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

fleshy sockets.

`Thousands of parsons, with their lych gates and their pine pews and their cloth-bound hymnals and their
pulpits for elbow-leaning and their embroidered mats that you are obliged to put your knees upon whilst
praying. And what do any of them really know? I ask you. What?'

The Daddy didn't reply. I didn't reply. My mother, who lathered sprouts in the stone pot by the sink in
our kitchen, didn't reply either.

Nobody replied.

There wasn't time.

`Nothing,' my Uncle Jon rancoured on. `Charlie is gone, and to where?' There was no pause. No space
for reply. `I'll tell you to where. To none knows where. Wherever that is. And none knows.

My father, the Daddy, glared at Uncle Jon.

`Don't glare at me,' said the Uncle.

My father opened his mouth to speak. But pushed further cheese into it instead.

`And don't talk to me with your mouth full. They don't know. None of them. Clerics, parsons, bishops,
archbishops, pilgrims and popes. Pilgrims know nothing anyway, but popes know a lot. But eventhey
don't know. None of them. None. None. None. Doyou know? Do you?'

I knew thatI didn't know. But then the question probably hadn't been addressed to me. Uncle Jon had
been looking at me, sort of, with one of his glass eyes, but that didn't mean he was actually speaking to
me. He'd probably been speaking to the Daddy. I looked towards that man. If anybody knew an answer
to the Uncle's question, it would probably be the Daddy. He knew about all sorts of interesting things.
He knew how to defuse a Vi flying bomb. He'd done that for a living in the war. And he knew all about
religion and poetry. He hated both. And he knew how to concentrate his will upon the cat while it slept
and make it wee-wee itself

I never quite understood the worth of that particular piece of knowledge. But it always made me laugh
when he did it. So, if there were anyone to answer Uncle Jon's question, that person would, in my limited
opinion, be the Daddy.

I looked towards him.

The Daddy looked towards Uncle Jon.

Uncle Jon looked towards the both of us.

I really wanted the Daddy to speak.

But he didn't. He just chewed upon cheese.

My daddy hated Uncle Jon. I knew that he did. I knew that he knew that I knew that he did. And Uncle
Jon knew that he did. And I suppose Uncle Jon knew that I knew that he did and probably knew that I