Will Self - The Book of Dave

Fucker had parked the Fairway up on Agincourt Road a month before — then done nothing more. When Dave saw how filthy it was, the tyres near flat, one wiper bent up like a broken arm, he wept. But Phyllis only rolled up the sleeves of her daft dress and helped him wash the vehicle until it shone in the citrus autumn sunlight, as much as any black thing could. In the flat, with its airless stew of stale smells and its litter of Final Demands, Phyllis kept her sleeves rolled up and her rubber gloves on. Dave went for rubbish bags and bleach from the shop on the corner. At the end of a stiff afternoon's work the cleared table was neatly tiled with the terrifying letterheads: Mendel & Partners, Transform Services, Transport for London, Halifax Building Society, etcetera, etcetera. Dave Rudman sat down on the bed — which had been made for the first time since the day after he moved in nearly three years before — and wept. Phyllis made no move to comfort him beyond saying, quite calmly, 'We better try to sort this out inall, David — it's time you moved on.'

There had been no word of Dave Rudman for six months. No late-night calls leaving threatening messages on Michelle's mobile. No playing at kidnapping — Carl picked up, then dropped off on the borders of Dave's forbidden zone. No contact. If Michelle had hoped that with Dave offstage she and Cal would fall into each other's arms with a pretty duet, she was sadly mistaken. Cal pursued his mad, junky daughter, he ran around after his mad, exploitative television shows. He had no time for her. When he was at Beech House he mostly played computer games with Carl.

Michelle's only consolation was the casual hand she saw Cal rest on his putative stepson's shoulder when Carl had pulled off a particularly deft bit of thumb work. The loser in all this, she was forced to conclude, is me. She looked from dad to lad and the awful realization dawned in her that to figure out this emotional algebra, she would have to assign a value to X, the secret that had sustained her through years of fucking brutality … abuse even.

In Vigo Street Mitchell Blair was as dapper in striped shirtsleeves as he had been that April in full fig. He tapped his unnaturally small teeth with his gold propelling pencil. 'This, well … business … well…' Michelle was pleased that the diminutive smoothie was lost for words. 'I fail to understand … look…' Finally he put together a sentence. 'If you want to proceed along this new Avenue you will have to get a DNA test.'

'DNA from who?' she said blankly.

'From whom … yes,' he laughed again, 'good question. Well, your son, of course, and then either will do, either of them.'

When she returned to Beech House, remorse seized Michelle, and she called her ex-mother-in-law. Annette Rudman's voice came shuffling towards her down distempered corridors of institutional contempt. 'How is Carl?' she asked without nicety. 'We haven't seen him for over a year now … it's not right.'

'I … I know Mrs … Annette … It's not what I want, but you know … Dave — '

'Dave's in hospital, Michelle.'

'In hospital?'

'On a psychiatric ward.'

When she tried to hang up after the call, the receiver hit the side of the cradle and fell, bouncing on its spiralling cord, rapping the inlaid phone table. Michelle thought how everyday life was made up of a series of small botched actions, which, although instantly forgotten, nonetheless ruined everything, making it clumsy, paltry and worthless.

The day before Dave Rudman was due to go back to his flat for good, Zack Busner summoned him to his office. Dave found the elderly shrink playing with what looked like a children's toy, a series of brightly coloured plastic tiles that he was arranging and rearranging on a little tray. 'Ever seen one of these before?' Busner asked.

'Can't say I have.' Dave absent-mindedly patted his shirt pocket for cigarette packet and lighter.

'Smoke if you want,' Busner said; 'I approve. Here — here's an ashtray.' He pushed a lump of unglazed clay that had been dumped on him by a grateful obsessive across the desk. 'It's a little thing called the Riddle I put together in the early seventies, absurd really' — Busner clacked the tiles some more — 'but in its day there were thousands sold, people used them to try to look into their own obscure mental processes. You rearrange the tiles into a pattern that you find pleasing or resonant — then consult this' — he took a booklet from a drawer — 'to find out what's going on in your unconscious. Here — here' — the Riddle followed the blob into Dave's hand — 'take it, take it, you might find it useful — I've got a whole self-storage unit in Acton full of them. I only press it on you,' Busner said, tilting back in his chair and peering at Dave over the top of his glasses, 'because you strike me as someone who could do with a great deal more of looking into himself.'

'Maybe,' Dave acknowledged.

'We never quite got to the bottom of what was behind your … collapse, did we?'

'No, I s'pose not.'

'The Book, still in here, is it?' Busner tapped his own soaring forehead.

'Oh, yes,' Dave said, looking sheepish, 'but I don't think it's what I thought it was, if you see what I mean.' He sat forward. 'I think it's just, well, just the Knowledge, nothing else. I think all that other malarkey was me falling … falling apart.'

'Hmm, well. Good. Tell me, has Dr Bernal arranged for you to see a psychiatrist?'

'Oh, yes … yes, she has.' Dave stubbed the blob and took an appointment card from his pocket. 'Some bloke called Boom, is it?'

'Ah,' Busner smiled. 'No, not Boom, Bohm, Tony Bohm. Yes, I think you and he will get along splendidly.'

Gary Finch called Dave at the flat on Agincourt Road. 'Sprung, then, are you, sprung?'

'I've been discharged, yes.'

'No one need ever, y'know — know.'

'What're you on about?'

'The stigwotsit, the stiggymarta.'

'Stigma, you mean?'

'Thassit — not me, mindjoo, but other people might think you're mental. Still, they won't be getting anything out of me — I was bullied at school, they said I 'ad a touch of the mongs. Lissen, it's Tuesday, come up the meeting tonight?'

'Oh, I dunno — '

'No, come — I tellya it'll be worf it.'

In the Trophy Room everything had changed. Dave realized this as he walked in through the door. No longer were the plastic chairs grouped in an egalitarian circle; instead there were fully tenanted rows of seats all facing a makeshift podium. On this stood Daniel Brooke in his outsized T-shirt. He gave the newcomers a curt nod, but his attention was mostly on a banner he was fixing up over the trophy cabinet together with a Fathers First member Dave didn't recognize. There was no sign of Keith Greaves at all, and the few faces Dave did know were outnumbered by at least twenty new men. The banner was stretched tight; FIGHTING FATHERS it shouted. 'Right!' called Daniel Brooke. 'Settle down, you lot, we've a lot to get through this evening, and I need maximum attention and positivity … Gary.' Brooke fixed Fucker, who was still chatting to his neighbour, with a pointed eye. Fucker fell silent.

'I applaud those of you from the old Fathers First group who've had the courage to come with us on this new journey of self-discovery and personal evolution, believe me you won't be disappointed. Keith has his good points, but they're soft ones.' Brooke's eyes kept ranging along the assembled men's faces as he spoke, as if probing them for any softness. 'That touchy-feely stuff may be OK for dads who want to lie down under all the shit they've been dealt out, but that's not what we are. What are we?' He paused and raised his beautifully manicured fist in a swift uppercut.