Robert Rankin - Waiting for Godalming

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2024-11-29 0 0 401.29KB 237 页 5.9玖币
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Waiting for Godalming
Robert Rankin
For my bestest buddy
NICK REEKIE
A great Sherlockian
You work it out!
I really hated the doctor’s office.
It smelled of feet and fish and fear. A fetid fermentation. And I
really hated the doctor too. He was a wrong’un, that doctor.
On the outside, to the naked eyeball, he looked fine. He looked
just the way that a doctor should look. The way that you would
expect a doctor to look. But that’s what they do, the wrong’uns.
That’s how they survive amongst us. They look just right. Just
how they’re supposed to look. Which is why no-one ever suspects
them of being what they really are.
Wrong’uns.
But I know. Because I took the drug. I can see them for what
they really are. Foul demonic creatures of Hell. And I can stop
them too. I could put paid to their plans for world domination. I
could drive them back to the bottomless pit. I could. I really
could. If only I could stay awake for a little bit longer. Just a
couple of days. That’s all I need. Just a couple of days.
“So,” said the doctor, glancing up from his case notes, my case
notes. “Do you want to continue with the consultation?”
“Buddy,” I told him. “All I want is some more of those wide-
awake tablets. So I don’t keep falling asleep.”
“The tablets help then, do they?”
“Tablets always help,” I said. “That’s what tablets are for, isn’t
it?”
“Some of them.” The doctor peered at me over his spectacles. I’d
had a pair like them once. Special lenses in mine, though.
Invented them myself.
2D spectacles. The opposite of 3D spectacles. When you looked
through mine, they made the world go flat. Like you were
watching a movie, see? Like you were in a movie. Ken Kesey
once said, “Always stay in your own movie,” and that’s what I do.
That’s how I survive. I made the frames of my spectacles long
and narrow, so that my world was a widescreen movie. But they
weren’t a success.
I had some really hairy moments on the motorway.
So I don’t invent things any more. I just stick to what I do best.
And that is being the greatest private eye in the business.
“Do you want to talk about your dreams?” the doctor asked.
“No,” I told him. “I don’t have any time for dreams.”
“Let’s talk about you then. Let’s talk about you, Mr Woodblock.”
“The name’s Woodbine,” I said. “Lazlo Woodbine, private eye.”
And I added, “Some call me Laz.”
The doctor leafed some more through his case notes. “Mr
Woodbine, yes, and you describe yourself as a living legend.”
“I am the man,” I said. “The one and only. The last of a dying
breed.”
“And just what breed would that be, exactly?”
“The nineteen-fifties American genre detective. The man who
walks alone along those mean streets where a man must walk
alone.”
“Not entirely alone,” said the doctor, flick flick flicking through
those case-note pages. “There is this Gary character who works
with you.”
“It’s Barry,” I said. “His name is Barry.”
“Ah yes, Barry. And Barry is a sprout who lives inside your head.”
“He doesn’t live there. I’ve told you before.”
“He’s a dead sprout?”
“He’s a theophany. And before you ask me again what that is, it’s
a manifestation of the deity to man, in a form which, although
visible, is not necessarily material. And before you ask me again
whether I can see Barry, the answer is no. I can only hear him.
And only I can hear him. He speaks to me from inside my head.
He’s my Holy Guardian Sprout.”
“As in Holy Guardian Angel?”
“As I have told you many times before. There are more people on
Earth than there are angels in Heaven. God improvises. He
shares out the produce of His garden. I got a sprout named
Barry. Perhaps you have a pumpkin called Peter.”
“Are you suggesting that I have a very big head?”
“If the elephant man’s cap fits, wear it.”
“What did you say, Mr Woodbine?”
“I said, you have an elegant man’s head. Now please can I have
some more tablets before I fall asleep again?”
“All in good time,” said the doctor, doing that thing that doctors
do with their pencils. “Let’s talk a bit about this case you say
you’re on. It involves a handbag, doesn’t it?”
“No,” I said. “My last case involved a handbag. This case involves
a briefcase.”
“Is there always luggage involved in your cases?”
“That’s what a case is, luggage.”
“I don’t think I quite understand.”
“Well, we all have our luggage to carry around. That’s what
makes a man what he is, his luggage.”
“Surely you mean baggage.”
“Luggage, baggage. A man is what he carries around. A handbag,
a briefcase, a doctor’s bag, carpet bag, Gladstone bag, kit bag,
duffel bag, saddle bag, portmanteau, suitcase, attaché case,
despatch case, guitar case, overnight case, weekend case, vanity
case, satchel, knapsack, rucksack, haversack …”
“You certainly know your luggage,” said the doctor.
“Buddy,” I told him, “in my business, knowing your luggage can
mean the difference between looking through the eyes of love
and staring down the barrel of a P45. If you know what I mean
and I’m sure that you do.”
“I don’t,” said the doctor.
“Well I do,” said I. “There was one case I was on back in ninety-
five and I confused a sabretache with a reticule. That case cost
me my two front teeth, my entire collection of Lonnie Donegan
records, my reputation as a connoisseur of pine kitchen wall
cupboards, my pet duck named Derek and …”
“What?” asked the doctor.
“Zzzzzzzzzzzzzzz.”
“Wake up!” shouted the doctor.
And I woke up in a bit of a sweat.
“Listen,” I said. “All I want is the tablets, so I can stay awake.
You want me to stay awake, so I can tell you all about the case. I
want to stay awake, so I can close the case. For pity’s sake, man,
we both want me to stay awake. So why don’t you just give me
the damn tablets and then I’ll stay awake?”
“All right,” said the doctor. “I’ll give you a tablet now and you can
have another when you’ve finished telling me all about your
case.”
I could see he was lying. It shows up on their heads when they
lie, the wrong’uns. Their quills go blue at the tips. But of course
he didn’t know that I could see his quills. He didn’t know that I
was on to him. But I was. I could see his quills and his terrible
reptilian eyes and those awful insect mouthparts that kept
chewing chewing chewing. I could see it all, because I had taken
the drug.
And so I told him all about the case. Just to pass the time. Just
so I could stay awake for a couple more days and wipe him and
his kind from the face of the Earth. I didn’t tell him all of it.
Because I didn’t know all of it. And even if I had, I wouldn’t have
told him. I told him my side of the story, when I was called in on
the case. I don’t know for sure just what happened earlier,
because I wasn’t there to see it happen. I guess it all really
began in that barber’s shop. But like I say, I wasn’t there, so I
couldn’t say for sure.
1
Now you don’t really see barber’s shops any more. They’ve gone
the way of the Pathe News and Raylbrook Poplin, the shirts you
don’t iron. But once, in a time not too long ago, the barber’s shop
was a very special place. A shrine to all things male.
Here men of every social order gathered for their bi-weekly
trims. The gentry rubbed shoulders with the genetically deficient,
princes with paupers, wide boys with window dressers. Here was
egalitarianism made flesh. Here was a classless society. Here all
men were equal beneath the barber’s brush.
A mile due north of Brentford, as the fair griffin flies, the Ealing
Road enters South Ealing and for a space of one hundred yards
becomes its high street. And here, in the high street, hard upon
摘要：

WaitingforGodalmingRobertRankinFormybestestbuddyNICKREEKIEAgreatSherlockianYouworkitout!Ireallyhatedthedoctor’soffice.Itsmelledoffeetandfishandfear.Afetidfermentation.AndIreallyhatedthedoctortoo.Hewasawrong’un,thatdoctor.Ontheoutside,tothenakedeyeball,helookedfine.Helookedjustthewaythatadoctorshould...

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