The Antipope

by Robert Rankin

  Norman stood in the Swan’s portal, his suit glittering about him. The sequins and rhinestones gleamed and twinkled. He had added four more sets of fairy lights to the arms and legs of the costume and these flashed on and off in a pulsating rhythm.

  Norman came forward, his hands raised as in papal benediction. Spellbound, like the Red Sea to the wave of Moses’s staff, the crowd parted before him. Turning slowly for maximum effect, Norman flicked a switch upon his belt buckle and sent the lights dancing in a frenzied whirl. To and fro about the golden motto the lights danced, weaving pattern upon pattern, altering the contours of the suit and highlighting hitherto unnoticed embellishments.

  Here they brought into prominence the woven headdress of an Indian chieftain, here the rhinestoned wheel of a covered wagon, here a sequined cowboy crouched in the posture of one ready to shoot it out. To say that it was wondrous would be to say that the universe is quite a big place. As the coloured lights danced and Norman turned upon his insulated brass conductor heels the assembled company began to applaud. In ones and twos they clapped their hands together, then as the sound grew, gaining rhythm and pace, Old Pete struck up a thunderous ‘Oh Them Golden Slippers’ upon the piano.

  The cowboys cheered and flung their hats into the air, Lone Rangers of every colour linked arms like a chorus line and High-Ho-Silvered till they were all uniformly blue in the face. Pooley and Omally threw themselves into an improvised and high-stepping barn dance and the Spirit of the Old West capered about in the midst of it all like an animated lighthouse.

  Then a most extraordinary thing happened.

  The sawdust began to rise from the floor towards Norman’s suit. First it thickened about his feet, smothering his polished boots, then crept upwards like some evil parasitic fungus, gathering about his legs and then swathing his entire body.

  ‘It’s the static electricity,’ gasped Omally, ceasing his dance in mid kick. ‘He’s charged himself up like a capacitor.’

  Norman was so overcome by his reception that it was not until he found himself unable to move, coughing and spluttering and wiping sawdust from his ears and eyes that an inkling dawned upon him that something was amiss. The crowd, who were convinced that this was nothing more than another phase in a unique and original performance, roared with laughter and fired their six-guns into the air.

  Omally stepped forward. Norman’s eyes were starting from their sockets and he was clutching at his throat. The sawdust was settling thickly about him, transforming him into a kind of wood-chipped snowman. Omally reached out a hand to brush the sawdust from the struggling man’s face and was rewarded by a charge of electrical energy which lifted him from his rented cowboy boots and flung him backwards over the bar counter.

  Jim Pooley snatched up a soda siphon and without thought for the consequences discharged it fully into the face of the Spirit of the Old West. What followed was later likened by Old Pete to a firework display he had once witnessed at the Crystal Palace when a lad. Sparks flew from Norman’s hands and feet, bulbs popped from their holders and criss-crossed the bar like tracer bullets. The crowd took shelter where they could, young Chips thrust his head into a spittoon, his elderly master lay crouched beneath the piano saying the rosary, the Page Three girls hurriedly ducked away behind the bar counter to where Omally lay unconscious, his face set into an idiot grin. Norman jerked about the room, smoke rising from his shoulders, his arms flailing in the air like the sails of a demented windmill. The final bulb upon his once proud suit gave out with an almighty crack and Norman sank to the floor, where he lay a smouldering ruin.

  After a moment or two of painful silence the cowboys rose sheepishly from their makeshift hideouts, patting the dirt from their rented suits and squinting through the cloud of sawdust which filled the room. Pooley came forward upon hesitant rubber-kneed legs and doused down the fallen hero with the remaining contents of the soda siphon. ‘Are you all right, Norman?’ he asked.

  ‘Oh bollocks!’ moaned the Spirit of the Old West, spitting out a mouthful of sawdust. ‘Oh bollocks!’

  12

  Captain Carson lay draped across an elaborately carved Spanish chair, peeping between his fingers at the preposterous display of exotic foodstuffs heaped upon the gilded table top. To think that any one of these rare viands might be purchased anywhere within a mile of the Mission would be to stretch the most elastic of imaginations to its very breaking point. Yet there they were. The Captain covered his eyes again and hoped desperately that they would go away. They did not.

  Carrying the tramp’s shopping-list, some of which was totally unpronounceable, he had traipsed from shop to shop. It had been almost as if the shopkeepers were lying in wait for him. He had wandered into Uncle Ted’s greengrocery to enquire in a doomed voice as to the current availability of Bernese avocados. Uncle Ted had smiled broadly, torn a paper bag from the nail and asked if he would prefer reds or greens. At every shop it had been the same. When the Captain had demanded an explanation of how these gastronomic delicacies found their way on to the shelves, the shopkeepers had been extremely vague in their replies. Some spoke of consignments arriving by accident, others that it was a new line they were trying out.

  After six such encounters in tiny corner shops which normally complained that they were out of sugar, that the cornflakes were late in again and that they couldn’t get tomato sauce for love nor money, the Captain, his head reeling, had staggered into the High Street off-licence.

  ‘Your usual?’ said Tommy Finch, the manager. The Captain sighed gratefully. Could it be possible that here was sanctuary, that this one place had remained free from the tramp’s contamination?

  ‘Or,’ said Tommy suddenly, ‘could I interest you in a half a dozen bottles of a magnificent vintage claret which arrived here in error this very morning and which is most moderately priced?’

  The Captain had cast a fatalistic eye down his list. ‘That wouldn’t by any chance be Chateau Lafite 1822?’

  ‘That’s the one,’ Tommy had replied with no hint of surprise.

  The Captain rose stiffly from his chair, picked up a can of pickled quails’ eggs and gave the label some perusal. As with all the other items he had purchased, and as with everything else which surrounded the mystery tramp, there was something not quite right about it. The label appeared at first sight normal enough, an illustration of the contained foodstuffs, a brand name, a list of ingredients and a maker’s mark; yet the more one looked at it the more indistinct its features became. The colours seemed to run into one another, the letters were not letters at all but merely rudimentary symbols suggestive of lettering.

  The Captain returned the can to the table and shook his head as one in a dream. None of it made any sense. What could the tramp be planning? What had been his motive in inviting the hated Crowley to the Mission? Certainly on his past record alone it could be expected that his motives were nothing if not thoroughly evil. None of it made any sense.

  ‘Is all correct?’ said a voice, jarring the Captain from his thoughts. ‘There must be no mistake.’

  Turning, the Captain peered up at the red-eyed man towering above him. Never had he looked more imposing or more terrible, dressed in an evening suit of the deepest black, a dark cravat about his neck secured at the throat by a sapphire pin. His fingers weighed heavy with rings of gold and his face wore an unreadable expression.

  ‘All is as you ordered,’ said the Captain in a querulous voice, ‘though as to how I do not know, nor do I wish to.’

  ‘Good, our guests will arrive sharp at seven thirty. They must be received in a manner befitting.’

  The Captain chewed ruefully upon his knuckles. ‘What would you have me wear for this distinguished gathering?’

  The tramp smiled, his mouth a cruel line. ‘You may wear the Royal Navy dress uniform which hangs in your wardrobe, the hire company’s label cut out from its lining. Pray remember to remove the camphor bags from its pockets.’

  The Captain hunched his shoulders and slouched from
the room.

  When he returned an hour later, duly clad, the Captain discovered to his further bewilderment that the food had been laid out in the most exquisite and skilful manner, the claret twinkled in cut-glass decanters and the delicious smell of cooking filled the air. The Captain shook his befuddled head and consulted his half-hunter. There was just time for a little drop of short. He had lately taken to carrying a hipflask which he refilled with half bottles of rum purchased from the off licence. This seemed the only defence against the tramp, whose intuition of the location of hidden bottles seemed nothing short of telepathic. The two red eyes burned into his every thought, hovering in his consciousness and eating away at his brain like a hideous cancer. The Captain drew deeply upon his flask and drained it to its pewter bottom.

  At seven thirty precisely a black cab drew up outside the Mission. The Captain heard the sound of footsteps crackling up the short path to the Mission door. There were two sharp raps. The Captain rose with difficulty, buttoned up his dress jacket and shuffled unwillingly towards the front door.

  Upon the step stood Councillor Wormwood, wrapped in a threadbare black overcoat, a stained white silk scarf slung about his scrawny neck. He was tall, gaunt and angular, his skin the colour of a nicotine-stained finger and his eyes deeply sunk into cavernous black pits. Never had the Captain seen a man who wore the look of death more plainly upon his features. He withdrew a febrile and blue-veined hand from his worn coat pocket and offered the Captain a gilt-edged invitation card. ‘Wormwood,’ he said in a broken voice, ‘I am expected.’

  ‘Please come in,’ the Captain replied making a courteous gesture. The jaundiced spectre allowed himself to be ushered down the corridor and into the dining-room.

  The Captain took out the bottle of cheap sherry he kept in reserve for Jehovah’s Witnesses.

  ‘I see that I am the first,’ said Wormwood, accepting the thimble-sized glass the Captain offered him. ‘You have a cosy little nest for yourself here.’

  The sound of taxi wheels upon the gravel drew the Captain’s attention. ‘If you will excuse me,’ he said, ‘I think I hear the arrival of another guest.’ The Councillor inclined his turtle neck and the Captain left the room.

  Before the Mission stood Brian Crowley. He was dressed in a deep-blue velvet suit, which caught the evening light to perfection. A hand-stitched silk dress-shirt with lace ruffles smothered him to the neck, where a large black bow-tie clung to his throat like a vampire bat. His shoes, also hand-made, were of the finest leather; he carried in his hands a pair of kid gloves and an ivory-tipped Malacca cane. He raised a limp and manicured hand to the Mission’s knocker, which receded before his grasp as the Captain swung open the door.

  ‘Mr Crowley,’ said the Captain.

  ‘Good evening, Carson,’ said the young man, stepping forward. The Captain barred his way. ‘Your card, sir?’ said the Captain politely.

  ‘Damn you Carson, you know who I am.’

  ‘We must observe protocol.’

  Muttering under his breath Crowley reached into his breast pocket and withdrew a monogrammed morocco wallet. From this he produced the invitation card which he held to the old man’s face. ‘All right?’

  The Captain took the card and bowed graciously. ‘Pray come in.’ As he followed the effeminate young man down the corridor the Captain smiled to himself; he had quite enjoyed that little confrontation.

  Crowley met Councillor Wormwood in the dining room. The Councillor took the pale white fingers in his yellow claw and shook them without enthusiasm. ‘Wormwood,’ he said. Crowley’s suspicions had been alerted. Surely this was a dinner exclusively for members of the Mission Trust to celebrate the centenary and the Captain’s retirement? Why invite that withered cretin?

  It was only now that Crowley became fully aware of the room in which he was standing. Lit only by the two magnificent candelabra upon the loaded table, the rich gildings and embossings upon the furniture glittered like treasure in the tomb of a Pharaoh. Crowley’s gaze swept ravenously about the room. He became drawn towards an oil painting which hung in a frame of golden cherubim above a rococo commode. Surely this was a genuine Pinturicchio of his finest period? How could an elderly sea captain have come by it? Crowley had never credited the grizzled salt with any intelligence whatever, yet recalling his surprise upon receiving the invitation cards, he felt that he had truly misjudged this elder. The young man’s eyes glittered with greed.

  ‘Will you take sherry?’ the Captain asked. Roused from his covetous reverie Crowley replied, ‘Yes indeed, thank you.’

  He accepted his sherry with a display of extraordinary politeness and wondered just how he might avail himself of the Captain’s valuable possessions. ‘I have been admiring this painting,’ he said at length. ‘Surely it is a Pinturicchio of the Romanesque school?’

  The Captain fiddled nervously with the top of a cut-crystal decanter. ‘I believe so,’ he replied matter-of-factly.

  ‘And the furniture.’ Crowley made a sweeping gesture. ‘Surely fifteenth-century Spanish Baroque. You have some most exquisite examples.’

  ‘It serves,’ said the Captain, studying his broken fingernails. ‘Please be seated gentlemen, place cards have been set out.’

  Crowley made a slow perambulation about the table, sherry glass held delicately in his pampered fingers. His eyes wandered over the display of food. ‘Why, Captain,’ he said in an insinuating voice, ‘this is haute cuisine to numb the brain of a gourmet. I must confess complete astonishment, I had no idea, I mean, well, most worthy, most worthy.’

  The Captain watched Crowley’s every movement. While his expression remained bland and self-effacing, his brain boiled with hatred for the effeminate young man. Crowley dipped a hand forward and took up a sweetmeat, pecking it to his nose to savour its fragrance. With a foppish flurry he popped it into his mouth, his small pink tongue darting about his lips. Almost at once his face took on an expression both quizzical and perplexed.

  ‘Extraordinary,’ he said, smacking his lips, ‘the taste, so subtle, hardly distinguishable upon the palate. It is almost as if one had placed a cube of cold air into one’s mouth, most curious.’

  ‘It is an acquired taste,’ sneered the Captain.

  Wormwood had found his place at the bottom of the table and had seated himself without ceremony.

  Crowley shrugged his shoulders, licked the ends of his fingers and sought his seat. ‘If you will pardon me, Captain,’ he said, ‘it would seem that but for our own, the other seven place cards are unlabelled.’

  ‘Possibly an oversight on the part of the caterers,’ grumbled the Captain, ‘don’t let it concern you.’ He took his place between the two men and three sat in silence.

  Crowley took out a cocktail cigarette from a gold case and tapped it upon the table. Wormwood wheezed asthmatically into his hand. Drawing a shabby handkerchief from his pocket he dabbed at his sinewy nose.

  The Captain sat immobile, wondering what, if anything, was going to happen. Crowley lit his cigarette and looked down at his platinum wristwatch. ‘It would seem that your other guests are a trifle late,’ said he.

  The Captain sniffed and said nothing. Wormwood turned his empty sherry glass between his fingers and shuffled his ill-polished shoes uneasily. Long minutes passed and no sound came to the Captain’s ears but for the regular tock tock of the gilded mantelclock. There was no rumble of an approaching vehicle and no footstep upon the stairs that might herald the arrival of the red-eyed man. Surely it was not his intention to have the Captain sit here between these two hated individuals all evening? He had nothing to say to them.

  Without warning, and silently upon its never-oiled hinge, the hall door swung open. White light streamed into the candlelit room, brighter and brighter it grew as if a searchlight had been turned upon the opening. The Captain blinked and shielded his eyes, Crowley squinted into the glare. ‘Here,’ he shouted, ‘what’s all this?’

  In the midst of the now blinding light the silhouette of a t
all and boldly proportioned man gradually became apparent. Well over six foot he stood, and finely muscled as an Olympic athlete. His garb was of the richest crimson, trousers cut impeccably yet without a crease, a waisted and collarless jacket, lavishly embellished with stitched brocade, a lace cravat about the neck. Upon his head the figure wore a small crimson skullcap.

  The face might have been that of a Spanish grandee, tanned and imposing, the nose aquiline and the mouth a hard and bitter line. The chin was prominent and firmly set. Beneath thick dark eyebrows two blood-red eyes gleamed menacingly. The room became impossibly cold, the hairs rose upon the Captain’s hands and his breath streamed from his mouth as clouds of steam which hovered in the frozen air.

  Crowley found his voice. ‘Dammit,’ he spluttered, his teeth chattering and his face a grey mask of fear, ‘what’s going on, who the devil are you?’

  Wormwood clutched at his heart with quivering hands and gasped for air.

  The crimson figure stood in total silence, his eyes fixed upon the effeminate young man. The Captain had seen that look before and thanked his maritime gods that it was not directed towards him. ‘So you would be Crowley?’

  An icy hand clasped about the young man’s heart. His head nodded up and down like that of an automaton and his lips mouthed the syllables of his own name although no sound came.

  ‘And this is Councillor Wormwood?’ The eyes turned upon the unhappy creature who cowered at the table’s end.

  ‘Horace Wormwood,’ came the trembling reply. ‘I was invited.’

  ‘Good.’ A broad if sinister smile broke out upon the tall man’s face. ‘Then all is as it should be. Please be seated, gentlemen.’

  The three men, who had risen unconsciously to their feet, reseated themselves, and the warmth of the summer’s evening returned to the room. The tall man stepped forward and took his place at the head of the table. To the further horror of those already seated, the hall door swung silently shut and closed into its frame with a resounding crash.