"Robert Rankin - The Fandom of the Operator" - читать интересную книгу автора (Rankin Robert)

‘I was fighting with him only the last yesterday and now he is no more.
 ‘So!’cried the Daddy.‘You murdered him! Hand me the poker from the brass companion set that lacks
for the tongs, son. And I will set about your uncle something fierce.’

I hastened to comply with this request.

‘Hold hard,’ said my uncle, raising his blind—man’s stick. ‘I am innocent of this outlandish charge.
Charlie died in a bizarre vacuum-cleaning accident. He was all alone at the time. I was in the Royal
Borough of Orton Goldhay, performing with Count Otto Black’s Circus Fantastique. To rapturous
applause and a standing ovation, even from those who had to remain sitting, due to lack of legs.’

‘Charlie was my closest friend,’ said the Daddy. ‘I loved him like the brother I never had.’

‘I never had that brother too,’ said my uncle. ‘I only had your-self, which is no compensation.’

‘Do you still require the poker, Daddy?’ I asked.

‘Not yet, son, but keep it handy.’

‘That I will,’ said I, keeping it handy.

‘I am appalled,’ my daddy said. ‘Appalled, dismayed and distraught.’

‘And so you should be.’ Uncle Jon turned his glassy eyes to heaven. ‘And so should we all be. And I
have had enough of it. Charlie is dead and there will be a funeral and a burying and words will be spoken
over him and what for and why? Nobody knows where he’s bound for. Whether to a sun-kissed realm
above, or just to the bellies of the worms beneath. No one, not even the Pope. And I think it’s a
disgrace. The Government spends our tax money putting up Belisha beacons and painting telephone
boxes the colour of blood, but do they put a penny into things that really matter? Like finding out what
happens to people after they die, and if it’s bad, then doing something about it? Do they? I think not!’

‘Daddy,’ saidI.‘This Charlie Penrose, who you claim was your closest friend. Why did he never come
round here?’

‘Too busy,’ said my father. ‘He was a great sporting man. Sportsmanship was everything to him. And
when he wasn’t engaged in some piece of sportsmanship, then he was busy writing. He was a very
famous writer. A writer of many, many books.’

‘Poetry books?’ I enquired.

My father smote me in passing. ‘Not poetry!’ he shouted. ‘Never use that word in this house. He was
the writer of great novels. He was the best best-selling author of this century so far. He was the man who
wrote the Lazlo Woodbine thrillers. And also the Adam Earth science-fiction novels. Although they were,
in my opinion, rubbish, and it’s Woodbine he’ll be remembered for.’

‘Surely that isP. P. Penrose,’ said I with difficulty, clicking my jawbone back into place. ‘P. P. Penrose.
But this is terrible. Mr Penrose is my favourite author. Are you certain that this Charlie is really the same
dead fellow?’

‘Same chap,’ said Daddy. ‘He changed his name from Charlie to P.P. because it gave him more class.’