Will Self - The Book of Dave

'Why'd she marry the bloke, then?' Phyllis observed tartly. She was sitting in the humpbacked armchair that had become 'hers' and sewing a name tape into a pair of Steve's boxers. Dave grunted — and Phyllis gave him a sharp look. 'You know him, don't you? It isn't only your mate Gary who's mixed up in this, is it?' Dave conceded that he had met Higginbottom at a Fathers First meeting, while neglecting to mention that he'd also consulted him in a professional capacity — let alone that he still owed him.

Dave had finally made his mind up — he was finished. It was over. There had been one or two false starts — the Fairway left by the road temporarily abandoned — but he'd always crawled back. He'd argued his way round the two police cautions on his record when his badge was up for renewal, and he hadn't declared his medical record — so he held on to the job quite as doggedly as it hung on to him. The cab grasped him in its steel fist — and beyond that extended the muscle-bound arm of his Knowledge, its tendons flexing through the city streets. What would he be if he walked away from it for ever? At my age, with no other training … no qualifications. He saw himself in mid morning on a quiet residential pavement, a poor, bald fucker delivering leaflets for an Indian takeaway at one-fifty an hour … The squeal of a gate in need of oiling resolved itself into the squeal of brakes, and Dave found himself turning into the Roman Road. I'm doing it … I'm fucking doing it.

In the lumpy lane beside Ali Baba's garage he found a handful of cabbies waiting their turn to pick up or drop off vehicles. Getting out to join them, Dave, for the first time in years, examined the Fairway, comparing it with the newer TXs parked either side. The poor old wagon, with its chrome trim and narrow waist, looked out of date, like an old Hansom or something. A foxy-faced fellow whom Dave vaguely recognized came towards him waving a copy of the Sun in one hand and a kebab in the other. 'Orlright, Tufty,' he said. 'This is your mate, innit?' He showed Dave the open spread: on one side, with greasy fingerprints on her roasted thighs, was 'Naughty-gal Nikki from Norwich', while on the other there was a grainy black-and-white photo of Gary Finch dressed as Henry VIII. 'Thass Fucker, innit?' reiterated the foxy man, and Dave owned that it was. 'What's 'e doing up there, then?' More finger marks smudged the balustrade Fucker was poised on. 'Thass the Royal Courts, ain't it?' put in a second cabbie who had a fleshy nose clefted like an arse.

'It's a protest,' Dave said wearily. 'They dress up as historical figures to protest about fathers' rights.'

'But Enery ve Aytf! 'E didn't eggzackerly myndaht fer iz kids, did 'e!'

'I think the point is' — Dave had reverted to type, speaking his mother's hard-won, didactic English — 'that Henry desperately wanted a son — that he was prepared to go to any lengths to get one. Look at the other blokes with him, they're all dressed as other famous men. He's Prince Albert, that one's Churchill. I think the sort of dads these men were is … well, besides the point. They put on these costumes when they climb up on public buildings, cranes, anywhere high up that'll get them attention, and it works, doesn't it?'

'I fink they're two stops short of Dagenham, mate,' said the foxy-faced cabbie, and his mate cackled. 'Yeah, fucking barking!'

Dave had little inclination to defend Fucker — anyway, he was saved by the diddle and doo of his phone. It was Dr Bernal at Heath Hospital. 'The test results are through,' she said without preamble — they both knew what she was talking about. 'Would you like to come up here to discuss them with me?'

'No, that's alright, thanks for sorting it out, Dr Bernal — but you can give it to me straight, I'm ready.'

She sighed. 'Well, they confirm what your ex-wife and her, um, partner have been saying. Dave — Carl … he isn't your son — not biologically, that is — he's … he's Devenish's.'

Dave removed the phone from his ear and stared at it. It lay in his big, damp palm like an artificial pearl. The teeny voice of Jane Bernal cried to him, 'Dave — Dave? Are you alright?'

He put it to his ear again. 'Yeah, yeah, I'm fine — to be honest I was expecting this. Listen, I can't talk now, I'm tied up, I'll call you later.' He squeezed the phoney spot.

Ali Baba himself was long gone — back to Famagusta to play out his days on a plastic card table, downing shots of raki and gambling away his London wad. Ali's eldest son, Mohammed, had taken over the business. He was a mercurial figure, phases of 'roids, slappers and raves, interspersed with regular attendance at the Finsbury Park Mosque, and a grim-faced determination to bring about a worldwide uprising of the umma. For the last year or so he seemed to have quietened down: he'd dropped the — hammed, and it was plain Mo who stepped forward to meet Dave, scrunging Swarfega between his oily knuckles. Behind him, in the Stygian interior of the arch, Kemal's wrinkled lower half hung from the chassis of a brand new TX2. A radio warped R & B round the brick cavern.

With age and responsibility Mo was starting to resemble his old man: he had the same iron-filing hair and waddling gait. 'Wossup, Tufty?' he asked. 'You can't be wantin' anuvver service, you 'ad the wagon in 'ere a couple uv mumfs ago, an' even ven there woz only a few 'undred more on the clock than wot there woz the time before.'

'No.' Dave spoke in his new plain and considered fashion. 'I want to sell the cab.' He held out the keys. 'I'll take what you can give me if you want it for the fleet' — Mo's eyes widened — 'or, if you can find a private buyer, you can take whatever percentage you like.' He dropped the keys into Mo's sticky green palm and without waiting for an answer turned on his heel. From beneath the TX2 there came a resounding chuckle — but Mo called after him, 'I'm not surprised, Tufty — you needing the dosh an' that. To be honest there's been a couple of the chaps over this way looking for you. I didn't say nuffing, but they was Turks, Tufty. Turks, and they looked like the heavy mob.' Dave wasn't listening — he was gone, past the other cabbies, out the end of the alley and into the traffic on Vallance Road, which was coagulating into a scabrous rush hour.

He wandered aimlessly out of town, trudging up through Hackney and London Fields. At the junction of Mare Street and Dalston Lane a ragged company worked the stalled traffic: Romany women in full skirts patterned with tiny bits of mirror wielded squeegees, while their drugged babies lay by a gutted phone booth; a Big Issue seller, crying his wares, had the hollow cheeks and lank hair of a prophet — of his own doom; and, preposterously, there was also a fresh-faced chugger, who tried to get the charitable cases thronging the pavements to give their incapacity benefit away. Dave held it all — he knew it all, he moved on into Clapton.

It was a Friday, and the metal exodus was angry and fearful. Flabby arms let crumpled burger wrappers fall from the wound-down windows of cars; a miasma of exhaust fumes hung over the rooftops. The only fresh things Dave could see as he slapped from slab to slab were dog turds. He'd been walking for about an hour when it happened. He found himself by a duck pond that cratered a strip of park, its surface coated with algae as thick and green as emulsion. There were hulking nineteenth-century villas to one side, a primary school and an uglification of 1980s flats to the other. He hadn't been making any conscious effort to lose himself — the idea was ridiculous — and yet he had. He didn't know where he was.