Robert Rankin - The Witches Of Chiswick

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TITLE: The Witches of Chiswick
AUTHOR: Robert Rankin
PUBLISHER: Gollancz
COPYRIGHT: ©2003
ISBN: 0 575 07314 4
ABEB Version: 3.0
Created: 2004/1/26 @ 21:53
An mdf Scan & Proofread.
The Witches of Chiswick
Robert Rankin
This book is dedicated to SPROUTLORE on the occasion of its tenth
anniversary.
To those who began it, Anna Casey, Eimer Ni Mhealoid, Robert Elliot and, of
course, the now legendary Pádraig Ó Méalóid a special thanks.
For contributing to the Mercury, among other nefarious tasks: Tom
Mathews, Peter McCanney, Darren Sant, Stephen “Wok Boy” Malone, Kaz
Rathgar, Matthew Vernon, MJ. “Simo” Simpson, Chip Livingstone, C.
elsewhere, Martin Gooch, Alan Holloway, Rachel Turkington, Katie Atkinson,
Stephen Gillis, Mark J. Howard, Alf Fairweather, Paul Tonks, Simon C. Owen,
Mark Howard, Neil Hind, Gordon McLean, Karl Macnaughton, Leanne Whelan,
Laura Haslam, Mark Bertenshaw, Mark Paris, John Cross, Richard Allinson,
Diana Hesse, Neil Gardener, John Flynn, Steve Baker, Daev Walsh, George
and Chelle Bell, Kryten Krytennicus, Mark Stay, Nicholas Avenell, J. Oost,
Alan Sullivan, J. Hagger, Ian “Red” Brown, James “Elite” Grime, Lee Peglar,
Joe Nolan, Emma Jones, David Hill, Sarah Laslett, Andrew “P.A.L.F.” Bacon,
Tim Keith, Stuart Lemon, Alec Sillifant, Bob Harrison, Tim McGregor, Keith
Lawlor and the great Cardinal Cox, you wordy, hard-working people.
For making events what they are, and for being there since the earliest
of days: Emma King, Lorraine Loveridge, Toby “Tobes” Valois, Robert and
Hazel Newman. Dr Pete and Flick, Neil Johnson, Jason Joiner, Andrea
Swinsco, Hillary Simpson, Dave Elder, Anne Stokes, Matt Langley, Rev. Jim
de Liscard, Meike Benzler, Nolly, Rory Lennon, Sam and Greg Elkin, Liam
Proven and Kjersti, John Waggott, Liat Cohen, Jonathon Baddeley, Trond
Miatyeit Hansen, Anders Holmstrom, Mike “Sparks” Rennie, James Brophy,
Leonia Carroll, Helena and Heidi, Ben Dessau and Heather Petty, Julie Rigby
and Alex McLintock, Paul Atton, Mick Champion, Isabel and Debbie
Cordwell, Lizanne Davies, David Jones, Joe Ritchie, Silas Potts, Stephen
Shirras, Luke Shaw, Karl Scrammell, Nicholas Avenell, Clive Duberly, Andi
Evans, Sarah Laslett, Bob Tiley, James Walker, Alan Westbury, Tony
Wearing, Steven Dean and Mick and Phil O’Connor.
To those who have left this mortal coil, we bid you adieu, and toast your
names: John Joseph O’Dowd and the great Gerry Conlon.
To the main movers and shakers, writers of great skill and wondrous
workers: Lee Justice, Dave Baker, Billy Stirling, Alix Langridge, James
Shields, Stef Lancaster, and Michael Carroll.
And finally to the guy who runs it all, surprises me with ingenious ideas,
and insane capers, has a strange glint in his eye, a smile and a gift of the
gab that could charm the knickers off a nun. He has made Sproutlore what
it is, and what it continues to be, a wonderful fanclub. The best, to James
Bacon; my sincerest thanks, my good friend.
Acknowledgements also to Sean Gallagher, who thought up the title of
this book.
1
It was the day after the day after tomorrow and it was raining.
Upon this particular day, the rain was bilious green, which signified a
fair to middling toxicity and so was only hazardous to health if you actually
went out in it.
Will Starling would have to go out in it. He was presently employed and
wished to remain so.
“Winsome Wendy Wainscot, Channel Twenty’s wonderful weather
woman, says it will clear by Wednesday,” ventured Will’s mum, a
moon-faced loon with a vermilion hairpiece and hips that were a hymn to
the hamburger. “I could call you in sick, Will, and you could apply yourself
to doing a few odd jobs about the home.”
“No, thanks,” said Will.
“But some of the jobs are really odd. They would appeal to you.”
“No, thanks,” said Will, once again.
Will’s portly father, a man who never said no to a native and took his
coffee as it came, raised a quizzical eyebrow to his lady wife’s banter. “The
lad has work to go to, woman,” said he, forking a sausage from the
mountainous pile upon his breakfasting plate, popping it into his mouth and
munching upon it. “He is now the winner of the cakes in this household,
and for this much thanks, my sweet Lord of the Laminates.”
The area in which these words were exchanged was the breakfasting
area of the Starling household, the household itself being housed in a
housing unit in a housing tower in the housing district of the Utility
Conurbation of Brentford, which was itself to be found to the west of The
Great London High Rise. The housing tower was three hundred and three
storeys high. The Starling household occupied a corner of the two hundred
and twenty-second floor. The windows of the breakfasting area,
triple-glazed in polarised polythene, faced east, which was always a
blessing on Tuesdays.
(Today, this particular day, this day after the day after tomorrow, was,
however, Monday.)
Regarding the breakfasting area itself, what might be said? Well, the
furnishings, at least, were not entirely without interest. Will sat at the
breakfasting table, upon a chair of his own design and construction, a
narrow chair of wood, of antique wood, of two-by-one.
Much, of course, has been written of the wonders of two-by-one, hailed,
as it was, by twentieth-century DIY enthusiasts the world over as “The
Timber of the Gods”, “The Carpenter’s Friend”, “The Wood That Won The
West”, and many other such appellations.
You didn’t see a lot of it about on this day beyond tomorrow, what with
there being so few trees left to cut down and hew. Two-by-one was hard to
find, although, in truth there were very few now who actually went
searching.
Will’s father, William Starling senior, occupied a more orthodox sit-upon:
it was Post Christian Orthodox, of the IKEA persuasion. Will’s father was a
part-time lay preacher to the Church of IKEA (IKEA having brought out the
Christian franchise some fifty years before).
Will’s mother did not share her husband’s faith; she remained true to
the church she had grown up with. She was a Sister of Salisbury’s. Her
seating was a family heirloom: a white plastic garden sofa, dating from the
age of private gardens, and a collector’s item in itself, should the age of
the collector, or indeed the private garden, ever return. The sofa’s sidearms
had been cut away to afford admittance to her broad posterior. Will’s mum
was a very substantial woman.
But for these items of seatery, the breakfasting area was, as all other
breakfasting areas in the housing tower were, bright and orange. Just the
way that the future had been promised to be, in a time before it was.
“You’ll need to put on your chem-proofs, Will,” said Will’s mum,
swallowing a fried eggette (a synthetic egg, packed with goodness and
minerals) and scooping up another with her spoon. “And your weather
dome. Coffee, husband?” She proffered the plastic pot.
“As it comes,” replied her spouse, urging another sausage into his
mouth, “that’s the way I like it.” He smiled winningly towards his son.
“Take heed of what your mother says,” said he, as he chewed. “Upon this
occasion she isn’t talking twaddle.”
“I certainly will,” said the son of Starling. “I never, ever take risks.” This,
however, was a lie. Will did take risks. Will thrived upon risks. Sadly for
Will, the opportunities to take risks rarely arose, but when they did, he was
always ready and willing.
Will’s father reached across the breakfasting area and placed a mighty
hand upon the forearm of his son. “You are a good lad, Will,” he said. “You
make your mother and me proud of you. We care about you, you know that,
don’t you?”
“I’ve never had cause to doubt it,” Will eased his arm from beneath the
pressure of his pater’s portly palm, “except upon one or two occasions, such
as the time that you tried to sell me to Count Otto Black’s Circus
Fantastique because you needed money to buy Mum a new wig.”
“A God-feeling woman can never have too many wigs,” said Will’s mum,
downing another fried eggette.
“It’s God-fearing,” said her husband, helping himself to yet another
sausage. “But your mother’s right, Will. Do you recall the time that your
Aunt May was caught wigless at the wedding of a tribal chieftain? That
reflected very poorly on the family.”
“Yes, but trying to sell me to a freak show …”
“A Carnival of Curiosities,” said Will’s mum, downing yet another
eggette. “An Odyssey of Oddities. A Burlesque of the Bizarre. A—”
“Get out while you’re winning,” said Will’s dad. “Your mother and I felt
that it was the right thing to do, Will. So you could, you know, be amongst
your own people, as it were.”
“But you’re my own people, you’re my family.”
“You know what I mean,” said Will’s dad, chasing baked beanettes with
his fork. “I don’t have to say the word, do I?”
Slim?” said Will. “Is that the word?”
Will’s mum traced a sacred S (for Sainsbury’s, not for slim) across the
vastness of her breasts. Newly proffered coffee spilled over Will’s dad’s
waistcoat.
“Now look what you’ve done.” Will’s dad struggled to his feet, plucking
at his steaming front.
“I’m slim,” said Will. “It’s not a disease. It’s not something to be
ashamed of.”
Sadly, however, this was not the case. In these days after the days
after tomorrow, being slim no longer held sway when it came to looking
good. These were now the days of the weighty. That mankind should grow,
not only in mental but in physical stature too, was probably an inevitability
(although not one that had ever been accurately predicted). But then, the
science of prediction had never been noted for its accuracy – not even when
the course of future events seemed obvious.
For instance: in the year of Elvis Presley’s death, nineteen
seventy-seven, there were, at most, several dozen Elvis impersonators in
the world. By the year two thousand and two, however, there were more
than thirty-five thousand. Given this expanding growth rate, it was
accurately predicted that by the year two thousand and twelve, one in four
people on the planet would be an Elvis impersonator.
This, of course, proved not to be the case.
The figure was actually a mere one in six.
But those days were now long in the past, and in these days, after the
days after tomorrow, things were not as might have been expected. They
appeared to have escaped all attempts at prediction. That the future lay in
fatness had certainly slipped right past Nostradamus.
By the days after tomorrow, the average weight of the Western human
was fifteen stone. By the days after the days after tomorrow, the scales
were being tipped and strained at the twenty-stone mark, and rising.
But Will was a slim ’un. And although his parents were proud of him, in
the way that parents always are, the social stigma of slimness was always
there.
And Will was very slim.
The features were fine enough – noble, almost: a good strong nose and
bright blue eyes and a mop of blondy hair. But his neck was of a longness,
and his fingers too. And there was also an awkwardness about him. And
there was an other-worldliness about him too, although this was nothing to
do with his slimness. It was more to do with the fact that Will dwelt for
most of his waking hours in a world of his own making: a world of romance
and adventure, a world where he could really take some risks.
For the world that Will inhabited was not very kind to Will. Folk pointed
at him in the streets, laughed as they pointed, called him “skeleton boy”
and “you slim bastard!” They gave him a very hard time. Will ate as much
as he could manage, but it didn’t help.
It was no fun being different.
But different Will was, in more ways than one.
“I’m sorry, Dad,” said Will. “I’m sorry, Mum, too.”
The coffee was cooling on Will’s dad. Will’s mum mopped at his
waistcoast with a proprietary-brand dishcloth. “It’s all right,” she said,
without conviction. “It doesn’t matter, Will. You are what you is, as Frank
Zappa once said, and so long as you’re happy, we’re happy for you.”
“I am happy, Mum. I love you and Dad and I love my job too.”
“Tell me about this job of yours.” Will’s dad shooed away his wife’s
fussing fingers. “Is it at IKEA? Does it involve any two-by-one?”
“No,” said Will, “It isn’t and it doesn’t. Have you ever heard of the Tate
Gallery?”
“Is that a trick question?” Will’s mum lowered her prodigious bulk once
more onto her modified lounger and returned to her consumption of fried
eggettes. There were still eight left on her plate and she meant to finish
them before she began on her baconettes. “I mean, will there be a forfeit if
we get it wrong? Like there is at the supermarket?”
“It’s not a trick question, Mum. The Tate Gallery is an ancient building in
London Central. It houses paintings from the past. You remember art,
surely?”
Will’s mum made a face of considerable perplexity. “Was he a presenter
on daytime TV?”
“Of course your mother remembers art,” said Will’s dad, resuming the
demolition of his sausage mountain. “It’s when pictures were produced by
hand, using coloured pigments applied with a bundle of animal hair secured
at the end of a stick.”
“There’s no need to be obscene,” said Will’s mum. “Honestly, putting
ungodly ideas like that into the boy’s head.”
“It’s true,” said Will. “The bundles of animal hair were called brushes.”
“The boy is a regular hysteric,” said Will’s mum.
“Historian,” said Will’s dad. “And you have actually seen these pictures,
Will?”
“Not up close.” Will, sipped at his coffee, which came as it came, but
which was not altogether to his liking. “They are housed in the vaults deep
beneath the original gallery. They are far too precious and fragile to be put
on display any more. They are presently being re-photographed, so that
accurate reproductions can be made and displayed in the gallery. You’ll be
able to see the official reopening of the Tate on the home screen soon. And
all the reproductions of the paintings too.”
“Why?” asked Will’s mum. “What are these paintings for? What do they
do?”
“They don’t do anything. They are art. They are beautiful works of
human achievement. You simply look at them and appreciate them for what
they are.”
Will’s mum spooned in further eggettes. “Do they sing?” she asked.
“No. They don’t even move about.”
Will’s mum shrugged her ample shoulders. “Well, if you’re happy and
employed, I suppose that’s all that matters.”
“I am happy,” said Will. “There’s something about the past that has
always fascinated me. Something about the Victorian era.”
“The what?” asked Will’s mum.
“Be silent, woman,” said Will’s dad, sending another sausage
stomachwards.
“The years of Queen Victoria,” said Will. “She ruled this country, and
much of the world besides, for sixty years. She died in 1901.”
“King Charles ruled for seventy-five years,” said Will’s mum. “And so did
Queen Camilla.”
“I don’t think you could really call that ruling,” said Will’s dad, “although
I’m impressed that you should know even that. I recall as a child learning
about the last of the Royal Household of England. They didn’t actually rule
that long – they didn’t actually rule at all. They were both assassinated at
their coronation. It was a virtual reality programme that did all the
subsequent ruling – until it crashed in the late twenty-first century.”
“Same thing,” said Will’s mum. “The present World leader is a
programme: President Adidas the 42nd. ‘Corporate wisdom for a better
world’.”
“Hmm,” went Will. “Well, that may be as may be, but there was a time
when the world was run by human beings. And in the days of Queen
Victoria, there were many wonderful things. Wonderful art and wonderful
architecture. And books that were written by people.”
“I once had a book,” said Will’s mum, finally beginning work on her
baconettes. “I liked the pictures in that.”
“That was not a book,” her husband told her. “That was a manual, for
the home screen’s remote control.”
I’ve seen books,” said Will. “And I’ve read them too. I’ve been to the
British Library.”
“The boy is just full of surprises.” Will’s dad held out his cup for further
coffee. “But you can call up books on the home screen.”
“Not like these Victorian books. I’ve read The Adventures of Sherlock
Holmes. The works of Oscar Wilde. And amazing books by H. G. Wells,
Jules Verne and Edgar Allen Poe. I go every lunchtime. I have a special
pass because I work at the Tate. I can’t touch the actual books, but they’re
all on digital.”
“I’m amazed,” said Will’s dad. “But surely you should be on your way to
work now?”
“Indeed, yes.” Will finished his coffee and rose from his special chair.
“Off to work. Off to the art and the literature of the past.”
“He’s a weirdo,” said Will’s mum.
“He’s not,” said Will’s dad. “He’s simply Will.”
Will togged up in sufficient protective outerwear to ensure the prolongation
of his existence and bade his farewells to his mother and father. He would
have taken the lift to the ground floor, had it been working. But it wasn’t
working. It was broken yet again, and so Will was forced to trudge down
the many, many stairs, no easy feat in a chem-proof suit that was many,
many sizes too large, before braving the acid rain and plodding through it
to the tram station.
Once inside he passed through decontamination – a hose-down,
followed by a big blow-dry – then he raised his weather dome to admit an
iris scan of his eyeballs, which confirmed his identity and present credit
status, and allowed him access to the covered platform.
The never-ending shuttle train of trams, thirty-two miles of linked
carriages, followed a circular route through London Central, The Great High
Rise and surrounding conurbation areas. It moved with painful slowness
and was dreary to behold. Will awaited the arrival of a carriage that did not
look altogether full, pressed a large entry button and, as the door slid
aside, stepped aboard the moving carriage.
Large folk sat upon large seats, heavily and sombrely. None raised their
eyes towards young Will, nor offered him a “good morning”. Their heads
were down, their masssive shoulders slumped; all were going off to work
and few were going gladly. The morning tram had never been a transport of
delight.
The in-car entertainment was, upon this particular day, of the corporate
morale-boosting persuasion: plump, jolly holograms, fresh-faced guys and
gals, cavorted up and down the carriage, extolling the virtues of a job well
done for an employer who more than just cared. At intervals they flickered
and slurred, ran into reverse, or stopped altogether. The system was long
overdue for an overhaul – as was most everything else.
Will settled himself into a seat and ignored the colourful chaos. He took
off his rubberised mittens, fished into the pocket of his grossly oversized
chem-proof and brought out his personal palm-top.
This item was something of a treasure to Will, and would be another
collectible should that bygone age of collecting ever return. In this
particular time there should have been marvels of technology to be had,
like plasma gel eye-screens, hardwired to cranial implants, which, when
worn behind the eyelids, would offer three-dimensional virtual reality with
all-around-sensasound and things of that futuristic nature generally. And
there were, to a degree, but they just didn’t work very well. Technology had
got itself just so far before it ground to a halt and started falling to pieces.
Will’s palm-top was almost fifty years old, built in a time when folk really
knew how to build palm-tops. It was indeed his treasure.
But what Will really wanted, of course, was a book, a real book, a book
of his very own. But as books no longer existed, what with there no longer
being any rainforests to denude for their manufacture, he had settled for
second best. Will had been downloading the contents of the British Library
into his ancient palm-top. He did not consider this to be a crime, although
crime indeed it was. He considered it to be an educational supplement.
Certainly he had been taught things at learning classes, when a child, all
those things that the state considered it necessary for him – or any other
child of the citizenry – to know. But Will craved knowledge, more
knowledge, more knowledge of the past.
Somewhere in him, somewhere deep, was A Need to Know, about what
the past really was, about the folk who had inhabited it, about things that
they had done, the adventures they’d had. What they’d known, what they’d
seen, what they’d achieved. There was excitement in the past, and
romance, and adventure.
Exactly why these yearnings were inside him, Will didn’t know. Nor did
he understand why he was so driven by them. But he did understand that it
mattered (for some reason that he did not fully understand, so to speak).
But he would understand. He felt certain that he would.
Will had recently downloaded a number of restricted files from the
British Library’s mainframe, part of the British Library’s collection of
Victorian erotica, and installed them into his palm-top. Will was currently
reading Aubrey Beardsley’s novel, Under the Hill.1
Although Will did not understand much of what Beardsley had written,
the words and phraseology being of such antiquity, he was aware that he
was onto something rather special. Will had researched Mr Beardsley, the
1890s being Will’s favourite period: the gay nineties, they’d been called, a
time of exuberance, of decadence, a time of enormous creativity.
Will almost missed his station, London Central Three. He had been
engrossed in the chapter where Venus masturbates the Unicorn, and had
got a bit of a stiffy on.
(Well, it is an extremely good chapter.)
Will switched off the palm-top, slipped it back into his chem-proof,
redonned his mittens, rose, tapped the door button and departed from the
eternally moving tram. He took the belowground to the Tate Terminal,
passed through the retinal scan, checked in his weather wear and made his
way via lifts and walkways to his place of employment.
The workroom was circular, about half an old mile in diameter and many
new metres in height, with row upon row of huge, somewhat outdated and
unreliable computer workstations, mounted upon IKEA terminal tops, and
manned and womanned by many, many folk, all of whom exceeded Will in
both years and girth.
“Morning, stick-boy,” said Jarvis Santos, a fine hunk of flesh in a
triple-breasted morning suit. Jarvis was Will’s superior.
“Good morning, Mr Santos,” said Will, seating himself in the big chair
before his big workstation. “Rotten old weather, eh?”
“The weather is hardly your concern. You’re here to do a job. Do you
think your frail little fingers can deal with it?”
“Undoubtedly,” said Will, smiling broadly.
“And get that grin off your scrawny face. Your tasking for the day is on
the screen; see to it.”
“Yes, sir,” said Will.
Jarvis Santos shook his head, rippling considerable jowls. He turned and
waddled away, leaving Will smiling broadly at his terminal screen. Will read
the words upon it: The works of Richard Dadd, and there followed a brief
history of this Victorian artist.
Will read these words, and then he whistled. This really couldn’t be
much better: Richard Dadd was one of Will’s all-time favourites; a genuine
Victorian genius (although, it had to be said, a complete stone-bonker too).
Like many rich Victorians, Dadd had taken the Grand Tour. He had travelled
through distant lands, visited and painted Egypt, moved through Africa and
India and at the end of it all, had returned to England, quite mad. His
father, worrying for the mental health of his son had taken Richard under
his wing and was escorting him to hospital when a singular tragedy
occurred. They had booked into a hotel in Cobham, in Surrey, for the night.
Richard and his father had gone out for an evening walk. But Richard
returned alone and hastily made away from the hotel. He had murdered his
father in the woods and, according to legend, feasted on his brain.
Dadd had murdered his dad. He made it as far as France before he’d
been arrested. At his trial it became apparent to all that he was hopelessly
insane. He was committed to St Mary of Bethlehem’s asylum, where he
spent twenty years before being transferred to Broadmoor for the final
twenty-two years of his life. It was at Broadmoor that he painted his
acclaimed masterwork, The Fairy Feller’s Masterstroke2
Although the picture is only fifty-four centimetres by thirty-nine, it took
Dadd nine years to paint, and it remains incomplete. It is a remarkably
complex piece of work which has been interpreted in many ways. Some
scholars believe it to be allegorical, a satire on the times. Others consider
it to be metaphysical, embodying some great and undiscovered truth.
Its composition is this. In the foreground stands the fairy feller of the title.
He holds aloft an axe and is awaiting the precise moment to swing it and
cleave a large nut, which will then be fashioned into a new coach for Queen
Mab. Behind the feller, the fairies look on in expectation: many fairies,
beaux and ladies, strange dwarves and satyr-like creatures. And
nursery-book characters too: tinker, tailor, soldier, sailor, rich man, poor
man, beggar man, thief.
There is no perspective to the painting; the numerous figures, set
amidst swaying grasses and voluptuous daisies, peer from the canvas as if
vying for attention.
It is a very, very strange painting.
Will knew his job well enough by now. He had to visually check the
digital photoscan of the painting, to ensure that the colours and textures
were all in focus. It was tedious work, or certainly would have been to
anyone other than Will, but Will revelled in the hugely magnified images
upon the screen, viewing every brushstroke, and brushstrokes there were
aplenty upon The Fairy Feller’s Masterstroke. Dadd had obsessively
repainted the faces of the characters again and again and again in his
insane desperation to “get them right”. Some stood out from the canvas by
almost half a centimetre.
For the Tate to print accurate reproductions for public display, all had to
be exact and correct. Will would have to check not only every centimetre,
but every millimetre also. He had many automatic checking systems to aid
him, of course, but as these regularly broke down, the human touch was
still required.
And Will, it had to be said, possessed the human touch.
“Oh bliss,” said Will Starling. “This is going to be very enjoyable.”
A big flippery-floppery sound caused Will some momentary distraction.
Gladys Nanken lowered her prodigious bulk into the terminal chair next to
Will. “Morning, lovely boy,” she said, breathlessly and breathily.
“Ah.” Will turned his gaze on Gladys. It was one of those
rabbit-caught-in-car-headlights kind of gazes.
“And how’s my little boy, this morning?” Gladys asked.
“Intent upon a day of dedicated labour,” said Will. “Up against a
deadline. Fearing any distraction that might result in a loss of concentration
and lead inevitably to an employment termination situation. As it were.”
“You’re all words,” said Gladys, winking lewdly at Will. “And such pretty
words too. I wonder what they all mean.”
“They mean that I must work hard or get sacked,” said Will, applying
himself to the keyboard. (It was a big keyboard, with big keypads, designed
for fingers that were far bigger than Will’s slender digits.)
“But you’ll join me for lunch?” asked Gladys, making what she
considered to be a comely face. “I have extra vouchers, just for you. My job
is to build you up, you know.”
“I do know.” Will sank low over his keyboard and wondered, as he had
done upon many previous, similar, occasions, what exactly life was all
about.
The fat men in Will’s world held him in nothing but contempt, but the fat
women loved him. They couldn’t get enough of him. If only he could love
them, he would be enjoying the sex life of the gods.
But he didn’t love them. He didn’t, on the whole, even like them. Which
was a bummer, because Will would have dearly loved some sex.
“You press on then, dearest,” said Gladys. “Lunchtime, then?”
“Lunchtime, then,” said Will, applying himself to his keypads. Charles
Fort, the twentieth-century phenomenologist (of whom Will knew nothing at
all) had once written words to the effect that when drawing a circle, one
can begin at any point. Exactly what this means is anyone’s guess, but it’s
probably something deep and meaningful.
Will went about his work in this self-same manner: he began anywhere,
at random, examining the image of the artwork on the screen, beginning
anywhere at all. Will flipped his computer rat (a larger version of a mouse),
brought a tiny portion of the overall image to the screen and perused it.
He found himself perusing the Tinker. He wore a red cap and a
waistcoat, a puff-sleeved shirt and a pair of woollen breeches. Will peered
at the face of the Tinker. The detail was remarkable. Will expanded the
image until it all but filled his terminal screen. The detail was more than
remarkable, even at this scale; you couldn’t actually see the brushstrokes.
Mr Dadd must have had the most amazing eyesight. Will shook his head
and whistled in admiration. It was almost photographic. It was incredible.
Will twitched the rat backwards and forwards and scrolled up and down.
There was certainly nothing faulty about the digitalisation of this portion of
the image. You could see every button on the Tinker’s shirt, every fibre of
the cloth.
Will sat back in his chair and did a bit more whistling. They really knew
their trade, those Victorian lads. Even the mad ones. They really knew how
to paint a picture. No one could do stuff like this any more; it was a dead
art. Art was a dead art. It was all computers these days, and computers
that didn’t even work very well.
Will twitched the rat once more, down to the Tinker’s hand. Look at
that: the fingernails, the veins; the detail. The sheer, amazing, wonderful
detail. The fingernails, the veins, the tiny hairs, the skin of the wrist. The
maker’s name on the wristwatch. Will twiddled the mouse and moved on
towards the Tailor. The detail of the hat, the texture of the fabric. The—
Hold on.
Will nicked back to the Tinker.
The wristwatch?
Will twiddled some more, tapped the keypads, enlarged the image.
The wristwatch?
This was a Victorian painting. They didn’t have wristwatches in those
days. And certainly not … digital wristwatches.
Will’s jaw dropped hugely open. There was no doubt about it at all. The
摘要:

TITLE:TheWitchesofChiswickAUTHOR:RobertRankinPUBLISHER:GollanczCOPYRIGHT:©2003ISBN:0575073144ABEBVersion:3.0Created:2004/1/26@21:53AnmdfScan&Proofread.TheWitchesofChiswickRobertRankinThisbookisdedicatedtoSPROUTLOREontheoccasionofitstenthanniversary.Tothosewhobeganit,AnnaCasey,EimerNiMhealoid,RobertE...

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