The Antipope

Epilogue

Spring has come once more to Brentford. Neville the part-time barman draws the brass bolts upon the Swan’s doors and stares out into the Ealing Road. Happily, of ill-favoured tramps the street is bare. Old Pete appears from Norman’s papershop, his dog Chips at his heels. Pooley is upon his bench studying the racing papers and Omally is stirring from his nest, clutching at his hangover and muttering something in Gaelic.

Archroy has left Brentford. The patrons of the Swan got up a whip-round for him and he has gone off to America to challenge Count Dante to life-or-death combat. Sadly, when he reaches New York he will be thwarted, since the legendary Count is nearing eighty and crippled with arthritis.

Professor Slocombe still performs his daily perambulation of the village boundaries, Father Moity rarely has less than a full house come Sunday mornings and Norman is currently engaged upon a new project involving the Einstein’s unified field theory.

For all Brentford’s other citizens, life goes on very much as before. Captain Carson has retired to a cottage beside the sea, the Trust awarding him a small pension. The Mission still stands, partially rebuilt; it is ironic to note that it could never have been demolished, for Crowley’s defunct uncle had seen to it that a preservation order had been put on the place.

All in all, nothing has really changed. The events of last year have absorbed themselves into local folklore, and current conversation revolves around the newly planted crops upon the allotment.

As to what the future may hold, few can say. Those who can are keeping it pretty close to their chests.