Will Self - The Book of Dave

Fucker Finch was wearing a floor-length, dirty grey shift, and there were manacles on both his chubby wrists, from which dangled chinking lengths of chain. When Dave came into the empty bar, he was sitting at one of the round glass-topped tables, fiddling with a headache-pill dispenser shaped like a mobile phone. It was late morning, and the whole ground floor of the Charing Cross Hotel — half a French chateau hammered on to the facade of the station — reeked of furniture polish. Contract cleaners in nylon tabards were whipping the carpeting with the flexes of their vacuum cleaners.

'What's all this about?' Dave asked without any preamble.

'This?' Fucker held up the pill phone. 'Iss fer Nuro-whatsit, Nurofen.'

'No, not that, the cloakything.' He took a fold of Fucker's shift between his thumb and forefinger. 'Lovely bit of shmatte by the way.'

Fucker gave a mordant shrug. 'Iss burghers, today, we're mennabee burghers today.'

'Burgers? Whaddya mean?'

'Burghers, Tufty, the Burghers of Calais, there's a statchew of 'em in that park by Parliament. Plan was fer us to dress up like 'em and chain ourselves to it.'

'Isn't that a bit low level for your mob? I mean, the old Bill'll cut you off that in seconds.'

'Yeah, I know what you mean, mate' — Fucker necked a couple of Nurofen with a swallow of lager — 'but we gotta take whatever opportunities present themselves — thass what Barry says. There's a debate in the Commons today what affects all us single dads, an' they'll 'ave every 'igh fing fer miles under surveillance. Me, I get a buzz ahtuv the 'igh ups. Far as I'm concerned — the 'igher the better. When I'm up there it's a big fucking buzz — better than sex, better than charley. I feel, y'know, alive.'

Dave consulted his watch. 'So when you heading over, then? It's gone eleven thirty.'

'Nah, y'don't geddit.' Fucker shook his rubber face. 'I'm surplus to requirements, I am. I pitches up wiv me robe an' manacles an' it only turns out they've got six other fucking burghers in hand already. So 'e mugs me off, don't he.'

'Y'know Fucker — Gary,' Dave spoke as softly and reasonably as he could, 'you want to be careful with that lot, Higginbottom in particular. It could all come on top — you know what he's like.'

Fucker snorted, 'Yeah, yeah, I know what 'e's bloody like. I tellya, Tufty, it's like poetry watching him do all that telly stuff — 'e's got more front than Brighton. I swear, I sometimes fink 'e's 'aving a bubble wiv 'em, 'cause 'e ain't like that wiv me, 'e's juss an ordinary geezer.'

'He's using you, Gary — '

'Oh, yeah? Well, maybe that's the way I want it, it's all up wiv me, Tufty, all I got left is this an' it's a matter of prints-supple — thass wot it is, a matter of prints-supple. Even if I never get to see the kids regular again, least I'll 'ave made me point.'

Dave tried another tack. 'What're you doing for money, then, Gary?'

'Gelt? I'm fucked, mate — I 'ad to let the begging box go. Weren't no point in 'anging on to it anyway — I bin nicked so many times this year they was bound to take me badge.'

'Did you sell it?' Dave asked, thinking of his own old Fairway underneath the arches off Vallance Road.

'Sell it!' Fucker guffawed. 'Nah, I didn't bloody well sell it, my old man was renting it for me on the half-flat, donchew remember? Fing is' — he leaned forward conspiratorially — 'I borrowed a couple of grand on it before I let it go, so now I've gotta give the old manor a bit of a wide.' Fucker swerved his manacles across the table.

From deep inside the station came the mammoth door chimes that precede an announcement; here, at the very epicentre of the Knowledge, a hefty realization was requesting admission. 'They're looking for you, Gary,' Dave confided, 'couple of Turks, heavy mob, they've been round at Ali Baba's — Mo thought they were after me, but it's you they want, innit?'

'I dunno, mate — don't fucking care neever. 'Ow they gonna find me anyway? I'm kipping in a fucking bail hostel over Vauxhall. Barry sees me right for a few quid, an' whenever I go out' — he gave his manacles a shake — 'I'm always in disguise!'

Michelle wondered if the woman standing on the doorstep of Beech House was wearing a disguise, because she had the oddest costume on. Whoever she was, she appeared to have carefully selected her clothes with the aim of maximizing what a dumpy figure she had. She wore a short white denim jacket and a long white denim skirt that fell to the ground in a series of distinct tiers, each defined by a tufted cotton ruff. The ensemble was completed by a white denim cloche hat, which crushed her abundant black curls down about her kabuki face, and a white denim shoulder bag as shapeless as a cloud.

Under the bulging blue eyes of this stocky apparition Michelle felt highly conscious of her own Tunturi-turned legs, sheathed in silk and knee-high suede; her own piquant face, made tasty with sweet creams and savoury exfoliants. She was about to lie 'Can I help you?' when the funny little woman came straight to the point of everything. 'You must be Michelle.' Her voice was common yet clear and confident. 'I'm Phyllis Vance — Dave's girlfriend.' Michelle was deeply shocked. She had no idea that Phyllis, or any Phyllis-type person, existed. Social acuity had never been Michelle Brodie's thing: she had lived her adult life with her gaze at an upward angle; behind and below her lay Cath, Ron, Dave and what she now perceived as the inner-city slum of her marriage, cobbled alleys full of barefoot kids with rickets, fat boilers like Phyllis hanging out laundry to soil in the smutty air.

Phyllis was not remotely intimidated by Beech House or its mistress. She knew women like Michelle only too well — had she desired it, she might have gone that way herself. Every day in Choufleur she stuffed them full of macerated okra and aubergine. From her steamy kitchen she could hear their clipped tongues snipping at their lettuce as they commiserated with one another about their enslavement to Dr Atkins. The only mystery, so far as Phyllis was concerned, was what conceivable reason — save for sheer, mucky moral turpitude — Michelle could have had for being with Dave Rudman. They had the house to themselves — the sunlit drawing room jaggy with taupe swags and eau-de-Nil ruches. To Phyllis's surprise Michelle told her it all. When the penitent is ready the confessor appears, and Phyllis, in her denim surplice, with her unthreatening mass and risible make-up, made Michelle feel very safely superior. She began by conceding that: 'The letter I wrote to Dave, well, it wasn't … it wasn't about anything much but me really. I couldn't — I didn't…' Then 'snip-snip', she managed to cut away at the sack of lies and out spilled the seedy truth: she had been weak, she had been vain, she had been self-deceiving to begin with — but then a far greater deceiver. 'By the time I could admit to myself the truth that Carl wasn't Dave's at all, well…' The arms race was on, the hateful escalation of elbow-dig and low blow. Now Phyllis understood not only how far down her lover had been — but the extent to which he'd raised himself up. 'He's changed, love,' she explained to Michelle, 'believe me, he has.'

They had a light, bitter lunch of cottage cheese and chicory leaves in the kitchen, and Michelle opened a bottle of Chablis. The view of the tilting garden with its heavy decking levered up incredible news. 'He wrote a book? I can't believe it.' Believe she must, for, as Phyllis explained, despite all the madness surrounding its composition, this was still a true expression of Dave's love for Carl — a love he still felt. 'That's what that idiot was doing in your garden,' said Phyllis, waving a bit of Ryvita. 'He thought he oughta dig it up, get rid of it. He's worried it's gonna be found. Not now — maybe not for ages, but when it is it'll screw Carl up. Apparently' — she shook her head in amazement — 'it's full of the craziest shit.'