The Fat Garden

'The Fat Garden

By I.S. Tapler

Smashwords Edition

Copyright 2012 I.S. Tapler

Smashwords Edition, License Notes

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The Fat Garden

Chapter 1

It was not without a burst of steam that I would be able to hit the road again. I'd been trying to pry myself free of old Mrs. Jones company. Her conversation had been flowing much like her tea, in fits and starts. As I sat awed by the gentle mustiness of her front room, building myself up into a leaving head, just about to hit the whistle when she'd pipe up.

'Another cup of tea. deary'. And hobble out of the room on her zimmerframe.

I'd slump back into the unforgiving harshness of her tatty old embroidered armchair, the spirit leaving my spindly frame and await for her velvety slippered entrance with her old pine tea tray. Hoping quietly to myself that this would be the last. This would be the last. I'd cast a cursory eye around the dank yellow room and not for the first time that day, as she spouted in fits and spats. Rocking through the door frame.

'One lump or two?'

'Two please'.

I'd bring my hands to bear across my difficult knees and sit looking up at her kindly frame barring my exit. Occasionally I would huff a little and hope she may take the hint that I wanted rid of her aching company but she would just carry on, mindless to the mental agony she was inflicting upon me.

'Oh you look just like my little Oliver'. Her face would redden sentimentally. 'You know…' her aging hand would reach out toward me with her fine bone china. The tea shaking loose from the cup and sit in a cool brown puddle at its base. '…He would sit in the day chair just like you are now, staring out into the big wide world, thinking those ponderous thoughts that your age are wont too'. She smiled, retreated back to her lazy chair, her arm cracking as it lowered her aching frame backwards.

I'd look down into the fine bone china tea cup and marvel as to how she'd consistently manage to deliver less tea in it than the previous time.

'That'll be the cut-backs'.

Cut backs where indeed a mysterious quality in Mrs. Jones mind. They possessed some ethereal property that silently and secretly impinged on everything that she, in her quiet and sentimental way, undertook.

She'd hobbled some years earlier into the sub-post office my father had run since before I could remember, her face flushed red with anger and slammed the daily news upon the counter. 'Cut-backs'. She shouted at my father as he emerged from the oak cabin door which hid his private office from the prying eyes of the store.

'Pardon'.

'Cut backs'. She placed her sinuous fingernail upon the heavy black print. 'It's not even in the press' she elaborated, removed her finger from the offending article before continueing, '…it's bloody ridiculous'.

My father was a very wise man. This I had surmised from his delicate handling of the sudden events that being Postmaster General to a small country town necessarily entailed. He patted his head, screwed up his eyes, picked up the paper, scanned the black print quickly and agreed with Mrs. Jones that it should never have been allowed. She shook her head slowly at my father and hobbled sadly out of the store, the cold solemn rattle of the door bell ringing quietly in the dim echo that always seemed to follow hastily upon her departure.

Tch. tch. tch. My father would rub the growth that spiked his chin with his warm worn nail and retire to the small shell of his office out back. I would remain, alone in the quiet of the shop. A mass of brightly labelled tin cans. Wrapping paper. The sandlewood scent of heavily polished shelves keeping my senses aligned with the sparkling array of their inanimate company, attaching myself to their beguiling promises, spinning around in the quietness of their dizzy haze, motoring around the shop with my arms outstretched in the manner of a first world war bi-plane.

'A-hemm'. My father would usually stop me by interupting at this point.

I would falter as my engine subsided to an embarrased splutter, drop my hands down by my side and mutter.

'Speak up' he would bark affectionately.

'I was wondering what the old lady was going on about' turning my bright eyes up to greet him and smile as he smiled.

'You would be good to listen son' he'd approach me slowly, his massive bulk of customer servility crawling from his well-honed lair. 'There are a great many ways to hatch an egg'.

It was at this point in my life that I began to understand that adults, for want of something better to do, would entertain both themselves and their unfortunate off-spring by talking in riddles. To counter this surprising event I had evolved my self into a series of stony poses, placed my hand on a shelf, cup a can in my hand and tell him how I'd like to wear long trousers.

My father was a good sport. He'd laugh, his cumbersome arm swinging out from around his frame and cuff me lightly across the head. 'You'll learn son. You'll learn' retracting his hand and wandering back into his office, 'but your still too young for long trousers'.

Long trousers were something of a misnomer in my early years, they would evoke a certain defferential treatment among my school friends. I'd noticed the way everyone treated Bumper Harris had changed the day he changed his trousers. He was now considered a great deal more sophisticated by my emminent peers. His arching thoughts suddenly a desperate topic of conversation that circled loosely around how he'd been much maligned by those crazy adults.

'I find his sub-particle theory most invigorating'. Chalky Burns beemed congenially, 'but mostly it is his interstital pieces. Tthe heady pursuit of objective fragmentation that show themselves off to be the early work of what I now firmly believe to be a rapidly maturing sponge'. Chalky would turn from the topic of conversation, a rash of red hair following him wildly around like a kite as he took off like some nuclear powered spindle, rising softly in the warm school yard air.

I couldn't understand how just yesterday Bumer had been a regular kid, his knees scratched with the purpling bruises of innocent play in the bushes, a modicum of distaste for girls and a keen appreciation of anything that resembled wet mud.But now, a theoretical physicist with omnipotent dimensions. No. No. I would shake the thought from my head and run rapidly round the playground, my twin engine Cessna spitting leaded fire at chalky's rash flight.

Back in the classsroom I would thrust my hand up whenever the opportunity arose. After having practised what I originally felt would turn out to be a relatively amusing, even if a little banal stunt I carried on doing it for the sheer fun of it. This action would usually elicit a response from Mrs Rosebush. Herein following a randomly sampled sequence.

'Yes'. Her feral blue eyes closing to a squint and darting through the opaque lense of her heavy old horn-rimmed glasses.

'What is it now' foot tapping impatiently.

'damn you boy'.

'yes yes yes'.

'what the blody hell are you doing it for?'

'the love of it'.

After class finished she would take me to one side. I would drift like a ship across the flat waters of the classroom, standing a smile meekly up at her, my eyes straining above her shoulder watching through the window the grey light of dusk descending.

'Yes Mrs Rosebush'.

She would look kindly down at me, a dewy glisten drop from her eyes, a gentle shake of her head.

'Just tell me why you do it'.

I would usually raise my arm in explanation.

'I will tell no-one else'. she pleaded.

I would smile warmly back at her. the gentle rub of the ochre sun burning a warm patch on my left cheek. 'Because I can'. I would flatly reply. Mrs Rosebush was to soon give up with her pleading.

I would run from the school grounds like my face was on fire. A surging flame scorching across my reddened lips. The patoir of my school friends beating down the street ahead of me like a soft and steady pulse. Timmy would be out to the left of the main raiding party. He would take off on the occassional skirmish into the middle of the road and report back again that he had indeed missed all the cars. He'd wheeze and I'd fly into the back of them.

'Greetings and salutations my most esteemed band of reckless colleagues'.

Timmy turned to me his face a rash of mirth.

'I wish you wouldn't do that'.

One day I figured Timmy would not report back.

'How goes the work'. Richie. Sir Richard of the Big Horse would slap his arm around my back.

'It is a beautiful place here my friends. Come for the sake of it let us enjoy it'. I'd smile and then we'd indulge in some frivoulous banter.

'I feel it is so much better outside than it was yesterday'. Timmy would walk into a lamp post. We would all laugh. Timmy was a quirky fellow.

'Did you see that my friends'. I would point out across the open field to the left of us. The green chain walk to the top of the hill. The signpost, duly pointed. The hill would rise like a pregnant sceptre.

'The earth she is giving birth'.

'Aye and we will all be witnesses'.

We all had stopped walking and gathered together like some lost tribe of youth rediscovering the beauty of the hill.

'I love this place'. I would lift my shoulders up and breath cosmically in.

'There is a whole new world out there, let us forget about the darkness of the possibilities and walk in the light'. I figured that Sir Richard may well turn into a Christian.

Timmy would laugh and run out into the road. Carefully avoiding an orange Mini and the Number 20 bus to Riverside. He would breathe heavily and declare. 'I missed One Automobile and One Double decker Bus'. He would pause, his forehead wrinkling up under the stress of his dreadful addition 'That's Twenty Eight scored'. Which I would duly note in my Reporters jotting pad, one with a wiry coil.

'We have no reason at all….' My father would jog me gently up and down on his knee while I would turn round and smile up at him. This usually meant that he was about to fulfil some sacred paternal rite of passage. Turning round and blazing up with his tobacco stuffed pipe. '….for doing this'. He would lift me of the end of his knee, smile affectionately for a man of his size which usually meant I might be a little more than terrified, as he walked over to the shelf picked up a can of Heinz baked beans and posted it through old lady Brackens letter box across the street. He would jog back from old Mrs Brackens house, his surly face warmed by the thought of giving her a little treat.

'I think it is far time that we started to look after our aging'. He would look seriously down upon me 'and you are the youth' he would smile. 'At some point you may no longer breathe'. He would walk across to the counter, his green overall swinging lazily about his knees. 'Now go on and be off with you, I'll shortly be closing up’ and he would pat me heavily on the back as he turned the cardboard sign hanging on the shop door round to closed.

'We are bancrupt my friends, utterly bankcrupt'. We had stopped responding to one anothers call. The Sun was burning low, dripping a light golden shadow across the old oak tree at the back of Timmys garden. 'We live in a very different age' and he would rub his forehead.

'No. No there is something else'. Richie smiled.

'He's growing into rather an enigmatic young man'. My father patted Richie on the head on purpose every time he'd come in for sweets or something or other.

'I'm not too sure what it is. I can't quite put my finger on it but there is something other than nothing there'. He placed his hands against the strong bark and felt his way into natures stong crevices, his fine fingers feeling round the bark into the warm embrace of unctious animalistic dew.

'It is like you can almost feel it's reality'. I smiled.

'Yes. yes. that's it'. Richie ran quickly around the tree his finger reaching out and trailing around behind him.

'Who's writing this script'. My father would sit me down on the top of the hill and pat me jovially on the head. He would turn seriously to me at these times and giving me a searching look that was much the cause of mental consternation, repeat his strange incantation, his finger reaching out and pointing at the green and yellow parcels that kept the land sewn together like a patchwork blanket rolling over the curves, lumps and bumps of an old lady at her machine. 'Who's writing this script?' he would place his large hand in mine, pull me to my feet with an unhealthy start and we'd career crazily down the hill.

The gang would meet up every night under Timmy’s tree. He'd want it to be called that. Remember the thing with the bus. Well it wasn't before the end of a long and healthy life but we all die boys, let us not forget to live a little while we are alive. Sometimes my father would roll along to see what we were up to, to drop in and introduce us to his age. Ghosting silently in the dark shadow of the tree, contributing little sometimes but always something related to swimming and how it isn't healthy to eat too much bread on special occassions. Then he would produce a set of rolls from a hamper and leave us in the fading sunlight to feast.

'yuuur bagshallright'. Richie chewed heartily on his roll.

'Don't talk with your mouth full young man it is thoroughly distastefull' I jokingly admonished him for his drop in standards.

'God this growing up business is complicated'. He'd sigh moments later.

'Shall we begin'. Timmy, resting against the tree in his red checked shirt like some pale memory opened the brown leather encased book that rested in his lap and read out a verse.

'It is all free'. Lifting his pearling grin upward in the reddening shade, the tree growing out from the top of his mind like some set of elaborate branches. 'Everything in this place is free. If we should build on this conjecture then our velocity rate should break gravity thus attaining a state of orbit'.

'Herumpf'. Richie coughed like a good judge and Timmy continued.

'Herumpf. Once in orbit, a shuttle say, could then remain in the sky for as long a period as lasts supplies. At that point, to avoid an unmitigated disaster, descend, usually quite quickly'. Timmy paused and worked his mouth with a little spittle, flicked the pages of the book randomly back and forward, sticking his licked finger to a page. 'If we should all wear dresses I should like too know exactly what we're meant to be doing here? Dinky paused, pulled a silly grin, coughed congenially in his hand and wondered quietly to himself how old Mrs. Parsons was getting on with her new antelope'.

'Brilliant'. Sir Richard got on his horse. 'Let us ride through this world unfurling' he paused, got of his horse 'of course there is always a question of payment'.

'That is no question'. I replied 'worth asking'.

Richard had commercial potential ingraved on his mind like the stamp of a hoof.

'I understand'. Richie sat down and unwrapped a sandwich.

'So we three are all participants'. Timmy stretched his back out across his tree.

'In a manner of speaking'. I replied 'but of course there are many others'.

Richie was rapidly proceeding to eat all our nosh and so i betokened him pause with his feeding. 'The noise my good friend is unbearable. I can hardly see myself think'.

'Aye aye capan'. He winked and started to plug some tale about an old wayfaring captain.

I felt as though I had joined some new religion. The sea had called me since I was knee high to a grass hopper. The smell of it, its coarse scent that burns away at your nose like some acidic unction. I had turned fourteen years that June and so I did quite as all boys with the mind for adventure at that age do and signed on board as a cabin boy to the Captain of The Custard Pudding. Ok so the name wasn't particularly cool but the adventure that befell me while on board The Custard Pudding was quite unlike any other tale.

We had been at sea for only a few days when I noticed the Captain trembling over a piece of paper that he held in his hand. His long textured jowls moving gently under the steady shake of his brow. He placed the sheet of yellowed parchment upon his desk, the scratch of the quill etching a line of inky black blood. The Captain moved his hand up to his chin and pondered a thought quietly for a long moment. He stared out the window at the setting sun criss crossed in the black lattice of the window grill and promptly threw himself out of the window.

I ran, mightily concerned for the health of my captain who'd for some unknown reason had recently thrown himself out the window and peered out, steadying my hand on the window sill, searching vigourously the sea for him, my hand reaching out across the waves as though it was some form of extendable lifeboat.

I wondered instantly. 'What did he go and do that for?' And ran immediately back to the parchment he'd so carefully placed on the desk. I stopped and looked down at this most treacherous communication. The black figures Two and Eight scratched carefully beside one another.

It would be another fourteen years before I would see my home port again. And in that time I can tell you a trick or two boy.

'Captain Herbaceous Border'.

He'd presented himself at the bar my father ran everyday for the past two weeks or more and left in a thoroughly bad way every evening. One evening I'd happened to brush past him and he'd called out angrily to me. 'Oi! BOY!'. I turned a little terrified at having to service him with such foul breath as I am wont to ascertain and wandered gingerly over in his general direction.

'Yes'. I called lightily across to him. In order I hoped to subdue his apparent anger, a little boy blonde routine. Only he just seemed to get angrier.

'What Are You Doing Boy'. He bellowed above the racket coming from my father as he serviced the counter.

'I'm sorry'. I meekly replied and tottered a little closer, the sickly scent of his heavy breath reaching out and enveloping me in the thick stale wrap of old alcohol.

'Come closer here now or you shall see if I can't set a tribe of Scurrilous Foul apon yah'. He barked menacingly. I, it must be said, Did not know how to tackle his oddly shaped attack and wondered, for my sins, about this odd fellows sincerity.

'And what may I ask'. I paused and grew a little bolder 'is scurrilous foul?'

'This…' he paused and in the dying light of the candles at the back of the bar, opened up his long black cloak.

'Hello'. Scurrilous Foul piped.

I jumped back at the sight of a talking rat.

'Bloody hell'.

'Mind your language'. Scurrilous Foul admonished me and Captain Border quickly closed his cape.

'Sssch.' Captain Border warned with his finger quickly crossing his lips like some old deed. 'Don't be minding his moralising' he sighed.

'Where did you get that?' I not unreasonably asked.

'Ahhh'. The captain shrugged up his shoulders, tipped his nose with his finger and grinned. 'Aboard The Custard Pudding'.

I was taken aback with his strange motion and he bid me closer with a curl of his arm, shifted his battered sea faring frame across the bench and motioned me sit beside him. My father watched carefully from the bar, his eyes a bobbing telescope seeking me out above the crowd that jostled for their liquor at the bar. I moved in and sat snuggly beside him, his face a tattered billowing sail, puffing in and blowing out the sickly sweet air of the bar.

'I am Captain Border of The Custard Pudding' he whispered confidentially in my ear. 'I have travelled the seven seas and seen many a strange thing indeed' he winked as though I was some lewd bar waiter and took a long slow draught from his silvery tankard of rum.

I smiled up at him. I was used to the rum stories that my fathers patrons were wont to deliver. And would usually undertake to listen their drunken hallucinations with a little more than a pinch of salt, sometimes having to resort to bucketloads of it when they resort to talking from beneath the table.

'What about me?' Scurrilous Foul's muffled voice crept from beneath the heavy black cape.

'Quiet now my lovely'. Captain Border smoothed the lump fidgeting about in his cloak. 'I'll get round to you in a minute' and he sat back in to the hard wooden boarding that sealed his drinking compartment and placed his heavy tired hands on the table.

'I was fourteen when I embarked on my first journey. I had signed up as a cabin boy to my first captain. A Captain A. Abraham Mulberry Jones Porter'.

'What was the A for?' I enquired.

'A....' captain border stroked his chin. 'Oh i see' he laughed and rocked forward. 'I never did get a chance to find out' he smiled, 'for no more than four days had passed since we left the good port of Haydock and my good captain went and threw himself out of his cabin window. It was', he paused, 'as you can imagine, a terrible shock for a lad of my tender years'.

'Oh.' I scanned for captain borders integrity. 'Why did he do it?'

'I thought at first it was on account of his enormous probocis' he paused and stroked his chin. 'I was however to find out later that it had in fact nothing to do with his mammoth appendage'.

'Boy? Boy? Where is the captain?' The First Officer barked authoritively at me as I stooped over the desk in the departed captains cabin. The yellow fragment of parchment hastily rolled and stuffed secretly in my seafaring jacket, the heavy black cotton arching tightily around my shoulders and giving me cause for some consternation. I reached out with some difficulty and pointed toward the open window while. my jacket creased up about chest, my arm giving grief to the mis-shaped material.

'Where is the Captain, boy?’ The First Officer squeezed his cumbersome bulk through the small cabin door, the material of his red uniform