The Book of Dave (34 page)

On the third morning, as they ate their meagre repast, Böm held up the evian skin and shook it. You hear that, Carl? he said.
We're running out. There's no evian right on the Emwun; we'll have to scout around today and see if we can find some. We'll
take it in turns. You lay up with the motos and I'll look up north, then we'll swop over and you do west of the Emwun. If
we keep on like this, staying dead quiet and going bloody carefully, we should find a bit of wet.

Antonë was gone for ten or so units, then returned empty-handed, so Carl set off. It was the first time he had been into the
Chil woods. Once he left the track behind, Carl found that this huge expanse of trees consisted almost entirely of smoothbarks –
rank upon rank of them, neither coppiced nor pollarded. There was no underbrush, and the stately, columnar trunks marched
away from him, up slope and down slough, their roots sunk in damp leaf fall. Carl stared down Avenues half the length of Ham
and, desperate lest he lose his way, he circumvented trees in his path, knocking off wet shrooms that smeared his robe with
white pap.

After a while Carl found himself in a glade, in the middle of which was a bog – there was no clear evian but the deep choccy-blue
sludge would be perfect for moto wallowing. Suddenly there was a movement by a dead brack stand, and Carl realized there had
been a creature there all along. He twitched and off it sprang, showing a white scut as it crashed through the leaf fall.
Carl ran all the way back to where Antonë stood nervously scanning. What's up! he said, and Carl told him about the beast.
Munchjack, Böm sighed, bloody good eating, although not for us. This makes it certain – this is the Lawyer's forest. If his
chaps found us here, we'd most likely be killed.

Carl told him about the wallow, and even though Böm was worried, he let Carl take the motos to it, one at a time, so they
could moisturize. The last one to go was Sweetë, who was always so calm and trusting. Carl led her into the glade and sank
her in the wallow, where she shlupped. He took up position, his back against a tree, and lost himself in the blue screen seen
through a puzzle of twigs and boughs. A fat bird exploded from a branch and whirred away, little shitballs bombing from its
behind. Carl shot up to see Sweetë's baby-blue eyes staring at the irony tip of a drawn arrow. This creature wasn't a munchjack
but a lad the same age as Carl. He was done up in a richly embroidered carcoat, and sported a cockpiece, high-topped trainers
and a baseball cap. The lad's long barnet reached to his shoulders in luxuriant curls. Carl had never seen this sort of gear
before – only heard of it. He'd never seen a bow and arrow either, but knew this was what the lad had aimed straight at the
moto. The lad was so afeared he didn't even notice Carl, so terrified that when the wallowing moto lisped, Alwi, mayt? he
turned tail, dropped his weapon and ran screaming through the wood.

It was not long before Carl heard the blare of horns, the thud of hooves and the sound of many blokes shouting. He cried to
Sweetë: Geddahn, baybs! Geddahn in ve wallö, rì dahn so az onlë yer ootah iss up fer breevin! Then he shinnied up a tree sharpish.
No sooner was he concealed than the clearing was full of dads on jeejees, lads on foot and dogs yapping in a furry muscle
tussle. The hunt spread out round the wallow, the dads with railings drawn, the lads with arrows strung, the dogs snuffling.
The whole posse scoped out the dank water. Carl, horrified, watched as one lazy bubble grew, then popped. Despite his ghastly
predicament he was entranced by the hunt. The dads wore bright scarlet leather carcoats and black leather jeans. Their raiment
and their jeejees were hung with all manner of irony devices, while most had a dead munchjack slung across their saddles.
Their barnets were oiled and teased, they were clean-shaven and had motorage eyes. The lads were puffed out, their shorts
muddy, their cockpieces skewed, their breath smoky in the slant, second-tariff foglight. They leaned heavily on their long
bows.

As for the jeejees and the dogs – never had Carl conceived that these toyist beasts would have such terrible beauty. With
every jerk of the jeejees' foam-flecked muzzles he fancied they must break the spell that held them in thrall to the huntsmen,
rear up, pitch the dads to the ground and gallop away. Carl thought the dogs must also be enchanted, for, despite their sharp
teeth, savage eyes and slathering jaws, they ran hither and thither avoiding the most obvious prey – slow-witted lads who,
armed or not, would be no match for the pack of them.

– Where's this monster, then, Fred? said the biggest dad on the tallest jeejee.

Fred, the lad, was scrabbling round looking for his abandoned bow and arrow. He straightened up at once and bowed down low.

– Mì Lawd, he said, Eye sore í rì ear, í woz gross, lyke a big baybee joynd wiv a bäcön. An í spoak 2 me. Eye swear í, í sed
orlrì, mayt.

The Lawyer thought for a while, then he addressed the whole company:

– Yeah, it's a moto alright, the vile and toyist monster. I don't know how it's got off Ham, but we must find it and dispatch
it.

The dogs were now snuffling in a furious agitation at the boggy edge of the wallow. Then the pack sang out, Ow-wow-wow-wow!
and fused into a single undulation of fur and muscle. They've gotta scent of it, shouted one of the dads, and the whole posse
grabbed their reins and wheeled their jeejees to follow the dogs. Horns blared, the dads cried, Nyaaair! Nyaaair! And, as
quickly as they had arrived, the whole gaily caparisoned hunt streamed out of the clearing and back towards the Emwun.

Another shiny black bubble grew on the dark mirror of the wallow. It was Sweetë – still breathing, still alive. The wind rose,
and leaves skittered on the forest floor. Strung from the branch in front of Carl's face a spider's web glistened with jewels
of moisture.

Carl waited until the foglamp was dipping before he climbed down from the tree, and every time Sweetë stirred in the wallow
he snapped at her to stay sunk. Finally, they headed back towards the Emwun, the boy with his hand buried deep in the moto's
chilled folds, hoping by this stimulus to comfort and warm her. Carl expected the worst – and that was what Dave set before
them. The bushes were torn up and trampled down, blood was sprayed on leaf and bough. Champ's guts were spilled out on the
ground, and there was a trail of more blood and offal along the track. Eye wan mì mummy, Carl keened over the gelid mess.
Sweetë shed heavy tears on Champ's lifeless eyes, she nuzzled his slack withers, then nonchalantly – yet reverently – began
to lap at the cavity the Lawyer of Chil's chaps had hacked with their railings.

Böm emerged from the hollow smoothbark where he'd taken refuge and gave his pupil a hug.

– Yaw alyv! Carl exclaimed.

– Indeed, Böm said grimly. Still, we won't live much longer unless we get going. He jerked a thumb at the dead moto. They've
taken Hunnë's carcass with them – they had ropes. I reckon they'll tow her to Luton; the Lawyer has a travelodge there. No
doubt they'll return for Champ at foglamp on, so say your goodbyes.

– Wot abaht Tyga?

– I dunno, Böm said, shaking his head, he got away in the mêlée, probably not far, though. We'd best assume that he's dead
– these hunting dogs will have sniffed him out.

–
So vat woz ve Loyah uv Chil, woz í?

– Quite so. Böm pursed his plump lips. I would know him anywhere. He is a boorish, grasping fellow – as was his dad before
him. Truly, Ham has been protected from his grievous depredations by the good offices of Mister Greaves.

They siphoned Champ for his oil as best they could and tore flesh strips from his flanks and buttocks. Antonë had found a
stream heading northwest, so, with Sweetë hung about with evian skins and oil tanks, they splashed off along it. They kept
going throughout that night and for the first tariff of the next day. Eventually, confident that the Lawyer of Chil's dogs
had lost the scent, they rested for a tariff before leaving the stream and heading into the woodland. A dipped headlight switched
on in a demisted screen, filtering some radiance down on to the forest floor. Despite this, it was awkward progress for the
reduced party. The well-spaced smoothbarks ceded to scrubby crinkleleafs, and even urging Sweetë on all they could manage
was a crawl. Carl did his best not to show his distress, but the dead motos preyed on him. Vay diddun eevun gé 2 go 2 Dave,
he said to his companion. Böm snapped: Arpee, Carl! Arpee! Then slogged on, head down. Piqued, Carl turned sarcastic eyes
on his retreating back. Böm was, he thought, a lyttul bloke lost inna grate forest.

On the third day after their fateful encounter with the Lawyer of Chil's hunt, the travellers came upon a descending slope
of dead brack. So happy were they to be on clearer ground that they didn't even notice the thinning woodland, until emerging
on to open ground. It was a bare field, the wet clods freshly broken, and in the middle of it were the team of Chilmen who'd
done the breaking, gathered by a ropey old nag harnessed to a harrow of irony spikes. There were five of these dads, and,
although they appeared pretty knackered, they closed on Carl and Antonë with alacrity. Wot ve fukk! said one, goggling at
Sweetë. One of the others had been on Ham many years before and recognized the moto. This dad took charge: U Ió, tayk vese
2 dahn ve manna sharpish. Eyel dryv ve moto. He grabbed Sweetë's neck folds, and she snuffled: Pleethe, pleethe.

Through sombre, sodden kipper fields the party trod, gathering in their train a mess of dogs and sprogs. They passed a landfill
where gulls and crows mobbed over a stinking midden. Although Carl had seen the sick fares of Chil come every year to Ham,
he was shocked to find that these dads were quite as windy. Their threads were in filthy tatters, their limbs were scraggy,
their tanks swollen. Lots of the kids had Dfishunt legs and many of the dads weepy goitres. Antonë walked by Carl's side and
whispered instruction: Leave the chitchat to me. Then he could not forbear from a little pedagogy: See there, those birds
grubbing in the dirt, that's pieces and those are roastducks, and over there, through the silverbark screen, that's their
manor.

They passed by a small enclosure. In it, on bare and pocked earth, was a creature the size of a small moped with a conical
snout and tiny eyes. Carl recoiled from this as they passed by, while Antonë muttered: That's a bäcön. Sweetë poked her head
over the palings and addressed it, lisping: Alwi, mayt? And Böm could not forbear from laughing, for the toyist bäcön only
snuffled.

The Chilmen's manor, although far bigger than Ham's, was laid out on the same plan, with two rows of semis set on each side
of a stream. Instead of a travelodge at the top end, there was a larger, two-storey semi, and behind that a low, green Shelter
nicely knocked up from fine 2by4s. There were ten dads' semis and ten mummies', all of them built in the bëthan style from
heavy 2 by 4s painted black and rough plaster daubed white. There were diamond-paned windows of real glass and wooden doors.
Manifestly this had at one time been a prosperous manor, but now the fences of the front yards were broken and the windows
shattered. As the party moved up the dads' side of the stream, they came out with their opares to gawp at the moto and prod
its bloody withers. Pleethe, lisped Sweetë, pleethe doan.

The Guvnor was waiting for them outside the big semi. His carcoat was flung open, revealing a bare chest heavily tattooed
with wheels and phonics. He sported a baseball cap and a heavy gold earring, and his pouchy face was covered in grey stubble.
Despite his cocky manner, he had the look of a dad from whom fat and muscle had melted away. His eyes were famished and dull,
his hands shook. With him was a Driver, a timorous little man, his chubbynut head lost in the folds of his black robe. It
was he who spoke first, in prissy and correct Arpee:

– Well, well, a moto, if I'm not mistaken. Presumably this is the one missing from the rank that our Lawyer raised on the
Emwun south four days since. We will need to send to Hemel for some chaps so that these – he cast a sceptical eye over Antonë's
and Carl's torn and filthy robes – ah, stalkers and their moto can be taken into custody.

The Guvnor took a different view:

– Eye doan giv a toss abaht ve Loyah fer nah, he said. Iss a pizzaDlivree from Dave sofaraz Eyem concerned. U 2 – he stabbed
his thumb at Böm and Carl – can slorta viss monsta an ven render í dahn. Mì dad ear sez iss gúd eton, an we aynt ad no oil
ear in yonks. Ven weel and djoo ovah 2 ve foritees. Nah! he spat, tayk vair stuff, vair A2Z, vair trafikmasta, vair grub an
wotevah. Vay aynt goin noware.

That night Carl was banged up in one of the dads' semis, while Antonë was confined to the Shelter. A few opares fed the kids
and put them to bed. The kids were very aggro – spitting, cursing and even shrieking. However, the dads didn't pay them any
mind: they had Böm's supply of jack and fags, and were fuddled on the floor. The next day was Changeover at Risbro – which
was the manor's name – so Carl was moved over to the mummies' semis. Any joy to be had from this arrangement was short lived.
There was no mushy cuddlespeak or mummyish petting for Carl. These were strange bints – all raggy and skinny. They took him
in and used him roughly, pushing up their cloakyfings and sticking his face on their tits in a gross manner. We doan av no
luvvin an we aynt gó Enuff lyttuluns uv R oan 2 luv, they told him. So weel mayk dú wiv U.

It was true – there were very few kids for a manor of Risbro's size. Carl counted thirty-odd mummies in all, but there were
only five opares and a handful of kids. Wunce we bin up ve duff, an old boiler explained to Carl, weer untuchabubble! Untuchabubble!
í doan matta if we av a kiddë aw nó – untuchabubble! Chellish! R dads R ve wurs inawl uv Ing.

At night they made him go from one of the mummies' semis to the next. No sooner was he settled in a box bed than some greasy-skinned
old boiler plumped in beside him, reached under his T-shirt and jollied him up so she could mount on top, slop-slop. Carl
felt nothing save shame after these couplings – his first – but if he tried to wriggle away the entire semi would rise up
against him.