The Fandom of the Operator (4 page)

“I thought it would be like spying. Or undercover work.”

“It
is
undercover work. It doesn’t come much more undercover than this.”

“I thought it would be like, you know, like
him
.”

“Like Lazlo Woodbine? You fancied yourself as a private eye?”

“Who doesn’t?” said Ralph.

“Help me find the book,” said Nigel. “Let’s find the book and get out of here and then we’ll go down the pub.”

“I didn’t think it would be stealing, either.”

“The book will be returned. The books are always returned.”

“Yes,” said Ralph. “But what I don’t understand is this, the department is a branch of the Government, right? A secret branch that even the Prime Minister doesn’t know about, but it’s really big and powerful. So how come, if the department has so much clout, it doesn’t have its own copies of these books? Why do we have to keep creeping into public libraries to borrow them?”

Nigel sighed. “How many books do you think there are down here?” he asked.

“Thousands,” said Ralph, looking all around and about.

“Thousands. And there’s further thousands in every other library. And that adds up to millions. They’re safer here in these little suburban libraries, where no one would ever think of looking for them, than all together in some top-secret library at the Ministry, where some Russian spy would be bound to find them.”

“How could he find them if the library was top-secret?”

“Because it would be such a huge top-secret library that it would take up half of London. You are such a twonk, Ralph. Perhaps you should just go back to the drawing office.”

“It’s dull in the drawing office.”

“Then just help me find the book.”

“What’s this book about, then?”

“How should I know? Help me find it and we’ll have a look inside.”

Ralph shrugged and scuffed his heels a bit more. And then he helped Nigel to search for the book. And after a while, which seemed a long time to me, as I cowered in the shadows under the stairs, they found it.

“There,” said Nigel. “We have it.”

“So go on, open it up.”

I ducked my head. I had learned from the occasional bitter experience that certain of these books were better opened with care.

Nigel apparently hadn’t, so Nigel swung open the book with a flourish.

I couldn’t quite see what happened from where I was cowering, but I registered a sort of bang and a flash and there was a very bad smell, far worse than the one there already was. And Nigel took to coughing and Ralph took to gagging into his hands. And Nigel dropped the book and there was another sort of bang. And then Nigel gathered up the book and tucked it under his arm and the two of them scuttled up the stairs and hurried away on their toes.

I crept out from my hiding place and stretched and clicked my shoulders. I knew that I had just heard and seen something that I wasn’t supposed to have heard and seen. Something secret.

Something big.

Bigger than the something big I was up to.

Something
really
big.

I didn’t quite understand what I’d heard. But then it was clear that Ralph and Nigel didn’t quite understand it either. But looking back on it now, from where I am now and after all that happened to me, I suppose that I am quite impressed by myself. By the myself that was me back then. Because I seemed to know instinctively that what I had heard was in some way going to shape my future. I had a sort of a future already planned for myself – I hoped to enter the undertaking trade – but I knew that the conversation between Nigel and Ralph meant something to me personally. It was almost as if it was meant for my ears. As if it had been no coincidence that I was there to hear it.

And now, all these years later, knowing what I know and having done all the things I have done, I know that it wasn’t.

So, with my purloined book in my pocket, I climbed the stairs, switched off the light and left the restricted section, locking it behind me. Then I left the library, locking that behind me, returned the keys to Captain Runstone’s lodge and headed home for my tea.

Tea at my house was sombre and quiet. I liked that in a tea. My mother said grace and served up the sprouts. My father sat soberly, though he was bloody and bruised.

“Uncle Jon gone, then?” I asked, when my mother was done with the grace and we had said our amens.

“Quiet, you,” said my father. “Just eat up your sprouts.”

“I am no lover of sprouts,” said I. “They make my poo-poo green.”

“Don’t talk toilet at the table,” said my mother.

“Nor anywhere else, for that matter,” said my father.

“Sprouts are full of vitamins,” my mother said.

“They will put hairs on your chest,” said my father.

“I don’t want hairs on my chest,” said I. “I am only ten years of age. Hairs upon my chest would be an embarrassment.”

“I’m too tired to smite him,” said my daddy. “You do it, Mother. Use the sprout server. Clock him one in the gob.”

My mother, harassed creature that she was, ignored my father’s command. “Have you done your homework, Gary?” she asked.

“I’m going over to Dave’s after tea. It’s a project we’re working on together.”

“That’s nice,” said my mother. “You work hard at your studies and then you’ll pass your eleven-plus and go to the grammar school like your brother.”

“My brother didn’t go to grammar school, Mother,” said I. “My brother went off to prison.”

My daddy glared at me pointy knives. My mother took up her napkin and snivelled softly into it.

“You’ll be the death of your mother, son,” said my father. “It’s wise that I am to keep her so well insured.”

“Daddy,” said I. “You know a lot about most things, don’t you?”

“More than a lot,” my daddy said, stuffing his face with his sprouts. “But you’re right that it’s most things I know.”

“We’re doing a project about sacred herbs.” I toyed with my dinner and diddled at spuds with my fork. “I have to collect a number of different ones, and I was wondering if you might know where they might be found.”

“Herbs?” said my father, thoughtfully. “There’s parsley and sage, Rosemary Clooney and
Time
magazine.”

“These are a tad more exotic”

“Rosemary Clooney
is
exotic, or am I thinking of Carmen Miranda?”

My mother ceased with her snivelling. “What sort of herbs do you need?” she asked.

“Mandragora,” said I. “And Bilewort and Gashflower.”

“Cripes,” said my father. “If it isn’t toilet talk, it’s sexual deviation.”

“They’re herbs,” I said. “Surely you’ve heard of them?”

“Oh yes,” said my father. “Of course I have, yes.”

My mother, always polite, smiled thinly at my father. “Your father has a lot on his mind,” she said. “What with his bestest friend dying so tragically and everything. If you want to know about herbs, Gary, then go and see Mother Demdike in Moby Dick Terrace.”

“I’ve heard folk say that Mother Demdike is a witch,” I said.

“Wise woman,” said my mother.

“Surely that’s a euphemism,” said I.

“No, carrot,” said my father; “no, motorbike. Am I close?”

“Sorry?” said I.

“Oh, excuse me,” said my father. “I thought it was one of those word-association tests.”

“One of those
what
?”

“I did these tests,” said my father. “A psychologist chap came down to our GPO works and wanted volunteers to do these tests. You got paid five pounds if you took part, so I took part.”

“Your father will do almost anything for science and a fiver,” said my mother.

“Yes,” said my father. “So this psychologist showed me this series of inkblots and he said, ‘Tell me what each one looks like.’ He showed me the first one and I said it looked like two people having sex. Then he showed me another and I said it looked like a man having sex with a donkey. And then he showed me another one and I said that it looked like a lady having sex with a tractor. And so on and so forth. And do you know what the psychologist said?”

I shook my head.

“He said that I was obsessed with sex.”

I shook my head again.

“And do you know what I said to him?”

I shook my head once again.

“I said, ‘
Me
obsessed with sex? You’re the one who’s got all the filthy pictures!’”

The sun went behind a cloud and a dog howled in the distance.

“I have to go now,” I said. “I’ll call in on Mother Demdike. If I’m not home by midnight, direct the policemen to her hut and tell them to look in her cauldron for body parts.”

“Won’t you stay for pudding?” asked my mother. “It’s sprouts and custard.”

I declined politely and once more took my leave.

I had an hour to waste before I met up with Dave, so I decided not to waste it at all and instead wandered over to Moby Dick Terrace and the hut of Mother Demdike.

Now, it has to be said that Mother Demdike had something of a reputation in our neighbourhood. She lived all alone in a little hut at the end of the terrace. She was said to eke out a living by casting horoscopes and selling gloves that she knitted from spaniel hair. She smelled dreadful and looked appalling. She was really ugly.

Now, I’ve never seen the point of ugly people. I suppose I was born with a heightened sense of aesthetics. I enjoy beauty and abhor ugliness. Mother Demdike was undoubtedly ugly; in fact, she was probably the rankest hag that had ever troubled daylight. It pained me greatly to gaze upon her, but the seeker after truth must endure hardships and, if I was to reanimate Mr Penrose, I required the necessary herbs. So if Mother Demdike could furnish me with those herbs, having to look at her ugly gob for half an hour was a small enough price to pay.

I had never actually spoken to Mother Demdike. I’d seen her out and about. A tiny ragged creature, all in dirty black, befouling the streets with her ugliness, trailing a ferret on a string. She cursed all and sundry, puffed on a short clay pipe and spat copiously into the kerb. Children feared her and adults crossed the street, and also themselves, at her approach. People, it seemed, really feared this old wretch. She could put the evil eye on you, they said. She could turn milk sour and wither your willy with a single glance. I have no idea who actually ever went round to her place to have their horoscopes cast or to purchase a pair of her spaniel-hair gloves.

For myself I couldn’t see what all the fuss was about. As far as I was concerned, Mother Demdike was just an ugly old woman who fancied herself as a bit of a character. A studied eccentric. I mean, a ferret on a string? Come on!

Around her hut was a low black Neuburg fence, of a type that you just don’t see any more. The gateposts were of the Hirsig design, possibly the very last pair of such gateposts in the district or indeed anywhere else outside the Victoria and Albert Museum. Although they were common enough in their day. Which was a day when Hansom cabs rattled cobblestones and Jack the Ripper had it down upon “hooers”. The gate that hung between these posts was a Regardie, with a Mudd cantilever catch and a Miramar double coil spring. The path that led to the hut was of Cefalu stone slabs pointed with a three-to-one cement and silver-sand mix. These details may appear irrelevant. And perhaps they are.

The hut was a dank little, dark little, horrid little hovel, with sulphurous smoke curling up from a single chimney. Bottle-glass windows showed the wan light of a meagre fire. I hesitated for just a moment before knocking with the goat’s-head knocker. Not for fear or for any such whimsy, but to rebutton my fly, which had come undone.

Knock, knock, knock, went I with the knocker.

“Enter,” called an old voice from within.

I pushed upon the door and entered. Sniffed the air and marvelled at the pong.

“Gary Cheese,” said Mother Demdike.

“Mother Demdike,” I replied. “Good evening.”

The hag sat at her fireside. The hut boasted a single room, which served her as everything it should and could. There was an iron fireplace. A rocking chair in which the crone sat. A lot of herby-looking things dangled down from all over the low ceiling. A ragged rag rug sprawled upon the packed-earth floor and a great deal of magical paraphernalia lay all around and about.

I cast my eye around and about. I viewed the paraphernalia. It all fitted so well. If you were going to adopt the persona of a witch woman you had to do the job properly. You’d need the scrimble stone and the alhambric and the mandragles and the postuleniums and also the fractible buckets.

Mother Demdike had the lot. She also had a great many ancient-looking tomes, several of which appeared to have the stamp of the Memorial Library’s Restricted Section upon their spines. I raised my eyebrows at this. This dishonest woman was helping herself to my reading material.

“Come closer, my dear,” said Mother Demdike.

“If I come any closer,” I said, “I’ll be behind you. Which, considering your pong, is no place I wish to be.”

“You’re a rather rude little boy. Do you know what I do with rude little boys?”

“Cook them up in your cauldron?” I asked, stifling a yawn.

“Cook ’em up for my dinner.” And the hag cackled. Cak-cak-cak-cak-cackle, she went.

“That’s a horrid cough you have there,” I observed. “You should take some linctus.”

“Come and sit beside me.” The crone extended a wrinkled claw and beckoned to me with it.

“Do you mind if I just stand here with the door open?” I asked. “I mean, I understand about the ambience and atmosphere and everything and I respect your right to behave like an old weirdo, but, well, you know.”

“Bugger off,” said Mother Demdike. “Bugger off or I’ll cast a hex on you.”

I scratched at my head. I’d got off on the wrong foot here. I should be polite. “I’m sorry,” I said. “I’m a bit nervous.”

“And so you should be. Don’t you know I’m a witch?”

“Wise woman,” I said.

“That’s just a euphemism,” said Mother Demdike. “I’m a blackhearted witch who’s kissed the Devil’s arse and suckles her familiars at her supernumerary nipples.” She stroked something bundled up in rags upon her lap. Her ferret, I presumed.

“Do you know anything about herbs?” I enquired. “Only, we’re doing this project at school and I need some special herbs.”

“Come a little closer,” said Mother Demdike. “Let me have a sniff at your aura.”

“My aura?” I said.

“Indulge me,” said the ancient.

I took a small step forward. “Sniff away,” I told her. “But I think your pong will overwhelm mine.”

Mother Demdike sniffed. “Oh dear, oh dear,” she said.

I lifted an arm and sniffed my armpit. “I had a bath last week,” I told her. “And I used soap and everything.”

“I think I’ve been waiting for you,” said Mother Demdike. “Tell me about these herbs that you need.”

So I told her.

Mother Demdike looked me up and down. “You’re a bad’n,” she said.

“I’m not so bad. I get most of my homework in on time.”

“You have bad intentions.”

“I have only good intentions. Do you know where I can get these herbs?”

“I have all of them.”

“Oh, good,” I said. “Now, as I’m doing this as a school project I’m sure you won’t want to charge me any money for them, so—”

“I won’t,” said Mother Demdike.

“You won’t? Oh, good.”

“All I want to do is to read your palm.”

“That’s fair enough.”

“So stick your hand out and let me take a peep.”

“Could I have the herbs first, before you do?”

“Why would you want to do that?”

“Well,” I said, “can I be completely honest with you?”

The hag cocked her head on one side, whereupon a spider ran out of her right ear-hole. She snatched it from her cheek, popped it into her mouth and munched upon it. “Go on,” she said, spitting out a couple of legs.

“It’s a rather funny thing,” I began. “You see, I woke up today … Or, rather, I think I did. But perhaps I didn’t.”

“You didn’t?” said Mother Demdike.

“Well, I’m beginning to wonder. Because everything today has been so absurd. My father claims that his bestest friend has just died. This bestest friend turns out to be my favourite author. I’m sure my father never knew this man at all. I went to the library and overheard these two men talking about a secret project. About how human beings are just receivers of mental waves sent from somewhere else in the universe. And now I’m in a witch’s house. Oh, and I’ve been thinking about reanimating this famous author. Bringing him back to life through voodoo, which is why I need the herbs. Now, you tell me, does this sound like normality to you, or is something really weird going on?”

Mother Demdike looked me up and down once more. “Oh yes,” she said. “You’re going to be trouble. You’re going to be big trouble.”

“Big trouble? What do you mean?”

“People sleepwalk,” said the ancient. “People drift through their lives, rarely paying attention to the fact that they are alive. Rarely, if ever, marvelling at their very existence. At the miracle of life, of awareness. That for a brief moment in time and space they exist.”

“I was only thinking that myself earlier,” I said.

“Life is incredible,” said Mother Demdike. “It’s unbelievable. It’s beyond belief. In a universe otherwise dead, we live. And what do people do with their lives? Waste them on everyday trivialities. On being part of a society. A little cog in a great big impersonal engine. But once in a while someone appears, out of nowhere, or so it seems, someone who’s different. These special someones add something to society. They give it something special. And this takes humanity forward. Towards what, I don’t know. Towards something, though, towards finding something out about itself and its ultimate purpose. Because everything must have a purpose. It wouldn’t, couldn’t, exist if it didn’t. It may well be that you are one of these special someones, Gary. That you have something very special to give to humankind. If this is true you will be
aware
. And if you are
aware
, you will experience life differently from the rest of humankind. To you it will seem unreal, as if you are in a dream. How could it be any other way for someone who is different from the rest?”

I stood there in the doorway of the little hut and I didn’t know what to say.