The Garden of Unearthly Delights (2 page)

‘It is
instant dismissal.’

‘Stick
your job then,’ said the new girl, divesting herself of her gingham serving
smock, slipping on her crushed-velvet coat and finding herself the new girl no
longer.

Sandy
stroked his sandy-whiskered chin and watched her stalk off through
the doorway. ‘While I labour away to grow this beard,’ he exasperated, ‘mere
slips of gals rip me off for twenty-three pounds, two and three, old money. We
should never have gone decimal in the first place.’

Maxwell
stirred his unsweetened coffee with the wrong end of his spoon and wondered,
perchance, if the Queen’s Award award award had been intended for his father,
who presently laboured industriously on the sewing of mailbags, at the pleasure
of Her Majesty. Most likely not, was his conclusion.

‘I’ll
have to ask you to drink up, sir,’ said
Sandy
, vacating the counter to approach his single customer. ‘This
embezzlement of funds has sorely tried my nerves and I feel a headache coming
on.’

Maxwell
drank up his coffee and continued on his way.

When he
arrived at the marital homestead he was most surprised to see a man of Romany
stock carrying his favourite armchair to a waiting cart and returning to
Maxwell’s front door with a goldfish in a plastic bag.

‘Blessings,
ma’am,’ said the gypsy, presenting this to the dear one.

‘Hold
on there,’ cried Maxwell, storming up his garden path. ‘Surely that is my
favourite armchair.’

The
gypsy shrugged, muttered ‘Barter’ into Maxwell’s ear and then took flight.
Maxwell put his weight against the door his wife was closing and entered his
hall. ‘What is the meaning of this?’ he demanded to be told.

The
dear one explained to him that it was ‘barter’ and all quite legal and above
board.

Maxwell
took the plastic bag his wife was holding and examined its carrot-coloured
contents. ‘This fish is dead,’ he declared.

The
dear one sighed and rolled her eyes. ‘Of course it’s dead, Maxwell. It would be
cruel to keep a live goldfish in a plastic bag, wouldn’t it?’

Maxwell
raised his hand to scratch his head again.

‘For
God’s sake, don’t,’ his wife told him. ‘It is becoming a habit and there’s no
telling where it will lead.’

Maxwell
returned the bag of fish to his wife and placed his hands safely into his
trouser pockets. ‘I shall miss that armchair,’ he said. ‘It was my favourite.’

‘You’ll
get over it. How did you get on with the priest?’

Maxwell
closed the front door and leaned back upon it. ‘Father Moity thinks that the
Queen’s Award award must have arrived early by mistake. That it’s for something
I have yet to do.’

‘You’ve
yet to wallpaper the spare bedroom,’ the dear one suggested.

‘I’ve
yet to own a house that has a spare bedroom.’

‘Good
point.’ Maxwell’s wife put down the plastic bag which contained half a pint of
water and a dead fish. She took up her handbag, opened this, removed a number
of cosmetic accoutrements and began to worry at her face with them. ‘I had a
thought while you were out,’ she said, examining her progress in the hall
mirror. ‘Would you like me to tell you what it was?’

‘I
don’t know,’ said Maxwell. ‘What do
you
think?’

‘I
think you would.’

‘That’s
a relief then.’

‘You
could sell it.’ The dear one viewed her own reflection. ‘Sell it for money. To
buy things for me with.’

‘Sell
it?’ Maxwell’s face lit up like a
Blackpool
skyline. ‘Sell it! You are a genius.’ He almost kissed the dear one
there and then. Almost! ‘You’re right. It’s mine. I’ll sell it. Rock ‘n’ Roll
be praised.’

The slim legs of Maxwell
carried him at speed towards The Shrunken Head. As every boy must have his dog
and every dog its day, so every tale must have its pub and every pub its tale.

The
Shrunken Head lurked at the bottom of
Horse-ferry Lane
. Long gone, of course, the horseferry, but the lane remained the
same. And so the pub.

A
venerable oak-framed edifice, daub and wattle; bottle glass. Dungeon door and spittled
floor. Close on by the river’s bank, its kegs to slake the thirst of lighterman
and big bargee and grizzled tattooed salt.

Very
close on by the bank. So close, in fact, that each
high tide gave cause for great alarm. But just far enough up the bank for there
not to be a single decent view of the river from the beer garden.

Such,
they say, is life.

Those
who know The Head know of its jazz nights and of these they speak in tones akin
to awe. For when the moon is in the seventh house and Jupiter aligns with Mars,
then do Papa Legba and his Voodoo Jazz Cats set the joint a-jumping. But of
them, more, and later.

Elderly,
low beamed, well cellared, was The Head and run by Sandy, who had business
interests here and there and all about the borough.

Maxwell
strode up to the saloon bar door, the blakeys on his substantial boots raising
a fine shower of sparks on the cobblestones. From within came the carefree
chatter of happy tongues. The gay badinage of good friends well met. The swell
of piped music. The rustle of crisp packets. The tang of nectarines. That hint
of Monday lunch-time in an otherwise month of Sundays. And the like.

Maxwell
pressed open the door and entered The Shrunken Head.

‘Good
day to you, sir,’ said
Sandy
,
grinning from behind the bar counter.

‘Good
day to you,’ said Maxwell, ‘and a pint of your very best.’

As
Sandy
did the business, Maxwell gazed
about the saloon in search of some likely fellow who might be all the better
for having a Queen’s Award for Industry Award award.

The
voice of Duck-Barry Ryan reached him from the public bar where drinks were a
penny cheaper and swearing was not only allowed, but encouraged.

‘The
worm is the gardener’s friend.’ Duck-Barry was telling a small and uncommitted
audience of one. ‘The wiggly worm digs tunnels which help irrigate the soil
when it rains. He also eats woodlice and ticks, and, if left undisturbed, would
live to be one hundred years of age.’

‘Cobblers,’
Maxwell recognized the voice of Jack ‘The Hat’ Cooper. ‘The wiggly worm
eventually turns into the bluebottle, from which spring all the evils of the
world. Don’t tell me about wiggly worms, I’ve bred more of the blighters than
you’ve had pimples on your bum.’

Duck-Barry
resented that remark.

‘I
resent that remark,’ he said.

Sandy
presented Maxwell with a well-drawn pint. Maxwell counted change
onto the counter. ‘What is all this talk of wiggly worms?’ he asked.

‘Please
do not mention wiggly worms in the saloon bar,’ said
Sandy
. ‘I fear that the wiggly worm, its habitat and habit are doomed to
be the major topic of conversation in this public house until the Government
decides the matter one way or the other.’

‘I am
perplexed,’ said Maxwell. ‘Please explain.’

‘The
Government is putting a tax on worms,’ explained
Sandy
. ‘Such will the high-rise dweller benefit and the rich land baron
pay dearly.’

‘I am
astonished by this news,’ said Maxwell, sipping at his pint.

‘The
discussion in progress’,
Sandy
gestured towards the public bar, ‘is between our two resident wiggly-worm
experts and is basically aimed in the direction of: how can one’s wiggly worms
be persuaded to vacate one’s garden, during the period when the Worm Tax
Inspectors call to make their tail-tally.’

‘My
astonishment becomes tempered by suspicion,’ said Maxwell. ‘Surely this is some
April first tomfoolery or suchlike.’

‘Scoff
if you will.’ And
Sandy
made a
sombre face. ‘But those of us with eyes in our heads and fire in our bellies
can see nineteen eighty-four approaching in high-heeled jackboots.’

A man
of Romany stock now entered the saloon bar in low-heeled gumboots. He was
burdened by the weight of an armchair.

‘Ah,
excuse me,’ said
Sandy
, and to
the gypsy, ‘Kindly put it by the fireside if you will.’

The
gypsy did so. ‘Blessings, sar,’ he said, presenting
Sandy
with the bill.

The
landlord raised his sandy-coloured eyebrows, cashed up no-sale and drew the sum
of twenty-three pounds, two and three pence, old money, from the cash register.
‘Easy come, easy go,’ he said, as the money left his hands.

The
gypsy tugged upon his forelock, then once again took flight.

‘How do
they fly like that?’ Sandy asked Maxwell, who was staring at the armchair and
making small choking noises from the back of his throat.

‘Nice
chair, eh?’ said
Sandy
. ‘That’s
a Dalbatto. Not to be confused with a Dalberty, of course. I’ve a member of the
peerage lined up for that chair. Worth a king’s ransom is a Dalbatto nowadays.’

Gag and
croak, went Maxwell.

‘Two more
pints over here,’ called the voice of Duck-Barry, ‘and stick a couple of worms
in Jack’s.’

‘Coming,’
said
Sandy
.

Maxwell
picked up his pint of best, took himself over to the armchair, which up until
so recently had been his favourite, and sat down heavily upon it.

‘Don’t
sit there!’ cried
Sandy
, from
the bar. ‘Are you mad, or what?’

‘I’m
beginning to wonder.’

Maxwell
removed himself to a table near the window, sat down upon a low stool and
glowered into his beer. A hand touched him lightly on the shoulder and a soft
voice said, ‘Hello, it’s you again, isn’t it?’

Maxwell
looked up to find the ex-new girl from the
Tengo Na Minchia Tanta
smiling
down at him. ‘It’s me,’ she smiled, ‘remember?’

‘Oh
yes,’ said Maxwell. ‘At the café. What are you doing here?’

‘I work
here.
Sandy
’s just taken me on
as a barmaid.’

‘Eh?’
said Maxwell. ‘But I thought he—’

‘Ssh,’
said the new barmaid. ‘It will be all right as long as he doesn’t want to take
up a reference from my last employer.

Maxwell
shook his well-befuddled head. ‘You deserve the Queen’s Award for Industry
award,’ he said.

The new
barmaid made a wistful face. ‘What wouldn’t I do for one of those?’ she said.

‘Oh
yes?’

‘Get a
move on, Sandra,’ called
Sandy
.
‘There’s empties to go in the washer.’

‘Well,
I can’t stand around here chatting all day,’ said Sandra, the new barmaid. ‘I
won’t get The Queen’s Award for Industry award doing that, will I?’ And with
those words said, she was gone.

Maxwell
drank his beer in silence, glanced furtively about the crowded bar, and when he
felt assured that he was unobserved, took to a violent bout of head scratching.

It
didn’t help.

The day
was wrong. Everything about it was wrong. Everything that had happened. The way
people were behaving. All of it.

Perhaps
he was dreaming. Or going mad. Or perhaps the dear one had slipped a tab of bad
acid into his breakfast for a bit of jolly.

Maxwell
rooted in his zoot suit pocket and pulled out his Queen’s Award for Industry
Award award.
This
was somehow at the back of it all.
This
was
somehow the culprit.

Maxwell
spread the thing before him on the table and gave it a good looking over. It
did look good and though he had certainly never seen one before, he felt
certain that
this
was the real McCoy.

A
sudden lull in the general saloon bar conversation caused Maxwell to look up
from his looking down. The lull was a silence and a most intense one at that.
Everyone was staring. At him. At his Queen’s Award for Industry award award award.

Maxwell
gazed from one face to another. Stern the faces looked. Hostile. Definitely
hostile.

‘Ah,’
Maxwell snatched up the certificate, rolled it between his fingers and thrust
it back into his pocket. Someone muttered something. Whispers broke out here
and there, like little charges of electricity. Elbows were nudging. Fists were
being formed.

‘Excuse
me please.’ Maxwell rose and made towards the door.

‘He’s
got it,’ said someone. ‘He started it.’

‘What?’
Maxwell thrust into the staring, muttering, menacing crowd and battered his way
towards the door.

And he
was through it.