The Book of Dave by Will Self Page A

any credence to his mother's tales, then it was only a semi-belief. For every fourth day
Changeover would come, and he'd be sent across the stream with his cousins to stop at the daddies' gaffs. Here a rigid Dävinanity
held sway: the runs and the points were ceaselessly called over whenever the dads were not at work or amusing themselves with
the opares. For little Symun – as much as for the other kids, who were not so exposed to the ancient lore – their mummies'
influence was eclipsed entirely. It was as if when they were with their daddies the kids were other people altogether, with
different natures, different likes, different fares even. Yet none more so than Symun, because, while the other kids ran to
their daddies at Changeover, he had no dad of his own. Peet Dévúsh had fallen from the Sentrul Stac to his death before his
only son was born, so Symun was the lad of all the dads, making him still more of a daddies' boy when he was under their care
and control.
    Although the last Driver to be dropped off on Ham had been picked up five years before Symun was born, his influence remained
strong among the dads. The most dävine among them would not talk or look at the womenfolk, and avowed that they did not even
recognize the mummies of their own kids. Had these fanatics prevailed, they would have wrapped all the mummies up in their
cloakyfings from top to toe. If the dads were to be believed – especially the two or three of them who could read – the Book
was all the understanding any Hamster needed of anything. The Book stood outside of the seasons and of the years. What Dave
had described he had also foretold, and what he had seen in his own era would come again – for it had never truly gone. Dave's
New London was all around them, trapped in the zones and the reef, a hidden yet still tangible world. Just as the roots of
the herb pilewort resembled piles and so were good for the treatment of this malady, so the Daveworks were tiny pictures
and fragmented legends of a transcendent city of Dave – Dave the Dad and Carl the Lost Boy – that had been deposited there,
by Dave, at the MadeinChina. The problem for the Hamsters was not to build a New London but only to prove themselves worthy
of realizing it by their Knowledge.
    In the time of the last Driver all Daveworks had been rejected as toyist, and the practice of garlanding the gaffs, wayside
shrines, the island's pedalo – and indeed themselves – with the plastic amulets had been forbidden. The mummies – who were,
of course, denied the rituals of the Shelter – continued to believe in the ancient lore. Their Knowledge was of the Mutha,
not Chelle, and of the lost Ham, rather than the Lost Boy. Denied their kids for half of each blob, they cleaved to the motos,
and they looked to the knee woman and her anointing for their absolution.
    As the years passed the less dävine of the dads allowed their faith, once more, to become softened by their temperate and
isolate home. Even the Guvnor, Dave Brudi, began to speculate on such things. In his own youth he had travelled to Chil, and
he told Symun that the giants' ruins were greater in their density here on Ham than in any other part of Ing; and, try as
he might, he could not help but give credence to the legend that this was because the Book had been found, as he put it, rì
ear on Am.
    Symun Dévúsh grew to dadhood. He was a charismatic young bloke, attractive to both sexes – taller than his peers, finer boned,
more open of countenance. His fingers were quick and dextrous, his eyes blue and dancing. His light beard was golden and curly,
while the Hamsters' barnets were mostly a lank, dun brown. If there had been any reflective surface on Ham besides still water
and dull irony, Symun might have been vain; as it was, he was aware of his appeal to others, without knowing precisely what
it consisted of. Although he was popular with his posse and a good holder