The Antipope

14

The Flying Swan was closed for three weeks. The sun blazed down day after day, and there were all the makings of a Long Hot Summer. There was never a cloud in the sky, the boating pond in Gunnersbury Park was down a full six inches and the bed of the dried-up canal cracked and hardened into a sun-scorched jigsaw puzzle. As each evening came the air, rather than growing blessedly cool, seemed to boil, making sleep impossible. Windows were permanently open, butter melted upon grocers’ shelves and every kind of cooling apparatus gave up the ghost and ground to a standstill. The residents who nightly tilled their allotment patches watched sadly as their crops shrivelled and died. No amount of daily watering could save them, and the press had announced that water rationing was likely.

When the Swan reopened it was with little ceremony. Nothing much seemed to have changed, some portions of the bar had been half-heartedly repainted and the gents’ toilet had been rebuilt. Neville stood in his usual position polishing the glasses and occasionally dabbing at his moist brow. It was as if Cowboy Night had never taken place.

The beer pulls had been returned to their places upon the bar, but only three of them were fully functional. “I put it down to vindictiveness upon the part of the brewery,” he told Omally.

“Good to see you back though,” said the Irishman, pushing the exact money across the counter and indicating his usual.

“That one’s still off,” said Neville. “And the beer’s up a penny a pint.”

Omally sighed dismally. “These are tragic times we live in,” said he. “A half of light ale then.”

Archroy sat alone upon the sun-scorched allotment, his head gleaming like the dome of an Islamic mosque. His discarded wig hung upon the handle of a rake in the fashion of a trophy before the lodge of a great chief. Evil thoughts were brewing in Archroy’s polished cranium. It had not been his year at all: first the loss of his cherished automobile and then the disappearance of his magic beans, the decimation of his tomato crop and now the aviary. The aviary! Archroy twisted broodingly at the dried stalk of what had been a promising tomato plant and hunched his shoulders in utter despair.

Things could not continue as they were. One of them would have to go, and the accursed aviary looked a pretty permanent affair. Three weeks in the construction and built after the design of Lord Snowdon’s famous bird house, the thing towered in his back garden, overshadowing the kitchen and darkening his bedroom. Its presence had of course inspired the usual jocularity from his workmates, who had dubbed him “the bird man of Brentford”.

So far the monstrous cage had remained empty, but Archroy grew ever more apprehensive when he contemplated the kind of feathered occupants his wife was planning to house within its lofty environs. He lived in perpetual dread of that knock upon the door which would herald the delivery of a vanload of winged parasites. “I’ll do away with myself,” said Archroy. “That will show them all I mean business.” He twisted the last crackling fibres from the ruined tomato stalk and threw them into the dust. “Something dramatic, something spectacular that all the world will take notice of, I’ll show them.”

Captain Carson sat huddled under a heavy blanket in the old steamer chair on the Mission’s verandah. His eyes stared into the shimmering heat, but saw nothing. At intervals his head bobbed rhythmically as if in time to some half-forgotten sea shanty. From inside the Mission poured the sounds of industry. For on this afternoon, and in the all-conquering heat which none could escape, great changes were taking place. Timber was being sawn, hammers wielded and chisels manfully employed. The metallic reports of cold chisel upon masonry rang into the superheated air, the splintering of wormy laths and the creaking of uplifted floorboards. Major reconstruction work was in progress and was being performed apparently with robotic tirelessness.

Hairy Dave swung the five-pound club hammer wildly in the direction of the Victorian marble fireplace. The polished steel of the hammer’s head glanced across the polished mantel, raising a shower of sparks and burying itself in the plaster of the wall. Normally such an event would have signalled the summary “down tools and repair to the alehouse lads”, but Dave merely spat upon his palm and withdrew the half-submerged instrument of labour for another attempt. His thickly bearded brother stood upon a trestle, worrying at a length of picture rail with a crowbar. Neither man spoke as he went about his desperate business; here was none of the endless banter, cigarette swopping and merry whistling one associated with these two work-shy reprobates, here was only hard graft, manual labour taken to an extreme and terrifying degree.

The long hot summer’s day wore on, drawing itself into a red raw evening which turned to nightfall with a sunset that would have made the most cynical of men raise his eyes in wonder. Jim Pooley stirred from his hypnotic slumbers upon the Memorial Library bench and rose to his feet, scratching at his stomach and belching loudly. The gnawing within his torso told him that he was in need of sustenance and the evening sky told the ever-alert Jim that day had drawn to a close.

He found his cigarette packet lodged in the lining of his aged tweed jacket. One lone Woody revealed itself. “Times be hard,” said Jim to no-one in particular. He lit his final cigarette and peered up at the sprinkling of stars. “I wonder,” said he. “I wonder what Professor Slocombe is up to.”

With the coming of the tropical summer naught had been seen of the learned ancient upon the streets of Brentford. His daily perambulation about the little community’s boundaries had ceased. Pooley tried to think when he had last seen the elderly Professor and realized that it was more than a month ago, on the night of his valiant deed.

“The old fellow is probably suffering something wicked with the heat,” he told himself, “and would be grateful for an evening caller to relieve the tedium of the sultry hours.”

Pleased with the persuasiveness of this reasoning Pooley drew deeply upon his cigarette, blew a great gust of milk-white smoke into the air and crossed the carless road towards the Professor’s house.

The Butts estate hovered timelessly in its splendour. The tall Georgian house-fronts gleamed whitely in the moonlight, and the streetlamps threw stark shadows into the walled courtyards and guarded alley entrances.

Hesperus, the first star of evening, winked down as Pooley, hands in pockets, rounded the corner by the Professor’s house. The garden gate was ajar and Pooley slipped silently between the ivy-hung walls. A light glowed ahead, coming from the open French window, and Jim gravitated towards it, thoughts of the Professor’s sherry spurring him on.

It was as he reached the open windows that the sounds first reached him. Pooley halted, straining his ears, suddenly alert to a subtle unidentifiable strangeness, a curious rustling from within, a scratching clawing sound, agitated and frantic.

Pooley reached out a cautious hand towards the net curtain, and as he did so heard the scrabbling sounds increase in urgency and agitation.

There was a sudden movement, firm fingers fastened about his wrist and he was hauled forward with one deft jerk which lifted him from his feet and sent him bowling across the carpet in an untidy tangle of tweed. With a resounding thud the tumbling Pooley came to rest beneath one of the Professor’s ponderous bookcases.

“Mercy,” screamed Jim, covering his head, “James Pooley here, pacifist and friend to all.”

“Jim, my dear fellow, my apologies.”

Jim peered up warily through his fingers. “Professor?” said he.

“I am so sorry, I was expecting someone else.”

“Some welcome,” said Jim.

The ancient helped the fallen Pooley to his feet and escorted him to one of the cosy fireside chairs. He poured a glass of scotch which Pooley took in willing hands.

“That was a nifty blow you dealt me there,” said Jim.

“Dimac,” said the elder, “a crash course via the mailorder tuition of the notorious Count Dante.”

“I have heard of him,” said Jim, “deadliest man on earth they say.”

The Professor chewed at his lip. “Would it were so,” said he in an ominous tone.

Pooley downed his scotch and cast his eyes about the Professor’s study. “A noise,” he said, “as I stood at the windows, I heard a noise.”

“Indeed?”

“A scratching sound.” Pooley lifted himself upon his elbows and peered about. All seemed as ever, the clutter of thaumaturgical books, bizarre relics and brass-cogged machinery. But there in the very centre of the room, set upon a low dais which stood within a chalk-drawn pentagram, was a glass case covered with what appeared to be an altar-cloth. “Hamsters?” said Jim. “Or gerbils is it, nasty smelly wee things.”

Pooley rose to investigate but the Professor restrained him with a firm and unyielding hand. Jim marvelled at the ancient’s newly acquired strength. “Do not look, Jim,” the Professor said dramatically, “you would not care for what you saw.”

“Hamsters hold little fear for the Pooleys,” said Jim.

“Tell me,” said the Professor. “What unlikely adventures have befallen you since our last encounter?”

“Now you are asking,” said Jim and between frequent refillings of scotch he told the chuckling Professor of the excitements and diversions of Cowboy Night at the Flying Swan.

The Professor wiped at his eyes. “I heard the explosion of course.” Here the old man became suddenly sober. “There were other things abroad that night, things which are better not recalled or even hinted at.”

Pooley scratched at his ear. “Omally and I saw something that night, or thought we did, for we had both consumed a preposterous amount of good old Snakebelly.”

The Professor leant forward in his chair and fixed Jim with a glittering stare. “What did you see?” he asked in a voice of dire urgency which quite upset the sensitive Pooley.

“Well.” Pooley paused that his glass might be refilled. “It was a strange one, this I know.” Jim told his tale as best he could remember, recalling with gothic intensity the squeaking wheelbarrow and its mysterious cargo and the awesome figure upon the mission wall.

“And the bright light, had you ever seen anything like it before?”

“Never, nor wish to again.”

The Professor smiled.

“Omally crossed himself,” said Jim. “And I was taken quite poorly.”

“Ah,” said the Professor. “It is all becoming clearer by the hour. Now I have a more vivid idea of what we are dealing with.”

“I am glad somebody does,” said Jim, rattling his empty glass upon the arm of the chair. “It’s the wheelbarrow I feel sorry for.”

“Jim,” said the Professor rising from his seat and crossing slowly to the French windows where he stood gazing into the darkness. “Jim, if I were to confide in you my findings, could I rely on your complete discretion?”

“Of course.”

“That is easily said, but this would be a serious vow, no idle chinwagging.” The Professor’s tone was of such leaden seriousness that Jim hesitated a moment, wondering whether he would be better not knowing whatever it was. But as usual his natural curiosity got the upper hand and with the simple words “I swear” he irrevocably sealed his fate.

“Come then, I will show you!” The Professor strode to the covered glass case and as he did so the frantic scrabbling arose anew. Jim refilled his glass and rose unsteadily to join his host.

“I should have destroyed them, I know,” said the Professor, a trace of fear entering his voice. “But I am a man of science, and to feel that one might be standing upon the brink of discovery…” With a sudden flourish he tore the embroidered altar cloth from the glass case, revealing to Jim’s horrified eyes a sight that would haunt his sleeping hours for years to come.

Within the case, pawing at the glazed walls, were frantically moving creatures, five hideous manlike beings, six to eight inches in height. They were twisted as the gnarled roots of an ancient oak, yet in the “heads” of them rudimentary mouths opened and closed. Slime trickled from their ever-moving orifices and down over their shimmering knobbly forms.

Jim drew back in outraged horror and gagged into his hands. The Professor uttered a phrase of Latin and replaced the cloth. The frantic scratchings ceased as rapidly as they had begun.

Pooley staggered back to his chair where he sat, head in hands, sweat running free from his forehead. “What are they?” he said, his voice almost a sob. “Why do you have them here?”

“You brought them here. They are Phaseolus Satanicus, and they await their master.”

“I will have nothing of this.” Pooley dragged himself from his seat and staggered to the window. He had come here for a bite to eat, not to be assailed with graveyard nastiness. He would leave the Professor to his horrors. Jim halted in his flight. A strange sensation entered his being, as if voices called to him from the dim past, strange voices speaking in archaic accents hardly recognizable yet urgent, urgent with the fears of unthinkable horrors lurking on the very edges of darkling oblivion.

Pooley stumbled, his hands gripping at the curtain, tearing it from its hooks. Behind him the scrabbling and scratching rose anew to fever pitch, small mewings and whisperings interspersed with the awful sounds. As Pooley fell he saw before him standing in the gloom of the night garden a massive, brooding figure. It was clad in crimson and glowing with a peculiar light. The head was lost in shadows but beneath the heavy brows two bright red eyes glowed wolfishly.

When Pooley awoke he was lying sprawled across the Professor’s chaise longue, an icepack upon his head and the hellish reek of ammonia strong in his nostrils.

“Jim.” A voice came to him out of the darkness. “Jim.” Pooley brought his eyes into focus and made out the willowy form of the elderly Professor, screwing the cap on a bottle of smelling salts. He offered the half-conscious Jim yet another glass of scotch, which the invalid downed with a practised flick of the wrist. Now fully alert, Pooley jerked his head in the direction of the window. “Where is he,” he said, tearing the icepack from his forehead. “I saw him out there.”

The Professor sank into a high-backed Windsor chair. “Then he did come, I knew he would.”

The first rays of sunlight were falling through the still-open, though now curtainless, French windows. “Here,” said Pooley. “What time is it?” As if in answer the ormolu mantelclock struck five times. “I’ve been out for hours,” said Jim, holding his head, “and I do not feel at all well.”

“You had best go home to your bed,” said the Professor. “Come again tonight and we will speak of these things.”

“No,” said Pooley taking a Turkish cigarette from the polished humidor. Through force of habit he furtively thrust several more into his top pocket. “I must know of these things now.”

“As you will.” The Professor smiled darkly and drew a deep breath. “You will recall the evening when you first came to me with that single bean. You saw my reaction when I first observed it, and when later that night you brought me the other four I knew that my suspicions were justified.”

“Suspicions?”

“That the Dark One was already among us.”

Pooley lit his cigarette and collapsed into an immediate fit of coughing. “The Dark One?” he spluttered between convulsions. “Who in the name of the holies is the Dark One?”

The Professor shrugged. “If I knew exactly who he was Jim, our task would be simpler. The Dark One has existed since the dawn of time, he may take many forms and live many lives. We are lucky in one respect only, that we have observed his arrival. It is our duty to precipitate his end.”

“I know of no Dark Ones,” said Jim. “Although I do remember that several months ago the arrival of a mouldy-looking tramp caused a good degree of speculation within the saloon bar of the Flying Swan, although in truth I never saw this dismal wanderer myself.”

The Professor nodded. “You have seen him twice, once upon the allotments and again this very night within my own garden.”

“Nah,” said Pooley. “That was no tramp I saw.”

“I am certain there is a connection,” said the Professor. “All the signs are here. I have watched them for months, gathering like a storm about to break. The time, I fear, is close at hand.”

Jim sniffed suspiciously at his Turkish cigarette. “Are these lads all right?” said he. “Only they smell somewhat doubtful.”

“You are still a young man, Jim,” said the Professor. “I cannot expect you to take altogether seriously all that I say, but I swear to you that we are dealing with forces which will not be defeated by simply being ignored.”

Jim glanced distastefully towards the covered glass case. “You can hardly ignore those,” said he.

“By fire and water only may they be destroyed,” said the Professor. “By fire and water and the holy word.”

Pooley pulled at his sideburns. “I’ll put a match to the blighters,” he said valiantly.

“It is not as simple as that, it never is. These beans are the symptom, not the cause. To destroy them now would be to throw away the only hope we have of locating the evil force which brought them here.”

“I don’t like the sound of this ‘we’ you keep referring to,” said Jim.

“I want you to tell me, Jim, everything you have heard about this tramp. Every rumour, every story, anything that might give us a clue as to his motives, his power and his weaknesses.”

Pooley’s stomach made an unmentionable sound. “Professor,” said he, “I would be exceedingly grateful for some breakfast, I have not eaten for twenty-four hours. I am feeling a trifle peckish.”

“Of course.” The Professor rang the bell which summoned his musty servant. Presently a fine breakfast of heated rolls, eggs, bacon, tomatoes, coffee and toast appeared and Pooley set about it with ravenous zeal.

For the next hour thereafter Jim spoke of all he had heard regarding the mystery tramp, from Neville’s first encounter to Norman’s terrifying experiences in the Plume Café, and of the welter of theories, conjectures and speculations which had been rife in the Swan. He spoke of Soap Distant’s talk of.he Hollow Earth, omitting his own experiences within the mysterious subterranean world, and of Omally’s faerie ramblings and of those folk who held the belief that the tramp was the Wandering Jew.

The old Professor listened intently, occasionally raising his snowy eyebrow or shaking his head until finally Jim’s tale had run its course. “Fascinating,” he said at length, “quite fascinating. And you say that all those who had any personal dealings with this tramp felt an uncanny need to cross themselves?”

“As far as I can make out, but you must understand that a lot of what I have told you was heard second-hand as it were, nobody around here gives away much if they can possibly help it.”

“So much I know.”

“And so, what is to be done?”

“I think at present there is little we can do. We must be constantly on watch. Report to me with any intelligence, no matter how vague, which comes to hand. I will prepare myself as best I can, both mentally and physically. Our man is close, that is certain. You have seen him. I can sense his nearness and it is likewise with the creatures in the case. Soon he will come for them and when he does so, we must be ready.” Pooley reached out a hand towards the humidor. “Why don’t you have one of the ones in your top pocket?” asked the old Professor, smiling broadly.