The Antipope

  ‘An old man with white hair and a black coat.’

  ‘The Professor,’ said Omally.

  ‘I wasn’t talking to you. Here, what do you think you’re looking at?’

  Omally’s eyes had been wandering up and down Mrs King’s tightly fitting apron. ‘I was undressing you with my eyes.’

  ‘Oh yes?’

  ‘Yes, and that safety pin which is holding up your knickers is getting a bit rusty.’

  Mrs King snarled furiously at Omally, flung down her washing and stalked off into her house, slamming the back door behind her.

  ‘Was that wise?’ Jim asked. ‘She’ll probably phone the police now.’

  ‘I don’t think so,’ said John, grinning lewdly, ‘I think she quite fancies me.’

  Pooley shrugged and rolled his eyes. ‘Your technique is to say the least original,’ said he.

  The two men mounted the back staircase and disappeared in through Pooley’s kitchen door. There was little left to wear in Pooley’s wardrobe and so he was forced to don the shirt, Fair Isle sweater and cricketer’s whites left by Omally. He passed over the patent leather pumps, however, preferring to remain in his hobnails.

  ‘A regular dude,’ said Omally. Pooley remained unconvinced. ‘So what do we do now?’ he asked.

  ‘We might begin by a decent, if late, breakfast. What supplies have you in your larder?’

  Pooley found two tins of beans, which he and Omally consumed with relish. ‘And now what?’ he asked.

  ‘We will just have to wait for the Professor to return.’

  ‘Or the police.’

  Omally nodded grimly. ‘Or the police.’

  The day passed; there was little to do. Omally fiddled with the knobs on Pooley’s archaic wireless set, but raised little but static and what appeared to be a wartime broadcast. By five thirty the two men were pacing the floor like caged tigers and tempers were becoming dangerously short.

  Finally Pooley could stand it no longer. ‘I think I will just step out to Jack Lane’s for a couple of bottles of light ale.’

  Omally looked doubtful. ‘We had better not separate,’ he said, ‘I will come with you.’

  ‘Good man.’

  If the atmosphere of the Flying Swan’s saloon bar was timeless, then that of Jack Lane’s was even more so. There was a positive sense of the museum about the place. No-one could recall a single change being made in the décor since 1928 when Brentford won the FA Cup and Jack Lane retired from the game to take over as landlord. ‘The Four Horsemen’, as the establishment was more correctly known, although none had used the name within living memory, had become a shrine to Brentford’s glorious one and a half hours upon the sacred turf of Wembley. True, when Jack departed the game to take up the licensed trade his team lost its finest dribbler and dropped through the various divisions like a two-bob bit in a Woodbine machine. Jack himself became a kind of living monument. The faded photographs of the team he captained showed him standing erect in his broad-striped shirt, his shorts reaching nearly to his ankles and the leather ball between his feet. A close examination of these blurry mementoes revealed that Jack had changed hardly at all during the preceding fifty-odd years. Proudly he stood, his toothless face smiling and his bald head nobly reflecting the Wembley sunlight.

  Now well over eighty and taking advantage of the fact, Jack held court over his cobwebbed castle, gnome-like and droll and caring nothing for the outside world and the so-called ‘changing times’. He had only noticed the Second World War because the noise had woken him up and he had wondered about why so many of his younger patrons had taken to the wearing of uniforms.

  When Pooley and Omally sheepishly entered the saloon bar, the old gnome was perched upon his stool beside the cash drawer and eyed them with but a passing interest. ‘Close that door,’ he mumbled, ‘you’re letting the weather in.’

  Pooley looked at Omally, who shrugged. ‘He probably still thinks it’s winter.’

  Pooley was going to say two bottles of pale ale please, but the words would not come. ‘Two pints of Large,’ he said presently. Omally patted his companion on the back. The sporting ancient climbed down with difficulty from his stool and shuffled over to the pumps. Pooley recalled that it was always advisable to buy two rounds at a time in the Horsemen, as one’s thirst could not always survive the wait while Jack methodically pulled his pints.

  ‘Better make that four pints,’ said Omally, who harboured similar recollections.

  Jack muttered an obscenity beneath his breath and sought two more pint glasses.

  ‘So what’s the news then, Jack?’ Omally asked cheerfully.

  Jack Lane smiled and ran a ragged pullover sleeve across his nose, ‘News?’ he said. ‘I haven’t heard of any news, what news should there be?’

  Omally shrugged. ‘Just wondered, not much of interest ever gets by you.’

  ‘You been barred from the Swan then, Omally?’

  ‘Hardly that, just thought we’d pop in as we were passing, trade seems a little slack.’ He indicated the empty bar.

  ‘It’s early yet.’ It was well known to all that Jack’s licensing hours were flexible; few entered his establishment until the hostelries they previously frequented were closing up their doors.

  ‘We had a Lascar in last week,’ said Jack struggling over with the first of the four pints. ‘Big buck he was, I told him, out of here I said.’

  ‘Fascinating,’ said John, ‘but nothing else, out of the ordinary happened recently then.’

  Jack was by now halfway back towards the pumps and as Omally was on his deaf side he did not reply.

  ‘I think we’ll be safe enough in here then,’ Pooley whispered.

  ‘Might as well settle in then,’ said Omally. ‘It will take us a goodly number of pints to catch up upon our last few days of abstinence.’

  ‘I will drink to that.

  ‘By around seven, both Pooley and Omally were in an advanced state of drunkenness. They leant upon one another’s shoulders, each extolling the other’s virtues and expressing his undying friendship. It was a touching thing to behold.

  ‘Buffoons,’ muttered Jack Lane.

  ‘I fear that nature is calling me,’ said Pooley, ‘and in a voice of no uncertain tone.’

  ‘I myself must confess to having overheard her urgent cries,’ Omally replied.

  The two men lurched up from their chairs and staggered towards the door. Jack Lane’s establishment boasted no ‘accommodations’ and it was therefore necessary to do one’s business in the public lavvies next door. The two men stumbled out into the early evening; it seemed unwontedly dark considering the weather, and there was a definite chill in the air. Omally stared up towards the sky, there was something not quite right about it, but he was unable to make out exactly what it was.

  Jim swayed in through the ever-open door of the gents and sought out the first available cubicle. He relieved himself amid much sighing and heavy breathing. ‘A job well done,’ he said pulling the chain.

  Suddenly a soft voice spoke his name. ‘Who’s that?’ Pooley said, looking around in surprise. ‘John, is that you?’

  Evidently it was not, because Pooley could make out the sounds of a similar bout of sighing and gasping from the next cubicle.

  ‘James,’ said the voice again; it was coming from a mesh grille beneath the water cistern.

  ‘Good God,’ said Pooley, ‘I have lost myself and stumbled into a confessional. Father forgive me, for I know not what I do.’

  ‘James, listen to me.’ Jim pressed his ear to the grille. ‘There is not much time,’ whispered the voice. It was the Other Sam!

  ‘Much time, much time for what?’

  ‘Tonight is to be the night, the two of you must go at once to Professor Slocombe’s.’

  Pooley groaned dismally. ‘I hardly feel up to it,’ he complained, ‘couldn’t we put it off until tomorrow?’

  The Other Sam’s voice was both harsh and urgent. ‘You must go at once, waste not a moment, go
now and keep together.’

  Pooley was about to voice further complaint but the Other Sam had gone and Omally was rattling at the door. ‘John,’ said Jim, ‘John, you are not going to like what I have just heard.’

  The Irishman stood swaying in the doorway supporting himself upon the doorpost. ‘Do not bother to relate your conversation,’ he said simply, ‘for I have overheard every syllable.’

  Pooley dragged himself up to his feet and patted his companion upon the shoulders. ‘The fates are against us,’ he said, ‘we had better go.’

  The two men staggered off down Mafeking Avenue, en route for the Butts Estate and Professor Slocombe’s house.

  At intervals Omally stopped to stare again at the night sky. ‘Something is definitely amiss in the heavens,’ he said.

  Pooley stumbled on. ‘I would gladly offer you my opinion,’ he said, ‘but I fear that any increased elevation of the head might result in a catalepsy, possibly terminating in death.’

  Outside the Memorial Library Pooley stopped and held up his hands. ‘Enough,’ said he, ‘I can go no further.’ He collapsed on to his favourite bench, breathing heavily and clutching at his heart.

  Omally pulled at his shirtsleeve. ‘Come now, it’s only around the corner and I am sure that there will be time for a glass or several of the Professor’s whisky.’

  Pooley rose unsteadily. ‘We must aid our noble colleague, a fine and learned old gentleman. Come Omally, let us not delay here.’

  The Professor’s house was shuttered and absolutely silent. As Pooley and Omally stared at the front door the old man’s hand appeared, frantically beckoning them to enter.

  The Professor bolted the door firmly behind them. The house was in darkness, lit only by the silver candelabra which the old man carried. By the flickering light Pooley could see that his face looked pale, drawn and deeply lined. He seemed to have aged terribly since they had seen him last ‘Are you all right, Professor?’ Pooley asked in concern.

  Professor Slocombe nodded impatiently. ‘I will be all right. What of you two, how have things been for you since last we met?’

  ‘Oh, fine,’ said Omally, ‘we are wanted by the police, we came within inches of being eaten alive, other than that, fine.’

  The Professor led them through the ink dark corridors towards his study. ‘The police,’ he said, ‘how are they involved?’

  ‘They have found my wheelbarrow stuck in the mud at Chiswick accompanied by two corpses. They raided the Swan and were also at Pooley’s asking questions.’

  By now the three men had entered the Professor’s study and the old man lit from his candelabra an assortment of candles around the room. ‘Fear not, John,’ he said, seating himself at his desk, ‘I have recorded upon paper all that I know regarding this business. It has been witnessed and it is lodged in a safety-deposit box. Should I not survive this night then at least you will be safe upon that account.’

  ‘That is pleasing to my ears,’ said John, ‘but come now, survive this night, what can you mean by that?’

  As Omally filled glasses Professor Slocombe seated himself at his desk. ‘Tonight,’ he said, ‘the followers of the being who calls himself Pope Alexander VI will gather at the Seamen’s Mission to glorify their new Messiah. Tonight he will install himself upon his Papal throne and “sanctify” his “Holy See”. The Mission is to be his new Vatican. Tonight will be our last opportunity to stop him. Should we fail then I can see little future for any of us.’

  Pooley gulped back his scotch. ‘But do you think we alone can stop him?’

  ‘We must try.’

  ‘And at what time will this mockery of the true Church take place?’ Omally asked.

  ‘A little after nine. We must lose ourselves amongst the crowd, and once we get inside you must do exactly as I say.’

  Pooley refilled the glasses and looked up at the great mantel clock. It chimed eight-thirty. ‘We have half an hour.’ He smiled, dropping back into one of the Professor’s high-backed fireside chairs.

  Omally fingered the neck of the crystal decanter. ‘Plenty of time,’ said he.

  The minutes ticked slowly away. Pooley and Omally fortified themselves until the decanter was spent, and the Professor sat at his desk scribbling away with a goose-feather quill upon a length of parchment.

  Omally watched the old man working. Could he really stand up to this Pope Alex? Omally felt somewhat doubtful. Certainly the Professor was full of good intentions and his knowledge of the esoteric and the occult was profound. But who knows what might be lurking within the Mission? It seemed reasonable to suppose that Pope Alex would not be unguarded. Better a more positive approach then. Something more physical than mere babblings of ancient words. Something more concrete. More concrete? A smile crossed Omally’s face and broadened into a grin of Cheshire cat proportions. Concrete, that was the thing. Or better still, the good old half brick, always a friend in time of need.

  23

  The Professor’s clock struck nine and the old man rose unsteadily to his feet. ‘We had better go,’ he said, ‘slip these about your shoulders.’ He indicated two mud-brown cloaks draped across a side table. ‘They should help you merge into the crowd.’

  Omally raised himself to his feet and swayed over to the table. ‘Very pleasing,’ he said, casting the cloak about his broad shoulders, ‘very ecclesiastical.’

  Pooley climbed from his chair and donned his cloak. ‘You would make a fine monk, Jim Pooley,’ said Omally, chuckling irreverently.

  With that the two caped crusaders helped the Professor to extinguish the candles and followed the old man through the darkened house to the front door. Professor Slocombe eased it open a crack and the three men stared out into the mysterious night.

  All across the Butts Estate grim-faced crowds were moving. They moved with a strange, stiff-legged gait like tailors’ dummies removed from their shop windows and grotesquely animated. The eyes of these dummies seemed glazed and sightless, yet stared ever ahead in the direction of the Mission.

  Professor Slocombe turned up the astrakhan collar of his elderly coat. ‘Come,’ he whispered. He ushered Pooley and Omally out through the front door, which he locked with a heavy iron key. Whilst he was thus engaged his two inebriated colleagues exchanged knowing glances, furtively stooped and swept up two likely-looking house bricks which each secreted within the folds of his robes.

  Lovingly patting their respective bulges they followed the old Professor down the short path and out into the Butts Estate. The three men slipped in amongst the sombre crowds, doing their best to adopt the stiff-legged gait and lacklustre stare. Pooley’s impersonation was astonishingly convincing, but that was because he was rather far-gone with the drink. Omally stumbled along at his side, occasionally peering up at the sky and muttering to himself.

  As the crowd, which was now several hundred strong, neared the Mission it soberly formed into a single file.

  The three men could see that the heavily braced door had been thrown open and that a soft light glowed from within. Pooley fell into line behind the Professor, with the muttering Omally bringing up the rear. As each of the zombiesque walkers crossed the threshold of the Seamen’s Mission he or she genuflected and mouthed a short phrase of archaic Latin.

  Pooley was pleased to note that the phrase spoken by the Professor as he entered the portal differed substantially from that of the rest. Jim was no scholar of language so he merely mumbled incoherently and hoped that none would notice. Omally was the next to bow his knee, an action which he achieved more through luck than judgement. His knowledge of Latin was extensive, but it was two words of the Gaelic that he chose. ‘Pogue mahone,’ said the man from the Emerald Isle, raising two fingers.

  There was already a considerable number of people assembled within the Mission, and the three would-be party-poopers could see little above the multitude of heads. Omally felt the Professor’s sinewy hand closing about his arm as the old man drew the Irishman away towards a shadowy corner. Pooley f
ollowed them. Here and there he saw a face he recognized, but doll-like, vacant of expression and seeming to lack some essential ingredient of humanity.

  The three men squeezed themselves into a darkened niche at the rear of a large column. The Professor pressed a slender finger to his lips. ‘Watch and wait,’ he counselled.

  Pooley bobbed up and down in the hope of observing what was going on. Tiring of this futile occupation he whispered to Omally, ‘Give us a shin up this pillar and I’ll have a look around.’ Amid a fair amount of puffing and cursing, all performed in muted tones, Pooley was borne aloft.

  What he saw sent his brain reeling at the fantastic transformation which had been wrought within the ivy-hung walls of Brentford’s Seamen’s Mission. The entire building had been gutted, partition walls, doors, the upper floor, all were gone. Pooley found himself staring into what must surely be a cathedral. Rows of elaborately carved doric columns soared upwards towards the roof which, once the haunt of nesting wasps and sleeping bats, was now a glistening dome painted and frescoed in the style of Michaelangelo, depicting mighty biblical scenes.

  There was Adam, wide-eyed and innocent, staring into the godly face of his bearded creator. Eve’s temptation, with the hideous black serpent entwined about the tree of knowledge. The flood, ferociously portrayed with roaring skies and smashing waters, Noah’s ark pitching and the Man of God raising his hands towards Heaven. There was the fall of the Tower of Babel, the destruction of Sodom and Gomorrah and countless other scenes depicted so cunningly that the eye might wander for ever amongst them.

  The great hall was lit by rows of tall wrought-iron torcheres of ponderous proportions, and their steady light illuminated the astonishing adornments which lined the walls: the gilded icons and embossed tableaux, the bronze statues of the saints, the silver Madonnas, and the rows of heraldic crests, each of which bore the emblazoned figure of a great bull. There was a king’s ransom here, that of many kings in fact, in this unlikely setting.

  And then Pooley’s eyes fell upon the altar. He had seen pictures in library books of the altarpieces of the world’s most notable cathedrals, but they paled into insignificance before this. It was magnificence beyond magnificence, opulence and grandeur taken to a point where it surpassed all beauty and became a thing to fear.