Will Self - The Book of Dave

'Nah, thass the fing, Tufty,' Fucker said when he'd heard Dave's news. 'Vare slime, ain't vay, fuckin' slime, draggin' vare slimey cunts rahnd tahn — '

'I don't want to hear it, Gary,' Dave said — but he did.

'Nah, nah, ears a fing. I bet yaw Chelle is beginning to dick you arahnd, ain't she? Shavin off an our ere, an our vare, makin' it arder and arder fer you t'get kwality time wiv yaw boy — am I right? Caws I am. Iss depressin — thass what it is. Blokes in our situayshun are depressed — weir fuckin mizrubble. Wot av we gotta show fer all vat graft, ay? Fukkawl. I've been lookin' into it, Tufty — there's loads of us single dads out there, an' we're getting organized.'

To shut him up Dave agreed to go to one of these meetings. Fathers First — it sounded innocuous enough. The venue was the Trophy Room at Swiss Cottage Sports Centre. It could have been any self-help group — Weight Watchers or Alcoholics Anonymous; the men who pitched up bore no obvious resemblance to one another, Dave couldn't see the single father's mark on their brows. Gary introduced him to Keith Greaves, a twitchy man whose robust shaven head and thick gold earring were at odds with his craven manner. 'Iss 'is idea,' Gary whispered. ' 'Im an' that geezer Daniel Brooke over there. They brung it from the States — but they don't eggzackerly see eye-to-eye.' The men squeaked about the lino, getting plastic cups of tea and settling themselves in plastic chairs. The meeting was called to order.

While Keith Greaves tried to direct these troubled men towards 'some positivity — we aren't victims but nor do we seek to make victims of our ex-partners', Dave Rudman considered getting a shotgun certificate, or even just buying a fucking machete … It's in the papers all the time, on the local radio — dads topping kids they can't 'ave. What if Dad had tried to do that to me and Noel and Sam? Driven us off in his Rover to some layby up in the Chilterns or a sports field in Enfield. Stuck a hosepipe on the exhaust and fed it through the back window. Gunned the engine. Fucking foul in there in seconds. Never know how poisonous those fumes are 'til you're in them for ever. Then what? We never would've stood for it — we'd've kicked off, fought to get out, coughing, puking and punching. He could never control the three of us by himself — he was never around enough. Only way he could keep us quiet was at the Five Bells with bottles of pop, bags of crisps, endless yanks on the fucking one-arm bandits. No, he never could've managed it without a mobile. . The mobile phone appears, an Excalibur pulled from the stone of the future, its slick screen and nodular buttons glow with a mini-neon intensity. The three kids — the boys in grey shorts, Start-rite sandals, Aertex shirts, the girl in a pleated skirt and ski-pattern cardie — are transfixed by it. Paul Rudman passes it to Samantha. 'This is a phone, darling, and Mummy wants to talk to you … I want you to tell her goodbye … I want you to tell her that I'm taking you and David and Noel away now … for ever …' No, he never could've managed it without a mobile, no bloke could, killing the kiddies and yourself— it's an opportunistic crime, innit, and technology's the open door …

That copper who splattered his two little blonde daughters all over a semi in fucking Maidstone … The millionaire who locked his ex up in the fucking cupboard of their Surrey mansion while he did the nippers … That Pakki doctor who leaped off a fucking road bridge with his three-month-old son in his arms … Shooting sprees at barbecues in the sticks … They all juss wanted a one-to-one, didn't they, a chat or a straightener with their old woman … same bloody difference.

He woke in the afternoons to hear the twitter of birds and sirens outside. Parting the curtains, he saw a pigeon fluffed up on the TV aerial. So many of them flying rats … but you never see their kids. All that summer he drove nights, fearing the monster truck rally of daytime traffic and the jerky crowds of battery chicken people. Molten anger puddled into depression. He had hoped for some explosion of sexual licence — instead his cock went as soft and limp as a snail. Eventually he did go to the doctor — because that's what you did, didn't you, eat shit? After all twelve million repeat prescriptions can't be wrong … can they?

Fanning, the GP, had a consulting room like a teenager's bedroom in a mail-order catalogue: MDF in jig-sawn amoeba shapes, shiny ringbinders, a blood-pressure cuff from Accessorize. Little posters showed happy folk with the treatable maladies. There was a battered cardboard box full of crap toys on the floor — the Fisher-Price logo alone made Dave cry, vinegary tears, sour and reeking. There was only one thing now that wasn't toyist — and that was toys.

Fanning, who wore woven thread around his plump wrist and tan pantaloons fastened with a drawstring, was neither unsympathetic nor unprofessional. He had a good, poseable manner. He heard out Dave's stuttered symptoms: 'C-can't sleep. N-no appetite. P-panicky.' Then rearranged his limbs before asking the appropriate questions. 'Sex? Y-you gotta be j-joking, mate. T-talk about what? T-to who?' Finally, he reached for his pad and prescribed Prozac with a clear conscience. For, while many of the patients who shuffled into his consulting room were emotional malingerers — unwilling to turn up for any of life's feelings — this big, raw-boned fellow was reeling. He doesn't have either the wit or the imagination to know what's happening.

The first sign that the pills were working was that the baby oil slithered away — Dave could smell the bacon fat spread on the cooker and the bleach burning in the toilet. When he opened the window, heavy meadow-sweet air blew in from the Heath. Tiny bubbles rushed to the surface of his brown mind in a mounting ebullition; there was a neuropathic fizzle at the tips of his fingers and toes. With reckless levity Dave vaulted pedestrian barriers and stood looking at the rainbow whorls of oil on the wet tarmac.

When Carl came to spend a week with his dad in August, Dave was still gathering momentum. He put the lad in the cab and drove him all over town: down east, up west, to shelters where they listened to old geezers with white, wattled necks pour scorn on 'culluds' and Ken Livingstone's proposed congestion charge. Dave took Carl to see his grandparents — and even to his aunt's house, where Carl played computer games with his cousin Daniel. When they left he was astounded to see his dad give his aunt a kiss. During the hot nights Carl slept soundly if sweatily. At any rate he wasn't aware that Dave hardly lay down but paced from one end of the flat to the other, bopping first one wall and then the other with his brow so that matching niches appeared in the plaster.

Carl thought his father so much improved, so happy and confident, that when it came time for him to pack up his little rucksack and take the short hike back to his mum's, he didn't see any reason why he shouldn't tell the truth: 'Y'know, Dad, she's seeing that bloke again and …' He watched, appalled, as Dave's face crumpled, yet he couldn't stop himself. '… and she'sputthe'ouseupfersale.'

She swore … She promised … She fucking swore. . And again: She swore … She promised. . She fucking swore … This was what Rudman called over as he rammed the Fairway up the M4 to Wales. At last, after all these years, he was going to visit his brother, Noel, in hospital. The cab, howling in overdrive, carried its overwrought driver past Swindon and Bristol, then over the Severn Bridge, a lyre strung with high-tension cables upon which Aeolus played his grandiose airs.