The Antipope

13

The ambulance roared away from the Flying Swan, its bell ringing cheerfully. Most of the smoke had been fanned away through the Swan’s doors and windows, but an insistent smell of electrical burning still hung heavily in the air. After the excitement was over and the ambulance had departed, the cowboys stood about, thumbs in gunbelts, wondering whether that was the night over and they should, out of respect to Norman, saddle up and make for the sunset.

Young Master Robert, however, had other ideas. He climbed on to a chair and addressed the crowd. As nobody felt much like talking at that particular moment he was able to make himself heard. “Partners,” he began, “partners, a sorry incident has occurred but let us be grateful that the party concerned has not been badly injured. I am assured by the ambulance man that he will be up and about within a couple of days.” There were some halfhearted attempts at a cheer. “To show the brewery’s appreciation of a brave attempt, we are awarding, sadly in his absence, the Best Dressed Cowboy award, which includes an evening out for two with one of our delightful young ladies here at one of the brewery’s eating houses, a bottle of champagne and twenty small cigars, to our good friend Norman, the Spirit of the Old West!”

There was some slightly more enthusiastic cheering at this point, which rose in a deafening crescendo as Young Master Robert continued, “The next three drinks are on the house!”

Suddenly Norman’s unfortunate accident was forgotten, Old Pete set about the ancient piano once more and the Swan emerged again, a phoenix from the ashes of the Old West. Young Master Robert approached Neville behind the bar. “I am going out to stoke up the barbeque now. I’ll get the sausages on and then give you the nod to start leading them in.”

“Leave it to me,” said Neville, “and I’ll see to it that the free drinks are only singles.”

Omally, who had been revived by the aid of mouth-to-mouth resuscitation administered by each of the Page Three girls, overheard this remark and hastily ordered three doubles from Mandy before the part-time barman was able to communicate his instructions. “Same for me,” said Jim Pooley.

Invigorated by their free drinks the cowboy patrons began to grow ever more rowdy. Old Snakebelly’s qualities obviously combined those of Irish potheen, wool alcohol and methylated spirits. Old Pete had already attempted to blow out a lighted match only to find himself breathing fire and smoke. Small rings from glass bottoms had taken most of the polish from the bar top.

Omally leant across the bar and spoke to Neville. “You have put on a fine show and no mistake,” said he. “I had my misgivings about tonight but” – and here he took an enormous swig of Old Snakebelly, draining his glass – “it promises to be a most memorable occasion.”

The part-time barman smiled lopsidedly and polished away at a dazzling pint pot. “The night is far from over,” he said ominously, “and are you feeling yourself again, John?”

“Never better,” said Dublin’s finest, “never better.”

“’Ere,” said Mandy suddenly, “that Lone Ranger what stinks of fish keeps pinching my bum.” Neville went over to have words with the unruly lawman. “Omally,” the Page Three girl said when Neville was out of earshot.

“The same,” said himself.

“Listen.” Mandy made a secretive gesture and the man from the Emerald Isle leant further across the bar, just far enough in fact for a good view down the young lady’s cleavage. “You wanna buy a couple of dozen bottles of this Old Snake whatsit on the cheap?”

Omally grinned. He had not misjudged Mandy from the first moment he’d seen her pocket his pennies. “What exactly is on the cheap?”

“How does a ten spot sound?”

“It sounds most reasonable, and where are these bottles at present?”

“In the boot of the white M.G. out the front.”

Omally delved into his money belt, and a ten-pound note and a set of car keys changed hands. Winking lewdly, Omally left the bar.

A strange smell of the kind one generally associates with crematorium chimneys had began to weave its way about the bar. Some thought it was the last relics of the taint left by the Spirit of the Old West, others sensed its subtle difference and began to fan their drinks and cough into their stetsons. Suddenly there was a mighty crash as Neville brought his knobkerry down on the bar top. “The barbeque is served,” said the part-time barman.

Knowing the rush that would ensue at the announcement of free food, and still wishing to shield his carpet slippers from critical onlookers, Neville remained behind the bar to watch with some interest the way that one hundred or so cowboys might fit into a six-foot-square patio. Young Master Robert, clad in lurid vinyl apron and tall chefs hat, was going great guns behind the barbeque. Mountains of sizzling sausages, and steakettes and bubbling cauldrons of beans simmered away on the grill and Sandra stood near at hand proffering paper plates and serviettes printed with the legend, “A Souvenir of Cowboy Night.”

The first half-dozen lucky would-be-diners squeezed their way through the Swan’s rear door and found themselves jammed up against the blazing barbeque. “One at a bloody time,” bawled a scorched Ranger, patting at the knees of his trousers. “Don’t push there,” screamed another as his elbow dipped into a vat of boiling beans.

Order was finally maintained by the skilful wielding of a red-hot toasting fork in the hands of the young master. A human chain was eventually set up and paper plates bearing dollops of beans, a steakette, a sausage and a roll were passed back along the queue of drunken cowboys.

“More charcoal,” the Young Master cried as a helpful Jim Pooley heaped stack after stack on the flames of the blazing barbeque. “More sausages, more beans.” Jim dutifully set about the top of a five-gallon drum with a handy garden fork.

Rammed into the corner of the patio and watching the barbeque with expressions of dire suspicion were two Rangers whose abundance of cranial covering identified them to be none other than Hairy Dave and Jungle John, well known if largely (and wisely) distrusted members of the local building profession.

Jim had watched these two surly individuals from the corner of his eye for the better part of the last half hour and had wondered at their doubtful expressions and occasional bouts of elbow nudging. A sudden sharp report from the base of the brick-built barbeque which slightly preceded their hasty departure from the patio caused Pooley to halt in his can-opening and take stock of the situation.

The barbeque was roaring away like a furnace and the grill had grown red hot and was slightly sagging in the middle. Young Master Robert was perspiring freely and calling for more charcoal. Jim noticed that his vinyl apron was beginning to run and that the paint on the Swan’s rear door was blistering alarmingly. The heat had grown to such an extent that the remaining cowboys were pressed back against the wall and were shielding their faces and privy parts with paper plates.

“More charcoal,” screamed Young Master Robert.

Pooley’s eyes suddenly alighted upon a half empty bag of cement which lay among a few unused red flettons in the corner of the patio. He recalled a time when, taking a few days’ work in order to appease a sadistic official at the Labour Exchange, he had installed a fireplace at a lady’s house on the Butts Estate. Knowing little about what happens when bricks and mortar grow hot, and having never heard of fireproof bricks and heat resistant cement, he had used these very same red flettons and a bag of similarly standard cement. The fire-engine bells still rang clearly in Jim’s memory.

There was another loud report from the base of the barbeque and Pooley reached out to make a grab at Young Master Robert’s shoulder. “Come on, come on,” he shouted, trying to make himself heard above the roaring of the fire. “Get inside.”

“Leave off, will you?” the young master shouted back. “Open those beans.”

Jim was a man who would do most things to protect his fellow man, but he was not one to scoff at self-preservation. “Run for your life,” bawled Jim, thrusting his way into the suddenly stampeding herd of cowboys who had by now similarly realized that all was not well with the barbeque, and that the all that was not well was of that kind which greatly endangers life and limb.

The mad rush burst in through the Swan’s rear door, carrying it from its hinges and depositing it on the cross-legged form of “Vindaloo Vic”, the manager of the Curry Garden, who had been busily employed in the heaping of sausages and steakettes into a stack of foil containers to be later resold in his establishment as Bombay Duck. He vanished beneath the rented soles of forty-eight trampling cowboy boots.

The merrymakers in the saloon bar were not long in discerning that something was going very wrong on the patio. As one, they rose to their feet and took flight. Neville found himself suddenly alone in the saloon bar. “Now what can this mean?” he asked himself. “The bar suddenly empty, drinks left untouched upon tables, cigarettes burning in ashtrays, had the Flying Swan become some form of land-locked Marie Celeste? Is it the steakettes, perhaps? Is it the Old Snakebelly, stampeding them off to the Thames like lemmings?” Neville’s ears became drawn to the sound which was issuing from the direction of the patio and which appeared to be growing second upon second. Something was building up to a deafening crescendo on the back patio and Neville had a pretty good idea what it was. It was Old Moloch itself, the ill-constructed brick barbeque, about to burst asunder.

Before Neville instinctively took the old “dive for cover” beneath the Swan’s counter he had the impression that a being from another world had entered the bar from the rear passage. This vision, although fleeting and seen only through the part-time barman’s good eye, appeared to be clad in a steaming skin-tight vinyl space-suit and wearing the remnants of a chefs hat.

The first explosion was not altogether a large one; it was by no means on the scale of Krakatoa’s outburst, and it is doubtful whether it even raised a squiggle upon the seismographs at Greenwich. It was the second one that was definitely the most memorable. Possibly a scientist schooled in such matters could have estimated the exact megatonnage of the thirty cases of Old Snakebelly. However, we must accept, in the untechnical jargon of John Omally who was returning at that moment from the allotment where he had been burying twenty-four bottles of the volatile liquid, that it was one “bloody big bang”.

The blast ripped through the Swan, overturning the piano, lifting the polished beer-pulls from the counter and propelling them through the front windows like so many silver-tipped torpedoes. The Swiss cheese roof of the gents’ toilet was raised from its worm-eaten mountings and liberally distributed over half-a-dozen back gardens. The crowd of cowboys who had taken cover behind the parked cars in the Ealing Road ducked their heads and covered their ears and faces as shards of smoke-stained glass rained down upon them.

Neville was comparatively unscathed. When he felt it safe he raised his noble head above the counter to peer through shaking fingers at the desolation that had been his pride and joy.

The Swan was wreathed in smoke, but what Neville could see of the basic structure appeared to be intact. As for the cowboy trapping and the pub furniture, little remained that could by any stretch of the imagination be called serviceable. The tables and chairs had joined the patrons in making a rapid move towards the front door, but unlike those lucky personnel their desperate bid for escape had been halted by the front wall, where they lay heaped like the barricades of revolutionary Paris. Sawdust filled the air like a woody snowstorm, and in the middle of the floor, lacking most of his clothes but still bearing upon his head the charred remnants of a chefs hat, lay Young Master Robert. Neville patted away the sawdust from his shoulders and found to his amazement one lone optic full of whisky. This indeed had become a night he would long remember.

The now emboldened cowboys had risen from their shelters and were beating upon the Swan’s door. Faces appeared at the glassless windows and inane cries of “Are you all right?” and “Is anybody there?” filled the smoky air.

Neville downed his scotch and climbed over the bar to inspect the fallen figure of the Young Master, who was showing some signs of life. The patrons finally broke into the bar and came to a crowded and silent standstill about the prone figure.

“He’s all right, ain’t he?” said Mandy. “I mean he’s still breathing, ain’t he?” Neville nodded. “Sandra’s phoned for an ambulance and the fire brigade.”

A great dark mushroom cloud hung over the Flying Swan. The first brigade, who arrived in record time, on hearing that it was a pub on fire, contented themselves with half-heartedly squirting an extinguisher over the blackened yard and salvaging what unbroken bottles of drink remained for immediate consumption. The ambulance driver asked sarcastically whether Neville wanted his home number in case of further calamities that evening.

When the appliances had finally departed, dramatically ringing their bells in the hope of waking any local residents who had slept through the blast, a grim and sorry silence descended upon the Flying Swan. The cowboys drifted away like western ghosts and the onlookers who had been awakened by the excitement switched out their lights and returned to their beds.

Neville, Pooley and John Omally were all who remained behind. Neville had brought down a couple of bottles of scotch from the private stock in his wardrobe. The three sat where they could in the ruined bar sipping at their drinks and contemplating the destruction.

“Heads will roll for this,” sighed Neville, “mine in particular.”

Omally nodded thoughtfully. “Still,” he said, “at least we’ll get that new bog roof now.”

“Thanks a lot,” said Neville.

“It was a good old do though, wasn’t it,” said, Jim. “I don’t suppose the brewery would be thinking of following it up at all, I mean maybe Hawaiian Night or a Merrie England festival or something?”

Neville grinned painfully. “Somehow I doubt it.”

“You must sue that Hairy Dave,” John suggested. “Him and his hirsute brother are a danger to life and limb.”

Neville opened the second bottle of scotch. “Come to think of it,” he said, “I don’t recall any specifications for materials coming with that plan from the brewery.”

“Aha!” said John. “Then all may not be lost.”

“The poor old Swan,” said Pooley, “what a tragedy.”

“We’ve had fine times here,” said Omally.

“They’ll ruin it you know,” said Neville, “the brewery, probably turn it into a discotheque or a steak house or something. There’s nothing they like better than getting their hands on a piece of England’s heritage and thoroughly crucifying it. It’ll be fizzy beer and chicken in a basket, you wait and see.”

“We’ll get up a petition,” said Jim. “Brentonians won’t stand for any of that.”

“Won’t they though?” Neville nodded towards the broken front windows. “Look there and what do you see?”

“Nothing, the lights of the flatblocks that’s all.”

“Yes, the flatblocks. Fifteen years ago there was a whole community there, small pubs, corner shops, the pottery, streets full of families that all knew each other.”

Jim nodded sadly. “All gone now,” said he. The three men sipped silently at their drinks as the air grew heavy with nostalgic reminiscence.

Omally, always the realist, said, “There’s little use in sobbing about the good old days. When my family came over from the old country we moved in to one of them little dens where the flats now stand. I can remember them sure enough. No hot water, no bath, outside toilet that froze in the winter, rats, bedbugs, the children coughing with diptheria, great old times they were. I’ll tell you I cheered when the bulldozer pushed our old house down. Bloody good riddance I said.”

Jim smiled slightly. “And if I remember rightly the bailiffs were still chasing your lot six months after for five years’ back rent.”

Omally laughed heartily. “’Tis true,” said he, “’tis true enough, the daddy took the lot of them back home then, sure he did. ‘Back to the land John,’ said he, ‘there’s a fortune to be made in the land.’ Mad as a hatter the daddy.”

“Is he still alive your da?” said Neville.

“Oh yes, he’s that all right. I read not so long ago in the Dublin press of an old fella at eighty-six being named in a paternity suit by a sixteen-year-old convent girl, that would be the daddy right enough.”

“The Omallys are notable womanizers, that is for certain,” said Jim. “There is many a well-pleased widow woman hereabouts who will testify to that.”

Omally smiled his winning smile. “I would thank you to keep your indiscreet remarks to yourself, Jim Pooley,” said he. “I am a man of the highest principles.”

“Ha,” said Jim as he recalled the spectacle of Omally’s moonlit bum going about its hydraulic motions in Archroy’s marriage bed. “You are an unprincipled bounder, but I am proud to call you friend.”

“You are both good men,” said Neville, a tear unexpectedly forming in his good eye. “Friendship is a wonderful thing. Whatever the future holds for the Swan, I want you to know that it has always been my pleasure to serve you.”

“Come now,” said Jim, patting the part-time barman on the shoulder. “There are great days ahead, of this I am certain.”

“Forgive me this sentiment,” said Neville, “I am drunk.”

“Me also,” said John.

“I am still able to stand and must thus confess my sobriety,” said Jim, refilling his glass with the last of the whisky.

Some time later two thoroughly drunken Lone Rangers, now somewhat shabby and lacking in hats and masks, were to be found wandering in the direction of the St Mary’s allotment. “I have a little crop upon my pastures which you will find most satisfying,” the Irish Ranger told his staggering compadre. Jim was desperately hoping that the Irishman was not alluding to some supposed narcotic sproutings from the purloined bean.

The two arrived at the iron gate and stood before that rusting edifice leaning upon one another for support. “I’ve done a little deal,” grinned Omally, pulling at his lower eyelid in an obscene manner and staggering forward into the silent allotment. It was another fine moonlit night and the old selenic disc sailed above in a cloudless sky. Long jagged shadows cast by bean poles, abandoned wheelbarrows and heavily padlocked allotment sheds etched stark patterns across the strangely whitened ground.

Omally’s ambling silhouette lurched on ahead and vanished down into the dip before his plot. Jim, who had fallen to the ground upon his companion’s sudden departure, climbed shakily to his feet, tightened his bandana against the crisp night air and stumbled after him.

When he reached Omally he found the Irishman upon all fours grubbing about in the dirt. Happily he was some way from the spot where the magic bean had originally been buried.

“Aha,” said Omally suddenly, lifting a dusty bottle of Old Snakebelly into the moonlight. “Ripe as ninepence.”

“Good show,” said Jim collapsing on to his behind with a dull thud. The bottle was speedily uncorked and the two sat drawing upon it turn by turn, at peace with the world and sharing Jim’s last Woodbine. “It’s a great life though, isn’t it?” said Jim wiping the neck of the bottle upon his rented sleeve.

“It’s that to be sure.”

Pooley leant back upon his elbows and stared up wistfully towards the moon. “Sometimes I wonder,” said he.

“I know,” Omally broke in, “sometimes you wonder if there are folk like us up there wondering if there are folk like them down here.”

“Exactly,” said Jim.

Suddenly, away into the darkness and coming apparently from the direction of the Mission’s rear garden wall, the two wonderers heard a heavy if muffled thump.

“Now what do you wonder that might be?” asked John.

“Truly I have no idea, give me a drag of that Woody.” Omally passed Jim the cigarette and taking the bottle drained away a large portion of its contents. “Probably a pussycat,” said he.

“Big one though,”

“Archroy told me he once saw a giant feral torn roaming the allotment by night, the size of a tiger he said.”

“Archroy as you well know is greatly subject to flights of fancy.”

“He seemed very sincere at the time, came rushing into the Swan and ordered a large brandy.”

Pooley shifted uncomfortably on his earthy seat. “I should not wish to end my days as a pussycat’s dinner,” said he. Without warning there was a second and slightly louder thump, which was followed almost immediately by the sound of scrambling feet. “The monster moggy!” said Jim.

Omally threw himself down commando-fashion and crawled to the rim of the dip. Pooley snatched up a fallen farrowing fork and, draining the last of the bottle, stealthily followed him. Sounds of grunting and panting now drifted in their direction and were followed by a distant “squeak-squeak”.

“A giant mouse perhaps,” whispered Jim hoarsely.

“Don’t be a damn fool,” Omally replied, “there’s only one thing around here makes a noise like that, my bloody wheelbarrow.”

“Sssh!” said Jim. “It’s coming nearer.” The two lay in silence squinting lopsidedly into the gloom.

The indistinct form of a man appeared from the shadows. As it drew nearer both Pooley and Omally recognized the dark figure as that of the grizzle-chinned seafarer Captain Carson. He was dressed in a Royal Navy uniform and was pushing with some difficulty Omally’s wheelbarrow, which was weighed down heavily by two large and strangely swollen potato sacks.

He was now but ten yards away and the two hidden Rangers caught sight of the Captain’s face. It was a thing to inspire horror, the skin deathly white and glowing hideously in the moon’s septic light, the mouth turned down into an attitude of intense hatred and the eyes glazed and lifeless.

Pooley shuddered and drew his Irish chum down as the wheelbarrow and its zombiesque operator passed them at close quarters. “Something’s not right here,” said John, straightening up upon creaking knee-joints, “let’s follow him.”

Jim was doubtful. “It’s home for me,” he said.

Omally cuffed his cowardly companion. “That’s my damn wheelbarrow,” he said. Ducking low and scurrying from one hiding place to another the two thoroughly besmutted Rangers followed the ghastly figure with the squeaking wheelbarrow across the allotment.

“He’s heading for the river,” said Jim breathlessly, still grasping the farrowing fork. From a little way ahead of them came the sounds of more straining followed by two loud splashes. “I’d say he was there,” said John.

There was a squeak or two, then another loud splash. “He’s dumped my barrow, the bastard!” wailed Omally.

Jim said, “If you’ll pardon me, John, I’ll be off about my business.” He turned and blundered into a forest of bean poles.

“Duck, you fool,” whispered John, tripping over the struggling Pooley, “he’s coming back.”

The Captain appeared suddenly from the shadows of the riverside oaks. He surely must have seen the two fallen Rangers, yet his eyes showed no sign of recognition. Forward he came upon wooden legs, moving like a somnambulist, past the Rangers and back off in the direction of the Mission.

“There’s a bean pole stuck up my right trouser,” groaned Jim, “help, help, fallen man here!”

“Shut up you bally fool,” said John, flapping his arms and attempting to rise, “look there.” Pooley raised himself as best he could and stared after John’s pointing finger.

Away across the allotment a bright light shone from the Mission. Like a beacon it swept over their heads. For a fleeting moment they saw him, the silhouette of a huge man standing upon the Mission wall, his arms folded and his legs apart. Although the two saw him for only a brief second, the feeling of incontestable grandeur and of malevolent evil was totally overwhelming.

Omally crossed himself with a trembling hand.

Pooley said, “I think I am going to be sick.”