The Fandom of the Operator

7

I lay behind the hedge with Dave and thought about his parable. It was a pretty good parable, as parables go, because it did have spaceships in it. But the more I thought about the substance of that parable, the more I realized that it really didn’t work at all.

The space pioneer Adam could never have met his own son on that far-away world. He’d have died there thousands of years before. And how could there be all those generations of descendants all still alive? Had they discovered the secret of immortality? But all the same it was a good parable and I thought that if the time ever came to tell it I’d tidy it up somewhat and put my interesting ending at the end.

But the time never came for me to tell it, so I didn’t.

“I’m growing impatient with all this lying around in wait,” I said to Dave. “We should do something to precipitate some action.”

“Do speak English,” said my bestest friend.

“Go and knock on the door, or something.”

“Just be patient,” said Dave to me. “Pretend you’re an adult: wait.”

And so we waited a little while more and finally our patience was rewarded.

“A police car,” said Dave. “I’ve been expecting that.”

“You have?”

“I have. When I left the wake house before you, I telephoned the police.”

“Why?” I asked, which seemed a reasonable question.

“So we could have time alone with Mr Penrose.”

“I don’t understand,” I said, and I didn’t.

“Just watch,” said Dave. “Just watch and learn.”

And so I watched and I learned.

The police car, all glossy black, an Armstrong Smedley, one-point-five-litre, with running boards and the big bell on the top, slewed to a halt outside the wake house. Four coppers, as we knew them then, before they were known as “the Filth”, jumped out of the car and took to beating upon the front door. And shouting very loudly.

“I’m impressed,” I said to Dave. “But surely they’re beating upon the wrong front door? That’s the one next door to the wake house.”

“Just watch,” said Dave, “and be ready to run inside the wake house, as soon as I give the signal.”

“What will the signal be?” I asked.

“I’ll hoot like an owl.”

“It’s the wrong time of day for that, surely? Why not moo like a cow?”

“A cow? In Brentford?”

“Bark like a dog, then.”

“I don’t do dogs,” said Dave. “Doing dogs is common.”

“You could whinny, like a horse.”

“That’s too posh,” said Dave. “Only girls who go to posh private schools can do that properly.”

“Is that true?” I asked.

Dave nodded knowingly. “When the day comes, and it will, that you find yourself in the company of a posh woman who once went to a posh private school, you just ask her whether she and her friends used to whinny like ponies.”

“And?”

“And I bet you she’ll say she did.”

“All right, then,” I said to Dave. “I’ll bear that in mind for the future. It is my intention to marry a very posh woman one day. I’ll ask her on our wedding night.”

“Ask her earlier,” said Dave. “Then you’ll know for sure whether she’s really posh or not. You ask her the first time you take her out. Before you’ve queued up for the pictures or bought her a portion of chips, or anything. No, on second thoughts, wait until after you’ve had a bunk-up with her. Until you’ve had that, it doesn’t really matter whether she’s posh or not.”

“I’ll bear all that in mind,” I said. “So what will the signal be, then?”

“It will be an owl,” said Dave. “Let’s speak no more about it.”

I shrugged beneath the hedge and viewed the doings across the road. The front door of the house next to the wake was now open and a man in pyjamas was remonstrating with the policemen. He was shouting things at them. Things like: “I’m not a homo!”

I glanced at Dave. Dave was grinning wickedly.

“I know that man in the pyjamas,” I whispered.

“Of course you do,” said Dave. “It’s Mr Purslow, the maths teacher. Didn’t you know he lived there?”

I shook my head.

“I did,” said Dave. “He’s off sick with diphtheria.”

“He looks very angry.”

“He’s always angry. I hate Mr Purslow.”

“Oh, look,” I said. “He’s punched that copper.”

“I knew he would,” said Dave.

And now other front doors were starting to open, as front doors always do at the arrival of a police car. Folk were issuing from them and into the Butts Estate. Posh folk, some of them, folk who looked as if they surely must have daughters who were good at impersonating ponies.

And then the front door of the wake house opened and a number of drunken men, who looked for the most part as if whatever offspring they might have had would all be rubbish at whinnying, came a-blundering out with greatly raised voices of their own.

Amongst these were the Daddy, who, to my surprise, and also my satisfaction, was accompanied by Mr Timms the undertaker, whose head he held firmly underneath his arm.

“It seems that your daddy took your side,” Dave observed. “They must have been fighting for quite some time. It looks like your daddy is winning.”

A policeman turned upon my father and asked what he thought he was doing with the undertaker’s head.

My daddy told him and I heard the word “homo” once more being used.

I shall get to the bottom of this homo-business, I told myself. Which might have been funny if it had meant anything to me.

I heard one of the coppers saying something about the Butts Estate being “a den of vice”. But as the only vice I knew was in the woodwork room at school this didn’t mean anything to me either.

“Wooo-eee,” went Dave.

“Yeah, it’s good this, isn’t it?”

“No, wooo-eee, woo-ee.”

“Eh?” said I.

“I’m hooting.”

“In your pants?”

“Like an owl. It’s the signal.”

“Oh,” I said. “Right.”

“Follow me,” said Dave. And I followed him.

Things were warming up nicely in the road, if you like that sort of thing. Fists were beginning to fly and truncheons to be drawn. Those were the days before riot sticks, CS gas, electric prods, stun-canes and phase-plasma rifles with a forty-watt range. These were the days when villains put their hands up when caught and said things like “It’s a fair cop, guvnor”. There was respect for the law in those days.

A constable struck down Mr Purslow with his truncheon.

My Uncle Jonny, who played darts with Mr Purslow, struck down the copper with his blind-man’s cane.

We skirted around the growing chaos and slipped back into the wake house.

Dave shut the front door quietly behind us and put on the security chain. “Mr Penrose awaits you,” he said to me, as we stood by ourselves in the hall.

I hesitated for just a moment. Well, it was a big deal. I was about to reanimate a dead man. I was in uncharted territory, so to speak.

“Are you scared?” asked Dave.

“Of course I’m not.”

“Then, get on and do it.”

“All right, I will.”

I strode down the hall to the wake-room door and pushed it right open. Before me the room lay in silence. Shafts of smoky sunlight still fell through the tall casement windows, onto the coffin of the great author, lighting up his nose.

I hesitated once more.

“Go on,” said Dave. “Go on.”

But I was now having second thoughts. I don’t know why this was. Well, perhaps I do. I think it must have been the silence and the sense of peace. The repose of death, if you like. Death is first of all about stillness. Of everything becoming still. The senses themselves. The organs of the body, the blood, the cells. All the things that were chugging away – the lungs going up and down and the heart going pump, pump, pump, and the bits and bobs in the brain going think, think, think – all have become still. All are silent. Still.

Well, for a brief while at least. Until the putrefaction begins. Then there’s lots of activity.

The nose of Mr Penrose looked terribly, terribly still.

“What are you waiting for?” Dave asked. “Get on with the reanimating.”

“I don’t know if it’s right,” I said.

“What?” Dave stared at me. “Are you bottling out?”

“Don’t say that. I’m not. It’s just …”

“Give me the herbs,” said Dave. “I’ll stick them into his gob.”

“You can’t just stick them into his gob. You have to do the ritual. Say the words.”

“Go on, then, if you really are as brave as you’re always saying.”

I crept slowly forward, reached the coffin and peeped in at the face of Mr Penrose.

And didn’t it look peaceful. So at rest. So in repose.

“He looks happy as he is,” I said to Dave.

“I don’t believe this,” Dave said to me. “After all the trouble I’ve gone to, telephoning the police and everything, and now you’re bottling out.”

“I’m not. I don’t know. It doesn’t seem right.”

“But he’s your favourite author. He wrote the Lazlo Woodbine books, the best books in the world. And if you bring him back to life he can write us some more.”

“Yes, but …”

“And don’t you think he’ll thank you? He’s bound to be happier being alive again rather than being dead, isn’t he? And everyone else will be happy too. And the Queen will give you a special badge. And P.P. Penrose might even make you a character in one of his new books. Maybe a baddie who will be shot dead by Laz with his trusty Smith & Wesson during the final rooftop confrontation.”

I shook my head.

“And there’s something else,” said Dave.

“What’s that?” I asked.

“If you don’t do it, I’ll punch your head in.”

“Oh,” I said.

Dave made a fist. “Sorry,” he said, “but we’ve come too far to go back.”

I considered Dave’s fist. It was a fierce fist. I’d seen it in action. “I’m sorry too,” I said. “I’m just being silly. I came here to bring Mr Penrose back from the dead. And that’s just what I’ll do.”

“Good man.” Dave hugged my shoulder. “Then, please hurry up.”

I took out the book I’d borrowed from the library and the special herbs that Mother Demdike had given me.

“Take the herbs,” I said to Dave. “And when I tell you, and not before, you put them into his mouth.”

Dave looked down at Mr Penrose and I saw a look of doubt appear on his face. “I’m not doing that,” he said. “That’s your job, putting the herbs in.”

“But you just said—”

“I’ve changed my mind,” said Dave. “You should take all the glory.”

“You’re scared.”

“No, I’m not.”

“You’re afraid to touch his face.”

“You can catch the syph from touching a dead man’s face.”

“What’s the syph?”

“It’s a terrible disease.”

“All right, let’s forget the whole thing.”

Dave dithered, but only for a moment. “All right,” he said. “I’ll prise his mouth open with my penknife.”

I shook my head. I really did have my doubts.

“All right,” I said too. “Let’s do this.” And I opened the book and began to read out the ritual.

I knew that there was more that should be done than just reading out the ritual. I knew there was supposed to be beating drums and frenzied dancing about by half-naked brown ladies and even a cockerel getting its head chopped off. But it seemed to me that in theory the words and the herbs should be enough.

In theory.

Now, one thing that I didn’t know then was that when you perform a magic ritual you have to do it very loudly. You have to shout the words right out. Magic is a very noisy business, which is why its practitioners have always chosen out-of-the-way places like blasted heaths and distant forest glades to perform their rituals. The line that divides the world of man from the world of spirit is not a thin line, it’s a chunky solid affair that takes some breaking through. If you want to be heard on the other side of it, you’re going to have to shout very loudly indeed. I pass on this information to you in the interests of science. And because I know that passing on little titbits like this, as I will throughout this book, really gets up the noses of ritual magicians, who love to keep things like this secret.

“Speak up,” said Dave. “I can’t hear you.”

I spoke up a bit, then a bit more.

Dave rocked back and forwards on his heels and clicked his fingers and popped his thumbs. “Go on, my son,” he said. “Give it ritual.”

I gave it ritual and shouted the words.

“Go on,” I shouted at Dave. “Feed Mr Penrose the herbs.”

Dave took out his penknife and I averted my eyes as he prised the author’s teeth apart and emptied in the herbs.

I shouted away the rest of the ritual.

And then I was done.

Dave stepped back from the coffin. “What happens next?” he whispered. “Will he come alive?”

I shook my head. “I don’t know,” I said. “I suppose so.”

And we waited.

The sunlight fell in shorter shafts now; the room was becoming darker. Outside, in what seemed now a distant realm, the bell-sounds of other approaching police cars could be heard. Here in this old room, this peaceful room, we stood shoulder to shoulder, Dave and I, wondering what would happen next, each alone inside our heads with thoughts that were personal to us.

I don’t know what Dave was thinking, but I knew what was going on in my brain.

It hasn’t worked, my brain was saying. It was all rubbish and you will now be for ever a fool in Dave’s eyes.

“Are you sure you did it right?” Dave asked, and his voice seemed now very loud indeed in that room.

“I’m sure,” I whispered. “Although the herbs might not be right. Mother Demdike might have given me the wrong stuff.” That seemed a very good excuse to me.

“Gary,” said Dave, and he took out his cigarettes.

“Dave?” said I, and I eyed them eagerly.

“Gary, I just want to say this. We are bestest friends, aren’t we?” Dave took out two cigarettes.

“We are bestest friends that there can be,” I said.

Dave handed me a cigarette. “Whatever we do,” he said, “in the future – like, when we’re grown-up and everything – we’ll still be bestest friends, won’t we?”

“Yes,” I said. “We will.”

“I want you to know,” said Dave, “that I never thought this would work. Not really. I hoped it would, because if it had it would have been really special. Something wonderful that both of us had done together. It would have been incredible. And we could have talked about it one day, when we were very old men, sitting on a park bench or somewhere. We would have said, ‘Remember the time we raised P.P. Penrose from the dead?’ And that would have been something, wouldn’t it?”

I nodded. “It would,” I said.

“But it hasn’t worked.”

“No,” I said. “It hasn’t.”

“But what I want to say,” said Dave, “is that it doesn’t matter. In case you’re thinking you would look a bit of a fool or something.”

I nodded and then shook my head. “I wasn’t thinking that,” I said.

“You were,” said Dave. “But it’s all right. You went to a lot of trouble. Borrowing the book and getting the herbs and the skull from Mother Demdike. That took bottle. I wouldn’t go into her stinking hut. But it’s OK. This was a brave thing. We’re here in this room with this dead man, this great man, and we did try. That’s something.”

“It is,” I said. “We tried.”

“So, in a way, we’ll be able to look back on this. We’ll even laugh about it. We’ll say, ‘Remember when we were kids and we tried to raise P.P. Penrose from the dead?’ We’ll laugh, we’ll chuckle. We’ll have smoker’s cough and tweed suits and we’ll smell of wee-wee like old people do and we’ll laugh together.”

“I like that idea,” I said. “That sounds nice. Although I don’t fancy smelling of wee-wee.”

“So we must promise,” said Dave, “you and me, we must promise that no one will ever know about this. It will be our secret. Just the two of us. We tried to do a great thing, and we failed. But the magic, the magic which is our friendship, is in that we did try.”

“You are so wise,” I said to Dave. “With a wisdom of your age, of course. But you are wise and I am proud to call you my bestest friend.” I put my arm around Dave’s shoulder.

“We did a brave thing,” said Dave. “We did a noble thing. And now, as I can hear the front door being opened and the security chain being bashed about, I suggest that we climb out of the window and have it away on our toes.”

“I so agree,” I said, and Dave upped the nearest window.

I took a final look at Mr Penrose. He remained in silence. In repose. His eyes were closed and his nose shone in the sunlight. His mouth looked somewhat wonky though. “Goodbye, Mr Penrose,” I said. “I’m sorry that I couldn’t raise you from the dead. Dave and I tried. Goodbye.”

Mr Penrose had nothing to say and Dave and I took our leave.

The funeral of Mr P.P. Penrose, sporting man, best-selling author of the Lazlo Woodbine thrillers and Brentford’s most famous son, was held the very next day.

Dave and I didn’t need to bunk off school: a public holiday had been declared by the Brentford Town Council and the school was closed.

We followed the horse-drawn hearse, with its plumed black horses and its wonderful etched-glass windows and polished coach lamps, led by the slow-striding mutes in their veiled top hats and ceremonial coats.

Behind walked figures of renown. The Prime Minister was there and the heads of state from several countries of the British Empire.

Crowds lined every inch of the funeral route, casting roses over the road before the funeral carriage. It was a very moving affair and I was very moved by it all.

Mr Penrose had sportingly written in his will that if his coffin should be preceded to the graveside by twenty proven virgins of the parish, then one thousand pounds would be given to the Mayor of Brentford to be used at his discretion.

As I was young and ignorant and all, I didn’t understand at that time the concept of virginity, and therefore I had no idea at all about the lather the Mayor got himself into regarding how he could get his hands on (so to speak) twenty proven virgins.

I learned later that he consulted an aged mystic, a certain Professor Slocombe, resident of Brentford, who was considered by many to be the borough’s patriarch.

Professor Slocombe whispered words into the Mayor’s ear and Mr Penrose’s coffin was preceded to the graveside by twenty five-year-old girls from the infant school.

The Mayor, apparently, took the thousand pounds and absconded with it. A thousand pounds was a lot of money in those days.

Dave and I got ahead of the procession and dug ourselves in beneath another hedge of the borough cemetery. We got a pretty good view of the burying.

“It was a very good do,” said Dave to me. “Very dignified. And I’ve heard that there’s to be an obelisk put up on his grave and also a special bench with a brass plaque on before the Memorial Library. That’s nice. Someone famous might one day sit on that bench and muse about things. It’s nice. All nice.”

I agreed that it was nice. Mr Penrose was resting in peace. With the respect of all those many people who had loved his books and thought that he was a great man. It was a good thing that we hadn’t managed to raise him from the dead. He was better at rest and at peace.

When the funeral service and the burying was over and the crowds had all gone away, Dave and I lazed upon the marble bed of Mr Doveston, smoked cigarettes and looked up at the sky and all the passing clouds.

“Nice,” said Dave. “All nice.”

“A pity there won’t be any more Lazlo Woodbine books, though,” I said.

“Yes,” said Dave. “A pity, but all good things must come to an end.”

“You are so wise,” I said to Dave. “So very, very wise.”

As it happened, there was just one more Lazlo Woodbine book. And a really good one at that. Death Wears a Grey School Jacket, it was called. It would never have been published at all if it hadn’t been for Mr Penrose’s wife.

Apparently the manuscript had been buried with Mr Penrose at his request. Unknown to Dave and me, when we had been trying to raise him from the dead that manuscript had been sitting there in the coffin under his bum. If Dave had known that, he would certainly have nicked it.

Mr Penrose’s widow contested her husband’s will, had his body exhumed and the manuscript retrieved and published.

It made the papers at the time. But not because of the manuscript.

It was because of something else entirely.

Apparently, when they opened his coffin to take out the manuscript, the cemetery workers got a bit of a shock.

The body was all twisted up. The face was contorted, the hands crooked into claws with broken, bloody fingernails. The underside of the coffin lid was covered in terrible scratches. It appeared that Mr Penrose had awoken in his coffin only hours after he’d been buried and he’d tried to fight his way out. Mr Timms the undertaker gave evidence in court. He swore that Mr Penrose was definitely dead when he was buried, that he had been drained of blood and embalmed and that there was no way on Earth that he could possibly have been buried alive.

Mr Timms said that it must have been post-mortem spasms and gaseous expansion and all kinds of stuff like that which had caused the semblance of reanimation. And he was acquitted of all charges of negligence.

Dave and I never got to sit on that bench in our old age and chat about our past. So we never got to discuss the time when, as children, we had tried to reanimate a dead man, not realizing when we performed the ritual how long it would take to work its terrible magic. In fact, we never spoke about that subject ever again.

Some things are better not spoken of.

Nor even thought about.