Will Self - The Book of Dave

The foglamp beat down on them out of a blue screen that tinted at the southern horizon, the sea pitter-purled against shingle, the gulls cawed over the Gayt, the flying rats coo-burbled from the top of the home field, the sweat stood out on the grafters' brows, and the mummies — with the Driver gone — risked loosening their cloakyfings. When free-flowing, the Hamsters' chitchat had the intimacy of thought, so when the old moto-skinning rap started up it was like a mummy humming to her sprog.

— Allö, mö-ö, cum 2 feed us, cum 2 eel us, the mummies called.

And the daddies responded:

— Tara, öl mayt, gissa cuddul B4 U dì.

Summoning himself as if from a dream, Fred wiped the sweat from his reddened brow and fixed the company with his flinty gaze. The mums and dads left off singing, downed tools and looked over towards the Driver's gaff, but, seeing the smoky ribbon that coiled from his chimney, they began singing again — if anything a little louder. Fred shrugged and joined in with them.

By the time the moto's hide had been scraped, its carcass skinned, and its blubber flensed and set out in a number of pots for trying out, the slaughter site was crawling with flies, and blood had crusted on the sward. Fred and Ozzi had expertly disjointed the moto's limbs and hacked off its hams, shins, feet and hands. Runti's head had been severed and borne off by the mummies to make the headcheese for the Hack's cake. His tank had been cut away from his guts and hung up to dry; it would be used to store his own oil. Fukka Funch had set up a second trestle table and was skilfully fashioning smaller cuts from the chunks of carcass and trimming off the side meat to be smoked. He then reserved the spare ribs and the tank meat — for these would be curried and barrelled. He cut out the heart, liver and kidneys from their viscous basketry and slithered them across the bloody boards into the hands of the waiting mummies. A smoky, meaty smell began to hang in a pall over the manor as the blubber started to simmer.

The other kids had returned from the woodland, and, as it was daddytime, the opares fed them with odd scraps of flesh, quickly fried up with handfuls of herbs. Then they were packed off with a tot of moto gubbins to ward away the pedalo fever. Fred retrieved the moto's slack bladder from Fukka's table, washed it in a pail, found its opening, inflated it with a few breaths and tied it off with a length of sinew. He tossed the whitish sphere towards the little kids, and Ad Brudi — who although only seven was a head taller than the others — grabbed it and ran off down to the shore. The whole pack followed after him, hooting and yelling as they batted it between them. They ran around the bay, and, as they passed the Driver's semi, he loomed in the doorway, a tall and threatening figure. The other kids wormed their way through the blisterweed, but he managed to catch hold of Ad and took the bladder from him. Shaking it, the Driver held it up to the screen, then returned it to Ad and sent him back towards the dads.

At the slaughter site Ad handed the bladder to Fred.

— Ve Driver sez í aint rì fer ve kids 2 B larkin abaht.

— So B ì, the Guvnor said grimly, and he tied the bladder to the side of the gibbet, where it wobbled in the breeze.

Carl had no idea how Antonë Böm had arrived in the manor without being noticed, but he looked up from currying the meats to find that the teacher was standing right by his shoulder.

— Ware2, guv, Böm said.

— 2 Nú Lundun, Carl replied.

A smirk played upon Antonë's fat wet lips. He compressed them and emitted the buzzing noise that signified his abstraction from the workaday toil of the Hamsters. His spectacles flashed the foglamp in Carl's eyes, his prematurely white beard lay lank on his bulbous chin. His cheeks were heavily scarred with the pox, his jeans were full — but his tank fuller. His soft, plump hands, with their tiny, recessed nails, dwelt on his swelling hips. Carl blanked him and concentrated on rubbing coarse seacurry into the moto meat.

— So, Böm asked after a while, az Runti bin chekked?

— Sluffoffs ovah vare. Carl jerked a thumb at the skin that lay at Fukka's feet, buzzing with flies. Böm ambled over and began to sort through the greasy folds. At once Fred was by his side.

— Ware2, guv, he snapped.

— 2 Nú Lundun, Böm cooed. Eyem juss lookin fer ve mark.

— No bovver, Tonë, said Fred, refusing to be mollified. U no azwellaz me vat Runti woz reel Enuff; úve seen iz mark a fouwzan tymes.

— Stil, we muss chekk ì, iss ve way, innit. Böm carried on examining the moto skin.

— Iss nó yer graft, Tonë, an djoo no ì!

Fred grabbed the skin, so that the two men held it stretched between them. The foglight streamed through the membrane, perfectly illuminating the phonics C-A-L-B-I-O-T-E-C-H. Looking from the Guvnor's angry face to his mentor's quizzical one, Carl felt his riven mind part still more.

— C! Fred spat in the dirt. Reel enuff fer U, Tonë, reel enuff?

Late in the third tariff, when the headlight was close to dipping, Antonë Böm sat writing in his journal. His tiny, one-roomed semi lay two hundred paces beyond the Driver's on the shore of the inlet known as Sid's Slick. The room was bare, the brick walls unpainted. The tiny table was dwarfed by his plump form, and his plump form was overseen by the dark shadow the letric threw on the walls, a shadow that shifted uneasily in a draught. It had been a long tariff — the Driver had called over with great zeal. He had led the Hamstermen and the Chilmen in at least twenty runs and their points. The Hamsters — as was their way — had been cowed, as gluttonous for this spiritual sustenance as they were for the feast to come. The Hack's party, as in previous years, had been overawed by such Dävinanity in this peculiar place at the very edge of the Lawyer's dominion. Yet the Driver was clever enough to be politic — his battle for the fares of the Hamsters was a protracted one; and when the tariff had rolled on, the headlight had been switched on and the dashboard shone out over the placid lagoon, he faded away to his own gaff, so that Runti's flesh could be eaten and the sick dads of Chil anointed with moto oil.

Later still, old raps were sung in the island's Mokni, Effi Dévúsh making the call and the whole population — mummies, daddies, boilers, opares and kids — the response. Then the dancing commenced. In the margins of the firelight, where the shadows flickered and the darkness took on substance, Böm saw the gaunt form of Luvvie Joolee, the Exile, who had crept up to observe the festivities. She must by now, he thought, know what awaits Carl and me at first tariff. He tried to catch her eye but to no avail, for the tragic old boiler ignored him.

The last thing Böm noticed before he left were the wide eyes of the Chilmen, glazed by moto-oily gluttony, as they watched the increasingly abandoned gyrations of the Hamsters, pissed on the booze they'd brought, fags dangling from their sloppy lips. He guessed what the Chilmen were thinking: what a contrast there was between piety and licentiousness! The Chilmen cast surreptitious glances at the opares — who had undone their cloakyfings most immodestly. No doubt the pedalers and sick fares alike were wondering if they could afford the childsupport.

Böm could not rest — his lumpy sofabed held no appeal for him. In the morning the Guvnor and the Hack would deliberate everything before the Council. Who knew what else might come out concerning him and Carl? The Hamsters could not forbear from speaking when spoken to, and who could guess what Caff might say if she were examined? Böm had no illusions about what awaited him if he were returned to London. It was the curse of his speculative mind that had brought him to Ham in the first place, and the Inspectors had long memories while the PCO's Examiners possessed the harshest of powers. He sighed, dipped his biro in the inkwell and scratched on into the night.