What did psychologists know about life? he asked himself. About as much as the legendary late and learned pig, he concluded. Psychology was as history had been to Henry Ford, bunk. The barman sipped his Scotch and thought all the things that drunken men always think. Why wars, why profiteering, why religion, why racial intolerance, it was a lot of whys. Mankind was an enigma, an impalpable mystery and for all the why-are-we-here’s and where-are-we-going’s that had ever been asked, we were no-nearer-to-learning-the-truth.
Neville’s good eye wandered about the confines of his world. The Swan had seen him fine for twenty years. He was barlord, confidant, guru, bouncer, jovial mine host to patrons he neither knew nor understood. He watched them turn from likeable personalities to unlikeable drunks nightly, but he didn’t “know” them. He liked them, perhaps he even loved them, but he didn’t know them. They were basically good people, a little misguided perhaps, but then who wasn’t these days? Who was there to guide them? The words of self-obsessed politicians, media personalities, newspaper magnates and half-mad clerics? Who could reason sensibly when supplied with all the wrong information for all the wrong reasons? Neville sank down in his seat, he was really pissed off.
And this business today? The games? It was evident that the people of Brentford were not to be any part of it. The promised free tickets had yet to materialize. Brentonians didn’t matter, they were nobody. It all took a lot of thinking about. Neville took a pull at his Scotch. Was there any truth in drink? Experience had taught him to doubt that one. Was there any truth in anything? The barman was forced to conclude once more that he just didn’t know. Where had it all gone? Those grand thoughts and dreams of his youth had become trivialized by uneven memory and present-day responsibility, and such it was with all of them. He recalled the high-jinx of Pooley and Omally. He had watched them mellow down, lose their edge, although he still admired them for their freedom.
About the only patron who never changed was Old Pete, but he was hardly any example.
“Where did all the good times go?” Neville asked bitterly. “If only we had known how fragile they were, would we have treated them with such indifference?” He finished his Scotch and forbore another. Life had to go on, he had to open up in the evening, the game had to be played out. Where it was all leading, he didn’t have a clue. The world was changing, and one had to change with it or get left behind. That the planet seemed to be going down the sewer to him did not mean that it actually was. There was always the young, there was always hope for the future.
Neville twirled his glass upon his finger and began to whistle. “I think I’ll have a root in the attic for the old record collection. Dig out some Leonard Cohen and cheer myself up.”
Down in the teepee Paul and Barry Geronimo swayed back and forth chanting softly. In the Professor’s study, Pooley paced likewise, a tumbler of Scotch in his hand. In the briefing room Hugo Rune pointed variously about a map of Brentford, whilst constables made jottings in regulation police note-books. And on high in the Star Stadium, athletes trained and practised within a self-contained and air-conditioned environment. While deep within the great gasometer a power beyond any human reckoning seethed and thrashed against the iron walls.
39
In the near distance the Memorial Library clock chimed twelve, midnight.
In the study of Professor Slocombe, Jim Pooley pulled back the Persian carpet to expose the bare oak floorboards. “What now?” he asked.
“And now we begin,” said Professor Slocombe. The sage was dressed in a white seamless robe which reached to his naked feet. About his neck hung a small leather satchel, in his right hand, a length of chalk. He stood in the centre of the room and bowed to the four cardinal points. “And now about me I scribe the circle, confining good within good, constraining evil with evil.” He knelt and swung about, transcribing a perfect white chalk circle. “Step within, Jim, you would fare badly without.”
Pooley skipped into the circle, whisky decanter and glass at the ready. “This all looks extremely serious, Professor.”
The sage eyed Pooley’s weaponry. “A clear head is required,” he said.
“Dutch courage,” Jim declared. “I do not share your fearlessness.”
“I would tell you that you have nothing to fear except fear itself, but it would be an untruth.”
In each corner of the room stood a brass censer supported upon a wrought iron stand. The Professor gestured to each in turn and each obligingly sprang into flame. Within minutes the air was heavy with the smell of incense. The old man stooped and laboured about the floor with his chalk, scribing pentagrams, cabalistic symbols, the names of power. Adonai, Balberith, Tetragrammaton, and all the rest. Aleph, the number which is always one and those others which correspond to the elements and the seven most powerful planets.
Pooley tossed Scotch down his throat and considered his reflection in the large concave mirror which the Professor had erected upon his desk. It didn’t look all that promising.
“And now, Jim,” said the old man, rising to his feet, “you will do all that I tell you without question and upon the instant. I have no need to impress upon you the importance of this.”
“None whatever,” said Jim.
“Good, then we shall begin.” The Professor placed his hands across his chest and joined Pooley in the circle. “The invocation was formulated by the magician John Dee. Distilled from Enochian, Goetic, Gnostic and Tantric sources. The potency of the words lies to some extent in their unfathomability, causing, as they do, an elevation of the magician’s mind which unseals his consciousness allowing the release of the ‘Ka’. Do you follow me?”
“Yes, indubitably.”
“ZODACARE, EGA, OD ZODOMERANU! ODO KIKALE QAA! ZODORJE, LAPE ZODIREPO NOCO MADA, HOATHATE IAIDA!”
Pooley shivered and turned up his shirt-collar, the room was becoming impossibly cold. The fire was dying in the grate and the Professor was swaying upon his heels, staring into space.
“ZODACARE, EGA, OD ZODOMERANU! ODO KIKALE QAA! ZODORJE, LAPE ZODIREPO NOCO MADA, HOATHATE IAIDA!”
Pooley’s thumbs were now definitely on the prickle.
“He resists us,” said the Professor. “That is to be expected, but we shall have him.” He returned once more to his invocation, repeating it again and again, each time with greater force. The words seemed to grow from his lips and fly as living things into the ether of space, where they spread and expanded, became charged, alive.
The air trembled and wavered, became soupy. It was difficult to draw breath, the incense hung, a heavy impenetrable cloud. Pooley felt as if he was drowning, he clawed at his throat, “Air,” he gasped.
The Professor stooped, drew up his hands, formed the cone of power. Fresh air returned. “He is coming … he approaches.” The room began to tremble, to vibrate, books toppled from the shelves, ornaments keeled over. One of the censers crashed to the floor, spilling smouldering incense in every direction, though none fell into the sacred circle. “He comes.” Above the mantelpiece, the plaster of the wall was beginning to crack and bulge. A priceless painting snapped from its hook and broke in the fireplace beneath. The wall-lights buckled and shattered. The wall lurched forward. Pooley ducked for cover.
“Do not leave the circle,” the Professor commanded. “On the pain of your life, remain,” Pooley froze, one foot hovering in the air.
The wall contorted, warped, stretched. A face appeared, formed in the plasterwork. A great grinning face, the face of Kaleton. Jim Pooley was a born-again Christian.
Unrestrained by its plastic sheathing and artificial optics, the face leered down from the wall. It was the face of a tribal god, a pagan deity. The mouth opened and a black tongue lolled out, dripping foul saliva, the lashless eyelids opened to reveal dull white orbs. “You!” The voice was that of a chorus, a thousand voices yet only one. “You dare to summon me here?”