The Garden of Unearthly Delights (7 page)

‘He lies.’.
Kevin raised his stone once more.

‘You
have seen an Inspector’s uniform before?’ Maxwell ventured. ‘How, then, does it
differ from my own?’

‘I…’ Kevin did not have a ready answer to this question.

‘And
let me ask you this: do you know the role of The Inspector?’

‘Of
course He judges all who enter Terminus.’

‘Thus
and so,’ said Maxwell, who had been hoping for such a reply. ‘And thus you
are
judged.’

‘Judged?’
Young Kevin almost raised his stone once more.

Almost,
but not quite.

‘Judged,’
said Maxwell. ‘And
not
found wanting. I, The Inspector, came to test
your faith. Ask yourself, would any ordinary man dare what I have dared?’

‘Well… no …‘ said Kevin. ‘I suppose …’

‘No
indeed.’ Maxwell thrust out his chest. ‘I mocked your beliefs. I blasphemed the
holy name of Varney. I cast you down onto the sacred tary-mac. And why did I do
this?’

‘To
test our faith?’ asked the old woman.

‘Correct,’
said Maxwell. ‘And I am greatly pleased. Pleased with how well you have tended
the shrine. Pleased with how stoically you bear your penances. Pleased that you
would not be moved from your faith. And as such I now reward you.’

‘We
shall be taken at once to Terminus?’ The old woman thrust out her arm towards
the road. Her son and the lady with the non-foldaway foldaway thrust theirs out
also.

‘Hold
very tight please,’ they chorused. ‘Ding ding.’ Maxwell raised a hand as in
benediction. ‘All will be rewarded in Terminus,’ he said kindly. ‘Varney will
call for each of you when the time is right. You have no further need to wait
here. Return to your homes. Live useful and caring lives. Tell others of the
faith that The Inspector came unto you and that no longer need any serve at the
shrines.’

‘What?
No more waits?’ A look of transcending relief appeared upon the old woman’s
face. ‘No more must we stand throughout the wind, rain and chill?’

‘No
more. I hereby relieve you of all such obligations. And through my relief of
you, so also all others of the faith. No more waits for anyone. Any more.
Ever.’

‘We can
just go home and live caring lives? This is enough?’

‘More
than enough. You have kept the faith well. Such is your reward.’

‘Gosh,’
said the lady with the non-foldaway fold-away.

‘Such
is as Varney wills it.’ Maxwell mimed a little steering-wheel motion. ‘Now be
gone.’

The
queuers looked at Maxwell, looked at each other, opened their mouths to speak,
closed them again and began to sink to their knees.

‘No
kneeling,’ Maxwell told them. ‘No more worshipping of any kind. Varney has had
worshipping enough. This is his message that I pass on to you.’

‘Thanks
be. Thanks be,’ was the general feeling all round.

Kevin
said, ‘What of you, Inspector? Will you not come with us? Spread the word to
all yourself?’

Maxwell
gave this a moment of thought. As a visiting god he might expect to receive a
great deal of hospitality at the tables of his worshippers. Comfy beds would be
offered and possibly young maidens to share them with. Maxwell came within a
gnat’s organ or saying, ‘Yes indeed,’ but did not.

It
occurred to him also that a visiting god would like as not be expected to show
some proof of his divinity, such as turning water into wine, for instance, or
munching hot coals. A god who failed to perform such trifling feats might well
find himself called upon to demonstrate his invulnerability to shotgun shells.

‘No,’
said Maxwell firmly. ‘I must travel on. To other shrines.’

‘Pity,’
said Kevin. ‘I’d have liked to have seen you swallowing hot coals.’

‘Another
time perhaps,’ Maxwell breathed an inward sigh of relief. ‘So farewell.
Farewell. And don’t forget what I have told you.’

The
lady offered Maxwell her non-foldaway. Maxwell took it. ‘Go in peace,’ he said.

And so
they drifted off across the wretched moor-land. Maxwell watched them, waved
when they turned to wave to him, then flung away the non-foldaway and resumed
his trudge to the north.

The troubled sun was
heading down the sky as Maxwell struck off once more along the ruined road. But
it didn’t detract from the curious sense of wellbeing he felt.

True,
he was all alone in this strange new world and true and terrible the knowledge
that his loved ones were now nothing more than memory. And the anger he felt
towards Sir John had not died away.

For
surely it was he who had somehow bucketed Maxwell into the future by nearly one
hundred years — a somewhat drastic course of action to insure that Maxwell did
not get home and change the ending of the book. An efficient one also.

But, of
course, that was all now in the past. Considerably so in fact. Sir John would
now be long dead, but here was he, Maxwell, in the present. And, if he was to
be honest with himself, well pleased to leave the past behind him. Especially
the
wife
behind him. He was here, now, in the new world, with everything to
look forward to and not very much to look back on. And he felt very much alive.
He, Max Carrion, Imagineer. He had performed his first noble deed, freed a
group of people from the yoke of superstition. He’d done well and it was only
his first day on the job.

Maxwell
drew back his shoulders, stuck out his chest and put a new spring into his
step.

He had just begun to
whistle when he heard it: a low rumble. Not thunder? thought Max. That’s hardly
fitting.

The
rumble grew into a growl.

Not
some wild beast?

Max
turned in his tracks and stared back along the ruined road. Something large was
heading his way. Something large and red, swelling in size as it drew nearer
and nearer.

Maxwell’s
eyes widened.

It was
a bus!

It was
a big red
London
bus!

Maxwell’s
eyes became very big and wide indeed. The bus bore down upon him. Accelerating.
Maxwell dithered, knowing not which way to flee. Certainly not forward. To the
side then. Into a ditch. Maxwell made to take that dive, but tripped over an
untied bootlace and fell once more onto his face.

The bus
rushed forward, nearer and nearer. As Maxwell fell he caught a fleeting glimpse
of the driver’s face. For a split second they faced each other, eye to eye. The
driver had a smiley face. There was no doubt at all in Maxwell’s mind as to
whom that face belonged.

‘Reg…‘ Maxwell screamed and tried to roll himself into a ball. But the big red bus
was on him.

Maxwell
held his breath and awaited the hideous life-stopping crunch.

But the
hideous crunch didn’t come.

Maxwell
opened his eyes and looked up.

And up.

The bus
had risen from the road and was sailing into the sky.

And
there wasn’t just one bus.

There
were three of them. One behind the other.

And
they were all empty!

Maxwell
gaped, open-mouthed, and watched as they ascended into the heavens, bound, no
doubt, for Terminus.

‘Well
I’ll be …‘ But Maxwell said no more, for to his ears there now came shouts
and screams. Glancing once again along the way that he had come, Maxwell spied
three figures running towards him. One old, one young and one of middle years.
They were picking up stones as they ran.

‘Bastard!’
they cried, and names far worse. ‘You made us miss it! You made us miss it!’

Sensing
that further theological debate would probably serve no positive purpose at
this time, Maxwell took to his substantial heels and fled towards the north.

4

The travelling TV was a
large and histrionic affair, solidly constructed of worthy oak and elaborately
embellished in alliterative
découpage.
Sundry smiles smothered its
sides. Scandalized statesmen and seductive super models. Sensational sports
folk and sullen serial killers. Scathing satirists and sedentary scientists.
Sober scholars and the scabrous singers of scatological songs.

A
somewhat staggering sight.

This
whole was mounted upon four sturdy wheels and furnished with a towing bar and
ox harness. A zany, done up in the multi-hued costume of his calling —
long-billed cap of tawny red, green felt tunic with slashed sleeves and blue
silk cummerbund, pink tights and blue suede brothel creepers — pranced about amongst
the viewing public who had gathered in the town’s square, soliciting alms and
acting the warm-up man.

Having
finally satisfied himself that he had wrung from the gathering all he was
likely to wring, he pranced up to the travelling TV and made much of polishing
the screen and carefully adjusting the knobs.

Now he
hushed the crowd to silence with a finger to his lips, counted down the seconds
on a Goliath pocket watch, flipped the set’s
on
button and, bowing,
backed away.

The
screen cleared and lit up to reveal the face of Dayglo Hilyte, news teller.
Dayglo wore a pale grey skin toner, dark eye shadow and black lip gloss. His
bald head had stencilled curls snaking down each cheek. The widow’s peak which
began an inch above his pencilled eyebrows made his face appear an ungodly
chimera of Mickey Mouse and Bela Lugosi.

At the
sight of Dayglo Hilyte, several small children amongst the viewing public began
to weep and bury their faces into their mothers’ laps.

Dayglo
Hilyte opened his mouth, spoke words, but said nothing. The zany hastened to
adjust the sound control.

Dayglo
made himself heard. ‘… in a heated exchange during Prime Minister’s
question time today, the leader of the opposition, Pasha Ali Ben Jumada
described the Government’s devolution policy as ill-conceived and indefensible.
The granting of home rule, not only to Scotland and Wales but also The Isle of
Wight, each separate county, each borough, city, town and village, each street,
shop and individual home, was, he said, a move taken to confuse the general
public and distract them from noticing that the Government had now lost all
control and was utterly incapable of maintaining any rule whatsoever over
anything.

‘The
Prime Minister responded to this allegation by stating that he had pledged
himself to the policy of home rule. That home rule should exist in every home,
especially his own, and that the leader of the opposition, Pasha Ali Ben
Jumble Sale, was an unscrupulous mischief-maker with the libido of a March
hare.

‘The
leader of the opposition, Pasha Ali Ben Jumbo Jet responded by describing the
Prime Minister as a pot-walloping parvenu and drew the analogy that, as water
always found its own level, so too did scum, which inevitably rose to the very
top.

‘At
this point swords were drawn on both sides of the House and the speaker cried
out for order. The member for Brentford North elicited much laughter by calling
back that “his was a pint of Large please”. The speaker, through tears of
laughter, demanded that the leader of the opposition, Pasha Ali Ben Jump Suit,
apologize at once to the Prime Minister. Pasha Ali Ben Jock Strap declined to
do so and said that, for the record, if it wasn’t for the vacuum in the Prime
Minister’s head, his bowels would fall out of his bottom. And that if the Prime
Minister was a quarter of the man the Prime Minister’s wife knew the leader of
the opposition to be in bed, he would step outside and settle the matter with
his sleeves rolled up. Highlights from the fight will be brought to you during
our evening broadcast.

‘Science
news now and Greenwich Observatory has confirmed the findings of the Royal
Astronomer Sir Patrick Moore, that the earth is no longer revolving about the
sun, nor spinning on its axis. Sir Patrick described the planet as being in
stasis, with the sun now orbiting it once every twenty-four hours. He also
endorsed the statement recently made by the Archbishopess of Canterbury, that
the sun was not a great big ball of fire, because, if it was, then where was
all the smoke? The Archbishopess’s pronouncement that the sun was, in fact, a
very large lens, which focused the radiance of heaven onto the earth, was, Sir
Patrick said, probably not far off the mark.

‘And
now the weather.’ A little hatch opened in the side of the travelling TV and
Dayglo Hilyte stuck his hand out. ‘Dry,’ said he. ‘And that is the end of the
news.’

The
crowd in the town square clapped enthusiastically, then dissolved into its
component parts and drifted away.

Dayglo
Hilyte climbed through a doorway to the rear of the travelling TV, stretched,
cursed and then set to examining the contents of the contributions sack.