The Antipope

4

If there were one ideal spot in Brentford for the poet to stand whilst seeking inspiration, or for the artist to set up his three-legged easel, then it would certainly not be the Canal Bridge on the Hounslow Road, which marks the lower left-hand point of the mysterious Brentford Triangle. Even potential suicides shun the place, feeling that an unsuccessful attempt might result in all sorts of nasty poisonings and unsavoury disease.

Leo Felix, Brentonian and Rastafarian, runs a used car business from the canal’s western shore. Here the cream of the snips come to stand wing to wing, gleaming with touch-up spray and plastic filler, their mileometers professionally readjusted and their “only one owner’s” inevitably proving to be either members of the clergy or little old ladies.

Norman had never owned a motor car, although there had been times when he had considered building one or even constructing a more efficient substitute for the internal combustion engine possibly fuelled upon beer-bottle tops or defunct filtertips. His wife had viewed these flights of fancy with her traditional cynicism, guffawing hideously and slapping her preposterous thighs with hands like one-pound packets of pork sausages.

Norman squinted thoughtfully down into the murky waters, finding in the rainbow swirls a dark beauty; he was well rid of that one, and that was a fact. He was at least his own master now, and with his wife gone he had left his job at the Rubber Factory to work full time in the paper shop. It’s not a bad old life if you don’t weaken, he thought to himself. A trouble shared is a trouble halved.

“And it is a long straight road that has no turning,” said a voice at Norman’s elbow.

Norman nodded. “The thought had recently crossed my mind,” he said dreamily. Suddenly he turned to stare full into the face of a shabby-looking tramp of dreadful aspect and sorry footwear.

“Sorry, did I startle you?” asked the creature with what seemed to be a voice of genuine concern. “It’s a bad habit of mine and I really must control it.”

“Oh no,” said Norman, “it is just that on a Wednesday afternoon which is my early closing day I often come down here for an hour or two of quiet solitude and rarely expect to see another soul.”

The tramp smiled respectfully. “There are times when a man must be alone,” he said.

“Exactly,” said Norman. The two gazed reflectively into the filthy waters for a moment or two. Norman’s thoughts were soft, wavering things, whose limits were easily containable within the acceptable norms of local behaviour.

The tramp’s, however, hovered in a spectrum that encompassed such dark and unfathomable colours that even to briefly contemplate their grim hues would be to trespass upon territories so ghastly and macabre that the very prospect would spell doom in any one of a dozen popular dialects.

“Can I treat you to a cup of tea along at the Plume?” the tramp asked.

Norman felt no affinity towards the tramp, but he felt strangely compelled to nod at this unexpected invitation. The two left the canal bridge and strolled up the Brentford High Street towards the Plume Café. This establishment, which stands at a point not twenty yards from the junction of Ealing Road and the High Street, can be said at times to play host to as many Brentonians as the Flying Swan itself. Those times being, of course, those when the Swan is closed.

The Plume is presided over by an enormous blonde of Peg-like proportions known to all Brentford as Lily Marlene. Why Lily Marlene is uncertain, since the sign above the door says “Proprietor Mrs Veronica Smith”. Lily presides over all with the air of a brothel madam, her expansive bosoms moving in and out of the shadows behind the counter like twin dirigibles. Whatever happened to Mrs Veronica Smith no-one has ever dared ask.

Norman swung open the shattered glass door and entered the Plume Café followed by a sinister tramp. In the gloom behind the counter, unseen by human eye, Lily Marlene made a shadowy sign of the cross.

“What will it be?” Norman asked the tramp, who had seated himself beside the window and showed no inclination whatever to do any buying.

“I shall have one of Lily’s surprising coffees I think,” the creature replied.

Norman strode to the counter. “Two coffees please, Lil,” he requested of the hovering bosoms, which withdrew into the darkness of their hangar and returned in the company of a pair of arms. These generous appendages bore at their fingers’ end a brace of coffees in the traditional glass cups. Norman paid up and carried the steaming cups back to the table.

“Cheers,” said the tramp, holding his cup up to the light and peering into its bottom.

“What are you looking for?” queried Norman.

“Aha,” the tramp said, tapping his nose significantly. “Now you are asking me a question.”

“I am,” said Norman.

“And I shall answer you,” said the tramp, “with a short tale which although brief is informative and morally satisfying.”

Norman said, “Many a mickle makes a muckle,” and it was clear that his thoughts were elsewhere.

“A friend of mine used to drink coffee, I say used to, for all I know he still does, but as I have heard neither hide nor hair of him for five years I must remain uncertain upon this point.”

Norman yawned. “Sorry,” he said, “I had a rough night.”

The tramp continued unabashed. “This friend of mine used to drink coffee in a glass cup not dissimilar to this and one day as he finished a cup do you know what he found had been slipped into it?”

“The King’s Shilling,” said Norman. “I’ve heard this story.”

“The King’s Shilling,” said the tramp, who was plainly ignoring Norman’s remarks, “He tipped it into his hand and said the fatal ‘Look at this lads’, and within a trice the pressmen were upon him.”

“I’ve had some dealings with the press myself,” said Norman.

“The pressmen were upon him and he was dragged away screaming to a waiting bungboat and thence to who knows where.”

The tramp made this last statement with such an air of sombre authenticity that his voice echoed as if coming from some dark and evil dungeon. Norman, who was lining up another sarcastic comment, held his counsel.

“You said just now that you had heard the story,” said the tramp in a leaden tone.

“Did I?” said Norman, perspiring freely about the brow. “I don’t think I did.”

“You did.”

“Oh.”

“Then let me put you straight on this, Norman.” Norman did not recall telling the tramp his name, and this added to his growing unease. “Let it be known to you that this story, which although brief was in its way informative and morally satisfying, was a true and authentic tale involving a personal acquaintance of mine and let no other man, be he living, dead or whatever say otherwise!”

Norman fingered his collar, which had grown suddenly tight. “I wouldn’t,” he said in a voice of tortured conviction. “Not me.”

“Good,” said the tramp. Leaning forward across the table he stared hard into Norman’s eyes much in the manner of a cobra mesmerizing a rabbit. Norman prepared his nostrils to receive the ghastly reek of dereliction and wretchedness generally associated with the ill-washed brotherhood of the highway. Strangely no such stench assailed his delicate nasal apparatus, rather a soft yet strangely haunting odour, one that Norman could not quite put a name or place to. The scent touched a nerve of recollection somewhere in his past, and he felt a cold shudder creeping up his backbone.

Norman became transfixed. The tramp’s eyes, two red dots, seemed to swell and expand, filling all the Plume Café, engulfing even Lily’s giant breasts. Two huge red suns glittering and glowing, gleaming with strange and hideous fires. Awesome and horrendous, they devoured Norman, scorching him and shrivelling him to a blackened crisp. He could feel his clothes crackling in the heat, the skin blistering from his hands and the nails peeling back to reveal blackening stumps of bone. The glass melted from his wristwatch and Mickey’s face puckered and vanished in the all-consuming furnace. Norman knew that he was dead, that his wife had slipped from his grasp and that he was far, far away watching this destruction of his human form from some place of safety. Yet he was also there, there in that blazing skeleton, there inside the warped and shrinking skull watching and watching.

“Are you going to drink these coffees or shall I pour them down the sink?” said Lily Marlene.

Norman shook himself awake with a start. The tramp had gone and the two coffees were cold and undrunk. He looked at his watch; Mickey’s head nodded to and fro as it always had. It was nearing five-thirty p.m. An hour had passed since he had entered the Plume.

“Where did the tramp go?” asked Norman.

“I don’t know anything about any tramp,” said Lily. “All I know is you buy two cups of coffee then fall asleep and let them go cold. Reckon if you want to sleep it off you can do it as well in your own bed as here, so bugger off home, will you Norman?”

Norman rose shakily from his seat. “I think I shall go round to the Flying Swan instead,” he said. “For still waters run deep, you know.”

“And it never rains but it bloody buckets down,” Lily called facetiously after the receding figure.

Neville the part-time barman drew the bolts upon the saloon bar door and swung it open. Nervously he stuck his head out and sniffed the early evening air; it smelt pretty much as it always did. He sniffed it a few more times for good measure. Neville believed strongly that a lot more went on in the air than was generally understood by man. “Dogs have the way of it,” he had often said. “Dogs and a few gifted men. It is more than just pee on a post,” he had told Omally. “Dogs sense with their noses rather than simply smell with them.”

This line of conversation was a bit out of Omally’s range, but he thought he recalled a joke about a dog with no nose. “A dog is a wise animal, that much I know,” said the Irishman. “Back in the old country few men would venture out of doors of a night without a dog at their heels. The faithful fellow would sit at his master’s elbow the evening, and if in the course of conversation the master felt the need for a bit of support he would nudge his dog and the animal, who would have been following every word, would assist him.”

It was always remarkable to Neville that at times when Omally was stuck for something to say he would simply resort to the first thing that came into his head no matter how thoroughly absurd it might be. “You are saying that the dog would advise his master, then?” said the long-suffering part-time barman.

“Heavens no,” said Omally. “The dear creature would simply go for the other fellow’s throat thus cutting short any chance of his master losing the argument.”

As Neville stood in the pub doorway, sniffing the air and thinking to discern the possibility of snow, his eyes were treated to a spectacle which spelt dread.

Norman was stumbling towards the Flying Swan crossing himself wildly and reciting the rosary.

“Oh no,” groaned the part-time barman. He dropped the notice that he had painted that very afternoon, fled behind the counter and lunged at the whisky optic. Norman entered the Flying Swan at a trot and tripped immediately upon a newly painted notice which read NO TRAMPS. Picking this up in the trembling fingers he too said, “Oh no!”

Neville anticipated the shopman’s request and thrust another glass beneath the optic. “Evening Norman,” he said in a restrained voice, “how are things with you?”

“Did you paint this sign, Neville!” Norman demanded. Neville nodded. “Give me a…” Neville pushed the glass across the counter. “Oh yes, that’s the one.”

Norman drained the glass with one gulp. Pausing to feel the life-giving liquid flowing down and about his insides Norman said slowly, “You know, don’t you?”

“Know?” said Neville with some degree of hesitation.

“About the tramp, you’ve seen him too, haven’t you?” Neville nodded again. “Thank God,” Norman said, “I thought I was going mad.”

The part-time barman drew off two more scotches and the two men drank in silence, one either side of the bar. “I was up on the canal bridge,” said Norman and began to relate his story. Neville listened carefully as the tale unfolded, only nodding thoughtfully here and there and making the occasional remark such as “The King’s Shilling, eh?” and “Strange and pungent odour eh?” by way of punctuation.

Norman paused to take another gulp of whisky. Neville was taking careful stock of how many were being drunk and would shortly call the shopkeeper to account. “And the next thing, you looked up and he was gone,” prompted the part-time barman.

Norman nodded. “Gone without a by your leave or kiss my ankle. I wonder who on earth he might be?”

“Who who might be?” The voice belonged to James Pooley, whose carefully calculated betting system had until five minutes previous been putting the wind up the local bookie.

“How did the afternoon go for you, Jim?” asked Neville. Pooley shook his head dismally. “I was doing another six-horse special and was up to £150,000 by the fifth and what do you know?”

Neville said, “Your sixth horse chose to go the pretty way round?”

“’Tis true,” said the blighted Knight of the Turf.

Neville pulled a pint of Large and Jim pushed the exact amount in odd pennies and halfpennies across the bar top. Neville scooped this up and tossed it without counting into the till. This was an error on his part, for the exact amount this time included three metal tokens from the New Inn’s fruit machine and an old washer Jim had been trying to pass for the last six months.

Jim watched his money vanish into the till with some degree of surprise – things must be pretty bad with Neville, he thought. Suddenly he caught sight of the NO TRAMPS sign lying upon the bar top. “Don’t tell me,” he said, “Your tramp has returned.”

Neville threw an alarmed and involuntary glance from the sign to the open door. “He has not,” said the barman, “but Norman has also had an encounter with the wretch.”

“And Archroy,” said Jim.

“What?” said Neville and Norman together.

“On his allotment last night, quizzed him over some lucky beans his evil wife took in exchange for his Morris Minor.”

“Ah,” said Norman, “I saw that same Morris Minor on Leo’s forecourt this very afternoon.”

“All roads lead to Rome,” said Jim, which Norman found most infuriating.

“About the tramp,” said Neville, “what did Archroy say about him?”

“Seemed he was interested in Omally’s allotment patch.”

“There is certainly something more than odd about this tramp,” said Norman. “I wonder if anybody else has seen him?”

Pooley stroked his chin. If there was one thing he liked, it was a really good mystery. Not of the Agatha Christie variety you understand, Jim’s love was for the cosmic mystery. Many of the more famous ones he had solved with very little difficulty. Regarding the tramp, he had already come to a conclusion. “He is a wandering Jew,” he said.

“Are you serious?” said Norman.

“Certainly,” said Pooley. “And Omally who is by his birth a Catholic will back me up on this – the Wandering Jew was said to have spat upon Our Lord at the time of the Passion and been cursed to wander the planet for ever awaiting Christ’s return, at which time he would be given a chance to apologize.”

“And you think that this Jew is currently doing his wandering through Brentford?”

“Why not? In two thousand years he must have covered most of the globe; he’s bound to turn up here sooner or later.”

“Why doesn’t he come forward to authenticate the Turin shroud then?” said Neville.

The other two turned cynical eyes on him. “Would you?”

“Do you realize then,” said Neville, who was suddenly warming to the idea, “that if he is the Wandering Jew, well we have met a man who once stared upon Jesus.”

There was a reverent silence, each man momentarily alone with his thoughts. Norman and Neville both recalled how they had felt the need to cross themselves; this seemed to reinforce their conviction that Jim Pooley might have struck the nail firmly upon the proverbial head. It was a staggering proposition. Norman was the first to find his voice. “No,” he said shortly, “those eyes never looked upon Christ, although they may certainly have looked upon…”

“God save all here,” said John Omally, striding into the Swan. Somehow the talkers at the bar had formed themselves into what appeared to be a conspiratorial huddle. “Hello,” said John, “plotting the downfall of the English is it I hope?”

“We were discussing the Wandering Jew,” said Pooley.

“Gracious,” said John “and were you now, certainly there’d be a penny or two to be made in the meeting up with that fellow.” The shifting eyes put Omally upon the alert. “He’s not been in and I’ve bloody well missed him?”

“Not exactly,” said Neville.

“Not exactly is it, well let me tell you my dear fellow that if you see him lurking hereabouts you tell him that John Vincent Omally of Moby Dick Terrace would like a word in his kosher shell-like.”

Neville pulled Omally a pint of Large and accepted the exact coinage from the Irishman; upon cashing up the sum he discovered Jim’s washer. Jim, observing this, excused himself and went to the toilet. Shrugging hopelessly the part-time barman took up his NO TRAMPS sign and crossed the bar. Before the open door he hesitated. His mind was performing rapid calculations.

If this tramp was the Wandering Jew maybe he could be persuaded to… well some business proposition, he would most certainly have seen a few rare old sights, a walking history book, why a man with a literary leaning, himself for instance, could come to some arrangement. This Jew might have personal reminiscences of, well, Shakespeare, Napoleon, Beethoven, he might have strolled around the Great Exhibition of 1851, rubbed shoulders with Queen Victoria, met Attila the Hun (not at the Great Exhibition, of course). The list was endless, there would surely be a great many pennies to be had, as Omally said. Neville fingered the painted sign. The tramp certainly carried with him an aura of great evil. Maybe if he was the Jew he would kill anyone who suspected him, he had nothing to lose. Christ’s second coming might be centuries off, what were a few corpses along the way. Maybe he didn’t want redemption anyway, maybe… But it was all too much, Neville gritted his teeth and hung the sign up at the saloon bar door. Jew or no Jew, he wanted no part whatever of the mystery tramp.

Alone in the privacy of the gents, Jim Pooley’s head harboured similar thoughts to those of Neville’s; Jim however had not had personal contact with the tramp and could feel only a good healthy yearning to make a few pennies out of what was after all his theory. It would be necessary, however, to divert Omally’s thoughts from this; in fact it would be best for one and all if the Irishman never got to hear about the tramp at all. After all Omally was a little greedy when it came to the making of pennies and he might not share whatever knowledge came his way. Pooley would make a few discreet enquiries round and about; others must have seen the tramp. He could quiz Archroy more thoroughly, he’d be there now on his allotment.

Pooley left the gents and rejoined Norman at the bar. “Where is John Omally?” he asked, eyeing the Irishman’s empty glass.

“I was telling him about the tramp,” said Norman, “and he left in a hurry to speak to Archroy.”

“Damn,” said Jim Pooley, “I mean, oh really, well I think I’ll take a stroll down that way myself and sniff the air.”

“There’s a great deal more to sniffing the air than one might realize,” said Neville, informatively.

But Jim Pooley had left the bar and naught was to be seen of his passing but foam sliding down a hastily emptied pint glass and a pub door that swung silently to and fro upon its hinge. A pub door that now lacked a NO TRAMPS sign.

“If our man the Jew is wandering hereabouts,” said Jim to himself upon spying it, “there is no point in discouraging the arrival of the goose that may just be about to lay the proverbial golden egg.”

Norman would have cried if he’d heard that one.

Archroy stood alone upon his allotment patch, pipe jammed firmly between his teeth and grey swirls of smoke escaping the bowl at regulated intervals. His thumbs were clasped into his waistcoat pockets and there was a purposeful set to his features. Archroy was lost in thought. The sun sinking behind the chemical factory painted his features with a ruddy hue, the naturally anaemic Archroy appearing for once to look in the peak of health. Sighing heavily he withdrew from his pockets the five magic beans. Turning them again and again in his hand he wondered at their appearance.

They certainly were, how had the tramp put it, beans of great singularity. Of their shape, it could be said that they were irregular. Certainly but for their hue and texture they presented few similarities. There was a tropical look to them; they seemed also if held in certain lights to show some slight signs of luminescence.

Yes they were singular beans indeed, but magic? The tramp had hinted that the term was somewhat open-ended to say the least. Beanstalk material perhaps? That was too obvious, thought Archroy, some other magic quality then? Could these beans cure leprosy, impassion virgins, bestow immortality? Could beans such as these unburden a man of a suspect spouse?

Archroy held up the largest of the beans and squinted at it in perplexity. Surely it was slightly larger, slightly better formed than it had been upon his last inspection. He knelt down and placed the beans in a row upon the top of his tobacco tin. “Well I never did,” said Archroy, “now there is a thing.”

Suddenly Archroy remembered a science fiction film he had seen on the television at the New Inn. These seed pods came down from outer space and grew into people, then while you were asleep they took over your mind. He had never understood what had happened to the real people when their duplicates took over. Still, it had been a good film and it made him feel rather uneasy. He examined each bean in turn. None resembled him in the least, except for one that had a bit on it that looked a little like the lobe of his right ear. “Good Lord,” said Archroy, “say it isn’t true.”

“It’s not true,” said John Omally, who was developing a useful knack of sneaking up on folk.

“John,” said Archroy, who had seen Omally coming, “how much would you give me for five magic beans?”

Omally took up one of the suspect items and turned it on his palm. “Have you as yet discovered in what way their magic properties manifest themselves?”

“Sadly no,” said Archroy, “I fear that I may not have the time to develop the proposition to any satisfactory extent, being an individual sorely put upon by the fates to the degree that I have hardly a minute to myself nowadays.”

“That is a great shame,” said John, who knew a rat when somebody thrust one up his nose for a sniff. “Their value I feel would be greatly enhanced if their use could be determined. In their present state I doubt that they are worth more than the price of a pint.”

Archroy sniffed disdainfully, his trusty Morris Minor exchanged for the price of a pint, the injustice of it. “I have a feeling that large things may be expected of these beans, great oaks from little acorns as it were.”

“There is little of the acorn in these beans,” said Omally. “More of the mango, I think, or possibly the Amazonian sprout.”

“Exotic fruit and veg are always at a premium,” said Archroy. “Especially when home grown, on an allotment such as this perhaps.”

Omally nodded thoughtfully. “I will tell you what I will do Archroy,” said he. “We will go down to my plot, select a likely spot and there under your supervision we shall plant one of these magic beans, we will nurture it with loving care, water it when we think fit and generally pamper its growth until we see what develops. We will both take this moment a solemn vow that neither of us will uproot it or tamper with it in any way and that whatever should appear will be split fifty-fifty should it prove profitable.”

Archroy said, “I feel that you will have the better half of the deal, Omally, although I am sure that this is unintentional upon your part and that you act purely out of a spirit of friendship and cameraderie.”

“The beans are certainly worthless at this moment,” said Omally ingeniously. “And the responsibility of what grows upon an allotment is solely that of the tenant. What for instance if your beans prove to be the seeds of some forbidden and illegal drug or some poison cactus, will you take half the responsibility then?”

Archroy thought for a moment. “Let us not talk of such depressing things, rather let us enter into this venture with the spirit of enterprise and the hope of fine things to come.”

Omally shook his companion by the hand and the two swore a great covenant that fell only slightly short of blood brotherhood. Without further ado they strode to Omally’s plot, selected a space which they marked with a bean pole, and planted the magic bean.

“We shall water it tomorrow night,” said Omally, “then together watch its progress. This project must be maintained in total secrecy,” he added, tapping his nose significantly. “Come now, let us adjourn to my rooms and drink a toast to our success, there is something I should like to discuss with you in private.”

Jim Pooley watched the two botanical conspirators vanish into the distance from his nest in the long grass. Emerging stiffly, stretching his legs and twisting his neck, he drew himself erect. With many furtive sideways glances, stealthily he stole over to Omally’s plot and dug up the magic bean, which he wiped clean of dirt and secreted in his coat pocket. With devious care he selected a seed potato from the sack at Omally’s shed door and planted this in the place of the bean, erasing all traces of his treachery with a practised hand.

Then with a melodramatic chuckle and light feet Jim Pooley departed the St Mary’s Allotment.