Will Self - The Book of Dave

The Driver of Ham and many others thought not. These zealots tended to a far stricter and more literal reading of the Book; for them its description of New London was of a city that stood outside time and was never to be built by mere chellish daddies. They pointed to the topographical dissimilarity between the London of King Dave and the New London of the Knowledge. They muttered also about the excesses of the court, where Changeover and Breakup were poorly observed — mummies and daddies openly consorting with one another in the pleasure gardens of Green Park and St James's. They spoke through the intercom and asked Dave for a new wave of Dävinanity to sweep across the land. As yet, these fundamentalist Davists had made no open breach with the PCO; instead they sought the remoter regions of the King's realm for their missionary work, places where their rigour and zeal had much toyism to contend with.

None of this had troubled Carl Dévúsh, a young lad marooned at the outermost periphery of the dominion; until, that is, Antonë Böm began his more speculative instruction. The lads had committed to memory the Knowledge, the Letter to the Lost Boy and the Doctrines and Covenants. Nevertheless, the complete Holding of the Knowledge required a fare to be not merely conversant in all elements of the Book but capable of interrelating them. This necessitated the so-called Hypotheticals — rhetorical replies to questions that called upon fares to conceive of what Dave Himself would do in a given situation.

Antonë Böm excelled in the posing of Hypotheticals. He would stand by the ceremonial urn at the end of the Shelter and sling them out to the lads seated at the Driver's table: You're driving up Park Lane and you see a prospective fare struggling over the crash barrier. What do you do? What do you think? Name the points, tell me the run? There would be a surly silence, interrupted only by the irritating noise of scrubby hands scratching tousled heads. Then, invariably, it would be Carl Dévúsh who answered: Sloo ve cab ovah 2 ve rì an syd an C if eel mayk í, guv.

Böm, his wet eyes magnified by his eyeglasses, would blink at Carl. His plump hands would go to his tank and tap it. He'd rock on his heels, a buzzing noise coming from his plump lips. Who, he wondered, was this lad with the merry blue eyes and why was his peasant mind so acute? When the Driver came to shoo the teacher and his class out of the Shelter, it seemed only natural for Böm and Carl to find themselves proceeding apart from the rest. Natural too for Carl to go to the dads and suggest tasks that would take him and the teacher roving over the island. Slowly, in the course of these rambles, the queer and his pupil found each other out — discovering that they shared the same inquisitive bent, the same mummyness sealed away in their male breasts.

It was early autumn, and the Hack's party had been gone from Ham for two months. The booze and fags they'd brought had been used up. The daddies and mummies were working hard, preparing for the kipper. This year there were four motos to be slaughtered, and the Hack had brought many bales of woolly for the mummies to spin. Soon the screenwash and the demister would come, the leaves would whirl down from the trees, and the Hamsters, confined to their gaffs, would turn in on themselves. It was then, in the dark months, when time lay heavy on their idle, lustful hands, that the worst depredations of the daddies occurred, the beatings and roastings, the rapes and the circlefucks.

Böm preferred to have his curry in the old Bulluk house, where the boilers gathered. One night he looked up from his pannikin to see Caff Ridmun and Effi Dévúsh sitting beside him. He blinked back the tears that always gathered in his eyes when he was in the Hamsters' smoky gaffs and peered at them.

— W-wot iz í, mummies? he stammered, sensing that they had something important to divulge.

— U bin a long tym ear nah, Tonë, innit? Effi began.

— Long enuff — nyn yeers cum nex JUN.

— Anjoo no a Ió abaht uz bì nah, innit?

Böm shifted to Arpee:

— I like to imagine that I have studied your ways thoroughly, if that's what you mean, Effi.

— Vares sumffing U av no Nolidj uv, sumffing big.

— Oh and what's that? Böm was altogether without guile — he had no thought of trying to gain any advantage over Effi. He had learned to respect these Hamsterwomen, who, despite being treated like beasts of burden by their menfolk, kept the community alive and functioning.

Effi Dévúsh leaned close in, her own eyes were lost in deep wrinkles, her nose was a knife blade, her fingers talons that suddenly swooped on Böm's plump thigh and pulled up the leg of his jeans. He didn't flinch as the welts of the old branding scar were revealed.

— Vare í iz, Effi breathed — and Caff sighed as well. U nevah spoakuv í, didja?

— No, no, I saw no need.

— An ve Dryva — ee sed nuffing neevah.

— No, no, I believe he thinks it will do nothing to further his work among you.

— Av U evah erred tel ov ve Geezer?

Effi and Caff sat back while Böm straightened his clothes. There, their expressions seemed to say — it's out now. The Geezer! Böm was aghast. You mean the dad who said he'd found a second Book, the flyer?

— Ve verrë saym.

— Yes, well … Böm said, hanging his head, you could say he's the reason I'm here at all. It was his calling over in London that had me branded.

This intelligence was of no concern to the mummies; the London of which the teacher spoke was a remote — near mythical — realm. When Symun Dévúsh had been taken from them, he was gone for ever.

— Didjoo no, Effi continued, ee woz a sunuv Am, didjoo no vat?

— The Geezer, from here, from this Ham? Böm was incredulous. Surely not?

— Nah, Effi sighed, iss ve troof

— An mì Carl, Caff broke in, mì Carl … ees … ees iz lad.

The Geezer. To Antonë Böm it was an age ago and half a world away. He had carried the Geezer's teaching locked up inside of himself, along with his mummyself, for all the dank days of his exile. The tenets of the new faith were as close to his heart as the first time he had heard them from the lips of his fellow teacher at the City of London School: No Breakup or Changeover, mummies and daddies to be with one another, touch one another, speak with one another, care for one another, with all the gentleness of a young opare tending to her infant charge. No PCO, no Knowledge, no Dävinanity — Dave himself disavowed it all, and had seen fit to tell this young, near-illiterate peasant that the first Book had been naught save the ravings of a dävine mind misshapen by anger and hatred.

Dave bore no hatred towards mummies — not even Chelle. He truly wanted His fares to be fulfilled by whatever manner of life that they pursued. He did not wish them to build New London; only to live in the cities and towns that they themselves founded. And if they wanted to speak with Him, to reach up through the screen and touch Him, to sit back, give Him directions and let Him drive them to their destination — then that was what Dave wanted as well. He was there for all daddies and mummies — whatever their estate. He could be reached with the intercom — or even a loud call. No Drivers or Inspectors were needed to intercede — no laborious recitation of arcane Knowledge was required.

It was to this Dave that Antonë Böm called over each night in his mean semi. Settled on a low stool, his arms held out straight in front of him, feeding the Wheel as he opened his heart. Expressing his innermost thoughts and secret yearnings to a perfect and loving Supreme Driver. Often, upon falling silent, he would become aware of that mundane Driver, a scant distance away, who called over to a very different Dave, a savage, hate-filled Dave, who wished nothing for his fares save toil and strife, the Breakup and the Changeover.