The Antipope (23 page)

“They are better left to cool awhile,” Omally informed him. “Here, have a swig.” He uncorked the bottle and passed it to Pooley.

Pooley had a swig. “Not bad,” said he. Omally watched him with interest. Pooley noticed that he was counting under his breath. “Nine, ten,” said Omally.

“Ye Gods!” croaked Pooley in a strangled voice, clutching at his throat. Sweat was appearing upon his forehead and his eyes were starting to pop.

“Creeps up on you doesn’t it?” Omally asked, grinning wickedly and taking a lesser swig from the bottle Pooley had dropped into his wisely outstretched hands.

Pooley’s nose had turned a most unpleasant shade of red and his eyes were streaming. “That definitely has the edge on Old Snakebelly,” he said when finally he found his voice, “but I feel I have the measure of it now, give me another swig.”

The two men sat awhile in the morning sunlight sharing the bottle and chewing upon Omally’s potato fritters. At length Jim said seriously, “You know, John, we really cannot keep this up much longer, we are dangerously close to the Mission and if that character does not get his Papal paws upon us then someone else is bound to observe the smoke from our fire and report our presence to the police.”

Omally nodded sombrely. “All these things have of course crossed my mind, our imposed isolation here has given us both time for reflection. For myself I am prepared to sit it out and await the Professor’s word, what of you?”

Pooley shrugged helplessly. “What can I say, I am up to my neck in it, I suppose we have little choice.”

Omally passed him the bottle once more and leant back amongst the potato sacks. “We shall not starve,” said he, “although I am afraid there is a limit to the things even I can do with a potato.”

Pooley had risen to his feet, his right hand shielding his eyes from the sunlight, and he appeared to be gazing off into the distance. “Now what do you make of that?” he asked in a puzzled voice.

Omally rose to join him. “Where?” he asked. “What are you looking at?”

Pooley pointed. “It’s like a swirl of smoke, or a little black cloud.”

Omally shielded his eyes and squinted off into the haze. There was a dark shape twisting and turning in the sky, and as he watched it grew larger and blacker.

“It’s locusts,” said Jim, “a bloody plague of locusts.”

“It’s not locusts,” Omally squealed in a terrified voice, “it’s birds, the birds from Archroy’s garden. Run for your life.”

Pooley’s feet were welded to the ground. “I can’t run,” he whimpered, “I fear that the potato gin has gone to my legs.”

“Into the shed then.” Omally grabbed his companion by the shoulders and yanked him backwards, slamming the door shut behind them. He was not a moment too soon as the screeching mass of birds covered the allotment in a whirling feathery cloud, obliterating the sun. The sound was deafening, horny bills scratched and scraped at the corrugated iron of the small hut, a thousand tiny hooked claws tore at it. Pooley’s hands found themselves once more clapped over his ears while Omally beat away at the snapping beaks which forced their way in through the cracks of the door.

“Do something, Jim,” he shouted, his voice swelling above the din. “If they get in here, there won’t be enough of you left to send home in a tobacco tin.”

Pooley took to turning about in circles, flapping his hands wildly and shouting at the top of his voice. It was a technique he had perfected as a lad and it had always served him well, when it came to getting his own way.

The birds, however, seemed unconcerned by Pooley’s behaviour and if anything their assault upon the hut became even more frenzied and violent. There was the sound of splintering wood and Omally saw to his horror that scores of tiny dents were beginning to appear on the corrugated walls. Then suddenly the attacks ceased. Pooley found himself spinning, flapping and shouting in absolute silence. The birds had gone.

“The birds have gone,” said Jim, ceasing his foolish gyrations.

“They have not,” Omally replied, “I fell for a similar trick on my first encounter with them.”

Pooley pressed his eye to a crack in the door. “I can’t see them.”

“They’ll be around, on the roof or around the back.”

“Then should we make a break for it?”

“That I would not advise.”

The two men slumped on the potato sack in the semi-darkness. It was cramped and with the sun beating down upon the roof it was also extremely hot.

“We’ll die in here for certain,” said Pooley, “suffocate we will, like rats in a trap.”

“Don’t start all that again,” said Omally, raising his fist in the darkness.

Long minutes passed; in the distance the Memorial Library clock struck ten. Several yards away from the shed Omally’s bicycle Marchant lay in its twisted wreckage, musing upon man’s inhumanity to bike and bird’s inhumanity to man. Jim struggled out of his jacket and rolled up his sleeves. “Have you any more of that potato gin?” he asked. “Only if I am going to die, I should prefer to die as I have lived, drunkenly.”

“Nobody is going to die,” Omally assured him (although to Pooley his voice had a somewhat hollow quality), “but I would appreciate it if you could be persauded to channel your enormous intellect towards some means by which we might facilitate our escape.” He pulled another bottle from the potato sack and handed it to his companion.

“You have a lovely turn of phrase, John,” said Jim, drawing the cork from the bottle and taking a large swig. He passed it back to Omally, who took a sip and returned the bottle. “How does one drive off birds, such a thing is surely not impossible?”

“A shotgun is the thing,” said Pooley, “both barrels, small shot.”

“I fear that we will have a long time to wait for a passing gamekeeper,” said John.

“We might tunnel our way out then, possibly dig down, we might even break into one of Soap’s underground workings.”

Omally tapped the concrete floor with his hobnails. “We can forget that I am thinking.”

“A scarecrow then.”

Omally stroked his chin, “I can’t really imagine a scarecrow putting the fear of God into these lads, but if you will give me a few moments I think I have an idea.”

The Memorial Library clock struck the half hour and within the small hut upon the allotment Jim Pooley stood wearing nothing but his vest and underpants. “Don’t you ever change your socks?” Omally asked, holding his nose.

Jim regarded him bitterly in the half darkness. “Are you sure this is going to work?” he asked.

“Trust me,” said Omally, “the plan is simplicity itself.”

Pooley chewed upon his lip. “It doesn’t look very much like me,” he said, “I am hardly that fat.” His remarks were addressed to the life-sized dummy Omally was fashioning from Pooley’s garments. He had knotted the sleeves and trouser bottoms and stuffed the thing with potatoes.

“We’ve got to give it a little weight,” said John. “How is the head coming?”

“Splendidly, as it happens,” said Jim. “I like to pride myself that given a turnip, which I am disgusted to find that you had secreted from me for your own personal consumption, and a penknife, I am able to model a head of such magnificence as to put the legendary Auguste Rodin to shame.” Pooley passed across his sculptured masterpiece and Omally wedged it firmly between the dummy’s shoulders. “Very nice,” he said.

“Very nice if it fools the birds.”

“It will,” said Omally. “Have some faith in me will you?”

“But what of me?” Pooley complained. “I shall be forced to run through the streets in my underwear.”

“I have thought of all that, leave it to me. Are the bottles ready?”

Pooley held up two bottles of the potato gin. They had been uncorked and gin-dampened strips of cloth torn from Jim’s shirt-tail thrust into the necks, Molotov cocktail-style.

“Better douse our good friend here,” said Omally, “we want this to work to maximum effect.” Pooley took up the last bottle and poured it over the dummy. “Right.” Omally held the dummy with one arm and made the sign of the cross with the other.

“That is very comforting,” said Jim.

“We only get one chance at this, Pooley, don’t mess it up, will you?”

Pooley shook his head. “Not I, but it seems a tragic end to a good suit.”

“I will buy you another,” said Omally.

“What with? You have no money, you are wearing my other suit.”

“You may have my Fair Isle jumper and cricket whites.”

“Bless you,” said Jim Pooley.

Omally edged open the hut door. All was still upon the allotment, the relentless sun beat down upon the parched earth and in the distance, a train rolled over the viaduct.

“Now as ever,” said Omally firmly; gripping the dummy he flung it forward with as much strength as he could muster.

There was a great ripple in the sky above the hut and down upon the dummy in a squawking, screaming cascade the birds fell in full feathered fury. Pooley struck his lighter and set flame to the strips of shirt tail.

“Throw them,” screamed Omally.

Pooley threw them.

There was a double crash, a flash and a great flaring sheet of flame engulfed the feathered hoard. Without looking back Pooley and Omally took once more to their heels and fled.

Brentford’s Olympic hope and his Irish trainer jogged around the corner into Mafeking Avenue, up the street a short way, down a back alley and through the gate into the rear yard of Jim Pooley’s house. Mrs King next door peered over the washing line at them. “People been round here asking for you Jim Pooley,” she said. “Why are you running about in your underpants?”

“He’s in training,” said Omally. “Who’s been round here asking then?”

“You mind your own business, I was talking to Mr Pooley.”

Omally smiled his winning smile. She was a fine-looking woman, he thought, how had he previously failed to make her acquaintance?

“Who has been calling,” asked Jim, “friends or what?”

“The police were here,” said Mrs King smugly, “D. I. Barker, he left his card.” She delved about in her apron pocket and pulled out a damp and crumpled card which had obviously been doing the local rounds.

“What did he want?” Jim asked innocently, accepting the card.

“Didn’t say, just said you were to notify them of your return as soon as what you did, if you see what I mean. Mind you, I’m not surprised, you’ve had this coming for years, Jim Pooley. In and out at all hours, rolling home drunk, making all that noise.”

Pooley ignored her ramblings. “Anybody else call?”

“An old man with white hair and a black coat.”

“The Professor,” said Omally.

“I wasn’t talking to you. Here, what do you think you’re looking at?”

Omally’s eyes had been wandering up and down Mrs King’s tightly fitting apron. “I was undressing you with my eyes.”

“Oh yes?”

“Yes, and that safety pin which is holding up your knickers is getting a bit rusty.”

Mrs King snarled furiously at Omally, flung down her washing and stalked off into her house, slamming the back door behind her.

“Was that wise?” Jim asked. “She’ll probably phone the police now.”

“I don’t think so,” said John, grinning lewdly, “I think she quite fancies me.”

Pooley shrugged and rolled his eyes. “Your technique is to say the least original,” said he.

The two men mounted the back staircase and disappeared in through Pooley’s kitchen door. There was little left to wear in Pooley’s wardrobe and so he was forced to don the shirt, Fair Isle sweater and cricketer’s whites left by Omally. He passed over the patent leather pumps, however, preferring to remain in his hobnails.

“A regular dude,” said Omally. Pooley remained unconvinced. “So what do we do now?” he asked.

“We might begin by a decent, if late, breakfast. What supplies have you in your larder?”

Pooley found two tins of beans, which he and Omally consumed with relish. “And now what?” he asked.

“We will just have to wait for the Professor to return.”

“Or the police.”

Omally nodded grimly. “Or the police.”

The day passed; there was little to do. Omally fiddled with the knobs on Pooley’s archaic wireless set, but raised little but static and what appeared to be a wartime broadcast. By five thirty the two men were pacing the floor like caged tigers and tempers were becoming dangerously short.

Finally Pooley could stand it no longer. “I think I will just step out to Jack Lane’s for a couple of bottles of light ale.”

Omally looked doubtful. “We had better not separate,” he said, “I will come with you.”

“Good man.”

If the atmosphere of the Flying Swan’s saloon bar was timeless, then that of Jack Lane’s was even more so. There was a positive sense of the museum about the place. No-one could recall a single change being made in the decor since 1928 when Brentford won the FA Cup and Jack Lane retired from the game to take over as landlord. “The Four Horsemen”, as the establishment was more correctly known, although none had used the name within living memory, had become a shrine to Brentford’s glorious one and a half hours upon the sacred turf of Wembley.

True, when Jack departed the game to take up the licensed trade his team lost its finest dribbler and dropped through the various divisions like a two-bob bit in a Woodbine machine. Jack himself became a kind of living monument. The faded photographs of the team he captained showed him standing erect in his broad-striped shirt, his shorts reaching nearly to his ankles and the leather ball between his feet. A close examination of these blurry mementoes revealed that Jack had changed hardly at all during the preceding fifty-odd years. Proudly he stood, his toothless face smiling and his bald head nobly reflecting the Wembley sunlight.

Now well over eighty and taking advantage of the fact, Jack held court over his cobwebbed castle, gnomelike and droll and caring nothing for the outside world and the so-called “changing times”. He had only noticed the Second World War because the noise had woken him up and he had wondered about why so many of his younger patrons had taken to the wearing of uniforms.

When Pooley and Omally sheepishly entered the saloon bar, the old gnome was perched upon his stool beside the cash drawer and eyed them with but a passing interest. “Close that door,” he mumbled, “you’re letting the weather in.”

Pooley looked at Omally, who shrugged. “He probably still thinks it’s winter.”

Pooley was going to say two bottles of pale ale please, but the words would not come. “Two pints of Large,” he said presently. Omally patted his companion on the back. The sporting ancient climbed down with difficulty from his stool and shuffled over to the pumps. Pooley recalled that it was always advisable to buy two rounds at a time in the Horsemen, as one’s thirst could not always survive the wait while Jack methodically pulled his pints.

“Better make that four pints,” said Omally, who harboured similar recollections.

Jack muttered an obscenity beneath his breath and sought two more pint glasses.

“So what’s the news then, Jack?” Omally asked cheerfully.

Jack Lane smiled and ran a ragged pullover sleeve across his nose, “News?” he said. “I haven’t heard of any news, what news should there be?”

Omally shrugged. “Just wondered, not much of interest ever gets by you.”

“You been barred from the Swan then, Omally?”

“Hardly that, just thought we’d pop in as we were passing, trade seems a little slack.” He indicated the empty bar.

“It’s early yet.” It was well known to all that Jack’s licensing hours were flexible; few entered his establishment until the hostelries they previously frequented were closing up their doors.

“We had a Lascar in last week,” said Jack struggling over with the first of the four pints. “Big buck he was, I told him, out of here I said.”

“Fascinating,” said John, “but nothing else, out of the ordinary happened recently then.”

Jack was by now halfway back towards the pumps and as Omally was on his deaf side he did not reply.

“I think we’ll be safe enough in here then,” Pooley whispered.

“Might as well settle in then,” said Omally. “It will take us a goodly number of pints to catch up upon our last few days of abstinence.”

“I will drink to that.”

By around seven, both Pooley and Omally were in an advanced state of drunkenness. They leant upon one another’s shoulders, each extolling the other’s virtues and expressing his undying friendship. It was a touching thing to behold.

“Buffoons,” muttered Jack Lane.

“I fear that nature is calling me,” said Pooley, “and in a voice of no uncertain tone.”

“I myself must confess to having overheard her urgent cries,” Omally replied.

The two men lurched up from their chairs and staggered towards the door. Jack Lane’s establishment boasted no “accommodations” and it was therefore necessary to do one’s business in the public lavvies next door. The two men stumbled out into the early evening; it seemed unwontedly dark considering the weather, and there was a definite chill in the air. Omally stared up towards the sky, there was something not quite right about it, but he was unable to make out exactly what it was.

Jim swayed in through the ever-open door of the gents and sought out the first available cubicle. He relieved himself amid much sighing and heavy breathing. “A job well done,” he said pulling the chain.

Suddenly a soft voice spoke his name. “Who’s that?” Pooley said, looking around in surprise. “John, is that you?”

Evidently it was not, because Pooley could make out the sounds of a similar bout of sighing and gasping from the next cubicle.

“James,” said the voice again; it was coming from a mesh grille beneath the water cistern.

“Good God,” said Pooley, “I have lost myself and stumbled into a confessional. Father forgive me, for I know not what I do.”

“James, listen to me.” Jim pressed his ear to the grille. “There is not much time,” whispered the voice. It was the Other Sam!

“Much time, much time for what?”

“Tonight is to be the night, the two of you must go at once to Professor Slocombe’s.”

Pooley groaned dismally. “I hardly feel up to it,” he complained, “couldn’t we put it off until tomorrow?”

The Other Sam’s voice was both harsh and urgent. “You must go at once, waste not a moment, go now and keep together.”

Pooley was about to voice further complaint but the Other Sam had gone and Omally was rattling at the door. “John,” said Jim, “John, you are not going to like what I have just heard.”

The Irishman stood swaying in the doorway supporting himself upon the doorpost. “Do not bother to relate your conversation,” he said simply, “for I have overheard every syllable.”

Pooley dragged himself up to his feet and patted his companion upon the shoulders. “The fates are against us,” he said, “we had better go.”

The two men staggered off down Mafeking Avenue, en route for the Butts Estate and Professor Slocombe’s house. At intervals Omally stopped to stare again at the night sky. “Something is definitely amiss in the heavens,” he said.

Pooley stumbled on. “I would gladly offer you my opinion,” he said, “but I fear that any increased elevation of the head might result in a catalepsy, possibly terminating in death.”

Outside the Memorial Library Pooley stopped and held up his hands. “Enough,” said he, “I can go no further.” He collapsed on to his favourite bench, breathing heavily and clutching at his heart.

Omally pulled at his shirtsleeve. “Come now, it’s only around the corner and I am sure that there will be time for a glass or three of the Professor’s whisky.”

Pooley rose unsteadily. “We must aid our noble colleague, a fine and learned old gentleman. Come Omally, let us not delay here.”

The Professor’s house was shuttered and absolutely silent. As Pooley and Omally stared at the front door the old man’s hand appeared, frantically beckoning them to enter.

The Professor bolted the door firmly behind them. The house was in darkness, lit only by the silver candelabra which the old man carried. By the flickering light Pooley could see that his face looked pale, drawn and deeply lined. He seemed to have aged terribly since they had seen him last “Are you all right, Professor?” Pooley asked in concern.

Professor Slocombe nodded impatiently. “I will be all right. What of you two, how have things been for you since last we met?”

“Oh, fine,” said Omally, “we are wanted by the police, we came within inches of being eaten alive, other than that, fine.”

The Professor led them through the ink dark corridors towards his study. “The police,” he said, “how are they involved?”

“They have found my wheelbarrow stuck in the mud at Chiswick accompanied by two corpses. They raided the Swan and were also at Pooley’s asking questions.”

By now the three men had entered the Professor’s study and the old man lit from his candelabra an assortment of candles around the room. “Fear not, John,” he said, seating himself at his desk, “I have recorded upon paper all that I know regarding this business. It has been witnessed and it is lodged in a safety-deposit box. Should I not survive this night then at least you will be safe upon that account.”

“That is pleasing to my ears,” said John, “but come now, survive this night, what can you mean by that?”

As Omally filled glasses Professor Slocombe seated himself at his desk. “Tonight,” he said, “the followers of the being who calls himself Pope Alexander VI will gather at the Seamen’s Mission to glorify their new Messiah. Tonight he will instal himself upon his Papal throne and ‘sanctify’ his ‘Holy See’. The Mission is to be his new Vatican. Tonight will be our last opportunity to stop him. Should we fail then I can see little future for any of us.”

Pooley gulped back his scotch. “But do you think we alone can stop him?”

“We must try.”

“And at what time will this mockery of the true Church take place?” Omally asked.

“A little after nine. We must lose ourselves amongst the crowd, and once we get inside you must do exactly as I say.”

Pooley refilled the glasses and looked up at the great mantelclock. It chimed eight-thirty. “We have half an hour.” He smiled, dropping back into one of the Professor’s high-backed fireside chairs.

Omally fingered the neck of the crystal decanter. “Plenty of time,” said he.

The minutes ticked slowly away. Pooley and Omally fortified themselves until the decanter was spent, and the Professor sat at his desk scribbling away with a goose-feather quill upon a length of parchment.

Omally watched the old man working. Could he really stand up to this Pope Alex? Omally felt somewhat doubtful. Certainly the Professor was full of good intentions and his knowledge of the esoteric and the occult was profound. But who knows what might be lurking within the Mission? It seemed reasonable to suppose that Pope Alex would not be unguarded. Better a more positive approach then. Something more physical than mere babblings of ancient words. Something more concrete. More concrete?

A smile crossed Omally’s face and broadened into a grin of Cheshire cat proportions. Concrete, that was the thing. Or better still, the good old half brick, always a friend in time of need.