The Antipope (24 page)

The Professor’s clock struck nine and the old man rose unsteadily to his feet. “We had better go,” he said, “slip these about your shoulders.” He indicated two mud-brown cloaks draped across a side table. “They should help you merge into the crowd.”

Omally raised himself to his feet and swayed over to the table. “Very pleasing,” he said, casting the cloak about his broad shoulders, “very ecclesiastical.”

Pooley climbed from his chair and donned his cloak. “You would make a fine monk, Jim Pooley,” said Omally, chuckling irreverently.

With that the two caped crusaders helped the Professor to extinguish the candles and followed the old man through the darkened house to the front door. Professor Slocombe eased it open a crack and the three men stared out into the mysterious night.

All across the Butts Estate grim-faced crowds were moving. They moved with a strange, stiff-legged gait like tailors’ dummies removed from their shop windows and grotesquely animated. The eyes of these dummies seemed glazed and sightless, yet stared ever ahead in the direction of the Mission.

Professor Slocombe turned up the astrakhan collar of his elderly coat. “Come,” he whispered. He ushered Pooley and Omally out through the front door, which he locked with a heavy iron key. Whilst he was thus engaged his two inebriated colleagues exchanged knowing glances, furtively stooped and swept up two likely-looking house bricks which each secreted within the folds of his robes.

Lovingly patting their respective bulges they followed the old Professor down the short path and out into the Butts Estate. The three men slipped in amongst the sombre crowds, doing their best to adopt the stiff-legged gait and lacklustre stare. Pooley’s impersonation was astonishingly convincing, but that was because he was paralytic. Omally stumbled along at his side, occasionally peering up at the sky and muttering to himself.

As the crowd, which was now several hundred strong, neared the Mission it soberly formed into a single file. The three men could see that the heavily braced door had been thrown open and that a soft light glowed from within. Pooley fell into line behind the Professor, with the muttering Omally bringing up the rear. As each of the zombiesque walkers crossed the threshold of the Seamen’s Mission he or she genuflected and mouthed a short phrase of archaic Latin.

Pooley was pleased to note that the phrase spoken by the Professor as he entered the portal differed substantially from that of the rest. Jim was no scholar of language so he merely mumbled incoherently and hoped that none would notice. Omally was the next to bow his knee, an action which he achieved more through luck than judgement. His knowledge of Latin was extensive, but it was two words of the Gaelic that he chose. “Pog Mahoun,” said the man from the Emerald Isle, raising two fingers.

There was already a considerable number of people assembled within the Mission, and the three would-be party-poopers could see little above the multitude of heads.

Omally felt the Professor’s sinewy hand closing about his arm as the old man drew the Irishman away towards a shadowy corner. Pooley followed them. Here and there he saw a face he recognized, but doll-like, vacant of expression and seeming to lack some essential ingredient of humanity.

The three men squeezed themselves into a darkened niche at the rear of a large column. The Professor pressed a slender finger to his lips. “Watch and wait,” he counselled.

Pooley bobbed up and down in the hope of observing what was going on. Tiring of this futile occupation he whispered to Omally, “Give us a shin up this pillar and I’ll have a look around.” Amid a fair amount of puffing and cursing, all performed in muted tones, Pooley was borne aloft.

What he saw sent his brain reeling at the fantastic transformation which had been wrought within the ivy-hung walls of Brentford’s Seamen’s Mission. The entire building had been gutted, partition walls, doors, the upper floor, all were gone. Pooley found himself staring into what must surely be a cathedral. Rows of elaborately carved doric columns soared upwards towards the roof which, once the haunt of nesting wasps and sleeping bats, was now a glistening dome painted and frescoed in the style of Michaelangelo, depicting mighty biblical scenes.

There was Adam, wide-eyed and innocent, staring into the godly face of his bearded creator. Eve’s temptation, with the hideous black serpent entwined about the tree of knowledge. The flood, ferociously portrayed with roaring skies and smashing waters, Noah’s ark pitching and the Man of God raising his hands towards Heaven. There was the fall of the Tower of Babel, the destruction of Sodom and Gomorrah and countless other scenes depicted so cunningly that the eye might wander for ever amongst them.

The great hall was lit by rows of tall wrought-iron torchères of ponderous proportions, and their steady light illuminated the astonishing adornments which lined the walls: the gilded icons and embossed tableaux, the bronze statues of the saints, the silver madonnas, and the rows of heraldic crests, each of which bore the emblazoned figure of a great bull. There was a king’s ransom here, that of many kings in fact, in this unlikely setting.

And then Pooley’s eyes fell upon the altar. He had seen pictures in library books of the altarpieces of the world’s most notable cathedrals, but they paled into insignificance before this. It was magnificence beyond magnificence, opulence and grandeur taken to a point where it surpassed all beauty and became a thing to fear.

A profusion of fatly bummed cherubim fluttering and fussing in their golden nakedness; row upon row upon row of candles blazing amid the rising gem-covered columns; the traceried woodwork and carved adornments; the proliferation of wondrous beings, half human half animal, set in attitudes of supplication, gazing ever upwards towards the titanic figure which crested the altarpiece and held in his outstretched arms a hanging tapestry woven in cloth of gold and depicting once again the motif of a great black bull. The banner of the bull. The banner of the Borgias.

Pooley could have spent long hours in reverent contemplation of these wonders had not Omally chosen this particular moment to topple backwards into the darkness, bringing Jim down from his perch and tumbling him to the floor.

“Sorry,” said John. “Anything to see?”

Pooley shook his befuddled cranium, unable to find words to describe what he had seen. “You have a look,” he said finally. “I’ll give you a leg up.”

Omally’s head rose unsteadily above the crowd, which still flowed unabated through the Mission door. He saw what Pooley had seen. Certainly the glories were undeniable in their magnificence, but there was something more. Omally cocked his head upon one side. The geometry of the entire hall was slightly amiss; it was not immediately noticeable, but the more he looked at it then the more obvious it became.

He squinted up at the great pillars supporting the marvellous domed ceiling. Surely they were slightly out of true? Several seemed more closely spaced than the others and the one at the end was not quite perpendicular. And the dome itself, it was not absolutely round, more ovoid, or more accurately it was egg-shaped.

The great golden altar, for all its unworldly spectacle, was definitely crooked, top heavy. The statuary was similarly lopsided, some leaning at dangerous angles. The icons seemed to have been nailed into place and the raised dais which filled an enclosed space before the altar was far from level.

Some attempts had obviously been made here to correct the deficiency and Omally noted that a number of red flettons had been wedged under one corner of it. Red flettons! Omally stifled a great guffaw. So that was it! Old Pope Alex was certainly far from omnipotent if he dwelt under the misconception that present day jobbing builders could repeat the masterworks wrought by their fifteenth-century counterparts. The thought that the crimson giant at the Mission was actually capable of error set Omally in fine spirits. These fine spirits, however, were soon dispelled by what next occurred.

The door of the Seamen’s Mission swung shut with a death cell finality and a cry rose up from the throats of the assembled multitude. It was not so much a cry as a howl. Omally hastily returned to floor level and endeavoured to lose himself once and for all amongst the shadows. The howl went up from all corners of the room, animal in nature, atavistic, echoing down centuries, primeval and cruel.

The howl rose up, filling the great hall, reverberating about the dome and rebounding from the pillars. It rose and rose in pitch, forming into a scream. The hierophants threw back their heads; hands crossed on their chests like a thousand dead Pharaohs, they swayed upon their heels and howled. Pooley tightened the grip upon his ears, Omally rolled his eyes, and the Professor gripped the silver cross he wore about his neck and mumbled his phrases of Latin. All at once the howl changed, dropped down in tone and formed itself into a low chant.

The Professor pricked up his ears. “It is a mantra,” he said, although none heard him.

Slowly the syllables formed upon one another, the chant went up time after time, driving itself almost physically at the three men crouched in the darkness behind the column. Omally was staring goggle-eyed and the Professor forced the Irishman’s hands up over his ears. “You must not hear this,” he whispered. “You must not hear.”

Omally hummed to himself one of his favourite Republican songs, the much-loved standard, “Kevin Barry”. He was halfway through the now legendary line about the British soldiers torturing the dear lad in order that he might reveal the names of his brave comrades when he suddenly realized that he was humming alone. Omally unclasped his ears. There was no sound, the awful chanting had stopped, nothing moved, the air was still. Or was it?

It was a low incessant hissing sound, soft yet persistent. Omally raised his eyes once more towards the astonishing ceiling; ii was corning from above. He chewed upon his lower lip, this was a sound he recognized, a reassuring natural sound, not a part of the ghastly unnatural cacophony, this was something real.

And then he knew why the sky had seemed so strange to him that evening. The stars were missing, the moon had gone; while he and Pooley had been sitting in Jack Lane’s the sky had clouded over. John turned to his companion, who still had his hands desperately clamped about his ears. “Listen Jim,” he whispered, prising Pooley’s hands from his head. “It is beginning to rain.”

Outside the Mission and all across Brentford great drops were starting to fall. They struck the dust of the streets with muted explosions, spattered upon the roof tops and sizzled in the trees.

At the Flying Swan Neville the part-time barman set aside his polishing cloth and gazed at the front windows in awe as long teardrops of water began to smear the dusty panes. It was gathering in strength now and any thoughts Brentford’s dehydrated populace may have had of dancing in the streets were rapidly smothered as the thunder began to roll ominously across the heavens and the lightning tore the sky apart. It was as if at some God-given signal the very floodgates of Heaven had been opened, the rain fell in torrents, a solid sheet of water. The parched ground sucked and gurgled, the allotment lands drew in the life-giving liquid and the stretch of dried-up canal bed devoured the downfall greedily. It was a storm such as none living could remember. Old Pete ordered himself another large rum and peered out through the Swan’s open doorway with much shaking of his ancient head. Norman leant upon the bar counter. “Annus Mirabilis,” he said to the part-time barman. “The year of wonders.”

At the Seamen’s Mission Pope Alexander VI’s congregation paid no heed to the downpour. As the lightning flashed about Brentford, bursting like a million flashbulbs behind the gigantic stained-glass windows above the altarpiece, they stood resolute, unmoving. Pooley and Omally ducked their heads as the thunder crashed deafeningly above. Professor Slocombe stared upwards, an unreadable expression in his pale blue eyes.

Suddenly the Mission seemed to draw backwards, sideways, forward, simply away, to suck itself into a vacuum beyond the reach of the maelstrom which roared without. It was as if the building had been snatched away into a limbo, a separate dimension insulated totally from all that was real and touchable. The lightning was still visible, flashing behind the stained glass, but now it seemed unable to pierce the panes, stopping short of them as if held at bay by some invisible barrier. The roaring of the storm could still be heard, but it was muffled as if somebody had closed a padded door.

A great light began to fill the hall. It grew and grew in brightness until every standing figure, every icon, statue and column became nothing more than a cardboard cutout, lit dazzlingly from one side and lost in a void of absolute blackness to the other.

Omally shielded his eyes and squinted into the glare. Pooley dragged his cloak over his head, dropping his cherished half brick to the floor. Professor Slocombe stood transfixed. From the side of the hall, amid the blinding glare, figures were beginning to appear, moving from the realm of dream, or nightmare.

The congregation were shuffling backwards, forming themselves into a great arc stretching from the side enclosure to the raised dais of the golden altarpiece. The figures were moving forward in a slow methodic rhythm. Omally could make out their silhouettes, sunspots upon the solar disc. There were four shapeless stubby creatures bearing upon their shoulders something enormous upon a kind of chair. Before this procession a lone being moved unsteadily, gaunt and bowed, a golden censer swinging from his clasped hands.

Omally widened his eyes; the figure was that of Captain Carson. He nudged the Professor but the old man put his finger to his lips and whispered, “I know.”

The Captain was dressed in rough sacking robes, a golden sash knotted about his waist. His head was shaven and his feet were bare. His face was as vacant as those of the congregation.

Behind him trod the four red-clothed and dwarfish figures, the identity of which was well enough known to the three watchers. Upon the shoulders of these creatures they supported a gilded travesty of the Papal throne, carved from a rich red timber of exotic origin, inset with many precious stones. The arms of this throne terminated in large gilded bulls’ heads, as did the very crest upon the chair’s high back.