Going Postal - Terry Pratchett [16]
“That’s more…delaying the mail, sir. Just, er…slowing it down. A bit. It’s not like there’s any intention of never delivering it, sir.”
Moist stared at the worried expression. He felt that sense of shifting ground you experience when you realize that you’re dealing with someone whose world is connected with your own only by their fingertips. Not a hermit, he thought, but more like a shipwrecked mariner, living in this dry desert island of a building while the world outside moves on and all sanity evaporates.
“Mr. Groat, I don’t want to, you know, upset you or anything, but there’s thousands of letters out there under a thick layer of pigeon guano…” he said slowly.
“Actually, on that score, sir, things aren’t as bad as they seem,” said Groat, and paused to suck noisily on his natural cough lozenge. “It’s very dry stuff, pigeon doins, and forms quite a hard protective crust on the envelopes…”
“Why are they all here, Mr. Groat?” said Moist. People skills, he remembered. You’re not allowed to shake him.
The junior postman avoided his gaze.
“Well, you know how it is…” he tried.
“No, Mr. Groat. I don’t think I do.”
“Well…maybe a man’s busy, got a full round, maybe it’s Hogswatch, lots of cards, see? and the inspector is after him about his timekeeping, and so maybe he just shoves half a bag of letters somewhere safe…but he will deliver ’em, right? I mean, it’s not his fault if they keeps pushing, sir, pushing him all the time. Then it’s tomorrow and he’s got an even bigger bag, ’cos they’re pushing all the time, so he reckons, I’ll just drop a few off today, too, ’cos it’s my day off on Thursday and I can catch up then, but you see by Thursday he’s behind by more’n a day’s work because they keeps on pushing, and he’s tired anyway, tired as a dog, so then he says to himself, got some leave coming up soon, but he gets his leave and by then—well, it all got very nasty toward the end. There was…unpleasantness. We’d gone too far, sir, that’s what it was, we’d tried too hard. Sometimes things smash so bad it’s better to leave it alone than try to pick up the pieces. I mean, where would you start?”
“I think I get the picture,” said Moist. You’re lying, Mr. Groat. You’re lying by omission. You’re not telling me everything. And what you’re not telling me is very important, isn’t it? I’ve turned lying into an art, Mr. Groat, and you’re just a talented amateur.
Groat’s face, unaware of the internal monologue, managed a smile.
“But the trouble is—what’s your first name, Mr. Groat?” Moist asked.
“Tolliver, sir.”
“Nice name…the thing is, Tolliver, that the picture I see in your description is what I might refer to for the purposes of the analogy a cameo, whereas all this”—Moist waved his hand to include the building and everything it contained—“is a full-sized triptych showing scenes from history, the creation of the world, and the disposition of the gods, with a matching chapel ceiling portraying the glorious firmament and a sketch of a lady with a weird smile thrown in for good measure! Tolliver, I think you are not being frank with me.”
“Sorry about that, sir,” said Groat, eyeing him with a sort of nervous defiance.
“I could have you sacked, you know,” said Moist, knowing that this was a stupid thing to say.
“You could, sir, you could try doin’ that,” said Groat quietly and slowly. “But I’m all you got, apart from the lad. And you don’t know nuffin’ about the Post Office, sir. You don’t know nuffin’ about the Regulations, neither. I’m the only one that knows what needs doing around here. You wouldn’t last five minutes without me, sir. You wouldn’t even see that the inkwells get filled every day!”
“Inkwells? Filling inkwells?” said Moist. “This is just an old building full of, of, of dead paper! We have no customers!”
“Got to keep the inkwells filled, sir. Post Office Regulations,” said Groat in a steely voice. “Got to follow Regulations, sir.”
“For what? It appears we don’t accept any mail or deliver any mail! We just sit here!”
“No, sir, we don’t just sit here,