I was studying, you see, studying all kinds of stuff. Extracurricular stuff. Stuff you were not taught at school.
It was all down to my mother, really. My mother was a fundamentalist Christian, a name in itself that I found at that time most amusing for I had, through my readings of the Bible, encountered the word ‘fundament’ and looked up its meaning.
My mother attended Northfields Pentecostal Church, a church whose minister was the later-to-become-a-major-influence-in-my-life Captain Lynch. I liked Captain Lynch a lot because he was one of those adults who took everything very seriously. He would listen very carefully to any question that you asked him, and then he would give you a very serious answer.
‘Why are witches an abomination unto the Lord?’ I asked Captain Lynch one Saturday afternoon, when I found myself unexpectedly home, suffering from the mumps, and he had come around to offer consolation to my mother and to solicit funds for a ministry that he hoped to establish in the Orinoco Basin. I would ask him many questions regarding the nakedness of the savages in the Orinoco Basin, because I had seen photographs of them in a copy of National Geographic at the dentist’s. And Captain Lynch would grow most verbose regarding these naked savages.
‘Witches?’ said the good captain, removing his Church Army cap and laying it upon his lap. ‘Witches, is it, eh?’
‘Do you think they should still be burned?’ I asked him.
‘Yes,’ said the captain, in a voice of much graveness. ‘I do believe they should.’
‘You don’t think that’s somewhat cruel?’ I occupied the Persian pouffe beside the fire. And as it was winter and the fire was lit, I took the opportunity to spit into the flames. ‘Those flames would hurt,’ I observed.
‘The fires of Hell burn hotter,’ said the captain – intoned, indeed, in his deepest Sunday-pulpit voice – ‘for those who take the name of the Lord in vain. For those who raise divers demons. For those who spit upon the cross as you have spat into the fire. For those who enter into unholy congress with incubi. And for those who engage in the Obscene Kiss.’
‘The Obscene Kiss?’ I enquired. In all of my innocence.
The captain took an increasingly firm hold upon his cap. ‘They kiss the Devil’s Fundament,’ he said.
‘What’s a fun-’ But my mother now entered the front room, bearing a tray. Which in its turn bore tea in a teapot and biscuits on a plate. And cups, and sugar in a bowl and milk in a jug, and napkins and sundry other necessary prerequisites for a successful afternoon tea. Amusing and erudite conversation was not included.
‘The captain was telling me all about witches,’ I told my mother as she lowered the tray onto the occasional table. Which no doubt rejoiced in its own special way that its occasion had finally arrived.
My mother gave me a bitter look – it was her ‘you wait till your father gets home’ look, and believe you me, back in those days, those words carried considerable clout – and so I hastily changed the subject.
‘You mentioned the Sumerian Kings a while ago,’ I said, as I offered Captain Lynch the run of the biscuits.
‘Kynges,’ corrected the captain. ‘There’s a tale to be told there and no mistake.’
‘Is it an Old Testament tale?’ I enquired. ‘Involving the twin cities of the plain?’ I had recently come across the word ‘sodomite’ and had been looking for an opportunity to introduce it into a conversation.
‘Not as such,’ the captain said. ‘This is more to do with Legend and Myth, although I suspect there is more to it than that. And I intend to prove same, as soon as I have mustered up sufficient funds.’
‘I thought you were raising funds for your mission to the Orinoco Basin.’
‘The Orinoco Basin is merely the tip of the iceberg,’ said the captain, which I found somewhat confusing.
‘Sumeria is where it all began.’ And the captain was doing his pulpit voice once more.
‘The Cradle of Civilisation?’ I said. ‘I’ve read about that. Would that be where the Garden of Eden was located?’
‘Correct, young man, correct.’ Captain Lynch did laughings and then did munchings on the biscuit of his choice.
‘Is the Garden still there, then?’ I asked. ‘Could an explorer rediscover it?’ I, like all boys of my age born into the time that was mine, had certain loves. For steam trains and fag cards, Meccano and yo-yos, footballers, pirates and highwaymen.
And explorers.
Very much for explorers.
There was a great deal of exploring still left to do back in those days. Much of the world had yet to be mapped. There were certainly still dragons out there somewhere. And an English explorer could find them.
There were French explorers, too, I believe. I know that certain foreigners were always racing each other towards the North Pole. But there wasn’t really much point in them doing so, for an English explorer named Hugo Rune had got there first. Back in Victorian times. He’d flown there in a steam-driven ornithopter.
‘Are you an explorer?’ I asked Captain Lynch. I did not know exactly, and still do not, how one gains a rank in the Church Army.
‘Not yet,’ the captain said. And he munched on his garibaldi, which had been the biscuit of his choice. ‘But I intend to be. And when I am, then I will find the fabled Lost City of Begrem and I will recover the riches. To distribute amongst the poor. Of course.’
‘Of course,’ I agreed. ‘Riches?’ I queried.
‘The Sumerian Kynges, boy – their treasure. Would you like to hear all about it?’
And I agreed that I would.
‘The Cradle of Civilisation,’ said the captain, settling back in the visitors’ chair and making an all-inclusive gesture with his biccy. ‘From the Garden of Eden, Adam and Eve never walked far. They never had to because all was in abundance back then. When the World was young and Man was younger still, the tribes increased and learning increased and great were the cities that were built. Thus it is written of Babel ’s tower and of those twin evil cities on the plain. But also it is written that a great city called Begrem [4] existed. And this city was under the dominion of one of the Sumerian Kynges – Georgius, his name was.’
I chewed upon a custard crème. And I nodded as I chewed.
‘In those early times,’ Captain Lynch continued, ‘those first times, before there were clocks to tick the world away, Man knew God as he knew his fellow Man. For God walked upon the face of the Earth and did come unto Man and speak unto him thusly:
‘ “Hello, Man, there,” ’ saith God.
‘ “And hello, God, sir,” ’ saith Man, in return.
‘But strange as it is, and I do find this exceedingly strange, even though Man knew God as he knew his fellow Man, there were those Men who fell from the Grace of God, who moved away from His presence. Who even plotted against Him.’
‘Why?’ I asked, though I probably should not have.
‘I’ll tell you why,’ said the captain. ‘The power of Evil. The power of the Devil. The Fallen One. Old Clootie. He That Doth Backwards Walk. The Hornéd. The King of the Shadow World. Man will never know the true nature of the Evil One, just as Man can never truly know the true nature of God. But he exists as God exists and he led the Kynge of Begrem astray.
‘He appealed, so they say, to the vanity of the Kynge and to his longing for power, more power. He offered the Kynge of Begrem the wealth of all the ages if he would perform a task for him.’
As I had finished the biscuit of my choice, I helped myself to another one.
‘He besought the Kynge to create a Homunculus,’ said Captain Lynch. And I had no choice but to ask what one of those was. And I did spit some crumbs onto the captain as I asked.