East of Ealing

8

Brentford’s only cinema, the Electric Alhambra, had closed its doors upon an indifferent public some fifty years ago. The canny Brentonians had shunned it from the word go, realizing that moving pictures were nothing more than a flash in the pan. Miraculously, the building had remained intact, playing host to a succession of small industries which had sprung up like mushrooms and died like mayflies. The last occupier, a Mr Doveston, Purveyor of Steam-Driven Appliances to the Aristocracy, had weathered it out for a full five years before burning his headed notepaper and vanishing with the smoke.

Now the crumbling edifice, about the size of the average scout hut and still sporting its original mock rococo stuccoed facade, was left once more alone with its memories. The projection room, which had served as governor’s office to many a down at heel entrepreneur, now deprived of its desks and filing cabinets, suddenly took to itself once more. With the collapse of some lop-sided partitions, the old and pitted screen made a reappearance. But for the lack of seating and the scattered debris littering the floor, the ancient cinema emerged, a musty phoenix from its fifty-year hibernation.

The “Sold” notice was up out front and rumour had it that the dreaded Lateinos and Romiith had the place earmarked for redevelopment. A light evening breeze rattled a corrugated iron shutter upon a glassless window, and something that looked very much like a giant feral tom stole across the floor. In the eaves a bat awoke and whistled something in an unknown dialect.

A gaunt and fragile shadow fell across an expanse of littered linoleum and a pale hand moved into a patch of light. Ghostly fingers drew away a cowled hood, revealing a head of pure white hair, an expanse of pallid forehead, and two eyes which glowed pinkly in the failing light. Surely we have seen this pale hand before? Known the Jason’s fleece of snowy hair, and marvelled at the flesh coloured eyes? Can this be he who now dwells beneath, shunning the realm of sunlight and changing seasons? He who tills the subterranean waters in his search for Shamballa and its legendary dwellers in that world of forever night? Yes, there can be no doubt. The name of this seeker after the hidden truths below is well known to the folk of Brentford.

Soap Distant, it is he.

Soap spat his roll-up from between his teeth and ground it to oblivion beneath a boot-heel. He scrutinized the luminous chronometer upon his wrist and said, “Ten thirty-two. They’ll be a while yet.” He paced slowly to and fro, his shadow clattering soundlessly along the corrugated shutters to merge with the blackness as he moved beyond the range of the limited illumination. At length, his chronometer chimed the three-quarter hour, and Soap ceased his pacing. From without came sounds of approaching feet. Harsh footfalls echoing along the deserted street, accompanied by the sounds of foolish giggling and the occasional bout of coughing. “Pissed again,” said Soap to himself, “but no matter.”

The inebriated couple, one with a fat eye and the other sleeveless, came to a halt outside the cinema, and Soap could make out snatches of conversation that penetrated the numerous cracks in the wall.

“Who’s on then?” asked a voice. “Where’s my opener?”

“William S. Hart,” said another. “Open it with your teeth.”

“I never could abide that body’s hat. I was always an Elmo Lincoln man myself. Christ, there goes a filling. You’ve got my opener, I remember you borrowing it.”

“I gave it back. Stand aside man, I need a quick jimmy.”

“Not in my doorway!” Soap threw open the shattered glass door to admit a stumbling Jim Pooley, flies gaping.

“By the grave,” said that man.

“By the roadside, but not in my doorway.”

Omally squinted towards the dark void which had suddenly swallowed up his companion. “Soap?” said he. “Soap Distant? I know that voice.”

“Come in out of the night, and pick your friend up.”

Omally bumbled in and Soap slammed shut the door upon the Brentford night and, as far as John and Jim were concerned, life as they had once known it.

“Where’s the bog?” wailed Pooley, struggling to his feet.

“Stick it out through a crack in the wall and be done.”

Pooley did so.

“How would you two care to make thirty quid for a swift half-hour’s work?” Soap asked when Jim had finished his micturition.

Omally was about to say “Each?” but after his experiences this day he thought better of it. “I think that we would be very grateful,” he said. “This has been a bad day for us both, financially.”

“If it is decorating,” said Jim, “I do not feel that half an hour will be sufficient.”

“It is not decorating, it is a little matter, below.”

“Below… ah, well now.” Both Pooley and Omally had in chapters past had very bad experiences “below”.

“Are you sure this is safe?” queried Omally.

“As houses.”

Pooley was more than doubtful. Sudden chill memories of former times spent beneath the surface of the globe flooded over him in an icy-black tide. “You can have my half, John,” he said, “I think I’ll get an early night in.”

“It will take the two of you I am afraid.” Soap raised his palms in the gloom. “It is a simple matter. One man cannot move an object, three men can.”

“Things are rarely as simple as they at first appear,” said Pooley with a wisdom older than his years.

“Come below then.”

With that, a thin line of wan light appeared in the centre of the floor, growing to a pale square illuminating a flight of stairs. Soap led the way down. “Follow me,” he said gaily.

Pooley sucked upon a knuckle and, like the now legendary musical turn, dilly-dallied on the way. Omally nudged him in the back. “Thirty quid,” he said.

Soap’s newly-hired work-force followed him down the stairway, and above them the trapdoor slammed shut with what is referred to in condemned circles as a “death-cell finality”. The stairway, as might be imagined, led ever down, its passageway hewn from the living rock. At length it unexpectedly debouched into a pleasant looking sitting-room, furnished with a pale green Waterford settee and matching armchairs, and decorated with Laura Ashley wallpaper. “Nice, eh?” said Soap as he divested himself of his ankle-length cloak to reveal a natty line in three-piece tweed wear.

“Very,” said John. “And the Russell Flints?” He pointed to a brace of pictures which hung above the hearth. “No expense spared.”

“A gift from Professor Slocombe,” said Soap.

Pooley, who had a definite sway on, sank into a comfortable armchair.

“We have a couple of bottles of brown with us,” said John. “If you have an opener?”

“It’s a bit close down here.” Pooley fanned at his brow.

“It was a bit close down that hole today, wasn’t it Jim?” Soap popped the stoppers from the bottles and ignored Pooley’s similarly popping eyes.

“How did you know?”

“There’s not much that goes on beneath ground level that I don’t know something of. Those buggers from Lateinos and Romiith have been making my life a misery lately, sinking their damned foundations every which way about the parish.”

“Progress,” said Pooley in a doomed tone.

“Some say,” said Soap. “Listen now, let us dispense with brown ale. I have some home-brewed mushroom brandy which I think you might find interesting.”

“That would be a challenge.”

“’Tis done then.”

Something over an hour later, three very drunken men were to be found some three miles beneath the surface of planet Earth a-rowing in a leathern coracle over a stretch of ink-black subterranean water.

“Where are we?” asked an Irish surface-dweller.

“Below the very heart of London.”

“I don’t recognize it.”

The splish-splash of the oars echoed about the vast cavern, eventually losing itself in the endless silence of the pit.

“How do you know which way we’re going?”

Soap pointed to his luminous watch. “Lodestone,” he said informatively.

“Oh, that lad.”

“There,” said Soap suddenly. “Dead ahead, land ho.”

Before them in the distance an island loomed and as they drew nearer, the makings of a mausoleum wrought in marble, very much after the style of the Albert Memorial, made itself apparent.

“What is it?” Omally asked. “King Arthur’s tomb, don’t tell me.” Soap tapped at his all but transparent nose. The coracle beached upon the shoreline and Soap stepped out to secure it to a frescoed pillar. The two inebriate sub-earth travellers shrugged and followed the pale man as he strode forward. “It was never like this for Jerome K Jerome,” said Pooley.

The strange edifice was, if anything, a work of inspiration. Marble pilasters, cunningly wrought with carved tracery-work, soared upwards to dwindle into a high-domed ceiling which glittered with golden mosaic. Above, tapering gothic spires lost themselves in the darkness.

“Here it is,” said Soap. The two wonderers halted in their tracks. In the very centre of this Victorian folly stood something so totally out of place as to take the breath from their lungs. It was a cylinder of bright sparkling metal, but it was of no metal that any man of Earth had yet seen. It glistened with an oily sheen and swam through a spectrum of colours, reflecting mirror-like. A broad panel of what might have been glass, but probably was not, lay set into a section of the cylinder’s apparent lid, and it was over this that the three visitors to this sunken marvel craned their necks.

“Strike me down,” said Jim Pooley.

“By Michael and the other lads,” said John Omally.

“Good, eh?” said Soap Distant.

“But who is he?”

Beneath the glazed panel, reclining upon satin cushioning, his head upon a linen pillow, lay the body of a man. He was of indeterminate age, his hair jet-black and combed away behind his ears. He had high cheek-bones and a great hawk of a nose. The face bore an indefinable grandeur, one of ancient aristocracy. From what was immediately visible, he appeared to be wearing a high wing-collared shirt, dark tie affixed with a crested stud, and a silken dressing-gown.

“He seems, almost, well, alive,” said Omally.

Soap pointed towards the gowned chest, and it could be clearly observed that it slowly rose and fell. “Indubitably,” said he.

“But this thing? Who built it and why?”

“Best thing is to up the lid and ask him.”

Pooley had more than a few doubts upon this score. “He looks pretty peaceful to me,” he said. “Best to leave him alone. No business of ours this.”

“I think somehow that it is,” said Soap, and his tone left little doubt that he did.

“This thing doesn’t belong,” said Omally. “It is all wrong. Victorian mausoleum all well and good, but this? This is no product of our age even.”

“Herein lies the mystery,” said Soap. “Give us a hand then, thirty quid for a quick heave.”

Pooley shook his head so vigorously that it made him more dizzy than he already was. “I think not, Soap. We are tampering with something which is none of our business. Only sorrow will come out of it, mark my words. ‘He that diggeth a pit will fall…”

“I know all that,” said Soap. “Kindly take hold of the top end. I had it giving a little.”

“Not me,” said Jim, folding his arms.

“Jim,” said John. “Do you know the way back?”

“That way.” Pooley pointed variously about.

“I see. And do you think that Soap will guide us if we do not assist him?”

“Well, I…”

“Top end,” said Soap. “I had it giving a little.”

The three men applied themselves to the lid of the glistening cylinder, and amidst much grunting, puffing, and cursing, there was a sharp click, a sudden rushing of air, and a metallic clang as the object of their efforts tumbled aside to fall upon the marble flooring of the outré construction. Three faces appeared once more over the rim of the metal sarcophagus.

The gaunt man lay corpse-like but for his gently-heaving chest; his face was placid and without expression. Then suddenly the eyelids snapped wide, the lips opened to draw in a great gulp of air and the chest rose higher than before. A cry arose from his mouth and three faces ducked away to reappear as a trinity of Chads, noses crooked above the coffin’s edge. The occupant stretched up his arms and yawned loudly. His eyes flickered wildly about. He snatched at the coffin’s side, and drew himself up.

He caught sight of the three now-cowering men, and a look of perplexity clouded his face. “What year is this?” he demanded.

Omally volunteered the information.

“Too early, you have broken the seal.”

“Told you,” said Jim. “Leave well enough alone I said. But does anybody ever listen to me, do they…?”

“Shut up,” said Soap, “and kindly give me a hand.” With the aid of Omally he helped the bemused-looking man in the dressing-gown up from the steely cylinder and into the upright position. “Are you feeling yourself now?” The tall man, as now he revealed himself to be, did not reply, but simply stood stretching his limbs and shaking his head. “Come quickly now,” said Soap. “We must take him at once to Professor Slocombe.”

The journey back was to say the very least uneventful. The gaunt man in the dressing-gown sat staring into space while Omally, under Soap’s direction, applied himself to the oars. Pooley, who had by now given up the ghost, slept soundly; his dreams full of six-horse accumulators coming up at stupendous odds and rocketing him into the super-dooper tax bracket. Of a sudden, these dreams dissolved as Omally dug him firmly in the ribs and said, “We are going up.”

They made a strange procession through Brentford’s night-time streets. The pale ghost of a man, now once more clad in a cloak and hood, leading a striking figure in a silk dressing-gown, and followed by two stumbling, drunken bums. Vile Tony Watkins who ran the Nocturnal Street Cleaning truck watched them pass, and a few swear words of his own invention slipped from between his dumb lips.

As the four men entered the sweeping tree-lined drive which swept into the Butts Estate, one lone light glowed in the distance, shining from Professor Slocombe’s ever-open French windows.

The odd party finally paused before the Professor’s garden door and Omally pressed his hand to the bolt. Through the open windows all could view the venerable scholar as he bent low over the manuscripts and priceless books. As they drew nearer he set his quill pen aside and turned to greet them.

“So,” said he, rising with difficulty from his leather chair. “Visitors at such a late hour. And to what do I owe the pleasure?”

“Sorry to interrupt your work,” said Omally, who was now at the vanguard. “But we have, well, how shall I put it…?”

The tall man in the dressing-gown thrust his way past Omally and stood framed in the doorway. A broad smile suddenly broke out upon his bleak countenance. “Professor,” said he. “We meet again.”

“My word,” said the other. “This is a most pleasant if unexpected surprise.”

The tall man stepped forward and wrung the ancient’s hand between his own.

“You mean you know who he is?” asked Omally incredulously. Pooley was supporting himself upon the door-frame.

“Have you not been formally introduced?” enquired the Professor. Omally shook his head.

“Then allow me to do the honours. Soap Distant, John Omally, Jim Pooley, gentlemen, it is my pleasure to present Mr Sherlock Holmes, formerly of 22b Baker Street.”

“Your servant,” said that very man.