The Book of Dave (14 page)

Michelle Brodie had always been a fashion victor, triumphing over each season's army of styles, colours and cloths with her
own inimitable Look. Aged sixteen, trolling through Crystal Palace on her way to her Saturday job, she'd been spotted by Ben
Bendicks, a photographer so famous that even Michelle had heard of him. He came at her out of the shiny fourth dimension that
was folded into
Vogue
and
Harpers.
They were deep in Sarf London, deep and high up – to the south lay the North Downs, a bright, green streak on the horizon.
All this airy calm was annihilated by the Yank car flung against the kerb, the man in the iridescent silk shirt and wraparound
shades shouting, 'You've got it girl! You've got the Look!' She was wearing a midi-length black skirt and a white blouse.
Some Look.
Still, Bendicks conjured up her exhibitionism with his own. A spread-legged year followed – not that he ever laid a hand
on her – as Michelle posed in front of paper flats, morphing to the rat-a-tat-tat of his shutter. The freckles on her face and
hands were airbrushed out, and she learned to think of nothing so as to achieve the allure of a Zen garden. Bendicks got her
on hoardings as the Face of Fermata –
the
designer label of that year.

To begin with Michelle kept the modelling a secret, convinced her mother would freak out. When, inevitably, Cath did find
out, she egged her on – the money was so good for them, after always having to scrimp towards bare adequacy. Michelle liked
to think that it was she who'd drawn back. Much later she would say, 'It was crap, like going out with a big latex head jammed
on my own.' She disavowed such caricatured regard. The truth was less heroic: Bendicks had used her up. She wasn't that photogenic
anyway – she'd had her year, 1979, and her look was fossilized within it, crushed in a layer of fashionable sediment. So she
retrieved her freckles and went to College. She dressed down and got her HND in Business Studies. She had boyfriends who were
musicians; their greasy hair stained the tummy of her old teddy bear, brought from home to cosify a shared flat on the Wandsworth
Road. The recognition factor faded until it was merely a subliminal thing that made every tenth person who passed her by in
the street – and every third who met her face to face – feel certain they'd encountered her before. It was a villagey regard,
quite tolerable. Michelle depended on the approbation of her good looks more than she could ever admit – that they weren't
quite good enough gnawed at her.

Michelle put on a tan suede dress, calf-length, silk-lined, low on the back, high on the breast. She slung on a cream linen
jacket and slipped into high-heeled sandals. She put a tiny diamond stud in each ear lobe and, after having turned back the
cuffs, a chunky ethnic bracelet on each wrist
… the salesgirl said they were from
Malawi, I say Malaysia.
On the radio a middle-aged smoothie was braking drivetime with his soft-shoe voice. The Flying Eye was summoned up, banking
high over the North Circular: 'Lorry lost its load at the Welsh Harp' – an atmospheric crackle – 'tailbacks all the way back
to Staples Corner …' Michelle snatched up her bag and rasped the door to. Glancing at her watch, she saw it was
Seven
fifteen! I can still make it.

'Well, y'know how it is, guv, 'oddle is a born-again, so 'e's only followin' 'is inner voice.'

'Yeah, right!' the fare snorted. 'Just like Ian Rush. God said, "Pick up three mil' to go to Juventus" and Rushy replied,
"Hallelujah!"' The fare waggled outstretched fingers like a nigger minstrel.

Dave was on a run, leapfrogging from fare to fare, using their pinstriped backs to propel himself across town. The bliss of
driving when the only goal was money – and money was everywhere – was still with him a year into the job. Besides, he'd long
since learned that just as he had to throw away his Hs, so he had to gather up the beautiful game. Dave didn't give a shit
about football any more, but his mates demanded football talk, the fares demanded it, the world – itself just a bladder in
space – demanded it. Dave thought the fare was
a racist cunt,
but his appearances before the PCO had taught him
not to rise to anything. Don't rise to it. The
Examiner tells you to leave the minute you've got your bum on the seat
do what he says. If he tells you you're not fit to be examined 'coz you've
got a cold, say, 'Yes, sir' and leave. Never argue. Always talk football.
He'd enjoyed the appearances – and done well. The Knowledge was vast – yet circumscribed. The Examiners drove to the heart
of it: they asked you for a run and its points. If you got them right, the number of days before your next appearance was
halved – if not you were knocked back. Dave had two fifty-sixes, six twenty-eights, four fourteens. Then he took his driving
test, and got his precious badge.

Michelle felt a trickle of desire descend her inner thigh as the lift urged them up. The bell tinged for the eleventh floor,
and he dragged her out. The carpet shushed their feet as they staggered, pawing at each other, past a maid unloading haircare
from a steel cart. The key fob clattered against the door as he fiddled for the lock, then they fell into its cigar-stunk
interior. A corridor led them down to a harsh light box. The drapes had been pulled open and the sun setting over the jungly
canopy of Hyde Park shone directly in on a scene of animal debauchery.
Dogs and ducks have been fighting
in here
was Michelle's first thought, for there were bloody claw marks on the white sheet, and a pillow had been slashed open . .
.
fighting over chocolate …
because there were hundreds of tinfoil scraps strewn on the carpet …
to the death,
because there was an evil atmosphere in the room – not only cigars had been extinguished in here but hope as well.

'Guy's a druggie,' he said. 'I didn't think it'd be this bad, though, sorry.' He slumped against a stark armoire, on top of
which empty spirits miniatures played chess.

'It's OK, don't worry, it doesn't bother me.' To show how little it bothered her she took his hand and used it to pull up
the back of her suede dress. He peered through the red mist of her hair at the rear view of her in an opposing full-length
mirror. 'Come on.' Michelle's tongue licked the pulse in his neck. 'Come on …' Her hand, groping at his hip, felt a wad
of stuff and he recoiled, his hand going to his pocket to half withdraw a rolled-up nappy. 'Jesus,' he softly exclaimed, 'oh,
Jesus … I … I …' He shrank away from her. 'I can't, Michelle.'

'Whaddya mean?'
You know what he means, you stupid cow.

'I can't.' His shaky hands had lost their magic, while the nappy poking from his pocket was the ear of a rabbit conjured up
by conscience. For three seconds Michelle teetered between self-righteousness and self-pity, before falling to the right,
into the briny.

'It'll do.' The fare had become all business again …
Obviously
I wasn't quite chummy enough for him.

'Seven-eighty, guv.' The fare handed over a tenner, and there was a moment during which Dave's long face looked at him, a
graven image before which it was customary to lay quantifiable offerings. Then at last: 'Keep the change, cabbie.'

Michelle hadn't even noticed the doormen on her way in, borne as she was on hot draughts of desire. Now that she was clammy
and unpleasantly weak at the knees they loomed in the plate glass, stripping her of her Hilton get-up, exposing the naked
girl from Streatham. One of them was going to
click his fingers, say, 'Weren't
you the girl in that ad'
or worse
'What you been up to, girl, no slappers
allowed in 'ere, I'm gonna call the old Bill. Steve, grab this one!'
Instead the doorman only opened the door with a white-gloved hand and said, 'Do you require a cab, miss?'

Dave had been scanning the
Standard
on the rank outside the Hilton for about five minutes before the waver-upper in the gold-frogged frockcoat did his bit.
What'll it be, some Yank div wanting a
diesel trot along Rotten Row?
But it was a young woman perhaps a year or two younger than himself, a beautiful young woman
if you
like the freckled Irish type and I can't say I do.
She wore a tan suede dress, tight at the breast, flared from the thigh. She carried a linen jacket slung over one arm and
a handbag that matched the dress. Her flaming hair crackled on her bare shoulders.
She isn't wearing a
bra.
The waver-upper had the door of the cab open, and she shoved herself inside. Dave took in her pale face, her vacant eyes,
her bit-upon lip.
She's 'ad a blow.
When he asked her, 'Where to?' she didn't reply for several seconds, and he had to say it again and louder. 'Where to, luv?'

'Soho,' she replied, sounding desperate. Dave fingered the meter and drove – which was what he did best.