Robert Rankin - The Fandom of the Operator

ROBERT RANKIN

The Fandom of the Operator

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1

It was a Thursday and once again there was rancour in our back parlour.

I never cared for Thursdays, because I cared nothing for rancour. I liked things quiet. Quiet and

peaceful. Wednesdays I loved, because my father went out, and Sundays because they were Sundays.

But Thursdays, they were noisy and filled with rowdy rancour. Because on Thursdays my Uncle Jon

came to visit.

Uncle Jon was lean and long and loud and looked a lot like a lizard. There’s a bit of an animal in each of

us. Or a reptile, or a bird, or an insect. Or even a tree or a turnip. None of us are one hundred per cent

human; it’s something to do with partial re-incarnation, according to a book I once read. But, whether

it’s true or not, I’m sure that Uncle Jon had much of the lizard in him. He could, for instance, turn his eyes

in different directions at the same time. Chameleons do that. People don’t. Mind you, Uncle Jon’s eyes

were made of glass. I never looked too much at his tongue, but I bet it was long and black and pointy at

the end.

Uncle Jon was all curled up, all lizard—like, in the visitors’ chair, which stood to the east of the

chalky-drawn line that bisected our back parlour. The line was an attempt, upon the part of my father, to

maintain some sort of order. Visitors were required to remain to the east of the line, whilst residents kept

to the west. On this particular Thursday, Uncle Jon was holding forth from his side of the line about

pilgrims and parsons and things of a religious nature, which were mostly unintelligible to my ears. Me

being so young and ignorant and all.

My father, or ‘the Daddy’, as I knew and loved him then, chewed upon sweet cheese and spat the rinds

into the fire that lick-lick-licked away in the small, but adequate, hearth.

I perched upon the coal-box, beside the brass companion set that lacked for the tongs, which had been

broken in a fight between my father and my Uncle Jon following some long-past piece of rancour. I was

attentive. Listening. My pose was that of a Notre Dame gargoyle. It was a studied pose. I had studied it.

‘Thousands of them,’ rancoured my Uncle Jon, voice all high and hoarse and glass eyes rolling in their

fleshy sockets.

‘Thousands of parsons, with their lych gates and their pine pews and their cloth-bound hymnals and their

pulpits for elbow-leaning and their embroidered mats that you are obliged to put your knees upon whilst

praying. And what do any of them really know? I ask you. What?’

The Daddy didn’t reply. I didn’t reply. My mother, who lathered sprouts in the stone pot by the sink in

our kitchen, didn’t reply either.

Nobody replied.

There wasn’t time.

‘Nothing,’ my Uncle Jon rancoured on. ‘Charlie is gone, and to where?’ There was no pause. No space

for reply. ‘I’ll tell you to where. To none knows where. Wherever that is. And none knows.

My father, the Daddy, glared at Uncle Jon.

‘Don’t glare at me,’ said the Uncle.

My father opened his mouth to speak. But pushed further cheese into it instead.

‘And don’t talk to me with your mouth full. They don’t know. None of them. Clerics, parsons, bishops,

archbishops, pilgrims and popes. Pilgrims know nothing anyway, but popes know a lot. But eventhey

don’t know. None of them. None. None. None. Doyou know? Do you?’

I knew thatI didn’t know. But then the question probably hadn’t been addressed to me. Uncle Jon had

been looking at me, sort of, with one of his glass eyes, but that didn’t mean he was actually speaking to

me. He’d probably been speaking to the Daddy. I looked towards that man. If anybody knew an answer

to the Uncle’s question, it would probably be the Daddy. He knew about all sorts of interesting things.

He knew how to defuse a Vi flying bomb. He’d done that for a living in the war. And he knew all about

religion and poetry. He hated both. And he knew how to concentrate his will upon the cat while it slept

and make it wee-wee itself

I never quite understood the worth of that particular piece of knowledge. But it always made me laugh

when he did it. So, if there were anyone to answer Uncle Jon’s question, that person would, in my limited

opinion, be the Daddy.

I looked towards him.

The Daddy looked towards Uncle Jon.

Uncle Jon looked towards the both of us.

I really wanted the Daddy to speak.

But he didn’t. He just chewed upon cheese.

My daddy hated Uncle Jon. I knew that he did. I knew that he knew that I knew that he did. And Uncle

Jon knew that he did. And I suppose Uncle Jon knew that I knew that he did and probably knew that I

knew that he knew that I did. So to speak.

‘Youdon’t know,’ said my Uncle Jon.

I looked quite hard at my uncle. As hard as I possibly could look. I was young and I hadn’t learned how

to hate properly as yet. But as best as I possibly could hate, I hated Uncle Jon.

It wasn’t just his eyes that I hated. Although they were quite enough. They were horrible, those eyes.

They didn’t even match. Not that it was Uncle Jon’s fault. It wasn’t. My daddy had explained the

situation to me. He told me all about glass eyes and how opto-something-ists (the fellows who dealt with

this sort of thing) matched up eyes. They matched up a glass replacement eye to its living counterpart.

Both of Uncle Jon’s eyes had left his head when a bomb from Hitler had blown up in his back yard. My

daddy hadn’t had a chance to defuse that one. He’d been down at the pub fighting with American

servicemen. These opto-something-ist fellows had bunged my uncle a couple of odd eyes, because they

knew he wouldn’t notice. They looked horrible, those odd glass eyes. I hated them.

Being blind didn’t bother Uncle Jon, though. He’d learned how to see with his ears. He could ride his

bike without bump-ing into people and do all the things he’d done before that needed eyes to do them.

There was a special name, at that time, for being able to see without having eyes, as my Uncle Jon was

able to do. Derma-optical perception, it was. There used to be a lot of it about, back in the days when

people believed in that sort of thing. Back then in the nineteen fifties. People don’t believe in that sort of

thing nowadays, so blind people have to go without seeing.

Uncle Jon travelled a lot with the circus, where he did a knife-throwing act that involved several midgets

and a large stetson hat. The crowds loved him.

The Daddy and I didn’t.

The Daddy worried at the medals on his chest with cheese-free fingers and finally stirred some words

from his mouth. ‘Cease the rancour, were these words. ‘You’re frightening weeGary.’

‘I’m brave enough,’ said I, for I was. ‘But who is this Charlie of whom my uncle speaks?’

‘Yes,’ said my daddy, ‘whois this Charlie? I know not of any dead Charlies.’

‘Charlie Penrose, you craven buffoon.’ My uncle rolled his mis-matched peepers and rapped his white

stick — which he carried to get himself first in bus queues — smartly on the floor, raising little chalky

clouds from the carpet and frightening me slightly.

‘Charlie Penrose isdead?’ My father stiffened, as if struck between the shoulder blades by a Zulu

chieftain’s spear. ‘Young Charlie dead and never called me mother.

‘And never calledme sweetheart,’ said my Uncle Jon. ‘And I have written to the Pope regarding the

matter.’

My daddy opened his mouth once more to speak. But he didn’t ask ‘why?’ as many would. Uncle Jon

was always writing to the Pope about one thing or another.

‘I am shocked,’ said my father, the Daddy. ‘I am deeply shocked by this revelation. I was fighting with

Charlie only the last week.’

‘I was fighting with him only the last yesterday and now he is no more.

‘So!’cried the Daddy.‘You murdered him! Hand me the poker from the brass companion set that lacks

for the tongs, son. And I will set about your uncle something fierce.’

I hastened to comply with this request.

‘Hold hard,’ said my uncle, raising his blind—man’s stick. ‘I am innocent of this outlandish charge.

Charlie died in a bizarre vacuum-cleaning accident. He was all alone at the time. I was in the Royal

Borough of Orton Goldhay, performing with Count Otto Black’s Circus Fantastique. To rapturous

applause and a standing ovation, even from those who had to remain sitting, due to lack of legs.’

‘Charlie was my closest friend,’ said the Daddy. ‘I loved him like the brother I never had.’

‘I never had that brother too,’ said my uncle. ‘I only had your-self, which is no compensation.’

‘Do you still require the poker, Daddy?’ I asked.

‘Not yet, son, but keep it handy.’

‘That I will,’ said I, keeping it handy.

‘I am appalled,’ my daddy said. ‘Appalled, dismayed and distraught.’

‘And so you should be.’ Uncle Jon turned his glassy eyes to heaven. ‘And so should we all be. And I

have had enough of it. Charlie is dead and there will be a funeral and a burying and words will be spoken

over him and what for and why? Nobody knows where he’s bound for. Whether to a sun-kissed realm

above, or just to the bellies of the worms beneath. No one, not even the Pope. And I think it’s a

disgrace. The Government spends our tax money putting up Belisha beacons and painting telephone

boxes the colour of blood, but do they put a penny into things that really matter? Like finding out what

happens to people after they die, and if it’s bad, then doing something about it? Do they? I think not!’

‘Daddy,’ saidI.‘This Charlie Penrose, who you claim was your closest friend. Why did he never come

round here?’

‘Too busy,’ said my father. ‘He was a great sporting man. Sportsmanship was everything to him. And

when he wasn’t engaged in some piece of sportsmanship, then he was busy writing. He was a very

famous writer. A writer of many, many books.’

‘Poetry books?’ I enquired.

My father smote me in passing. ‘Not poetry!’ he shouted. ‘Never use that word in this house. He was

the writer of great novels. He was the best best-selling author of this century so far. He was the man who

wrote the Lazlo Woodbine thrillers. And also the Adam Earth science-fiction novels. Although they were,

in my opinion, rubbish, and it’s Woodbine he’ll be remembered for.’

‘Surely that isP. P. Penrose,’ said I with difficulty, clicking my jawbone back into place. ‘P. P. Penrose.

But this is terrible. Mr Penrose is my favourite author. Are you certain that this Charlie is really the same

dead fellow?’

‘Same chap,’ said Daddy. ‘He changed his name from Charlie to P.P. because it gave him more class.’

‘We have more class at my school, when no one’s off sick with diphtheria,’ I said.

‘Same sort of thing,’ said my daddy.

‘No, it’s not,’ said my Uncle. ‘Don’t just humour the boy, tell him all of the truth.’

My daddy nodded. ‘It’s nothing like that at all, son,’ he said, smiting me once again.

I considered the poker. A boy at our school had done for his daddy with a poker. He’d done for his

mummy too. And all because he wanted to go to the orphans’ picnic inGunnersburyPark. I wouldn’t

have dreamed of doing anything as horrid as that. But it did occur to me that if I smote the Daddy just the

once, buthard, it might put him off smiting me further in the future. It would be the work of a moment, but

would take quite a lot of nerve. It was worth thinking about, though.

‘There’ll be a wake,’ said my Uncle Jon, derailing my train of thought. ‘There’s always a wake.’

‘What’s a wake?’ I asked, pretending that I didn’t know, and edging myself beyond my daddy’s smiting

range.

‘It’s a kind of party,’ said my Uncle Jon, lizarding all around and about in the visitors’ chair. ‘Folk like

your daddy drink a very great deal of beer at such functions at the expense of the dead man’s family and

rattle on and on about how the dead man was their bestest friend.’

‘Is there jelly and balloons?’ I asked, because I greatly favoured both.

‘Go and play in the yard,’ said the Daddy.

‘We don’t have a yard,’ I informed him.

‘Then go and help your mummy lather sprouts.’

‘That’s women’s work,’ I said. ‘If I do women’s work I might well grow up to be a homo.’

‘True enough,’ said my uncle. ‘I’ve seen that happen time and again. Show me a window-dresser and

I’ll show you a boy who lathered sprouts.’

My father made a grunting noise with his trick knee. ‘Much as I hate your uncle,’ he said, ‘he might well

have a point on this occasion. He knows more than most about homos.’

‘I’ll take that as a compliment,’ said my uncle, ‘although it wasn’t meant as one. But let the lad stay. He

should be told about these things. He’ll never learn to walk upon ceilings, just by stand-ing on his hands.’

‘There’s truth in that too,’ said my daddy.

‘What?’ said I.

‘What indeed!’ said my daddy. ‘But tell me, youngGary, what do you know about death?’

‘Well,’ said I, toying with the poker, ‘I’ve heard that good boys go to heaven and that brutal fathers

burn for ever in the fires of hell.’

My uncle laughed. ‘I’ve heard that too,’ said he. ‘But what do you actually know about death?’

I shook my head in answer to the question. ‘Nothing,’ I said. In truth I knew quite a lot about death. It

was a particular interest of mine. But I had learned early on in my childhood that adults responded

favourably to ignorance in children. They thrived on it. It made them feel superior.

‘Whatis death, Uncle Jonny?’ I asked.

Uncle ‘Jonny’ pursed his lizard lips. ‘Now thatis a question,’ he said. ‘And it’s one to which no

satisfactory answer really exists. You see, it’s all down to definitions. It is generally agreed amongst

members of the medical profession that a subject is dead when they have suffered “brain-stem death”.

Which is to say, when all cerebral activity — that is, brain activity — has ceased. This is referred to as

clinical death. Although, I am reliably informed, certain techniques exist that are capable of keeping the

body of a dead person “alive” in a hospital by electronically manipulating the heart muscle and pumping

air into the lungs.’

‘Why would anyone want to do that?’ asked my father.

‘I don’t know,’ said my uncle. ‘For use in spare-part surgery, I suppose, or possibly for the recreational

activities of some deviant doctor.’

‘Go and lather sprouts!’ my father told me. ‘I’ll risk you becom-ing a homo.’

‘I want to listen,’ I said. ‘Or I’ll never learn how to walk upon the ceiling.’

‘You know enough,’ said my father.

‘I don’t,’ I said. ‘When is this wake, Uncle Jonny? Can I come to it?’

‘No, you can’t,’ said my daddy.

‘It’s not really for children,’ said my uncle. ‘The body will be in an open casket. Have you ever seen a

dead corpse, youngGary?’

I had in fact seen several, but I wasn’t going to let on. ‘Never,’ saidI.‘But I’d like to pay my respects.

I’ve read most of Mr Penrose’s novels.’

‘Have you?’ asked my father. ‘I didn’t know you could read.’

‘Yes, and write too. And do sums.

‘That infant school is teaching you well.’

‘I’m at the juniors now — I’m ten years of age — but P. P. Penrose is my favourite author.’

‘Was,’said my father.

‘Still is,’ saidI.‘And I’d like to pay my last respects to him.’

‘That’s the ticket,’ said my uncle.

‘No, it’s not,’ said my daddy. ‘You’re a child. Death isn’t your business. It’s something for adults. Like

‘Cunnilingus?’ my uncle suggested.

‘Likewhat?’ I asked.

‘Go to your room!’

‘I don’t have a room!’

‘Then go to your cupboard.’

‘I don’t want to go to my cupboard,’ I said. ‘I want to know things. I want to know about all sorts of

things. Every sort of thing. I want to know all about death and what happens after you die...’

‘So do I,’ said Uncle Jon.

‘Shut up, you,’ said my daddy.

‘We have to know,’ said my uncle. ‘It’s important. Wehave to know.’

‘It’snot important!’ My father’s voice was well and truly raised. ‘It happens. Everybody dies. We’re

born, we live, we die. That’s how it is. The boy’s a boy. Let him be a boy. He’ll be a man soon enough

and he can think on these things then. Get out of my house now, Jon. Let me be alone with my grief.’

‘Your grief for Charlie? You old fraud, what do you care?’

‘I care enough. I do care. He was my bestest friend.’

‘You never had a bestest friend in your life.’

‘I did and I did. You cur, you low, driven cur.’

‘You foul and filthy fiend!’

‘You wretch!’

‘You cretin!’

And there was further rancour.

I never cared for rancour at all.

So I slipped away to play in the yard.

2

I would have played inour yard. If we’d had one. But as we have one, I didn’t.

I went to play in the graveyard instead.

The graveyard was really big back then. Before the council divided it up and sold all the best bits. All the

best bits were the Victorian bits, with their wonderful tombs and memorials. All those weather-worn

angels shrouded by ivy and all those vaults that, if you were little enough and possessed of sufficient

bravery, you could crawl into.

Iwas little enough and had plenty of bravery. I could worm my way in under the rusted grilles and view

the coffins of the Victorian dead at my pleasure.

You might consider me to have been a morbid little soul. But that was not how I considered myself. I

considered myself to be an explorer. An adventurer. An archaeologist. If it was acceptable for adults to

excavate the long-buried corpses of the Pharaohs, then why shouldn’t it have been all right for me to

have a little peep at the bodies of my own forefathers?

On this particular Thursday, I didn’t worm my way under any of the iron grilles. I just lay in the sunshine

upon my favourite tomb. It was a truly monumental affair. A great fat opulent Victorian fusspot of a tomb,

wrought into the semblance of a gigantic four-poster bed, mounted upon a complicated network of

remarkable cogs. The whole fashioned from the finestCarraramarble.

It was the tomb of one David Aloysius Doveston, purveyor of steam conveyances to the gentry. ‘Born

27thJuly 1802, died27thJuly 1902.’ A good innings for a Victorian; a grand century, in fact.

I’d taken the trouble to look up Mr Doveston in the Memorial Library. I’d wondered why it was that a

purveyor of steam con-veyances had chosen to have his tomb constructed in the manner of a fantastic

bed.

In amongst the parish records, housed in the restricted section, I located a big fat file on Mr Doveston,

who, it appeared, had been something of an inventor. I uncovered a pamphlet advertis-ing what

appeared to be his most marvellous creation: ‘the Doveston patent steam-driven homeopathic

wonder-bed’. This incredible boon to mankind had been displayed at the Great Exhibition and was

presented as being ‘the universal panacea and most excellent restorer to health, efficacious in the cures of

many ills, pestilences and dreadful agues that do torment mankind to mortification’. These included

‘milliner’s sniffle, ploughman’s hunch, blains which pain the privy member, rat pox, cacky ear, trouser

mite, the curly worms that worry from within’ and sundry other terrible afflictions.

I must suppose that the homeopathic wonder-bed proved equal to the claims of its inventor, for not only

had he lived to be one hundred years of age but also, as far as I knew, ploughman’s hunch and the curly

worms that worried from within no longer plagued the general public.

In fact, as I could find no trace of any of these ghastly maladies listed in any medical dictionary, I remain

of the firm conviction that Mr Doveston’s invaluable invention effected their complete eradication.

I was surprised, therefore, that he hadn’t, at the very least, had a local street named after him.

I lay upon the marble replica of Mr Doveston’s beneficial bed, all curly-wormless and thinking a lot

about the death of P. P. Penrose and all my uncle’s rancour.

Although I hadn’t let on to my father, or to Uncle Jon, I felt very bad about the passing of the Penrose.

Very bad indeed. I loved that man’s books. I was a member of the now official P. P. Penrose fan club.

I’d saved up, sent away for and received the special enamel badge and everything. I had the Lazlo

Woodbine, private-eye secret codebook, the pen with the invisible ink, the unique plastic replica of Laz’s

trusty Smith & Wesson (that wasnot a toy, but a collectable) and the complete set ofDeath Wears a

Turquoise Homburg* trading cards. I was saving up for theManhattanScenes of Woodbinediorama

playset, a scaled-down section ofNew York City, where you couldbe Woodbine (if you were very, very

small).

Lazlo Woodbine was the classic 1950s genre detective. He wore a trenchcoat and a fedora and worked

only in the first person. And, no matter how tricky the case might be, he only ever needed four locations

to get the job done. His office, where women-who-would-do-him-wrong came to call, a bar where he

talked a lot of old toot with his best friend, Fangio, the fat boy barman, an alleyway where he got into

sticky situations, and a rooftop, where he had his final confrontation with the bad guy. According to Laz,

no great genre detective ever needed more than these four locations. And I was saving up for the

complete set. And it all came in a cardboard foot-locker.‡

None of this will mean very much to anyone who hasn’t read a Lazlo Woodbine thriller. But as most of

you will realize, this was special stuff, which if it was still extant and found its way into an auction room

today would command incredible prices.

I was a fan. I admit it. A big fan. Still am. I loved and still love those books. All those stylish slayings, all

the Woodbine catch-phrases. All the toot he talked in bars, the women who did him wrong, the

bottomless pits of whirling oblivion that he always fell into at the end of the second chapter when he got

bopped on the

*A Lazlo Woodbine thriller.

‡Remember those? No? Well, please yourself, then.

head. The whole kit and genre caboodle and the Holy Guardian Sprout inside his head.

I loved the stuff I did and do. I loved it.

Which is why I mention it here.

Iwas miffed. I’m telling you. I felt well and truly cheated. My favourite author dead and never called my

father mother. And my father had actually known him. And I never knew that he did. I could have met

the man. Had him autograph my books. Talked to him. But no. He was dead. Defunct. Gone and would

write no more.

That seemed really unfair. Really stupid. Really pointless. I felt really bad.

I mean, and give me a minute here while I get deep, I mean, what is the point of death? Does anybody

know? Being alive has a point, it has a purpose. If people weren’t alive, weren’t aware, then what would

be the point of the universe? It might exist, but if there was no one in it to know it existed, it might as well

not exist. You had to have people in the universe to be aware that there was a universe. You didn’t

actually need God, who it was claimed created the universe, He was completely unnecessary. You could

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