The Garden of Unearthly Delights

For
my dear little white-haired old mother

who
can flick past the rude bits

love
and laughs

and

Rock
‘n’ Roll

Oh
yeah!

1

‘Rock ‘n’ Roll,’ said
Maxwell Karrien, as he opened the official-looking envelope. ‘This is something
of a great surprise.

He
called out to his wife of some years’ standing. ‘Wife,’ called he, ‘come look
at this.’

‘Whatever
is it, dear?’ the dear one answered. Maxwell scratched his head. ‘It would seem
that I have been awarded The Queen’s Award for Industry award.’

‘The
saints preserve us all,’ said his voluptuous spouse, her bosoms entering the
sitting-room before her like a dead heat in a Zeppelin race. ‘And you never
having done a day’s work in your life.’

‘‘Tis
true,’ said Maxwell, giving his head another scratch for luck. ‘And it would
appear that I have dandruff also.’

‘All in
one day.’ His wife smoothed down her satin housecoat and shuffled her pompommed
slipperettes.

Maxwell
dropped into his favourite armchair. ‘I suppose I shall now be called upon to
officiate at Council functions, open fetes and jumble sales, kiss babies and
give talks at the Women’s Institute.’

‘I
never knew dandruff made one so important,’ said his wife, whose sarcasm had
got her into trouble on more than one occasion.

Maxwell
kicked her playfully in the ankle. ‘Limp off and make my breakfast,’ he
suggested. ‘I have some serious thinking to do.’

‘Your
day for the use of the family brain cell then, is it?’ whispered his wife,
between gritted teeth, as smiling sweetly she hobbled away towards the unfitted
kitchen.

It was
not
a marriage made in Heaven.

What
with
her
hating
him
and
him
hating
her.

And
everything.

Maxwell
took his tin and liquorice papers, rolled himself a ciggy and composed his
handsome features into a look of grave concern. ‘This must be a mistake,’ he
told himself.

‘It is
probably meant for Mr Camp next door,’ he continued.

‘That
would be it,’ he concluded.

But
upon once more examining the gilt-edged certificate, these thoughts were forced
to flee. There were the letters which formed his name. Bold as brass in
copperplate.

‘Papyrophobia,’
said the fearful man. ‘This is
not
Rock ‘n’ Roll.’

After a breakfast of egg,
bacon, sausage, baked beans and a fried slice that the not-so-dear one had
stubbed her cigarette out on, washed down with two cups of Earl Grey, Maxwell
decided that he would take his certificate around to Father Moity at St Joan’s
to get an unbiased opinion.

For he
reasoned thus: if I ask Duck-Barry or any of the lads at The Shrunken Head,
they will say, ‘Well done, Maxwell, get the drinks in.’

And if
I ask the man in the cardy at the Job Centre, he will say, ‘Queen’s Award for
Industry award, eh? Then we’re stopping your dole money, mate.’

And if
I ask at the Police Station, the policemen will become embittered that I
received it rather than they and they will smite me with their truncheons, as
they do every time they see me anyway.

And so
by such reasoning,
ten o’clock
of the morning hour found Maxwell in a confessional box, his Queen’s Award award
upon his knee and his chin upon his chest.

To the
eastward side of the grim little grille, Father Moity seated himself, mumbled
holy words and pecked at his crucifix.

‘Spit
it out,’ said he.

‘Bless
me, Father, for I have sinned, it has been seventeen years since my last
confession.’

Father
Moity put on his most professional face (which he kept in a jar by the door)
and scratched at his old white head. This was going to be a baddie, he thought,
and, I seem to have dandruff, he discovered.

‘It all
began this morning,’ said Maxwell in a reverent tone.

‘You
have not been to confession for seventeen years and you have the nerve to tell
me that it all began
this morning?’

The
priest coughed into his cassock and marked out a cross on his chest.

‘I have
been awarded The Queen’s Award for Industry award (award),’ said Maxwell.

‘Blessed
be,’ said the priest. ‘And is it for seventeen years of sinlessness that this
award has been awarded?’

‘Sinless
towards industry,’ said Maxwell. ‘For I have never done an honest day’s work in
my life.’

‘Then
isn’t it a wonderful world that we’re living in today and I don’t think that
our likes will ever be here again,’ said the priest, who feared not the sin of
plagiarism.

‘I was
hoping for some advice, Father,’ came the voice of Maxwell to his ears.

‘Advice
is it you’re wanting? Well, here’s some now for you to be going on with.’ The
priest coughed once again.

‘I
should
cough?’
asked Maxwell, somewhat bewildered. ‘Is that the advice
you’re offering?’

‘Not a
bit of it. I recently had a bad asthmatic attack.’

‘I’m
sorry to hear that.’

‘Indeed,’
said the priest. ‘Three asthmatics attacked me outside Budgen’s. Was my own
fault, I should have heard them lying in wait.’

Maxwell
scratched once more at his head. His dandruff had cleared up, at least. ‘About
the advice,’ he adventured.

‘Lead
by example,’ said the priest. ‘By your deeds let others know you. These Queen’s
Award award awards are not handed out willy-nilly to any old Tom, Dick or
Harry. It has probably arrived in the wrong post, for some service to industry
that you have yet to perform.’

‘You
think that might be it then?’

‘Seems
obvious to me, my son.’

‘Well
thank you very much, Father.’ Maxwell rose to take his leave.

‘Will
you not be after confessing any of your sins then?’ asked the priest, in a
sing-song Irishy kind of a way.

‘No, I
think not.’

‘Then
go with God, you capitalist bastard.’

‘Thank
you, Father.’

‘Bless
you, my son.’

Maxwell slouched from the
church and took to plodding homeward, the heavy weight of his potential
responsibilities pressing down upon his shoulders. As he crossed the canal
bridge, he considered tossing his Queen’s Award award into the murky depths.
But on a second thought he didn’t and continued on his way. On the corner of
Maxwell’s street stood the
Tengo Na Minchia Tanta
Café. Right where it
had always been. Maxwell stepped inside to take some beverage and think things
through.

The new
girl behind the counter knew Maxwell by sight alone. ‘What would you like,
sir?’ she enquired, and there was more heaving sensuousness, more unabashed
eroticism, more blatant vibrating sexuality in those few words, than could ever
really happen in real life.

‘Pardon?’
asked Maxwell, whose life was real enough to him.

‘Tea or
coffee, sir?’

‘Coffee,
black, no sugar, please.’

The new
girl liked male customers who took their coffee black with no sugar. Very
manly, she thought. Very
machismo.

Those
who knew Maxwell through introduction rather than by sight alone, might well
have scoffed at this, for Maxwell was no great man for the ladies.

The
Maxwell these folk knew was a decent enough chap on the whole, but with that
said considered by some rather
dull,
if not
stupid.

The
looks of himself were fine enough. Nearing the magic six feet in his height and
in the middle of his twenties, he was gaunt of frame and square about the
shoulders. Well favoured in the face department, with kind grey eyes, a happy
mouth and a nose like a friendly arrow head. His hair was black and well quiffed
back and his mood was, in general, hearty. But Maxwell did have his foibles,
his choice of dress being one such. Maxwell held in high favour the
America
of the nineteen fifties, the
America of Wurlitzer Jukeboxes and Chevrolet Impalas and Danny and the Juniors.
And this holding in high favour had a tendency to reflect itself in his day
wear.

Maxwell
sported Oxfam zoot suits, slim Jim ties and bowling shirts. Shirts whose
collars had no ‘stand-up’, large, substantial, crepe-soled boots. And as those
who have ever sought to make a statement of their individuality through their
choice of apparel will readily affirm, eccentricity of dress rarely fares well
in societies where conformity is considered the standard by which others judge
you.

Those
who fail to conform are at best mocked and ridiculed, at worst, ostracized or
injured.

If you
are wealthy you can do as you damn well please. But if you are not, and Maxwell
most definitely was
not,
then
pleasing
is something you must do
for other people.

The
rich can dress
up
to impress, the poor must dress
down
to
survive. Maxwell dressed as he pleased, Maxwell was poor, hence to the world
that Maxwell inhabited, Maxwell’s appearance was ‘stupid’.

And it
had to be said, his habits did not exactly aid his cause (if cause he had,
which actually he didn’t). When not in the company of his beautiful wife, whom
he had married in haste to repent about at leisure, Maxwell could, like as not,
be found in the public library.

Here he
passed away much of his life, deeply engrossed in the science fantasy novels
of P. P. Penrose
[1]
,
thrilling to the daring exploits of Sir John Rimmer, Dr Harney and Danbury
Collins (the psychic youth himself) as they locked in mystical conflict with
the evil Count Waldeck.

Maxwell
seriously ‘got into’ these books. They were escapism nonpareil. And though, to
the outward world, his dress code offended many and his conversation was at
best uninspired, in that personal inner world of fantasy fiction, he was up
there with the best of them, often solving some inexplicable conundrum pages before
Sir John and his loyal companions caught on.

So this
was the Maxwell that those who knew him knew. Dull, said some, and stupid,
others, and Maxwell alone knew himself.

Maxwell
paid for his coffee, took it to a window seat and sat down miserably.

The new
girl behind the counter smiled him a smile. Here is a fellow, she thought, who
needs a shoulder, nay a breast, to rest his weary head upon. A handsome fellow.
A shame about the stupid clothes though.

Sandy
the sandy-haired manager stood at the new girl’s shoulder. Making one of his
rare appearances at the
Tengo Na Minchia Tanta,
he had been examining
the till roll upon Maxwell’s arrival, and now felt it the moment to confront
the new girl with his findings. ‘Surely,’ said
Sandy
, ‘I spy a deviation here.’

The new
girl’s eyes left Maxwell, toured the café, took in the window view and finally
met up with those of her employer.

‘You
what?’ she asked.

‘The
cash in the register and the takings logged upon the till roll vary to the tune
of twenty-three pounds, two and threepence,’ said the manager called
Sandy
.

‘What
is that in new pee?’