The Book of Dave (33 page)

An apple-cheeked Mormon youth came over to where Dave and Gladys stood and offered them each a plate of white bread chunks
and a tiny beaker of water. If this was the Saints' sacrament, their Saviour's body was bland, his blood tasteless. When the
double doors to the church eventually swung open and the latecomers were admitted, they found seats among frumpy Mormon families.
The men's suits were a shade too antiquated, the women's dresses three inches too long. The children were very well scrubbed.

From a blond wood lectern, under the exposed engine of organ pipes, a big-framed man with a blond crewcut and the solid, leisurely
hands of an engineer was preaching a sermon on marriage and family values. 'As a man and a woman's spirit are ee-tur-naal,'
he nasalled, 'so may the family's spirit become ee-tur-naal through obedience to the laws and principles.' Tall windows sliced
with vertical louvres illumined the gently smiling Elders. The preacher continued: 'One of the most beautiful of the principles
is marriage "for time and eternity", through this sacred covenant and principle wo-orthy couples may be joined together not
just 'til death but for-evah.' Strange things were happening in the back alleys of Dave Rudman's consciousness. He stared
around at the detoxified Mormons and gulped down his own tarry cud.
No booze, no fags, no
coffee or tea … They look good on it
… He noted that the children were neither sinisterly attentive nor disrespectfully unruly.
They're
listening …
He glanced sideways at Gladys: she was wholly absorbed in the service, her eyes clear, her expression bright – among the Saints
her dowdiness was not out of place.
She has found
something, she's not kidding . .
.

The preacher held up a D of metal. 'This is a caa-raa-bin-eer,' he drawled. 'One of ma hobbies is mountaineering and I use
these little things all the time to attach ma-self to a rope. Through the power of the priesthood, families can be linked
and then sealed. The only people who can unlock them are you and me. If we don't honour our co-mitt-ments, we unlock them;
if we don't take our troubles to our bishop, we unlock them; if we don't tithe or attend church meetings, we unlock them.'
He cast the metal metaphor to one side, and it fell on a desk with a 'clack'. 'Observe family prayer,' said the devout mountaineer,
'observe a family home evening and family scripture study and our links will remain sealed.'

They sang a hymn without organ accompaniment, and the women kept time by raising their forearms up and down …
yanking
slot machines.
Dave thought back to the one or two church services he'd attended with his father. Paul Rudman had dragged his three children
along to suburban churches with sparse congregations out of a perverse need to acquaint them with a faith that he lacked but
had been born into.
Blokes in white dresses sortuv singing … and
wandering about. .
. Stifling boredom, fidgeting so intense that, aged nine, Dave had thought his entire hand would disappear up his nose. On
the rare occasions Benny had taken him to shul it had been different yet the same.
A beardie-weirdo in black robes banging
on in Hebrew,
while the Jewish men discussed the price of fish. He wasn't as bored – but the religion was a pointless drone, faith muzak.

The preacher introduced the missionaries, neatly pressed young men and women who smiled and bobbed. 'These are but a few of
the 60,000 of our brothers and sisters who are carrying the good news of Joseph Smith's revelation . .
.' Joseph Smith, that's the geezer
who found the book. Except it wasn't a book, was it .
. . Dave clawed in his memory.
No, it was golden tablets and he dug 'em up. Great stack
of metal fucking tablets that he copied out before this angel took 'em back.
'Coz it stands to reason that no one but Smithy ever clapped eyes on the
things. What a load of cobblers
–
still, you gotta give this lot credit for
being getters
…

They wouldn't get Dave Rudman, though. After the service and the announcements the congregation split into groups for scriptural
study. Dave had had enough. He arranged to pick Gladys up in an hour and drove down to South Kensington. He left the cab on
a rank and went into Dino's. Here he ate a pizza and drank a Coke.
Religion … any fucking religion whatever … it ain't for me .
. .

9

The Lawyer of Chil

Kipper 523-4 AD

The first two beasts were slung about their thick necks with changingbags, moto oil tanks and evian skins. As they shook the
water from their bristly coats, these banged and batted their jonckheeres. The second pair of motos were yet more encumbered,
for clinging to their folds with white hands were drenched scraps of humanity, the fugitives, the flyers. Antonë Böm and his
pupil Carl Dévúsh. They slithered off and dropped to the ground. The northeast wind honed its knife edge on their exposed
flesh. The thick coat of moto oil they'd both slathered on before setting off from Ham had preserved them from the worst of
the cold – without it they would have been dead. The northern sound was far colder than the placid waters of the lagoon, and
half a tariff in the heaving, open water had frozen them to the marrow. Man and lad were too stunned by their passage to speak,
and it was the motos who, gathering round, licked them with their leathery tongues and so roused them to self-preservation.
G-g-get yer kit orf, Carl urged Antonë, get í orf!

Peeled, one was a whittled sapling, the other a warty puffball – their genitals were as small as motos'. Bloke and boy slapped
at one another with open hands, bringing blood to the surface of their skin in pinkish blooms. Then they lay down on a flat
crete slab and were bracketed by Sweetë and Hunnë. The floppy dugs and sagging tanks of the motos enfolded the two humans
and the heat surged from them.

When they were dry Carl and Böm draped themselves in cloakyfings pulled from their bundles and thankfully still dry. Antonë
got out his lighter, and with kindling gathered from the underbrush beyond the outcropping Carl started a fire between the
rocks. They spread out their jeans and carcoats to steam in its heat. Arncha wurryd baht vat Ió seein ve smoke? Carl asked.
No, his mentor replied, you know as well as I that it will take the dads a long time before they decide on any course of action,
and with the Driver injured they will not have his direction to rely on.

While pursuit exercised Carl, the Beastlyman bothered him still more. Antonë had a bottle of jack and some fags – Carl was
amazed to see such luxuries, yet even while swigging and puffing, he cast fearful eyes towards the teetering piles of brick
and twisted limbs of irony, expecting the Beastlyman's head to pop up, his mouth gaping, his stump of tongue waggling, uttering
his dreadful gargling cries. But there was no sound save for the plash of the waves and no movement except the gulls skimming
by and surveying the intruders with their yellow eyes.

The motos were quite unmoved by their transition beyond Ham. Comfy in their cosy child-worlds, they had little recollection
of the traumatic past and no thought for the hazardous future. When Carl was convinced that the Beastlyman was absent, he
told them they might forage what they pleased. They picked their way between the rocks into the undergrowth, where they browsed
spiky chrissy-leaf and waxy rhodies. Nerved up by fags, warmed by the booze, Carl told Antonë of his anxieties. How might
they go on from here? Where would they go – and, more importantly, who would they be? Ignorant that he was, even Carl knew
that no gafferless dad might travel at liberty in Ing.

Böm had, it transpired, given all these matters considerable thought:

– We must march by night, avoiding all human habitation – for the motos would terrify and amaze any Chilmen we met, and they
would alert the Lawyer's chaps. We must disguise ourselves – I shall be a stalker, returning from the southern isles where
I've been bringing the Wheel to ignorant folk. You will be my butterboy, on your way to London to make your final appearances.
See here – he pulled the appropriate robes, mirrors and trainers from his changingbag – I've got the right clobber.

Carl fingered the garments reluctantly – the soft, cotton pile felt alien after Ham bubbery. The mirror he let fall to the
ground with a shudder. Eye – Eye doan fink –

Carl, Carl! Böm said, grasping his hand, we must do this chellish thing, we must! Otherwise we have no hope of travelling
unmolested – this is a far harsher climate than that of Ham! Your mummy and granny risked their all by sewing us this stuff –
when we reach the mainland of Chil, we must wear it. And Carl, from now on we speak in Arpee only, even between ourselves.
In this way our imposture may – Dave grant us – become more natural.

Antonë showed Carl the A2Z and the traficmaster he'd managed to get hold of. I have determined on this route, he said, however,
there are two further stretches of open water before we reach the main island of Chil. Once we're across them, perilous as
they are, the real dangers begin. They sat, contemplating the way ahead while staring across the sound at Ham. Dave powered
up his demister – 1, 2, 3 – and the clouds swept up into a screen that tinted first grey, then mauve, then violet, before
night fell like a black cloth cast over the world. They kept the fire banked up against the cold night air and coaxed the
motos to lie so that their bodies would block the clefts in the surrounding rocks. They chewed on curried moto meat washed
down with jack and evian. Eventually, exhausted as much by foreboding as by the crossing, Carl and Antonë fell into an uneasy
slumber.

Carl woke at first tariff – the foglamp was coming on in a banded screen. Long shadows striped the rubble, and the ubiquitous
gulls were perched on bricks, crete – even the sleeping motos. Carl sat up and the rime on his duvet crackled. The noise startled
the Beastlyman, whose hairy head hung above the rocks. He gargled, Graaarghlraarr. Carl shot upright. Tonë! he cried, iss
im! Böm roused at once, and together they confronted the grim apparition. The Beastlyman was still wilder than Carl remembered,
the greasy hanks of his hair strung with shells and bones, his cloakyfing a rag, his emaciated body covered in welts and bruises.
W-ware2 guv, Carl said hesitantly. The Beastlyman gargled again – Hurrarghrerh – then swarmed over the rocks and fell on Sweetë's
neck. His hands went to her neck folds, and his battered, weathered face butted the moto's pink muzzle. Instinctively, Carl
started up and pulled the skinny wretch off the moped. The Beastlyman grovelled before the lad, a stick of arm thrown across
his fanatic eyes. Gedderwä U! Carl cried. Gedderwä U, Beestlimun! The starveling scuttled into the bushes. When the commotion
of the seafowl had died down, Sweetë could be heard lisping, Eeth nó beethlimun – eeth nithemun.

They packed up their changingbags, filled a moto bladder with fresh evian and, loading the motos, made ready to leave Nimar.
As they were on the point of moving off, the Beastlyman came back and tried to gain their attention by darting at them, then
away towards a mound of rubble that Carl realized was his gaff. The fugitives ignored him until eventually the Beastlyman
came right up to Carl, grabbing his arm he tried to pull him in the direction of his hovel. I wouldn't go with him, Antonë
said, you don't know what he might have in there.

Carl, beset by curiosity, was on the verge of ignoring this injunction, when the Beastlyman let go of his arm and darted across
to where Antonë stood, inscribing phonics. The Beastlyman tried to grab both notebook and biro. That's enough! Böm cried,
pushing him away. We must go, Carl, now. We must go in good order, and you must speak Arpee. If we don't go now we are doomed!
With that he slapped Hunnë's withers and the moto started, then clambered over the rocks. Sighing heavily, Carl hearkened
to this manifest good sense. He slung the changingbags around Tyga's neck, grabbed his neck folds and followed on behind.
So it was that the journey to London began, in haste and in sadness: the Beastlyman left lying at Nimar, gulls lunging down
to peck at him, his black mouth open, his red nubbin of tongue struggling to form the most significant words.

The underbrush of Barn was far thicker than the most impenetrable portions of the Perg and Norfend. The fugitives found themselves
driven back by dense pricklebush, whippystalk and rhodies. They heard rats scuttling away at their approach, and the gulls
followed them from Nimar, harrying the motos. To cut a trail was impossible without sharp tools, which they lacked. The motos,
especially Sweetë and Hunnë, could be coaxed into taking the lead, but after a few hundred paces their muzzles were scratched
and bleeding. So the party kept to the shoreline, blundering westwards on narrow beaches of stony rubble. When these disappeared,
they were forced to take to the water, the humans once more astride the motos' broad backs.

They were fortunate with the weather – the day was cold but clear. They could see back to Ham, and after a tariff both Böm
and Carl accepted – with considerable relief – that there would be no pursuit. The Hamstermen might well have set out by pedalo
to accost the fugitives at Nimar; however, they feared the hinterland of Barn and would not venture much beyond the fowling
grounds.

Carl, in himself, was torn between the fear of this unknown place and wonderment. Alien species of tree and shrub jostled
the shoreline. The dwarfish smoothbarks, silverbarks and crinkleleafs, familiar from Ham, were interspersed with larger trees
with deeply grooved, ash-grey trunks and others that were like glossier, greener versions of the pines at Wallotop. There
were also flitting birds Carl had never seen before, smaller than crows or flying rats, less garish than ringnecks. They were
brown, mottled, red-breasted – their piping and trilling filled the screen. He pressed Antonë to identify these exotics, but
the Londoner was unequal to the task.

The coastline described a curve away from Nimar, so that, looking back after a few clicks, Carl was presented with a great
sweep of a scene: the wild main they were traversing and, in the distance, beyond more open water, the hills of Chil itself,
where swathes of woodland glinted under the foglamp. In the last couple of tariffs he had walked, splashed and ridden several
times the length of his homeland, yet Carl seemed not to have moved at all. Truly, he thought, the world was a vast place.

The following morning they crossed from Barn to an islet midway in the seething channel. It was a rough passage: the wind
was up, and the motos were tossed about by the waves. This time the humans had stripped, applied a coat of moto oil, dressed,
then slathered on a second coat. They arrived less discommoded than their mounts. Without their regular mud wallows, the motos'
skin dried out and cracked, while the curry-water immersions accelerated this process. Hunnë in particular was beginning to
suffer. Scratches on her muzzle were infected and ran with gleet, her hand and feet flanges were ragged and bleeding. She
was off her forage. Hunnë was the shyest of all four, needing constant cuddles and reassurance. Carl wept for her, and wept
also for himself, for three days out from Ham it was Changeover day.

Antonë, observing how well the motos swam and the small flaps of flesh that stoppered their nostrils, while a transparent
membrane protected their deep-set eyes, was driven, as ever, to speculate: Could it be, he mused as Carl tended to Hunnë,
that Dave in his infinite wisdom meant for these beasts to undergo such inundations? Might they be antediluvian creatures,
survivals from before the MadeinChina? They rested for a single night on the islet, and were sorely tried by the rats that
infested the place. The three stronger motos were able to catch considerable numbers, while these meaty chips were refused
by Hunnë. The following day at foglamp on, the convoy carved a passage through the dancing green swell to Chil.

Here they abandoned their Ham cloakyfings, T-shirts and jeans, and donned the robes and trainers. Böm showed Carl how to fasten
them, and strap the mirror arm to his brow, so the lad might see behind at a glance. From now on, he said, we talk only in
Arpee, we call over the points and the runs, we speak often and always of Dave, we revile all mummies. Do this now, and if
we meet with Chilmen we will not be surprised.

With a knife Böm hacked off his beard – and to Carl his pitted, bleeding face was alien, disturbing even. No Driver on this
estate wears a beard, Böm explained. He spread out the A2Z on the flat bole of a felled smoothbark. This is our route – he
tapped the oiled parchment – we're to the northeast of Wyc, between the manors of Hemel and Ban, only a few clicks – by my
reckoning – from the start of the Emwun, the great trading route. We can walk this track by night, then lay up in the woods
by day. When we get here, to the northern coast, we will have to get a berth on a ferry over to Cot, for it will be too far
to swim the motos. I have dosh – enough both to pay for our passage and discourage any questioning.

Carl understood by this that Antonë did not expect the motos to leave Chil with them. In his mummyless funk he fell on poor
Hunnë's bristly neck. Lad and moto wept copiously. Enough! Böm cried. It's foglight, this isn't the settled part of Chil,
yet this woodland is not empty, there are barbecuers, huntsmen and stray settlements. We must be careful, lay up in the day,
hide the motos, then go on when it's dark.

The first three nights went according to plan. The weather had closed in, and the screenwash was insistent. Although they
had no headlight or dashboard to guide them, the Emwun was embanked and paved with pulverized crete that gleamed even in the
blackout. Böm took the lead, scoping for bother, then came the motos, and lastly Carl, who followed up right didgy, slapping
slack withers to get the motos on. Long before lampon they herded the motos off the track and sunk them in the undergrowth.
Then they ate some of their declining stocks of takeaway and took a swig of evian before turning in for the wan day's troubled
sleep. There was no question of lighting a fire.