Knees Up Mother Earth (6 page)

“Go on,” said Omally once again.

“It’s just this,” said Neville, “and I know it’s absurd, which is why he let it be written into the contracts. He agreed that if Brentford United won the FA Cup this season, then he’d write off the debt and tear up the contracts.”

“Win the FA Cup?” Old Pete began to laugh. Immoderately.

“Brentford?” said Omally.

“
Our
Brentford?” said Jim.

And then they, too, began to laugh.

“That’s it,” said Neville, “rub salt into my wounds. Rub my face into the dirt. Rub me down with creosote and sell me on to the circus.”

“I’m sorry,” said Jim, between guffawings, “but come on, Neville. Brentford United win the FA Cup?”

“They do have until the end of the season. Shufty agreed that the Consortium would allow the team to play the entire season before the ground was torn down. I had him write that on, too.”

“You were certainly on a roll.” Omally clutched at his stomach and did rollings about of his own.

“Stop it,” cried Neville. “It isn’t funny.”

“No.” Jim fought with hilarity. “It isn’t funny, Neville. You really did do your best. But Brentford win the FA Cup?” And Jim fell once more into mirth.

“You rotten lot,” said Neville, turning away to seek more Scotch. “I won’t bother to ask you now.”

Jim raised a head from his chucklings. “Ask what?” he asked.

“Whether you knew of anyone. I was going to, but I shan’t now.”

“What are you on about, Neville?” said John.

“The manager’s job.”

“What, for
here
? Are you going to quit and run before the tarring and feathering starts?”

“Not for here. And
I’m
not the manager here, as you know full well. Not that I’ve ever actually met the manager. I meant for the club. The manager of Brentford United quit last week. He absconded with the takings from the club’s bar.”

“I never knew that,” said John.

“Well, I did and Gavin Shufty did. And Shufty, who was laughing just like you are, even said that
I
could appoint a new manager for the team’s final season. I was going to ask whether any of you might know of someone who—”

“Could take on the job and take the club on to win the FA Cup?” Old Pete all but wet himself with further laughter.

“But I won’t now,” said Neville, tossing back more Scotch than was strictly good for him.

“Hold on there,” said Omally. “Let us all slow down and think here for a moment.”

“Forget it,” said Neville. “I’m not offering the job to you.”

“Not me.” John shook his curly-haired head. “But possibly someone. Surely I’ve read of eccentric millionaire pop star types who buy up failing football clubs and lead the teams to glory. Wasn’t there that fat pianist who wears the improbable wigs?”

“Ben Elton,” said Jim.

“Not Ben Elton, you buffoon,” said Old Pete. “He was the bloke with the beard on the Treasure Island.”

“That was Ben Gunn,” said Omally.

“So which club did he buy?” Old Pete scratched at his flat cap.

“He didn’t buy any club, Pete, he just rolled his eyes about. Had a great deal of hair, if I recall correctly.”

“I thought you said he wore a wig.”

“Bing Crosby wore a wig,” said Jim, “but I don’t think he ever played the piano.”

“Liberace played the piano,” said Old Pete, “and I’m pretty sure that he wore a wig. He was a poof, of course – do you think it’s the same fellow?”

“Bound to be,” said Jim. “How many wig-wearing poofs do you know who can play the piano and buy football clubs?”

Old Pete counted on his fingers. “Three,” said he. “So, do we call in this Liberace to save Brentford or what?”

Neville made groaning sounds and buried his face in his hands once more.

Omally took to grinning. “You know what,” he said, “there might be a way.”

“To save the club?” said Neville. “I’ve had quite enough for one day. Enough for one lifetime, in fact.”

“It might just be possible,” said John.

“Do you know the Liberace chap, then, John?” Jim asked.

“No,” said John, “I don’t. Forget about Liberace. Strike Liberace from your mind.”

Jim did so. “That’s a relief,” he said.

“What I’m saying,” said John, “is that it might be possible to save the club. It might actually be possible for Brentford, under the right management, to win the FA Cup.”

“And you know how?” Neville asked.

“No,” said Omally, “but I know of a man who will.”

Professor Slocombe dwelt in a large and stately Georgian house upon Brentford’s historic Butts Estate. The Estate proper consisted of a broad tree-lined thoroughfare bordered by proud habitations of the Regency persuasion, which led to The Butts itself, a square acre of land once reserved for the statutory Sunday afternoon longbow practice in those long-ago days known as “yore”. Here stood The Seaman’s Mission, a hostel run by that charitable foundation to provide temporary accommodation for seafaring types who were down upon their luck. And many more splendid houses.

The wealthy burghers of Brentford who had ordered the construction of these wonderful buildings had attained their golden guineas through seaborne commerce: the import of spices and tea and opium and slaves. During these times, Brentford had been a prosperous community and upon May Monday The Butts had played host to the Bull Fair.
[6]

Prosperity had left Brentford behind and the old rich had long departed. Rich folk still lived in The Butts, mainly outborough business types who earned their wealth in manners unfathomable to the plain people of Brentford, to whom they remained a great unknown.

There was much of the great unknown about Professor Slocombe. His origins were mysterious and it was somehow assumed that, like the mighty Thames which cradled Brentford in a loving elbow, he had always been there. Certainly Old Pete, one of the borough’s most notable elders, swore blind and with vigour that he had known the professor since he, Old Pete, had been a small child, at which time this enigmatic fellow was already a very old man.

What
was
known about Professor Slocombe was that he was a scholar of many esoteric schools, possessed of knowledge and wisdom to equal degree. That he inspired a
frisson
of fear was not at all surprising, but he was a kindly man and those who sought his advice or counsel were never refused or turned away.

The professor was attended by a decrepit retainer named Gammon, a fellow who rarely left the professor’s house and who dressed in the servant’s livery of a time two hundred years before.

On this particular morning, Professor Slocombe sat in his study doing what ancient scholars so often do – poring over equally ancient tomes. His old, bowed back was towards the open French windows, through which drifted the heady fragrances of the gorgeous orchids that bloomed all year round in his garden, in seeming defiance of the accepted laws of nature. The perfumes of verbena and cymbidium and Yggdrasil entered the room, blending with the fusty, musty odours of the countless leather-bound volumes overflowing from the ancient bookcases that hid the walls. And other odours, too, odours subtle and without name, issued from the many stuffed beasts, some of which were certainly mythical, and the multifarious curiosa that loaded every horizontal surface in the room. Treasures glittered within glass domes – centuries-old weaponry and da Vinciesque models, meteorites and gemstones, fossilised fairies and withered Hands of Glory; elaborate preparations wrought by Frederik Ruysch, composed of foetal skeletons arranged in allegorical tableaux; beard clippings from the Magi, Caspar, Melchior and Balthazar; a pickled homunculus; and a complete set of
The Beano
.

The professor was slim and slight with wild white hair and pale-blue eyes that veritably twinkled behind his golden pince-nez. He was sprightly and vital and should an actor have been chosen to play him, that actor would surely have been Peter Cushing.

Professor Slocombe turned one velum page and then another and then he closed his tome and sat back in his padded leather chair and spoke.

“Are you two going to skulk about out there for the duration of the morning?” he enquired. “Or would you care to come inside and enjoy a glass of sherry?”

John Omally looked at Jim.

And Jim looked back at John.

“I never know just how he does that,” said Jim, “but it never fails to put the wind up me.”

“Good morning to you, Professor,” said Omally, entering the old man’s study in the manner in which he would enter a church: with a certain reverence.

“Morning, sir,” said Jim, a-following on.

“Good morning to you both.” Professor Slocombe swung his swivelling chair around and viewed his visitors. He stretched out his slender legs, placed his bony elbows on his bony knees and pressed his palms together. “Come in, sit down,” said he.

Jim and John crossed the professor’s study floor, stepping carefully to avoid contact with some priceless artefact that stood perilously upon a carved ivory column or a Turkish coffee table. John eased himself into a fireside chair. Jim eased himself into another opposite it. The fire in the hearth that burned throughout every season burned on, although it appeared to cast no heat whatever into the drowsy room.

“Somewhat early in the day for you two,” said the professor. “I have become used to you visiting me of an evening, when The Flying Swan has cast you from its warm embrace and you still have points of dispute between you that I am called upon to settle.”

“Your wisdom is the stuff of local legend,” said Omally.

“And my sherry finds your favour, of this I am certain.” Professor Slocombe rang a small brass bell that rested at his elbow on his desk and almost as it rang the study’s inner door opened to admit the professor’s wrinkled retainer, Gammon. This wraithlike being, clad in his antique livery of green velvet frock coat with slashed sleeves and emerald buttons, red silk stockings and black, buckled shoes, bore in his crinkly hands a silver galleried tray upon which rested three Atlantean crystal glasses of sherry.

“And how he does that also has me baffled,” said Jim, as Gammon inclined his fragile frame and Jim accepted the proffered drink with a courteous
thank you
.

“There’s probably some trickery involved,” said Professor Slocombe. “The quickness of the mind deceives the hand, I shouldn’t wonder.”

John accepted a glass of sherry and so, too, did the professor. Gammon bowed his way backwards from the room, closing the door behind him. The three men sipped and sighed and sipped some more.

“Researching anything exciting?” John asked in the way of polite conversation.

Professor Slocombe smiled. “Land charters,” said he. “Not, perhaps, your mug of ale?”

“Interesting to yourself, though,” said himself.

“Pre-eminently. As you know, I am compiling a book:
The Complete and Absolute History of Brentford
. You would be surprised by the many interesting facts that I have turned up regarding the borough.”

“No we wouldn’t,” said Jim, taking out his pack of cigarettes. “There can be few places on Earth more interesting than Brentford.”

“You’ve never travelled widely, have you, Jim?” asked the professor.

“Jim gets a nosebleed if he goes on the top deck of a bus,” said John.

“I’ve been around,” protested Pooley. “I’ve been as far south as Brighton. Once.”

“They brought you home in an ambulance,” said Omally.

“I fell off the pier,” said Jim. “That water was deep.”

“There are more interesting places on Earth than Brentford,” said Professor Slocombe, “though not many. Lhasa in Tibet, perhaps, the Valley of the Kings. Gandara – they say it was in India, you know. And Penge, which I’m told is a very nice place, although I’ve never actually been there myself.”

Jim took a cigarette from his pack. Omally spied Jim’s pack for the first time and smiled to himself.

Professor Slocombe said, “Please don’t smoke in here, Jim, nicotine damages the books.”

“Sorry, Professor.” Jim looked longingly at his cigarette, then pushed it back into the pack and the pack into his pocket.

“You were saying,” said John, “about Brentford and the interesting facts concerning local charters.”

“Must we go through this rigmarole?” asked the professor, sipping further sherry. “You have come here with a definite purpose, I presume.”

Omally grinned and nodded.

“I will tell you this,” said Professor Slocombe, “whether it will be of any interest to you or not. There is a mystery surrounding the ownership of the lands that comprise the borough of Brentford. Once, these lands were the property of the crown, but during the Crusades they were given in parcel as a gift to a knight by the name of Sir Edgar Rune, who had saved the life of King Richard. Certain titles went with this land that made Brentford a separate principality. I am presently researching into where these land titles eventually went. Who actually owns what? It is fascinating stuff. And it might well prove that Brentford is a separate state – indeed, a separate country.”

Omally stifled a yawn. And did so with considerable skill.

“If it turns out that I own the rooms I’m renting,” said Jim, “then please put me down for a copy of your book when it’s published.”

“Oh, I don’t ever expect it to be published.” Professor Slocombe finished his sherry. “This is more a labour of love. My love is for knowledge. All knowledge.”

“Do you know anything about football?” Omally asked.

“Aha, at last.” Professor Slocombe grinned from ear to ear. And his ears, as befitting an elderly gentleman, were large for the size of his head. For men’s ears keep on growing, as those who know these things know well.

“Football.” Professor Slocombe tugged upon the overlarge lobe of his fine left ear. “Now what do I know about football?”

“I don’t know,” said Omally. “What?”

“Well,” said Professor Slocombe, “I know that the game began right here in Brentford.”

“It did
what
?” The voice of surprise belonged to Jim Pooley.

“My researches disclose that the game began in the year AD thirty-nine, when Julius Caesar kicked the skull of a Briton across the ford of the river Brent and a plucky Brentonian booted it right back. The skull struck Caesar in the head, unseating him from his horse.”

“One-nil to Brentford,” cried Jim, beginning a Mexican wave.

“Something of an own goal, I’m afraid,” said the professor. “Caesar had his troops lay waste to Brentford. His troops then played an impromptu game of soccer with the plucky Brentonian’s head on the very area that is now Griffin Park.”

“Significant,” said Omally.

“That an Italian took the first kick? Possibly so; football is considered Italy’s second religion.”

“Griffin Park,” said John. “The football ground. That’s what we’ve come here to talk to you about.”

“It was John’s idea, sir,” said Jim. “I’ve been telling him not to waste your time.”

“My time is
never
wasted.” Professor Slocombe raised a fragile hand. “Word has already reached me regarding the decision of the local council to sell off the ground. I regret that I never stood for one of the vacant seats. I could probably have stopped it. I certainly would have put my name forward, had not Neville done so.”

Omally chewed upon his upper lip. “It’s a sad business,” said he, “a part of Brentford’s glorious history being ripped like a bleeding heart from the prone body of the borough.”

“Most colourfully put, John. I did not know that you were a football fanatic”

“It’s ‘fan’,” said John, “and I’m not really. But this isn’t right. You of all people, with all your knowledge and love of the borough, know it’s not right.”

Professor Slocombe shook his old white head. “It’s not right,” he said. “But I do not possess the financial wherewithal to pay off the club’s debts, if that is what you were thinking to ask me.”

“Well …” said Omally.

“You
weren’t
?” said Jim. “That’s not what you were thinking?”

“It was a thought,” said John. “A thought, no more.”

“And that’s why we came here?”

Omally shook his head. “There’s more,” he explained. “The club can be saved – in theory. Neville got it written into the contracts. A company known as the Consortium has taken over the club’s debts, but if Brentford can win the FA Cup this season, then the debts will be cancelled and the club saved.”

“Brentford win the FA Cup?”

Omally nodded.

There was a brief moment of silence and then Professor Slocombe exploded into laughter. His frangible frame rocked and great tears welled in his dew-blue eyes. He clasped the desk with his delicate fingers and laughed and laughed and laughed.

Jim Pooley shivered. “Now I know how Neville felt,” he said. “It’s horrible when you see someone else do it.”

Omally crossed himself. “Holy Mary, mother of God, have mercy upon us,” he prayed.

At length, Professor Slocombe ceased his frantic hilarity. He sucked draughts of air into his narrow chest, mopped his eyes with an oversized red gingham handkerchief and repositioned his pince-nez on to his nose. “You will indeed be the death of me,” he gasped.

“But it is possible,” said Omally.

“John,” said Professor Slocombe, “many things are
possible
– but just because something is
possible
does not imply that it
can
or
will
be.”

“But it is possible,” Omally protested. “Brentford could in theory win the FA Cup.”

“Could it?” Jim asked.

“Certainly,” said John, “and in as little as eight games. Don’t you know anything about football, Jim?”

“I remember Stanley Matthews,” said Pooley. “Didn’t he marry one of the Beverley Sisters?”

“That was Billy Fury,” said John.

“Wright,” said Professor Slocombe. “Billy Wright.”

“They were brothers,” said Jim. “They invented the jet plane.”

“Whittle,” said John.

Jim whistled.

“Not whistle, Whittle, Frank Whittle.”

“What team did he play for?” Jim asked.

“He didn’t play for any team and he didn’t marry one of the Beverley Sisters,” said John.

“Then you’ve got the wrong fellow,” said Jim, “which goes to show how much you know.”

Professor Slocombe raised his hand once more. “Stop it now,” he said, “or I might be forced to give you both a smack.”

“I don’t know much about football,” said Jim, “but I know what I like.”

“Which is?” said John.

“Half-time,” said Jim. “They give you an orange to suck, or is it a lime?”