The Garden of Unearthly Delights (8 page)

‘Mostly
parsnips again, I’m afraid,’ said his zany. ‘Parsnips, bloody parsnips.’ The
news teller made and raised fists. ‘Back in the days of the station, it would
have been account lunches at Soho Soho. Pigging it out on Italian designer
dishes. A starter of sun-dried tomatoes and focaccia, with lashings of fresh
basil and virgin olive oil. Then—’

‘Spare
me,’ said the zany. ‘It is parsnips again today, and that’s all there is to it.
Had you not elected that we eat the ox, we would not be trapped in this godless
hole, living on naught but parsnips.’

‘I
cannot survive upon a diet of vegetables,’ whinged the news teller. ‘They are
affecting my metabolism, I find myself leaning towards the sun.’

‘Get a
fire going,’ said the zany. ‘Unless you would prefer to eat them raw.’

‘Outrageous.’

A pale
shadow, cast by the troubled sun, fell across the zany causing him to look up
from his parsnip-sorting and offer a curt, ‘What of you?’

The
owner of the shadow inclined his head and grinned a cheersome grin. ‘Pardon
me,’ said this body, ‘but I couldn’t help but overhear your conversation.’

‘You
are pardoned,’ said the zany. ‘Now be on your way.’

‘The
name is Carrion,’ said Carrion. ‘Max Carrion, Imagineer.’

The
zany looked Max up and down. ‘You look like a beggar man to me and you twang
like a cow’s behind.’

Max
examined the soles of his substantial boots. ‘Pardon me once more,’ he said,
scraping something smelly from the left.

It had
been a month since Maxwell’s unfortunate encounter with the followers of
Varney. An instructive month, and one which had determined him upon a course of
action.

Maxwell
had travelled north, seeking refuge where he could amongst the hamlets he
chanced upon. He earned victual and shelter by entertaining his hosts with
antique songs of the ‘doo wop’ persuasion and tales of days gone by. The story
telling was well received and with an unlimited fund of movie plots to draw
upon and the entire Walt Disney catalogue at his disposal, Maxwell had left
more than one farmstead with a well-stocked rucksack on his back and a tuneless
rendition of ‘When You Wish Upon a Star’ harassing his ears.

He had
learned to avoid the use of words which provoked looks of stupefaction and
bafflement. Among these were ‘electricity’, ‘telecommunications’ and any
reference to the internal combustion engine and what was now considered its
improbable applications.

As he
moved from place to place, Maxwell sought to tease from his hosts what
histories had been passed down to them, regarding the time of the great change.
Those who would speak muttered only of terrors and tribulations that were
better left beyond the reach of memory. They then demanded to hear once more
the adventures of Winnie the Pooh.

Maxwell’s
wanderings, though ever north, were aimless and he was irked by the lack of
purpose. Although in his former life he had been content to summer his time
reading fantasy in the public library, now he was an adventurer himself, cast adrift
in a fantastic realm, and he just wasn’t making the best of it. He had to find
some goal. Some
raison d’être.

Some
noble cause.

Any
noble cause!

And so,
in search of this, Maxwell’s wanderings had brought him at length to Grimshaw,
the largest town in the principality.

Grimshaw
was a market town, home to some nine hundred souls, and raised in the
nouveau-medievalist style which prevailed everywhere. Maxwell had seen little
or nothing in the way of extant twentieth-century architecture and he surmised,
correctly enough, that without electricity, most twentieth-century habitation
soon became uninhabitable.

In
Grimshaw Maxwell determined that he would set himself up as
Solver of
Problems Supremo,
accepting any challenge that would offer him scope to
flex his mental muscles. Discarding modesty and bashfulness with the ease of
one casting out those nasty advert enclosures that clog-up the pages of a new
Radio
Times,
Maxwell envisioned himself as some kind of twenty-first-century
consulting saint. A cross between Sherlock Holmes and Gandhi, slicing through
Gordian knots, bringing succour to the downtrodden, deftly defogging the most
mysterious of mysteries, innovating social reform and, in short, sorting out
all the problems of the new world.

Having
made scrupulous checks that he infringed no local bylaws, Maxwell set up a
booth of bartered canvas in the town square. This served him as business
premises and sleeping quarters and before it he hung a sign which read, simply:

MAX
CARRION

IMAGINEER

ALL
PROBLEMS SOLVED

And
then he awaited the rush.

And
waiting it still was he.

So far
he had been called upon to solve only two problems. The first being to trace
the whereabouts of a lost dog, the second to seek the cause of blockage in the
town’s latrine. Although hardly grist to the thought-mill of an imagineer and
sadly lacking for chivalrous adventure, Maxwell had accepted both commissions,
working on the ‘great oaks from little acorns grow’ principle.

And he
had been successful in both commissions, hauling, as he did, the corpse of the
lost dog from the sewage outflow pipe.

One
party had defaulted in payment, however.

But the
mayor of the town had paid Maxwell handsomely.

In
parsnips.

The
arrival of the travelling TV had raised Maxwell’s spirits no end, and, as the
Imagineering business was a bit slack, he had taken to viewing the daily
performances. And while so doing, a grandiose scheme had entered his mercurial
mind, which he now felt he should translate into deeds for the benefit of all.

Good
chap.

‘Are
you still here?’ asked the zany. ‘Bugger off, will you?’

‘I have
come to offer you my services,’ said Maxwell. ‘Now that is pleasing to my
ears.’ The zany sliced parsnips into an earthenware casserole. ‘Hitch yourself
to the towing bar and be prepared to pull us out of town once we have eaten.

‘Your
humour is well received.’ Maxwell squatted down beside the zany. ‘But the
services I offer are more cerebral in nature.

‘Who is
this clod?’ asked Dayglo Hilyte, shambling over with a bundle of kindling.

‘This
is Max Carrion, Imagineer,’ explained the zany. ‘He has come to proffer his
services.’

‘Splendid,
then hitch him up to the towing bar.’.

‘Your
servant has already split my sides with that particular witticism,’ said
Maxwell. ‘However, I have a proposition to put to you which I think you will
find most beneficial.’

‘Oh
yes?’ Dayglo raised a pencilled eyebrow. ‘How much will this proposition cost
us?’

‘It is
utterly free of charge. I act through altruism alone.

‘Then
we will be most pleased to hear it.’

Max sat
down on the ground and looked on whilst Dayglo and his zany continued with the
preparation of their bleak repast.

‘It is
regarding this news of yours,’ said Max.

Dayglo
made a proud face beneath his make-up. ‘It is fine news, is it not?’

‘Fine
news indeed, but somewhat out of date.’

‘Out of
date?’ Dayglo puffed his cheeks. ‘How can such fine news ever date?’

‘It
hardly addresses current issues.’

Dayglo
Hilyte laughed. ‘My news is the last news ever to be broadcast upon the
networks before they closed down for ever at the time of the great transition.
This news is the property of my family. It has been handed down from generation
to generation.’

‘So
much I surmised,’ said Max. ‘But I feel that you are somehow missing the point
of what news is actually supposed to be.’

‘Oh
yes? And what is
that
then?’

‘Well,
as I said, news should address current issues. It should relate information
about important or interesting recent events.’

‘Tish
and tosh.’ Dayglo laughed once more. ‘This is archaic thinking. I am a learned
man and possess books dating back to the former aeon. In those benighted times,
although the food was perhaps more varied, the news was never the same two days
running. It was forever changing, here today and gone tomorrow. You could never
take hold of it, be secure with it, say, this news I like and this news I will
keep. Happily such times are dead and done with.’

‘Perhaps
so,’ said Maxwell. ‘But consider this. You have now been here for a week,
telling your same piece of news, and daily your audience diminishes. How would
you explain that?’

‘In
truth I am at a loss to explain it.’ Dayglo arranged kindling beneath the
casserole pot. ‘Although we have observed this phenomenon repeatedly in other
places.’

‘Perhaps
if you had different news to offer each day, folk would hurry in droves
each
day
to hear of it.’

‘Had
you been listening more carefully,’ said the zany, ‘you would have noticed that
we already do this. The leader of the opposition’s name is changed several
times at each telling, to provide novelty and extra amusement.’

Maxwell
shifted to another tack. ‘Do you never tire of reciting the same pieces of news
again and again, year after year?’

‘I
never tire of eating,’ replied Dayglo. ‘My eating and my news telling are
inextricably bound together.’

Maxwell
peered into the pot. Dayglo did likewise. Thoughts were possibly shared.

‘But
surely,’ said Maxwell, ‘during your constant travels you must pick up all
manner of information that would interest your viewing public.’

Dayglo
made an outraged face. ‘I am not some disseminator of rumour and gossip. I am a
teller of news, which is a noble calling.’

‘Quite
so,’ said Maxwell. ‘And few nobler. Before the time of the great transition it
was well known that the reason there were so many corrupt politicians about was
that all the good and true men of noble calling and unimpeachable morality
worked as journalists.

‘But
casting aside rumour and gossip, as one naturally would, surely you have heard
hard facts, genuine information, that might be passed on to your viewing public
in order to enrich their lives.’

Dayglo
gave this matter some thought. ‘I did hear something last week,’ he said.

‘Go
on.’

‘In the
lands to the south I heard that an iconoclast had defiled one of the shrines of
Varney and that the worshippers have put a bounty on his head. Is this the kind
of information you have in mind?’

Maxwell
made an involuntary croaking sound. ‘Not specifically. Something of more local
interest perhaps.’

‘I have
it on good authority that the mayor’s wife is enjoying a sexual relationship
with another man.’

The
zany, who had been chewing on a raw parsnip, now made an identical croaking
noise to that just made by Max. ‘That would certainly be rumour,’ he gasped,
when he could find his breath. ‘And should
not
be broadcast abroad.’

Dayglo
smiled warmly upon his servant, then not quite so warmly upon Max. ‘So there
you have it,’ said he. ‘The reinstatement of your archaic principle could never
work successfully. I have suggested two items of current interest and both have
been immediately censored. The telling of different news every day would be
fraught with such difficulties and be open to all forms of corruption and
abuse.’ The news teller fixed Maxwell with a most meaningful stare. ‘Let us
say, out of idle speculation, that I chose to relate the iconoclast news to
the viewing public and, say, that the iconoclast himself learned in advance of
my intention. Do you not think he might seek to
bribe
me in order to
preserve my silence?’

Maxwell
returned the news teller’s meaningful stare. ‘Clearly
I
cannot imagine
what thoughts go on in the mind of such a maniac. Out of similarly idle
speculation I feel it more likely he would
slit your throat!’

‘No
doubt aided by the lover of the mayor’s wife,’ the zany added, ‘out of fear
that similar exposure awaited him.’

‘Ahem.’
Dayglo massaged his throat. ‘I am, of course, merely hypothesizing. But you
take my point, I’m sure.’

‘Indeed
I do.’ Maxwell rose and stretched. ‘So we are agreed then. I will provide you
with good and wholesome news which will educate, instruct, inform and satisfy.
No sleaze, no rumour, no gossip. Fine news, but new news.’

‘Stop
right there.’ Dayglo Hilyte leapt to his feet. ‘I agree to no such thing. My
news is the finest news there is, unsullied by the vagaries of day-to-day existence.
Although …‘ And here he paused once more for thought. ‘Should I consider
such a radical departure from the norm, would I be provided with a news
crumpet?’

‘A news
crumpet?’ Maxwell asked.

‘A news
crumpet. It is my understanding, that the news tellers of ancient times were
always assisted by a news crumpet. A glamorous young woman who provided for the
sexual fantasies of the male viewing public and dealt with the second-rate news
items that were beneath the dignity of the male news teller to relate.’