The Antipope

12

Captain Carson lay draped across an elaborately carved Spanish chair, peeping between his fingers at the preposterous display of exotic foodstuffs heaped upon the gilded tabletop. To think that any one of these rare viands might be purchased anywhere within a mile of the Mission would be to stretch the most elastic of imaginations to its very breaking point. Yet there they were. The Captain covered his eyes again and hoped desperately that they would go away. They did not.

Carrying the tramp’s shopping-list, some of which was totally unpronounceable, he had traipsed from shop to shop. It had been almost as if the shopkeepers were lying in wait for him. He had wandered into Uncle Ted’s greengrocery to enquire in a doomed voice as to the current availability of Bernese avocados. Uncle Ted had smiled broadly, torn a paper bag from the nail and asked if he would prefer reds or greens. At every shop it had been the same. When the Captain had demanded an explanation of how these gastronomic delicacies found their way on to the shelves, the shopkeepers had been extremely vague in their replies. Some spoke of consignments arriving by accident, others that it was a new line they were trying out.

After six such encounters in tiny corner shops which normally complained that they were out of sugar, that the cornflakes were late in again and that they couldn’t get tomato sauce for love nor money, the Captain, his head reeling, had staggered into the High Street off-licence.

“Your usual?” said Tommy Finch, the manager. The Captain sighed gratefully. Could it be possible that here was sanctuary, that this one place had remained free from the tramp’s contamination?

“Or,” said Tommy suddenly, “could I interest you in a half a dozen bottles of a magnificent vintage claret which arrived here in error this very morning and which is most moderately priced?”

The Captain had cast a fatalistic eye down his list. “That wouldn’t by any chance be Château Lafite 1822?”

“That’s the one,” Tommy had replied with no hint of surprise.

The Captain rose stiffly from his chair, picked up a can of pickled quails’ eggs and gave the label some perusal. As with all the other items he had purchased, and as with everything else which surrounded the mystery tramp, there was something not quite right about it. The label appeared at first sight normal enough, an illustration of the contained foodstuffs, a brand name, a list of ingredients and a maker’s mark; yet the more one looked at it the more indistinct its features became. The colours seemed to run into one another, the letters were not letters at all but merely rudimentary symbols suggestive of lettering.

The Captain returned the can to the table and shook his head as one in a dream. None of it made any sense. What could the tramp be planning? What had been his motive in inviting the hated Crowley to the Mission? Certainly on his past record alone it could be expected that his motives were nothing if not thoroughly evil. None of it made any sense.

“Is all correct?” said a voice, jarring the Captain from his thoughts. “There must be no mistake.”

Turning, the Captain peered up at the red-eyed man towering above him. Never had he looked more imposing or more terrible, dressed in an evening suit of the deepest black, a dark cravat about his neck secured at the throat by a sapphire pin. His fingers weighed heavy with rings of gold and his face wore an unreadable expression.

“All is as you ordered,” said the Captain in a querulous voice, “though as to how I do not know, nor do I wish to.”

“Good, our guests will arrive sharp at seven thirty. They must be received in a manner befitting.”

The Captain chewed ruefully upon his knuckles. “What would you have me wear for this distinguished gathering?”

The tramp smiled, his mouth a cruel line. “You may wear the Royal Navy dress uniform which hangs in your wardrobe, the hire company’s label cut out from its lining. Pray remember to remove the camphor bags from its pockets.”

The Captain hunched his shoulders and slouched from the room.

When he returned an hour later, duly clad, the Captain discovered to his further bewilderment that the food had been laid out in the most exquisite and skilful manner, the claret twinkled in cut-glass decanters and the delicious smell of cooking filled the air. The Captain shook his befuddled head and consulted his half-hunter. There was just time for a little drop of short. He had lately taken to carrying a hipflask which he refilled with half bottles of rum purchased from the off licence. This seemed the only defence against the tramp, whose intuition of the location of hidden bottles seemed nothing short of telepathic. The two red eyes burned into his every thought, hovering in his consciousness and eating away at his brain like a hideous cancer. The Captain drew deeply upon his flask and drained it to its pewter bottom.

At seven thirty precisely a black cab drew up outside the Mission. The Captain heard the sound of footsteps crackling up the short path to the Mission door. There were two sharp raps. The Captain rose with difficulty, buttoned up his dress jacket and shuffled unwillingly towards the front door.

Upon the step stood Councillor Wormwood, wrapped in a threadbare black overcoat, a stained white silk scarf slung about his scrawny neck. He was tall, gaunt and angular, his skin the colour of a nicotine-stained finger and his eyes deeply sunk into cavernous black pits. Never had the Captain seen a man who wore the look of death more plainly upon his features. He withdrew a febrile and blue-veined hand from his worn coat pocket and offered the Captain a gilt-edged invitation card. “Wormwood,” he said in a broken voice, “I am expected.”

“Please come in,” the Captain replied making a courteous gesture. The jaundiced spectre allowed himself to be ushered down the corridor and into the dining-room.

The Captain took out the bottle of cheap sherry he kept in reserve for Jehovah’s Witnesses.

“I see that I am the first,” said Wormwood, accepting the thimble-sized glass the Captain offered him. “You have a cosy little nest for yourself here.”

The sound of taxi wheels upon the gravel drew the Captain’s attention. “If you will excuse me,” he said, “I think I hear the arrival of another guest.” The Councillor inclined his turtle neck and the Captain left the room.

Before the Mission stood Brian Crowley. He was dressed in a deep-blue velvet suit, which caught the evening light to perfection. A hand-stitched silk dress-shirt with lace ruffles smothered him to the neck, where a large black bow-tie clung to his throat like a vampire bat. His shoes, also hand-made, were of the finest leather; he carried in his hands a pair of kid gloves and an ivory-tipped malacca cane. He raised a limp and manicured hand to the Mission’s knocker, which receded before his grasp as the Captain swung open the door.

“Mr Crowley,” said the Captain.

“Good evening, Carson,” said the young man, stepping forward. The Captain barred his way. “Your card, sir?” said the Captain politely.

“Damn you Carson, you know who I am.”

“We must observe protocol.”

Muttering under his breath Crowley reached into his breast pocket and withdrew a monogrammed moroco wallet. From this he produced the invitation card which he held to the old man’s face. “All right?”

The Captain took the card and bowed graciously. “Pray come in.” As he followed the effeminate young man down the corridor the Captain smiled to himself; he had quite enjoyed that little confrontation.

Crowley met Councillor Wormwood in the dining room. The Councillor took the pale white fingers in his yellow claw and shook them without enthusiasm. “Wormwood,” he said.

Crowley’s suspicions had been alerted. Surely this was a dinner exclusively for members of the Mission Trust to celebrate the centenary and the Captain’s retirement? Why invite that withered cretin?

It was only now that Crowley became fully aware of the room in which he was standing. Lit only by the two magnificent candelabra upon the loaded table, the rich gildings and embossings upon the furniture glittered like treasure in the tomb of a Pharaoh. Crowley’s gaze swept ravenously about the room. He became drawn towards an oil painting which hung in a frame of golden cherubim above a rococo commode. Surely this was a genuine Pinturicchio of his finest period? How could an elderly sea captain have come by it? Crowley had never credited the grizzled salt with any intelligence whatever, yet recalling his surprise upon receiving the invitation cards, he felt that he had truly misjudged this elder. The young man’s eyes glittered with greed.

“Will you take sherry?” the Captain asked. Roused from his covetous reverie Crowley replied, “Yes indeed, thank you.”

He accepted his sherry with a display of extraordinary politeness and wondered just how he might avail himself of the Captain’s valuable possessions. “I have been admiring this painting,” he said at length. “Surely it is a Pinturicchio of the Romanesque school?”

The Captain fiddled nervously with the top of a cut-crystal decanter. “I believe so,” he replied matter-of-factly.

“And the furniture.” Crowley made a sweeping gesture. “Surely fifteenth-century Spanish Baroque. You have some most exquisite examples.”

“It serves,” said the Captain, studying his broken fingernails. “Please be seated gentlemen, place cards have been set out.”

Crowley made a slow perambulation about the table, sherry glass held delicately in his pampered fingers. His eyes wandered over the display of food. “Why, Captain,” he said in an insinuating voice, “this is haute cuisine to numb the brain of a gourmet. I must confess complete astonishment, I had no idea, I mean, well, most worthy, most worthy.”

The Captain watched Crowley’s every movement. While his expression remained bland and self-effacing, his brain boiled with hatred for the effeminate young man. Crowley dipped a hand forward and took up a sweetmeat, pecking it to his nose to savour its fragrance. With a foppish flurry he popped it into his mouth, his small pink tongue darting about his lips. Almost at once his face took on an expression both quizzical and perplexed.

“Extraordinary,” he said, smacking his lips, “the taste, so subtle, hardly distinguishable upon the palate. It is almost as if one had placed a cube of cold air into one’s mouth, most curious.”

“It is an acquired taste,” sneered the Captain.

Wormwood had found his place at the bottom of the table and had seated himself without ceremony. Crowley shrugged his shoulders, licked the ends of his fingers and sought his seat. “If you will pardon me, Captain,” he said, “it would seem that but for our own, the other seven place cards are unlabelled.”

“Possibly an oversight on the part of the caterers,” grumbled the Captain, “don’t let it concern you.” He took his place between the two men and three sat in silence.

Crowley took out a cocktail cigarette from a gold case and tapped it upon the table. Wormwood wheezed asthmatically into his hand. Drawing a shabby handkerchief from his pocket he dabbed at his sinewy nose.

The Captain sat immobile, wondering what, if anything, was going to happen. Crowley lit his cigarette and looked down at his platinum wristwatch. “It would seem that your other guests are a trifle late,” said he.

The Captain sniffed and said nothing. Wormwood turned his empty sherry glass between his fingers and shuffled his ill-polished shoes uneasily. Long minutes passed and no sound came to the Captain’s ears but for the regular tock tock of the gilded mantelclock. There was no rumble of an approaching vehicle and no footstep upon the stairs that might herald the arrival of the red-eyed man. Surely it was not his intention to have the Captain sit here between these two hated individuals all evening? He had nothing to say to them.

Without warning, and silently upon its never-oiled hinge, the hall door swung open. White light streamed into the candlelit room, brighter and brighter it grew as if a searchlight had been turned upon the opening. The Captain blinked and shielded his eyes, Crowley squinted into the glare. “Here,” he shouted, “what’s all this?”

In the midst of the now blinding light the silhouette of a tall and boldly proportioned man gradually became apparent. Well over six foot he stood, and finely muscled as an Olympic athlete. His garb was of the richest crimson, trousers cut impeccably yet without a crease, a waisted and collarless jacket, lavishly embellished with stitched brocade, a lace cravat about the neck. Upon his head the figure wore a small crimson skullcap.

The face might have been that of a Spanish grandee, tanned and imposing, the nose aquiline and the mouth a hard and bitter line. The chin was prominent and firmly set. Beneath thick dark eyebrows two blood-red eyes gleamed menacingly. The room became impossibly cold, the hairs rose upon the Captain’s hands and his breath streamed from his mouth as clouds of steam which hovered in the frozen air.

Crowley found his voice. “Dammit,” he spluttered, his teeth chattering and his face a grey mask of fear, “what’s going on, who the devil are you?”

Wormwood clutched at his heart with quivering hands and gasped for air.

The crimson figure stood in total silence, his eyes fixed upon the effeminate young man. The Captain had seen that look before and thanked his maritime gods that it was not directed towards him. “So you would be Crowley?”

An icy hand clasped about the young man’s heart. His head nodded up and down like that of an automaton and his lips mouthed the syllables of his own name although no sound came.

“And this is Councillor Wormwood?” The eyes turned upon the unhappy creature who cowered at the table-end.

“Horace Wormwood,” came the trembling reply. “I was invited.”

“Good.” A broad if sinister smile broke out upon the tall man’s face. “Then all is as it should be. Please be seated, gentlemen.”

The three men, who had risen unconsciously to their feet, reseated themselves, and the warmth of the summer’s evening returned to the room. The tall man stepped forward and took his place at the head of the table. To the further horror of those already seated, the hall door swung silently shut and closed into its frame with a resounding crash.

“I hope you will enjoy this modest spread,” said the crimson figure. “It is but local fare.”

Crowley finally found his voice. He was by nature a predator, and not one to be intimidated by such a theatrical display no matter how convincing it might appear. It would take more than a few bright lights and a bit of cold air to make him deviate from his calculated scheme. It was clear that the Captain had hired this man, possibly a local actor; there was definitely something familiar about him, and those eyes, certainly tinted contact lenses, no body could have eyes that colour surely?

“Local fare you say,” said Crowley merrily. “It would seem that you have plundered the finest food halls of Christendom and employed one of the world’s master chefs to prepare this magnificent feast.”

The tall man in crimson smiled his thinnest of smiles and said, “I fear that the other guests have declined their invitations and we shall be forced to dine alone, as it were. I also fear that by an unforgivable oversight the caterers have omitted to supply us with either cutlery or serving staff and you will be forced to serve yourselves. Captain, if you would be so kind as to bring in the fish.”

The Captain did as he was bid without hesitation. At the arrival of the fish Crowley clapped his hands together in glee and shouted, “Magnificent! Magnificent!”

The four men sat about the enormous gilded dining table, the golden glow of candleflame eerily illuminating their faces whilst casting their shadows about the richly hung walls in a ragged, wavering danse macabre. Each man was occupied with his own thoughts. Crowley’s brain was bursting with a thousand unanswered questions, everything here demanded explanation. His eyes cast about from face to face, and devious plots began to hatch inside his skull. Councillor Wormwood, although a man greatly in favour of connivance and double-dealing, was capable upon this occasion of no such premeditation. He was an old man and felt himself to be pretty well versed in the ways of the world, but here in this room he knew there was something “different” going on. There was a dark aura of evil here, and it was evil of the most hideous and malignant variety.

Captain Carson glowered morosely about the table, he really didn’t know much about anything any more. All he knew was that he was seated here in a room, which had been exclusively his for the past thirty years, with three men who out of the entire world’s population he loathed and hated to a point well starboard of all sanity.

At a gesture from the red-eyed man the three set about the mouthwatering dishes. Crowley was amazed to find that the sweetmeat he had sampled minutes before had now taken on the most delicious and satisfying of tastes. He gurgled his delight and thrust large helpings into his mouth.

Councillor Wormwood pecked at his choosings like the ragged vulture he was, his claws fastened about the leg of some tropical fowl and his hideous yellow teeth tearing the soft white flesh away from the pinkly cooked bones. The Captain sampled this and that and found all equally to his liking.

As no cutlery had been supplied the three men dug into the finely dressed displays with their greasy fingers reducing each dish to a ruination suggestive of the march of soldier ants. The crimson figure at the head of the table left most of the dishes untouched. He dined upon bread, which he broke delicately between his muscular fingers, and drank occasionally from the decanter of claret set at his right elbow.

The hours passed and the gluttony of the three men was slowly satisfied. The Captain loosened the lower buttons of his jacket and broke wind in a loud and embarrassing manner. At length, when it seemed that the undignified destruction of the table was at an end, the crimson figure spoke. Sweeping his burning eyes over the three men he said, “Is all to your liking, gentlemen?”

Crowley looked up, his mouth still bulging with food. “It is all ambrosia,” he mumbled, wiping cream away with the cuff of his lace shirt.

“Mr Wormwood?”

The creature raised its yellow eyes. There was grease upon his cleft chin and he had spilt white sauce on his jacket lapel. “Most palatable,” said he.

“And Captain?”

The Captain chewed ruefully upon a jellied lark’s wing and grunted assent in a surly manner.

Crowley was growing bolder by the minute, and felt it high time that he put one or two of the questions he had stewing in his head. “Dear sir,” said he, “may I say how much I have enjoyed this dinner, never in my days have I tasted such claret.” He held up the short crystal glass to the candle-flame and contemplated the ruby-red liquid as it ran about the rim. “To think that anything so exquisite could exist here in Brentford, that such a sanctuary dedicated to life’s finer things could be here, it is a veritable joy to the soul.”

The red-eyed man nodded thoughtfully. “Then you approve?”

“I do, I do, but I must also confess to some puzzlement.”

“Indeed?”

“Well,” and here Crowley paused that he might compose inquisitiveness into a form which might give no offence.

“Well, as to yourself for instance, you are clearly a man of extreme refinement, such is obvious from your carriage, bearing and manner of speech. If you will pardon my enquiry might I ask to which part of our sceptred isle you owe your born allegiance?”

“I am broadly travelled and may call no place truly my home.”

“Then as to your presence in these parts?”

“I am at present a guest of the good Captain.”

“I see.” Crowley turned his eyes briefly towards the elder. His glance was sufficient however to register the look of extreme distaste on the Captain’s face.

“Then, sir, as you have the advantage of us might I enquire your name?”

The red-eyed man sat back in his chair. He took from a golden casket a long green cigar which he held to his ear and turned between thumb and forefinger. Taking up an onyx-handled cigar cutter he sliced away at one end. Satisfied with his handiwork he placed the cigar between his cruel lips and drew life into it from the candle-flame.

“Mr Crowley,” said he, blowing a perfect cube of smoke which hovered in the air a second or two before dissolving into nothingness. “Mr Crowley, you would not wish to know my name.”

The young man sipped at his wine and smiled coyly. “Come now,” he crooned, “you have supplied us with a dinner fit for royalty, yet you decline to identify yourself. It is unfair that we are not permitted to know the name of our most generous and worthy host.”

The red-eyed man drew once more upon his cigar, while the index finger of his left hand traced a runic symbol upon the polished tabletop. “It is to the Captain that you owe your gratitude,” said he. “He is your host, I am but a guest as yourself.”

“Ha,” the young man crowed, “I think not. You suit all this a little too well. You sit at the table’s head. I feel all this is your doing.”

“My doing?” the other replied. “And what motive do you think I might have for inviting you to the Mission?”

“That is something I also wish to know. I suspect that no other guests were invited this evening and” – here Crowley leant forward in his seat – “I demand an explanation.”

“Demand?”

“Yes, demand! Something funny is going on here and I mean to get to the bottom of it.”

“You do?”

“Who are you?” screamed Crowley, growing red in the face. “Who are you and what are you doing here?”

“What are you doing here, Mr Crowley?”

“Me? I was invited, I came out of respect to the Captain, to celebrate the Mission’s centenary. I have a responsible position on the board of trustees, in fact I am a man not without power. You would do well not to bandy words with me!”

“Mr Crowley,” said the crimson figure. “You are a fool, you have no respect for the Captain, you have only contempt. It was greed that brought you here and it will be greed that will be your ruination.”

“Oh yes?” said Crowley. “Oh yes?”

“I will tell you why you came here tonight and I will answer your questions. You came here because you knew that not to come would be to draw attention to yourself. It is your plan to have this Mission demolished at the first possible opportunity, and to make your shady and treacherous deals with this corpse here.” Wormwood cowered in his seat as the tall man continued. “I will never allow a stone of this Mission to be touched without my consent!”

“Your consent?” screeched Crowley. “Who in the hell do you think you are?”

“Enough!” The red-eyed man pushed back his chair and drew himself to his full height, his eyes blazing and his shoulders spreading to draw out his massive chest. His hands formed two enormous fists which he brought down on to the table with titanic force, scattering the food and shuddering the candelabra. “Crowley,” he roared, his voice issuing from his mouth as a gale force of icy wind, “Crowley, you would know who I am! I am the man to whom fate has led you. From your very birth it was ordained that our paths would finally cross, all things are preordained and no man can escape his fate. You would know who I am? Crowley, I am your nemesis!”

Crowley hurled his chair aside and rushed for the door, his desperate movements those of a wildly flapping bird. His hands grasped about the door-handle but found it as solid and unmoveable as if welded to the lock. “Let me go,” he whimpered, “I want nothing more of this, let me out.”

The giant in crimson turned his hellish eyes once more upon the young man. “You have no escape, Crowley,” he said, his voice a low rumble of distant thunder. “You have no escape, you are already dead, you were dead from the moment you entered this room, dead from the first moment you raised a glass to your mouth, you are dead, Crowley.”

“I'm not dead,” the young man cried, tears welling up in his eyes. “I’ll have the law on you for this, I’m not without influence, I’m…” Suddenly he stiffened as if a strong cord had been tightly drawn about his neck. His eyes started from their sockets and his tongue burst from his mouth. It was black and dry as the tongue of an old boot. “You… you,” he gagged, tearing at his collar and falling back against the door. The tall figure loomed above him, a crimson angel of death. “Dead, Crowley.”

The young man sank slowly to his knees, his eyes rolling horribly until the pupils were lost in his head. A line of green saliva flowed from the corner of his mouth and crept over his shirt. He jerked forward, his manicured nails tearing into the parquet flooring, crackling and snapping as convulsions of raw pain coursed through his body.

Above him, watching the young man’s agony with inhuman detachment, stood the crimson giant. Crowley raised a shaking hand, blood flowed from his wounded fingertips, his face was contorted beyond recognition. He bore the look of a grotesque, a gargoyle, the skin grey and parched, the lips blue, bloodless. He raised himself once more to his knees and his mouth opened, the blue lips made a hopeless attempt to shape a final word. Another convulsion tore through his body and flung him doll-like to the floor where he lay, his limbs twisted hideously, his eyes staring at the face of his destroyer, glazed and sightless. Brian Crowley was dead.

The red-eyed man raised his right hand and made a gesture of benediction. With terrifying suddenness he turned upon the Captain, who sat open-mouthed, shaking with terror. “You will dispose of this rubbish,” he said.

“Rubbish?” The Captain forced the word from his mouth.

The red-eyed man gestured at the twisted body which lay at his feet; then, raising his arm, he pointed across the table. The Captain followed his gaze to where Councillor Wormwood sat. His hands grasped the table top in a vice-like grip, his eyes were crossed and his head hung back upon his neck like that of a dead fowl in a butcher’s window. The skin was no longer yellow, but grey-white and almost iridescent; his mouth lolled hugely open and his upper set had slipped down to give the impression that his teeth were clenched into a sickly grin.

The giant was speaking, issuing instructions: the bodies were to be stripped of all identification, this was to be destroyed by fire, the table was to be cleared, the decanters to be drained and thoroughly washed out. The bodies were to be placed in weighted sacks… the voice rolled over the Captain, a dark ocean of words engulfing and drowning him. He rose to his feet, his hands cupped about his ears that he might hear no more. The words swept into his brain, the black tide washed over him, dragging him down. The Captain fought to breathe, fought to raise his head above the black waters. This was the Mission, his life, the evil must be driven out while any strength remained in his old body. His hands sought to grasp these thoughts, cling to them for dear life.

But the hands were old and the tide strong. Presently the Captain could grip no more and the poison waters swept over him, covering him without trace.