Knees Up Mother Earth

22

Professor Slocombe removed himself from his study.

“Where has he gone?” Jim asked the Campbell.

“To meet with that blackguard Starling, I’m thinking, to strike a deal in exchange for the Eye.” The Campbell waggled his claymore towards the sinister gem that twinkled on Professor Slocombe’s desk.

“Then we must go with him.” John Omally leapt to his feet, spilling precious whisky as he did so.

“You can’t go with him. He’ll not be leaving the house.”

“Then Starling is coming here?”

The Campbell shook his turbaned head.

“Then I don’t understand you,” said Omally.

“They’ll not be meeting in the flesh,” said the Campbell, which really didn’t help matters.

“I know what he’s going to do,” said Jim. “He can really do it?” Jim addressed this question to the Highlander.

“Aye,” said Mahatma Campbell.

“Incredible.” And Jim shook his head. “All my life I’ve wanted to do that.”

“You’ll have to enlighten me, please,” said John. “This conversation appears to be in code.”

“Astral travel,” said Jim. “The professor will put himself into a mystical trance and his ectoplasmic spirit form will leave his physical body and travel to the meeting with Starling.”

“Right,” said John. It was a definite kind of “right”.

“It’s true as Jim says it,” said the Campbell, helping himself to another treble Scotch.

“After you with that decanter,” said John. “But leave his body? That is the stuff of fantasy fiction.”

“That would be irony, would it, John?” said Jim. “Considering what we’ve just been through? But I did it once, left my own body.”

“After ten pints of Large, with the wind behind you.”

“I did, John. I really did.”

John’s glass was refreshed with Scotch. And Jim’s glass took refreshment, too.

“You left your body?” said John. “I have heard of such things. Were you in a car crash or something?”

“John, you’ve known me all my life. Have I ever been in a car crash?”

“Not that I know of.”

“Then let me tell you what happened. Remember yesterday, when you told me all about what was going on and what had really happened to me on Friday night and you said that I took it very well?”

“You did,” said John, “ridiculously well, and then you came up with the plan to visit the Consortium building. Rather a bold plan, I considered, for one so normally timid as yourself.”

“I’m not timid,” said Jim, “I’m just cautious. But the reason I took it so well is because somehow I’ve always been expecting something like this to happen. I’ve always believed in this kind of stuff.”

“It’s the first I’ve heard of it.”

“Because I knew you’d laugh.”

“I’m a Catholic,” said John. “You’d be surprised at all the old rubbish we Catholics believe in.”

“No, I wouldn’t. But this kind of thing has always fascinated me and I always hoped it would be real. You see, when I was a child, my dad gave me a copy of Lobsang Rampa’s book The Third Eye. It’s the autobiography of a man who grew up in a lamasery in Lhasa, Tibet. He became a lama and learned to open the third eye in his forehead. And he could see peoples’ auras and indulge in astral travel and even levitate.”

“Sounds most unlikely,” said John.

“And, sadly, so it proved to be. Years later the book was revealed to be a hoax written by Cyril Henry Hoskins, a plumber from Plympton.”

“Tough luck,” said John.

“But it didn’t put me off,” Jim continued. “And when I was a teenager I discovered Dr Strange in Marvel Comics – the original series, drawn by the now legendary Steve Ditko. Dr Strange learns all the stuff that Lobsang—”

“Cyril,” said John.

“Yes, that Cyril said he’d learned. He battles Baron Mordo and the Dread Dormammu. And I really, really wanted to do that, and every night I would lie naked on my bed and try to leave my body.”

“I’ve never heard it called that before,” said John, doing a Sid James snigger.

“Don’t be crude.” Jim sipped further Scotch. “But every night I tried, concentrating really hard. And then one night I actually did it.”

“You left your body?”

“Floated right out of myself. It was very scary at first. I sort of hung there above my bed, looking down at me, which I can tell you is very strange, because I didn’t look the way I thought I looked.”

Omally shook his head and rolled his eyes.

“Because,” said Jim, “we only see ourselves in mirrors, and that’s the wrong way round. That’s not the way we look to other people. We see ourselves in photographs, but that’s not the same, either.”

“Nice touch,” said John.

“What?”

“I said ‘nice touch’. That little detail adds a bit of authenticity to your ludicrous tale.”

“It’s all the truth. I looked down upon myself and I was connected to my body by a silver cord. And when I got over being so scared, I went out for a fly. I went straight through the bedroom wall and up the street and along the Ealing Road, floating, swimming through the air at the height of the top of the lampposts. It was incredible. And when I got to the football ground I saw this boy, a ginger-haired boy, and he was sitting right on the top of one of the floodlights.”

Omally shook his head, but Jim continued with his tale.

“So I swam on through the air,” Jim continued, “and joined this boy on top of the floodlights. And I said to him, ‘Why did you climb up here? It’s really dangerous.’ And he said, ‘I didn’t climb up here, I flew like you. I’m astral travelling, too.’ Apparently he’d always been able to do it. We arranged to meet again the following night and he said he’d fly with me to Tibet.”

“And did you?” John asked.

“No,” said Jim. “The next thing I knew it was morning and my mum was bringing me a cup of tea and I was still lying on top of the bed in my nudity.”

“You dreamed the whole thing,” said Omally.

“No,” said Jim. “It was real.”

“It was a dream, Jim. Just a dream.”

“No, John, it was real, because that very morning I saw the ginger-haired boy.”

“Really?” said John. “And he confirmed your meeting with him the night before?”

Jim shook his head. “I was on the number sixty-five bus, going off to an interview for a job at George Wimpeys, which happily I didn’t get. The bus pulled up outside Norman’s shop – this was when Norman’s dad was still alive – and at the bus stop stood Norman, and the ginger-haired boy was there beside him. And he saw me through the window and raised his thumb and mouthed the word ‘Tibet’. But the bus was full and it pulled away from the stop before I could jump off, so I didn’t get to speak to him.”

“So Norman saw this ginger-haired boy. Did he know him?”

Jim shook his head once more. “I asked Norman later. I said, ‘Do you know that ginger-haired boy who was waiting at the bus stop with you this morning?’ And Norman said, ‘There wasn’t any ginger-haired boy. I was all alone at the bus stop.’”

John looked hard at Jim. “Is that the end of the story?” he asked.

“That’s it.” Jim shrugged. “And it’s all true, I promise you. I never managed to do the astral-travelling thing again, so I never saw the ginger-haired boy again and I never flew to Tibet. But I still try, on the rare night that I go to bed sober.”

“You should have come to the professor,” said the Campbell, “when you were a lad. If he’d believed you to be sincere, no doubt he would have taught you the technique.”

“Do you really think so?”

“No,” said the Campbell. “I’m pulling your plonker. He’d never train a twat like yourself.”

“Thank you very much indeed.”

The inner door of Professor Slocombe’s study opened and the ancient scholar stood framed in the opening. His face was grey and he looked more frail and fragile than ever before. His delicate fingers trembled and his old head rocked gently upon his slender neck.

Omally hastened to guide the old gentleman into a fireside chair. “Are you all right, sir?” he asked. “You look all but done.”

“All is done,” said Professor Slocombe, accepting John’s glass of Scotch and tossing it back in a single gulp. “The deal is done.”

“You met with Starling?” Jim asked.

“In my astral body, Jim. And your words came to me and offered me some comfort. Had I met with him in my physical form he would have killed me. His accomplices were awaiting my arrival.”

Jim Pooley made a fearful face.

“Fear not,” said Professor Slocombe. “All is done. Starling will trouble you no more.”

“You didn’t—”

“No, Jim, I didn’t kill him. He is a powerful magician, very strong with spells. But I extracted from him a magical oath in return for the Eye. He has promised that no more attempts will be made upon the lives of yourself and John.”

“And you trust his words?” asked Jim.

“By breaking a magical oath he would forfeit his powers. But he will not swerve from his goal. He intends to acquire the football ground and to loose the serpent. I suspect that we may be visited by Lord Cthulhu’s dark and scaly minions, intent upon some kind of sabotage or another. But no more attempts will be made upon your lives.”

“So we’re free men?” said John. “We’re safe?”

“You are safe,” said the professor, “and we may still succeed. Seven more games and Brentford wins the cup.”

“It all sounds so very easy when you put it like that,” said Jim.

“It will not be easy. We must remain on our guard, and I will arrange for certain herbal preparations that will offer extra protection. It will not, as I say, be easy, but we will succeed. And now I suggest that you fellows go off about your business – football club business. I am weary and sorely in need of rest.”

“Yes,” said Jim. “Well, thank you, Professor. Thank you for everything.”

“It is I who should thank you, Jim. I am responsible for the dangers to yourself, for which I am truly sorry. I will do whatever I can to make it up to you.”

“Will you teach me the secrets of astral projection?” Jim asked.

“No,” said Professor Slocombe.

“Oh,” said Jim.

“Just one thing,” John said. “What about the Eye? Is Starling coming here to reclaim it?”

“No need,” said Professor Slocombe, and he gestured to his desk. The Eye of Utu was no longer there to be seen.