The Fandom of the Operator (11 page)

“But you can’t leave the bulb booth unattended.”

“Then you sit in until I come back.”

“I can’t do that. It’s not
my
job.”

“Well, I’m going to the bog, whether you like it or not.”

“You’d risk five years for a pee. Good God!” Mr Holland threw up his hands.

“Five years for a pee? What are you talking about?” I crossed my legs. I was getting desperate.

“You signed the Official Secrets Act, didn’t you?”

“With a flourish,” said I. “Why do you ask?”

“Because it states quite clearly in the ‘Terms of Employment’ section that, should you leave the bulb booth unattended during your duty period, you will have committed a crime against the state. The punishment is a minimum of five years’ imprisonment. Although upon all previous occasions the court has dealt out far sterner sentences than that. Mr Trubshaw got forty years in solitary. That was during the war, of course. I think he served as a good example, which is probably why Mr Hurst had the bag fitted.”

“What?” I said. “
What
?”

“Hold it in, boy, if you value your freedom.”

“No,” I said. “Hang about, this can’t be right.”

“Who’s to say what’s right? I’m not a philosopher, I’m a technical manager.”

“No,” I said. “This is ridiculous. Absurd. And what about when I need a replacement bulb? I’d have to leave the booth then.”

“You’d call out to me. I would then initiate a temporary override procedure.”

“Well, initiate one now, while I go and have a pee.”

“Good God,” cried Mr Holland. “You’d take me down with you. Have you no morals at all? Are you a total degenerate?”

“In a word, yes. I quit this stupid job.”

“You can’t quit.”

“Then, fire me.”

“You can’t be fired. You signed the Official Secrets Act. And you can’t take any days off sick, either. You’ve taken the job for life.”

“I’ve what? I’ve
what
?”

“Don’t shout,” shouted Mr Holland. “I have very sensitive hearing. Had my aural cavities surgically enhanced so that I could hear a request for replacement bulbs being made through the partition wall. You only have to whisper, really.”

“I’m not whispering. And I’m going to wet myself in a minute.”

“I’m very sorry about that. I’m sure it will be very uncomfortable for you. But there’s nothing I can do about it.”

“Bring me a bucket, or something.”

“Sorry,” said Mr Holland. “A bucket is out of the question. There is no procedure for buckets. You can’t get a docket for a bucket. It’s unheard of.”

“So I have to wet my pants and go without lunch and if I leave this booth for even a couple of minutes or dare to take the day off, I can be dragged away to prison? Is that what you’re saying?”

“In a word. And to save us all a lot of time and heartbreak, yes.”

“Aaaaaaaaagh!” I went.

And not without good cause.

And then I wet myself.

There was something in the way that Sandra laughed that really got on my nerves. It had taken me nearly an hour to walk home, ducking in and out of alleyways to avoid being seen. What with the big wet patch down my trouser front and everything. And I was ravenously hungry and she said that it was my turn to make dinner.

And everything.

“Stop laughing!” I shouted. “This isn’t funny. This is dire. Terrible. Catastrophic. I’m in big trouble here.”

“It will teach you to read documents before you sign them in future.”

“I don’t have a future!” I stormed up and down the sitting room.

“You’re dripping on the carpet.” Sandra laughed some more.

“I’ll write to my MP,” I said. “This is inhuman. It’s nothing short of slavery. This is the nineteen seventies. Is this what all our student protests have brought us to?”

“What student protests? You never were a student and you never protested against anything.”

“I marched for Gay Rights,” I told her, as I plucked at my damp trouser legs.

“You just went along hoping to get shagged.”

“Yeah, well, all right. That’s why most of us went. But that’s not the point. I can’t be treated like this.”

“So what do you propose to do?”

“Have a bath,” I said. “And have something to eat. And go down the pub and think about what to do.”

“Still, look on the bright side,” said Sandra: “at least you’ll be on a regular wage now. Do you get paid holidays? We could go somewhere nice.”

“Holidays? I never asked about holidays. Perhaps I don’t even get any holidays.”

“I don’t know what you’re complaining about,” Sandra said. She gave me an encouraging smile. “You have a job for life and it’s not exactly taxing, is it? You can read your silly detective books, do an Open University course, learn a second language. Your days are pretty much your own to do with as you please. As long as you don’t leave your bulb booth, of course.” And then Sandra sniggered a bit and then she laughed a lot more.

“I’m going for a bath,” I told her.

“You do that,” said Sandra. “And, darling …”

“Yes?”

“It’s a bit dark in the bathroom. You can switch the bulb
on
, if you like. A change is as good as a rest, eh?”

And then she laughed a lot more.

I bathed and I dried and I dressed in clean clothes and I stuffed my face with food. And then I went to the pub alone in a very bad mood indeed.

I went to the Shrunken Head. They have music there on a Monday, and every other night too. The Graham Bond Organization were playing that evening. Jeff Beck was on lead guitar.
[15]

Harry was on the door, wearing a smart tuxedo.

“You dirty rotten swine!” I greeted him. “You got me into this mess.”

“No, I didn’t,” said Harry. “And what mess are you talking about?”

“Forget it,” I said, making my way inside.

The Shrunken Head was a horrible dump. But then, all music pubs are. It’s a tradition, or an old charter, or something. The furnishings are always rubbish, the beer is always rubbish
and
overpriced. And there’s always trouble and people shooting up in the toilets and an overall sordidness of a type that you just don’t get anywhere else.

I loved the place.

I elbowed my way through the crowd of youths and edged towards the bar. These were the days before black T-shirts had become an acceptable form of gig wear. These were still the days of the cheesecloth shirt. You don’t see cheesecloth shirts any more – which is a shame, because I really liked them. No shirt fits like a cheesecloth shirt. Really tight across the shoulders and under the armpits, where they soon get a big stain going. And the way they pulled at the buttons, leaving those vertical eye-shaped slits so your chest and belly showed through. And those huge floppy collars.

And everything.

I’ll say this for the seventies. People really knew how to dress back then. I’d looked hot as a mod. And later as a hippie, but I looked my best as a seventies groover. My platform soles were three layers high. And would have made me the tallest bloke in the pub if everyone else hadn’t been wearing platforms too.

The landlord in those days was Kimberlin Malkuth the Fourth, Lord of a Thousand Suns. His given name was Eric Blaine, but Eric Blaine possessed a certain gift. It was a gift that was his own. The gift of the True Name Knower.

According to Eric, the names we are given at birth – the surnames we inherit from our parents and the Christian names they choose for us – are not our
real
names. Our
true
names. The names that we should be called.

It didn’t make a lot of sense to me at the time, but it did to Eric, or, rather, to Kimberlin Malkuth, Lord of a Thousand Suns, as he was known, having changed his name by deed poll. Because Eric had had a revelation (possibly involving the use of hallucinogenic drugs back in the sixties) whereby he became aware of his
true
name and the fact that he had the ability to recognize the
true
names of others, just by looking at them. It could be argued that, as the landlord of a pub, this might have put him in a certain peril with more truculent patrons, who might well have taken exception to him renaming them. But it didn’t.

This was, and is, after all, Brentford. Where tolerance is legendary and minds are as open as a supermarket on a Sunday.

And also, and this may well have been the
big
also, the names the enlightened landlord bestowed upon his oft-times bewildered patrons were so noble and exotic that few were ever heard to complain and most, indeed, revelled in their new and worthy nomenclatures.

“Lord Kimberlin,” I hailed him. “Pint of fizzy rubbish over here, when you have a moment free.”

“’Pon my word,” said the landlord, casting an eye in my direction. “If it isn’t the Honourable Valdec Firesword, Archduke of Alpha Centuri.”

“That’s me,” I said. “Any chance of a pint, all-knowing one?”

“Coming right up.” Lord Kimberlin did the business and presented me with my pint. “Haven’t seen you for a while, Archduke,” he said to me. “But you’ve come on a good night. Not only is Quilten Balthazar, Viceroy to the High Grandee of Neptune, playing here tonight but Zagger To Mega Therion, the master bladesman of Alphanor in the Rigel Concourse is on lead guitar.”

“Should be a show worth watching, then,” said I, accepting my pint and paying up promptly.

“You’re not kidding there,” said the landlord. “And what a crowd in to watch, eh? See there the Baron Fidelius, slayer of Krang the Cruel?”

I followed the direction of the landlord’s pointing and spied Nigel Keating the postman.

“And with him the Great Mazurka.”

I spied Norman from the corner shop.

“And there is the legendary Count Otto Black.”

I glanced over my shoulder and there was Count Otto Black.

“But …” I said.

“The exception that proves the rule,” explained the barlord.

I took up my pint and pushed my way back through the crowd to chat with Count Otto, whom I’d known since a lad.

The count’s family had been émigrés during the Second World War. They came from some place or other in the wilds of Europe that had “vania” on the end of it, but I could never pronounce it properly, having been poorly educated and always having a note that excused me from geography on religious grounds. The count’s father had been the other Count Otto Black – the one who ran the Circus Fantastique, with which my Uncle Jon used to perform.

The count worked as a packer at Brentford Nylons. In fact, it was he who’d alerted Sandra that there was a vacancy coming up there. She’d been first in the queue and now was the employment officer at the factory. In charge of future hirings. A sudden thought regarding my present circumstances entered my head. But the bar was noisy and the thought left as quickly as it had entered.

“Count Otto,” said I. “Hello.”

The count stared down upon me. He was very tall, the count. Always had been. Even when he was small, he was tall. Tall people so often are.

“Gary,” said Count Otto. “I hear that you’ve taken employment once more. Tough luck, old fellow. You have my sympathy.”

“I need it more than you know,” I said.

“I think not,” said Count Otto. “I’ve heard that you’ve taken the bulb man’s job at the telephone exchange. You really need all the sympathy I have. It’s yours; take it with my blessings.”

“I’m in the dog muck,” I said. “I don’t know what to do.”

“You should look on the bright side,” said the count. “It will soon be Saturday.”

“I think I need a bit more than that. How am I going to get out of this?”

Count Otto shrugged. “I’ve no idea at all,” said he. “If you paid a little more attention to what goes on around you, you’d have noticed that you were the only applicant for that job.”

“The dole office sent me,” I said.

“But you should have
known
. Everyone in Brentford knows about
that job
. You don’t inhabit the real world, do you, Gary? You dream your way through life. It’s not quite real to you, is it?”

“It suddenly seems very real,” I said. And suddenly it did.

“That’s the way with life. It has a habit of catching up with you.”

“So, tell me, what should I do?”

“Learn,” said the count. “That would be my advice. Knowledge is power, as the old cliché goes. The more you learn, the more you know. The more you know, the more options will open up for you.”

“So I should take an Open University course, or something?”

“Or learn a second language.”

“Sandra said that.”

“Well, she would. We were talking about you today at the factory. I was saying what tough luck it was that you’d taken the job. She just kept laughing.”

“I think I’ll smack her when I get home.”

“Can I come and watch? I love that sort of thing. Back in the old country, you could smack servants whenever you wanted. And torture them, of course, and pull all their clothes off and put them out in the snow.”

“Why?” I asked.

“Because you
could
,” said the count. “And if you
can
, then you
will
. That’s also the way with life. But only with the life of the very privileged.”

“Buy me a drink,” I said. “I’ve finished mine and I’m really short of money. I’ll pay you back at the weekend.”

“Certainly,” said the count and he went up and bought me a drink.

“I’ll tell you this,” he said, on his return. “You want to have a good old think about this job of yours. What it’s all about and things like that.”

“I don’t understand what you mean,” I said.

“Well,” said the count, “it seems like a very strange job to me. Switching a bulb off whenever it comes on.”

“It’s a stupid job,” I said.

“Oh yes,” said the count, nodding. “But most jobs are ultimately stupid. There are certain jobs – say, butcher, or baker – that make sense. They’re necessary jobs. People need butchers and bakers. But what about all those other jobs, like quantity surveyors, say. Does the world really need quantity surveyors? What does a quantity surveyor do anyway? Does he look at things and say, ‘Oh, there’s a lot of
that
. But there’s not too much of
that
.’”

I shrugged my shoulders.

“There’s thousands of jobs like that,” said the count. “They have titles but they don’t really have meaning. If they didn’t exist, the world wouldn’t be any different, except that the people who did those jobs would now be out of work. All these jobs just exist to keep people employed. They’re not real jobs. Your job isn’t a real job.”

I looked up at Count Otto. “Thanks a lot,” I said.

“My pleasure,” said the count.

“No,” said I. “I was being sarcastic. Do you think that I don’t know that? Do you think that everyone on Earth doesn’t know that? People are given jobs so that they can earn money, which they then
spend
. That is the point of giving people jobs, so they can earn money that they can then
spend …
on
things …
on things that have to be manufactured. Thereby giving work to people in manufacturing industries. I could go on and on about this. But we both know how it works. Everyone really knows how it works, although they won’t own up to it.”

“So your job is a stupid job, but it has to be done. Therefore accept it and make the best of it and stop complaining.”

“No,” said I. “No.”

“Well, there’s nothing you can do about it.”

“Do you want a bet?”

“I’m a count,” said the count. “Counts never bet. We just win by default.”

“Well, I
am
going to do something about this,” I said. “All right, I
do
know what I’m like. Well, I think I do. I do dream my way through life and never really pay much attention to reality. But OK, I’m stuck in this one, but I mean to get out.
And
I mean to change things. I don’t know how I’ll do it, but I will. This has been a special day for me. I didn’t know that it was going to be special. But it is. It has determined me upon a mission. Yes, it has. By golly, yes.”

“And what exactly is this mission?” asked the count.

“To change things,” I said. “To change everything.”

“Oh dear,” said Count Otto. “And you having drunk but a pint and a half. Chaps are usually at least seven pints in before they start talking nonsense like this. Back in the old country, talk like this would go on into the night. And they’d always end up with someone saying, ‘I’m going to change everything. I’ve had enough of all this.’”

“And did anyone?” I asked. “Change things?”

“No,” said the count. “Of course not. They’d end up sitting in the courtyard outside the alehouse waiting for the sun to come up and we’d all be hiding inside in the shadows. And up would come the sun and
whoosh-woof-zap
and flash: another vampire gone.”

“Eh?” I said. “What?”

“Only joking,” said the count. “Or
am
I?”

I chewed upon my upper lip. “
I’ll
change things,” I said. “You wait and see.”

“I’ll wait,” said the count. “But indoors in the shadows, if you don’t mind.”