The Book of Dave Read Online Free Page B

Lundun, Böm cooed. Eyem juss lookin fer ve mark.
    â€“ No bovver, Tonë, said Fred, refusing to be mollified. U no azwellaz me vat Runti woz reel Enuff; úve seen iz mark a fouwzan
tymes.
    â€“ Stil, we muss chekk ì, iss ve way, innit. Böm carried on examining the moto skin.
    â€“ Iss nó yer graft, Tonë, an djoo no ì!
    Fred grabbed the skin, so that the two men held it stretched between them. The foglight streamed through the membrane, perfectly
illuminating the phonics C-A-L-B-I-O-T-E-C-H. Looking from the Guvnor's angry face to his mentor's quizzical one, Carl felt
his riven mind part still more.
    â€“ C! Fred spat in the dirt. Reel enuff fer U, Tonë, reel enuff?

    Late in the third tariff, when the headlight was close to dipping, Antonë Böm sat writing in his journal. His tiny, one-roomed
semi lay two hundred paces beyond the Driver's on the shore of the inlet known as Sid's Slick. The room was bare, the brick
walls unpainted. The tiny table was dwarfed by his plump form, and his plump form was overseen by the dark shadow the letric
threw on the walls, a shadow that shifted uneasily in a draught. It had been a long tariff – the Driver had called over with
great zeal. He had led the Hamstermen and the Chilmen in at least twenty runs and their points. The Hamsters – as was their
way – had been cowed, as gluttonous for this spiritual sustenance as they were for the feast to come. The Hack's party, as
in previous years, had been overawed by such Dävinanity in this peculiar place at the very edge of the Lawyer's dominion.
Yet the Driver was clever enough to be politic – his battle for the fares of the Hamsters was a protracted one; and when the
tariff had rolled on, the headlight had been switched on and the dashboard shone out over the placid lagoon, he faded away
to his own gaff, so that Runti's flesh could be eaten and the sick dads of Chil anointed with moto oil.
    Later still, old raps were sung in the island's Mokni, Effi Dévúsh making the call and the whole population – mummies, daddies,
boilers, opares and kids – the response. Then the dancing commenced. In the margins of the firelight, where the shadows flickered
and the darkness took on substance, Böm saw the gaunt form of Luvvie Joolee, the Exile, who had crept up to observe the festivities.
She must by now, he thought, know what awaits Carl and me at first tariff. He tried to catch her eye but to no avail, for
the tragic old boiler ignored him.
    The last thing Böm noticed before he left were the wide eyes of the Chilmen, glazed by moto-oily gluttony, as they watched
the increasingly abandoned gyrations of the Hamsters, pissed on the booze they'd brought, fags dangling from their sloppy
lips. He guessed what the Chilmen were thinking: what a contrast there was between piety and licentiousness! The Chilmen cast
surreptitious glances at the opares – who had undone their cloakyfings most immodestly. No doubt the pedalers and sick fares
alike were wondering if they could afford the childsupport.
    Böm could not rest – his lumpy sofabed held no appeal for him. In the morning the Guvnor and the Hack would deliberate everything
before the Council. Who knew what else might come out concerning him and Carl? The Hamsters could not forbear from speaking
when spoken to, and who could guess what Caff might say if she were examined? Böm had no illusions about what awaited him
if he were returned to London. It was the curse of his speculative mind that had brought him to Ham in the first place, and
the Inspectors had long memories while the PCO's Examiners possessed the harshest of powers. He sighed, dipped his biro in
the inkwell and scratched on into the night.
    Carl Dévúsh couldn't sleep either. When he finally went to his bed in the Funch gaff, and threw himself on to the rough palliasse
in among the hurly-burly of his mates' limbs, their dream cries and night farts beset him.