The Antipope

by Robert Rankin

  Neville pushed Jim’s glass into the washer and spoke softly to the pensive Omally. ‘You have a good friend there in that Jim Pooley,’ he said.

  John nodded. ‘God moves in mysterious circles,’ he said.

  ‘How so?’

  ‘Well’ – and here John Omally drained his pint glass to the bottom – ‘I was touched to my very soul by Jim’s remarks over the purchase of these drinks but strange as the man is he mistook the remark that I made to him completely.’

  Oh?’ said Neville.

  ‘Yes,’ said John. ‘I had no intention of borrowing the price of a drink whatever.’

  ‘What then?’ said Neville.

  ‘I merely thought to mention to him in as discreet a manner as possible that his flies were undone, but I shan’t bother now.’

  John Omally offered Neville all his best for the time of day and left the bar.

  2

  Archroy had rented the section of allotment land nearest to the viaduct ever since it had been bequeathed to him five years before by a half-forgotten uncle. Each night during the season he would come from his shift at the wiper works and sit in the doorway of his hut smoking his pipe and musing about the doings of the day. Omally owned two adjacent strips, having won one of them from Peg’s husband at the paper shop, and old Pete had a further one.

  Over in the corner was the untouched plot that had once belonged to Raymond, who in a previous episode had been snatched away into outer space by the invisible star creatures from Alpha Centauri. You could see a lot of life on an allotment.

  This particular warm spring evening Archroy lazed upon an orange box smoking the blend of his taste and thinking that the world would be a better place if there was a bounty put upon the heads of gypsy car-dealers. Not that he had anything against them in general, but in particular he was very resentful. Archroy was not only the tenant of an allotment, he was also a man of marriage. Archroy’s marriage was a nebulous affair, he working day shifts and his wife working nights. Their paths rarely crossed. Omally thought this was the ideal state of wedded bliss and prayed for a woman who might wed him then take a job overseas.

  Archroy accepted the acclaim of his fellows for choosing so wisely, but privately he was ill at ease. Certainly he saw little of his wife, but of her workings and machinations the catalogue was endless. Archroy kept coming home to find new furniture and carpets; one day he stuck his head up in the roof and discovered that his loft had been insulated. Strangely, Archroy was never asked by his wife to contribute to any of these extravagant ventures. Possibly because he rarely saw the woman, but mainly he suspected, because an alien hand was at work in his stuccoed semi-detached. He suspected that his wife had a lover, in fact not one lover but many. Archroy had an inkling that his wife was putting it about a bit.

  He had found five minutes one evening just as they were changing shifts to interview his suspect spouse. Archroy had noticed that his old Morris Minor, which his wife described as ‘an eyesore’, was no longer upon its blocks in the garage but seemed to have cried ‘horse and hattock’ and been carried away by the fairies.

  ‘Woman,’ he addressed his wife, for he had quite forgotten her name, ‘woman, where is my car?’

  ‘Gone,’ said she, straightening her headscarf in the mock rococo hall mirror. ‘I have sold your car and if you will pardon me saying so I have made a handsome profit.’

  Archroy stiffened in his shirtsleeves. ‘But I was working on that car, it needed but an engine and a few wheels and I would have had it working!’

  ‘A truck came and took it away,’ said his wife.

  Archroy pulled at his hair. ‘Where’s my car gone to, who took it?’

  ‘It was a gypsy,’ said his wife.

  ‘A gypsy, you part with my priceless car to a damned gyppo?’

  ‘I got a good price.’

  Archroy blew tobacco smoke down his nose and made himself cough.

  ‘It’s on the mantelpiece in a brown envelope,’ said his wife, smearing gaudy red lipstick about her upper lip.

  Archroy tore into the front room and tore open the envelope. Pouring the contents into his hand he found five brown beans. ‘What? What?’ Archroy began to foam at the mouth. ‘Beans?’

  ‘He assured me that they were magic beans,’ his wife said, slamming the door behind her.

  Thus it was that Archroy sat this particular evening in the doorway of his allotment shed, bewailing his lot and cursing not only car dealers but untrue wives and all those born of Romany extraction. ‘Magic beans,’ he grimaced as he turned the offenders over in his palm. ‘Magic bloody beans, I’ll bet he gave her more than just magic bloody beans.’

  The 6.20 steamed over the viaduct and told Archroy that now would be as good a time as ever to repair to the Swan to see what the lads were up to. He was about to pocket his magic beans and rise from his orange-box when a stark black shadow fell upon him and sent an involuntary shudder up the wee lad’s back.

  ‘Might I have a look at those beans you have there, mister?’ The voice came from a disreputable 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, I really must control it.’

  ‘What do you want here?’ snarled Archroy, outraged at this trespass upon his thoughts and land.

  ‘About the beans?’ the tramp said.

  Archroy pocketed his beans. ‘Clear off!’ he said, climbing to his feet. The tramp raised his right hand and made a strange gesture. Archroy slumped back on to his orange-box, suddenly weak at the knees.

  ‘Those beans,’ said the tramp. Archroy felt about in his pocket and handed the tramp the five magic beans.

  ‘Ah.’ The tramp held one between thumb and forefinger. ‘As I thought, most interesting. You say that your wife received them in payment for your old Morris Minor?’

  Archroy didn’t remember saying anything of the kind but he nodded bleakly.

  ‘They are beans of great singularity,’ said the tramp. ‘I have seen beans and I have seen beans.’ He returned the articles to Archroy’s still-extended hand. ‘These are beans indeed!’

  ‘But, magic?’ said Archroy.

  The tramp stroked the stubble of his chin with an ill-washed knuckle. ‘Ah,’ he said, ‘magic is it? Well that is a question. Let us say that they have certain outré qualities.’

  ‘Oh,’ said Archroy. He felt a little better about the beans now, the loss of his trusty Morris Minor seemed less important than possessing something with outré qualities, whatever outré might mean. ‘What are you doing on my allotment?’ Archroy asked in a polite tone.

  The tramp described a runic symbol in the dust at Archroy’s feet with the toecap of his sorry right shoe. ‘You might say that I am here to meet someone,’ he said, ‘and there again you might not, if you were to say here is a man upon a mission you would be correct, but also at the same time you would be mistaken. There is much about my presence here that is anomalous, much that is straightforward, much that––’

  ‘I must be on my way now,’ said Archroy, attempting to rise and feeling at his knees. They offered him no support. ‘I am incapacitated,’ he announced.

  ‘––Much that will be known, much that will remain unexplained,’ continued the tramp.

  Archroy wondered if he had eaten something untoward, toadstools in his hotpot, or slug pellets in his thermos flask. He had read of strange distillations from the Amazon which administered upon the head of a pin could paralyse a bull elephant. There were also forms of nerve gas that might find their way into the sucking section of a fellow’s briar.

  The tramp meanwhile had ceased speaking. Now he stared about the allotment in an interested fashion. ‘And you say that Omally won one of those plots from Peg’s husband at the paper shop?’

  Archroy was certain he had not. ‘The one over in the corner with the chimney,’ he said. ‘That one there is the property of old Pete, it has been in his family for thr
ee generations and he has made an arrangement with the council to be buried there upon his demise. Blot the School keeper runs the one to the west backing on to the girls’ school, it is better not to ask what goes on in his shed.’

  Archroy rose to point out the plot but to his amazement discovered that the old tramp had gone. ‘Well I never,’ said Archroy, crossing himself, ‘Well I never did.’

  3

  No-one could ever accuse Peg’s husband from the paper shop of being dull. His wife, when enquired of by customers as to her husband’s latest venture, would cup her hands upon her outlandish hips and say, ‘There’s never a dull moment is there?’ This rhetorical question left most in doubt as to a reply, so the kindly soul would add, ‘You’ve got to laugh haven’t you?’ which occasionally got a response, or ‘It’s a great old life if you don’t weaken’,

  which didn’t.

  Her husband, however, shunned such platitudes and preferred, during moments of acute brain activity, to deal exclusively in the proverb. On the occasion of his bike going missing for the thirteenth time from its appointed rack at the Rubber Factory he was heard to mutter, ‘Time is a great healer.’ And during that particularly hot summer when someone set fire to his runner beans, ‘Every cloud has a silver lining.’

  Norman’s proverbs never quite matched up to the situation to which they were applied, yet seemed in some bizarre way to aid him to the solution of extremely obtuse problems. This lent him the air of a mystic, which made him regularly sought after by drunks in need of advice. His ‘ventures’, as they were termed, were never devoid of interest. ‘Wading to France’, for example, which began, as so many tales have a tendency to do, one lunchtime in the saloon bar of the Flying Swan.

  ‘There is much talk lately of these Channel swimmers,’ John Omally had said by way of conversation as he perused his copy of the Brentford Mercury. ‘They do say that the dear fellows lose the better part of three stone from the swimming.’ There was an informed nodding as Omally continued, ‘There’s a king’s ransom to be had in that game if a fellow has the way of it.’

  Norman, who had been listening and was currently between ventures, felt a sudden surge of regret that he had never learned to swim. ‘It never rains but it pours,’ he said, which gave most to suspect that he was having an idea.

  ‘You don’t swim at all do you, Norman?’ asked the astute Omally, sensing money in the air.

  ‘Sadly no,’ said Norman, ‘but I wade.’ With these portentous words he left the saloon bar.

  Little was heard of Norman for some weeks and his wife answered Omally’s repeated enquiries with the encouraging ‘You certainly see some sights’ and ‘It takes all sorts to make a world doesn’t it?’

  The Irishman was pretty much at his wits’ end when his eye caught a tiny paragraph on an inside page of the Brentford Mercury: ‘Local Man to Wade Channel.’ Omally read the short paragraph once, then again slowly; then, thinking that he must have misread it, he gave the thing a careful word-for-word scrutiny.

  Norman Hartnell, local Rubberware Foreman (not to be confused with the other Norman Hartnell) stated yesterday in an exclusive interview with the Mercury that it was his intention within the foreseeable future to have constructed certain marine apparatus which will make it possible for him to become the first man to wade to France from England. Mr Hartnell (not to be confused with the other Norman Hartnell) told the Mercury in this exclusive interview when asked his reason for this attempt that ‘Kind words butter no parsnips.’ Mr Hartnell is 43.

  ‘What other Norman Hartnell?’ queried John Omally, whose only claim to fashion consciousness was tucking his shirt in all the way round even when wearing a jacket. There was still no word from Norman, and Omally even took to phoning the offices of the Brentford Mercury daily for news. He was not a man to be cheated of his pennies, and the more time passed the more he became convinced that whatever plans were hatching in Norman’s obtuse cranium, he, Omally, was due at least part of any income deriving from their fruition. ‘It was me reading about the Channel swimming that started it all, was it not?’ he asked. Those present at the bar nodded gravely.

  ‘You have a moral right,’ said Neville.

  ‘You should get a contract drawn up,’ said Jim Pooley.

  ‘He owes you,’ said Archroy.

  That Saturday the Brentford Mercury, which had for some days been refusing to accept John Omally’s reverse-charge calls, announced in large and impressive type: BRENTFORD CHANNEL WADER NAMES THE DAY. Omally read this startling headline over the shoulder of the paper’s owner and gasped in disbelief. ‘He’s naming the day and he still hasn’t brought me in on it.’

  ‘Pardon?’ said the stranger.

  ‘Fares please,’ said the bus conductor.

  Omally, who had in his palm a number of pennies exactly equal either to his bus fare or to the price of a copy of the Brentford Mercury, shouted, ‘Stop that dog,’ and leapt off the bus at the next set of traffic lights.

  On the well-worn bench afront the Memorial Library he studied the newspaper. There were the headlines, below them a photograph of Norman smiling hideously with the caption: ‘All roads lead to Rome, says plucky Brentonian.’

  Omally read paragraph after paragraph, desperately trying to pluck out something substantial enough to merit legal action. Yes, the plucky Brentonian had been working for some months now upon certain marine apparatus suitable to his requirements. He had made several unsuccessful tests with these (Omally raised his eyebrows at this intelligence). He had gauged his exact course through careful study of coastal topography and undersea mappings loaned to him by the Royal Maritime Museum. He had allowed for spring tides, onshore drift, wind variations and even shoals of fish that might be encountered en route. He was certain of success. He had been given the go-ahead by the Royal Navy, who had agreed to escort him with helicopter and motor torpedo boat and keep in contact with him by certain sophisticated pieces of top-secret equipment which Norman had kindly agreed to test for them during the walk over.

  It was believed that this crossing would herald a new era in international travel. A veritable golden age was about to dawn, and without a doubt the patent holder of this aquatic legware was sitting on (or more rightly in) a proverbial goldmine, not to mention a piece of history. Omally groaned. ‘Proverbial goldmine, he’ll love that.’

  The more he read, the less he liked what he read and the less he liked it the more cheated he felt and the more furious he became. The cross-Channel walk was scheduled for the following Saturday; it was to be covered by both channels and shown live on World of Sport. Norman was to appear that very evening on the Russell Harty Show.

  Omally tore the newspaper to ribbons and flung the pieces to the four winds.

  It is not a long walk from the library to Peg’s paper shop, one simply turns right down Braemar Road, right at the bottom past the football ground, left into Mafeking Avenue and left again up Albany Road into Ealing Road. John Omally covered this distance in a time that would have made Roger Bannister hang up his spikes in defeat. Panting, he stood in the doorway attempting to compose himself.

  Two pensioners came out of the shop. ‘Proverbial goldmine,’ said one. ‘Place in history,’ said the other.

  Omally made an attempt to enter, but found to his amazement that the usually empty and dust-hung place of business bore a sprightly and jubilant appearance, and was going great guns in the customer stakes. Bunting hung about the door and ‘Good Luck Norman’, emblazoned upon lengths of coloured toilet-roll, festooned the front window – which suddenly bereft of its timeless Woodbine display now blazed with photographs of Royal Navy cruisers and postcards of Captain Webb. ‘Souvenir Channel Trews on Sale Now’ said a card. ‘Bottled Channel Water’ said another. Below this was a display of seashells and a number of jam jars apparently filled with seawater ‘Bottled by the Wader Himself’ and priced at a quid a time.

  Omally made another attempt to enter but again found his way barred, this time by a number of s
choolgirls wearing ‘Norman Wades OK’ t-shirts.

  ‘What is the meaning of all this?’ muttered the Irishman as he edged his way forward. Over the heads of the crowd he could see that Peg had taken on two extra salesgirls. Peg’s gargantuan frame, sporting a ‘Norman Wades OK’ t-shirt the size of a bell tent, could be made out swinging bundles of the Brentford Mercury on to the counter and dispensing souvenir windmills and flags to all comers. The cash register was ringing like a fire alarm. Of Norman, however, there was no sign. Omally edged his way nearer to the counter and made some attempt to draw Peg’s attention.

  ‘The Norman action dolls are four pounds, love,’ he heard her say. ‘Yes, that’s right, three for a tenner.’

  Omally clutched at the counter for support. ‘Peg,’ he stammered, ‘Peg I say.’ Peg finally caught sight of the swaying Irishman. ‘Hold on John love, and I’ll be with you,’ she said. ‘Yes love, the Bottled Channel Water can be made available for bulk export purchase.’

  The proverbial light at the end of the dark corridor, to which no doubt Norman had previously alluded in some moment of irrelevance, was beginning to appear before Omally’s bloodshot eyes. ‘Could I have a word with Norman, please Peg?’ he asked.

  ‘He’s at present in conference with members of the press prior to an enforced period of lamaic meditation necessary for him to attune himself to the correct cosmic state of awareness required for his walk,’ said the suddenly lucid Peg.

  Omally nodded thoughtfully. ‘No doubt then he will neither reveal himself nor the now legendary legwear prior to the great event.’

  ‘It’s unlikely, love,’ said Peg, then, ‘Excuse me a moment. Yes, I can do you a gross of the “Wade Against the Nazis” beany hats at cost if you are willing to do a deal on the film rights.’ Omally slid quietly away from the shop and along the road to the Flying Swan. He ignored the ‘Wade for Britain’ banner which hung above the bar, and also the Disabled War Wounded Waders Fund tin that Pooley rattled beneath his nose. He ordered a pint of Large. ‘I have been cheated of my place in history,’ he told Neville.