The Book of Dave (36 page)

Out in the channel, once again the current plucked and pulled at their tiny craft. Gulls swung down and mobbed them, their
crap splattering, their beaks digging at poor Tyga's vulnerable muzzle. Carl, screaming, struck out at them, but they only
wheeled away, then swooped down once more. Böm kept pulling and pulling at the pedals as the waves broke over the prow. Eventually,
exhausted, he shipped them and called to Carl.

– It's no good, the current's too strong, we're making no headway. We'll have to let it take us.

– W-where to, guv?

– If it keeps on like this, right to the shores of Cot, but we'll cross the sea lanes before that. I don't know, perhaps if
Dave wills it we'll run into a ferry there.

They brought Tyga alongside and lashed him to the thwarts. Antonë tried steering with a pedal while Tyga flailed as best he
could – even so, the craft spun from the hard barge and wet jam of the open sea. For unit after unit the gulls harried them,
while Carl dripped evian into Tyga's cracked lips, for he feared the moto was about to expire, so sickly did he look, his
eyes raw and weeping and his gasps shuddery and spume-laden. The foglamp sunk down into the swell while in the east storm
clouds boiled up. The wind rose and the gulls fled for land. It looks bloody awful, Antonë cried above the howl. We're shipping
water, if we don't make land soon we're done for. You'd best call over a run or two and ask Dave to pick you up!

With the foglamp fast dipping and the wind rushing and the moto groaning and the pedalo foundering on a liquid precipice,
Carl saw a black patch of land cut from the sea by its fading, scissor beams. They lashed the stubborn water with their pedals
while Tyga's limbs churned below the surface, they veered, yawed and finally gained the inside edge of a groyne. Then, in
the dead water, they came in upon a shingle beach, where a tall dad stood, his arms upraised against the bilious screen. He
was clad in a bizarre tunic of metal plates. These were inscribed with discordant phonics: W821 TBL, X911 VCF, R404 BNB.

Welcome to Bril, the tall dad sang in a voice that rang out above the wind's rush and push. He made an obeisance, while behind
him the long grass swished in the gathering night. Welcome dad and lad – welcome moto. To Carl's astonishment the dad clanked
down towards them and, untying the ropes, placed an expert hand in Tyga's neck folds, and so guided him up out of the water.
Behind the dad Carl saw sharp squares of light. There was a semi – they were safe. He pulled his drenched cloakyfing tight
around him, shivered, took a step up the beach, staggered and fell headlong. Purple dusk plunged to blackest night.

Carl awoke to find himself lying on a snowy sofabed of unearthly softness and luxuriance. Way up above him the dashboard winked
in a smoky firmament. Turning his head, Carl saw a long table, beyond which, in a grate the size of a Hamster gaff, a mighty
fire roared – entire tree trunks propped on elaborately wrought andironies. Caught by this shifting pattern of light, the
bent, bald-wigged heads of many daddies and mummies could be seen by the bemused lad. They were seated at long tables and
appeared to be having a curry. Opares floated along the aisles, pannikins cradled in their arms. Then he realized that what
he had taken for the screen was in fact the roof of a giant semi, from the rafters of which hung many letrics. Awed, he struggled
to rise, and, perhaps hearing the motion, one of the daddies came over to him. It was Antonë.

–
Hush now, he said. Don't try to get up just yet. Here, have some of this. He held out a dish slopping with warm oatie.

– B-but where are we?

– In the Shelter of the Plateists of Bril. Do not be alarmed, they won't harm us, they are dävine queers – not Drivers, not
even mummies and dads.

– Where's Tyga, is he OK?

– He's being well looked after. They have quartered him in the barn conversion with their own burgerkine. They will not harm
him any more than us. Now eat this and have a slug of jack – he held out a bottle – you need it.

Böm returned to his place at table. The booze burned Carl's throat and thrilled his belly. He gobbled up the oatie. His wet
clothes had been taken from him, and he was naked underneath the fine cloth counterpane. The big Shelter was warmer than the
semis of Risbro – yet not so much so that Carl couldn't feel the draughts. He snuggled down and bent his ear to hear the chatter
that floated from the long table; however, of this he could make little sense, save for the occasional place name – Farin,
Chip, Swïn – which he recognized from the cross-examinations the Hamstermen gave Mister Greaves.

The davine queers all wore the same tunics as the man who had met them on the shore. In the lectric the heavy irony plates
shone in an unearthly fashion, as if generating their own light, and when their wearers moved the tunics clinked and clanked.
Both the men and women sported the bald wigs of Inspectors, and their lean faces had an intensity that Carl found disquieting,
despite Antonë's assurances.

When the curry had been scraped, the queer at the far end of the table from the big fire stood. Silence fell and, raising
his arms, he addressed the Supreme Driver:

– Ta very much, Dave, for the grub!

– Ta very much! the other queers chimed in.

–
Ta very much for the plates!

– Ta very much!

– Ta very much for Antonë and Carl, who come to us fleeing from the PCO!

– Ta very much!

– Ta very much for our Shelter here at Bril!

– Ta very much! And so it went on for what seemed to Carl to be at least half a tariff, the big bloke crying out thanks and
the others chorusing assent. Carl nodded off, and when Antonë came to the sofabed, he found the lad curled up in the foetal
shape of his beloved Ham. The tension that had scored and blanched Carl's naturally rubicund face was smoothed by sleep for
the first time in blobs. It was with considerable reluctance that Böm gently shook him awake.

– What are Plateists? Carl whispered, for, while most of the queers had by now left the building, a few still clanked about
the place clearing the pannikins.

– A good question, Antonë replied. He adjusted his spectacles – which somehow he had managed to hang on to through the stormy
passage from Chil – and goggled at his young pupil. The Plateists are, as you see, queers who sport the Plateist ephod, the
more plates they sport the closer they are to Dave.

– Are the plates Daveworks?

– Of a very special kind, gathered a long time ago from the ancient folkways, the Emwun, Emfaw, Emfawti, Emfive and Emsiks.
Which is why you find such Plateist manors as still exist near to these routes. Here at Bril we cannot be more than a few
clicks from the Emfawti.

– 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

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.

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, constipation,
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.'

'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?