Going Postal полностью

‘I Said It Was A Proud Institution,’ the golem rumbled.

‘Who’s Mrs Cake?’

‘I Regret I Cannot Assist You There, Mr Lipvig.’

‘They seem pretty frightened of her.’

‘So It Appears, Mr Lipvig.’

Moist looked around at this busy junction in this busy city. People weren’t paying him any attention, although the golem was getting casual glances that didn’t appear very friendly.

This was all too strange. He’d been - what, fourteen? - when he’d last used his real name. And heavens knew how long it had been since he’d gone out without some easily removable distinguishing marks. He felt naked. Naked and unnoticed.

To the interest of no one whatsoever, he walked up the stained steps and turned the key in the lock. To his surprise it moved easily, and the paint-spattered doors swung open without a creak.

There was a rhythmic, hollow noise behind Moist. Mr Pump was clapping his hands.

‘Vell Done, Mr Lipvig. Your First Step In A Career Of Benefit Both To Yourself And The Veil-being Of The City!’

‘Yeah, right,’ muttered Lipwig.

He stepped into the huge, dark lobby, which was lit only dimly by a big but grimy dome in the ceiling; it could never be more than twilight in here, even at noon. The graffiti artists had been at work in here, too.

In the gloom he could see a long, broken counter, with doors and pigeon-holes behind it.

Real pigeon-holes. Pigeons were nesting in the pigeon-holes. The sour, salty smell of old guano filled the air, and, as marble tiles rang under Moist’s feet, several hundred pigeons took off frantically and spiralled up towards a broken pane in the roof.

‘Oh, shit,’ he said.

‘Bad Language Is Discouraged, Mr Lipvig,’ said Mr Pump, behind him.

‘Why? It’s written on the walls! Anyway, it was a description , Mr Pump! Guano! There must be tons of the stuff!’ Moist heard his own voice echo back from the distant walls. ‘When was this place last open?’

‘Twenty years ago, Postmaster!’

Moist looked around. ‘Who said that?’ he said. The voice seemed to have come from everywhere.

There was the sound of shuffling and the click-click of a walking stick and a bent, elderly figure appeared in the grey, dead, dusty air.

‘Groat, sir,’ it wheezed. ‘Junior Postman Groat, sir. At your service, sir. One word from you, sir, and I will leap , sir, leap into action, sir.’ The figure stopped to cough long and hard, making a noise like a wall being hit repeatedly with a bag of rocks. Moist saw that it had a beard of the short bristled type that suggested that its owner had been interrupted halfway through eating a hedgehog.

‘Junior Postman Groat?’ he said.

‘Indeedy, sir. The reason being, no one’s ever bin here long enough to promote me, sir. Should be Senior Postman Groat, sir,’ the old man added meaningfully, and once again coughed volcanically.

Ex-Postman Groat sounds more like it , Moist thought. Aloud he said, ‘And you work here, do you?’

‘Aye, sir, that we do, sir. It’s just me and the boy now, sir. He’s keen, sir. We keeps the place clean, sir. All according to Regulations.’

Moist could not stop staring. Mr Groat wore a toupee. There may actually be a man somewhere on whom a toupee works, but whoever that man might be, Mr Groat was not he. It was chestnut brown, the wrong size, the wrong shape, the wrong style and, all in all, wrong.

‘Ah, I see you’re admirin’ my hair, sir,’ said Groat proudly, as the toupee spun gently. ‘It’s all mine, you know, not a prunes.’

‘Er… prunes?’ said Moist.

‘Sorry, sir, shouldn’t have used slang. Prunes as in “syrup of prunes”, sir. Dimwell slang.* Syrup of prunes: wig. Not many men o’ my age got all their own hair, I expect that’s what you’re thinking. It’s clean living that does it, inside and out.’

* Dimwell Arrhythmic Rhyming Slang: Various rhyming slangs are known, and have given the universe such terms as ‘apples and pears’ (stairs), ‘rubbity-dub’ (pub) and ‘busy bee’ (General Theory of Relativity). The Dimwell Street rhyming slang is probably unique in that it does not, in fact, rhyme. No one knows why, but theories so far advanced are 1) that it is quite complex and in fact follows hidden rules or 2) Dimwell is well named or 3) it’s made up to annoy strangers, which is the case with most such slangs.

Moist looked around at the fetid air and the receding mounds of guano. ‘Well done,’ he muttered. ‘Well, Mr Groat, do I have an office? Or something?’

For a moment, the visible face above the ragged beard was that of a rabbit in a headlight.

‘Oh, yes, sir, techn’c’ly ,’ said the old man quickly. ‘But we don’t go in there any more sir, oh no, ‘cos of the floor. Very unsafe, sir. ‘cos of the floor. Could give way any minute, sir. We uses the staff locker room, sir. If you’d care to follow me, sir?’

Moist nearly burst out laughing. ‘Fine,’ he said. He turned to the golem. ‘Er… Mr Pump?’

‘Yes, Mr Lipvig?’ said the golem.

‘Are you allowed to assist me in any way, or do you just wait around until it’s time to hit me on the head?’