The Garden of Unearthly Delights by Robert Rankin Read Free Book Online

penance. See the old woman carries the get-a-move-on-with-those shoppering sacks. This lady holds the I-can’t-let-you-on-with-that-thing wheel-about, and I …‘ The young man removed a crumpled piece of paper
from his pocket and flourished it before Maxwell’s eyes. ‘I have the I-don’t-have-change-for-anything-that-big-you‘ll-have-to-get-off parchment.’
    Maxwell
viewed the item being flourished before him. It was not a money note. He
looked from one to another of his fellow queuers, then he looked once more up
and down the road. And then a thought entered his head, which really should
have entered it earlier.
    There
was no possible way that any bus could ever travel along this ruined track!
Something was very very wrong about these folk.
    ‘Ahem.’
Maxwell cleared his throat and sought to compose questions which might evoke
clear and unambiguous answers, whilst offering no offence. He addressed his
first one to the old dear.
    ‘Good
woman,’ he said, ‘I observe that you are at the head of the queue. Might I
enquire as to just how long, overall, you have waited here?’
    The old
dear smiled a proud smile. ‘I have observed the morning wait, the afternoon
wait and the “last one cancelled”, three times a week for the past forty years.
When I am finally taken up to Terminus, my son Kevin here will have my place.’
    Maxwell’s
throat made a gagging sound. ‘Forty years?’ he said in a harsh whisper. ‘Forty
years?’
    ‘As my
mother did before me and hers before her, dating back to the Time of
Transition.’
    ‘The
time of transition?’
    ‘When
the old aeon ended and the new one began.’
    ‘But..,
but…‘ Maxwell now had a serious shake on. ‘But that was yesterday, surely?’
    ‘Yesterday?’
The young man guffawed. ‘You are a buffoon and no mistake. The old aeon ended a
century ago.’
    ‘No,’
said Maxwell. ‘No, no, no.’
    The
lady of middle years stretched out a hand to finger the fabric of Maxwell’s
jacket. ‘This antique costume the buffoon wears is of royal stuff. Such a
jacket would suit you well, Kevin.’
    ‘Much
so,’ said Kevin, affecting a covetous leer.. ‘Stop!’ Maxwell tore himself away
from the lady’s tightening grip. He was now in a state of confusion and alarm.
A century gone since the earth left the Age of Technology and passed into
whatever it had? A century? Then everyone he knew… everyone he loved his wife… well, he didn’t love her. He was glad to see the back of her. But
he’d never have wished her dead. This was terrible …
    ‘What
fleeting reason he had, has now deserted him,’ said the lady. ‘Mark well that I
claim his boots.’
    ‘Stand
aside!’ Maxwell reached forward, grabbed the youth by the ragged collar of his
rustic coat and drew him almost from his feet. ‘Questions,’ said Maxwell, ‘to
which you will furnish answers.’
    The
youth’s head bobbed up and down. ‘Yes, sir,’ said he.
    ‘Firstly,
what year is this?’
    The
youth looked hopelessly towards his mum. Maxwell gave him a teeth-rattling
shake. ‘The ninety-eighth year, sir,’ he said.
    ‘And no
bus has been along this road for ninety-eight years?’ There was much
desperation in Maxwell’s voice. It was not lost upon the youth.
    ‘It
will come,’ cried the old woman. ‘Varney will come and carry the faithful to
Terminus. We tend the shrine. There will be room for us on top.’
    ‘It’s a
bloody cargo cult,’ declared Maxwell. ‘And Varney? Who’s Varney?’
    ‘Varney
is the driver,’ said the old dear — she didn’t look quite so dear now — ‘who is
also known as Butler .’
    ‘Reg bloody Varney?’ Maxwell let the youth go limp.
    ‘This
shelter, this stop, is a shrine to Reg bloody Varney?’
    ‘Blasphemer!’
The old woman threw up her hands, dropping her shopping bags, which spilled out
stones and clods of earth. ‘I declare the afternoon wait at an end. Slay the
heretic!’
    ‘You’re
all barking.’ Maxwell gave the youth a shove,