The Antipope

5

Professor Slocombe lived in a large rambling Georgian house on Brentford’s Butts Estate. The house had been the property of the Slocombes through numerous generations and the professor’s ancestry could be traced back to Brentford’s earliest inhabitants. Therefore the Professor, whose string of doctorates, master’s degrees and obscure testimonials ran in letters after his name like some Einsteinian calculation, had a deep and profound love for the place. He had produced privately a vast tome entitled:

THE COMPLETE AND ABSOLUTE HISTORY OF BRENTFORD

Being a study of the various unusual and extradictionary circumstances that have prevailed throughout History and which have in their way contributed to the unique visual and asthetic aspects inherent in both landscape and people of this locality. Giving also especial reference to religious dogma, racial type, ethnic groupings and vegetation indigenous to the area.

The Professor was constantly revising this mighty volume. His researches had of late taken him into uncharted regions of the occult and the esoteric. Most of the Professor’s time was spent in his study, his private library rivalling that of the Bodleian. Showcases packed with strange objects lined the walls, working models of da Vinciesque flying machines, stuffed beasts of mythical origin, brass astrolabes, charts of the heavens, rows of apothecary jars, pickled homunculi and dried mandragora lined each available inch of shelf space and spilled off into every corner, nook and cranny. The whole effect was one to summon up visions of medieval alchemists bent over their seething cauldrons in search of the philosopher’s stone. The professor himself was white-haired and decrepit, walking only with the aid of an ivory-topped cane. His eyes, however, glittered with a fierce and vibrant energy.

Fulfilling as he did the role of ornamental hermit, the Professor made one daily appearance upon the streets of Brentford. This ritual was accompanied by much ceremony and involved him making a slow perambulation about Brentford’s boundaries. Clad on even the warmest of days in a striking black coat with astrakhan collar, his white hair streaming behind him, this venerable gentleman trod his weary morning path, never a pace out of step with that of the day previous.

Jim Pooley said that should this phenomenon cease, like the ravens leaving the Tower of London, it would spell doom and no good whatever to this sceptred isle. Jim was a regular visitor to the Professor, acting as he did as self-appointed gardener, and held the aged person in great reverence.

He had once taught the Professor to play darts, reasoning that excellence in this particular form of pub sport was entirely the product of skill and much practice, both of which Jim had to a high degree. He had explained the rules and handed the Professor a set of darts. The old man had taken one or two wild throws at the board with little success. Then, pausing for a moment, he took several snippings from the flights with a pair of nail scissors, licked the points and proceeded to beat Jim Pooley, one of the Swan’s most eminent dart players, to the tune of £10. Pooley assumed that he had either become subject to some subtle form of hypnosis or that the Professor was a master of telekinesis. What ever the case the Professor earned Jim’s undying admiration. He did not even resent the loss of the £10, because he was never a man to undervalue education.

This particular warm spring evening the Professor sat at his desk examining a crumbling copy of the Necronomicon through an oversized magnifying glass. A soft breeze rustled amongst the honeysuckle which encircled the open French windows and from not far off the Memorial Library clock struck eight o’clock.

The Professor made several jottings in a school exercise book and without looking up said, “Are you going to skulk about out there all evening, Jim Pooley, or will you join me for a small sherry?”

“I will join you for a sherry,” said Jim, who showed no surprise whatever at the Professor’s uncanny perception, “but as to a small one, that is a matter I suggest we discuss.”

The Professor rang a tiny Indian brass bell that lay half hidden among the crowded papers upon his desk. There was a knock and the study door swung open to reveal an elderly retainer, if anything even more white-haired and ancient than the Professor himself.

“Would it be the sherry, sir?” said the ancient, proffering a silver tray upon which rested a filled crystal decanter and two minuscule glasses.

“It would indeed, Gammon, leave it there if you would.” The Professor indicated a delicately carved Siamese table beside the white marble fireplace. The elderly retainer did as he was bid and silently departed.

The Professor decanted two glasses of sherry and handed one to Jim. “So,” said he, “and to what do I owe this pleasure then, Jim?”

“It is this way,” Pooley began. “It is well known hereabouts and in particular to myself that you are a man of extensive knowledge, widely travelled and well versed in certain matters that remain to the man in the street inexplicable conundra.”

The Professor raised an eyebrow. “Indeed?” said he.

“Well,” Jim continued, “I have recently had come into my possession an object which causes me some degree of perplexity.”

The Professor said “Indeed” once more.

“Yes,” said Jim. “How I came by it is irrelevant but I think that you as a learned and scholarly man might find it of some interest.”

The Professor nodded thoughtfully and replaced his glass upon the tray. “Well now, Jim,” he said. “Firstly, I must say that I am always pleased to see you, your visits are rarely devoid of interest, your conversation is generally stimulating and it is often a challenge to match wits with you over some of your more extravagant theories. Secondly, I must say now that whatever it is you have with you is no doubt something of great singularity but that should it be anything short of the philosopher’s stone or one of the hydra’s teeth I do not wish to purchase it.”

Pooley’s face took on a wounded expression.

“So, if we understand each other completely I will gladly examine the object which you have in your possession and give you whatever information I can regarding it should the thing prove to be genuine.”

Pooley nodded and withdrew from his pocket the magic bean, which had been carefully wrapped in his despicable handkerchief.

“Only the object,” said the Professor, eyeing Pooley’s hankie with disgust, “I have no wish to contract some deadly virus from that hideous rag.”

Pooley unwrapped the. bean and handed it to the Professor. Jim noticed that it seemed slightly larger than upon previous inspection and he also noticed the unusual expression that had crossed the Professor’s face. The usually benign countenance had become distorted, the colour, what little there was of it, had drained from his face, and a blue tinge had crept across his lips. This grotesque manifestation lasted only for a moment or two before the Professor regained his composure.

“Put it over there on to that marble base,” he said with a quavering voice. Pooley, shaken by the Professor’s terrifying reaction, obeyed without hesitation.

“Put that glass dome over it,” the Professor said. Pooley did so.

“Are you all right, Professor?” he asked in a voice of some concern. “Can I get you a glass of water or anything?”

“No,” said the Professor, “no, no, I’ll be all right, it’s just that, well,” he looked Pooley squarely in the eye, “where did you get that thing?”

“I found it,” said Pooley who had no intention of giving very much away.

“Where though, where did you find it?”

Pooley stroked his chin. Clearly the bean had well rattled the old gentleman, clearly it was more than just any old bean, it was indeed a bean of great singularity, therefore possibly a bean of great value. He would not mention that Archroy had four more of them. “It is valuable then?” he asked nonchalantly.

“Where did you find it?” the Professor repeated in a voice of grave concern.

“I dug it up,” said Jim.

The Professor gripped Pooley’s lapels in his sinewy fingers and made some attempt to shake him vigorously. The effort, however, exhausted him and he sank back into the armchair. “Jim,” he said in a tone of such sincerity that Pooley realized that something was about to happen which would not be to his advantage. “Jim you have there” – he indicated the bean beneath the glass dome – “something, if I am not mistaken, and I sadly fear that I am not, something so heinous that it is best not spoken of. I only hope that you have not had it in your possession long enough to become contaminated by it.”

“Contaminated!” Pooley yanked his handkerchief out of his pocket and hurled it into the fire which blazed away in the hearth no matter what the season. “What is it?” said Pooley, a worried sweat breaking out on his brow. “Is it poison then?”

“Worse than that, I fear.”

Worse than poison? Pooley’s mind turned several somersaults. What could be worse than poison in a bean?

“Help me up if you please.” Pooley aided the Professor to one of the massive bookcases flanking the study door. “That green volume with the gold lettering, hand me that down if you will.” Pooley obliged and the Professor placed the great book upon his desk and leafed slowly through the pages.

“My glass, if you would.” Pooley handed him the magnifier and peered over the ancient’s shoulder. To his dismay the book was written in Latin. There was, however, on a facing page covered by a slip of tissue paper an illustration in fading colours of a bean apparently identical to that which now rested beneath the dome. The Professor ran his glass to and fro across the page, raising his eye occasionally to take in both bean and illustration. Then, sitting back in his chair with a sigh, he said, “You’ve certainly pulled off the big one this time, Jim.”

Pooley, uncertain whether or not this was meant as a compliment, remained silent.

“Phaseolus Satanicus,” the Professor said, “Phaseolus being in general the genus of the ever popular and edible bean, Satanicus being quite another matter. Now this book” – he tapped at the vellum page with his exquisite fingertip – “this book is the work of one James Murrell, known as the Hadleigh Seer, who enumerated and copied the masterworks, astrological charts and almanacs of previous and largely forgotten mages and minor wizards. Little remains of his work, but I have through means that I care not to divulge come into the possession of this one volume. It is a book entirely dedicated to the detailed study of what you might term magical herbs, spices, seeds and beans. It lists the pharmaceutical, thaumaturgical and metaphysical uses of these and includes within its skin bindings certain notes upon plants and seedlings which the ancients referred to as sacred. Either because of their mindbending qualities when distilled or because they possessed certain characteristics which were outside the scope of normal explanation.”

“So there are magical properties adherent to this particular bean then?” said Pooley.

“I should not care to call them magical,” said the Professor, “but let me tell you that this bean of yours pays allegiance to the powers of darkness to a point that it is better not thought of, let alone mentioned in the public bar of the Flying Swan.”

“I prefer to patronize the saloon bar actually,” said Pooley, “but pray continue, I find your monologue fascinating.”

“I shall read to you directly from the book,” said the Professor, “then when I have finished we shall see if you still find my monologue fascinating.”

Pooley poured himself yet another sherry and wondered whether he might interest the Professor in a home-brew lager kit.

“‘Phaseolus Satanicus’,” the Professor read once more. “This first passage is a loose translation from the Greek. ‘And when the casket was opened and when the evil one set his burning hoof upon the plains of earth, then did Pandora weep those five bitter tears. And where those tears fell on the fields of men there did they take root and flourish withal. And Ephimetheus seeing the ill work that his wife had performed snatched forth those five dark saplings and cast them into the places of absolute night from whence should man go onward to seek them then surely he should never more return.’”

“That’s all very well,” said Jim Pooley.

“The next quotation comes from Jean-Francois Champollion, 1790-1832, the man who originally deciphered the Egyptian hieroglyphic system. ‘Anubis stared upon the manchild that had come before him and questioned him over his possessions and the pharaoh did answer saying I bear seventeen oxen, fifteen caskets of gold and precious stones. Carvings and set tableaus of rich embellishment and the five that dwell within the sacred house where none may tread. And Anubis took fright, even he that stands guardian over the realms of the beyond was afeared and he turned back the manchild that stood before the sacred river saying never shall you cross until your weight is above the holy balance. Which never can it be for the five set the scales heavily against you.’”

Pooley reached for the sherry decanter but found to his dismay that it was empty. “This five whatever they are sound somewhat sinister,” said he, “but the threat seems also a trifle nebulous.”

The Professor looked up from his antique tome. “This book was handwritten some three centuries ago,” said he, “not by some casual dilettante of the occult but by a mage of the first order. I have given you two quotations which he sought out, neither of which seem to impress you very much. Now I shall read to you what James Murrel wrote in his own hand regarding the five beans which had at the time of his writing come by means unfathomable into his possession. ‘I am plagued this evening as I write with thoughts of the five I have here before me. Their echoes are strong and their power terrific. My ears take in strange cries that come not from an earthly throat and visions dance before my eyes whose very nature and habit appal me and fill my soul with dark horror. I know now what these may be and what, if they were to receive the touch of the dark one, they might become. It is my intention to destroy them by fire and by water and by the power of the mother church. Would that I had never set eyes upon them for no more will sleep come unto me a blessed healer.’” The Professor slammed shut the book. “The illustration of the bean is still clear in Murrel’s hand, there can be no mistake.”

Pooley was silent. The Professor’s voice had induced in him a state of semi-hypnosis. What it all meant was still unclear but that there was a distinctly unsavoury taint to the beans was certain.

“Where are the other four?” said the Professor.

“Archroy has them,” said Pooley promptly.

“I do not fully understand the implications myself,” said the Professor. “These beans, it would seem, are objects of grim omen – their appearance at various intervals in history always precede times of great ill, plague, war, famine and the like. On each occasion a dark figure to whom in some inexplicable way these five beans appear to owe some allegiance is always mentioned – what his ultimate purpose may be I shudder to think.” The Professor crossed himself.

Upon the verandah, shielded by the trellis work of honeysuckle, a tramp of hideous aspect and sorry footwear watched the Professor with eyes that glowed faintly in the late twilight. He ran a nicotine-stained finger across a cultivated rose and watched in silence as the petals withered beneath his touch. Mouthing something in a long-dead tongue he slipped away down the garden path and melted into the gathering darkness.

Jim Pooley sat upon his favourite seat before the Memorial Library, deep in thought. It was nearing midnight and growing decidedly cold. Above him a proud full moon swam amongst shredded clouds and the stars came and went, wormholes in the wooden floor of heaven. Jim turned up the collar of his tweed jacket and sat, shoulders hunched and hands lost in his bottomless trouser pockets.

All this bean business had become a little too much for him. After all, he’d only gone around to the Professor to get the damn thing identified. This was Brentford in the twentieth century, not some superstitious medieval village in the grip of witch mania. Pandora’s Box indeed! Jim searched about for his tobacco tin, and the clock struck twelve. The search proved fruitless and Pooley recalled placing the tin upon the Professor’s mantelpiece while he was asking the old man for a refill of the sherry decanter.

Jim sighed dismally. It had not been a very successful night, all things considered. His tobacco growing dry on the fireplace whilst his bean lay valueless in its glass prison. Pooley thought back over all that the Professor had said. Could the old boy be pulling a fast one? Jim had left the bean there after all, and no money had changed hands. Possibly the Professor had instantly recognized the bean as an object of great value and dragged up all this Phaseolus Satanicus stuff simply to put the wind up him. Jim scratched the stubble upon his chin.

No, that couldn’t be it, the Professor had been genuinely shocked when he saw the bean and it was most certainly the same as the illustration in the ancient book. No-one could make up stories like that on the spur of the moment could they? And he had known of the existence of the four others. All this intense thinking coupled with the intake of two pints of fine sherry was beginning to give Jim a headache. Better to forget the bean then, let the Professor do what he pleased with it.

Pooley rose and stretched his arms. Another thought suddenly crossed his mind. “If these beans are dangerous,” the thought said, “then it would be best to inform Archroy of this fact as the four he carries with him may possibly do him harm.”

Jim sat down again upon the bench.

“But if you tell him,” said another thought, “then he will ask how you know all this and you will have to confess to the abduction of the bean from Omally’s allotment.”

This thought did not please Pooley whatsoever.

“But he is your friend,” said the first thought in an angelic voice, “and you would feel very guilty should any ill befall him that you are empowered to prevent.” Pooley nodded and rose once more to his feet.

“Better not to get involved,” said the second thought. “Who is to say that the Professor’s suppositions are correct?” Pooley bit his lip. It was all a terrible dilemma. He let the angelic thought have the final word upon the matter.

“If the Professor had told you that the bean was that of a plant which bears gold doubloons upon its boughs each spring you would have believed him. You went there to take advantage of his boundless knowledge, did you not?” Pooley nodded meekly. “So if the Professor says that the beans are evil and must be destroyed you would do well to follow his advice.” Pooley seemed satisfied by this and took some steps into the direction of home. Then as if jerked to a standstill by a rope he stopped.

“But then I must somehow get those four other beans from Archroy,” he said. “And in some way that I will not implicate myself in any duplicity.” Jim Pooley wished with all his might that he had never set eyes upon any beans whatever, be they baked, curried, buttered, soya or magic to the slightest degree.

A new thought came to Pooley, one whose voice he did not recognize but one which was so sound in logic that Pooley felt very grateful that it had chosen his head to come into. “Why don’t you go around to Archroy’s now, while he is away on the night shift, gain entrance to his house and remove the four magic beans?” The angelic thought had some doubts about this but was finally cowed into submission.

“I do this deed for Archroy,” said Jim Pooley. “A noble venture for which I expect to receive no thanks, as by its very nature the perpetrator of the deed must remain anonymous.”

Jim girded up his loins and strode purposefully into the direction of Archroy’s house. It was seldom indeed that a noble thought entered his head and the entry of this one filled Jim with reckless confidence. He would climb on to Archroy’s garage and pull down the aluminium ladder, then go round and try all the upper windows, one of which must surely have been left open. Once inside, if the beans were there, he would most certainly find them.

Having checked that there were no late night revellers returning to their haunts, or policemen out upon their lonely beats, Pooley slid away down the side alley beside Archroy’s garage. His stealth and silence were there sadly impaired however, by a noisy collision with Omally’s bicycle Marchant which was resting against the garage wall lost in the shadows. Jim and Marchant crashed noisily to the ground, Marchant ringing his bell in protest at his rude awakening and Jim swearing great oaths upon every form of two-wheeled conveyance known to mankind.

With much shooshing and hand flapping, Jim rose to his feet, flat cap cocked over one eye and trouser turnup firmly in the grip of Marchant’s back brake. Amid more cursing and the distinctive sound of tearing tweed, Jim fought his way free of the bicycle’s evil grasp and limped on up the alley.

He stopped suddenly in his tracks and gazed up in amazement, for there propped up against the side wall and leading directly to an open upstairs window was Archroy’s extendable aluminium ladder. “Luck indeed,” said Jim Pooley, gripping it delightedly and testing its footings for safety.

He was all of five rungs up when a small clear voice in his head said, “Pooley, why do you think that there would be a ladder resting so conveniently against Archroy’s wall and leading directly to an open upstairs window?”

Pooley arrested his ascent and thought for a moment or two. Perhaps Archroy was cleaning his windows and forgot to remove the ladder? The small voice said, “Come now, Pooley.”

“I’ll just shin up and have a quick shufty in through the window,” Pooley told the voice. He accomplished the ascent with admirable dexterity, considering that the effects of the Professor’s sherry seemed to be increasing by the minute. The full moon shone down through the bedroom window, flooding the room with its septic light. Pooley’s head rose cautiously above the window sill and came to rest, his nose hooked over it in the manner of the legendary Chad. As his eyes took in the situation the words that escaped his lips in an amazed whisper were generally of a sort totally unprintable.

There upon continental quilt, bouncing and gyrating in a frenzy of sexual abandonment, was Archroy’s wife. Locked in passionate congress with this insatiable female was none other than John Vincent Omally, bachelor of this parish.

“Bastard,” mouthed Jim Pooley, which was at least in the Oxford Dictionary. “The conniving treacherous…” his mind sought about for an adjective suitable to the expression of his displeasure. It was during the search that Pooley’s eyes alighted upon the very objects which had led him to the unexpected viewing of this lewd and certainly x-certificate performance.

There they lay, glowing with a faint luminescence, upon the dressing-table inches away from the window. Pooley spied them with great satisfaction, feeling that his noble quest had been justly rewarded by instantaneous success achieved with only the minimum of physical exertion and with next to no danger to life or limb. This feeling of well-being was, however, almost immediately succeeded by one of disgust. For although the beans lay in attitudes suggestive of lifelessness, it was obvious to Jim from where he clung to his airy perch that they were very much on the alert. They were quite definitely watching and apparently thoroughly enjoying the erotic spectacle. They exuded such a sense of dark evil and inhuman nastiness that Jim was hard put to it to subdue the disgust which rose within him like an out-of-season vindaloo.

Taking a deep yet silent breath, he thrust his hand through the window and snatched up the sinister beans from their grandstand seats on the dressing-table. Omally’s bum, glowing ivory in the moonlight, rose and fell undeterred. Pooley thrust the beans into his coat pocket and made haste down the ladder.

Here he transferred the beans into a drawstring bag sanctified by the Professor for the purpose. “Another job jobbed,” said Pooley with some relief. The operations had been a remarkable success, handled with alacrity, diligence, dexterity and skill. High upon Olympus hosts of ancient Pooleys opened a bottle of champagne and toasted their descendant.

Pooley strode down the alley with a jaunty spring to his step. He had not gone but three yards, however, when the vengeful left pedal of Marchant caught him by the sound trouser-cuff and upended him into the muddy gloom.

“You swine,” growled Pooley, lashing out with his boots in as many directions as possible.

“Who’s there?” said a voice from an upper window.

Jim edged along the side wall of the house, gained the street and took to his heels. In the darkened alleyway Omally’s bike chuckled mechanically to its iron self and rang its bell in delight. On High Olympus the Pooleys sought other amusements.