Going Postal

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 couldn’t 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.”
    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, tech’n’ly ,” said the old man, quickly. “But we don’t go in there anymore, 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?”
    “There Is No Need For Hurtful Remarks, Sir. I Am Allowed To Render Appropriate Assistance.”
    “So could you clean out the pigeon shit and let a bit of light in?”
    “Certainly, Mr. Lipvig.”
    “You can ?”
    “A Golem Does Not Shy Away From Work, Mr. Lipvig. I Will Locate A Shovel.” Pump set off toward the distant counter, and the bearded junior postman panicked.
    “No!” he squeaked, lurching after the golem. “It’s really not a good idea to touch them heaps!”
    “Floors liable to collapse, Mr. Groat?” said Moist cheerfully.
    Groat looked from Moist to the golem, and back again. His mouth opened and shut as his brain sought for words. Then he sighed.
    “You’d better come down to the locker room, then. Step this way, gentlemen.”

    M OIST BECAME AWARE of the smell of Mr. Groat as he followed the old man. It wasn’t a bad smell, as such, just…odd. It was vaguely chemical, coupled with the eye-stinging aroma of every type of throat medicine you’ve ever swallowed, and with just a hint of old potatoes.
    The locker room turned out to be down some steps into the basement, where, presumably, the floors couldn’t collapse because there was nothing to collapse into. It was long and narrow. At one end was a monstrous oven, which, Moist learned later, had once been part of some kind of heating system, the Post Office having been a very advanced building for its time. Now a small round stove, glowing almost cherry-red at the base, had been installed alongside it. There was a huge black kettle on it.
    The air indicated the presence of socks, cheap coal, and no ventilation; some battered wooden lockers were ranged along one wall, the painted names flaking off. Light got in, eventually, via grimy windows up near the ceiling.
    Whatever the original purpose of the room, though, it was now the place where two people lived; two people who got along but, nevertheless, had a clear sense of mine and thine. The space was divided into two, with a narrow bed at either end. The dividing line was painted on the floor, up the walls, and across the ceiling. My half, your half.
    So long as we remember that, the line indicated, there won’t be any more…trouble.
    In the middle, so that it bestrode the boundary line, was a table. A couple of mugs and two tin plates were carefully arranged at either end. There was a salt pot in the middle of the table. At the salt pot, the line turned into a little circle to encompass it in its own demilitarized zone.
    One half of the