Going Postal полностью

Ha. He shook his head. As if one tiny choice by someone unimportant could make that much difference! History had to be a bit tougher than that. It all sprang back eventually, didn’t it? He was sure he’d read something, somewhere. If it wasn’t like that, no one would ever dare do anything .

He stood in the little square where eight roads met, and chose to go home via Market Street. It was as good a way as any other.

When he was sure that both Stanley and the golem were busy on the mail mountains, Mr Groat crept away through the labyrinth of corridors. Bundles of letters were stacked so high and tightly that it was all he could do to squeeze through, but at last he reached the shaft of the old hydraulic elevator, long disused. The shaft had been filled up with letters.

However, the engineer’s ladder was still clear, and that at least went up to the roof. Of course, there was the fire escape outside, but that was outside, and Groat was not over-keen on going outside at the best of times. He inhabited the Post Office like a very small snail in a very large shell. He was used to gloom.

Now, slowly and painfully, his legs shaking, he climbed up through the floors of mail and forced open the trapdoor at the top.

He blinked and shuddered in the unfamiliar sunlight, and hauled himself out on to the flat roof.

He’d never really liked doing this, but what else could he have done? Stanley ate like a bird and Groat mostly got by on tea and biscuits, but it all cost money, even if you went round the markets just as they closed up, and somewhere in the past, decades ago, the pay had stopped arriving. Groat had been too frightened to go up to the palace to find out why. He was afraid that if he asked for money he’d be sacked. So he’d taken to renting out the old pigeon loft. Where was the harm in that? All the pigeons had joined their feral brethren years ago, and a decent shed was not to be sneezed at in this city, even if it did whiff a bit. There was an outside fire escape and everything. It was a little palace compared to most lodgings.

Besides, these lads didn’t mind the smell, they said. They were pigeon fanciers. Groat wasn’t sure what that entailed, except that they had to use a little clacks tower to fancy them properly. But they paid up, that was the important thing.

He skirted the big rainwater tank for the defunct lift and sidled around the rooftops to the shed, where he knocked politely.

‘It’s me, lads. Just come about the rent,’ he said.

The door was opened and he heard a snatch of conversation: ‘. . . the linkages won’t stand it for more than thirty seconds… ’

‘Oh, Mr Groat, come on in,’ said the man who had opened the door. This was Mr Carlton, the one with the beard a dwarf would be proud of, no, two dwarfs would be proud of. He seemed more sensible than the other two, although this was not hard.

Groat removed his hat. ‘Come about the rent, sir,’ he repeated, peering around the man. ‘Got a bit o’ news, too. Just thought I’d better mention, lads, we’ve got a new postmaster. If you could be a bit careful for a while? A nod’s as good as a wink, eh?’

‘How long’s this one going to last, then?’ said a man who was sitting on the floor, working on a big metal drum full of what, to Mr Groat, appeared to be very complicated clockwork. ‘You’ll push him off the roof by Saturday, right?’

‘Now, now, Mr Winton, there’s no call to make fun of me like that,’ said Groat nervously. ‘Once he’s been here a few weeks and got settled in I’ll kind of… hint that you’re here, all right? Pigeons getting on okay, are they?’ He peered around the loft. Only one pigeon was visible, hunched up high in a corner.

‘They’re out for exercise right now,’ said Winton.

‘Ah, right, that’d be it, then,’ said Groat.

‘Anyway, we’re a bit more interested in woodpeckers at the moment,’ said Winton, pulling a bent metal bar out of the drum. ‘See, Alex? I told you, it’s bent. And two gears are stripped bare… ’

“Woodpeckers?’ said Groat.

There was a certain lowering of the temperature, as if he’d said the wrong thing.

‘That’s right, woodpeckers,’ said a third voice.

‘Woodpeckers, Mr Emery?’ The third pigeon fancier always made Groat nervous. It was the way his eyes were always on the move, as if he was trying to see everything at once. And he was always holding a tube with smoke coming out of it, or another piece of machinery. They all seemed very interested in tubes and cogwheels, if it came to that. Oddly enough, Groat had never seen them holding a pigeon. He didn’t know how pigeons were fancied, but he’d assumed that it had to be close up.

‘Yes, woodpeckers,’ said the man, while the tube in his hand changed colour from red to blue. ‘Because… ’ and here he appeared to stop and think for a moment, ‘we’re seeing if they can be taught to… oh, yes, tap out the message when they get there, see? Much better than messenger pigeons.’

‘Why?’ said Groat.

Mr Emery stared at the whole world for a moment. ‘Because… they can deliver messages in the dark?’ he said.