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

`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.'