Will Self - The Book of Dave

At dinner — eaten en famille complete with candles, linen napkins and powered cruets — Carl sat sullenly. His downy top lip caught the rays from the spotlights, his gelled hair glistened like seaweed, a pimple — hard and yellow as a nose stud — was in the right position to be one. The odour of hormonal surge and pre-emptive aftershave hung about his sharp shoulders. Conversational sallies from his mother were slapped down with single syllables, Cal's simply allowed to fall. Carl's moodiness might have been within the acceptable range of adolescent disaffection — or way off the dial. It was impossible to judge without a control experiment: another world with different rituals, taboos and family groupings, but the same blond boy.

When Cal, rising from tiramisu, clapped his sort of stepson on the shoulder, bent to kiss the top of Michelle's head and turned to go, a shiver of relief shook the tall room. The Op-Art swirls on the walls dilated — and he was gone to his BMW convertible. Michelle, abandoning her son to the television and the dishes to the morning Pole, trudged upstairs to dissolve her face in bottled alcohol and brush her dry lips with Clarins Moisturizing Lip Balm.

There was no forethought on Dave's part. He simply kept ending up here at Mill Hill, up on the Ridgeway, clambering over the fence opposite the National Institute for Medical Research, crossing the nursery-school playground, scaling a second fence, then standing staring towards the Hampstead massif, which rose like an island out of the evening traffic stream on the North Circular. He hadn't intended it — it was the fares that brought him there. His Faredar wasn't working. Instead of detecting know-nothings wiv deep pockets, he got pub-quiz misers.

At two that afternoon Dave had been grating the cab along Stamford Street towards Waterloo … another bit of fucking metal scraped till it wangs off. In the steely jam, rain-washed manufacturers' logos shone: PLAXTON, JONCKHEERE, FORD. Windscreen wipers smeared, drivers sneered at pedestrians, cyclists veered to avoid everything. The fare was one of those cunts who thought he knew the city, thought he knew the real stories behind the news, thought he knew the mind of bloody God, 'cause 'e's the Flying-fucking-Eye. . and was eager to share it with his paid-for listener. He'd deliberated possible routes. 'I mean, Westminster Bridge is the obvious way' — mulling over traffic flows — 'but there might be an argument for cutting through Covent Garden and avoiding the traffic' — and roadworks — 'there's a lane out going through Admiralty Arch and that means the Mall'll be backed up.' Dave wanted to kill him: What you don't understand is that I don't bloody care. I just follow the route most likely to get us there with the minimum hassle. I don't make any extra money for sitting in traffic, and besides, I want SHOT OF YOU. 'It's entirely up to you, sir, if you know a quicker way, I'm only too happy to take it.'

'No, no, driver, you do your thing, you're the professional.' The fare sat back in his seat with a self-satisfied smile that filled the rearview mirror. Happy now, aren't yer, because you're another fucking control freak who finks 'e's swallered a Trafficmaster.

Dave dropped the fare off and drove on round the elevated roadway to the front of the station, where stone giantesses mourn the death of its builders on Flanders Field. He ranked up and marched away past Delice de France, Upper Crust, Van Heusen, M&S Simply Food, The Reef, Burger King and Tie Rack, then down into the temple of hiss and piss, where he could wring the neck of his suicidal dick. What was it Big End used to say? 'I love myself so much when I hold my dick to piss I get a fucking hard-on.'

Back at the rank Dave's Fairway was holding things up. Two or three trains must have arrived simultaneously, because the fifty-odd cabs were divided among the hundred-odd punters within five minutes. 'North!' the new fare barked without looking at Dave, as if she were crying 'Mush!' to a husky. And when Dave ventured, 'Anywhere more specific, madam?' the fare barked: 'Belsize Park!' Then sat there, her exploratory face pressed to the window as Dave dragged the metal sleigh back through the West End, Euston and Camden Town.

Dried-up old stick, look at 'er … no one would want a crack at that … Dave kept casting glances in the mirror at the hated fare, and, as if responding to this, the woman got out her compact and began dabbing beige dust on a mole. Got 'er own mirror, eh … what's she got to look at innit, only the same fucking face day in, day out. Mindjoo, these old boilers — they've got their own Knowledge, that's true enough.

The fare wanted Heath Hospital, but was either too grand or too embarrassed to say so until they were roaring down Pond Street, then she ordered him: 'Here!' Dave pulled over outside the Roebuck. The fare tipped generously, then unfolded a gossamer umbrella and flew, like a fairy-fucking-grandmother, into the lobby. Dave found himself alone, at four thirty in the afternoon, on the shores of Hampstead. The other points at the end of this run came unbidden: Anthony Nolan Trust, Armoury Sports Hall, Hampstead Hill Gardens, Hampstead Magistrates Court, Holiday Inn, Keats Museum …

A nervous Japanese woman got into the cab at the Southend Green rank. No questions asked as to why the detour if we're going to Hendon Central … she might as well be in fucking Osaka … Osaka. . tourists. . flyers … A memory rose up and bumped against the underside of his consciousness … Just before Christmas … the nervous City getter on his way out to 'eathrow. 'You can't tell me, Beaky, that it's all off the back of Bluey — or whatever that stupid kids' show is called …' His card was still tucked under the clip on the dashboard — so was Sid Gold's. The fare gave a little yelp as Dave arm-wrestled the steering wheel while reading the business card CB & EFN INVESTMENT STRATEGIES, STEPHEN BRICE, CEO EUROPE. That's it … there's stuff there on Devenish … If they're going to do it to me — I'll do it to them first … Gold'll know someone. . An investigator … a private dick …

Dave dropped the Jap at a hotel he'd never noticed before, four semis knocked into one dull frontage. Palms in half-barrels sat on a tarmac apron. A sign flashed RALEIGH COURT in the gathering dusk. She picked up her carrier bags, shouldered her Hello Kitty rucksack and paid what was on the meter. Dave drove on up to Mill Hill, the National Institute for Medical Research calling to him, its copper roof shining over the tiled valley.

Once there Dave took up his position on top of Drivers Hill, and, finding card and mobile phone mysteriously in his hand, he made the call, not expecting anyone to be there at this late hour … least of all a bent fucker like Gold who's gotta be propping up the bar in China White, one hand on a Bellini, the other up a tart's skirt … The wind whooshed in Dave's ear but Gold's 100 %-sure-of-itself voice was closer still. He remembered Dave, saying in response to his muttered request, 'No trouble, Dave, I know a geezer, you gotta pen and paper?'

Cal Devenish drove south. The traffic was light enough — a steel spatter on the bluffs of Kingsway. On the south side of Waterloo Bridge, the National Theatre was lit up, a giant sugar cube soaked with cultural vaccine. Inside his fellow bourgeoisie sucked sweets and watched Imogen and Ralph play at queens and kings. While not far off, in Brixton, Cal's ex-wife, Saskia, was lying on her crapped-out sofabed, their preposterous granddaughter clamped in her arms. The baby slept, blowing milky bubbles against its grandmother's hammering heart.