Will Self - The Book of Dave

No matter that somehow she got over it and, when Dermot was finally gone, made a life for herself complete with boyfriends like Ron, Cath still hugged her betrayal, loving it more than anything or anyone else. To be Cath's only child was to be her closest ally, her Siamese fucking-twin. They were tied to the same stake, consumed by the same fiery male lust. The only way to escape this awful complicity was for Michelle to practise … secrecy … that's what I called it … They were only little lies … white ones. I'm going out with Janey — when it was Avril; I'm staying at Paula's — when it was Sharon. All kids lie to their parents at that age — but I lied more. But if I hadn't've lied I wouldn't've had any life of my own at all! She'd've dragged me down with her. I had to … I had to. But if she knew I'd been seeing a married man she wouldn't know what to do first — kill me or kill herself. Michelle's fabricators went to work in the cab and speedily erected a plausible mockup of the flat on Streatham High Road, its sharp-cornered rooms and stippled walls, its fussy matriarch presiding from the suite over the TV, the coffee table, the cabinet full of dolls in national dress — all of which stank of ammonia. Dolly daughters who couldn't do wrong if they tried. . whose knickers can't be removed because they're sewn on.

Dave sensed the bruised silence at the back of his neck, but he drove on, feeding the wheel through his large hands as they orbited Berkeley Square. He glanced in the rearview a couple of times, but the fare wasn't actually crying. If she'd been crying, he would have reached for a tissue from the box he kept underneath the dash and offered it to her, saying lightheartedly all part of the service. Yet she didn't cry, only sat, white-faced and desperate.

The traffic was easing as the curtains went up at the Lyric on Shaftesbury Avenue, the Comedy Theatre on Panton Street and the Garrick on Charing Cross Road, where provincial audiences began merrily to consider … when did you last see your trousers? Dave dropped the fare outside Gossips in Dean Street and said, 'A little early for dancing, isn't it, luv?' Luv was on a par with guv, both tip-getters, both evoking a happier age of honest amity and sturdy deference; yet for once he meant it, the fare looked so luvlorn.

'I'm meeting some mates in the wine bar,' she mumbled, as if giving an alibi along with her fiver. 'Keep the change.'

'You sure?'

'Sure.' She teetered on the heel of her sandal, recovered herself and was gone into the glass-fronted wine box, which welcomed her with a gush of chatter. Dave didn't put the 'For Hire' sign on. I'll eat now, then work when the theatre's out. He drove over to the little yard behind Gerrard Street — a tarmac cranny that only those with the Knowledge knew was there at all — parked up and strolled round to the Celestial Empire, his change bag banging his thigh with a 'cash-cash' sound.

Three glasses of house white and Michelle was tipsy enough to tell her friends what had happened; four glasses and she felt drunk enough to regret having done so. All of them judged her in their different ways, all of them lapped up her shame and misery like a catholicon that cured them of their own. Not that any of them said anything mean — they soothed, patted and combed the victim's hair with their sympathetic bicker, while from concealed speakers George Michael politely implored, 'I want your sex …'

Sandra, who filed her nails to a point out of boredom and sensibly wore brown skirts that camouflaged her wide hips against the null terrain of London. Bubbly, blonde Betty, whose electric-blue chenille top hid red, self-inflicted wounds. Pale and interesting Jane, who stood in Shepherd's Bush, propping up a domestic fantasy: the pretence that her husband Rick went out to work, when he stole her purse and went out to score. Sandra judged Michelle with the prerogative of a first officer, for whom her captain's decisions are always foolhardy. Betty felt that her follies were permitted by reason of her vulnerability, whereas Michelle — who was tough and self-reliant — should know better. Jane was quite straightforwardly contemptuous: her husband might be a lying abuser, faithful only because he was impotent, but he was a husband and, importantly, he was hers.

They really care, Michelle thought, looking from Sandra's spaniel waves to Betty's poodle curls. However, her belly gurgled the opposite: there was justice in their poorly concealed schadenfreude, for, while all vain, pretty young women require at least one who is less so, to offset their own allure, she'd greedily insisted on three.

In the Celestial Empire, Dave Rudman ate barbecued pork and crispy pork rice, washing it down with a pot of green tea. He wedged the Standard under the lip of his plate and read about the Public Carriage Office, who were ruthlessly failing black cabs for their annual test, picking up on such tiny infractions as under-inflated tyres and 'lacklustre' bodywork. Not been getting their kickback, the wankers.

After he'd paid, Dave strolled back round to the cab. He had no clear plan beyond working the theatre crowd for a couple of hours. It could be a doddle, hacking the cab on an evening like this. There were the right on-off rainy conditions to get nervous nellies' umbrellas up and their arms out. He was throbbing back down Shaftesbury Avenue when he saw her again — the girl from the Hilton. She wasn't exactly hailing him, but she did have an arm out to steady herself as she bent down to retrieve a lost sandal. Dave slewed the cab into the kerb and called through the offside window: 'Cab, luv?'

Michelle had decided to go home after snorting the line of cocaine in the toilet with Jane that was meant to make her go on to Gossips. She had only taken coke once before — and as soon as the powder crinkled up her face she regretted it; for it chopped her into two Michelles, idiot drunk and calculating fool, lashed together in a freckled skin bag. She felt awful, she wanted revenge on that wanker, I'll call his hippy-dippy posh wife and tell her what he's been up to while she sits at home with baby … The intensity of this shook her, so she didn't make any excuses — she just left. The walk down Dean Street didn't clear her head; it thickened it with the sight of crotchless panties on plastic dummies, stared at by City types with eager-beaver faces. I should go in that open door and up those stairs … The pimp could put a new sign under the buzzer: 'Busty redhead new on scene, likes to be abused …'

When the cab squealed to a halt beside her, she crawled into the back, grateful for respite, even though two cabs in one evening, it's insane … I can't afford it. The cocaine was making tiny little calculations for her, white beads on a sparking synaptic abacus, so that when Dave said, 'Where to, luv?' Michelle replied, 'Olympia, then on to Danebury Road, it's off the Fulham Palace Road.'

Dave drove in silence and snatched occasional glances in the rearview at the fare slumped in the corner of the back seat. They trundled down Haymarket and along Pall Mall, past the mock temple of the Athenaeum, with its golden statue of Athene, poised on the pediment, dispensing wisdom to a Clubland frieze. They swerved into the Mall and bumbled under the blank white eyes of Victoria — who hefted her orb, as if about to rise and pitch it from her stubby shoulder. They roared up Constitution Hill, around Hyde Park Corner and down Knightsbridge. Quite unexpectedly Michelle spoke: 'D'you mind going that way?' She waved her hand towards Edinburgh Gate. 'I want to — I want to see the statue.'