The Book of Dave (50 page)

In the Öl Glöb the floorboards were scattered with booze-sodden rushes, and letrics burned with a guttering flame. Coming
in through the door, Carl paused and sniffed the smoky interior. Moto oil, he muttered, and Antonë said, Yes, yes, you'll
find it in widespread use here.

– Oi U! the boiler behind the bar broke in. U cummin in 4 a drink, aw wot?

The travellers proceeded along the low room and came face to face with the boiler, who had the corpulent babyish features
of an old moto.

– Um … err … I am Tonë Böm, the teacher said, and my companion is –

Eye no, Eye no, Eyev erred awl abaht U. Eyem Missus Edjez, iz Lawdships bloke spoke wiv me, sed Ud B cummin. Cuppuluv blokes
wot need 2 lay low 4 a wyl, keep ahtuv ve mirra.

Troubled by this loose talk, Carl and Antonë cast suspicious looks at the denizens of the boozer – a slovenly company of mummies
in filthy cloakyfings and tracksuits. Their faces were scooped out with want and privation – they coughed and spluttered with
the chancre. There were kids playing on the floor at their feet – one little girl's head was blown up like a bladder with
some foul distemper. Missus Edjez laughed, a great bosom-heaving chuckle that set all her dewlaps a-jiggling. Vem? Vem! U
doan need 2 wurri abaht vem – vare awl abbsolootlë ragarsed! Cummon nah, she continued, Eyel shew U ware yaw kippin, Ule av
no bovva ear at ve Glöb, no sneekë cunts from ve PeeSeeO, no seeseeteevee, nunuvit!

The two travellers followed the garrulous old boiler up a dark winding staircase and along a warped corridor, at the end of
which she showed them into a cramped garret under the eaves of the ancient gaff. Missus Edjez left them, and they set down
their changingbags on a dropsical sofabed. At long last the journey, which had begun four months ago on the distant shore
of Mutt Bä, was over.

The Öl Glöb was a creaking pile of timber beams, bent laths and pitted plaster that rose up – each tilting storey seemingly
wider than the next – above a base of crumbling London brick laid in queerly oblique courses. The gables were as high as the
masts of the
Trophy Room
and intricately carved with cabs, pedalos, dogs and cats. The topsy-turvy wings of the boozer were so angled that through
the diamond-patterned mullions of their garret Carl could see the stock bricks of its massive chimneystack glow gold against
the tinted London screen.

The Öl Glöb stood isolated in the strange wilderness of Stepney Green, among deeply rutted roadways lined with two-storey-high
hoardings upon which had been painted crude murals of the terraces described in the Book. There were also a few points – the
Royal London Hospital, Queen Mary College – likenesses of which had been daubed on to still larger hoardings. The aim of the
PCO's Knowledge Boys had been to anticipate the emergent New London: shiny, three-dimensional, every facade commercially artful.
The hoardings and their murals had, however, been completed in the reign of the first King David, and since that time there
had been little attempt to fill in the Knowledge of this tumbledown part of the East End. Behind the wooden walls there were
expanses of open ground where the ruderals grew both dense and high.

As soon as they were settled in the Öl Glöb and Böm had ensured Carl was provided for, he began to absent himself. He left
the boozer early in the first tariff and did not return until after lampoff. Carl kept to the garret during daddytime, for
if he did venture downstairs Terri, the old potman, had a way of cornering him and putting to him the most disturbing and
intrusive questions: Oo R U? Ware R U from? Y R U ear? Terri was foxy-faced and ginger-haired, his arms twisted and his legs
bent. He leered – yet Missus Edjez dismissed Carl's concerns. Im? U doan wanna wurri abaht im, eez an ol lag, bin broak on
ve Weel.

At Changeover the mummies and kids who hung out in the bars of the ol Glöb departed and in their stead came a rough crowd.
Dads who worked at the docks, cabbies and puddlers from the steelyard by the Tower. They brought their opares with them – loose
girls, little more than common prostitutes, whom the drunken dads openly fondled.

Feeling abandoned and worried, Carl eventually confronted Böm. Why did he go abroad each day? Had he forgotten their revelations
on Ham? For was it not a risky business? What news was there from the Lawyer of Blunt? How long would they have to remain
cooped up here? And what tried the lad most severely – what about Symun Dévúsh, what about their mission to discover the Geezer's
fate? Antonë was both emollient and placatory. He soothed Carl and stroked his hair. Do not worry, I have no position or place
and the city is large. I pay no moto tax nor keep any chav, while this tattered robe insulates me from prying eyes. I have
been about my old haunts, and I have discovered that there are forces for change at work in London. It reminds me of the months
before my exile, when your dad's followers were in the ascendant. This time the revolt against the King and the PCO is an
affair of reason and thought conducted by lawds and even luvvies. It is not for us to impose ourselves on my Lawyer of Blunt
– we can only hope that he will contact us.

That night Carl dreamed of Ham. He wandered the woods and orchards beneath the moto wallows. The soft breeze filled the air
with fluttering blossom, and Runti was resurrected by his side. The moto gently butted Carl's tank with his moist muzzle and
slooshed terms of endearment. In sleep Carl groaned as he stroked and rubbed the bristly flanks of the one he loved.

The Lawyer of Blunt's fony came for them the very next day, not long past first tariff. Having gobbled down his starbuck,
Carl emerged from the boozer to find four pairs of jeejees, their bridles chinking as they bent their heads to crop the meagre
turf. A light mizzle suffused the air, and the jeejees' coats were a sheen of moisture. Still reeling from his homesick reveries,
Carl addressed the lead jeejee tenderly and insinuated his hand where its jonckheeres should have been. The jeejee snapped
at him and Carl recoiled. The big fony and Antonë laughed heartily. It's not a moto, Carl, Böm said, but a mere toyist beast!
Carl took a seat in the limmo, while Böm fetched their changingbags from the garret. As he climbed in, Missus Edjez and Terri,
the weaselly potman, appeared at the back door. The Taffy cabbie cracked his whip, and the limmo jolted out of the yard and
turned to the right, rattling along the Whitechapel Road towards the towers of the City.

Soon, however, the limmo slowed to walking pace and joined the queue of artics lumbering in from the forbidden zones to the
east of the city. These were drawn by large teams of burgerkine, and overloaded with brick, yok and irony for the ever-hungry
developers who laboured by day – and when the headlight was on full beam by night as well – to raise New London. Sorrë, guv!
the Taffy cried out. Vares taylbaks on ve Wessway – aw so vaysay. Traffiks jammedup cleerfroo tahn. Then, seeing a gap in
the traffic heading into Houndsditch, he cracked his whip and the limmo lurched forward again.

Mindful of his instruction Antonë pointed out to Carl the crowds clustered beside the door to the Royal Exchange waiting for
the day's trading to commence. Dosh tossed down in the City, he said, the King's maxed-out credit cards bought and sold in
an unseemly scrabble. He gestured towards a group of dads wearing peculiar blue robes. See them gathered there, the blokes
in the odd robes? The Swizz League. All the land between here and the river is granted to them by the King. They live apart,
eat their own curry, worship in their own Shelter. They have the right to trade free from the moto tax to which the Guilds
are subject – their presence here in London is a sore affront to native daddies. See the screwing out they're getting from
the Inglish getters. I am told that not a day passes without an affray on the floor of the 'change.

As the limmo rattled on along Cheapside, the enormous green walls of St Paul's Shelter rose up before them, towering above
the surrounding gaffs. Antonë could not forbear from pedagogy: My dear Carl, think on this, the tea urn is the biggest in
the entire known world, the gingham curtains took a thousand mummies to sew, the Shelter can hold five thousand daddies at
a time, it was burned down in the reign of the first King David and then rebuilt. The meter on its roof is the largest in
Ing … But Carl wasn't listening: his attention was caught by the press of Drivers who were swarming out from the elaborately
carved doors. Drivers tall and short, thin and fat. All were richly caparisoned, the peaks of their caps embroidered in silver,
their trainers bright white and barred with the colours of their orders. All of them bore the sign of the Wheel worked into
their breasts with gold thread, and all of them were calling over. Their massed recitation broke against the gaff fronts in
wave after wave of dävine incantation, carrying with it the transcendent Knowledge of the once and future city. As the Drivers
moved into the packed streets, they began to move faster and faster until they were almost running. Guided by the pure radiance
of their Faredar, their eyes alighted on guilty opares, backsliding daddies and uppity mummies. In their rearview were craven
fares, frantically making the sign of the Wheel.

The cabbie gave a blast on the horn and the Lawyer of Blunt's limmo parted the throng on the Strand and sped into the courtyard
of Somerset House. Mechanics sprang to the jeejees' bridles. Standing at the top of a wide flight of stairs, waiting to greet
them as they clambered out, was a figure at once outlandish and familiar to Antonë and Carl. She was very tall for a mummy.
Her barnet was a tight and glossy helmet around her pasty white face. Her mouth was a perfect, carmine oval, and her eyes
two black eyeholes. Tinfoil earrings dangled beside the taut tendons of her neck, her black nails were as long as talons,
and when she parted her lips her teeth were blood-stained. Her legs were clad in woolly hose and a wispy shawl was around
her shoulders.

– W-where to, Luv? Carl uneasily saluted her.

– To New London, she replied, then continued, So Carl Dévúsh, you are with us at last, a Hamster in the Wheel. My sister,
the Luvvie Joolee, has sent me lettuce concerning you and your companion – she turned to Böm, who made obeisance. She acknowledged
him then, saying, I am the Luvvie Sarona and you are welcome in Somerset House. Now follow me, for there are mummies and daddies
who fain would meet with you.

– W-why, Carl whispered to Antonë as they followed the Luvvie's clacking heels through halls, along galleries and between the
columns of elegant colonnades, does she wear a mask?

– Mask? Mask? Oh, I see, you mean her slap – this is only such unguents and creams as London luvvies are wont to adorn themselves
with. It is customary – a sign of refinement.

Carl thought it no refinement at all but a ridiculous oddity, making of the mummy a stranger to herself. However, he had not
time to dwell on this, for his surroundings were so marvellous and unexpected that he struggled to take in their bewildering
detail. The archways they passed beneath, the wall panels, the domed ceilings, the very flags of the floor they trod upon
– in short, every surface was adorned with painted scenes drawn from the Book. Carl's eyes, attuned to the subtle shades of
green and brown that dominated his native Ham, ached with the bombardment of lectric blues, intensified indigos, dayglo oranges
and the silvery curlicues that drew the vignettes together into a continuous, dävotional mural. He wanted to touch and prod
the tiny figures and little black cabs. He wished he might clamber into this brilliant London and, together with Dave and
the Lost Boy, escape the chellish PCO. Carl's head began to swim – and he would have fainted had not Luvvie Sarona pushed through
a final set of doors and guided him to a chair, where he gratefully subsided. The floor of the vast chamber that Carl found
himself in appeared to be covered with a woodland canopy, as if screen and ground had been reversed. Here and there on this
dappled expanse were little posses of mummies and daddies. To begin with, so still were they that Carl assumed these figures
weren't living fares but some fresh trickery of the eye. The dads stood with their arms cocked, their hands on their hips,
their chests thrown forward to emphasize the snowy expanse of their T-shirts. Their leather jackets curved into great rigid
tails like the folded wings of birds. Their white jeans were skintight, their cockpieces upraised, their trainers laced to
the knee. The long peaks of their caps were pulled down low and the smoke from their fags boiled there.

The mummies – although far fewer in number – were no less resplendent. Their long legs were sheathed in hose, their skirts
were as short and tight as belts, their decolletage plunged to reveal cunningly contrived chokers and gorgets of Daveworks.
Their faces were uniformly mask-like, and they peered quizzically at the new arrivals through the heart-shaped lenses of their
lorgnettes. A curious stench – at once fruity and spicy – emanated from these mummies and daddies. On the mantel a meter clunked
the units with dreadful finality.

Then, quite suddenly, as if this were a prearranged signal, Luvvie Sarona closed the double doors with a 'clack', and the toffs
sprang to life. They closed in on Antonë and Carl, their fags poking, their earrings jangling, questions firing from their
painted lips. What did they think of London? How had they contrived to get here? Was it true that Carl was the Geezer's son?
And Antonë Böm, a learned queer, how had he withstood exile at the very limit of the King's realm? These motos of which the
Luvvie Joolee had written – did they indeed speak as lisping children? And, most importantly, what of the second Book – the
one the Geezer was reputed to have found on his native island – did they know its whereabouts?

Carl did his best, yet no sooner had he begun to reply to one of his inquisitors than another interposed himself. The gathering
was fast degenerating into a mêlée. The peaks of the daddies' caps jabbed at Carl's face, and he was on the verge of swooning,
when Luvvie Sarona called them all to order. Daddies! Mummies! she cried. These blokes are weary and have travelled far under
the most terrible exactions, there will be, I trust, time aplenty for them to make appearances before you all. For now they
must rest, and in due course it is only proper that this young lad be afforded the opportunity to go about the town and learn
something of our ways. He comes among us in the figure of the Lost Boy! Let us revere him – for my sister tells me that he
also bears more of the Geezer's revelation!