the dad laughed as well. It mattered not
how old or how dävine you were – butchering a moto was always a joyous occasion so far as the Hamsters were concerned.

The mummies and opares now came out from where they'd been waiting in a huddle behind the Brudi gaff. Hitching up their cloakyfings,
they crossed the stream and came towards the slaughter site. All that morning the Hamsters' huge irony kettle had been simmering
over a fire a few paces away from the gibbet. Now the women went to this, formed a chain, poured pails of boiling water and
passed them, hand to hand, to Carl, who attached them to a rope and winched them up so that they could be tipped over the
carcass. Once it was well and truly scalded, the dads dragged over boards and trestles to make up the skinning table. This
was assembled immediately under the scaffold and the dead moto lowered down on to it.

Next the daddies lined up along one side of the table and the mummies along the other. Short, broad-bladed knives were taken
out from another cherished bundle and distributed among them. Then the company set to, scraping the thick bristles from the
hide. Carl was too young to take part in this work; nevertheless he loitered near by and even risked smiling at his mum, Caff.
She smiled back while the others chose not to notice this exchange.

For twelve long years the Driver had sought to snuff out such intercourse between the sexes; however there were some of the
Hamsters' rituals that he could neither proscribe nor modify. When the Hack's party came and the moto was slain, the dads
and mums spoke to one another with warm vitality, exchanging news, opinions and especially gossip about the strangers, their
remarks shooting back and forth across the table as rapidly as their knives scraped at the hide. Had the Hack accepted the
rent? What illnesses or deformities did the Chilmen have? Was there any news of Chil, or even of the world beyond? What business
did the Hack have with their Driver? And most importantly: what had been brought to trade? Was there fresh seed? Woolly? Fags?
Booze even?

The foglamp beat down on them out of a blue screen that tinted at the southern horizon, the sea pitter-purled against shingle,
the gulls cawed over the Gayt, the flying rats coo-burbled from the top of the home field, the sweat stood out on the grafters'
brows, and the mummies – with the Driver gone – risked loosening their cloakyfings. When free-flowing, the Hamsters' chitchat
had the intimacy of thought, so when the old moto-skinning rap started up it was like a mummy humming to her sprog.

– Allö, mö-ö, cum 2 feed us, cum 2 eel us, the mummies called.

And the daddies responded:

– Tara, öl mayt, gissa cuddul B4 U dì.

Summoning himself as if from a dream, Fred wiped the sweat from his reddened brow and fixed the company with his flinty gaze.
The mums and dads left off singing, downed tools and looked over towards the Driver's gaff, but, seeing the smoky ribbon that
coiled from his chimney, they began singing again – if anything a little louder. Fred shrugged and joined in with them.

By the time the moto's hide had been scraped, its carcass skinned, and its blubber flensed and set out in a number of pots
for trying out, the slaughter site was crawling with flies, and blood had crusted on the sward. Fred and Ozzi had expertly
disjointed the moto's limbs and hacked off its hams, shins, feet and hands. Runti's head had been severed and borne off by
the mummies to make the headcheese for the Hack's cake. His tank had been cut away from his guts and hung up to dry; it would
be used to store his own oil. Fukka Funch had set up a second trestle table and was skilfully fashioning smaller cuts from
the chunks of carcass and trimming off the side meat to be smoked. He then reserved the spare ribs and the tank meat – for
these would be curried and barrelled. He cut out the heart, liver and kidneys from their viscous basketry and slithered them
across the bloody boards into the hands of the waiting mummies. A smoky, meaty smell began to hang in a pall over the manor
as the blubber started to simmer.

The other kids had returned from the woodland, and, as it was daddytime, the opares fed them with odd scraps of flesh, quickly
fried up with handfuls of herbs. Then they were packed off with a tot of moto gubbins to ward away the pedalo fever. Fred
retrieved the moto's slack bladder from Fukka's table, washed it in a pail, found its opening, inflated it with a few breaths
and tied it off with a length of sinew. He tossed the whitish sphere towards the little kids, and Ad Brudi – who although
only seven was a head taller than the others – grabbed it and ran off down to the shore. The whole pack followed after him,
hooting and yelling as they batted it between them. They ran around the bay, and, as they passed the Driver's semi, he loomed
in the doorway, a tall and threatening figure. The other kids wormed their way through the blisterweed, but he managed to
catch hold of Ad and took the bladder from him. Shaking it, the Driver held it up to the screen, then returned it to Ad and
sent him back towards the dads.

At the slaughter site Ad handed the bladder to Fred.

– Ve Driver sez í aint rì fer ve kids 2 B larkin abaht.

– So B ì, the Guvnor said grimly, and he tied the bladder to the side of the gibbet, where it wobbled in the breeze.

Carl had no idea how Antonë Böm had arrived in the manor without being noticed, but he looked up from currying the meats to
find that the teacher was standing right by his shoulder.

– Ware2, guv, Böm said.

– 2 Nú Lundun, Carl replied.

A smirk played upon Antonë's fat wet lips. He compressed them and emitted the buzzing noise that signified his abstraction
from the workaday toil of the Hamsters. His spectacles flashed the foglamp in Carl's eyes, his prematurely white beard lay
lank on his bulbous chin. His cheeks were heavily scarred with the pox, his jeans were full – but his tank fuller. His soft,
plump hands, with their tiny, recessed nails, dwelt on his swelling hips. Carl blanked him and concentrated on rubbing coarse
seacurry into the moto meat.

– So, Böm asked after a while, az Runti bin chekked?

– Sluffoffs ovah vare. Carl jerked a thumb at the skin that lay at Fukka's feet, buzzing with flies. Böm ambled over and began
to sort through the greasy folds. At once Fred was by his side.

– Ware2, guv, he snapped.

– 2 Nú Lundun, Böm cooed. Eyem juss lookin fer ve mark.

– No bovver, Tonë, said Fred, refusing to be mollified. U no azwellaz me vat Runti woz reel Enuff; úve seen iz mark a fouwzan
tymes.

– Stil, we muss chekk ì, iss ve way, innit. Böm carried on examining the moto skin.

– Iss nó yer graft, Tonë, an djoo no ì!

Fred grabbed the skin, so that the two men held it stretched between them. The foglight streamed through the membrane, perfectly
illuminating the phonics C-A-L-B-I-O-T-E-C-H. Looking from the Guvnor's angry face to his mentor's quizzical one, Carl felt
his riven mind part still more.

– C! Fred spat in the dirt. Reel enuff fer U, Tonë, reel enuff?

Later still, old raps were sung in the island's Mokni, Effi Dévúsh making the call and the whole population – mummies, daddies,
boilers, opares and kids – the response. Then the dancing commenced. In the margins of the firelight, where the shadows flickered
and the darkness took on substance, Böm saw the gaunt form of Luvvie Joolee, the Exile, who had crept up to observe the festivities.
She must by now, he thought, know what awaits Carl and me at first tariff. He tried to catch her eye but to no avail, for
the tragic old boiler ignored him.

The last thing Böm noticed before he left were the wide eyes of the Chilmen, glazed by moto-oily gluttony, as they watched
the increasingly abandoned gyrations of the Hamsters, pissed on the booze they'd brought, fags dangling from their sloppy
lips. He guessed what the Chilmen were thinking: what a contrast there was between piety and licentiousness! The Chilmen cast
surreptitious glances at the opares – who had undone their cloakyfings most immodestly. No doubt the pedalers and sick fares
alike were wondering if they could afford the childsupport.

Böm could not rest – his lumpy sofabed held no appeal for him. In the morning the Guvnor and the Hack would deliberate everything
before the Council. Who knew what else might come out concerning him and Carl? The Hamsters could not forbear from speaking
when spoken to, and who could guess what Caff might say if she were examined? Böm had no illusions about what awaited him
if he were returned to London. It was the curse of his speculative mind that had brought him to Ham in the first place, and
the Inspectors had long memories while the PCO's Examiners possessed the harshest of powers. He sighed, dipped his biro in
the inkwell and scratched on into the night.

Carl Dévúsh couldn't sleep either. When he finally went to his bed in the Funch gaff, and threw himself on to the rough palliasse
in among the hurly-burly of his mates' limbs, their dream cries and night farts beset him. His mind stirred and turned. He
recalled the bizarre garb of the Chilmen, their red jeans and ornate leather trainers. Every word the off-islanders spoke
betrayed an unsettling incomprehension of all that was certain to Carl: the firm ground of Ham itself. To go out into the
world of these fares, what would that be like? Besides, from what Antonë had told him, the strange ways of the Chilmen were
as nothing compared to those of Londoners. It wasn't the threat of the PCO and its Inspectors that bothered Carl – such things
were too remote – but the loss of his home, his beautiful island.

Towards first tariff, Carl crept out from the box bed, slapped across the yok flags, unlatched the door and went out into
the greying gloom. He followed the same route he had the day before, back across the home field, over the ridge and around
Hel Bä until he reached the old tower. Dave had switched off the headlight, but Carl had no need of it to find his way. He
could have walked the whole island – saving the zones – in his sleep. Once at the tower, he walked under the heavy lintel,
ignoring the buddyspikes growing out of the stonework that tore at his face. It wasn't strictly forbidden to enter the five
towers of Ham, although it wasn't altogether allowed. Nevertheless the children had all been in before, frightening each other
with tales of how the giants would get them. Sitting down in the remains of a fireplace, Carl looked up through the open roof
of the tower to the screen. The dashboard still shone up there, the arrangements of lights the same as those he had been taught
to recognize by Caff when he was a little fare, sitting on her lap on the ground outside the Ridmun gaff, his head nestling
in the hollow of her neck.