"Robert Rankin - The Greatest Show Off Earth" - читать интересную книгу автора (Rankin Robert)

my behalf and same again, landlord, please.'
'Jolly good,' said Andy taking Simon's glass. 'What was it you were drinking by the
way?'
`I'll have Death-by-Cider,' said Dick Godolphin, suddenly at Simon's side. 'As my
good mate here's buying.'
'Would that I could,' replied the drinker with the newly acquired twenty-five-pound
credit line. 'But even if I could, I bet I wouldn't.'
Godolphin muttered curses of the Romany persuasion and prepared once more to buy
his own.
Dick was Bramfield's token gypsy poacher. Every village has to have one. It's a
tradition, or an old charter, or a worn-out cliche. Or something. Dick was short and dark and
fearsome to behold. He wore a waxed cap and a tweed jacket, which was half right and
possessed a pair of eyes which, in the words of D.H. Lawrence of Arabia, "Shone out as black
as pissholes in the snow."
Dick had a wife who was forever in the family way and a lurcher that forever humped
his leg.
He dwelt in the vampire world between the time of pub-close and the dawn of day.
During these unhallowed hours he sallied forth, his lurcher on his leg, to reap a horrid harvest
in the fields of rabbitkind.
Oblivious to the season or the weather or the signs that said 'Keep Out', Dick limped
across the uplands and the downs, scattering flocks of sheep before him and putting the fear
of God into the corn circle makers. On a good night he would bag as many as four fat
bunnies, which would fetch as much as a pound a piece from the local butcher.
To the average town dweller, this might appear an extremely difficult way of scraping a
living. But what do townies know about country life?
Not a lot. That's what.
Dick was the last of a dying breed. Or one of the last, at least. And he felt it his holy
destiny to continue with a fine old country way, which without the likes of him might vanish
for ever, along with the hand-drawn plough, the tied cottage and the squire's right to have his
pick of the village virgins whenever there was an R in the month.
And so he eked out his humble living with little to support him but a pound a bunny,
the social security payments and the handsome weekly stipend awarded him by The Society
for the Preservation of Rural Crafts.
God bless you, Dick Godolphin.
'Piss off, Dick,' said Simon. 'And get your dog off my leg.'
'Down, Lurcher,' said Godolphin. 'Come to heel.'
'Here you go,' said Andy, passing one more pint to Simon. 'Sign here upon this beer-
mat if you will.'
`I'll sign for the entire twenty-five pounds. You don't want a lot of beer-mats
cluttering up your till.'
'Jolly good,' said Andy. 'Same again, was it, Dick?'
'Same again,' said Dick.
Simon sipped his second pint and sidled with his eyes. Most of the regulars were in,
gathered in their favoured comers on the mock-Tudor pews or the low stools with the
reproduction Queen Anne legs. Others ranged along the bar holding forth on this thing or the
other. Sex and scandal. Wars and rumours of war. Everything and nothing, as is oft the way in
pubs.
Simon watched them at it. Long Bob the chicken farmer, headless behind the-beam-
that-strangers-always-bang-their-skulls-on-when-they-come-out-of-the-Gents, laughing
uproariously amidst members of the village rock band, Roman Candle (the parachute