The Fandom of the Operator

by Robert Rankin

  ‘Golly,’ I said, as I couldn’t think of anything else to say.

  ‘You,’ said Mother Demdike, ‘may be poised upon the brink of something big. Tell me that list of herbs once again. In fact, show me the book you got the list from. It’s there in your pocket, I believe.’

  I took out my copy of Voodoo in Theory and Practice and handed it to her.

  ‘You stole that from the library,’ said Mother Demdike.

  ‘I did,’ I said. ‘I see you’ve nicked a few yourself.’

  Mother Demdike chuckled. ‘All in a good cause,’ she said.

  ‘Of course,’ said I.

  ‘Then read me the list.’

  She returned the book to me. I thumbed through the pages and read her the list.

  Mother Demdike busied herself about the place. She delved into jars and drawers and when she had found everything that I sought she packaged all in a brown paper bag and handed it to me.

  ‘Thank you,’ I said.

  ‘Your hand,’ said Mother Demdike. ‘Your part of the bargain. You must let me read your hand.’

  ‘Certainly,’ said I. ‘That’s fair.’ I stuck my hand out and she took it between her own.

  ‘Oh yes,’ she said. ‘Oh yes.’

  ‘Oh yes?’ I asked.

  ‘Oh yes. It’s all here, written right through you. You will perform great deeds. You will do special things. But society will hate you for the special things you will do. You will become a hated person. A social pariah. But you will advance humankind, you will be remembered, as I will be forgotten.’

  ‘I’ll remember you,’ I said.

  ‘No, you won’t.’

  ‘I will.’

  ‘You won’t.’

  ‘Check my palm again.’

  Mother Demdike checked my palm again. ‘Oh yes,’ she said. ‘I will be remembered. That’s nice, although I take exception to being called “the rankest hag that ever troubled daylight”.’

  ‘But at least you get a mention.’

  ‘Do me one favour, Gary,’ said Mother Demdike.

  ‘I’ll try,’ I said. ‘What is it?’

  ‘Put a blue plaque up. On the site of my hut. If you can. If you have the power.’

  ‘And will I have the power? Check my hand again and tell me.’

  Mother Demdike checked my hand again. ‘Yes,’ she said and she smiled at me. ‘You will have the power. You will.’

  ‘Then I’ll make sure the blue plaque goes up.’

  ‘Thank you,’ said the old one and she kissed the palm of my hand.

  I took my leave of Mother Demdike. She’d given me not only the herbs I required, but also a whole lot more. I don’t know how to explain it, but when I left her little hut I felt real. As if I could do things that mattered, really do them. That I would make my mark upon mankind. Do something big.

  I have a lot to thank that old woman for. She didn’t say much to me, but she said the right things.

  And the day eventually came when I did have the power to get that blue plaque. Her little hut had gone by then, she had gone and the memories of her were fading. A new block of flats was up and new thoughts and ways were on the go. I didn’t bother to get the blue plaque put up, though. I mean, ugly old cow. I could never see the point of really ugly people.

  5

  Dave was already at the launderette. He loved that launderette, did Dave.

  He’d been introduced to the joys of launderettes by a friend of his called Chico, who lived in Brentford’s Puerto Rican quarter. Chico had explained to Dave about the pleasures of watching the washing go round and round in the big new washers. These pleasures are really subtle; they have to be explained. They have to be understood and they have to be mastered.

  That doesn’t sound altogether right, does it? Mastering pleasure. But it’s true. To appreciate anything fully and completely, you have to be its master. You can have moments of exquisite pleasure, drinking, drugging or sexing it away. But if you are not the master of the pleasure, you will eventually be its slave.

  I never mastered the pleasures of watching the washing go round and round in the washers. But I never felt slave to them, either. I just thought the whole thing was stupid. I just didn’t get it.

  Dave was seated on the bench, his eyes fixed upon a white wash. A look of ecstasy upon his face, his knees held tightly together. He was entranced.

  ‘Oh, wow,’ went Dave. ‘Oh, bliss.’

  ‘Enjoying yourself?’ I asked, as I sat down beside him.

  ‘Immensely,’ said Dave. ‘Do you know, I foresee a time when almost every household in the country will own a washing machine.’

  ‘Own a washing machine?’ I laughed out loud. ‘What? People will have washing machines in their homes? Instead of here in launderettes?’

  ‘Mark my words,’ said Dave. ‘And televisions too.’

  ‘What is a television?’ I asked.

  ‘It’s a wireless with pictures.’

  ‘What? Pictures of a wireless?’

  ‘Moving pictures, like in a cinema. It’s a sort of miniature cinema for the home. There’s one on display in the window of Kay’s Electrical in the High Street.’

  ‘I’m not allowed to go near the High Street,’ I told Dave. ‘My dad says that homos hang around the High Street.’

  ‘Do you actually know what a homo is?’ Dave asked, although his eyes never left the washing white wash.

  ‘Of course,’ I said, though I didn’t. ‘But you’re mad, Dave. A washing machine in your house. Where would you put it?’

  ‘I’d put mine in my bedroom,’ said Dave. ‘And I’d have it on while I was having it off with Betty Page.’

  I stared hard at the washing machine. I could see the white wash going on behind the glass door panel. It reminded me a bit of the octopus in the movie 20,000 Leagues Under the Sea, being viewed through a porthole in Captain Nemo’s Nautilus. But without the tentacles or the suckers. Or even the octopus. Or even, now I come to think of it, the movie, for that was made several years later. But pleasure, eh? It’s a funny old game.

  ‘Mad,’ I said. ‘Quite mad.’

  ‘Hold on,’ said Dave. ‘Don’t speak. There’s a good bit coming up.’

  I held my counsel and also held my breath.

  ‘Wow,’ went Dave once again. ‘Brilliant.’

  ‘It’s completely lost on me.’

  ‘Speak English,’ said Dave.

  ‘I don’t understand it. But, listen, you know I told you that I had a big idea?’

  Dave nodded, but he wasn’t really listening.

  ‘I went down to the library,’ I continued, speaking clearly and loudly, in the hope that some of it might get through. ‘I went to the library and while I was there I heard two men talking about something really strange. But I’ll tell you about that later. I got the book I needed and I also got some other stuff I needed, which I’ve hidden away in a secret place. You’re going to love this.’

  ‘I am loving this.’ Dave was all misty-eyed.

  ‘I’ve got a big idea,’ I told Dave.

  ‘I’ve got a big bulge in my trousers.’

  ‘What?’

  ‘What?’ said Dave. ‘What are you talking about? Can’t this wait till later?’

  ‘All right,’ I said. ‘I’ll be having a fag. Come and talk to me when you’re finished.’

  ‘I can’t finish properly. I haven’t reached puberty yet.’

  ‘Completely lost on me.’

  I went outside and had a fag. Naturally I smoked Woodbine. Well, I would, wouldn’t I? I mean, Lazlo Woodbine? What else was I likely to smoke? All children smoked in those days. But then in those days cigarettes were good for you. Like nuclear radiation and lead soldiers. In fact, almost everything was good for you in those days: a good smacked-bottom; a good dose of castor oil; a good helping of National Service; a good stretch behind bars. They were good times all round, really.

  I was finishing off my fag when Dave came out of the launderette.

 
‘Give us a puff,’ said Dave.

  And I gave Dave a puff.

  ‘My big idea,’ I said to Dave. ‘It’s about P. P. Penrose.’

  ‘Go on, then,’ said Dave, taking another puff at my fag.

  ‘You know what you said about taking relics? I think we can go one better than that. Take his whole body and bring him back to life.’

  Dave took a final puff from my fag and stamped the tiny butt end out upon the pavement. ‘You’re having a laugh, aren’t you?’ he said.

  ‘No. I’m serious. I’ve got this book about how to make zombies. And it needs special herbs and I’ve got the herbs and everything. Including a human skull to mix them up in. I can do all that part in my sleeping cupboard.’

  ‘Cool,’ said Dave. ‘Will it really work, do you think?’

  ‘If it’s done properly, I think it will.’

  ‘And do you know how to do it properly?’

  ‘I think so. It’s all in my book. You do a ritual with the herbs, then you feed the herbs to the dead corpse and it comes back to life.’

  ‘It’s got to be a load of twonk, hasn’t it?’ said Dave, which surprised me somewhat. ‘I mean, well, if it did work, then everyone would be doing it and people wouldn’t die any more.’

  Dave had a good point there.

  ‘You have a good point there,’ I said to Dave. ‘But the reason everyone doesn’t do it is because it’s a secret. This book is a secret book; the formula for the herbs is a secret formula. Only very few people know the secret, so only a very few people ever get brought back to life. Probably very rich people like the royal family. I’ll bet the Queen Mum will live to be at least a hundred years old. Because each time she dies, they’ll bring her back to life with voodoo magic.’

  ‘You’ve won me over,’ said Dave. ‘So when do we do it?’

  ‘I thought we’d follow the funeral and see where they bury Mr Penrose. Then come back at night and dig him up.’

  ‘Too much trouble,’ said Dave. ‘All that digging. Why not do it at his wake? When all his friends are there. They’ll be dead pleased to see him up and about again.’ Dave tittered.

  ‘Why do you titter?’ I asked.

  ‘Dead pleased,’ said Dave.

  ‘That isn’t very funny,’ I said.

  ‘No,’ said Dave. ‘You’re right. But I heard this really funny joke. Would you care to hear it?’

  ‘I would,’ I said.

  ‘OK,’ said Dave. ‘It’s the one about the man with the huge green head. Have you heard it?’

  ‘No,’ I said.

  ‘OK,’ said Dave again. ‘So this bloke is standing at a bus stop and he’s got this huge green head, and I mean huge. It’s enormous. And this other bloke comes up and keeps looking at it; he’s fascinated, he can’t take his eyes of this first bloke’s huge green head. Finally the bloke with the huge green head says, “OK, go on, ask me.” And the other bloke says, “What?” And the bloke with the green head says, “Ask me how I got this huge green head. You want to, I know.” So the other bloke says, “How did you get that huge green head?” So the bloke with the huge green head says, “Well, it’s a really funny story. I was walking along Brighton beach and I found this old brass lamp and I rubbed it and this genie came out and said, ‘You’ve freed me from the lamp and so you can have three wishes.’ So I said, ‘All right! Then for my first wish I want to be incredibly wealthy with this huge mansion with secret rooms with soldiers in and kitchens full of cakes and sweets and suitcases with diamonds and emeralds in them.’ And there’s a big puff of smoke and I’m in this huge mansion with all the things I’d asked for. And the genie says, ‘What do you want for your second wish?’ And I say, ‘Right, I want the most beautiful woman in the world to be my wife and she has to want to sex me all the time, with brief breaks while she cooks me sausages and cuts me pieces of cake and pours me Tizer and stuff like that.’ And there’s another puff and she appears. Just like how I wanted. Incredible.”

  ‘And the bloke with the huge green head pauses and the other bloke looks at him and says, “OK, go on. What did you wish for with your last wish?”

  ‘And the bloke with the huge green head says—’

  ‘ “I wished for a huge green head, of course,” ’ said I. ‘I have heard it.’

  ‘And isn’t it a blinder?’

  ‘I think it’s probably the funniest joke in the whole wide world,’ I said. ‘I can’t imagine there being a funnier one.’

  ‘I only wish I understood it,’ said Dave.

  ‘Don’t worry,’ I said. ‘You understand the pleasures of the launderette. That’s something in itself. So, are you up for this? We go to Mr Penrose’s wake and bring him back to life. This is a good plan, yes?’

  ‘It’s a great plan,’ said Dave. ‘We’ll probably get a medal from the Pope and a special certificate from Her Majesty the Queen for this. If it works.’

  ‘It will work,’ I said. ‘Trust me. It will work.’

  Over the next few days I kept pressing the Daddy regarding the matter of Mr Penrose’s wake and how it would be such a good idea for me to come to it too. How it would be so educational for me and everything. But the Daddy wasn’t having any of that. He was adamant. I was not going. It was by invitation only and it wasn’t for children.

  I kept an eye on the doormat for incoming invitations. I was up every day in time for the postman. No invitations slipped by me and the days were slipping away.

  The next Wednesday came round and I feigned a cold so I could stay off school. I’d arranged with Dave that he should feign a cold also. But Dave felt that feigning a cold was for homos and so he feigned the Black Death, was given a good smacked-bottom by his mum and sent to school.

  Dave bunked off school at lunchtime and came round to my house. I slipped quietly out of my bed of feigned pain and joined him across the street.

  ‘The Daddy is getting all dressed up,’ I said to Dave. ‘He’s getting ready for the wake.’

  ‘Then we’ll follow him, commando-fashion.’

  ‘What is commando-fashion?’ I asked.

  ‘Mostly camouflage,’ said Dave. ‘Green is the new black this year.’

  We hid behind a dustbin.

  At a little after two, the Daddy left our house and swaggered up the street wearing his Sunday suit. My mother wasn’t with him. ‘Wakes are men’s business,’ my father had said.

  The Daddy swaggered up our street, turned left into Albany Road, right into Moby Dick Terrace, swaggered past the hut of Mother Demdike, then past the Memorial Park, turned right at the Memorial Library and eventually swaggered into the Butts Estate, where all the posh people of Brentford lived. Dave and I occasionally went into the Butts to throw stones at rich people’s windows and get chased away by their manservants, but we didn’t really know much about the place. It had been built in Regency times with the money earned from the slave trade and the importation of tea and carpets and strange drugs. The houses were big and well dug in. There was that feeling of permanence that only comes with wealth. The poor might appear to be settled right where they are. But they’re only waiting to be moved on.

  The Daddy swaggered up to a particularly fine-looking house, one with a Grimshaw-style front door and Fotheringay window stanchions, and knocked heartily upon the Basilicanesque knocker.

  I was very impressed when the door was opened and he was actually let inside. It confirmed, I suppose, that he actually had known Mr Penrose.

  ‘What now, then?’ I asked Dave.

  ‘Why are you asking me?’

  ‘How do you think we’re going to get in?’

  ‘We’re not,’ said Dave. ‘Well, not yet at least.’

  ‘Not yet?’

  Dave shook his head. ‘It’s a wake. Which is to say, as you know, a party. For a dead man. But a party. People will drink lots of booze. And then they’ll get drunk and then they’ll come and go. And they’ll leave the front door open and we can sneak in.’

  ‘You are wise,’ I said to Dave.
‘We’ll wait, then.’

  So we waited.

  And we waited.

  And then we waited some more.

  ‘I’m getting fed up with all this waiting,’ said Dave.

  ‘Hang on, someone’s coming out.’

  But they weren’t.

  So we waited some more, some more.

  ‘Do you think they’re drunk by now?’ I asked.

  ‘Must be,’ said Dave.

  ‘Then let’s just knock. They’ll let us in.’

  ‘Yes, of course they will.’

  We knocked.

  A pinch-faced woman opened the door. ‘What do you want?’ she asked.

  ‘My daddy’s inside,’ said Dave. ‘At the wake. I’ve a message for him from my mummy.’

  ‘Tell it to me,’ said the pinch-faced woman. ‘I’ll pass it on.’

  ‘It’s in Dutch,’ said Dave. ‘You wouldn’t be able to pronounce it properly.’

  ‘Wah!’ went the pinch-faced woman.

  ‘Not even close,’ said Dave.

  ‘No! Wah!’ The pinch-faced woman turned away and the distinctive sound of a hand smacking a face was to be heard.

  ‘That’s a bit harsh,’ said a man’s voice. ‘I didn’t mean to touch your bum. I tripped on the door mat.’

  ‘Rapist!’ screamed the pinch-faced woman, leaving the door ajar.

  ‘Let’s slip in,’ said Dave. And so the two of us slipped in.

  It was a very big house. Much bigger on the inside than on the outside. But so many houses are. The big ones anyway. Estate agents refer to the phenomenon as ‘deceptively spacious’. But I don’t think that it’s fully scientifically understood.

  ‘This is a very big hall,’ said Dave. ‘It stretches away right into the distance.’

  ‘Well, at least as far as that door at the end,’ I said. ‘Which is the door where all the noise is coming from.’

  ‘There’s quite a lot of noise here,’ Dave observed. ‘And quite a lot of violence too.’ The pinch-faced woman struggled on the floor, punching at a fat man who lay on his back. He wasn’t putting up much of a fight. In fact, he seemed to be smiling.

  ‘Come on,’ said Dave. ‘Follow me.’