Will Self - The Book of Dave

Outside the screen was clear, the dashboard shone, and there was a full-beam headlight. They slithered across the ringing streak of the frozen stream, then slipped between the mummies' semis and made for the woods. A skulking dog growled but didn't bark. Two hundred paces on, Böm stopped and delved at the roots of a stumpy old crinkleleaf, then pulled up a changingbag. It's all here, he whispered to Carl. A2Z, traficmaster, a takeaway and a warm cloakyfing for both of us. Now come on.

All that night they trudged through the crispycrunch woodland. The smoothbarks of the Lawyer's forest marched forward to meet them, and they hurried down the long Avenues where the night birds chirred and the wind soughed. Halfway through the third tariff the headlight dipped below the trees; it was another four stumbled clicks before the foglamp switched on, sending lemon-yellow beams into the escapees' eyes. Then there came a marvellous sight: the smoothbarks fell away, overtoppling in a great mess of torn-up roots and boughs. Beyond this tangled barrier the sea unfurled, rucking up green and white under the gathering day. Soaring gulls stabbed at the froth-mantled waves. They stopped for a takeaway, then, after examining the A2Z, Böm guided them along the coast, and eventually down to a cretey bay, where there was a pedalo pulled up on the rubble beach.

What's this, Tonë? Carl asked, disbelieving such good fortune. The grub, the cloakyfings — now this pedalo, owdjoo sort it?

— It was the Driver, Böm replied, dumping their gear in the little craft. 76534. I did a number on him. He was at school with me in the Smoke, and he's a good bloke — he didn't want us handed over to the Lawyer.

— What'll happen to him when the Risbromen find out?

— What can they do? He's their Driver. The penalties for laying a hand on him or any other dävine are most severe — a fact our current circumstance cannot fail to remind you of. So we must make haste — you see out there? He pointed towards the dun smear of land on the horizon. That's Cot, and up there to the northeast is Junction 14 where the ferries take on cargo for London. If we can get out into the sea lanes, we may, perhaps, persuade a gaffer to take us on board. Chil is a wild estate, the Lawyer owing but formal allegiance to the King. However, Cot is a different matter! It is densely settled with many large estates and populous manors. Our disguises would not bear scrutiny there for long.

They made the small craft as ready as they could.

— Tonë, Carl said as they were on the point of casting off, don't you wonder what happened to Tyga? The Risbromen didn't say nuffing about im and they must have eard sumfing when they was ganging up on the Emwun.

— I know. Böm paused in his work and gave the matter the full weight of his consideration. It is strange, yet I fear Tyga's fate was most probably the same as the others', rendered down for his oil — if not by another manor, then by some of the wild barbecuers who haunt the forest. It's tough, Carl — he took the lad by the scruff and looked him full in the face — all we can hope for is that his fare is with Dave.

They shoved off and took to the pedals. There was an offshore current that grabbed the frail vessel and sent it rapidly south. They redoubled their efforts, and Carl, leaning back into the stroke, lost himself in the screen, the wheeling seafowl, the rushing wind that resounded with their cries — and a deeper slushier bellow, the bellow of a distressed moto. He stopped pedalling and gasped, appalled yet delighted, for there, nosing through the tangled tree-fall along the shoreline came, adorably snuffling, the muzzle of the lost moto.

As soon as they neared the shore Carl scrambled from the pedalo, sloshed through the icy water and fell on Tyga's neck. Lad and moto cooed and baby-talked to one another, while Böm looked on, scratching his chin in confusion. The moto was painfully thin, his hide torn and bloody. He had two arrows buried in his left armpit and his hand flanges were ragged. Tyga could say nothing of what had happened to him, only lisp a few disjointed phrases: Bad daddies, bad daddies, ith cowld — no fowage, hep me, Cawl, hep me! Carl, with his hands buried in the moto's neck folds, drew him into the tangle of felled trees. There he scrabbled for what fodder he could find — redberries, bits of shroom — and pressed them to Tyga's loose lips. Vare wur ve bad daddies, Tyga? he asked. Vare we loss U? Tyga only groaned. Either he couldn't comprehend the question, or was too traumatized to answer it.

Böm put a stop to these inquiries. We've got to go. Got to. Look, here's the rope, tie it round Tyga's neck and he can swim behind the pedalo. Carl did as he was told. The odd flotilla cast off, but this time Böm pedalled alone, while Carl sat in the stern coaxing the wounded moto. As they headed into the open water, the coastline came into view, and Carl could see twenty clicks in each direction. Here and there the woodland was broken by deep bays where smoke curled from hidden chimneys, and a few small pedalos like their own bobbed on the waves. Don't worry, Böm called from the bow, they're putting down traps for sea rats and suchlike. If we keep straight out to the north, they won't be bothering us. He checked the traficmaster, the angle of the foglamp, and bent once more to the pedals.

Out in the channel, once again the current plucked and pulled at their tiny craft. Gulls swung down and mobbed them, their crap splattering, their beaks digging at poor Tyga's vulnerable muzzle. Carl, screaming, struck out at them, but they only wheeled away, then swooped down once more. Böm kept pulling and pulling at the pedals as the waves broke over the prow. Eventually, exhausted, he shipped them and called to Carl.

— It's no good, the current's too strong, we're making no headway. We'll have to let it take us.

— W-where to, guv?

— If it keeps on like this, right to the shores of Cot, but we'll cross the sea lanes before that. I don't know, perhaps if Dave wills it we'll run into a ferry there.

They brought Tyga alongside and lashed him to the thwarts. Antonë tried steering with a pedal while Tyga flailed as best he could — even so, the craft spun from the hard barge and wet jam of the open sea. For unit after unit the gulls harried them, while Carl dripped evian into Tyga's cracked lips, for he feared the moto was about to expire, so sickly did he look, his eyes raw and weeping and his gasps shuddery and spume-laden. The foglamp sunk down into the swell while in the east storm clouds boiled up. The wind rose and the gulls fled for land. It looks bloody awful, Antonë cried above the howl. We're shipping water, if we don't make land soon we're done for. You'd best call over a run or two and ask Dave to pick you up!

With the foglamp fast dipping and the wind rushing and the moto groaning and the pedalo foundering on a liquid precipice, Carl saw a black patch of land cut from the sea by its fading, scissor beams. They lashed the stubborn water with their pedals while Tyga's limbs churned below the surface, they veered, yawed and finally gained the inside edge of a groyne. Then, in the dead water, they came in upon a shingle beach, where a tall dad stood, his arms upraised against the bilious screen. He was clad in a bizarre tunic of metal plates. These were inscribed with discordant phonics: W821 TBL, X911 VCF, R404 BNB.

Welcome to Bril, the tall dad sang in a voice that rang out above the wind's rush and push. He made an obeisance, while behind him the long grass swished in the gathering night. Welcome dad and lad — welcome moto. To Carl's astonishment the dad clanked down towards them and, untying the ropes, placed an expert hand in Tyga's neck folds, and so guided him up out of the water. Behind the dad Carl saw sharp squares of light. There was a semi — they were safe. He pulled his drenched cloakyfing tight around him, shivered, took a step up the beach, staggered and fell headlong. Purple dusk plunged to blackest night.