The part-time barman drew off two more scotches and the two men drank in silence, one either side of the bar.
‘I was up on the canal bridge,’ said Norman and began to relate his story. Neville listened carefully as the tale unfolded, only nodding thoughtfully here and there and making the occasional remark such as ‘The King’s Shilling, eh?’ and ‘Strange and pungent odour eh?’ by way of punctuation.
Norman paused to take another gulp of whisky. Neville was taking careful stock of how many were being drunk and would shortly call the shopkeeper to account. ‘And the next thing, you looked up and he was gone,’ prompted the part-time barman.
Norman nodded. ‘Gone without a by your leave or kiss my ankle. I wonder who on earth he might be?’
‘Who who might be?’ The voice belonged to James Pooley, whose carefully calculated betting system had until five minutes previous been putting the wind up the local bookie.
‘How did the afternoon go for you, Jim?’ asked Neville.
Pooley shook his head dismally. ‘I was doing another six-horse special and was up to £150,000 by the fifth and what do you know?’
Neville said, ‘Your sixth horse chose to go the pretty way round?’
‘ ‘Tis true,’ said the blighted Knight of the Turf.
Neville pulled a pint of Large and Jim pushed the exact amount in odd pennies and halfpennies across the bar top. Neville scooped this up and tossed it without counting into the till. This was an error on his part, for the exact amount this time included three metal tokens from the New Inn’s fruit machine and an old washer Jim had been trying to pass for the last six months.
Jim watched his money vanish into the till with some degree of surprise - things must be pretty bad with Neville, he thought. Suddenly he caught sight of the NO TRAMPS sign lying upon the bar top. ‘Don’t tell me,’ he said, ‘Your tramp has returned.’
Neville threw an alarmed and involuntary glance from the sign to the open door. ‘He has not,’ said the barman, ‘but Norman has also had an encounter with the wretch.’
‘And Archroy,’ said Jim.
‘What?’ said Neville and Norman together.
‘On his allotment last night, quizzed him over some lucky beans his evil wife took in exchange for his Morris Minor.’
‘Ah,’ said Norman, ‘I saw that same Morris Minor on Leo’s forecourt this very afternoon.’
‘All roads lead to Rome,’ said Jim, which Norman found most infuriating.
‘About the tramp,’ said Neville, ‘what did Archroy say about him?’
‘Seemed he was interested in Omally’s allotment patch.’
‘There is certainly something more than odd about this tramp,’ said Norman. ‘I wonder if anybody else has seen him?’
Pooley stroked his chin. If there was one thing he liked, it was a really good mystery. Not of the Agatha Christie variety you understand, Jim’s love was for the cosmic mystery. Many of the more famous ones he had solved with very little difficulty. Regarding the tramp, he had already come to a conclusion. ‘He is a wandering Jew,’ he said.
‘Are you serious?’ said Norman.
‘Certainly,’ said Pooley. ‘And Omally who is by his birth a Catholic will back me up on this - the Wandering Jew was said to have spat upon Our Lord at the time of the Passion and been cursed to wander the planet for ever awaiting Christ’s return, at which time he would be given a chance to apologize.’
‘And you think that this Jew is currently doing his wandering through Brentford?’
‘Why not? In two thousand years he must have covered most of the globe; he’s bound to turn up here sooner or later.’
‘Why doesn’t he come forward to authenticate the Turin shroud then?’ said Neville.
The other two turned cynical eyes on him. ‘Would you?’
‘Do you realize then,’ said Neville, who was suddenly warming to the idea, ‘that if he is the Wandering Jew, well we have met a man who once stared upon Jesus.’
There was a reverent silence, each man momentarily alone with his thoughts. Norman and Neville both recalled how they had felt the need to cross themselves; this seemed to reinforce their conviction that Jim Pooley might have struck the nail firmly upon the proverbial head. It was a staggering proposition. Norman was the first to find his voice. ‘No,’ he said shortly, ‘those eyes never looked upon Christ, although they may certainly have looked upon…’
‘God save all here,’ said John Omally, striding into the Swan. Somehow the talkers at the bar had formed themselves into what appeared to be a conspiratorial huddle.
‘Hello,’ said John, ‘plotting the downfall of the English is it I hope?’
‘We were discussing the Wandering Jew,’ said Pooley.
‘Gracious,’ said John ‘and were you now, certainly there’d be a penny or two to be made in the meeting up with that fellow.’ The shifting eyes put Omally upon the alert. ‘He’s not been in and I’ve bloody well missed him?’
‘Not exactly,’ said Neville.
‘Not exactly is it, well let me tell you my dear fellow that if you see him lurking hereabouts you tell him that John Vincent Omally of Moby Dick Terrace would like a word in his kosher shell-like.’
Neville pulled Omally a pint of Large and accepted the exact coinage from the Irishman; upon cashing up the sum he discovered Jim’s washer. Jim, observing this, excused himself and went to the toilet. Shrugging hopelessly the part-time barman took up his NO TRAMPS sign and crossed the bar. Before the open door he hesitated. His mind was performing rapid calculations. If this tramp was the Wandering Jew maybe he could be persuaded to…well some business proposition, he would most certainly have seen a few rare old sights, a walking history book, why a man with a literary leaning, himself for instance, could come to some arrangement. This Jew might have personal reminiscences of, well, Shakespeare, Napoleon, Beethoven, he might have strolled around the Great Exhibition of 1851, rubbed shoulders with Queen Victoria, met Attila the Hun (not at the Great Exhibition, of course). The list was endless, there would surely be a great many pennies to be had, as Omally said. Neville fingered the painted sign. The tramp certainly carried with him an aura of great evil. Maybe if he was the Jew he would kill anyone who suspected him, he had nothing to lose. Christ’s second coming might be centuries off, what were a few corpses along the way. Maybe he didn’t want redemption anyway, maybe…But it was all too much, Neville gritted his teeth and hung the sign up at the saloon bar door. Jew or no Jew, he wanted no part whatever of the mystery tramp.
Alone in the privacy of the gents, Jim Pooley’s head harboured similar thoughts to those of Neville’s; Jim however had not had personal contact with the tramp and could feel only a good healthy yearning to make a few pennies out of what was after all his theory. It would be necessary, however, to divert Omally’s thoughts from this; in fact it would be best for one and all if the Irishman never got to hear about the tramp at all. After all Omally was a little greedy when it came to the making of pennies and he might not share whatever knowledge came his way. Pooley would make a few discreet enquiries round and about; others must have seen the tramp. He could quiz Archroy more thoroughly, he’d be there now on his allotment.
Pooley left the gents and rejoined Norman at the bar. ‘Where is John Omally?’ he asked, eyeing the Irishman’s empty glass.
‘I was telling him about the tramp,’ said Norman, ‘and he left in a hurry to speak to Archroy.’
‘Damn,’ said Jim Pooley, ‘I mean, oh really, well I think I’ll take a stroll down that way myself and sniff the air.’
‘There’s a great deal more to sniffing the air than one might realize,’ said Neville, informatively. But Jim Pooley had left the bar and naught was to be seen of his passing but foam sliding down a hastily emptied pint glass and a pub door that swung silently to and fro upon its hinge. A pub door that now lacked a NO TRAMPS sign.
‘If our man the Jew is wandering hereabouts,’ said Jim to himself upon spying it, ‘there is no point in
discouraging the arrival of the goose that may just be about to lay the proverbial golden egg.’
Norman would have cried if he’d heard that one.
Archroy stood alone upon his allotment patch, pipe jammed firmly between his teeth and grey swirls of smoke escaping the bowl at regulated intervals. His thumbs were clasped into his waistcoat pockets and there was a purposeful set to his features. Archroy was lost in thought. The sun sinking behind the chemical factory painted his features with a ruddy hue, the naturally anaemic Archroy appearing for once to look in the peak of health. Sighing heavily he withdrew from his pockets the five magic beans. Turning them again and again in his hand he wondered at their appearance. They certainly were, how had the tramp put it, beans of great singularity. Of their shape, it could be said that they were irregular. Certainly but for their hue and texture they presented few similarities. There was a tropical look to them; they seemed also if held in certain lights to show some slight signs of luminescence. Yes they were singular beans indeed, but magic? The tramp had hinted that the term was somewhat open-ended to say the least. Beanstalk material perhaps? That was too obvious, thought Archroy, some other magic quality then? Could these beans cure leprosy, impassion virgins, bestow immortality? Could beans such as these unburden a man of a suspect spouse?
Archroy held up the largest of the beans and squinted at it in perplexity. Surely it was slightly larger, slightly better formed than it had been upon his last inspection. He knelt down and placed the beans in a row upon the top of his tobacco tin. ‘Well I never did,’ said Archroy, ‘now there is a thing.’
Suddenly Archroy remembered a science fiction film he had seen on the television at the New Inn. These seed pods came down from outer space and grew into people, then while you were asleep they took over your mind. He had never understood what had happened to the real people when their duplicates took over. Still, it had been a good film and it made him feel rather uneasy. He examined each bean in turn. None resembled him in the least, except for one that had a bit on it that looked a little like the lobe of his right ear. ‘Good Lord,’ said Archroy, ‘say it isn’t true.’
‘It’s not true,’ said John Omally, who was developing a useful knack of sneaking up on folk.
‘John,’ said Archroy, who had seen Omally coming, ‘how much would you give me for five magic beans?’
Omally took up one of the suspect items and turned it on his palm. ‘Have you as yet discovered in what way their magic properties manifest themselves?’
‘Sadly no,’ said Archroy, ‘I fear that I may not have the time to develop the proposition to any satisfactory extent, being an individual sorely put upon by the fates to the degree that I have hardly a minute to myself nowadays.’
‘That is a great shame,’ said John, who knew a rat when somebody thrust one up his nose for a sniff. ‘Their value I feel would be greatly enhanced if their use could be determined. In their present state I doubt that they are worth more than the price of a pint.’
Archroy sniffed disdainfully, his trusty Morris Minor exchanged for the price of a pint, the injustice of it. ‘I have a feeling that large things may be expected of these beans, great oaks from little acorns as it were.’
‘There is little of the acorn in these beans,’ said Omally. ‘More of the mango, I think, or possibly the Amazonian sprout.’
‘Exotic fruit and veg are always at a premium,’ said Archroy. ‘Especially when home grown, on an allotment such as this perhaps.’
Omally nodded thoughtfully. ‘I will tell you what I will do Archroy,’ said he. ‘We will go down to my plot, select a likely spot and there under your supervision we shall plant one of these magic beans, we will nurture it with loving care, water it when we think fit and generally pamper its growth until we see what develops. We will both take this moment a solemn vow that neither of us will uproot it or tamper with it in any way and that whatever should appear will be split fifty-fifty should it prove profitable.’
Archroy said, ‘I feel that you will have the better half of the deal, Omally, although I am sure that this is unintentional upon your part and that you act purely out of a spirit of friendship and cameraderie.’
‘The beans are certainly worthless at this moment,’ said Omally ingeniously. ‘And the responsibility of what grows upon an allotment is solely that of the tenant. What for instance if your beans prove to be the seeds of some forbidden and illegal drug or some poison cactus, will you take half the responsibility then?’
Archroy thought for a moment. ‘Let us not talk of such depressing things, rather let us enter into this venture with the spirit of enterprise and the hope of fine things to come.’
Omally shook his companion by the hand and the two swore a great covenant that fell only slightly short of blood brotherhood. Without further ado they strode to Omally’s plot, selected a space which they marked with a bean pole, and planted the magic bean.
‘We shall water it tomorrow night,’ said Omally, ‘then together watch its progress. This project must be maintained in total secrecy,’ he added, tapping his nose significantly. ‘Come now, let us adjourn to my rooms and drink a toast to our success, there is something I should like to discuss with you in private.’
Jim Pooley watched the two botanical conspirators vanish into the distance from his nest in the long grass. Emerging stiffly, stretching his legs and twisting his neck, he drew himself erect. With many furtive sideways glances, stealthily he stole over to Omally’s plot and dug up the magic bean, which he wiped clean of dirt and secreted in his coat pocket. With devious care he selected a seed potato from the sack at Omally’s shed door and planted this in the place of the bean, erasing all traces of his treachery with a practised hand.
Then with a melodramatic chuckle and light feet Jim Pooley departed the St Mary’s Allotment.
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 extra-dictionary circumstances that have prevailed throughout history and which have in their way contributed to the unique visual and aesthetic 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 each 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. Whatever 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.
The Antipope Page 4
