The Garden of Unearthly Delights (16 page)

Blur,
whirl, rush and scream.

And
finally—
Stop!

The
chair screeched to a halt. Maxwell caught his breath, gasped a gasp, thanked
the Goddess, hailed Rock ‘n’ Roll, and cursed MacGuffin.

And
then the chair dropped the final six feet.

Maxwell
smashed down. Struck something, other somethings, further somethings. Rolled
over and over and continued on down.

Then he
came to rest in the dirt.

Winded,
fuming, starving, bloodied, joint-stiff, sore-bummed, giddy-headed, Maxwell lay
upon terra firma, a tangled heap of old grief and bad attitude, a sorry
soul-less shadow of his former cheery self.

Hardly
surprising really.

Groaning
like a good’n and cursing fit to bust, the lad in the zoot suit, bowling shirt
and fine substantial boots, raised himself to his knees and blinked around and
all about.

And up.

Maxwell
gazed up. And his jaw dropped down. Above him loomed the mountain, whose peak
he had struck and whose side he had careered down. A fairly good-sized
mountain, considering what it was composed of.

Chairs.

Bentwood
chairs.

Hundreds
and hundreds of broken, knackered, clapped-out bentwood chairs. Just like the
one he had travelled upon.

‘MacGuffin.’
Maxwell shook his fist at the sky. ‘I’ll fix you, you fu—’

The
word, whatever it might have been, probably ‘Fuchsia-face’ or ‘Fumble-bottom’,
was cut short, however, by a clamouring of bells. Maxwell, senses tingling,
lurched to his feet and gave his present surroundings a good looking about.

The
mountain of broken chairs rose from a sort of plaza, paved with sandstone
blocks, hexagonal in shape. The plaza too was hexagonal, high fence of iron
staves running about its perimeter. Beyond this, clusters of houses,
Mexican-looking. White adobe walls, tinged rose-pink by the wan sunlight.
Shuttered windows. Dungeony doors.

Maxwell
viewed the bell-clamourer. He was high atop a raised wooden tower, just beyond
the perimeter fence. He was jumping up and down and pointing with his
non-bell-clamouring hand.

He was
pointing at Maxwell.

‘Aw, sh—’
This word, possibly ‘Showaddy-waddy’ or ‘Shamrock’ (but more likely
‘Shit-a-bugger-bumpooh’), was similarly cut short, as Maxwell now viewed the
small dark running forms. They were carrying long poles with rope nooses
attached to the ends. They were howling and whooping and hollering.

And
yes, of course, they were running towards Maxwell.

They
threw open gates in the perimeter fence and swarmed onto the plaza. Dozens of
them. Dark and rat-like.

If they
were men, then they were of no race Maxwell knew. Red eyes glared, sharp little
teeth went snip-snap-snip.

Maxwell
was in no fit state to fight, but he wasn’t ‘coming quietly’. He snatched up a
chair leg, brandished it in a menacing fashion, weighed up the odds, found them
not to his favour, and so set to scrambling back up the mountain of chairs.

The
going wasn’t easy, but the hollering mob, now ringed around the mountain, put a
certain zest into Maxwell’s climbing.

As he
reached the summit, all torn fingernails and great lung-bursting gasps, a roar
of applause rose up from below, followed by nothing but silence.

Hyperventilating
and numb at the extremities, Maxwell peered down from his bentwood eyrie to see
what was now on the go.

What
was now on the go was a pathway clearing through the mob. Something tall and
white was moving down it. Moving, of course, towards Maxwell.

Maxwell
wiped sweat from his eyes. The tall white something was a man: a white man in a
white suit and a white panama hat. He carried with him a long-handled fly whisk
and an air of great authority.

At the
foot of the mountain he paused, gestured. Little black forms scurried about,
selected a serviceable chair, tested its strength, aided the white fellow onto it.

The
white fellow gazed up at Maxwell and Maxwell in turn gazed down.

‘Ahoy
there,’ called the white fellow in an upper-crust kind of a tone. ‘Good day to
you, sir.’

Maxwell
glared him some daggers, irrational hatred knotting his stomach like a dodgy
vindaloo. ‘Kill him,’ shouted Maxwell’s senses. ‘Go down there and rip off his
head.’

“Spect
you’re feeling a bit squiffy,’ called the white fellow. ‘Fuming with rage and
thinking you’d like to pluck out my eyeballs and drop red-hot coals in the
sockets.’

‘Eh?’
managed Maxwell. The thought
had
crossed his mind.

‘Perfectly
natural, old chap. It’s because of what MacGuffin did to you.’

At the
mention of the magician’s name the crowd shrank back, visibly cowed.

‘What
say you come on down and partake of a bit of brekky?’

Maxwell
shook his head slowly.

‘Pretty
disorientated, eh? Understandable. Listen, haven’t introduced meself. The
name’s Blenkinsop. Tim Blenkinsop. Chaps at the Colonial Club call me Tadger,
but we needn’t go into that here. I’m the Governor of these parts. Keep the
natives in order, doncha know.’

Maxwell
glared down upon the natives.

‘Not a
bad bunch. Bit rough around the edges. Pay’m no heed.’

Maxwell
shook his head once more.

‘Oh, I
see. A bit perturbed about the numbers and the long sticks and all. For my own
protection, d’you see? Think about the way you’re feeling. Imagine yourself in
my shoes.’

Maxwell
weighed this up. The scales came down on the side of common sense.

‘Tell
them to go away,’ called Maxwell. ‘I’m feeling fine now.’

Governor
Blenkinsop shook his panama’d head. ‘No can do, old chap. Tried that once.
Still walk with a limp when there’s frost in the air. listen, my old tum’s
crying out for a bowl of porridge and some rounds of toast and jam. Why don’t
you just sit up there and ponder the situation? I’ll call back in a couple of
hours, see which way your wind blows, what?’

Maxwell’s
hollow stomach gurgled noisily. ‘Perhaps that would be for the best,’ he called
down. ‘Until I get my senses straight. Would you be so kind as to send me up
some food? One of your chaps could put down his stick and carry up a tray.’

The
panama’d head shook again. ‘Sorry, no can do, neither. Natives consider the
pile of chairs taboo. Bad ju-ju to climb up. Superstitious bunch, but willing
workers. Must adhere to local manners and customs, when in
Romania
and all that.’

‘When
in
Rome
,’
Maxwell said.

‘When
in
Rome
, what, old chap?’

Maxwell
shook his head. ‘Never mind.’

‘Quite
so. Well, say toodle pip then, call back around lunch-time. Shouldn’t climb
down when I’m not about though. No telling what pranks this lot might get up
to. Bye for now.’ Governor Blenkinsop rose from the chair and turned to take
his leave.

‘No,’
called Maxwell. ‘Hang about.’

‘Change
of heart?’

Maxwell
justly dithered. What to do for the best? Weather it out up here? For what? He
was starving. A couple of hours up here and like as not he’d pass out. Or the
mob would start chucking stones the moment the Governor’s back was turned. ‘I’m
coming down,’ called Maxwell. ‘In the name of
MacGuffin.’

‘Ooooh!’
went the crowd, shrinking back a little further.

‘Stout
fellow. Don’t mind if I just walk on a bit. Really can’t be too careful. Some
of you blokes in absolute lather, frothing at the mouth and so forth. Have to
play it safe. Hope you understand.’

‘OK.’
Maxwell climbed down the chairy mountain. It had been a lot easier climbing up.
The chairs slipped and tumbled causing ‘Ooohs’ and ‘Ahhs’ from the swarthy
crowd.

At last
Maxwell found himself once more upon the ground.

‘Follow
me then,’ called Governor Blenkinsop, marching away. little black figures fell
in behind him, others now cleared a path for Maxwell, who dubiously followed
the man in the white panama.

Across
the plaza they went and out through one of the gates. A few yards beyond the
Governor turned and winked back at Maxwell.

‘Everything
okey-dokey?’ he called over the multitude of little black heads.

‘Yes
thank you.’

‘So
good.
Kakoo bee benado kunky.’

‘Pardon?’
Maxwell called.

The man
in white raised a pale right hand.
‘Kakoo bee benado kundy!’
he shouted.
And at this signal the mob fell upon Maxwell. He was dragged from his feet,
hurled to the ground, stamped upon, then bound securely hand and foot and
gagged about the mouth.

The man
in white cleared a path once more and came to stand over Maxwell. ‘Must
apologize for the old subterfuge,’ he said. ‘Have it down to something of a
fine art now. Practice making perfect and all that.’

Maxwell
kicked and struggled but once again to no avail.

‘Funny
old lot the natives,’ the Governor continued. ‘Get things a bit arse about
face. Believe in a sky god named
MacGuffin.’
(He whispered the hateful
name.) ‘Believe he sends down bounty from above. Human bounty. Human foodstuff,
doncha know. Believe me to be a kind of high priest. Long as I keep’m supplied
with din-dins, then they’re nice as knitwear.’

Maxwell’s
teeth ground into his gag.

‘Bloody
furious, what? But you haven’t heard the best bit yet. Told you I was the
Governor. Didn’t say Governor of where. Governor of this town Kakkarta. Which
is in the
province
of
Rameer
!
Close chum of the Sultan, me. Fraid old
MacGuffin’,
the
whisper again, ‘got his calculations a bit skew-whiff. Should have dropped you
a mile to the south. Bit of a bummer, eh? Still, you’ll get plenty of grub to
fill up the old tum-tum. Natives will want to fatten you up. like their gifts
from the god nice and fat. Big’ns small’ns, they can’t tell one white man from
another. But they do like them all to be nice and fat when they gobble them up.
Must skedaddle now. Trust you won’t take this personally. Only doing my job for
the Sultan. You know how it is.’ And with that said the Governor skedaddled and
Maxwell was left to the untender mercies of the mob.

He
really did his best, with the struggling and kicking and the swearing too, once
he had bitten through his gag. But he was raised and dragged and buffeted and
driven across the town.

The
little shuttered windows in the pinky-tint adobes were open now and tiny black
faces peeped down upon him. They certainly weren’t human this lot. Black rat
crossed with cockroach. Those darting red eyes, chitin wattles with awful furry
parts. That it really didn’t count as cannibalism if you didn’t eat one of your
own species wasn’t a point at all, so as such it didn’t enter Maxwell’s head.

And why
should it?

Beyond
the town, a grey concrete area. The foundations of an ancient building
perhaps. A big heavy iron grille was being unbolted and raised. Maxwell’s hands
and feet were untied, he was lifted into the air, flung forwards and down.

Down
into a pit beneath.

As
Maxwell hit rock bottom in a pile of manky hay, the grille clanged shut above
and the bolt flew home. Evil black faces giggled and chattered gibberish, then
drew back and were gone.

A dim
red shaft of sunlight fell upon Maxwell as he thrashed about in the manky hay.
Screaming and shouting.

Then,
suddenly aware of the terrible stench, he shut his mouth and clapped a hand
across his nose. The smell was appalling. The smell was of human excrement.

Maxwell
slumped down in a wretched heap. This was it. The bitter end. The end to
everything. Tricked once more. And this time, the last ever time. He was truly
done for. To be fattened for the pot. The most ignominious end known to man.
This was as bad as it could possibly get. No worse than this could there be.

‘Well,
well, well, well.’ The voice wasn’t Maxwell’s, but it
was
one Maxwell
knew. A friend! Dear Goddess, a kindred spirit. A soul with whom to spend his
final days?

A
movement and a big and bulky frame shambled into the shaft of light. The head
was a mass of matted grime. The eyes shone a ghastly white. ‘Well, well, well,
well,’ said Rushmear the horse dealer. ‘What a pleasant surprise this is.

11

‘Now, Rushmear wait.’
Maxwell scrambled into the farthest corner he could scramble to. It was the
corner that served as latrine, quite naturally enough. ‘Urgh,’ went Maxwell.
‘Now don’t do anything hasty.’