The Book of Dave (53 page)

'I mean – that is to say, I can state with some certainty' – Blair was recovering his sang froid, his fiddly features reappeared
from behind the leather shield – 'that it has been established that Carl's biological father is, in fact, Mr Devenish.'

'Cal Devenish?' Dave kept on shaking his head. 'But that's impossible – how? When?'

'Mr Rudman.' Blair was now fully composed. He lay back in his chair, the sole of his loafer cleaner than Dave's shirt. The
gold propelling pencil was out, the toothy timpani began. 'Ms Brodie had no intent to deceive you – both she and Mr Devenish
understood that he was … well, he had had a vasectomy. However, these, ah, things can happen. Very rarely – but they do
happen. Your ex-wife thought you would be upset, she understands that she owes you a full explanation. Were it not for your
er' – he paused, smiling faintly – 'behaviour in the past, she would've been present for this meeting. Instead, she has given
me this letter for you' – he placed it on his blotter – 'and should you – quite reasonably – require verification, your own
nominated doctor can take both your blood and the boy's. Arrangements can be made for these DNA samples to be independently
tested …'

By the time Blair had completed his speech, Dave was already on the stairs. He hadn't bothered with Michelle's letter. The
phrase that stayed with him – albeit edited – was
take … your … blood,
for his very blood had been taken from him. Or had it? Checking himself in every reflective surface he passed – brass plates,
plate glass, wing mirrors – Dave was forced to concede that this hereditary cap didn't fit at all well.
You suspected all along … The dates
never made sense .
. .
never added up
…
She got funnier about it the
older he got.
. .
And Carl, well, he
. .
.he just doesn't LOOK ANYTHING
LIKE YOU.

The Fairway was snarled up in Tooley Street. In front was a white Securicor van with plexiglas windows.
Sweatboxes, that's what
they call 'em.
Some crim who used to drink in the Old Globe told Dave all about them – the tiny, individual cells in the bouncing vehicle,
no room for the prisoners to stretch their legs, no handholds, everything made of plastic. In winter they were like …
fucking fridges . .
. but in summer the cons slopped in their own sweat. Still, wasn't the whole of London
an endless bloody sweatbox?
nuffing to hold on to, everyone going somewhere to do nuffing.
The cab limped past the London Dungeon, where a dummy felon hung from a
fucking toyist gibbet.
The fare had run out of friends to call …
no wonder …
and was scratching his balls.

Tiring of this tax on disorientation, Dave saw a parking place and plonked the cab in it. 'Wossup, mate?' said the fare, who
was young with a vulnerable dimple in his chin. 'I'll stroll down there with you,' Dave explained. 'I fancy a gander at this
chancer.' They clambered out, and Dave locked up. He asked for a fiver, even though there was twice that on the meter. As
they walked along past Hay's Galleria towards HMS
Belfast
Dave wanted to put an arm around the lad's shoulders, because he was another one
young
enough to be my son.
But not.

It was a weekday, and the crowd wasn't that big. There were
dossers struck by White Lightning … language-school Lolitas …
and because it was lunchtime
the Pret-a-fucking-Manger mob
were ranged along the parapet of Tower Bridge, swigging mineral water and chomping baguettes. In an enclosure immediately
beneath Blaine's box snappers and camera crews oscillated to find the best angle. All eyes were raised towards the modern
Diogenes, who slumped in a starved torpor, a silvery space blanket serving him for a robe. Everyone bayed for his attention,
while he looked deep inside himself, focusing with steely resolve on
major fucking sponsorship
deals.

Dave had lost the ex-fare and was sitting on a bench when he became aware of a wholesale perturbation in the crowd. Eyes were
swivelling away from the hunger artist towards the top of the northern tower of the bridge, where an oddly attired group was
clambering out on to the parapet. Dave was up on his feet – even at this distance, and outlined against deceptive bends and
furbelows of cloud, he could see that the three men were wearing historical costumes: cockade hats, cloaks and doublets. One
of them was a dumpy fellow struggling with the end of a long, sausage-shaped bundle. 'Bluddy el!' exclaimed a dosser who was
beside Dave. 'Iss isstree cum ter lyf!' The crowd, grasping that something – or somebody – was going to be pitched over the
edge, 'ooed' and 'aahed' with sadistic glee. The London Show – in its two thousandth year at the same venue – was hotting
up.

The camera crews were wrenching their tripods round to capture the action. From Wapping came the demented whippoorwill of
a police siren. A couple of white-hatted Port of London Authority beadles could be seen trying to break into the bottom door
of the tower, a police helicopter came chattering upriver, and it occurred to Dave that this could be
the big one, code black .
. . the bundle might be
a fucking missile launcher.
For Tower Bridge was a prime position for an attack by suicidal terrorists on the computerized dealing rooms and electronic
vaults of the City.

There was a man close to Dave in the crowd who had a pair of binoculars. 'Please, mate?' Dave requested, then he crammed them
to his eyes just as the three players on the roof of the tower heaved their bundle over. A long banner unrolled with a loud
'Thwack!' Dave Rudman absorbed the legend on it at the same time as he recognized the clownish lips and curly hair of the
tubby man sporting the red cloak. It was Gary Finch, and he was giving the finger to the circling helicopter. The banner read:
WE AREN'T HISTORICAL FIGURES – WE'RE FIGHTING FATHERS, FIGHTING TO SEE THE KIDS WE LOVE. There was the clenched-fist logo,
which Dave had last seen in the Trophy Room at the Swiss Cottage Sports Centre.

The Fighting Fathers managed to stay up on Tower Bridge for a long time. When the police stormed the tower, Fucker and one
of the others got out along the top cantilever and chained themselves to it. Their companion was arrested immediately – but
this was probably intentional, for Barry Higginbottom had taken it upon himself to be the spokesman for Fighting Fathers,
and it was he who appeared on the rolling news bulletins for the rest of the day.

Watching him on TV that evening at Agincourt Road, Dave had to concede that the Skip Tracer did a good job. He was interviewed
in a well-appointed playroom, against a background of Disney film posters, with colouring books and cuddly toys strewn beneath
the rockers of his chair. The Skip Tracer spoke lucidly concerning the inequalities of family law: the presumption that separated
and divorced mothers should have care and control of children; the financial burdens placed on separated fathers; the difficulties
these fathers had in getting their former partners to comply with court access orders. The Skip Tracer's usual machine-gun
delivery was slowed to an emphatic beat, his vowels flew up to buttress his rediscovered consonants. There were no obscenities,
no talk of nosebag and the sweat-lash was little more than an earnest sheen.

However, the Skip Tracer's front was then demolished as his schoolboyish fringe and exposed nostrils were supplanted by exterior
shots of his detached villa in Redbridge. This – the viewers were told – was equipped with a state-of-the-art security system,
comprising CCTV cameras, razor wire and motion-triggered alarms. Quite why such a sensitive, loving man should be so paranoid
was then explained by an appropriately nervy reporter on the scene: 'His considerable fortune was amassed during the property
crash of the early 1990s, when his agency – employing scores of operatives – tracked down desperate mortgage defaulters .
. .'

The irony of such a large house being paid for by the loss of so many other smaller ones was not dwelled on – for there were
still more queries, dangling like his own, blond forelock over the Skip Tracer's head. His ex-wife was interviewed and her
testimony was damning as to the Skip Tracer's shady financial dealings and his flirtation with the extreme right wing. The
former Mrs Higginbottom stopped short of the nosebag, although she did suggest that 'Barry has … issues he'd rather not
look at. Issues of dependency.' Nevertheless, despite his fickleness when it came to the practicalities of childcare, she
supported his right to see their daughter, while maintaining that 'his … behaviour in the past means I don't have a lot
of confidence … in his motives'.

'Why'd she marry the bloke, then?' Phyllis observed tartly. She was sitting in the humpbacked armchair that had become 'hers'
and sewing a name tape into a pair of Steve's boxers. Dave grunted – and Phyllis gave him a sharp look. 'You know him, don't
you? It isn't only your mate Gary who's mixed up in this, is it?' Dave conceded that he had met Higginbottom at a Fathers
First meeting, while neglecting to mention that he'd also consulted him in a professional capacity – let alone that he still
owed him.

In the lumpy lane beside Ali Baba's garage he found a handful of cabbies waiting their turn to pick up or drop off vehicles.
Getting out to join them, Dave, for the first time in years, examined the Fairway, comparing it with the newer TXs parked
either side. The
poor old wagon,
with its chrome trim and narrow waist, looked
out
of date, like an old Hansom or something. A
foxy-faced fellow whom Dave vaguely recognized came towards him waving a copy of the
Sun
in one hand and a kebab in the other. 'Orlright, Tufty,' he said. 'This is your mate, innit?' He showed Dave the open spread:
on one side, with greasy fingerprints on her roasted thighs, was 'Naughty-gal Nikki from Norwich', while on the other there
was a grainy black-and-white photo of Gary Finch dressed as Henry VIII. 'Thass Fucker, innit?' reiterated the foxy man, and
Dave owned that it was. 'What's 'e doing up there, then?' More finger marks smudged the balustrade Fucker was poised on. 'Thass
the Royal Courts, ain't it?' put in a second cabbie who had a fleshy nose clefted like
an arse.