The Fandom of the Operator

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.”[4]

“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?”[5]

“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 off 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 staunchions, 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 obsessed. “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.”

We went along the hall, then stuck our heads round the door at the end of it. And then we viewed the wake that was going on beyond.

Having never seen a wake before I didn’t know what to expect, so I suppose that I was neither surprised nor disappointed. Nor even bewildered nor bemused. Nor was I amazed.

But I was interested.

The room that lay beyond the door was a withdrawing room. The room to which rich men of yesteryear withdrew after the completion of their feasting at the dining table, where they left the womenfolk to chat about things that womenfolk love to chat about. Particularly fashion. Such as, what particular colour commandos would be wearing that year.

The rich men withdrew to the drawing room and talked about manly things. Like port and cigars and football and shagging servant women and stuff like that. They probably talked about commandos too, but only about what colour their guns would be. It seemed pretty clear to me that if we were having good times now, and we were, those rich men of yesteryear had had better.

The room was tall and square with frescoed walls in the Copulanion style. There were over-stuffed sofas all around and about and these were crowded with red-faced men who held glasses, and all, it seemed, talked together. They talked, as far as I could hear them, mostly of P.P. Penrose. Of what a great sportsman he’d been. And of his love of sportsmanship. And of his skills as a writer. And of how amazing his Lazlo Woodbine thrillers were. And of what rubbish the Adam Earth science-fiction series was.

Although I understood their words, the manner in which they spoke them was queer to my ears. They all talked in up-and-down ways. Beginning a sentence softly, then getting louder, then all fading away once more.

“They’re all drunk,” said Dave. “They’ll all be singing shortly.”

“How does ‘shortly’ go?” I asked. Which I thought was funny, but Dave did not.

“Look there,” Dave said and he pointed.

I followed the direction of Dave’s pointing. “The coffin,” I said.

In the middle of the room, with the over-stuffed sofas and the men sat upon them with the glasses in their hands, talking queerly and on the verge of singing, lay the coffin.

Up upon a pair of wooden trestles, it was a handsome casket affair, constructed of Abarti pine in the Margrave design with Humbilian brass coffin furniture and rilled mouldings of the Hampton-Stanbrick persuasion. And it was open and from where we were standing we could see the nose of the dead Mr Penrose rising from it like a pink shark’s fin or an isosceles triangle of flesh, or in fact numerous other things of approximately the same shape.

But it was definitely a nose.

“Cool,” went Dave. “I can see his dead hooter.”

“Here’s the plan,” I said to Dave. “You create a diversion, while I perform the complicated ritual and feed him the magic herbs.”

Dave turned towards me and the expression on his face was one that I still feel unable adequately to describe. Expressing, as it did, so many mixed emotions.

I smiled encouragingly at Dave.

Dave didn’t smile back at all.

“Not a happening thing, then?” I asked.

“Speak English,” said Dave.

“I mean, you don’t think you can do it?”

“No,” said Dave. “I don’t. Why don’t we just try to mingle amongst the drunken men – bide our time, as they say, await the moment.”

“Well put,” said I. “You go first, then.”

“Not me,” said Dave. “This is your big idea.”

“No, it’s not. My big idea was to dig him up later.”

“All right,” said Dave, pushing open the door. “Let’s risk it. Let’s mingle.” And he strode right into the withdrawing room.

I followed cautiously, trying to avoid the eyes of my father. They were rather red-rimmed and starey eyes, but they were his none the less. I could see my Uncle Jonny sitting over by one of the windows and I didn’t want to look at his horrible eyes.

“’Afternoon,” said Dave, to no one in particular. “Hello there, hi.”

We made our way across the richly carpeted floor towards the coffin. It’s funny how certain things stick in your mind and even now, all these many years later, I can remember that moment so very, very clearly. What happened next. And what was said. And what it meant.

I can recall the way my feet felt, inside my shoes, as they trod over the thick pile of that carpet. And the smell of the cigarette smoke and the way it coloured the light that fell in long shafts through the tall Georgian casement windows. And the dreamlike quality of it all. We weren’t supposed to be in this room, Dave and I: it was wrong, all wrong. But we were there. And it was real.

“Stop,” said a voice and a big hand fell on my shoulder. I turned my head round and up and found myself staring into the long, thin face of Caradoc Timms, Brentford’s leading funeral director.

Caradoc Timms leaned low his long, thin face and gave me a penetrating stare with his dark and hooded eyes. “You, boy,” he said in a nasal tone. “Can’t stay away from the dead, can you?”

I made sickly laughing sounds of the nervous variety. “I’ve just come to pay my respects,” I said. “Mr Penrose is my favourite author.”

Mr Timms shook his head. “And all those times you’ve come round to my funeral parlour, asking to be taken on as an apprentice?”

“I just wanted an after-school job, to earn money for sweeties,” I whispered.

“And all the funerals you follow, when you duck down behind the tombstones and watch?”

“Research?” I suggested. “I’d still like a job, if you have one going.”

“Unhealthy boy,” said Mr Timms. “Unspeakable boy.”

“Is that my boy?” I heard the Daddy’s voice. “Is that my Gary you have there?”

“Dave,” I said. “Let’s run.”

But Dave was suddenly nowhere to be seen.

“Gary?” My father rose unsteadily from his seat upon an overstuffed sofa. “It is my Gary. Smite him for me, Timms.” And my daddy sat down again, rather heavily, and took out his pipe.

“Shall I smite you?” Mr Timms asked.

“I’d rather you didn’t.” I prepared myself to run.

“So what should I do, then? Throw you out on your ear?”

“I’d rather you just let me stay, sir. I won’t be any trouble to anyone. I’ll just sit quietly in a corner.”

Mr Timms nodded his long, thin head. “I hope I live long enough to see it,” he said.

“What, me sitting quietly? I’m sure you will.”

“Not that,” said Mr Timms. “But you at the end of a hangman’s rope.”

“What?” said I, rather startled by this statement.

“You’re a bad’n,” said Mr Timms. “A bad’n from birth. I see’m come and I see’m go. The good’ns and the bad. I’ll tuck you into your coffin when your time comes, you see if I don’t.”

“I’ve done nothing wrong,” I said, in the voice of one who felt he truly hadn’t.

“If you haven’t yet, then you will.” Mr Timms stared deeper still into my eyes. Right through my eyes, it seemed, and into my very brain.

I got the uncanny feeling that this man could somehow, not read, but see my thoughts. And not just my thoughts at this moment, but the thoughts that I would have at some time in the future. See things that I would do in the future. But how could anybody do that? It was impossible, surely? But it seemed to me that this man was doing it. That he really did know. Well, that’s how if felt. It was not just an uncanny feeling, it was a terrible feeling. A feeling of inner violation. It put the wind up me something terrible. And I was a very brave boy.

“You’ll hang,” said Mr Timms. “I know it.”

“No, I won’t,” I said. “I won’t.”

Mr Timms gazed down at me with his penetrating eyes. His long head went nod, nod, nod, and his voice said, “Yes, you will.”

I held my ground and stared right back at him and then, because I felt so absolutely sure that he could see my thoughts through my eyeballs, I turned those eyeballs down to the floor and studied the pattern on the carpet.

A number of options lay open to me and I pondered on which one to take.

I could run straight out of the door. That one was obvious, but that one would be to accept defeat.

I could burst into tears and tell my daddy what Mr Timms had said to me, in the hope that my daddy would smite him on the nose. But my daddy might well take Mr Timms’s side and smite me instead.

Or I could burst into tears and shout, “Get off me, you homo.” I’d seen Dave do this once to the owner of the sweetie shop who had caught him nicking Blackjacks. A crowd of young men had closed in about the shopkeeper and Dave had managed to make good his escape, taking the Black Jacks and a Mars Bar as well.

So I burst into tears, kicked Mr Timms in the ankle, shouted, “Get your hands off me, you homo. Help me, Daddy, please,” and ran straight out of the door.