Read Online The Fandom of the Operator by Robert Rankin - Free Book Online

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