East of Ealing (4 page)

Norman sat in his kitchenette, dismally regarding the slim brass wheel spinning once more upon its table-top mountings. Over in the corner alcove his other self sat lifeless and staring, a gaping hole in its chest. Norman swung his leg over the kitchen chair and leaned his arms upon its worm-eaten back. The first run had not been altogether a roaring success. If Omally’s bike had not chosen to intervene and trip the robot into the street, there seemed little doubt that it would have killed Omally there and then, merely to retrieve the tobacco from his pocket.

Norman chewed upon his lip. It was a regular Frankenstein’s monster, that one. Not what he’d had in mind at all. Placid pseudo-shopkeeper he wanted, not psychotic android on the rampage. He would have to disconnect all the Dimac circuits and pep up the old goodwill-to-mankind modules. Possibly it was simply the case that the robot had been a little over-enthusiastic. After all, it had had his interests at heart. Norman shuddered. Omally had got away with the tobacco, and Hairy Dave had charged him fifty quid to shore up the front of the shop and screw a temporary door into the splintered frame. The robot had not been in service more than a couple of hours and it was already bankrupting him. Fifty quid for a half-ounce of Golden. And what if Omally decided to sue or, more likely, to exact revenge. It didn’t bear thinking of. He would have to go round to the Swan later and apologize, stand Omally a few pints of consolation. More expense. The harassed shopkeeper climbed from his chair and sought out a quart of home-made sprout wine from the bottle-rack beneath the sink.

At length the Memorial Library clock chimed five-thirty p.m. in the distance, and upon the Swan’s doorstep stood two bedraggled figures who, like Norman, had the drowning of their sorrows very much to the forefronts of their respective minds. Neville the part-time barman drew the polished bolts and swung open the famous door.

“By Magog!” said the pagan barkeep. “Whatever has happened to you two? Should I call an ambulance?”

Pooley shook his head. “Merely draw the ales.”

With many a backwards glance, Neville lumbered heavily away to the pumps. “But what has happened to you both? Your eye, John? And Jim, your sleeves?” Neville pushed two brimming pints across the counter towards the straining hands of his two patrons.

“We were mugged,” said Omally, who was finding it hard to come to terms with the concept of defeat at the hands of a humble shopkeeper.

“Ten of them,” Pooley added. He had once read of a mugger’s victim being carried into a pub and revived with free ale.

Neville had also read of it and took up a glass to polish. “We live in troubled times,” he said profoundly. “Ten and six please.”

Omally drew his boot away from his bruised ankle and pulled out several pound notes. Neville, who had never before seen the Irishman handling paper money in public, was anxious to see if they were the real McCoy. The wrinkled relic John handed him smelt a bit pony, but it did have a watermark. Neville rang up “No Sale” and obligingly short-changed his customer. Omally slung the pennies into his trouser pocket without even checking them.

“Mugged then is it?” Neville almost felt guilty. “Did you best the villains?”

“Did we?” Pooley raised his scorched palm and made chopping movements. “The blackguards will think twice about molesting the folk of Brentford again I can tell you.”

“I see Norman is having his shopfront done up,” said Old Pete, who had sneaked in hard upon the heels of the two warriors.

Omally spluttered into his beer. “Is that a fact?” said he.

“Had his shopfront mugged so I hear.”

“Give that gentleman a large dark rum,” said Omally.

The ancient accepted his prize and slunk away to a side-table with much malicious chuckling. Omally grudgingly paid up and joined Pooley, who had taken to hiding in a suitably darkened corner.

“I shan’t be able to live with this,” said John, seating himself. “That old one knows already; it will be all over the parish by morning.”

“But Norman?” said Pooley. “I still can’t quite believe it. Norman wouldn’t hurt a spider, and by God his shop gives lodging to enough.”

“A lover of the insect kingdom he may be, but let humankind beware. The shopkeeper has finally lost his marbles. He took it out on me as though violence was going out of fashion.”

Jim sighed. “This is a day I should certainly choose to forget. We have both paid dearly for our greed.”

John nodded thoughtfully. “I suppose there are lessons to be learned from it. We have certainly learned ours the hard way.”

“Talking of lessons, I think your homework has just arrived.” Jim pointed over Omally’s shoulder to where Norman now stood squinting about the bar.

John sank low in his high-backed chair. “Has he seen me?” he whispered.

Pooley nodded. “I’m afraid so, he’s coming over.”

“When you hit him go for his beak, ignore the groin.”

“I’m not going to hit him, this is nothing to do with me.”

“Nothing to do with you? You started it, you and your money-making wheel…”

“Evening gents,” said Norman.

“Evening to you, old friend,” said Pooley, smiling sweetly.

Omally rummaged in his pockets and brought out a crumpled packet of cigarette papers and a somewhat banjoed half-ounce of tobacco. “I never smoked it,” he said. “You can have it back if you still want it.”

Norman held up his hand, which made Omally flinch painfully. “No, no, I have come to apologize. I really don’t know what came over me, to lose my temper like that. I have been working too hard lately, I have a lot of worries. There is no permanent damage done, I trust?”

“I am still in a state of shock.” Omally sensed possibilities. “Numb all over. I suspect a fracture here and there, though. I’ll be off work a good while I shouldn’t wonder.”

Norman nodded good-naturedly. Omally would be wanting his pound of flesh, better get it over with in one go. “Might I buy you a drink?” he asked.

“You might,” said Omally, “and we will see where it leads. If you could manage one for my companion also it would not go unappreciated.”

Norman smiled. He wondered whether or not to ask Pooley where the sleeves of his jacket were, but he presupposed the answer to be of a somewhat poignant nature, evoking images of such hardship and tragedy as to morally oblige the asker to purchase many further pints. “I’ll get the round in then,” said Norman, departing to the bar.

“One pint and one half-ounce up,” said John bleakly. “What profit the day, I ask you?”

“Perk up, John, it can only get better, surely.” Pooley now sighted Old Pete hobbling purposefully towards them. “Or possibly not.”

“Where’s my bed then?” the ancient asked, prodding Omally’s bruised shoulderblade with his stick. “I’ve brought the money.”

“Money?” John did not recall mentioning a figure. “How much did you bring?”

“Twenty quid.”

“Twenty quid.” Omally buried his face in his hands.

“It’s enough, isn’t it? You said it was an antique. I think twenty quid’s a fair price if it’s a good one. So where’s my bed?”

“What bed?” asked Norman, who was bringing up the drinks.

“Omally said he had an antique bedstead to sell me, I want to see it.”

“The muggers took it,” said Jim Pooley helpfully. Omally, who was just coming to terms with a ten pound down payment for an antique bedstead at present being refurbished by mythical upholsterers, looked up at him in horror. “Sorry,” said Jim, shrugging innocently.

“What muggers?” asked Norman.

“The ten who blacked his eye, or did you say there were twelve, John?”

“Ah,” said Norman stroking his chin. “Come to think of it, I did see a gang of bully boys pushing an antique bed along down by the half-acre. Thought it odd at the time. A right evil-looking bunch they were, wouldn’t have dared tackle them myself. No fighter me.”

“Bah,” snarled Old Pete. “You’re all bloody mad.” Turning upon his heel, he muttered a few well-chosen obscenities, and shuffled away.

“Thanks,” said Omally when the ancient was beyond earshot. “I suppose that calls us square.”

“Good.” Norman passed the two newly-retired bedsalesmen their pints. “Then, if you will pardon me, I think I will go and have a word with Old Pete. I have an old brass bed in my lock-up he might be interested in. The money will go somewhere towards meeting the cost of a new shopdoor. So all’s well that ends well, eh? Every cloud has a silver lining and a trouble shared is a friend indeed.” With the briefest of goodbyes, Norman left the two stunned drinkers staring after him.

After a short yet very painful silence Omally spoke. “You and your bloody big mouth,” said he.

Pooley turned up his ruined palms helplessly. “Still,” he said, “your reputation is saved at least.”

“You buffoon. There is no reputation worth more than five pounds and the man who is five pounds to credit needs no reputation whatever.”

“Ah well, let’s look on the bright side. I think I can say without any fear of contradiction that nothing else can possibly happen to us today.”

It is of some small consequence to note that had Jim been possessed of that rare gift of foresight, even to the degree of a few short hours, he would certainly not have made that particular, ill-considered and totally inaccurate remark.

Brentford’s only cinema, the Electric Alhambra, had closed its doors upon an indifferent public some fifty years ago. The canny Brentonians had shunned it from the word go, realizing that moving pictures were nothing more than a flash in the pan. Miraculously, the building had remained intact, playing host to a succession of small industries which had sprung up like mushrooms and died like mayflies. The last occupier, a Mr Doveston, Purveyor of Steam-Driven Appliances to the Aristocracy, had weathered it out for a full five years before burning his headed notepaper and vanishing with the smoke.

Now the crumbling edifice, about the size of the average scout hut and still sporting its original mock rococo stuccoed facade, was left once more alone with its memories. The projection room, which had served as governor’s office to many a down at heel entrepreneur, now deprived of its desks and filing cabinets, suddenly took to itself once more. With the collapse of some lop-sided partitions, the old and pitted screen made a reappearance. But for the lack of seating and the scattered debris littering the floor, the ancient cinema emerged, a musty phoenix from its fifty-year hibernation.

The “Sold” notice was up out front and rumour had it that the dreaded Lateinos and Romiith had the place earmarked for redevelopment. A light evening breeze rattled a corrugated iron shutter upon a glassless window, and something that looked very much like a giant feral tom stole across the floor. In the eaves a bat awoke and whistled something in an unknown dialect.

A gaunt and fragile shadow fell across an expanse of littered linoleum and a pale hand moved into a patch of light. Ghostly fingers drew away a cowled hood, revealing a head of pure white hair, an expanse of pallid forehead, and two eyes which glowed pinkly in the failing light. Surely we have seen this pale hand before? Known the Jason’s fleece of snowy hair, and marvelled at the flesh coloured eyes? Can this be he who now dwells beneath, shunning the realm of sunlight and changing seasons? He who tills the subterranean waters in his search for Shamballa and its legendary dwellers in that world of forever night? Yes, there can be no doubt. The name of this seeker after the hidden truths below is well known to the folk of Brentford.

Soap Distant, it is he.

Soap spat his roll-up from between his teeth and ground it to oblivion beneath a boot-heel. He scrutinized the luminous chronometer upon his wrist and said, “Ten thirty-two. They’ll be a while yet.” He paced slowly to and fro, his shadow clattering soundlessly along the corrugated shutters to merge with the blackness as he moved beyond the range of the limited illumination. At length, his chronometer chimed the three-quarter hour, and Soap ceased his pacing. From without came sounds of approaching feet. Harsh footfalls echoing along the deserted street, accompanied by the sounds of foolish giggling and the occasional bout of coughing. “Pissed again,” said Soap to himself, “but no matter.”

The inebriated couple, one with a fat eye and the other sleeveless, came to a halt outside the cinema, and Soap could make out snatches of conversation that penetrated the numerous cracks in the wall.

“Who’s on then?” asked a voice. “Where’s my opener?”

“William S. Hart,” said another. “Open it with your teeth.”

“I never could abide that body’s hat. I was always an Elmo Lincoln man myself. Christ, there goes a filling. You’ve got my opener, I remember you borrowing it.”

“I gave it back. Stand aside man, I need a quick jimmy.”

“Not in my doorway!” Soap threw open the shattered glass door to admit a stumbling Jim Pooley, flies gaping.

“By the grave,” said that man.

“By the roadside, but not in my doorway.”

Omally squinted towards the dark void which had suddenly swallowed up his companion. “Soap?” said he. “Soap Distant? I know that voice.”

“Come in out of the night, and pick your friend up.”

Omally bumbled in and Soap slammed shut the door upon the Brentford night and, as far as John and Jim were concerned, life as they had once known it.

“Where’s the bog?” wailed Pooley, struggling to his feet.

“Stick it out through a crack in the wall and be done.”

Pooley did so.

“How would you two care to make thirty quid for a swift half-hour’s work?” Soap asked when Jim had finished his micturition.

Omally was about to say “Each?” but after his experiences this day he thought better of it. “I think that we would be very grateful,” he said. “This has been a bad day for us both, financially.”

“If it is decorating,” said Jim, “I do not feel that half an hour will be sufficient.”

“It is not decorating, it is a little matter, below.”

“Below… ah, well now.” Both Pooley and Omally had in chapters past had very bad experiences “below”.

“Are you sure this is safe?” queried Omally.

“As houses.”

Pooley was more than doubtful. Sudden chill memories of former times spent beneath the surface of the globe flooded over him in an icy-black tide. “You can have my half, John,” he said, “I think I’ll get an early night in.”

“It will take the two of you I am afraid.” Soap raised his palms in the gloom. “It is a simple matter. One man cannot move an object, three men can.”

“Things are rarely as simple as they at first appear,” said Pooley with a wisdom older than his years.

“Come below then.”

With that, a thin line of wan light appeared in the centre of the floor, growing to a pale square illuminating a flight of stairs. Soap led the way down. “Follow me,” he said gaily.

Pooley sucked upon a knuckle and, like the now legendary musical turn, dilly-dallied on the way. Omally nudged him in the back. “Thirty quid,” he said.

Soap’s newly-hired work-force followed him down the stairway, and above them the trapdoor slammed shut with what is referred to in condemned circles as a “death-cell finality”. The stairway, as might be imagined, led ever down, its passageway hewn from the living rock. At length it unexpectedly debouched into a pleasant looking sitting-room, furnished with a pale green Waterford settee and matching armchairs, and decorated with Laura Ashley wallpaper. “Nice, eh?” said Soap as he divested himself of his ankle-length cloak to reveal a natty line in three-piece tweed wear.

“Very,” said John. “And the Russell Flints?” He pointed to a brace of pictures which hung above the hearth. “No expense spared.”

“A gift from Professor Slocombe,” said Soap.

Pooley, who had a definite sway on, sank into a comfortable armchair.

“We have a couple of bottles of brown with us,” said John. “If you have an opener?”

“It’s a bit close down here.” Pooley fanned at his brow.

“It was a bit close down that hole today, wasn’t it Jim?” Soap popped the stoppers from the bottles and ignored Pooley’s similarly popping eyes.

“How did you know?”

“There’s not much that goes on beneath ground level that I don’t know something of. Those buggers from Lateinos and Romiith have been making my life a misery lately, sinking their damned foundations every which way about the parish.”

“Progress,” said Pooley in a doomed tone.

“Some say,” said Soap. “Listen now, let us dispense with brown ale. I have some home-brewed mushroom brandy which I think you might find interesting.”

“That would be a challenge.”

“’Tis done then.”

Something over an hour later, three very drunken men were to be found some three miles beneath the surface of planet Earth a-rowing in a leathern coracle over a stretch of ink-black subterranean water.

“Where are we?” asked an Irish surface-dweller.

“Below the very heart of London.”

“I don’t recognize it.”

The splish-splash of the oars echoed about the vast cavern, eventually losing itself in the endless silence of the pit.

“How do you know which way we’re going?”

Soap pointed to his luminous watch. “Lodestone,” he said informatively.

“Oh, that lad.”

“There,” said Soap suddenly. “Dead ahead, land ho.”

Before them in the distance an island loomed and as they drew nearer, the makings of a mausoleum wrought in marble, very much after the style of the Albert Memorial, made itself apparent.

“What is it?” Omally asked. “King Arthur’s tomb, don’t tell me.” Soap tapped at his all but transparent nose. The coracle beached upon the shoreline and Soap stepped out to secure it to a frescoed pillar. The two inebriate sub-earth travellers shrugged and followed the pale man as he strode forward. “It was never like this for Jerome K Jerome,” said Pooley.

The strange edifice was, if anything, a work of inspiration. Marble pilasters, cunningly wrought with carved tracery-work, soared upwards to dwindle into a high-domed ceiling which glittered with golden mosaic. Above, tapering gothic spires lost themselves in the darkness.

“Here it is,” said Soap. The two wonderers halted in their tracks. In the very centre of this Victorian folly stood something so totally out of place as to take the breath from their lungs. It was a cylinder of bright sparkling metal, but it was of no metal that any man of Earth had yet seen. It glistened with an oily sheen and swam through a spectrum of colours, reflecting mirror-like. A broad panel of what might have been glass, but probably was not, lay set into a section of the cylinder’s apparent lid, and it was over this that the three visitors to this sunken marvel craned their necks.

“Strike me down,” said Jim Pooley.

“By Michael and the other lads,” said John Omally.

“Good, eh?” said Soap Distant.

“But who is he?”

Beneath the glazed panel, reclining upon satin cushioning, his head upon a linen pillow, lay the body of a man. He was of indeterminate age, his hair jet-black and combed away behind his ears. He had high cheek-bones and a great hawk of a nose. The face bore an indefinable grandeur, one of ancient aristocracy. From what was immediately visible, he appeared to be wearing a high wing-collared shirt, dark tie affixed with a crested stud, and a silken dressing-gown.

“He seems, almost, well, alive,” said Omally.

Soap pointed towards the gowned chest, and it could be clearly observed that it slowly rose and fell. “Indubitably,” said he.

“But this thing? Who built it and why?”

“Best thing is to up the lid and ask him.”

Pooley had more than a few doubts upon this score. “He looks pretty peaceful to me,” he said. “Best to leave him alone. No business of ours this.”

“I think somehow that it is,” said Soap, and his tone left little doubt that he did.

“This thing doesn’t belong,” said Omally. “It is all wrong. Victorian mausoleum all well and good, but this? This is no product of our age even.”

“Herein lies the mystery,” said Soap. “Give us a hand then, thirty quid for a quick heave.”

Pooley shook his head so vigorously that it made him more dizzy than he already was. “I think not, Soap. We are tampering with something which is none of our business. Only sorrow will come out of it, mark my words. ‘He that diggeth a pit will fall…”

“I know all that,” said Soap. “Kindly take hold of the top end. I had it giving a little.”

“Not me,” said Jim, folding his arms.

“Jim,” said John. “Do you know the way back?”

“That way.” Pooley pointed variously about.

“I see. And do you think that Soap will guide us if we do not assist him?”

“Well, I…”

“Top end,” said Soap. “I had it giving a little.”

The three men applied themselves to the lid of the glistening cylinder, and amidst much grunting, puffing, and cursing, there was a sharp click, a sudden rushing of air, and a metallic clang as the object of their efforts tumbled aside to fall upon the marble flooring of the
outré
construction. Three faces appeared once more over the rim of the metal sarcophagus.

The gaunt man lay corpse-like but for his gently-heaving chest; his face was placid and without expression. Then suddenly the eyelids snapped wide, the lips opened to draw in a great gulp of air and the chest rose higher than before. A cry arose from his mouth and three faces ducked away to reappear as a trinity of Chads, noses crooked above the coffin’s edge. The occupant stretched up his arms and yawned loudly. His eyes flickered wildly about. He snatched at the coffin’s side, and drew himself up.

He caught sight of the three now-cowering men, and a look of perplexity clouded his face. “What year is this?” he demanded.

Omally volunteered the information.

“Too early, you have broken the seal.”

“Told you,” said Jim. “Leave well enough alone I said. But does anybody ever listen to me, do they…?”

“Shut up,” said Soap, “and kindly give me a hand.” With the aid of Omally he helped the bemused-looking man in the dressing-gown up from the steely cylinder and into the upright position. “Are you feeling yourself now?” The tall man, as now he revealed himself to be, did not reply, but simply stood stretching his limbs and shaking his head. “Come quickly now,” said Soap. “We must take him at once to Professor Slocombe.”

The journey back was to say the very least uneventful. The gaunt man in the dressing-gown sat staring into space while Omally, under Soap’s direction, applied himself to the oars. Pooley, who had by now given up the ghost, slept soundly; his dreams full of six-horse accumulators coming up at stupendous odds and rocketing him into the super-dooper tax bracket. Of a sudden, these dreams dissolved as Omally dug him firmly in the ribs and said, “We are going up.”

They made a strange procession through Brentford’s night-time streets. The pale ghost of a man, now once more clad in a cloak and hood, leading a striking figure in a silk dressing-gown, and followed by two stumbling, drunken bums. Vile Tony Watkins who ran the Nocturnal Street Cleaning truck watched them pass, and a few swear words of his own invention slipped from between his dumb lips.

As the four men entered the sweeping tree-lined drive which swept into the Butts Estate, one lone light glowed in the distance, shining from Professor Slocombe’s ever-open French windows.

The odd party finally paused before the Professor’s garden door and Omally pressed his hand to the bolt. Through the open windows all could view the venerable scholar as he bent low over the manuscripts and priceless books. As they drew nearer he set his quill pen aside and turned to greet them.