The Fandom of the Operator

by Robert Rankin

  A century or more of hard grind on the part of the Society of Psychical Research has turned up positively nothing. Nothing that will hold up in court as definite irrefutable contact with the dead. And why? Not because the dead did not contact the living, but because when they did they came out with a lot of old toot and confused the issue further.

  My heart truly bleeds for all those mediums sitting at tables trying to contact ‘the other side’. And those psychic questers like Danbury Collins constantly being led up blind alleys by spirit guides. And the channellers, channelling away and the Spiritualist Church and all those who receive information from ‘Higher Sources’.

  I’m sorry, it’s not my fault, but the dead cannot be trusted.

  So, yeah, right. Now I’m asking. Now, at the point in my life that I’ve reached. The point that I’m writing about now. Because at this point I didn’t know. But then at this point I wasn’t aware that the dead did lie to the living. I wasn’t really sure that the dead could talk to the living. Although I had had that brief conversation with my father. Or thought I had. Or believed I had. Because I had a real problem convincing myself that what was going on with the FLATLINE programme was actually real.

  I wanted it to be real and I really, really wanted to talk to Mr Penrose. If just to say that I was sorry for reawakening him in his coffin. But I was having difficulties with the concept of the thing.

  Because, I suppose, I was having difficulties with the concept of life. My life. Everything that happened to me seemed to happen so fast. It just came out of nowhere and hit me. It woke me up out of my dreams. Or it was my dreams and I didn’t remember the times when I was awake.

  Or something.

  But I couldn’t seem to keep up. And I certainly couldn’t sleep. If sleeping was sleeping and being awake was being awake.

  I remember that I did a lot of late-night pacing. Up and down in the bedroom. All alone in the bedroom.

  I was certain that Sandra had said that she was only going away for a week. But it was nearly two weeks now and she still wasn’t back. And I actually missed her. I know that we didn’t have much of a marriage. Well, anything of a marriage, really. We didn’t have sex any more and when she wasn’t laughing at me, or criticizing me, she was away at work and I wasn’t seeing her anyway. And now she was away on holiday with Count Otto and I was missing her like crazy.

  Why? Well, I don’t know why. Because I loved her, I suppose. I know that there wasn’t much to love about her any more. But I could think back to our honeymoon in Tenerife, when I loved her and she loved me in return and that was a happy time. We would make love in the banana plantations and she would run around afterwards with her clothes off, impersonating ponies. Those were the days. They were. They really were.

  And I felt certain that those days would return. Because I had the power to make them return. Barry and I would become millionaires, and Sandra would like being married to a millionaire. Even if that millionaire had to flee the British Isles. Perhaps we’d move to Tenerife. She would love me again, I knew that she would, and all would be well and happy again.

  The matter seemed simple to me. My wife no longer loved me because she no longer respected me. So I would regain her respect and she would love me again.

  Sorted. She would respect me if I became a millionaire, I was certain about that. Which left only the matter of the opposition, the fly in the marmalade, the sand in the suntan lotion, the boil on the marital backside, Count Otto Black.

  He’d have to go. And go for good.

  The count would have to die.

  Now, don’t get me wrong here. I didn’t come to this decision without a great crisis of conscience. In fact, it was the greatest crisis of conscience that I had experienced in nearly ten years.

  The last time I had such a crisis of conscience was at the trial of the Daddy.

  When I had given evidence in the witness box.

  I know I said earlier that I didn’t attend the trial, and I didn’t, not as a spectator. And I was only there for half an hour anyway. And the trial did drag on for weeks. I think it would have dragged on for weeks and weeks more, and all at the taxpayers’ expense, if I hadn’t given my evidence. If I hadn’t got up in the witness box and had my say.

  You see, it all hinged on the mother’s evidence. She’d been there when the butchery took place. But the counsel for the defence said that she was an unreliable witness.

  So I got up and said my piece. And it did involve a crisis of conscience. Because I had to swear on oath and tell the truth and everything. So I explained how I knew that Mum was being sexed by the ice-cream man on Wednesday evenings when Dad was out playing darts at the Legion. And how I saw everything happen on that terrible evening.

  It was my evidence that hanged him.

  Crisis of conscience, you see. You can understand that. Should I own up and be honest and tell the truth, or should I lie? I chose to tell the truth, which hanged my daddy. I could have kept quiet, I could have lied, but I didn’t.

  Well, I wouldn’t have, would I?

  I’m an honest fellow.

  And I’d gone to a lot of trouble anyway.

  A lot of trouble. But then, it takes a lot of trouble to commit the perfect crime. Which I had done.

  You see, I really hated that ice-cream man for sexing my mother. I wanted him dead. But I didn’t have the nerve to kill him myself and I was sure that, even if I’d had the nerve, I’d have been caught. So I needed someone to do it for me. Which was why on that fateful night I phoned the Legion and tipped off my father, in a disguised voice, of course, that the ice-cream man was on his way over to sex his wife. I phoned a little early, you see, because I needed time to go and hide myself in the wardrobe. So I could watch the murdering. So I could give evidence. Because I wanted the Daddy dead too, horrible swine that he was.

  It was two perfect crimes in one, really. Which is pretty damn good, in my opinion.

  So one more perfect crime wasn’t going to hurt.

  And I had, during the course of all my pacing and heart-breaking, come up with a really good one to rid myself of Count Otto. It was such a good one, in fact, that I felt certain that even if Sherlock Holmes teamed up with Miss Marple, Ironside, Lazlo Woodbine and Inspector Clouseau, my name would never come up once during the course of the investigation.

  It would be the perfect crime.

  And it sort of was. Or would have been. I’m not quite sure, really. Things certainly didn’t turn out the way I’d planned. But that’s life for you, isn’t it? Full of surprises, and none of them, in my opinion, pleasant.

  So let me tell you the story of what happened. I’m sorry if I bored you for a bit with all the talk about life and death and the dead not telling the truth and me not knowing why and suchlike. But it’s all relevant and it did provide the opportunity for me to own up about my dad and the ice-cream man, because I’m being honest here: I’m telling you all of the truth, the whole truth, as it happened.

  I had come up with a three-phase plan to win Sandra back and I was certain it would work.

  Now, I must have been asleep. My face was in the ravioli. I’d cooked it myself in the new macrowave oven the night before last. You probably don’t remember macrowave ovens. They were the Betamax of the microwave revolution. They never really caught on. I suppose it was their size. Ours, which was about the size of a Mini Metro, took up most of the kitchen area. But it was fast. It could reduce an entire Friesian cow to ashes in about 0.3 seconds. I think the macrowave oven accounted for a lot of people who supposedly went ‘missing’ back in the early seventies. You could definitely commit the perfect crime with a macrowave oven.

  They were soon withdrawn. The macrowaves leaked out, apparently. I know that all my checked suits became plain suits and the wardrobe was two rooms away. And all the fur fell out of our cat. And it used to cast my shadow up the kitchen wall when it was on. And years later the shadow was still there and couldn’t be washed off.

  It was red hot with
ravioli though. It cooked up ravioli so fast that it was done before you even put it in.

  So there I was, asleep or something, face down in my plate of ravioli, when suddenly I’m being struck around the back of the head by something hard, which I later identify as being the piece of breezeblock that I was carving into a facsimile of Noddy Holder, by Sandra, who had made an unexpected return to the marital home.

  ‘Wake up, you piece of scum,’ Sandra shouted, loud enough for me to hear but not appreciate. ‘Wake up and look at this mess.’

  I woke up and looked at the mess.

  And when I’d got over the shock of being woken, I showed no surprise at the mess whatsoever.

  ‘I recognize this mess,’ I told Sandra. ‘It was here yesterday and also the day before. Why are you striking me on the head to draw my attention to it?’

  ‘It’s your mess!’ shouted Sandra, and she surely shrieked.

  ‘Cease the shrieking!’ I said to her. ‘There’s a man upstairs who flew Spitfires. You’ll frighten him.’

  ‘He died years ago. You lazy bustard. I go away for a few days of well-earned rest.’

  ‘Did you have a nice time?’ I asked, from beneath the table where I cowered, still ducking from the blows.

  ‘No,’ said Sandra. ‘I got thrush.’

  ‘Give it to the cat,’ I said. ‘It will be grateful for a bit of fresh meat. I haven’t fed it for a week.’

  Sandra struck me with renewed vigour.

  I crawled out from under the table and now, being fully awake, clopped her one across the nose, which sent her reeling and caused her to relinquish her hold upon the breezeblock, which she dropped, breaking Noddy Holder’s nose.

  ‘Now look what you’ve done,’ I said.

  ‘What I’ve done,’ said Sandra, clutching at her bloodied nose. ‘You hit me! You hit me!’

  ‘You started it,’ I said.

  ‘I’ll have you for this. I’ll sue you. You’re finished.’

  I sighed sadly.

  ‘Welcome home,’ I said.

  ‘You call this a home.’

  ‘Let me make you a cup of tea,’ I said. ‘Did you bring me back a stick of rock?’

  ‘I’m leaving you,’ said Sandra. ‘I can’t take any more.’

  I sat myself back down in the chair I had so recently been knocked from. ‘We’ve got off to a bit of a bad start here,’ I said. ‘So let’s let bygones be bygones and start again. I’ve been doing a lot of thinking about our relationship and I think I’ve come up with a solution. Firstly—’

  ‘Shut up!’ shouted Sandra. ‘Shut up!’

  ‘Firstly, I think we should go out together more. No, not now, because I have a lot on in the evenings, but soon, then—’

  ‘Shut up!’

  ‘And I’ve bought this book, Bring the Bounce Back into Your Marital Sex Life Through Bestiality. We’ll have your pussy earn its thrush, eh?’

  ‘Shut up!’ Sandra took up dirty plates and threw them in my direction.

  ‘And counselling,’ I said. ‘Marriage counselling. I found this ad in the Brentford Mercury. We can go and see this marriage counsellor. She’s a young woman and she’ll help us sort things out. It costs quite a bit, but it will be worth it. We’ll be all right for a threesome and if you’re not too keen to do it with me at first, I don’t mind, I’ll just watch.’

  Sandra tried to throw the macrowave at me. But, come on, it had taken six strong lads to get that thing in here.

  ‘I hate you!’ shouted Sandra.

  ‘Hate is healthy,’ I told her. ‘Hate is just love trapped inside and trying to get out. You can beat me if you want. And I’ll beat you. We can hurt each other until we both cry for mercy. Come on, let’s do it now.’

  I’ll swear Sandra had that macrowave oven up off the floor by a couple of inches, but then her strength failed her and she dropped it again. And then she stormed out of the kitchen. And I listened as she broke things in the sitting room, then went into the bedroom and threw her most precious belongings into my suitcase, then returned to the kitchen and called me names that were not mine, then marched up the hall and stormed out of the front door and was gone.

  This meant that phase one of my three-phase plan had gone even better than I could have hoped it would.

  Which just left the other two and then she would be putty in my hands.

  Oh yes.

  She would.

  She really would.

  18

  I didn’t make it to bed that night. I’d meant to go down to the telephone exchange and take some dictation from Vlad the Impaler. But, frankly, I was sick of listening to him going on and on about the battles he’d won by superior strategies and how the world had him all wrong about being such a bad-bottomed blaggard and everything. And so much of what he was telling me didn’t tie up with my own researches into his life that I’d been doing at the Memorial Library.

  Vlad wasn’t telling me all of the truth, and I could see some scholarly script editor going through my manuscript and rubbishing it as grossly inaccurate. I began to pray very hard at night that someone really famous and loved by everyone would die soon and then I could get straight onto them and come up with a big fresh biography that everybody would like to read. Marc Bolan, perhaps, or Groucho Marx, or even Elvis. But I couldn’t see any of them dying in the nineteen seventies. And I began to worry that I might not make the millions I had been hoping for.

  Barry’s hopes, however, were high. For in the fullness of time, which in his case filled to the brim within six months, I found myself attending the launch party for his ‘biography’ of P. P. Penrose: P. P. Penrose: The Man Who Was Lazlo Woodbine.

  The launch was to be held at Mr Penrose’s favourite London night club. Which he had written into many of his books as Fangio’s bar, Lazlo Woodbine’s favourite hangout. Where he ate hot pastrami on rye, drank bottles of Bud and talked toot with Fangio, the fat boy barman. The club had changed its name now, as it was under new management. But I was still thrilled at the prospect of treading in the footsteps of the legend. Maybe going up to the bar and ordering a hot pastrami on rye and a bottle of Bud, as Laz would have done. And talking a lot of old toot, as Laz did on so many memorable occasions.

  I had been meaning to go to the night club for ages. Not just because of its associations with P. P. Penrose, but because the new management it was under was none other than that of Harry, my brother-in-law, who now answered to the name of Peter. And most successfully too.

  Sandra took an age to get changed and made up. She still dressed in black. Even though it was nearly five months since Count Otto had met with his tragic demise. I felt it right that she should continue to wear black, black being the colour of mourning as well as the name of the one being mourned. It was a constant reminder. I felt it was fitting.

  I waited patiently while Sandra did all the things that she had to do. I wanted her to look her best for the book launch. And I knew that getting her to look her best took a bit of time.

  Sandra required considerable care and attention nowadays.

  Considerable maintenance, in fact.

  She was no longer the same fiery, feisty, sassy Sandra who had returned from that holiday in Camber Sands. This was a far more subdued Sandra. A well-behaved Sandra. A Sandra who didn’t answer back any more. A Sandra who did what she was told. A Sandra who never left the house without me and only then by the back door and at night. She had been severely traumatized by the sudden death of Count Otto, and although she was now in my care I knew that she would never again be the same person that she had once been.

  I myself was bearing up well. It’s a tragic thing when someone you care deeply about dies. It can really mess you up. But you have to muddle through and get on with life, don’t you? Life being so full of surprises and everything.

  Not that I missed Otto, you understand.

  I didn’t grieve for Count Otto.

  Oh no, Otto had got what was coming to him. He had messed about with what was mine an
d he had paid the price. According to the note he left behind, it was suicide. And the note was genuine. It was written in his own hand and handwriting experts attested to this. The long and rambling account he had written confirmed that a madness had come upon him during the final month of his life. He became a creature obsessed. He eschewed good food and dined on drink alone. He developed strange compulsions. He would spend hour upon end sniffing swatches of tweed in the gents’ outfitters. He became prone to outbursts of uncontrollable laughter. He bethought himself a Zulu king and dressed in robes befitting. He became obsessed with the idea that an invisible Chinaman called Frank was broadcasting lines of Milton directly into his brain.

  And so Count Otto had taken out his father’s Luger and blown off the top of his head with it.

  Tragic.

  But more tragic was the fact that the count had not died alone. The voices in his head had apparently decreed that he should make a human sacrifice before he took his own life.

  And this is where, in the previous chapter, I mentioned that things didn’t work out exactly as I had planned. The voice of Frank definitely ordered the count to sacrifice Eric, the landlord of the Golden Dawn. I know this for a fact, because I was the voice of Frank. As I had been to my daddy all those years before. And I know what, through voodoo magic, I said to Count Otto. But obviously in his confused state of mind he misheard what I said and sacrificed someone else entirely.

  Which was why I had to do some grieving. Which is why I said that it’s a tragic thing when someone you care deeply about dies. Because the person that Count Otto sacrificed meant a lot to me.

  After all, that someone was my wife, Sandra.

  Which was why she required so much maintenance nowadays. Because using the spell I had used upon P. P. Penrose I had raised Sandra from the dead. Being careful that I didn’t make the same mistake as I had with Mr Penrose. I’d dug Sandra out of her grave and brought her home before she’d been returned to life.

  Or at least to a state of re-animation.

  Because, in all honesty, you could hardly say that Sandra was alive any more. She was ‘undead’, that’s about the best you could say. And, frankly, that was flattering her. When I say that she required a lot of maintenance, I’m not kidding you at all. Bits of Sandra kept falling off and she didn’t smell like a breath of spring. But she did what she was told, or commanded, because he who raises the zombie has total command of it, and there were no more problems with our sex life. Other than for the occasional maggot, but I kept her dusted down with Keating’s Powder.