Going Postal (6 page)
“Yes, lad, very good, but it was a tin one anyway,” said Groat with patience.
“And the wings?” said the boy.
“We-ell, I ’spose they thought that the more wings the better,” said Groat.
“Yes, but ’sposing his hat wings and his ankle wings stopped working, he’d be held up by—”
“Stanley! It’s just a statue! Don’t get excited! Calm down! You don’t want to upset…
them
.”
Stanley hung his head.
“They’ve been…whispering to me again, Mr. Groat,” he confided in a low voice.
“Yes, Stanley. They whisper to me, too.”
“I remember ’em last time, talking in the night, Mr. Groat,” said Stanley, his voice trembling. “I shut my eyes and I kept seeing the writin’…”
“Yes, Stanley. Don’t worry about it. Try not to think about it. It’s Mr. Lipstick’s fault, stirring them up. Leave well alone, I say. They never listen, and then what happens? They find out the hard way.”
“It seems like only yesterday, those watchmen drawing that chalk outline round Mr. Mutable,” said Stanley, beginning to tremble. “
He
found out the hard way!”
“Calm down now, calm down,” said Groat, patting him gently on the shoulder. “You’ll set ’em off. Think about pins.”
“But it’s a cruel shame, Mr. Groat, them never being alive long enough to make you senior postman!”
Groat sniffed. “Oh, that’s enough of that. That’s not important, Stanley,” he said, his face like thunder.
“Yes, Mr. Groat, but you’re an old, old man and you’re still only a junior postman—” Stanley persisted.
“I said that’s
enough
, Stanley! Now, just raise that lamp again, will you? Good. That’s better. I’ll read a page of the Regulations, that always quietens them down.” Groat cleared his throat. “I shall now read from the Book of Regulations, Delivery Times (Metropolitan) (Sundays and Octadays excepted),” he announced to the air. “As follows:
“‘The hours by which letters should be put into the receiving houses in town for each delivery within the city walls of Ankh-Morpork are as the following: Overnight by eight o’clock in the evening, for the first delivery. Morning by eight o’clock, for the second delivery. Morning by ten o’clock, for the third delivery. Morning by twelve o’clock, for the fourth delivery. Afternoon by two o’clock, for the fifth delivery. Afternoon by four o’clock, for the sixth delivery. Afternoon by six o’clock, for the seventh delivery.’ These are the hours, and I have read them.”
Groat hung his head for a moment, and then closed the book with a
snap
.
“Why are we doing this, Mr. Groat?” said Stanley meekly.
“’Cos of hub-riss,” said Mr. Groat. “That’s what it was. Hub-riss killed the Post Office. Hub-riss and greed and Bloody Stupid Johnson and the New Pie.”
“A pie, Mr. Groat? How could a pie—”
“Don’t ask, Stanley. It gets complicated and there’s nothing in it about pins.”
They put out the candles and left.
When they were gone, a faint whispering started.
In which our hero discovers the world of pins
• The greengrocer’s apos’trophe • S.W.A.L.K.
• The path of fate • The golem lady • The business
of business and the nature of freedom once again discussed
• Clerk Brian shows enthusiasm
“R
ISE
A
ND
S
HINE
, Mr. Lipvig. Your Second Day As Postmaster!”
Moist opened one crusted eye and glared at the golem.
“Oh, so you’re an alarm clock, too?” he said. “Aargh, my tongue. It feels like it was caught in a mousetrap.”
He half crawled, half rolled across the bed of letters and managed to stand up just outside the door.
“I need new clothes,” he said. “And food. And a toothbrush. I’m going out, Mr. Pump.
You
are to stay here. Do something. Tidy the place up. Get rid of the graffiti on the walls, will you? At least we can make the place look clean!”
“Anything You Say, Mr. Lipvig.”
“Right!” said Moist, and strode off, at least for one stride, and then yelped.
“Be Careful Of Your Ankle, Mr. Lipwig,” said Mr. Pump.
“And another thing!” said Moist, hopping on one leg. “
How
can you follow me? How can you possibly know where I am?”
“Karmic Signature, Mr. Lipvig,” said the golem.
“And that means what, exactly?” Moist demanded.
“It Means I Know Exactly Where You Are, Mr. Lipvig.”
The pottery face was impassive. Moist gave up.
He limped out into what, for this city, was a fresh new morning. There had been a touch of frost overnight, just enough to put some zest into the air and give him an appetite. The leg still hurt, but at least he didn’t need the crutch today.
Here was Moist von Lipwig walking through the city. He’d never done that before. The late Alfred Spangler had, and so had Mundo Smith and Edwin Streep and half a dozen other personas that he’d donned and discarded. Oh, he’d been Moist inside (what a name, yes, he’d heard every possible joke…) but
they
had been on the outside, between him and the world.
Edwin Streep had been a work of art. He’d been a lack-of-confidence trickster, and
needed
to be noticed. He was so patently, obviously
bad
at running a bent Find the Lady game and other street scams that people positively queued up to trick the dumb trickster and walked away grinning…right up to the moment when they tried to spend the coins they’d scooped up so quickly.
There’s a secret art to forgery, and Moist had discovered it: in a hurry, or when excited, people will complete the forgery by their own cupidity. They’ll be so keen to snatch the money from the obvious idiot that
their own eyes
filled in all the little details that weren’t quite there on the coins they so quickly pocketed. All you needed to do was hint at them.
But that was just for starters. Some customers never even discovered that they’d put fake coins in their purse, thus revealing to the incompetent Streep in which pocket they kept it. Later on they learned that Streep might be rubbish with a deck of cards but also that his lack was more than made up for by his exceptional skill as a pickpocket.
Now Moist felt like a peeled prawn. He felt as though he’d stepped out naked.
And yet, still, no one was taking any notice
. There were no cries of “Hey, you!”, no shouts of “That’s him!” He was just another face in the crowd. It was a strange new feeling. He’d never really had to be himself before.
He celebrated by buying a street directory from the Guild of Merchants, and had a coffee and a bacon sandwich while he thumbed, greasily, through it for the list of bars. He didn’t find what he was looking for there, but he did find it in the list of hairdressers, and grinned when he did so. It was nice to be right.
He also found a mention of Dave’s Pin Exchange, up in Dolly Sisters, in an alley between a house of negotiable affection and a massage parlor. It bought and sold pins to pin fanciers.
Moist finished his coffee with a look on his face that those who knew him well—a group consisting, in fact, of absolutely nobody—would have recognized as the formation of a plan. Ultimately, everything was all about people. If he was going to be staying here for a while, he’d make himself comfortable.
He went for a walk to the self-styled “Home of Acuphilia!!!!!”
It was like lifting an unregarded stone and finding a whole new world. Dave’s Pin Exchange was the kind of small shop where the owner knows every single one of his customers by name. It was a wonderful world, the world of pins. It was a hobby that could last you a lifetime. Moist knew this because he expended one dollar on
Pins
by J. Lanugo Owlsbury, apparently the last word on the subject. Everyone had their funny little ways, Moist conceded, but he wasn’t entirely at home among people who, if they saw a pinup, would pay attention to the pins. Some of the customers browsing the book racks (
Misdraws, Double Pointers, and Flaws, Pins of Uberwald and Genua, First Steps in Pins, Adventures in Acuphilia…
) and staring covetously at the rack of pins laid out under glass, had an intensity of expression that frightened him. They looked a bit like Stanley. They were all male. Clearly, women weren’t natural “pinheads.”
He found
Total Pins
on the bottom rack. It had a smudgy, home-produced look, and the print was small and dense and lacked such subtleties as paragraphs and, in many cases, punctuation. The common comma had looked at Stanley’s expression and decided not to disturb him.
When Moist put the little magazine onto the counter, the shop’s owner, a huge bearded man with dreadlocks, a pin through his nose, a beer belly belonging to three other people, and the words
DEATH OR PINS
tattooed on a bicep, picked it up and tossed it back down dismissively.
“Sure about that, sir?” he said. “We’ve got
Pins Monthly, New Pins, Practical Pins, Modern Pins, Pins Extra, Pins International, Talking Pins, Pins World, World Pins, World of Pins, Pins and Pinneries…
” Moist’s attention wandered off for a while but came back in time to catch “
The Acuphile Digest, Extreme Pins
, Stifte!, that’s from Uberwald, very good if you collect foreign pins,
Beginning Pins
, that’s a part-work, sir, with a new pin every week,
Pin Times
and”—here the big man winked—“
Back Alley Pins
.”
“I noticed that one,” said Moist. “It has lots of pictures of young women in leather.”
“Yes, sir. But, to be fair, they’re generally holding pins. So, then…it’s still
Total Pins
for you, is it?” he added, as if giving a fool one last chance to repent his folly.
“Yes,” said Moist. “What’s wrong with it?”
“Oh, nothing. Nothing at all.” Dave scratched his stomach thoughtfully. “It’s just that the editor is a bit…a bit…”
“A bit what?” said Moist.
“Well, we think he’s a bit weird about pins, to tell you the truth.”
Moist looked around the shop.
“Really?” he said.
M
OIST WENT
to a nearby café and leafed through the book. One of the skills of his previous life was an ability to pick up just enough about anything to sound like an expert, at least to nonexperts. Then he returned to the shop.
Everyone had their levers. Often it was greed. Greed was a reliable old standby. Sometimes it was pride. That was Groat’s lever. He desperately wanted promotion; you could see it in his eyes. Find the lever, and then it was plain sailing.
Stanley, now, Stanley…would be easy.
Big Dave was examining a pin under a microscope when Moist returned to the shop. The rush hour for pin-buying must have been nearly over, because there were only a few laggards ogling the pins under glass, or thumbing through the racks.
Moist sidled over to the counter and coughed.
“Yes, sir?” said Big Dave, looking up from his work. “Back again, eh? They get to you, don’t they? Seen anything you like?”
“A packet of pre-perforated pin papers and a ten-penny lucky-dip bag, please,” said Moist loudly. The other customers looked up for a moment as Dave pulled the packets off their rack, and then looked down again.
Moist leaned over the counter.
“I was wondering,” he whispered hoarsely, “if you’d got anything a bit…you know…sharper?”
The big man gave him a carefully blank look.
“How d’you mean, sharper?” he said.
“You know,” said Moist. He cleared his throat. “More…pointed.”
The door clicked shut as the last of the customers, sated enough on pins for one day, stepped out. Dave watched them go and then turned his attention back to Moist.
“A bit of a connoisseur, are we, sir?” he said, winking.
“A serious student,” said Moist. “Most of the stuff here, well…”
“I don’t touch nails,” said Dave sharply. “Won’t have ’em in the shop! I’ve got a reputation to think about! Little kids come in here, you know!”
“Oh no! Strictly pins, that’s me!” said Moist hastily.
“Good,” said Dave, relaxing. “As it happens, I might have one or two items for the genuine collector.” He nodded toward a beaded curtain at the back of the shop. “Can’t put everything on display, not with youngsters around, you know how it is…”
Moist followed him through the clashing curtain and into the crowded little room behind, where Dave, after looking around conspiratorially, pulled a small black box off a shelf and flipped it open under Moist’s nose.
“Not something you find every day, eh?” said Dave.
Gosh, it’s a pin
, thought Moist, but said “Wow!” in a tone of well-crafted genuine surprise.
A few minutes later, he stepped out of the shop, fighting an impulse to turn his collar up. That was the problem with certain kinds of insanity. They could strike at any time. After all, he’d just spent AM$70 on a damn
pin
!
He stared at the little packets in his hand and sighed. As he carefully put them in his jacket pocket, his hand touched something papery.
Oh, yes. The S.W.A.L.K. letter. He was about to shove it back when his eye caught sight of the ancient street sign opposite:
LOBBIN CLOUT
.
And as his gaze moved down, it also saw, over the first shop in the narrow street,
NO. 1 A. PARKER & SON’S
GREENGROCER’S
HIGH CLAS’S FRUIT AND VEGETABLE’S
Well, why not deliver it? Hah! He
was
the postmaster, wasn’t he? What harm could it do?
He slipped into the shop. A middle-aged man was introducing fresh carrots—or possibly carrot’s—into the life of a bulky woman with a big shopping bag and hairy warts.
“Mr. Antimony Parker?” said Moist urgently.
“Be with you in jus’t one moment, s’ir, I’m ju’st—” the man began.
“I just need to know if you
are
Mr. Antimony Parker, that’s all,” said Moist. The woman turned to glare at the intruder, and Moist gave her a smile so winning that she blushed and wished just for a moment she’d worn makeup today.
“That’s Father,” said the greengrocer. “He’s out the back, tackling a difficult cabbage—”
“This is his,” said Moist. “Postal delivery.” He put the envelope on the counter and walked quickly out of the shop.
Shopkeeper and customer stared down at the pink envelope.
“S.’W.A.L.K?” said Mr. Parker.
“Ooh, that takes me back, Mr. Parker,” said the woman. “In my day we used to put that on our letters when we were courting. Didn’t you? Sealed With A Loving Kiss. There was S.W.A.L.K., and L.A.N.C.R.E. and…” she lowered her voice and giggled, “K.L.A.T.C.H., of course. Remember?”
“All that pas’sed me by, Mrs. Goodbody,” said the greengrocer stiffly. “And if it mean’s young men are s’ending our dad pink envelope’s with s’walk on them, I’m thankful for that. Modern time’s, eh?” He turned and raised his voice. “Father!”
W
ELL
, that was a good deed for the day
, Moist thought.
Or a deed, in any case
.
It looked as though Mr. Parker had managed to acquire some sons, one way or another. Still, it was…odd to think of all those letters heaped in that old building. You could imagine them as little packets of history. Deliver them, and history went one way. But if you dropped them in the gap between the floorboards, it went the other.
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 about that, 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.
W
HEN 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 tight 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 overkeen 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 onto 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.