Shakespeare 2012 - Part II

by Cathal McCarron

  Venison walked across to the window behind Tony and looked out across the city skyline. Emerald sat on the chair in front of Tony’s desk. He dispensed with pleasantries. “The Lennon trade, Tony, think you can handle it?”

  Tony relaxed instantly, reassured that he wasn’t getting sacked. They had come to speak to him about a trade. Each trade that Venison Inc planned had an operational name. Venison was a supporter of Celtic Football Club and used the names of former Celtic players. Neil Lennon was a tough, feisty midfielder. He was an aggressive, natural-born warrior – and winner. Emerald had conceived the trade and explained it to Venison. Venison thought Lennon was an appropriate moniker. Tony had been working on the details of the Lennon trade as a delegate under Emerald.

  “Of course,” Tony replied.

  “Explain how,” Venison enquired from behind, still looking out the window.

  Tony took a second to formulate a response he hoped would impress. “The timing is important of course, but even more important is creating the conditions, and controlling those conditions at buy and sell time.”

  Venison continued to look out the window. “What conditions do we need when we sell?”

  Tony realized that they were testing him. They were offering him an opportunity to take on some risk. “Schools go back in September. Every parent across the country looks forward to that day. There’s a general sense of renewal then, like a mini New Year’s Day, and people make new plans, start projects and have an irrational outbreak of optimism. That’s the day to sell.”

  Venison looked down to the street. “We can’t control the school calendar, Tony.”

  Tony wasn’t sure who to direct his answer to. He looked across at Emerald. “No, but we can leak and plant stories in the newspapers on the Friday, Saturday and Sunday before, get them on TV, about new technologies creating new jobs, new government investment, higher profit expectations from major corporations.” Emerald looked back passively. Tony continued. “Tap into and drive up the feel-good factor. The FTSE always soars on that Monday. There’s still a summer vibe, people feel freer when their kids are safely running amok at school. There’ll be a deep, lingering post-Olympics fervour. In the morning we ramp up the good news and the shares rocket. Then in the afternoon we dump.”

  Venison nodded but kept his back to Tony. “Very good. When do we buy?”

  Tony could feel himself starting to sweat. He had to prove to Venison he was comfortable with risk and pressure. “The Thursday two weeks before. The Bank of England release new data that day. It’s going to be grim for those who are listening. The Prime Minister and Chancellor will be away. The Government will be deep in its summer siesta. We plant stories discretely buried deep inside City AM about the impending announcement of poor financial results for the bank whilst most people are distracted or away. Those who read the signals will think they’re luckily getting a jump on the herd and will want to exit. With some unsourced nudging the price would tumble within three days, unreported, virtually unheralded outside those who care and think they’re the fortunate ones for spotting the signs.”

  “Still good.” Venison turned around and looked at Tony. “How much do we invest?”

  Tony knew this was the sink-or-soar crucial question. How much would give Venison the impression of confidence, but not recklessness? “Five hundred million,” Tony said with as much conviction as he could manage.

  “Half a billion pounds of our funds,” Venison said dispassionately. At that moment Tony wanted to change down to one hundred million. He’d been too cocky, he hadn’t done enough research, he should have played it safe. Venison turned to face Emerald. “Rob, what do you think?”

  “It’s a massive risk,” Emerald replied. “The theory is riddled with holes and speculation.” Tony’s heart dropped. “But our young hero’s track record is impeccable so far. And it may just work. I’m happy to give him some more rope.” He turned to face Tony. “It’s either a treasure chest or your body we’re gonna be roping in Tony.”

  Tony sighed internally. He’d cleared the high hurdle, but knew there was now a towering high jump ahead of him.

  “Ok, I’m persuaded,” Venison said blandly. “Mr Jones,” he finally directed himself at Tony. “You have my authorisation. Now know this. We shall be watching exceedingly closely. This could make you. Or ...”

  “Understood,” Tony agreed diffidently. “It’ll make me.”

  Chapter 18

  Mare Street in Hackney is one of the major arterial roads through east London. Encrusted with tower blocks of council flats, the road is lined with cheap supermarkets, off-licences, bookmakers, and fried chicken takeaways. Leon and Will were walking to the bus-stop. A red double-decker bus drove towards and then past them in the bus-lane. Will followed its passage along the road with an aghast expression of fascination. A bus is like a unicorn to him, thought Leon. “It’s ok, it’s a bus. It’s to transport people around London.” They arrived at the bus-stop a minute later. Leon pointed up to the sign displaying the bus route numbers. “Each bus has a number which indicates where it goes. We’ll take bus number 48 to London Bridge by the Thames and walk to the Globe.”

  Two teenage boys were sitting, legs spread-eagled, on the thin red plastic bench under the cover of the bus-stop. Leon sat on the bench, leaving a space on his left between himself and the youths, expecting Will to sit down on his right. Will sat down in the space on Leon’s left, next to the teenagers. Leon could hear the young lads’ conversation. They weren’t trying to speak discretely.

  “Bruv, I had sum nex dream last night, blad,” the youth with his hood up said to his friend. “Der wuz me n like dis girl n we wuz at a play, sumfin by Shakespeare.”

  Will looked at the lad, raised a hand, and opened his mouth. Leon desperately grabbed Will’s arm, and then put his finger to his lips. Leon wondered if that gesture meant anything to Will. Evidently it did, because Will nodded his assent.

  “Like wot wuz dat one we had to do at school bruv?” the boy continued. “Wif de Scottish murder?”

  “Macbef,” his friend answered.

  “Yeah man, Macbef. N one of de actors brings me n dis girl like up onstage to do Romeo n Juliet. N she’s like up in de tower sayin all dat ’wherefore art thou?’ jive.”

  Leon and Will exchanged a smile.

  “N I’m like wavin and shoutin up to her but she can’t see me like n de audience, right, dey starts booin n chuckin fings at me. Proper mental like, blad, like tomatoes n cabbages n den bot-els n coins.”

  The other teenager had a similar story to share. “Bruv, I’d a dream about sum Shakespeare play last night too blad. I was Julius Caesar n all de ovver actors, actually, you wuz der, man, dey wuz all gangin around me on de stage wif knives. N you said ’Et tu Brutus’ –“

  “Bruté. Bruté. Vocative,” Will whispered to Leon.

  “ – to me innit n wuz gonna stab me, n den your knive turned into a flower, a rose like, n you made me smell it like. N den a ghost walked in wearin chains wif dis man wif a donkey’s ed.”

  “Man, dat wuz sum good stuff we puffed last night blad,” the first youth said. Both teenagers laughed and bumped their closed fists together as the #48 bus pulled up to the bus-stop.

  The two teenagers remained sitting. Leon touched Will’s arm and walked across to the bus’s open door. Leon tapped in with his Oyster card and paid the driver for Will’s fare. Will followed Leon upstairs and into the seats at the front of the top deck. They sat in silence for most of the journey except when Leon pointed out buildings he thought would interest Will. As they started down Shoreditch High Street, Leon asked “So did you build the Globe?”

  “My company of actors did. The Lord Chamberlain’s Men. In 1599. Our previous theatre was in Shoreditch. But the owner of the land it was built on claimed he also owned the building. He didn’t. The building, the wood, belongs to my colleague James Burbage.” Leon picked up on Will’s use of the present tense, four hundred years later. “During Christmas in 1
598 when the land owner was feasting and revelling away from London, we took down the theatre, plank by plank, and moved it by boat to Southwark, where in the spring we built our new Globe.”

  “You moved the building?” Leon asked. “Plank by plank?”

  “Of course,” Will replied dismissively. “The building is ours.”

  “Was. It wouldn’t be so easy today.”

  Will looked out the window at the huge hulking buildings in the City of London. “Rocks of ages ... Those boys as we waited, their language, is also English?”

  “Yeah, but they speak a lot of slang. Slang is the street English that teenagers, kids from 13 to 19 use.”

  “Slang, teenagers. I need to learn these words. My own tongue hath grown and I know not how to wiggle it.”

  The bus pulled into the kerb at the south side of London Bridge. “Our stop!” Leon announced.

  Chapter 19

  The east pavement on London Bridge had a flow of Londoners rushing silently in both directions, impatiently dodging the tourists who were loitering to pose for snaps or take in the riverside view. Leon stayed close to Will’s side as he studied the surge of commuters to his left and right. After a few moments, Will barged rudely through a large group of tourists taking a photo. He leaned out over the low fence that ran along the bridge looking east and spat into the river. Leon mouthed apologies to the stunned tourists behind Will as he moved to catch up.

  As they looked east they saw HMS Belfast, a veteran Royal Navy battleship from World War II moored nearby; beyond the ship were the striking turrets of Tower Bridge.

  “This is London Bridge?” Will asked Leon. “There are no houses on it, nor shops nor taverns. That bridge has towers.”

  “That’s Tower Bridge.”

  The word seemed to jog a memory for Will. “Tower Bridge. Does the Tower still stand?”

  “The Tower of London. Yeh, it’s over there,” Leon pointed roughly to the spot. “It’s just a place for tourists from other countries to visit these days. Did you ever spend any time in it?”

  Will laughed. “Me? No! I’m a good playwright! Not like Ben Jonson.”

  Leon remembered reading somewhere that Jonson was prone to rebellious outbursts, and the occasional fight. Leon wanted to dig for juicy theatrical gossip from Will, but decided to do it discretely. “Ben Jonson was in the Tower?”

  “That gleeking, flap-mouthed pignut practically lives in the Tower. I visited him there just last week. ” Will looked rueful. “Give or take 400 years. He owes me five shillings.” He did a slow spin, taking in the mammoth buildings on the north bank of the river and the smooth, unfinished peak of the Shard. “Nothing remains from my time?”

  “I don’t think so,” Leon replied. “A fire destroyed most of the city.”

  Will spun to face Leon. “A fire destroyed my London? When?”

  Leon regretted the revelation from London’s future. He’d seen enough time-travel movies and TV shows where time rifts and paradoxes created issues. “I … I’m not sure you should learn too much about your future, our past. If you return to your time you could change the future – for all of us.” Leon gave Will some time to ponder the notion. When Will didn’t respond, Leon showed him across the road and they descended the steps to the riverside path along South Bank.

  They followed the trail around Southwark Cathedral, past Sir Francis Drake’s dry-docked old English galleon called the Golden Hinde, which drew a double-take from Will, and along South Bank. Will stopped suddenly when they reached the Globe. “My Globe! My Globe! My new Globe.” He jogged around the outside of the building, barging his way through the crowds milling about. Leon hurried after him. When Leon caught up, Will was staring up at the theatre, looking enraptured. “It’s ... a different … familiarity. Like a familiar friend from a different world. Like it’s been magically printed from dream presses.”

  “This building was made in the 1990s,” Leon regurgitated from memory, then realised such blandness would puncture the poetry of the moment Will was enjoying.

  Will pressed both his hands to the stone, white-washed walls. “My London Stone,” he whispered reverentially, “my foundation stone.” He pressed his cheek to the wall and held it there for several seconds like he was searching for a heartbeat. Stepping back he looked up towards the roof. “It’s a wonder!” he exclaimed ecstatically. “A miracle grandchild!” He crossed to look at the posters outside the theatre entrance. Large posters announced summer runs for Henry V, Hamlet, and The Taming of the Shrew. Will reached out to touch a poster, and ran his hand over it. He leaned in to inspect it closer, then turned and animatedly asked Leon, “Can we enter?”

  Leon felt like he was in a strangely inverted family, where he was an over-vigilant granddad escorting an impulsive, wide-eyed grandchild on his first day out in a theme park. But he fancied seeing a play. “You kidding me?! Go and see a Shakespeare play with the Bard himself?! Absofeckinlutely!”

  Leon and Will walked around the corner to the bright, modern box office. Will appeared to be still lost in a woozy trance as they approached the ticket counter. Leon was worried that there may only be expensive tickets left. He’d have to splurge on his almost maxed-out credit card. He was in luck, and bought two £5 tickets to see The Taming of the Shrew from the Yard, the concrete floor area immediately below and in front of the stage. There were still twenty minutes until the play started, but Leon sensed Will was not going to be delayed going straight through to the Yard. Once they’d climbed up the stairs and passed through the ticket check Will strode urgently ahead into the theatre. “Well, he knows his way around alright,” Leon thought. They were the first customers to enter the theatre. Will walked straight up to the stage, put his hands on it, closed his eyes, breathed in slowly, then turned around, opened his eyes and stared up at the boxes on the upper levels..

  “My Globe ...” he said softly.

  “How does it compare?” Leon asked, enjoying observing Will’s reaction, and the unfamiliar silence in the theatre.

  “It is ... so smooth, and so clean. So much newer even than when it was new,” he answered serenely. A minute of silence passed between them as Will looked around slowly. Then he turning to Leon with a broad smile. “Marry! Never have I watched a play from the Yard!”

  Other customers began entering the theatre. Leon and Will claimed their spots below the centre of the stage. Will rested his arms on the stage, however neither Leon nor anyone else in the audience did likewise. When the play started, Leon was torn between watching the play and watching Will. Will looked completely entranced. All his reticence and fear had vanished. He’d found his foundation stone. He closed his eyes several times, smiled, nodded occasionally. He mouthed the words throughout, shaking his head occasionally. He froze for a moment in mute shock when a female actor first walked onto the stage. He roared with laughter when others quietly tittered. Twice, he laughed loudly when nobody else laughed at all. During the second act, the actor playing Petrucio looked down at Will. Will looked straight back. The actor paused, seeming to be momentarily distracted. The pause continued too long, and became uncomfortable. The actor had evidently forgotten his lines. He looked out to the back of the theatre, then looked back down at Will. Mouthing the words discretely, Will prompted him. The actor recovered and continued. Leon coughed noisily to contain an inappropriate guffaw.

  After the play, when the applause from the capacity three thousand people in the audience had stopped, Leon and Will joined the general throng of people shuffling towards the exits.

  “Incredible!” Will shouted, happily. “So pure! So perfect! So ... Oh!”

  They were making slow progress towards the exit. Will didn’t seem to notice. “These were the actors I saw in my mind when I wrote it!” He was speaking too loudly. Leon checked to see if anyone else was listening to Will. It could be a tricky situation if someone overhead Will claiming authorship of The Taming of the Shrew. However Will apparently didn’t sense any need to be discreet. “The playe
rs sound like nothing I know! And the backdrop! We usually had just an empty stage!” Will was rapturous, whereas Leon was now more concerned about eavesdroppers.

  Will touched his forehead. “Like the play I heard in my head!” he proclaimed. He touched his heart. “Like they knew what I wanted to say from my soul!” He looked up and around him. “This new Globe is a heavenly delight!” he shouted euphorically. Leon tilted his head downwards and looked around discretely, rubbing his forehead. One of the theatre ushers wearing a purple steward vest was watching them. Will stopped just before they reached the exit of the auditorium and grabbed Leon’s arm. “Leon!” he yelled. “I will work here! I will write here!”

  Leon just wanted to get Will out of the building without any awkward incident. “What? Work here? Really? I don’t know,” he whispered, hoping Will would pick up the hint to lower his voice.

  Will pointed towards one of the theatre employees. “Maybe I should introduce myself?”

  “NO!” Leon roared, far too loudly. The employee looked across at him. Leon lowered his voice, and looked as earnestly as he could into Will’s eyes. “Will, trust me, if anybody else finds out who you are, you will find no peace.”

  All the other customers had passed through the exit. Leon tapped Will’s arm to suggest starting moving again. Will took a step towards the exit. Leon leaned down to speak quietly to Will as they crossed the courtyard heading to the exit onto South Bank. “Will, they will lock you in the Tower for being delusional. You will either become an international event, or another crazy.”

  Outside the building small groups of people stood chatting. Leon slowly weaved a path through them. “Either way, you cannot imagine what people will do to you. And not only that, you travelled through time. People will want to investigate that. You need to stay secret.”

  Will considered Leon’s arguments for a while as they walked. “You know these times best, my liege,” he said doffing an imaginary hat at Leon. “A secret Shakespeare I shall remain.”