The Garden of Unearthly Delights

by Robert Rankin

  With that full 2001 effect.

  Maxwell whistled the strains of Also Sprach Zarathustra and then said ‘Rock ‘n’ Roll’ in a voice of no small awe.

  The red sunlight glancing down held his masterpiece to full glory. Glimmering about its polished edges, reflecting in its painted panels, highlighting this detail and that.

  A thing of great wonder it truly was.

  And Rock ‘n’ Roll indeed.

  Maxwell had fashioned the TV into the semblance of the classic nineteen sixty-one Rock-Ola Regis Model 1495 stereo jukebox.

  He had, as they say, ‘gone to town on it’.

  As aficionados of the now legendary Rock-Ola will not need reminding, the 1495 model was the first to feature the finless button bank, the rounded top valance and the streamlined body shape that would later become the standard design carried through the Rock-Ola range, to The Empress, The Princess and even the nineteen sixty-four Rhapsody.

  Maxwell had hobbled it together from everything he could lay his hands on. Strips of tin beaten from old cooking pots, painted canvas, as many different varieties of timber as he could coax from the carpenter’s assistant (which was a considerable number, as the carpenter himself had gone out of town for a few days).

  It was a veritable stonker. Maxwell had even acquired the windscreen from a century-defunct Renault 4, which was serving as a cold frame in the carpenter’s kitchen garden, to provide the panoramic wide screen. Two speaking tubes within the cabinet led to a pair of commandeered ear-trumpets positioned beneath the wide screen to amplify the news teller’s words to the viewing public. The entire ensemble was painted in as many colours as there had been paint pots in the carpenter’s shed.

  It could be truly said that no such item had ever existed before and that all who saw it would be truly amazed.

  If there was one small fly in the Rock ‘n’ Roll ointment, it was the matter of the carpenter’s name. The carpenter’s assistant had been ordered by his departing boss to stand over Maxwell to ensure that he did not renege on his promise to emblazon the name in letters big and bold across the front. Maxwell had carved the carpenter’s name into a fair approximation of the famous Rock-Ola lettering. But the name FUTUCK just didn’t have the same wop-bop-a-loo-bop ring to it.

  Maxwell sighed deeply, looked upon all that he had made and found it good. Now he re-covered the TV and set to erecting the posts and curtains which were to screen it from the viewing public until the final moment of the first commercial newscast. It was also imperative that Maxwell stand guard over his wonder, to protect it from prying eyes and wandering hands.

  And so began the day for Maxwell.

  And so went the day.

  The town square became busy, stallholders plied their wares, folk came and went, children played. The grim red sun offered its mysterious light and Maxwell, his labours done, sat and watched it all go on.

  It was certainly a strange old business, watching these folk, dressed in the garb of medieval peasants and living the lifestyle. To think that several generations before, their ancestors had driven about in cars and enjoyed the benefits brought by electricity; sat before real television and viewed news from every part of the world.

  ‘I will improve your lot,’ said Maxwell. ‘I, Max Carrion, Imagineer. You see if I don’t.’

  And then the day passed into afternoon and then towards evening. The stallholders packed their remaining wares away and departed. And Maxwell began to grow uneasy.

  There had been no sign of Dayglo Hilyte and his zany.

  As the town hall clock, a water-powered contrivance, struck five-thirty, Maxwell felt those seeds of panic taking root in a stomach which had survived yet another day upon the ingestion of parsnips alone.

  Folk were now strolling into the square. They were all done up in their finest attire. They had brought cushions, hampers of food, flasks of wine. They were taking up positions before the curtains. They were evidently looking forward to the broadcast.

  Maxwell looked this way and that amongst them. Where was Dayglo Hilyte? Where was the zany?

  ‘Hello.’

  Maxwell turned.

  ‘Are you Mr Carrion?’

  Maxwell blinked and stared. ‘I am.’

  ‘I’m Miss Tailier.’

  ‘Yes,’ said Maxwell. ‘Indeed.’

  She was ‘simply stunning’. Young and fresh and slim and shapely. Her face a most vivacious instrument of expression. Great dark eyes fringed by curling lashes, tiny upturned nose, wide and sensuous mouth. All framed by flocks of amber curls.

  She wore a black figure-hugger of a dress that almost reached her knees, and soft gold slippers. Golden rings sheathed her elegant well-manicured fingers.

  ‘Miss Tailier,’ said Maxwell, shaking the pale hand that was offered.

  ‘I’m the new crumpet. You can call me Jenny.’

  ‘Jenny Tailier. Jenny Tailier?’

  ‘Yes, what about it?’

  ‘Oh nothing.’ Maxwell shook his head. ‘Nothing at all.’

  ‘I was supposed to meet Mr Hilyte at five-thirty. I’m a little late.’

  ‘He’s not here,’ said Maxwell. ‘In fact, I have no idea what’s happened to him. Oh, hang about.’

  Through the growing crowd came the zany. He waved to the right and left, uttered greetings, but as Maxwell watched him approach, it was quite clear that something was terribly wrong.

  ‘What has happened?’ Maxwell asked, when at last the zany reached him.

  ‘Something terrible. Terrible.’ The zany hopped from one foot to the other.

  ‘What is it?’ Maxwell pulled him through the curtains and beyond the view of the crowd. ‘You look dreadful.’

  ‘It’s Mr Hilyte,’ the zany wrung his hands. ‘He’s collapsed. He’s in a terrible state, pale as death and burning with fever. He worked himself too hard, got too carried away with the excitement of it all. I think the parsnips have done for him also.’

  Maxwell stared aghast. ‘This is appalling. Have you called a medic?’

  ‘A what?’

  ‘A doctor. The apothecary.’

  ‘Oh yes, he’s in capable hands. But what are we going to do about the broadcast. We’ll have to cancel it.’

  ‘No.’ Maxwell shook his head fiercely. ‘We can’t do that. There’s a hundred people out there, we can’t let them down.’

  ‘But we can’t do the broadcast without Mr Hilyte. This is terrible, terrible.’

  ‘Just calm down.’ Maxwell gripped the zany by his trembling shoulders. ‘There must be a way. The show must go on.’

  ‘I could go on by myself,’ said Miss Tailier, in the manner of one who most definitely could.

  Maxwell made a doubtful face. ‘I don’t think it would do. You could go on in Mr Hilyte’s place,’ he told the shivering zany.

  ‘I can’t go on. I can’t even stay here for long. I must go back to Mr Hilyte, I’m his oldest friend. We’ll have to cancel the broadcast. Unless . . .’

  ‘Unless what?’

  ‘Well,’ said the zany. ‘Perhaps, but no . . .’

  ‘Go on,’ Maxwell demanded.

  ‘You could go on in Mr Hilyte’s place,’ the zany blurted out.

  ‘Me? That’s ludicrous.’

  ‘Well, no it’s not. I could make you up to look like Mr Hilyte. Through the glass of the screen and with the number of men concentrating on Miss Tailier . . .’

  Maxwell scratched at his head. This moment of hesitation caused further distress to the zany.

  ‘You’re right,’ he all but wept. ‘It would never work. We’ll have to cancel.’

  ‘No we won’t.’ Maxwell’s voice was very firm indeed. ‘All right, I’ll do it. Make me up.’

  ‘What a hero,’ said Miss Jenny Tailier, squeezing Maxwell’s hand.

  ‘I’ll have to shave your head,’ said the zany.

  ‘Forget it,’ said Maxwell.

  The zany chewed upon his finger nails. ‘Oh calamity,’ he said.

  ‘All right, a
ll right,’ cried Maxwell. ‘Shave my head, apply the make-up. By the Goddess, the things I do to make this world a better place.’

  6

  To the zany’s credit, he was skilful in the art of make-up.

  Not quite so skilled in the barbering department, however: his trembling hand almost cost Maxwell an ear.

  Maxwell examined himself in the zany’s hand mirror and the artist returned his make-up sticks to the pouch he wore on his belt. A horrible sight met Maxwell’s eyes, but a fair enough facsimile of Dayglo Hilyte.

  Maxwell shook his now bald head. ‘So,’ said he. ‘The all-important matter. The news script. I haven’t even seen it yet.’

  ‘It’s here,’ the zany thrust a wad of papers into Maxwell’s hand. ‘Mr Hilyte has been working on it all week.’

  ‘What about the one for Miss Tailier?’

  ‘I’ve learned mine off by heart,’ said the beautiful young woman, fluttering her gorgeous eyelashes.

  ‘Well done,’ said Maxwell.

  ‘Now quickly,’ said the zany. ‘Into the TV. I will take the collection and make the introductions. Oh dear, oh dear.’

  ‘Don’t worry,’ said Maxwell. ‘We can handle it.’

  The zany opened the rear doors of the wonderful wide-screen two-person TV and assisted Maxwell and Miss Tailier inside.

  ‘Everything OK?’ he asked.

  ‘Just fine,’ said Maxwell, making himself comfortable. The TV set was roomy enough. But now, with the doors firmly closed, rather intimate. Knees were touching and shoulders too. Maxwell could smell the young woman’s hair. It smelled quite wonderful.

  A lump came to Maxwell’s throat. Maxwell prayed this lump would be the only one that came.

  From beyond the curtain came the murmur of the crowd. Gay voices, much laughter. Maxwell heard the zany as he moved amongst the merry throng, joking, ‘warming up’, passing the contributions sack. Silver collection only, this time.

  Maxwell suddenly felt a growing sense of terror. Stage fright! He glanced at Miss Tailier, but she was cool, aloof, a real professional. Maxwell steadied his nerves. If she was up to it, so was he. The dawn of a new age of enlightenment was about to begin, and he, Max Carrion, Imagineer, was to be the rising sun of this new dawn.

  Oh yes!

  ‘My lords, ladies, grandees and duchesses, Mayor and lady Mayoress, town’s folk of Grimshaw, welcome.’ The zany’s voice rang out in a confident tone. ‘Tonight the first ever, the never seen anywhere before, all new commercial newscast. Put your hands together for your own, your very own Mr Dayglo Hilyte and his lovely assistant Miss Jenny Tailier.’

  The crowd gushed out applause. The zany yanked upon the rope, the curtains parted. The jukebox TV took centre stage.

  The applause was veritable thunder. Maxwell and Miss Tailier smiled out at the multitude. And some multitude.

  Several hundred at least.

  ‘Will they all be able to hear us?’ Miss Tailier asked.

  ‘Speak loudly and clearly into your speaking tube. Are you ready?’

  Miss Tailier squeezed his hand once more. ‘I’m ready.’

  ‘So be it.’ Maxwell raised his other hand and the eager crowd stilled to its raising.

  ‘Good evening,’ said Maxwell, in a voice which might almost have passed for Dayglo Hilyte’s. ‘And here is the six o’clock news.

  ‘Bong!' went Miss Tailier.

  ‘Bong?’ asked Maxwell, turning in immediate confusion to the news crumpet.

  ‘Bong,’ whispered Miss Tailier. ‘Mr Hilyte said I should go bong when you announced the news. It’s a tradition or an old charter or something. It’s the chime of Big Dick.’

  ‘Oh, I see.’ Maxwell coughed politely. ‘Big Ben,’ he whispered.

  ‘I prefer a big dick any time.’ Miss Tailier fluttered her eyelashes.

  Maxwell made that croaking throat sound of his. ‘Here is the six o’clock news,’ he went once more.

  ‘Bong!’

  Maxwell read directly from the first sheet of paper. ‘Hundreds feared dead as God accidentally drops his toothbrush on village.’

  ‘Bong!’

  ‘Hundreds what?’ Maxwell’s jaw was hanging slack. ‘What is this rubbish?’

  ‘Bluff it,’ whispered Miss Tailier between the perfect teeth of a big broad smile. ‘Everyone’s watching you. Just read the script.’

  And everyone was watching Maxwell. And watching very closely. And being very very quiet about it too.

  ‘Bong!’ went Miss Jenny Tailier once more for luck.

  ‘Blind farmer wears out fingers trying to read cheese grater,’ read Maxwell.

  ‘Bong!’

  ‘Mayor’s wife comes second in beauty contest. A pig wins it.’

  ‘What?’ cried the Mayor, who was right at the front.

  ‘Oh my Goddess.’ Maxwell fumbled with his script. ‘It’s a misprint,’ he blurbled. ‘I’m sorry. A misprint.’

  ‘Get a grip of yourself,’ whispered Miss Tailier. ‘Introduce me.

  ‘Indeed,’ Maxwell grinned goofily at the now murmuring crowd.

  ‘Over to you, Jenny,’ he said.

  Jenny Tailier smiled a sensational smile. The crowd cheered and clapped with great enthusiasm.

  ‘Thank you,’ said Miss Tailier primly. ‘I always appreciate a warm hand on my opening.’

  ‘What?’ went Maxwell, turning ever paler beneath his make-up.

  ‘This week I’ve been out and about on the streets of Grimshaw talking to the men who have been making the news.’

  Ah, thought Maxwell. Not bad.

  ‘I spoke to a man with a foot-long penis, who told me, “It may be twelve inches, but I don’t use it as a rule.”’

  The crowd erupted in laughter.

  Maxwell sank down below the level of the screen. ‘No,’ he implored. ‘Not knob gags. Anything but knob gags.’

  ‘Also,’ Miss Tailier went on, when the laughter had died away, ‘the vicar who caught his plonker in the bell rope and was tolled off by the verger.

  ‘No!’ Maxwell raised a hand and clapped it over Miss Tailier’s mouth.

  ‘Boo!’ went the crowd.

  ‘What is going on?’ muttered Maxwell through seriously gritted teeth. ‘What is happening here? My news is all rubbish and you’re telling dirty jokes.’

  ‘That’s what I do’, said Miss Tailier, wrenching Maxwell’s hand away, ‘where I work in the town’s bordello. I’m a star round these parts, everyone knows me.’

  ‘What?’

  ‘Boo, boo,’ and ‘hiss,’ went the crowd, and ‘get on with it.’

  ‘Back to you, Dayglo,’ said Miss Tailier.

  ‘Ah . . .’ said Maxwell. ‘Oh Goddess!’

  ‘Go into the commercial break. I’ll do it if you like.’

  ‘No you will not.’

  ‘Please yourself then.’ Miss Tailier folded her arms and made a huffy face.

  ‘And now’, said Maxwell, ‘the moment that many of you have been waiting for. The commercial break.’ He rummaged about amongst his papers. But for the single sheet he had been reading from, all others were uniformly blank. ‘Oh dear,’ said Maxwell. ‘Oh dear, oh dear, oh dear.’

  The crowd was now becoming very restless indeed and through it there came a large man. He was hauling behind him an even larger young woman. ‘Hold up there,’ he shouted. ‘Just what is going on?’

  Maxwell blinked at the new arrivals. ‘Excuse me,’ he asked, ‘but who are you?’

  ‘I am Rushmear the horse trader and this is my daughter.’

  ‘Pleased to meet you,’ said Maxwell.

  ‘The pleasure is yours alone. Why have you begun half an hour early?’

  ‘The news began sharp at six,’ said Maxwell.

  ‘Then we were misinformed.’

  ‘My apologies.’

  ‘Apologies are not sufficient. What is that woman doing in there with you?’

  ‘This is Miss Jenny Tailier, the news crumpet.’

  ‘The town strumpet you m
ean, I know her well enough.’

  The crowd cheered somewhat at this, but, now eager to learn what the fearsome Rushmear had to say for himself, soon quietened down.

  ‘Get that woman out of there and put my daughter in at once,’ was what he had to say.

  ‘Impossible,’ said Maxwell. ‘Miss Tailier has been accepted for the post.’

  ‘Swindler and cheat,’ bawled Rushmear. ‘I paid your zany two fine white horses on the understanding that my daughter would be given the job.’

  Maxwell viewed Rushmear’s larger daughter. She was well-knit and muscular. She had a small black moustache and an interesting line in tattoos. ‘Two fine white horses?’ Maxwell turned to Miss Tailier. ‘Did your father pay any such, er, fee?’

  ‘Certainly not. I was picked from dozens of other applicants who auditioned on the “casting couch” at the inn.’

  ‘Casting couch?’ Maxwell let out a mighty groan. ‘Inn?’

  ‘My inn,’ cried another large man, elbowing space beside Rushmear. ‘As you know well enough.’

  ‘I?’ asked Maxwell.

  ‘You,’ said the innkeeper. ‘My inn where you and your zany have been enjoying first-class accommodation for the entire week on the understanding that you would “sing the praises” of my establishment. So go on, sing.’

  ‘There seems to be some mistake,’ Maxwell chewed upon a thumb-nail.

  ‘Enough of this,’ shouted yet another large man. ‘What singing there is will be done for my beef.’

  ‘Your beef?’ Maxwell asked.

  ‘My beef. I am Bulgarth the butcher and you . . .’ Bulgarth stared in at Maxwell. ‘You . . . Who in the name of the deity are you anyway? You’re not Dayglo Hilyte.’

  Maxwell gagged and spluttered. The crowd erupted. ‘What?’ they went. ‘What?’

  ‘There is duplicity here,’ yelled Bulgarth. ‘Give back my money whoever you are.

  A woman close at hand peered in at Maxwell. ‘It’s that arrow-nosed scoundrel who calls himself an imagineer. He pulled my dog Princey from the sewage pipe. I reckon he stuck him in there too.’

  ‘Boo!’ went the crowd once more.

  ‘What of all this?’ cried Bulgarth and the innkeeper and Rushmear and Rushmear’s daughter also. And a lot of the crowd too.