The Fandom of the Operator

by Rovert Rankin

  “You are,” I said.

  “Good grief,” said the oik. “Didn’t they teach you anything at the Ministry?”

  I shrugged.

  “Come on,” he said. “I’ll take you to the supervisor.”

  “I’m fine here,” I said. “I’ve got to get this XP103 to the North gantry.”

  “So why are you on the East gantry?”

  “I was heading north,” I said.

  “No, you weren’t. Come with me.” And he rolled his eyes again. And I followed him.

  “Mr Baker,” said the oik, tapping a white-coated man upon the shoulder. “Mr Baker, the new bob here, who wanted to speak to his granny, he hasn’t worked out his dialling code yet. Is it OK if I show him how to do it?”

  Mr Baker turned and stared at me. He was a man of middle years, perhaps in his middle thirties, and he looked strangely familiar to me. I was certain that I’d seen him before somewhere.

  And, oh yes, I had.

  He was one of those young blokes I’d seen in the restricted section of the Memorial Library so long ago. I did have a good memory. Sometimes.

  “Go ahead,” said Mr Baker. “But make it quick. He only has a three-minute window. No longer, do you understand that?”

  “Absolutely,” said the oik.

  “Absolutely,” I said too.

  “Follow me,” said the oik, and I followed him. He led me down a couple of stairways and along as many gantries. “This will really freak you out,” he said as he did so.

  “I’m not easily freaked out,” I said.

  “Yeah, right,” said the oik. “Everybody gets freaked out the first time.”

  “Why?” I asked.

  “Why?” The oik turned and looked me in the eyes. “You’re either very brave or very stupid,” he said.

  “I’m very brave,” I said. “Why?”

  “Why? Because most people do freak out when they speak to a dead relative the first time.”

  “A dead relative,” I said, stopping all short in my tracks.

  The oik stared at me. And then began to laugh. People seem to do a lot of that too when they talk to me. “Oh, very good,” he said. “Very good indeed.”

  “I’m sorry?” I said.

  “No,” said the oik. “That was funny. Pretending that you didn’t know what FLATLINE was all about. You almost had me going there. Very funny indeed. Good gag.”

  “I’m so glad you liked it,” I said, as my brain did cartwheels. Speak to a dead relative? That’s what he’d said and he’d said it with a straight face. And FLATLINE, that was out of hospitals, wasn’t it? When people flatline, they die. The line on the electrocardiograph goes flat. FLATLINE, phoneline? Phoneline to the dead? It made some sort of sense.

  “I hope she coughs up whatever it is,” said the oik. “What do you want to know – where she hid her savings? It’s usually that. Mind you, I can’t sneer because it’s unoriginal. I did just the same when I had my turn. I asked my mum whether she really told my sister that she could have the radiogram. I really wasted my turn and I won’t get another one for five years. So I’m not going to be stupid next time. I’m going to ask my mum whether she had any pirate’s gold hidden anywhere. I hope you’ve come up with something good for your first go. Don’t mess up like I did.”

  I didn’t know what to say, so I said: “Do you think that’s fair? Just the one go, every five years?”

  The oik drew me near and he whispered. “No, I don’t,” he said. “But when the service goes on line to everyone, we’ll be able to make as many calls as we want. So I suppose we’ll just have to be patient for now, won’t we?”

  “I suppose so,” I said.

  “Come on, then. Let’s get it done.”

  “Right,” I said and I followed him some more.

  He led me to a rather extraordinary thing. Not the sort of thing I was expecting at all. I was expecting some kind of Frankenstein’s Laboratory sort of thing. Lots of electrical lightning flashes and big wheels turning.

  The oik led me to a telephone box.

  A classic English big red telephone box. “Go on,” he said. “Go inside.”

  “This is it?” I said.

  “Of course,” he said. “What were you expecting, Frankenstein’s Lab?” And he laughed again.

  “Of course not,” I said. “But about the dialling code?”

  “I can’t see how you can forget something so simple. You dial in the full name of the deceased and the date of their departure. Then times the figure that comes up on the screen by the age of the person when they died and take away the year they were born and, wallah, you have your dialling code. Do you really need me to do that for you or can you figure it out for yourself? How hard can that really be?”

  “Not hard at all,” I said. “I don’t know how it slipped my mind.”

  “Probably because you’re a twonk,” said the oik. “Now go in, do it. Three minutes is all you get, understand?”

  “Of course,” I said.

  “And don’t think you can go on for longer. You can’t go over three minutes. When you reach three minutes a signal goes to the bulb booth on the ground floor and the bulb-monkey will switch you off.”

  “The bulb-monkey?” I said, and I said it very slowly.

  “The retard who mans the bulb booth.”

  “Right,” I said and I said it through gritted teeth. “The retard, yes.”

  “So, do your stuff, have your go and speak to your gran.”

  “Right,” I said. “I will. Thanks.”

  “Then get that XP103 in place.”

  “I certainly will.” I entered the telephone box and the door swung shut behind me.

  It was strangely quiet in there. Not that it was all that noisy outside. But in here it was quiet. It had a kind of peace. But there always is a kind of peace inside a telephone box. It’s probably all to do with “shape power”, all that “power of the pyramids” stuff. Certain environments are special and that’s due to their shape. I read about that once. About underground burial chambers that resonate certain notes, like chanting voices and suchlike. The ancients apparently knew all about this sort of stuff, but we in our educated wisdom have lost the knowledge.

  But certain people, it appears, seem to know intuitively all about it – certain designers, like the man who designed the telephone box, Sir Giles Gilbert Scott. He also designed Battersea Power Station and Bankside Power Station, which is now the home of Tate Modern.

  He was a bit of a genius really.

  My hand hovered above the telephone.

  Dial up my granny?

  Now, why would I want to dial up my granny?

  I’d never even met my granny – she’d died before I was born – and I didn’t know the date of her “departure”.

  So, really, I couldn’t call up my dead granny, could I? So who could I call? Who did I know who was dead and I could call?

  Stupid kind of question really. Ridiculous question. The whole thing was pretty ridiculous. Ludicrous, in fact. Although … Well, although the oik wasn’t taking it as a joke. This wasn’t a joke. This was FLATLINE and this was what FLATLINE was.

  My hand continued to hover.

  And then slowly, so slowly, I took up the telephone handset and put it to my ear.

  And then slowly, so slowly, and somewhat falteringly, I dialled the letters of my father’s name and the date of his “departure”. Then I multiplied the figure that came up on the screen by the age of my father when he died and took away the year he was born.

  And then, all a-tremble and right on the cusp of a freak-out, I listened.

  15

  It was engaged! Can you believe that?

  Engaged?

  I slammed down the phone and I fumed not a little.

  Stupid, I said to myself. Stupid. Stupid. Stupid. I’ve been had. They think I’m a new bob. They’re winding me up. They’ll be out there laughing. I peered out through the glass windows of the phone box.

  But no one was out
there laughing.

  No one.

  They were all out there going about their business, carrying bulbs or clipboards, moving up and down stairways and along gantries. They weren’t looking in my direction.

  I took the telephone handset and I dialled again. And this time a distant bell began to ring.

  Ring-ring. Ring-ring. Ring-ring. Like old-fashioned phones used to do.

  And then there was a click and a voice said, “Hello. Who’s that?”

  And it was the voice of my daddy.

  My dead daddy.

  It was really his voice.

  My throat was suddenly very dry indeed and my heart began to pound like crazy in my chest.

  “Hello,” said my daddy’s voice again. “Who’s there? Is there anybody there?”

  I gagged and swallowed and I said, “Daddy, is that you?”

  “Who’s that?” said the voice of my father. “Gary, is that you?”

  “It’s me,” I said. “Is that really you?”

  “Of course it’s me. Who did you think it was?”

  “But you’re, well … you’re …”

  “I’m dead,” said my father. “We do use the ‘D’ word here. What are you doing up at this time of night? You should have been in bed by eight.”

  “I’m all grown up,” I said. “I’m not a little boy any more.”

  “Yes, well, I knew that. I’m not stupid. How old are you now? thirteen, fourteen?”

  “I’m twenty-seven.”

  “As old as that. Time’s different here. Because there isn’t any, I suppose.”

  “Is that really, really you?”

  “Have you been drinking?” asked my daddy.

  “No,” I said. “No. But I can’t believe that I’m really talking to you. You being, you know, dead and everything.”

  “Yeah, well, I’m sure you’re thrilled. So what do you want?”

  “I don’t want anything.”

  “So why are you bloody bothering me? Can’t you let me rest in peace?”

  “I’m speaking to you,” I said. “I’m alive and you’re dead and I’m actually speaking to you.”

  “Well, that’s no big deal. Spiritualists do it all the time. Although mostly we just ignore them. Lot of fat ugly women or nancy-boy men, most of them. Who’d want to speak to that bunch of losers, eh?”

  “Quite so,” I said. “But, Daddy, this really is you and I’m speaking to you. This is incredible. Incredible. This is wonderful. This is amazing.”

  “I’m not impressed,” said my daddy.

  “I am,” I said.

  “Then you’re easily impressed, son. But I’ll tell you something. If you want to be really impressed, I know something absolutely fantastic. Would you like to hear it?”

  “Yes, I would,” I said. “I would.”

  “All right,” said the Daddy. “Then listen up good, because—”

  Then he got cut off.

  And then the line went dead.

  16

  “You bollard!” I shouted. “You gimping no-nads!”

  But I wasn’t shouting at my daddy. I was shouting at Barry.

  I was back in the bulb booth now and I was shouting at Barry.

  Loudly.

  And I was waving my arms about and making fists with my fingers.

  Violently.

  “You switched me off! You fugging switched me off!”

  I shouted loudly as I waved my arms and made my fists. “You brusting swabster!”

  “I’ve never heard such language,” said Barry, “and I did nothing of the kind. What are you talking about?”

  “The bulb flashed on and you switched it off.”

  “And you’re complaining about that?”

  “Of course I’m complaining. You stupid bulb-monkey. You switched me off.”

  “I do wish you’d calm down, man,” said Barry. “All this shouting is giving me a headache.”

  I took Barry by the throat and shook him all about.

  “Gggmmmuurgh …” went Barry, eyes popping out and face turning red.

  “Upstairs,” I shouted. “Upstairs on the seventeenth floor. There’s this huge computer room thing and it’s all to do with frequencies and stuff. And there’s a telephone box and …”

  “Mmphgrmm …” went Barry, face rather purple now.

  “And you can dial up the dead. That’s what FLATLINE is. A hot line to the dead. And I was talking to my daddy and you switched off the bulb, you stupid … Barry, are you listening to me?”

  But Barry’s face had gone rather blue.

  I let him sink to the floor and I nudged him a bit in the ribs with the toe of my boot.

  Barry took to coughing and gagging and curling into the foetal position.

  “Are you listening to me?” I asked him once again.

  “Yes, yes.” And Barry waved a limp-looking hand. “Don’t kick me any more.”

  “I wasn’t kicking, I was nudging.”

  “Then don’t nudge, please.” And Barry was sick on the floor.

  Of my bulb booth.

  My … I prepared to put the boot in some more, but halted my boot in mid swing. My bulb booth. Where the bulb-monkey sat. Of course it wasn’t Barry’s fault. What did he and I know? We knew nothing. We just switched the bulb off. But at least I now knew why.

  “I’m sorry,” I said and I dragged Barry up and deposited him in the chair. “I’m sorry. I got a bit stressed there. Are you OK?”

  “No,” spluttered Barry, feeling at his crumpled windpipe.

  “Well, I’m sorry. But how would you feel? Talking to your dead father on the phone and someone cuts you off.”

  “And I did that?” Barry looked up at me with eyes all red and tearful.

  “That’s what the bulb does. Operatives up there are given three minutes to speak to a dead person of their choice. Then the bulb flashes here and we switch them off.”

  “Why?” Barry managed to say.

  “I don’t know,” I said. “But I actually talked to my dead father.”

  “Why?” went Barry once more.

  “I just said that I don’t know.”

  Barry coughed a bit more and wiped away some flecks of vomit from his mouth. “The second why meant: why did you talk to your father?”

  “That’s a pretty stupid question, isn’t it?”

  “Are you kidding?” said Barry, which had me rather confused.

  “What are you talking about?” I asked.

  “What I’m talking about” – Barry coughed a bit more – “what I’m talking about is: you had the chance to speak to the dead person of your choice and you chose to speak to your father. Why?”

  “Eh?” I said.

  “I mean, it didn’t cross your mind to speak to someone really special instead, such as …”

  “Aaaagh!” I went, clapping my hands to my face.

  “Such as P.P. Penrose,” said Barry. “That’s who I would have spoken to.”

  “Aaaagh!” I went once more and I punched myself right in the face.

  “Now that must have really hurt,” said Barry, as I struggled to pick myself up from the floor.

  “You fell down in the vomit,” Barry continued and he laughed. Or tried to. Then he vomited some more.

  “My God,” I said. I was up on my knees and rocking somewhat on them. “I could have spoken to Mr Penrose, but I chose to speak to my wretched father. What was I thinking of?”

  “Perhaps you miss your dad,” was Barry’s suggestion.

  “No, I fugging don’t.”

  Barry shook his head painfully. “But this is really true?” he said. “That’s what they’re doing up there? Talking to the dead? I thought it was something to do with extraterrestrial life or some such toot. But it’s really the dead? This is incredible. This is unlike anything. This is really truly far-out, man. I mean, the dead. At the end of a phone line, the dead.”

  “It’s the dead,” I said. “It’s really the dead.”

  “Then I want a go. Le
nd me your white coat and your light bulb.”

  “Stuff that,” I said. “You’re on duty. You do it in your own time.”

  “What? And have you switch me off?”

  I looked at the bulb and Barry looked at the bulb and then on some metaphysical level certain thoughts were exchanged.

  “Are you thinking what I’m thinking?” asked Barry.

  “If it’s what I’m thinking, then yes,” I said.

  “I’m thinking chats with the dead,” said Barry. “Lots of chats with the dead and all a lot longer than three measly minutes.”

  “Yes,” I said, nodding my head. “I’m up for that. But how and when?”

  “Both easy,” said Barry. “After eleven, when they all go home.”

  “Hold on,” I said. “They all go home after eleven? Does that mean that the bulb never flashes after eleven?”

  “Not as far as I know,” said Barry. “I usually get my head down for some sleep after eleven. I have to be up bright and early in the morning. I have another job as a milkman. I’m saving up to be a millionaire.”

  I made a fist, but I didn’t use it. “So Developmental Services closes at eleven?”

  “It has as long as I’ve been working here. The bulb never flashes after eleven. In fact, there’s hardly anyone left in the building. That’s how I traced where the wire went. There’s only the night watchman and he just sits at the front desk reading nudie books.”

  “All right,” I said. “After eleven it is.”

  And so we waited until after eleven. We listened at the bulb-booth door as the technicians chatted and smoked before clocking off for the night. And then when all was still and quiet we left the bulb booth and took the lift to the seventeenth floor.

  “It will all be locked up, won’t it?” I asked as we sidled up the corridor towards room 23.

  Barry shrugged as he sidled. “Dunno,” he said. “I traced the wire up to this floor, but I never tried any of the doors. I was going to, but then” – he shrugged again – “I couldn’t be arsed. I was just so sure that it would be a terrible disappointment, so I didn’t bother.”

  “Fair enough,” I said, although I wasn’t altogether convinced. We had reached the door to room 23, so I put my ear against it.