The Book of Dave (17 page)

5

The Exile

OCT 523 AD

To the opares who came to cook her food, empty her slops and launder her peculiar garments – once garishly bright, now long
since faded – Luvvie Joolee was not merely peculiar but incomprehensible. Her clipped Arpee, her abrupt gestures, her constant
talk of a city that remained continually present to her yet was utterly unknown to them, struck them as craziness. She had
allowed the stands of blisterweed to grow right up to the small yard of her dwelling, so fearful was she of the motos; and
she remained within this poisonous thicket, growing older and more distracted by the year.

The Hamsters were hard pressed to say exactly how long she had resided on the island – for the concept of ordinal time was
not strong in them. Carl's grandmother, Effi, had told him that she was a young mum when Luvvie Joolee landed on Ham, and they
must be roughly the same age. Everyone knew why Luvvie Joolee had been exiled. She and her husband, the Lawyer of Blunt, had
fallen foul of the PCO by living together, with their children, under the same roof. Their loathsome conduct was bandied about
the town in decauxs and standards, until a gang of their own kinsmen took the law into their hands. They removed her to the
docks and bundled her aboard a southbound ferry. For a time she was held in the Bouncy Castle at Chil, then, when her whereabouts
became known to her husband, she was dispatched still further to Ham.

Effi Dévúsh also told Carl that during the early years of her exile Luvvie Joolee had appeared often in the village, ranting
and raving about the injustices done to her, and trying to rouse the Hamsters in rebellion against the Lawyer of Chil. Eventually
the old Hack, Mister Hurst, had made it clear to her that were she to continue, he would have no alternative but to return
her to London for formal judgement. Understanding that this would mean torture, and very likely breaking upon the wheel, henceforth
Luvvie Joolee withdrew into her troubled seclusion. When Antonë Böm arrived on Ham, under a cloud of a similar hue, he sought
to gain her confidence. He knew members of her circle in the capital by repute, and was able to chitchat with her in the manner
to which she had been accustomed. However, the highborn luvvie had little trust in a mere teacher and so rebuffed him.

Carl Dévúsh and Antonë Böm had been summoned to Luvvie Joolee's toxic bower by a note entrusted to an opare. They came creeping
along under the bluffs of the Ferbiddun Zön, slipping and scraping over the groynes thick with seaweed and barnacles. Crabs
scuttled away, while overhead was the relentless cawing of the gulls. They squeezed gingerly between the stalks of the blisterweed,
which even now, browned and hollowed, still had the capacity to wound. Böm tapped diffidently on the rough-hewn door and a
voice from inside rasped, Cummon in. Inside the whitewashed austerity of the little semi, the unshuttered windows, covered
with stretched moto hide, admitted a pinkish light. The sharp odour of human faeces – unknown in the Hamsters' gaffs – assailed
the visitors.

Siddahn, boy! the old boiler snapped, and so disoriented was Carl that it took him seconds to realize she was addressing him.
Ve stoowal! she snapped again, and, casting about, he saw the one she meant and collapsed on to it. Luvvie Joolee – her short,
tattered tunic exposing white arms and legs worming with purplish veins – leaned against one wall while the teach remained
standing in the middle of the room. Seeing her close up for the first time, Carl was struck by how closely the Luvvie resembled
the Driver: both had long, concave faces, with brows and chins sharp as the rim of a plate. The boiler's face was like a mask.
She had no eyebrows, and her downy, white hair was cut to within a finger's breadth of her bumpy scalp. Thick slap was plastered
on her gaunt cheeks. She wore heavy, angular earrings carved from a dark wood Carl couldn't identify – and these had dragged
deep slits in her earlobes. As tall as the Driver, she looked down on both Carl and Böm, her black eyes lambent in deep sockets.
To Carl she had the otherworldliness of all those who came from off the island.

Staring at the earthen floor of the room, so as to avoid the fanatic eyes of the Exile, Carl was seized by a peculiar irony
contrivance, which had many spinning flywheels and a slowly turning knurled cylinder. These were obscurely connected to a
white disc, the rim of which was inscribed with figures: 1, 2, 3 and so on.

– Wassermattah, boy? Luvvie Joolee rasped. Aynt chew evah seen a meeta B4? Her Mokni was fluent, her manner lucid. Despite
her eccentric appearance there was no trace of madness.

– N-no, mum, Carl stuttered.

– Mum! she snorted. Mum! Eye tellya, boy, vat vare iz ve diffrunz Btween U chavs an reel folk. Tym, munny, distunz. She pointed at the dial: Daves tym – nó Rs. Daves munny – nó yaws, Daves
distunz – iz root 2 Nú Lundun! Then she rounded on Böm: Djoo bleev in Dave, ven, Böm? she spat out.

– Enuff, the teach replied.

– Djoo bleev in iz cummagayn, djoo bleev in iz mirrakulz, djoo bleev in Nú Lundun?

– Yeah, Enuff. Carl had never seen Böm so tongue-tied.

– So ow cum ve Dryva sez U 2 iz fliars? Djoo bleev, boy? she said, rounding on Carl again.

– Yeah, L-Luvvie, he stammered.

– Luvvie! she spat. Wotevah, ve pawtunt fing iz djoo bleev, Eye carnt B doin wiv fliars. Eye carnt B doin wiv vose oo aynt
lé Dave inter vair arts. Eye tellya boaf vat Dryva issa nastë bituv wurk. E aynt no trú bleevah. E aynt got Dave in iz art.
Dave vat iz gentul, Dave wot luvs us jussaz if we woz awl ve Loss Boy. The old boiler's face took on an expression both wistful and profound.
Transfigured by her Dävinanity, she was, Carl understood, almost beautiful.

– Eye bleev vat, Böm said in a hushed undertone.

– Wel ve Dryva doan, an eel shaft ve 2 uv U B4 U gettof Am, so Eyem gonna affta elp U. U bin cummin 2 ang aht 4 yeers nah,
Böm, but Eye aynt toal U nuffing, ri?

– Nuffing much, Böm conceded with a rueful nod of his head.

The old boiler bent down from her great height and shuffled into the corner of the room where a pile of cloth scraps lay in
a heap. As she rooted among them, Luvvie Joolee continued: Wot Eye aynt nevah toal U iz vat Mistah Greaves brungus maw van
juss trayd plastik, ee brungus vese inall. She held up a bundle tightly wound with twine. Lettuce, she announced, lettuce
from Lundun, ees a frend, Mistah Greaves, no an alii but a mayt. She unwrapped the bundle, and Carl gazed wonderingly upon
the sheaves of onion-skin-thin leaves that sprang from it, each one covered with spindly phonics. Siddahn, Luvvie Joolee commanded
Böm, siddahn on ve flaw. Eyem gonna reed U wot me öl mukkas in Lundun av bin sayin abaht ve PCO an vat. U 2 needta no.

Those dävine dads most in sway to the Driver were apt to dismiss such evidence of moto wisdom, asserting that the nicety of
their intimate relations was a mere mechanical contrivance. Yet Carl had seen for himself that when a moto was put to mate
with another he or she deemed unsuitable, a frightful motorage ensued; and his grandmother Effi told him it was the motos
who mysteriously instructed their human keepers in their own management. Vares no Am wivaht ve motos, she had often said,
no Am, juss barran Ian.

During the blobs since the departure of the Hack's pedalo in JUL, while the Hamsters turned their attention to preparations
for the kipper, Carl went increasingly to the motos. He sought out the rank that trundled over the harvested fields depositing
dung, and, with old Champ's agreement, cut out a moped – usually Sweetë or Tyga – to accompany him on his forays. Despite
the dads' objections, Carl's half-brother, Bert Ridmun, also accompanied him on trips along the ragged shoreline of the Gayt,
where the rotten stumps of crinkleleafs subsided into the lagoon. In this unusual seclusion, Carl encouraged Bert to join
him in riding the moto, as they were wont to do when kiddies. While the older beasts would have bridled at such treatment,
the moped docilely accepted it, even allowing Carl to spur him a few paces into the sea. Here, half swimming, half wading,
the moped conveyed the lad through the placid waters of the lagoon.

Carl and Bert slid off Tyga's back, and, drawing nearer, they heard the Driver's angry voice rising high over the bowed heads
of the Hamsters. He stood facing the low wooden hut, his back to his audience, his eyes on his mirror. His deep voice shouted
through the wall of his chest:

– It's not enough! Your Knowledge is not enough! I have never reviled the motos, my fares, yet, in those passages of the Book
that describe the moto, it is clear that Dave didn't mean these … creatures but conveyances of the kind that I have seen
in the streets of New London. I know your attachment to these beasts and how you have depended on them; nevertheless you must
understand that their oil is no longer in demand elsewhere in Ing; there are diverse other fuels, beeswax, tallow and suchlike,
with which to conjure letric. In accepting the oil in place of dosh-rent, my Lawd's Hack is supporting you as if you were
the meanest foundlings!

The Driver paused and ran a hawkish eye over the congregation; there wasn't even a mutter of dissent, so he resumed:

– Since I came among you and abolished the vile practice of anointing, many more of your infants have survived!

This was manifestly the case, for the evidence was right behind him, a gaggle of infants and toddlers that exceeded in number
all the other Hamsters.

– You all know, the Driver continued, his voice dropping still lower, that you will have to change if the island is to support
these greater numbers. Mister Greaves is prepared to pay for more bubbery and London bricks if you increase your industry.
He is prepared to pay for the feathers of seafowl as well; however he will no longer offer you a good price for the oil of
these … these … toyist beasts!