"Robert Rankin - The Witches Of Chiswick" - читать интересную книгу автора (Rankin Robert)

But he would understand. He felt certain that he would.
Will had recently downloaded a number of restricted files from the
British Library’s mainframe, part of the British Library’s collection of
Victorian erotica, and installed them into his palm-top. Will was currently
reading Aubrey Beardsley’s novel, Under the Hill.1
Although Will did not understand much of what Beardsley had written,
the words and phraseology being of such antiquity, he was aware that he
was onto something rather special. Will had researched Mr Beardsley, the
1890s being Will’s favourite period: the gay nineties, they’d been called, a
time of exuberance, of decadence, a time of enormous creativity.
Will almost missed his station, London Central Three. He had been
engrossed in the chapter where Venus masturbates the Unicorn, and had
got a bit of a stiffy on.
(Well, it is an extremely good chapter.)
Will switched off the palm-top, slipped it back into his chem-proof,
redonned his mittens, rose, tapped the door button and departed from the
eternally moving tram. He took the belowground to the Tate Terminal,
passed through the retinal scan, checked in his weather wear and made his
way via lifts and walkways to his place of employment.
The workroom was circular, about half an old mile in diameter and many
new metres in height, with row upon row of huge, somewhat outdated and
unreliable computer workstations, mounted upon IKEA terminal tops, and
manned and womanned by many, many folk, all of whom exceeded Will in
both years and girth.
“Morning, stick-boy,” said Jarvis Santos, a fine hunk of flesh in a
triple-breasted morning suit. Jarvis was Will’s superior.
“Good morning, Mr Santos,” said Will, seating himself in the big chair
before his big workstation. “Rotten old weather, eh?”
“The weather is hardly your concern. You’re here to do a job. Do you
think your frail little fingers can deal with it?”
“Undoubtedly,” said Will, smiling broadly.
“And get that grin off your scrawny face. Your tasking for the day is on
the screen; see to it.”
“Yes, sir,” said Will.
Jarvis Santos shook his head, rippling considerable jowls. He turned and
waddled away, leaving Will smiling broadly at his terminal screen. Will read
the words upon it: The works of Richard Dadd, and there followed a brief
history of this Victorian artist.
Will read these words, and then he whistled. This really couldn’t be
much better: Richard Dadd was one of Will’s all-time favourites; a genuine
Victorian genius (although, it had to be said, a complete stone-bonker too).
Like many rich Victorians, Dadd had taken the Grand Tour. He had travelled
through distant lands, visited and painted Egypt, moved through Africa and
India and at the end of it all, had returned to England, quite mad. His
father, worrying for the mental health of his son had taken Richard under
his wing and was escorting him to hospital when a singular tragedy
occurred. They had booked into a hotel in Cobham, in Surrey, for the night.
Richard and his father had gone out for an evening walk. But Richard
returned alone and hastily made away from the hotel. He had murdered his
father in the woods and, according to legend, feasted on his brain.