Will Self - The Book of Dave

Carl awoke to find himself lying on a snowy sofabed of unearthly softness and luxuriance. Way up above him the dashboard winked in a smoky firmament. Turning his head, Carl saw a long table, beyond which, in a grate the size of a Hamster gaff, a mighty fire roared — entire tree trunks propped on elaborately wrought andironies. Caught by this shifting pattern of light, the bent, bald-wigged heads of many daddies and mummies could be seen by the bemused lad. They were seated at long tables and appeared to be having a curry. Opares floated along the aisles, pannikins cradled in their arms. Then he realized that what he had taken for the screen was in fact the roof of a giant semi, from the rafters of which hung many letrics. Awed, he struggled to rise, and, perhaps hearing the motion, one of the daddies came over to him. It was Antonë.

— Hush now, he said. Don't try to get up just yet. Here, have some of this. He held out a dish slopping with warm oatie.

— B-but where are we?

— In the Shelter of the Plateists of Bril. Do not be alarmed, they won't harm us, they are dävine queers — not Drivers, not even mummies and dads.

— Where's Tyga, is he OK?

— He's being well looked after. They have quartered him in the barn conversion with their own burgerkine. They will not harm him any more than us. Now eat this and have a slug of jack — he held out a bottle — you need it.

Böm returned to his place at table. The booze burned Carl's throat and thrilled his belly. He gobbled up the oatie. His wet clothes had been taken from him, and he was naked underneath the fine cloth counterpane. The big Shelter was warmer than the semis of Risbro — yet not so much so that Carl couldn't feel the draughts. He snuggled down and bent his ear to hear the chatter that floated from the long table; however, of this he could make little sense, save for the occasional place name — Farin, Chip, Swïn — which he recognized from the cross-examinations the Hamstermen gave Mister Greaves.

The davine queers all wore the same tunics as the man who had met them on the shore. In the lectric the heavy irony plates shone in an unearthly fashion, as if generating their own light, and when their wearers moved the tunics clinked and clanked. Both the men and women sported the bald wigs of Inspectors, and their lean faces had an intensity that Carl found disquieting, despite Antonë's assurances.

When the curry had been scraped, the queer at the far end of the table from the big fire stood. Silence fell and, raising his arms, he addressed the Supreme Driver:

— Ta very much, Dave, for the grub!

— Ta very much! the other queers chimed in.

— Ta very much for the plates!

— Ta very much!

— Ta very much for Antonë and Carl, who come to us fleeing from the PCO!

— Ta very much!

— Ta very much for our Shelter here at Bril!

— Ta very much! And so it went on for what seemed to Carl to be at least half a tariff, the big bloke crying out thanks and the others chorusing assent. Carl nodded off, and when Antonë came to the sofabed, he found the lad curled up in the foetal shape of his beloved Ham. The tension that had scored and blanched Carl's naturally rubicund face was smoothed by sleep for the first time in blobs. It was with considerable reluctance that Böm gently shook him awake.

— What are Plateists? Carl whispered, for, while most of the queers had by now left the building, a few still clanked about the place clearing the pannikins.

— A good question, Antonë replied. He adjusted his spectacles — which somehow he had managed to hang on to through the stormy passage from Chil — and goggled at his young pupil. The Plateists are, as you see, queers who sport the Plateist ephod, the more plates they sport the closer they are to Dave.

— Are the plates Daveworks?

— Of a very special kind, gathered a long time ago from the ancient folkways, the Emwun, Emfaw, Emfawti, Emfive and Emsiks. Which is why you find such Plateist manors as still exist near to these routes. Here at Bril we cannot be more than a few clicks from the Emfawti.

— You have always known of such queers, then?

— Oh, yes, Böm laughed. When I was a lad I dreamed of running away to become a Plateist. You see, like me — or the Drivers — the Plateists are all queers, men and women who have no thought of being mummies or daddies. They live together in perfect accord, yet with no congress between them. In truth, they do not hold with that understanding of the Book at all — they owe no allegiance to King Dave or to the PCO, they live not in mummytime or daddytime but in their own time. They say they love one another the way all did before the Breakup.

— Then what do Plateists think the Book means? Do they call over the runs and the points? Do they believe New London will be built? Do they think Dave will come again?

— Come again! Böm laughed even more uproariously. So far as the Plateists are concerned, Dave is already here among us, each one of us is in Dave's cab and Dave is in ours. No, no, their understanding of the Book is very ancient, perhaps the oldest there is. See their plates? Well, each Plateist takes those letters and numbers and uses them to divine Dave's word from a series of calculations, the numbers referring to the pages of the Book, the letters to particular lines and verses. Each Plateist writes their own commentary according to these rules of interpretation and this is added to the great scriptoria of the Order. In former times, before Ing arose in its present form, the Plateists had mighty Shelters at Stok and Nott, Lank and Mank, large estates grew up around them of perhaps five hundred or a thousand queers, all of them scratching away with their biros, and decorating their scripts with elaborate doodles.

— So, what happened?

— When the dynasty of King Dave arose and the PCO was established in London, they rightly saw the Plateists as a threat. The Plateists' estates were raided, their Shelters pulled down, their lands confiscated, and many of the peaceable queers were slaughtered. Countless Plateist A4S were burned and the remaining fares driven to the furthest parts of the King's dominion. Now only a few Plateist manors remain, here at Bril, at Barf, at Bäzin and a few more to the far west that I do not know the names of — Böm broke off, for one of the remaining Plateists had clanked over to them.

— The Shelter has been cleared for the night, he said. You can kip here if you wish; however, it would be more seemly if you removed yourselves to the men's dorm.

— Alright, mate, Böm said, rising from the edge of the sofabed where he'd been sitting. Come on now, Carl.

— And be so good as to remember, the Plateist continued as he guided them out into the cold night and towards a low building some paces off, you will be required to reach your decision during the first tariff. Such has been determined by the plates.

Decision? Carl asked when the Plateist had left them alone in the dorm. What does he mean?

— Well. Böm settled himself down on the pallet he'd been allocated. He means whether we go to New London or stay here with them.

— Stay? You mean become a Plateist?

— There could be worse fates for two such as us. The manor here at Bril may be a shadow of its former self, yet the community has endured. The order has its stronghold here and estates beyond at Farin. There are even some Plateist lands left on Cot itself that the Lawyer has, as yet, been unable to sequestrate.

Böm spoke casually concerning this prospect, as if it were of no great importance.

— Bu-but Carl stuttered, what of my dad, Tonë, what about 'im? Woss this all bin abaht if we don't make it to London? You must be taking the piss!

— Of course, of course. Böm reached out a hand, a soft, white appendage that fluttered in the gloom. He patted Carl's shoulder. Don't worry, lad, we're going on to New London. Queer as I am, I have no more tank for the Plateists' initiation rite than I did when it first became known to me — and I'm sure you won't either.