Will Self - The Book of Dave

Here they abandoned their Ham cloakyfings, T-shirts and jeans, and donned the robes and trainers. Böm showed Carl how to fasten them, and strap the mirror arm to his brow, so the lad might see behind at a glance. From now on, he said, we talk only in Arpee, we call over the points and the runs, we speak often and always of Dave, we revile all mummies. Do this now, and if we meet with Chilmen we will not be surprised.

With a knife Böm hacked off his beard — and to Carl his pitted, bleeding face was alien, disturbing even. No Driver on this estate wears a beard, Böm explained. He spread out the A2Z on the flat bole of a felled smoothbark. This is our route — he tapped the oiled parchment — we're to the northeast of Wyc, between the manors of Hemel and Ban, only a few clicks — by my reckoning — from the start of the Emwun, the great trading route. We can walk this track by night, then lay up in the woods by day. When we get here, to the northern coast, we will have to get a berth on a ferry over to Cot, for it will be too far to swim the motos. I have dosh — enough both to pay for our passage and discourage any questioning.

Carl understood by this that Antonë did not expect the motos to leave Chil with them. In his mummyless funk he fell on poor Hunnë's bristly neck. Lad and moto wept copiously. Enough! Böm cried. It's foglight, this isn't the settled part of Chil, yet this woodland is not empty, there are barbecuers, huntsmen and stray settlements. We must be careful, lay up in the day, hide the motos, then go on when it's dark.

The first three nights went according to plan. The weather had closed in, and the screenwash was insistent. Although they had no headlight or dashboard to guide them, the Emwun was embanked and paved with pulverized crete that gleamed even in the blackout. Böm took the lead, scoping for bother, then came the motos, and lastly Carl, who followed up right didgy, slapping slack withers to get the motos on. Long before lampon they herded the motos off the track and sunk them in the undergrowth. Then they ate some of their declining stocks of takeaway and took a swig of evian before turning in for the wan day's troubled sleep. There was no question of lighting a fire.

On the third morning, as they ate their meagre repast, Böm held up the evian skin and shook it. You hear that, Carl? he said. We're running out. There's no evian right on the Emwun; we'll have to scout around today and see if we can find some. We'll take it in turns. You lay up with the motos and I'll look up north, then we'll swop over and you do west of the Emwun. If we keep on like this, staying dead quiet and going bloody carefully, we should find a bit of wet.

Antonë was gone for ten or so units, then returned empty-handed, so Carl set off. It was the first time he had been into the Chil woods. Once he left the track behind, Carl found that this huge expanse of trees consisted almost entirely of smoothbarks — rank upon rank of them, neither coppiced nor pollarded. There was no underbrush, and the stately, columnar trunks marched away from him, up slope and down slough, their roots sunk in damp leaf fall. Carl stared down Avenues half the length of Ham and, desperate lest he lose his way, he circumvented trees in his path, knocking off wet shrooms that smeared his robe with white pap.

After a while Carl found himself in a glade, in the middle of which was a bog — there was no clear evian but the deep choccy-blue sludge would be perfect for moto wallowing. Suddenly there was a movement by a dead brack stand, and Carl realized there had been a creature there all along. He twitched and off it sprang, showing a white scut as it crashed through the leaf fall. Carl ran all the way back to where Antonë stood nervously scanning. What's up! he said, and Carl told him about the beast. Munchjack, Böm sighed, bloody good eating, although not for us. This makes it certain — this is the Lawyer's forest. If his chaps found us here, we'd most likely be killed.

Carl told him about the wallow, and even though Böm was worried, he let Carl take the motos to it, one at a time, so they could moisturize. The last one to go was Sweetë, who was always so calm and trusting. Carl led her into the glade and sank her in the wallow, where she shlupped. He took up position, his back against a tree, and lost himself in the blue screen seen through a puzzle of twigs and boughs. A fat bird exploded from a branch and whirred away, little shitballs bombing from its behind. Carl shot up to see Sweetë's baby-blue eyes staring at the irony tip of a drawn arrow. This creature wasn't a munchjack but a lad the same age as Carl. He was done up in a richly embroidered carcoat, and sported a cockpiece, high-topped trainers and a baseball cap. The lad's long barnet reached to his shoulders in luxuriant curls. Carl had never seen this sort of gear before — only heard of it. He'd never seen a bow and arrow either, but knew this was what the lad had aimed straight at the moto. The lad was so afeared he didn't even notice Carl, so terrified that when the wallowing moto lisped, Alwi, mayt? he turned tail, dropped his weapon and ran screaming through the wood.

It was not long before Carl heard the blare of horns, the thud of hooves and the sound of many blokes shouting. He cried to Sweetë: Geddahn, baybs! Geddahn in ve wallö, rì dahn so az onlë yer ootah iss up fer breevin! Then he shinnied up a tree sharpish. No sooner was he concealed than the clearing was full of dads on jeejees, lads on foot and dogs yapping in a furry muscle tussle. The hunt spread out round the wallow, the dads with railings drawn, the lads with arrows strung, the dogs snuffling. The whole posse scoped out the dank water. Carl, horrified, watched as one lazy bubble grew, then popped. Despite his ghastly predicament he was entranced by the hunt. The dads wore bright scarlet leather carcoats and black leather jeans. Their raiment and their jeejees were hung with all manner of irony devices, while most had a dead munchjack slung across their saddles. Their barnets were oiled and teased, they were clean-shaven and had motorage eyes. The lads were puffed out, their shorts muddy, their cockpieces skewed, their breath smoky in the slant, second-tariff foglight. They leaned heavily on their long bows.

As for the jeejees and the dogs — never had Carl conceived that these toyist beasts would have such terrible beauty. With every jerk of the jeejees' foam-flecked muzzles he fancied they must break the spell that held them in thrall to the huntsmen, rear up, pitch the dads to the ground and gallop away. Carl thought the dogs must also be enchanted, for, despite their sharp teeth, savage eyes and slathering jaws, they ran hither and thither avoiding the most obvious prey — slow-witted lads who, armed or not, would be no match for the pack of them.

— Where's this monster, then, Fred? said the biggest dad on the tallest jeejee.

Fred, the lad, was scrabbling round looking for his abandoned bow and arrow. He straightened up at once and bowed down low.

— Mì Lawd, he said, Eye sore í rì ear, í woz gross, lyke a big baybee joynd wiv a bäcön. An í spoak 2 me. Eye swear í, í sed orlrì, mayt.

The Lawyer thought for a while, then he addressed the whole company:

— Yeah, it's a moto alright, the vile and toyist monster. I don't know how it's got off Ham, but we must find it and dispatch it.

The dogs were now snuffling in a furious agitation at the boggy edge of the wallow. Then the pack sang out, Ow-wow-wow-wow! and fused into a single undulation of fur and muscle. They've gotta scent of it, shouted one of the dads, and the whole posse grabbed their reins and wheeled their jeejees to follow the dogs. Horns blared, the dads cried, Nyaaair! Nyaaair! And, as quickly as they had arrived, the whole gaily caparisoned hunt streamed out of the clearing and back towards the Emwun.