The Book of Dave (56 page)

Fucker snorted, 'Yeah, yeah, I know what 'e's bloody like. I tellya, Tufty, it's like poetry watching him do all that telly
stuff – 'e's got more front than Brighton. I swear, I sometimes fink 'e's 'aving a bubble wiv 'em, 'cause 'e ain't like that
wiv me, 'e's juss an ordinary geezer.'

'He's using you, Gary – '

'Oh, yeah? Well, maybe that's the way I want it, it's all up wiv me, Tufty, all I got left is this an' it's a matter of prints-supple –
thass wot it is, a matter of prints-supple. Even if I never get to see the kids regular again, least I'll 'ave made me point.'

Dave tried another tack. 'What're you doing for money, then, Gary?'

'Gelt? I'm fucked, mate – I 'ad to let the begging box go. Weren't no point in 'anging on to it anyway – I bin nicked so many
times this year they was bound to take me badge.'

'Did you sell it?' Dave asked, thinking of his own old Fairway underneath the arches off Vallance Road.

'Sell it!' Fucker guffawed. 'Nah, I didn't bloody well sell it, my old man was renting it for me on the half-flat, donchew
remember? Fing is' – he leaned forward conspiratorially – 'I borrowed a couple of grand on it before I let it go, so now I've
gotta give the old manor a bit of a wide.' Fucker swerved his manacles across the table.

From deep inside the station came the mammoth door chimes that precede an announcement; here, at the very epicentre of the
Knowledge, a hefty realization was requesting admission. 'They're looking for you, Gary,' Dave confided, 'couple of Turks,
heavy mob, they've been round at Ali Baba's – Mo thought they were after me, but it's you they want, innit?'

'I dunno, mate – don't fucking care neever. 'Ow they gonna find me anyway? I'm kipping in a fucking bail hostel over Vauxhall.
Barry sees me right for a few quid, an' whenever I go out' – he gave his manacles a shake – 'I'm always in disguise!'

Under the bulging blue eyes of this stocky apparition Michelle felt highly conscious of her own Tunturi-turned legs, sheathed
in silk and knee-high suede; her own piquant face, made tasty with sweet creams and savoury exfoliants. She was about to lie
'Can I help you?' when the funny little woman came straight to the point of everything. 'You must be Michelle.' Her voice
was common yet clear and confident. 'I'm Phyllis Vance – Dave's girlfriend.' Michelle was deeply shocked. She had no idea
that Phyllis, or any Phyllis-type person, existed. Social acuity had never been Michelle Brodie's thing: she had lived her
adult life with her gaze at an upward angle; behind and below her lay Cath, Ron, Dave and what she now perceived as the inner-city
slum of her marriage, cobbled alleys full of barefoot kids with rickets, fat boilers like Phyllis hanging out laundry to soil
in the smutty air.

Phyllis was not remotely intimidated by Beech House or its mistress. She knew women like Michelle only too well – had she
desired it, she might have gone that way herself. Every day in Choufleur she stuffed them full of macerated okra and aubergine.
From her steamy kitchen she could hear their clipped tongues snipping at their lettuce as they commiserated with one another
about their enslavement to Dr Atkins. The only mystery, so far as Phyllis was concerned, was what conceivable reason – save
for sheer, mucky moral turpitude – Michelle could have had for being with Dave Rudman. They had the house to themselves –
the sunlit drawing room jaggy with taupe swags and eau-de-Nil ruches. To Phyllis's surprise Michelle told her it all. When
the penitent is ready the confessor appears, and Phyllis, in her denim surplice, with her unthreatening mass and risible make-up,
made Michelle feel very safely superior. She began by conceding that: 'The letter I wrote to Dave, well, it wasn't … it
wasn't about anything much but me really. I couldn't – I didn't…' Then 'snip-snip', she managed to cut away at the sack
of lies and out spilled the seedy truth: she had been weak, she had been vain, she had been self-deceiving to begin with –
but then a far greater deceiver. 'By the time I could admit to myself the truth that Carl wasn't Dave's at all, well…'
The arms race was on, the hateful escalation of elbow-dig and low blow. Now Phyllis understood not only how far down her lover
had been
–
but the extent to which he'd raised himself up. 'He's changed, love,' she explained to Michelle, 'believe me, he has.'

They had a light, bitter lunch of cottage cheese and chicory leaves in the kitchen, and Michelle opened a bottle of Chablis.
The view of the tilting garden with its heavy decking levered up incredible news. 'He wrote a book? I can't believe it.' Believe
she must, for, as Phyllis explained, despite all the madness surrounding its composition, this was still a true expression
of Dave's love for Carl – a love he still felt. 'That's what that idiot was doing in your garden,' said Phyllis, waving a
bit of Ryvita. 'He thought he oughta dig it up, get rid of it. He's worried it's gonna be found. Not now – maybe not for ages,
but when it is it'll screw Carl up. Apparently' – she shook her head in amazement – 'it's full of the craziest shit.'

By the time Phyllis left for her evening shift in Covent Garden they'd reached an understanding. 'I know this must be very
hard for Dave,' Michelle said, 'but Carl still doesn't want to see him. To be – to be honest…'
And why the hell not?
… 'he doesn't want to see me or Cal either. He – he's got a lot of stuff to work through, and I don't think there's any
way we can help him. I don't think he even thinks of any of us as … mummies or daddies.'

Cal Devenish got home in time to hear one end of a telephone conversation. On the other end was a Detective Sergeant based
at Rosslyn Hill. 'No,' Michelle was saying with winey emphasis, 'no, we have no wish to press any charges at all – we want
them dropped, all dropped.' Cal dropped his briefcase on the hall floor and walked towards his partner. 'No,' she went on,
'none of us is prepared to make witness statements, or appear in court should the CPS decide to prosecute. I don't think I'm
making myself clear here – we want the charges dropped, he wasn't trying to steal anything, HE WAS TRYING TO GET IT BACK!'

It had taken ages for them to get over to Basildon from Chipping Ongar, the bus trundling from estate to village as they worked
their way across the Essex badlands. Steve didn't seem to mind – but then he didn't seem to have a mind. He'd had another
course of ECT in hospital. The shrink had said, 'It might jolt him back to life,' as if the depressed young man were one of
Dr Frankenstein's faulty automata. Instead it had jolted him deeper into catatonia.

Now Phyllis's son sat keeled over on the rubber bench, the cotton dag tails of his frayed jeans sopping up the water on the
floor. From without came the reverberating yelps of child bathers. 'C'mon,' Dave said, 'I'll help you into your trunks.' He'd
chosen a family changing cubicle for this reason. He let down the wall-mounted nappy-changing table so he could lay Steve's
clothes in its plastic depression. Steve wasn't entirely catatonic – he uttered sighs and coughed negatives – the bits of
conversation that weren't words. Whatever position Dave placed him in he remained there. He was emaciated – his collarbone
so pronounced it could have been grasped like a handle – and the presumptuous dreadlocks he'd sported at Heath Hospital were
gone, leaving behind a nubby, scarred scalp.

Dave held and even stroked Steve's pitiful thighs, as he coaxed first one foot and then the other into zooty surfer's trunks.
Then he led the ill young man through the footbath to the pool area and conducted him down into the chlorine broth. Outside
the undulating windows that swam the length of the pool Dave could see a shopping arcade with ordinary life going on in it:
pensioners pushed by wheeled baskets, seagulls scrapping over the yellowy rinds of white bread, a young mother struggling
with the harness of a baby buggy. Steve fell forward into the migrainous waters, and Dave, panicking, lunged for him and held
him up from beneath his belly. Steve's feet kicked out into Dave's nylon crotch, and the first words he'd spoken all morning
blurted out: 'I'm swimming!' he spluttered, 'I'm swimming!' Dave Rudman began to cry and for the first time in a decade the
tears weren't for himself.

Mo had more bad news: 'Those geezers 'ave bin by again. I told 'em what you said about Finchy, but they weren't 'aving nunnuvit.
Said they didn't borrow 'im 'iz money. You pozzitiv you shouldn't be giving 'em summuv this?' Dave shook his head and took
the wad of cash. It would give him a few months' respite, and pay for the three of them to take a little holiday, if, that
is, Steve was up to it.

The Turks called by Dave's old flat in Agincourt Road as well. Mrs Prentice offered them a cup of tea, because they were well-spoken
and she was a trusting soul. They accepted, because subterfuge was integral to their job performance and they enjoyed it in
a sick way. She had nothing to tell them, though – her former neighbour had left no forwarding address.