The Book of Dave (4 page)

– Vass ve ëdlite, she'd said, ven iss on fulbeem we C ve lites ahtside, yeah, ve streetlites uv Nú Lundun. An ven iss dipped,
we C ve dashbawd, rí, mì lyttul luv?

– Owzabaht Dave, Mummi, vairs ee?

– Ees sittin infruntuv uz, luv, but we carn C im coz ees invizzibull.

– But ee can C uz, earn ee, Mummi?

– O yeah, mì luv, ee can C uz, ee sees uz in iz mirra. Ees lookin awl ve tym – lookin in ve mirra ä uz, an lookin froo ve
screen 4 ve Loss Boy. An uppabuv im, mì luv, uppabuv im vairs ve Flyin I, an ee sees all ve wurl.

Yet now, seven years later, huddling in the fireplace at the giants' tower, Carl doubted that Dave saw anything at all in
his mirror let alone him.

In those days the Council had been a babel, but in the years since the Driver came among them order had been imposed on the
noisy little assembly. This was never more noticeable than during midsummer, when for a full month the Hack's party was in
residence. Then the Council conducted itself with great solemnity, the better to impress the visitors. On the first day after
the Hack had arrived it was customary for him to judge those wrongdoers who had committed crimes in the intervening year deemed
too serious to be dealt with by the Guvnor. However, there were hardly ever any of these – theft and violence were all but
unknown among the dads, while tittle-tattle, bubbling and other instances of bad faith were dealt with by Fred. A simple oath
upon the Book was always sufficient to discover the truth, while a ticket of a few quid served for most offences.

The Driver had not intervened directly in the running of the Council – he was too wily for that. Yet the time the dads had
to spend in the Shelter – a whole tariff each day, two every seventh – had brought a davine rigour to everything they undertook.
There was this dampener on the little assembly, and there were also the first symptoms of the pedalo fever: noses were clogged
up, throats were sore, eyes watered. Some of the dads were gripped by an ague so severe that their newly bartered fags shook
from their fingers and fell to the beaten earth. That the Council had to judge the most serious crime on the island in thirteen
years weighed heavily upon all of them, not least because until thirteen years previously the concept – let alone the actuality
– of flying had been unknown on Ham.

The Hack sat on the highest part of the circular wall. He gathered his bubbery carcoat about his hunched back in tight pleats.
His full side whiskers – an anomaly among the Hamstermen, who grew their beards from the chins alone – gave him a magisterial
air. Fred Ridmun stood before him, his official baseball cap in one hand, his cudgel in the other, while Carl and Antonë sat
on the ground at his feet.

– Mì sun, Fred said, az bin gó ä bì Tonë Böm, guv, ee nevah wooduv dun viss stuff wivaht Böm.

– U shor abaht vat? The Hack drew meditatively on his fag. Iz reel dad dun stuff lyke viss innal, innit?

– But wurs, Fred answered. Far wurs.

– Wot cood B wurs van diggin in ve Zön, eh? Eye no wot sumuv U ló bleev in yer arts. Eye no U stil fink vat ve Búk woz fown
ere on Am. U granddads iz ól enuff 2 remembah ve Geezer? There was a low murmur of assent. B4 King Dave vair woz enni numbah
uv pissi lyttul playsez wot ad a clame 2 B ve craydul uv ar faif, innit? Another murmur. But ve Kings granddad, ee chaynjd
all vat. Ee ad a revelashun vat ve Búk woz fahnd in Lundun, aint vat ve troof ?

– Iss ve troof, the ailing Hamsters muttered.

– Iss nó juss ure zön wich iz ferbiddun – all ve zöns on Chil iz juss ve saym. Ven U need brik aw crete aw yok aw grint U gë í from ve edj. But U avent ve skil uv wurkin wiv ironi, an U av no Inspektur 2 soopavys such diggins. Nah vis bloke – he
stabbed a finger at Bóm – oo cums ear a refewjee, ee dares 2 muck abaht in ve Zön. Wot else az ee dun, eh?

– Nah, nah, Mistah Greaves, Fred said, nó a bì-uv-ì, we aint gó no uvva bovva wiv Tonë, ees juss lyke wunnuv us.

The dads gave affirmative grunts, and Fukka Funch spoke up, saying:

– Ee sayvd mì Bellas lyf.

– Izzat so? The Hack addressed himself only to Fred.

– Í iz, Tonë iz a grayt jeepee, an im bein kweer ve wimmin av lë im be ä summuv vair birfs.

Mister Greaves shifted into the more sonorous cadences of Arpee, and Antonë Böm realized he meant there to be no further inquisition:

–
None the less, flying counts against this man more than giving life counts for him. Flying takes away faith, and without faith
we have nothing, no runs, no points, no intercom, no New London.

– No Nú Lundun, the dads chanted.

Greaves turned to Böm:

– Is there anything you can lay before this Council concerning your behaviour that could possibly justify it in the mirror
of Dave? Do you want to tell us why you took young Carl Dévúsh into the Zöne and why you dug and delved in there?

Antonë Böm looked up at Greaves. He knew something of the Hack's status in the Bouncy Castle of Chil. He knew that, while
Greaves may have paid hard dosh for the privilege of becoming his Lawd's subcontractor, nevertheless he had always been a
sincere protector of the Hamsters. It would do the Hack's cause no good to be seen to go against the Driver – and beyond him
the PCO.

– No, Böm said at last, I have nothing to say on my own account. So far as Carl is concerned, he's but a lad, he came with
me unwittingly, and I sought to dissuade him. He had no idea of my purpose.

The Hack took a deep drag on his fag and blew out a plume of smoke.

– I care not one whit, he said, the lad's crime is the same as yours, flying, and I am not fit to sit in judgement on either
of you. You will have to go to London, to the PCO. The Examiners have taken it upon themselves to try all flyers, and I cannot
stand in their way. Dave have mercy on your fares!

– Dave av mursee, the dads echoed.

– W-will we aff 2 go viss mumf wiv ure partë? Carl couldn't prevent himself from blurting out – then he cowered in anticipation
of a slap.

Greaves, however, remained calm, and his voice chimed with a note of sympathy:

– No, lad, you're too young this year. Next year, when I return, you'll be dad enough. Until then you and Böm will remain
here, but mark me, if either of you meddle in the zone from now until then, or if you bother the Driver in any way, it will
count still more severely against you when you arrive in London. Remember your own dad, Carl Dévúsh, remember what happened
to him.

2

Trapping a Flyer

December 2001

Stuttering by them, Rudman's Faredar picked up a Burberry bundle trapped on the heel of grass that was cut off from the central
reservation by the taut, tarmac tendon of Achilles Way.
Stupid
plonker.
The cab's wipers went 'eek-eek'. The bundle was trying to roll over the Y-shaped crash barrier – all that prevented him from
being mown down by the four lanes of traffic, traffic that came whipping past the war memorial where bronze corpses lay beneath
concrete howitzers.
Tatty coaches full of carrot-crunchers up for the
Xmas wallet fuck,
pale-skinned, rust-grazed Transit vans with England flags taped across their back windows,
boogaloo bruvvers in
Seven Series BMWs, throw-cushion specialists in skateboard-sized Smart
cars, Conan-the-fucking-Barbarian motorcycle couriers,
warped flat-bed trucks piled high with scrap metal, one-eyed old Routemaster buses – the whole stinky caravan of London wholesale-to-retail,
five credit-worthy days before Christmas was intent on crushing this bit of
Yank, wannabe roadkill
… So Dave slewed the Fairway over to the nearside lane and waited to see whether he'd make it.

He did. He came puffing up to the driver-side window. 'Sir, sir, excuse me, sir …'
Sir, sir?! Is he fucking insane?
'Thank you for stopping.'
He's going to ask me if I know which theatre The King and I
is playing at. Stupid cunt.
'Could you take me to …' The Yank drew a piece of paper from his trench-coat pocket and consulted it. 'Mill Hill…'
He said the two words slowly and distinctly, as if they might be difficult for Dave to comprehend. 'If that's … that's
not kinduv of beyond your range?'
My range, what does he think I am,
some fucking wild boar?
Dave pictured beastly London cabs, rolling in the roadway, shaking their metal shoulders to rid themselves of railings hurled
by Hoorays starved of sport.

'Get in, please.' Dave bent his arm out of the window and opened the door, then he shrugged back inside and hit the meter.
The bundle bowled in, a grateful blob of wet gaberdine that wafted a gentle stench of some male fragrance
advertised by chest-waxing
ponces in underpants.
Dave Rudman shifted the cab into drive and shuddered off up the nearside lane, expertly swerving to avoid a coach that lurched
out of its bay. Then he rubbed his sore nostrils with a wad of tissue as shapeless as snot.
Day-and-fucking-Night-nurse
.
. .
that's what you need in this job. Open the hatch and through it comes
another slant-eyed virus at 120 mph.

The fare sat in the middle of the back seat, knees akimbo, potbelly exposed by the open flaps of his trench coat, both hands
on the safety handles set in the rear doors of the cab
as if he's in a rickshaw
costing twenty-five-fucking-grand.
'When I say range, cabbie,' said the fare, leaning forward to push his fat face through the open hatch, 'I mean, I've heard
of your famous Knowledge, but I figure that maybe Mill Hill is a bit beyond ít … beyond the area you have to cover.'
He's a talker, this one, he wants to talk, he goes to whores and
when they try to plate him he says he'd rather talk, 'coz the only thing
he wants in their mouths is comforting words. He'll start on fucking
Afghanistan in two minutes flat. He's gonna go all Tora Bora on me
…

'That's right, it is a little beyond the six-mile radius from Charing Cross, which is the theoretical limit of the London
streets we have to learn.'

'Theoretical?'
He doesn't expect to hear this word out of my lower-class
lips, lips he sees flapping in the rearview. He's putting together a photofit
of me from lips, chin and the back of my head. He ain't fooled by the
baseball cap
–
and he likes that I'm going bald, as a fatty it gives him the
drop.
'Yeah'
– put him still more at his ease, this cunt could be an earner
– 'theoretical, because in practice we also have to know a fair bit of the suburbs, which would cover Mill Hill as well.'

'Uh huh.' The fare was satisfied, he'd marked his card, he'd shown Dave he wasn't just another dumb tourist who thinks London
is
a nine-hundred-square-mile souvenir T-shirt, decorated with
tit-helmeted coppers, red phone boxes, Mohican-sporters, tiara-jockeys and
black-bloody-cabs.
The fare looked to the left at the Avenue of plane trees running up to Speakers' Corner. He looked to the right at the tiny
road-cleaning machine bumping along the gutter, its circular electric brushes polishing the York stone molars. He was lost,
momentarily, in a reverie provoked by a pair of backpacking lovers, wet-weather freaks, who were leaning up against the lip
of a fountain, her thighs imprisoned in his. He was thinking about his family – and Afghanistan.

'Kinduv weird being in Europe.'

'I imagine you'd rather be at home, what with all this business – '

'In Afghanistan, you bet I would. Sure, it's crazy to think you're any more at risk here, or your family's any more at risk
if you're not there, but still – '

'You'd rather be with them.'
And so would I, in a small clean family
hotel on Gloucester Place, seventy quid a night, walking tour of Bloomsbury
inclusive. Two big, burger-stuffed kids, plenty of metalwork in their
mouths, Mom in a beige trouser suit. I want his family so I can slot them
into the gap left by my own.

'I'd booked the flight before 9/11, I figured it would be giving like succour to the enemy if I didn't come over.'

'Gotcha.'

'Eek-eek' the wipers went; the cab braked, then heeled over to join the other rusty hulks cruising around Marble Arch, a reef
of Nash that loomed up out of the silty drizzle. 'I tell you something, cabbie.'
Tell me everything, you dumb motherfucker, pour it all out.
'I didn't vote for Bush, but I reckon he's handling this OK, and it wasn't the Twin Towers that set me against these Taliban
fellows – though Lord knows it was a terrible thing – but I knew these were dreadful people when they blew up those two ancient
statues of the Buddha, you know the ones?'

'Yes.'
Fellows? Lord knows!?

'Any folk who could destroy a thing of ancient beauty so brutally … well, nothing they could do would surprise me after
that … and the way they treat their women too.'

So far as I'm concerned the way they treat their women is the best
thing going for those fuckers … keep those bints in line, I say … you
take my ex, she's only gone and slapped a fucking restraining order on
me, now that'd never 'appen in Kabul, I'd have 'er trussed up in one of
them black cloaky things before she could say CSA
… 'I couldn't agree with you more. Very sad business.'
'Coz they should go a bit bloody
further – take the kids off a them – no kids, no bloody power over us .
. .

Past the Odeon, with its egg-box roof, the cab squealed to a halt at some lights and the meter – which had been ticking away
with generous increments – slowed to a trickle of pence. After fifteen years of cabbing Dave Rudman was so finely attuned
to the meter that he could minutely calibrate it with his own outgoings. At the beginning of each day a spreadsheet popped
up behind his heavy eyelids, and as he drove, picking up and dropping off, ranking up and driving again – so the figures were
instantly calculated to inform him whether he was ahead or behind, if he could pay for his diesel, his insurance, his cab
repayments, his food, his fags, his booze, his prescriptions, his child support and his divorce lawyer. At 8 p.m., when the
second tariff band comes in, the figures alter accordingly; at 10 p.m., when the third starts, they change again.
But they all
oughta be the bloody same: 6 to 2, 2 to 10, 10 to 6. That way, you know
what you're getting
–
punters inall. In the future the tariffs will be equal,
oh, yeah.
Time, distance and money – the three dimensions of Dave Rudman's universe. Up above it all was the Flying Eye, Russ Kane
trying to make a joke out of a fucking lorry what's shed its load at the
Robin Hood Roundabout
…

Dave Rudman hardly ever used to go into the dozen or so cabbies' shelters that were still scattered about Central London.
However, nowadays he was so skint he needed the cheap and greasy fuel the old biddies who ran them pumped out. They were weird
little structures, the shelters, like antediluvian cricket pavilions of green wood, which the city had grown up around. Inside,
the cabbies sat jawing and noshing at a table covered with a plastic cloth. So many cabbies, their faces dissipated by the
life like those of prematurely aged peasants, worn out by their bigoted credo. Dave didn't want to talk about the lost boy,
but last week, in the shelter in Grosvenor Gardens, when
some pillock
of a cabbie, seeing Dave's face, horsey with depression, stupidly asked what was eating him, Dave spilled. Then the other
cabbie quipped: 'A woman is like a hurricane: when they pitch up they're wet and wild, and when they bugger off they take
your house and your car.'

Michelle hadn't only taken Dave's house; she'd got a bigger, flasher one. She'd even got a new daddy for Dave's boy –
and how
fucking sick is that?
As for this Cohen cow who was milking Dave,
she must 'ave a fucking meter in her desk drawer and every time I bell her
she pops it on and it goes up and up, fifty quid at a time, a wunner for a
letter. Then there's the brief she gets to stand up on his hind legs in the
judge's chambers for a grand a pop – but I bet she gets a kick-back, though.
Cow. Lawyers
–
they're all scum.

As the cab crawled up the Edgware Road, the fare looked bemused by the shiny pavements thronged by Arabs. Arabs sitting behind
the plate-glass windows of Maroush supping fruit juices and smoking shishas, Arabs stopping at kiosks to buy their newspapers
full of squashed-fly print. Their women flapped along behind them,
tagged and bagged, but under their chadors they're tricked out like fucking
tarts in silk undies, they are. It gives 'em a big turn-on
…
And my ex,
with her little job up in Hampstead, wrapping up thongs in fucking tissue
paper… She's just the same … They're all the same . .
. 'Where to in Mill Hill exactly, guv?'

'Oh … sure … OK …' The fare did some uncrumpling. 'It's right next to somewhere called Wills Grove, but it doesn't
have a name of its own, it's like a lane.'

'I
know it.'

'You know it?'

'I know it – it's by the school.'

'That's right. I'm going to see a man who works at the National Research Institute – it's business – that's why I'm here.
I work for CalBioTech – you may have heard of us. We're one of the organizations developing human genome patents …' When
Dave didn't respond, the fare continued on another tack: 'I must say, I'm very impressed by how well you know London. Very
impressed. In Denver, where I live, you can't get a driver who knows downtown let alone the 'burbs.'

Dave Rudman had been to New York once, dragged there resisting by his ex-wife, a drogue behind her jet. The human ant heap was bad enough – but worse was the disorientation. Even with the grid system,
I didn't know the runs, I didn't know the points
…
I was fucking ignorant… I'll happily let America alone, mate, 'coz
my Knowledge is all here. There are plenty of fucking thickos right here
I don't need to go across the pond and learn your lot. Not that I'm even
bothering with these ones, I've done it now, I've said my piece, an' I'll tell
you what the real knowledge is fer nuffing! Women and their fucking
wiles, kids and how the loss of them can drive a man fucking mad, money
and how the getting of it breaks your bloody back!
The obsolete Apricot computer sat in the garage of his parents' house on Heath View. It squatted there on an old steamer trunk,
beside two of his father's defunct one-armed bandits, their innards exposed, once glossy oranges and lemons waxed by the twilight.
In a rare moment of clarity – an oblique glance through the quarterlight of his mind – Dave Rudman remembered the long shifts
in his Gospel Oak flat. The tapping and the transcribing, the laying down of His Law. Then his eyes tracked back to the misty
windscreen, and the figure hunched over the keyboard hadn't been him at all – only some other monk or monkey.

'Well, we aim to please, sir. Most London cabbies see themselves as ambassadors for the city, part driver, part tour guide.'
Dave slowed the cab before the junction with Sussex Gardens, allowing a Hispanic woman wearing a fur-trimmed denim jacket
to shepherd her great shelf of bosom across the road. He sensed the fare's approbation like a sunlamp on his bald spot. 'Now
to the right here, sir, almost all the property between here and Baker Street is owned by the Portman family; not a lot of
people realize how much of London is concentrated in the hands of a very few, very rich people.'