Free The Garden of Unearthly Delights by Robert Rankin Page A

the
construction of the TV set. It was to be a thing of great beauty and he
lavished much tender loving care upon its every detail.
    The
news teller and his zany went about their sides of the business with
considerable vigour and although Maxwell wished to consort with them each day,
regarding what news had been gathered and what advertising commissions
received, their paths rarely crossed his and Saturday drew ever close.
    On
Friday night the news teller did happen by for a moment, but only to try out
his seat in the TV and insist upon an additional feature or two being added.
    This is
the most amazing thing I have ever seen,’ he told Maxwell, who grinned proudly
as the news teller scuttled off with talk of a pressing meeting with the mayor,
concerning proposed improvements to the town’s sewage system, which Dayglo
considered worthy news.
     
     
    On Saturday Maxwell rose
before dawn. Such was not the normal way with him, as he preferred to begin his
mornings at a more civilized hour. But today was special. If all went well
today he would have done his part in bringing a new age to this new age. He
might well be written up in future books of history.
    Throughout
the week he’d hardly left the yard of the carpenter’s shop, where he had been
constructing the TV set. Now he flung wide the gate and applied himself to
dragging his brainchild, shrouded as it was by a canvas cover and mounted upon
wooden trolley wheels, out into the square. It was somewhat weightier than he
had accounted for and by the time Maxwell reached the centre of the square he
had a fine sweat on and was panting not a little.
    But
this was the moment. His moment.
    As the
sun began to rise, he tore aside the canvas and positioned the TV set ‘just
so’. The moment was for he alone. The moment was now.
    The
sun’s first rays struck down upon the two-person TV.
    With
that full 2001 effect.
    Maxwell
whistled the strains of Also Sprach Zarathustra and then said ‘Rock ‘n’
Roll’ in a voice of no small awe.
    The red
sunlight glancing down held his masterpiece to full glory. Glimmering about its
polished edges, reflecting in its painted panels, highlighting this detail and
that.
    A thing
of great wonder it truly was. And Rock ‘n’ Roll indeed.
    Maxwell
had fashioned the TV into the semblance of the classic nineteen sixty-one Rock-Ola Regis Model 1495 stereo jukebox.
    He had,
as they say, ‘gone to town on it’.
    As aficionados of the now legendary Rock-Ola will not need reminding, the 1495 model
was the first to feature the finless button bank, the rounded top valance and
the streamlined body shape that would later become the standard design carried
through the Rock-Ola range, to The Empress, The Princess and even
the nineteen sixty-four Rhapsody.
    Maxwell
had hobbled it together from everything he could lay his hands on. Strips of
tin beaten from old cooking pots, painted canvas, as many different varieties
of timber as he could coax from the carpenter’s assistant (which was a
considerable number, as the carpenter himself had gone out of town for a few
days).
    It was
a veritable stonker. Maxwell had even acquired the windscreen from a
century-defunct Renault 4, which was serving as a cold frame in the carpenter’s
kitchen garden, to provide the panoramic wide screen. Two speaking tubes within
the cabinet led to a pair of commandeered ear-trumpets positioned beneath the wide
screen to amplify the news teller’s words to the viewing public. The entire
ensemble was painted in as many colours as there had been paint pots in the
carpenter’s shed.
    It
could be truly said that no such item had ever existed before and that all who
saw it would be truly amazed.
    If
there was one small fly in the Rock ‘n’ Roll ointment, it was the matter of the
carpenter’s name. The carpenter’s assistant had been ordered by his departing
boss to stand over Maxwell to ensure that he did not renege on his promise to
emblazon the name in letters big and bold