The Book of Dave (38 page)

'III? I could've told you that.'

'Well, you'll understand, then. Call me sentimental, but I can't be doing with that. Not gonna hound the man – wouldn't be
effical.'

'There's still the money angle – his company. We know he fiddled the Channel Devenish buyout, don't you remember? The geezer
in my cab. What about all the leg work you did, the bins, the shreddies, the calls – all of that?' Dave was close to tears.

'Good work, sound work, not gonna knock it – my people are professionals. Few corners cut, zoom-zoom.' The Skip Tracer zoomed
his hand under Dave's nose. 'Still, at the end of the day there's gotta be a point… when – '

'When what? What?'

'When you call – well, when you call it the end of the day.'

Finally, Dave allowed his own eyes to leave the Skip Tracer's face and follow the direction of his darting eyes. Two tables
away sat a girl of twelve or thirteen. She was wearing a bright pink tracksuit with a red spangly heart embroidered on the
back. Her thick blonde hair was tied back in a pink scrunchie. She was working at a colouring book with an elongated novelty
pencil, on the end of which wavered a pink flashing heart. She looked up as Dave gazed at her and smiled, her braces a zipper
in the soft, oval bag of her face. It was the girl in the photo on the filing cabinet in Belgravia. Dave's eyes swivelled
to the Skip Tracer. 'Yours, is she?'

'Yeah, yeah, obviously, only get her for the afternoon. Problems – difficulties, court order thingy – you'll appreciate that.
'Er mum's a lawyer, as it 'appens – got me by the bollocks. Alright, love?' he called over to the girl. 'Won't be long now,
then we'll go shopping.' He turned back to Dave. 'colouring,' he said, jerking a thumb at the girl and speaking in an uncharacteristic
undertone. 'Bit babyish, but makes 'er feel, I dunno, secure.'

'Have they got to you in some way?' Dave's eyes bored into the Skip Tracer's. 'Is that it? Have they got something on you?'

'Nah, nah, you're paranoid, you are, son. If I didn't know better I'd say you were – '

'Whatever. I'm fed up with this, I'm fed up with you.' Dave got up abruptly and began making his way between the tables towards
the exit. The Skip Tracer called after him: 'Just a sec, Rudman!' It was the first time he'd ever called Dave by name.

Dave came back to the table. 'What? What is it?'

'Bill, my son.' The Skip Tracer passed him an envelope. 'All there, shitshape, tits fashion.'

'You wha– you. You said not to worry about the money.'

'There's worrying about money and there's paying it, son, two different things entirely. And remember what I said,' he called
to Dave's retreating back. 'Don't go to those sharks, matey, the vig'll fucking kill yer.'

'An' those speed bumps,' Keith Greaves put in. 'I tell yer my wishbones is shot t'shit.'

'Shot t'shit,' some of the other dads chorused.

'What's going on?' Dave asked Fucker Finch. 'Are these blokes dads or drivers?'

'Snap ahtuvit, Tufty,' Fucker said, shaking Dave's shoulder. 'You look bloody awful, mate. Where you bin all weekend? I woz
calling you.'

'Bin sleeping,' Dave muttered. 'Bin laden – laden wiv dreams.'

Daniel Brooke stood up to address the group. He was sporting an outsized black T-shirt that draped down almost to his knees.
On the front there was a big white fist. 'This is the new T-shirt, chaps – hot off the press. I hope you like it, there are
six sizes, this is the XXXL I'm modelling, a little on the large size for a slender fellow such as myself.' He gave them a
twirl and across the back of the shirt ballooned the white letters FIGHTING FATHERS. 'Hold on, hold on, Dan.' Keith Greaves
was on his feet. 'That's not what we agreed, that's not the logo we all voted for – and you know it. It's far too aggressive.'

'This is not the only Fathers First group, Keith – you know that.'

'I tell you what I do know,' Greaves said, shaking with rage. 'I know you've been trying to hijack this particular group for
ages now. You, you, you're a bloody extremist you are, you're vindictive, you're resentful – '

'You're sounding pretty resentful yourself, Keith,' Daniel Brooke said smoothly, a smile playing round his wet lips.

'We aim to reconcile parents, we aim to forge links – you want to bring the whole thing crashing down! You don't care anything
for your own kids at all – it's all about you and your cronies. Why don't you take off and start your own bloody group? Then
you can do these direct actions you're always going on about.'

'Maybe I will,' said Daniel. 'Maybe I will do that.'

'D'you know something, Fucker,' Dave whispered to Finch.

'What, Tufty? What?'

'I've written a book.'

Dave ran home down Adelaide Road and along England's Lane to Gospel Oak.
Right Haverstock Hill, left Prince of Wales Road, left
Queen's Crescent . .
. He puffed over inside his own skull as he ran, staggering to a halt every fifty yards because a stitch had been sewn in
his diaphragm and Fanning, the GP, was yanking on it to give his words emphasis:
At your AGE, Mister Rudman … a SMOKER
.
. .
with a SEDENTARY OCCUPATION
…
you ought to consider
some EXERCISE
…
which would help you with your DEPRESSION.
Take some RESPONSIBILITY for your LIFE.
Dave wasn't running for his health, he was running because he could no longer trust himself to drive the cab. He couldn't
control this behemoth vehicle, with its chassis of reinforced-steel girders, its pre-stressed concrete bodywork, its York
stone carpets and carriage work of herringbone London bricks. When he looked in the rearview he saw that he had more passengers
than he was licensed for. Far more – approximately seven million in fact.
They're all back there, the whole population of the
fucking city
…
it's gonna kick off.
. .

Back in the flat it was no better. He sat on the side of the bed in his rancid underwear, all his medication held in his cupped
hands.
Please, sir, can I have some more, sir?
Not a good idea. Then, on his sausage hands and burger knees, his nose in the greasy carpet, Dave Rudman butted the radiator
under the window with a mournful 'clang'.
If only I could see him for a few minutes, half an hour, give him
a little cuddle, read him a story …
Yet it wasn't Carl that he truly wanted; his desire was for competent arms to hold him, smooth skin to smear on oily love,
insulation against the terrifying, heaving green swell of madness. On the floor were pieces of ripped-up card, blood from
his cut head spattered across them. Thinking again of
that cunt,
the Skip Tracer, and, for want of anything else to do
until
I die,
Dave began to solve the puzzle with the calm ease of a man with a brain that was
scientifically proven to be bigger than normal
…
so full of Knowledge . .
. The lettering steadily emerged from the shreddies – D-R-J-A-N-E-B-E-R-N-A-L-C-O-N-S-U-L – until he'd cracked it. Then he
thought:
I better go looking for the lid so I can check the
picture on it's the same.

It wasn't until 3 a.m. that Dave Rudman …
comply Pond Street,
right access road …
finally walked into the reception area of Heath Hospital's Accident and Emergency Department. He showed his painstakingly
taped-up jigsaw to the woman at the desk. 'Dr Bernal?' she queried. 'You won't find her here at this time of night.'

'I can wait,' replied the man, who for some reason had a dirty bath towel tied round his head.

'I don't even know what days she comes in,' the receptionist flannelled. 'She's on a rotation.'

'I can wait,' he reiterated, sitting himself down by a Camden Town tart who'd been beaten up by her pimp. 'Give over,' she
said through pain-puff lips, and he moved to a different moulded tractor seat. 'You can't – ' the receptionist began – then
caught herself. He wasn't making any trouble …
why not leave the poor
bastard alone?

Dave Rudman waited and waited. He quit his seat only for tea and piss. He filled in the gaps by scanning over and over the
same copy of
Take a Break:
'Sharon Finds a Lump', 'Don't Snip it, Dave', 'Lonely Dad's Last Text – Without Them I am Nothing'. He was the subject of
scribbled notes passed from receptionist to receptionist, secretary to secretary. He sat among the victims of street fighting
and the casualties of domestic warfare. Patients waiting in queer
d
éshabill
é
for transport to other hospitals were still more refugees, in their outdoor shoes and bathrobes, their raincoats and nighties.

Late on the following day, when he'd been waiting for nearly fourteen hours, Dave Rudman was summoned to the eighth floor
and, accompanied by an orderly, rode the lift up. Insanity stank out the confined space like an eggy fart. There was a bird-beaked
woman with a pot plant; a limp technician carrying a tray silently chattering with plaster casts of teeth; a yellow-faced
girl in a yellow dress eating a yellow aerated cream dessert in a yellow plastic pot – but the stench came from the cabbie.

Even so, Dave wouldn't have been admitted if he hadn't attacked the orderly and clumsily tried to throttle him outside the
door of Jane Bernal's office. She stepped out into the pedestrian horror of it: one big white man trying to bang the head
of a small Asian one against an institutional wall. 'You fucking terrorist!' Rudman was screaming. 'You wanna cut my fucking
head off or what!' A framed watercolour of Betws-y-Coed, allocated by a distant committee, rattled on the brickwork, then
fell and shattered at their feet.

Had Dave Rudman been in any state to appreciate it, he would have. Would, perhaps, have been pleased by the whirl of activity
his breakdown generated. After thirty milligrams of Chlorpromazine he was lucid enough to give up his keys, his address, Gary
Finch's and his parents' phone numbers. A psychiatric social worker was assigned, calls were made, pill pots were collected
from the flat in Agincourt Road. A pathetic flight bag was brought up to where cabbie 47304 was ranked up for the next seventy-two
hours. Jane Bernal interviewed him, a standard risk assessment: reality testing, cognitive function, a physical once-over
that had the functionality of a car service. The gash on his head was sponged and taped by a nurse. But Rudman wasn't interested
in any of it; he only wanted to tell her about –

'A book, he says he's written a book.'

'Hmm.' Dr Zack Busner stood by the window in his office, which faced out over the Heath. Gulls were riding the thermals over
Whitestone Pond.
What is it with these seafowl?
he wondered.
Have
they come inland because they anticipate a deluge? Should we get
Maintenance
to start building an ark?
'What sort of book is it, a novel?' He wasn't really concentrating on the conversation, rather trying to dangle a paperclip
from the snub nose of an Arawak Indian head carved from pumice, which had been given to him by a grateful Antiguan student.
He succeeded for a split-second, then the clip fell, tinkling, into the ventilation duct. 'Damn!' Busner turned from the window.

'No.' Bernal was patient; her colleague was showing his age. The breakup of his second marriage, the suicide of Dr Mukti,
his young protege at St Mungo's – all of it had taken its toll. Looking at Busner's snowy cap of wayward hair and his deeply
creased, amphibian features, Jane Bernal could see that he was shooting fast down the senescent rapids. 'It's a revelatory
text.'