Will Self - The Book of Dave

Bohm contemplated this — along with his shoe — for quite a while. Dave looked at the gilt-framed portraits on the wall; celebrated and self-important sawbones stared back at him. 'Am I right in thinking,' Bohm said eventually, 'that you see in Gary Finch's fate what might've happened — had things turned out differently — to you?'

There were misty haloes around the streetlights, and the parked cars were blistered with raindrops. The night was subdued save for the swish of the occasional vehicle plummeting down Heath Street and the divine booming of jets holding a pattern above London. The long, low villa next to Beech House was entirely dark; its round windows goggled through wisteria lashes at the figure that came padding along the pavement. Steel rods pierced the high garden wall, Aero props were strung with razor wire, a blue alarm light pulsed, a stylized child was obliterated by a black bar. DO NOT PLAY ON THIS SCAFFOLD the sign read. Dave Rudman decided to double back and work his way through the gardens.

It took him over an hour. Every time a cat sneezed or a fox yelped he froze for whole minutes. He was in full possession of his faculties while creeping like a madman through exotic plantations of gunnera and black bamboo, and imported bark chips that shifted under his rubber soles. A green nylon rucksack was slung over his shoulder, in it a mattock he'd bought the day before from an army-surplus shop on the Euston Road. He was going equipped — yet not sufficiently, and he realized what he would find before he hauled over the last wall. And there it was: the York paving, glinting in the diffused light, the non-renewable hardwood decking, solid enough for a man-o'-war. Under it — deep under it — was the Book. How the fuck, Dave thought. How the fuck am I going to get it up?

Cal Devenish stood at the French windows in the drawing room examining his own jet reflection for signs of guilt. Not long now … Papers all signed — deal all done … Share price inflated — the bunce creamed off. Business flogged — the bunce skimmed off again. . yet he saw neither satisfaction nor shame in his face — only an intractable weariness, along with other things: a settle big enough for a cardinal to prop his fat behind on; a dormant log-effect gas fire; investment art on the silky wallpaper; and shoved up in the corners of the room the little beige boxes of the alarm system installed to protect it. Cal wondered where his son was; it made a change — he wryly conceded — to wondering where his daughter was.

Now that the truth was free to range the burgundy carpets of Beech House, its elegant chambers resounded with the cackling of a freak who's been told a sick joke. The sympathetic hatch opened between Cal and Carl on the night they sprang Daisy from the nick had been slammed resolutely shut. Carl took to wearing River Island jackets and Burberry baseball caps as nurture wiped the floor with nature. Cal even thought the lad physically resembled the dad who'd changed his nappies and blown his nose. A long streak of fifteen-year-old, his ears stuck out like Rudman's, and like Dave he took the high dive off Hampstead and into the London lagoon. Carl stayed away from Beech House and hung out on the estate down in Gospel Oak — for this Cal was guiltily grateful, because when his new son was in residence, Carl passed on those sly digs and underhand blows he himself had received, years before, from Dave.

Dave Rudman and Cal Devenish — two men sharing the same cab. Cal sat on one of the tip-down seats, and they caromed along the road of life separated by only a few centimetres of foam rubber, vinyl and steel. They were idiotic twins, conjoined in ignorance of each other. 'Snip-snip'. Cal had cut out his conscience as the surgeon snipped his vas deferens — while Dave Rudman forgot his dates. Yet their denials were but tributaries of a far mightier river of masculine unknowing.

Where was Carl? He was upstairs in his hated, modular study-bedroom. He knew his parents thought he was out — and he delighted in allowing their ignorance to shade into anxiety. Except he didn't think of Michelle and Cal as his parents — only 'that fucker' and 'that cunt', the words lubricated by hatred. Carl was upstairs with a Benson & Hedges stuck under his downy top lip and a rolled gold Dunhill lighter — purloined from Cal's desk — in his downy hand. He lit up while striking a defiant pose in front of the mirror, then swished back the curtains and eased up the sash window.

Caught in the searchlight, caught as if he were an escapee from the nick, one arm thrown across his eyes, the other brandishing an entrenching tool. Caught bang to rights. Dave looked up and saw a neotenous head and a cigarette falling towards him end over end. While Carl saw some chav or fucking pikey … a shambolic, middle-aged fatso … trying to nick the fucking patio! A pathetic thief who had his mouth wide open yet couldn't scream. In the red cave Carl saw the wet root of his tongue uselessly gargling. He didn't recognize the man — but he knew who he was. Carl cried out, 'Dad! Dad! There's a beastly man in the back garden!' Even as he taunted one man and conferred a title on the other, he thought, Beastly beastly? Where the fuck does that come from?

They held Dave Rudman overnight at the police station on Rosslyn Hill. The cell he sat in was only a few hundred feet from Heath Hospital, but Dave was in no mood to ponder such narrative circularity, the centrifugal striving of the individual against the widening gyre of history. The magistrate, however, understood Dave and history, although, having his record laid out on the bench in front of her, she viewed it in a different light. While the non-molestation orders that had been imposed on Michelle Brodie's ex-husband may have lapsed, here was the original source material: the violence in the marriage, the breaching of previous orders, the assault in the restaurant, the psychiatric treatment. So it was only reasonable for the magistrate to assume that the victims of this obvious thug would be looking for a charge of criminal trespass, perhaps even — given that he had gone equipped with a mattock — malicious damage and intent to wound?

When Dave was eventually bailed, there was someone on hand with the same intent. 'What the fuck was that for?!' he exclaimed, rubbing his smarting cheek.

'What was it for?!' Phyllis screeched. 'What was it for? It was for being an irresponsible fucking wanker!' Her wiry curls sparked with anger as she prodded Dave down the wheelchair access ramp for the Highgate Magistrates Court. What must we look like? he thought. Fat old boiler duffing up a bald old git of a drunk … She confronted him on the pavement, her accent flattening into Essex as it did battle with the artics booming past within inches of them. 'Djew fink you ain't got no responsibilities any more — issatit? Izzit?' He shook his head. ' 'Cause if that's the way you feel you can piss off — and I mean it. There's Carl, there's Steve and there's … well,' she hesitated, 'well … there's me.'

'Carl?' He didn't mean to provoke her — he was genuinely incredulous. 'Carl? He doesn't even know who I am — I haven't seen him properly in years.'

Phyllis sighed, her exasperation was so profound — it was heavier than the hill they stood upon. Then she was calm again. She took a ball of tissues from the pocket of her denim skirt and screwed it into her eyes, one after the other. 'Let's go and get a cuppa,' she said, taking his arm, 'then you can tell me what the hell you thought you were up to. Somebody needs to do something about this whole balls-up, David, and that somebody isn't you.'