Will Self - The Book of Dave

Another mutter like a response.

— Awl Eye did woz 4 Am, awl Eye evah wannid woz 4 us ló 2 B cumfy.

The mutter swelled into a groan.

— Dave did givus ve nú Búk — U ló nó thass ve troof! Ven Eyem gawn … by now most of the cab — for that is what they had unwittingly become, the Chilmen included — were openly weeping … yul unnerstan vat, an yul C ow fings gesswurs an wurs, coz ve troo Nolidj az bin loss, an ven ve Nolidj iz loss iss ve end uv Am –

This was by no means the end the Geezer intended for his address, but Mister Greaves, apprehending the powerful effect of his words, seized Symun by his shoulder and dragged him bodily through the shallows. Two of the Lawyer's chaps then pulled him into the vessel. The others splashed across and leaped in, then, with a flurry of pedals, the pedalo made fast for the reef. Yet not so swiftly that the Geezer's inflammatory words couldn't still be heard for some time floating over the lagoon, until eventually they became but mangled sounds, a peculiar presentiment of the fate that awaited he who had uttered them.

During the three months that the Hack was absent, the Hamsters split once more into mummytime and daddytime. It was a new Breakup, and, bewildered as the kids may have been by the rebuilding of that invisible barrier that divided brother from sister, man from wife, and a child from its own very nature, they knew better than to question it. While some of the mummies and daddies wept as they recalled the long tariffs they had spent ranked up like motos in conjugal bliss, others were heartily glad to have their mutual indifference formalized once more.

Besides, there was work to be done, work that had been neglected during the whirlwind of licence that had been the Geezer's time. Hard work — all the harder for the unseasonable pedalo fever, the extra mouths to feed, and the Hack's imposition of a substantial ticket. Once again the mummies and opares became beasts of burden. The barrels of moto oil that had been rendered down the previous autumn were brought to the pier, together with truckles of London bricks, bolts of bubbery and sacks of gull feathers. Fred Ridmun and the dävine dads made it clear that there was but one priority alone for the community: the rent must be paid to the Hack.

Away from the Guvnor's hearing, and especially among the boilers, there were those who muttered that, whatever the seriousness of his transgressions, the Geezer had been denied a proper hearing. He himself had not been allowed to speak before the Hack, and this weakened the bonds of fealty between the Hamsters and their Lawyer quite as much as any flying they may have been party to.

It was Meshell Brudi, out gathering yellowdye flowers near the Mutha's grave, who first saw the returning pedalo. She ran back to the manor and told the other mummies, Ees bak an vairs sumuvva bloke wiv im — nó a Chilman. Eye seen im, sittin up in ve pedalo, big tall bloke wivva wyt barnet! Ees gotta bituv shynë stuff stukkup bì iz mush! This was the first sighting of the new Driver, who was to come to dominate the lives of the Hamsters — dominate them more than their isolation, dominate them more than their peculiar symbiosis with the motos, dominate them, perhaps, even more than the Book itself.

Who was the Driver? No one on Ham ever knew. He never told them his real name — he was always the Driver. He came, like other visitors to the island, out of a void. This much can be said: when he made his landfall on Ham, the Driver was a vigorous man in his early fifties, long and angular of limb, full of beard and severe of countenance. His nose was sharp and prominent, his brows beetling. He did not deign for the pedalo to be tied up to the pier, but splashed overboard and waded ashore, his mirror waggling. He was clad in a full-length black robe, beneath which could be glimpsed black jeans and a black T-shirt of fine London cloth. His trainers — a form of footwear hitherto unknown on Ham — were orange and laced high up on his narrow ankles. In the Hamsters' eyes this raiment gave him the appearance of a giant and savage crow, an impression strengthened as it never altered in any way during the time he was among them. Neither the heat of the summer nor the damp of the kipper seemed to affect the Driver. No one ever saw him disrobe, not even the succession of opares who attended him in his semi.

The deeply credulous Hamsters, still reeling from the deposing of the Geezer, were powerfully impressed by the Driver. Leaving the pedalo to be beached by his retainers, Mister Greaves came over the shingle after him and, seeing the whole population assembled exactly as he had left them three months before, prepared to introduce the alien. The Driver ignored him and turned his back on the peasant gaggle, so that it was his own deep and gravelly voice, speaking not in dialect but the refined accents of Arpee, that rolled over their bowed heads:

— Greetings, good Hamsters! he cried. I am the Driver, and I come to you from the PCO in London. Before news even of this abominable flying reached the Inspectors' Faredar, it had been decided to once again send a circuit driver here, to this remote place, to remind you that Dave sees each and every one of you, daddies and mummies alike, in his mirror.

In later days it was said that as the Driver called over that first time, an unearthly stillness descended upon Ham. The children stopped fidgeting, the motos ceased ruminating. The gulls, crows, ringnecks and flying rats — all, in short, of the aerial flotsam that swirled in the screen above the island — came spiralling down to the bare ground at the bottom of the village, where the tightly clustered birds formed a bizarre, multicoloured carpet of feathers. The winged ants — which were swarming on that muggy summer's day — doodled in to pitter-patter against the back of the Driver's robe, then fell at his feet, writhing in the dust. Even the chafers' legs became motionless, adding to the mounting silence.

Whether any of this actually took place, or it was only the fabulous counterpoint to the tale of the Geezer's final address, is obscure. What is certain is that the Driver had spent the uncomfortable pedalo journey from Wyc — four long days on the open water, four damp nights anchored in densely wooded creeks — hearing the full story of the Geezer's insurrection; and he had concluded, quite rightly, that to establish a rapid ascendancy over the Hamsters it was necessary to employ all the theatricality of his adversary.

Cupped in its grassy bay, the little manor of Ham was a natural amphitheatre. The Driver continued his declamation:

— I have heard all about the disgusting practices that you have indulged in these past months — daddies and mummies consorting in grotesque propinquity — yet I shall not censure you for them any more than your Lawyer already has. I have heard how you abandoned the Knowledge and took up with a vile flyer — yet I shall not punish you for it. I come to bring you the Book! He flourished a huge, leather-bound copy from beneath his robe. See the Wheel! Read the meter! Know that the final tariff is at hand! Leave this place at once, you miserable, perfidious mummies! Sullied by rag and blob — whorish, licentious creatures! Chelle spawn!

He waited while the mummies, opares and children shuffled back to the mummies' gaffs, then rounded on the remaining Hamstermen:

— Do not be mistaken, for I know what happens to dads' minds when they do not honour the Breakup and observe the Changeover. I comprehend how you begin to doubt that Dave forsook the Lost Boy for your own miserable fares. The separate compartments into which Dave has poured all goodness and all badness become once again mingled. The hapless knave begins to think himself dävlike, possessing a freedom to act without the precepts of our faith. He no longer hears Dave speak to him over the intercom — instead mummyness spills into his every thought like piss from a ruptured bladder into the pure milk of burgerkine! The Driver spat as if disgusted by his own figure, then continued: It is for Drivers, queer and untainted by any vile contacts — tittyrub and cunnëlyk — to decide which fares shall for ever hail the cab in vain, and which will ride with Dave to New London!