Harry stopped walking and looked the spirit in the eye. “Look. I have to get used to calling you Colin. I’ve got an idea of the wonders you can perform; you can get used to calling me Harry.”
“Yes, Mast - Harry. But why not Will? Is it some kind of plot, Mast - Harry? Like in the plays?”
“If you say so. Come on; let’s go down to the river. There’s ducks and swans.”
“I don’t eat, Master.”
“Give me strength.”
***
The train pulled out of Birmingham’s pretty Moor Street station. Hank Brownlow looked at the young woman across the table from him. She was working on her laptop, an earpiece clipped - where else? - to her ear. She may be coldly professional, he considered, but that was hellishly attractive. Brownlow looked forward to the wrap party when the show was in the can and he could at last breach codes of conduct and make his move.
He listened while she made a call to Goldman at the network. Janine’s father, uncle, guardian or whatever. Poor Janine; Brownlow had never harboured a desire to seduce her at a wrap party.
Ms Benn was laughing although her expression was humourless. She was being polite, sycophantically so. If the boss cracks a funny, you better chuckle. Hell, you better fucking guffaw. She ended the call with an iteration of her sympathy for his loss and put her phone away. She caught Brownlow’s eye.
“Trip to Stratford approved. Usual M. O. You scout around, gather your evidence then we summon a crew for the location shoot and the interviews.”
Brownlow nodded. The p.a. scowled and stood up. “Excuse me,” she said.
“If you’re fetching coffee...”
“You want coffee?”
“If you’re going that way...”
Ms Benn strode away. The motion of the carriage did nothing to unsteady her.
“Tough cookie,” Brownlow muttered. Shit; he forgot to ask her to get cookies. He slipped into a sulk and watched the greenery and minor stations fly past the window.
Kelly Benn walked through the buffet car. She wanted to find a toilet that was as far from that obnoxious American as she could.
She had a call to make - and it was not the call of Nature.
***
“Didst bring me here to throw me back in, Master?”
Ariel was looking glumly at the waters of the Avon, flowing beneath the busy road bridge that spanned the river. Beside him, Harry muttered. “Don’t give me ideas. Seriously, we’re just killing time until lunch.”
“A curious expression, Master.”
“You’re picking me up on talking funny? That’s rich.”
They fell into a contemplative silence, watching a couple of rowers pulling themselves along the water.
“It must have changed a lot since you last visited,” Harry conjectured.
“Water is water, Master.”
“I mean the town, you plum.”
“Honestly, Master, I can’t say I take much notice of the world of mortal men. Their buildings, their skirmishes, their hopes and their dreams - all are transient. Even the river bends its course but it remains true to its element.”
“Oh. That’s comforting.”
“It is?”
“Sarcasm, mate.”
Harry left the bridge and Ariel was quick to follow. They walked past the barges offering fast food treats, past the spot of their first meeting, and along the narrow cobbled pavement that took them beyond the theatre complex, a row of cottages and the famous Filthy Fowl pub itself.
“Are we not premature, Master? Too early for our meeting with the man of cheese?”
Harry kept walking. He turned left onto a path that followed the river bank. They walked through rolling parkland lined with trees until the grey shape of a church loomed ahead.
“The hour of your devotions, Master?”
Harry baulked. The very idea!
“Something I want you to see,” he said and ushered Ariel through the entrance.
The chill of stone surrounded them. The church was quiet. A couple of tourists of indeterminate nationality were filling the air with camera flashes. Harry approached a woman at a small table by a cordon of rope.
“Three quid to see the tomb,” she said flatly, without glancing up from her People’s Friend.
“Morning, Hilary!”
The woman looked up and lowered her reading glasses. A wry smile split her face. “Harry! Didn’t recognise you in your civvies. Tights in the wash, are they?”
“Something like that.”
Hilary gave Ariel a quick appraisal. “What’s this then, private tour?”
“Something like that.”
Hilary checked in every direction that no one but the Lord was watching. She unhooked one end of the rope and gestured them through with a nod.
“Colourless nail varnish,” she whispered.
“I’m sorry?”
“For your tights. Stops runs turning into ladders. Top tip!”
“Um, thanks.”
Hilary buried herself in her magazine. Harry led Ariel to the section of the church that got the most attention, the chancel, albeit at three quid a shufti.
The tourists, all snapshotted out, were standing in silent reverence at a set of railings. Reflexively, Harry bent his neck and lowered his voice. Ariel gazed around at the decorative stonework and gilded details. He pointed out a painted bust in an alcove.
“Who’s that, Master?”
“That’s him,” said Harry, surprised Ariel didn’t recognise the bust of Shakespeare.
“Mr Cheese?”
“No; William Shakespeare, you prune.”
Ariel peered a little closer. “Looks nothing like you, Master. Even if you put on your false moustaches.”
“But it looks like he does, uh, did?”
“Not much,” Ariel shrugged. “I know not. I don’t remember sights as mortals do. I remember sounds and odours and vibrations in the air. Of course, a statue neither sounds nor smells nor vibrates the air as the mortal it represents would. And time changes all mortals. You seem to be in rather good nick, Master.”
“But - I’m not - this is what I’m trying to tell you - I’m not - Look! This is the burial place,” Harry indicated an engraved stone on the floor beyond the railings. “His burial place.”
“Who, Master?”
“Your master. Look.”
Ariel’s forehead clouded with a frown.
“Go on,” Harry insisted. Ariel made to move through the railings but Harry pulled him back. “Not like that. Find some other way.”
He was all too aware that the tourist couple were looking at them with the suspicion of store detectives. Harry returned their stare until they looked away.
“Hold my clothes, Master. I shall render myself invisible to every eye but thine.”
Before Harry could respond, Ariel stepped out of his clothes as though walking through mist. The empty garments fell to the flagstones. Harry gathered them up quickly and stashed them behind his back before the tourists noticed. Ariel poured himself through the bars like steam and approached the gravestone.
He tipped his head to one side then he sent Harry a helpless look.
Great, thought Harry. He can’t read.
Harry cleared his throat and recited, by heart, the famous inscription.
Good friend, for Jesus’ sake forbear
To dig the dust enclosed here.
Blessed be the man that spares these stones,
And cursed be he that moves my bones.
The tourists turned and marvelled. They clapped their appreciation and cooed at how charming it was. Harry nodded graciously. They hadn’t noticed Harry’s companion was nowhere to be seen - not by them at least.
“A curse!
” Ariel grinned. “How lovely! I’m going in!”
“No!” Harry plunged a hand through the railing but it was like trying to grab smoke. The tourists thought he was in the throes of grief for the dead playwright; the English sure do love their Shakespeare.
“Worry not, Master. I shall not move any bones. I shall merely peep.”
Ariel dissolved through the gravestone. Harry clung to the railings.
“Poor guy,” said the man of the couple.
The woman patted Harry’s arm. The couple moved away from the chancel - rather quickly, Harry observed.
Ariel reappeared from the chest upwards. “There’s bones in there all right, Master,” he said. “Like a dog’s dinner. But whose they are, I cannot say.” His eyes widened. “Were these the bones of Yorick? Alas, poor -”
“Don’t be fucking stupid!” Harry interrupted. “Yorick wasn’t real. Come to think of it, you’re not real either. I doubt any of this is real. I don’t know what’s real anymore.”
“Harry?” Hilary was behind him. “Are you okay? Are you okay? Are you okay, Harry?”
“Um,” Harry was sweating. He wiped his brow and then noticed it was with the shirt Ariel had been wearing. Hilary’s eyebrows flew upwards. She glanced around the chancel.
“Your friend leave, did he? I didn’t see him.”
“Um. Oh, he’s around somewhere.”
“You look like you’ve seen a ghost,” Hilary looked concerned. She was used to people being tearful at this spot, but never an old hand like Harry who had visited the church countless times with his tourists trailing behind him. “I’ve got some tea in a flask.”
“No, no; thank you.” Harry pushed past her. “I just need some fresh air.”
He hurried outside and didn’t stop until he came to a park bench. Panting, he sat down, with Ariel’s clothes bundled in his lap.
Ariel appeared in front of him, naked except for a worried expression.
“Harry?”
Harry looked up. “Put your fucking clothes on, for fuck’s sake! Wait a minute, you called me Harry?”
Ariel sat beside him. He took the clothes from Harry’s lap and insinuated himself into them. A second later, they looked for all the world like two young men chatting on a bench.
“You’re not my master, are you?” Ariel looked glum. “He’s dead, isn’t he? Really actually properly dead.”
“And buried.”
“Yes, I saw.”
“Which begs the question,” Ariel continued.
“Yes?”
“Who the fuck are you, Harry?”
Twelve.
And still two pieces of the staff elude you?
True, Mother; but I have secured the other two pieces. Why can’t you praise my accomplishments instead of pointing out my shortcomings?
Without the other pieces, what you have is worthless to me. I wager the pieces you have do not even fit together.
I am working on it, Mother. The fourth piece will soon be in my possession, I can assure you. It will fit to at least one of the pieces I already have and then the magic will happen.
You are not to activate the staff until it is complete. You know not what you do.
Relax; the three pieces will lead me to the fourth.
You cannot know that. Just as easily, the other piece will lead its owner towards your three - or I should say two pieces. You have yet to secure the third.
A matter of time.
Be not complacent. We shall speak again when you have the third piece in your possession. Until then, seek not to disturb me for I need to rest.
Yes, Mother. No, Mother. Three bags full, Mother.
What prattling is this?
Nothing, Mother. You put your feet up, love.
I have no feet and this you know!
Yes, yes; not until you are summoned to the realm of mortals.
I discern impudence in your tone. I like it not.
Sorry, Mother.
***
Olly was in a dressing room, going over his lines. It was all right for Nigel; he got to practise them every day. Olly had to keep refreshing his memory so that he would be ready if he should be called to step in.
As he went over his line, he strode around the room, lumbering in the gait Nigel had decided on - in consultation with Jeremy the director, of course - that Caliban should have. It was a sort of half-walk, half drag kind of movement, as the creature’s ape half pulled its fish half around the stage. It was all very well for Nigel who could afford expensive chiropractic therapy (and probably charge it to the company as well) but for Olly who was of a different, heftier build, it was not easy to emulate. He kept crashing into the furniture for one thing.
His phone buzzed on the dressing table, breaking his concentration. Alicia’s name flashed on the screen, bursting his bubble completely. He picked it up.
“Is he gone?”
“Greetings to you too, my love.”
“Stop being funny, Olly. Is he gone?”
“I said he can stay until the end of the month. I -”
“You had better be joking, Olly.”
“You just told me to stop being funny.”
“I want him out. How can we make a home together with him mooching around like a spare cuckoo? Get him gone or we’re finished. I mean it, Olly.”
She hung up. Olly switched his phone off. He tried to get back into role but the mood was ruined. Alicia was good at that: mood-ruining. If only she wasn’t so bloody-minded, Olly would give Alicia her marching orders. Imagine! An actor afraid of making a scene!
“The red plague take you!” he snapped at his phone. He thought about ringing Harry. Not to ask him to leave but to see if he had an hour or so to go through the script with him. Harry, being an actor, was good for a line-run. He would do all the voices.
He almost pressed the button. No. Harry was probably working. Or if not, up to all sorts with that young fellow he had brought home. Oh, to be footloose and fancy free again!
It was one of the things Olly envied about Harry the most.
***
Hank Brownlow stood for the last few moments of the journey as the train pulled into Stratford upon Avon station. He pressed the button impatiently and repeatedly until it eventually lit up green. He pressed it again and stepped out onto the platform before the doors were fully open.
He had to wait for Ms Benn to detrain - although capable of hailing a cab himself, why have a p.a. in your pay and not have her attend to all the mundane matters? The icy young woman seemed to be in no hurry and even stopped to allow others to get off ahead of her. Goddamn Brits and their politeness!
“I believe our taxi will be waiting for us through here,” she said without looking at him. She strode through the station to where a long line of cars was waiting for fares. Brownlow followed at a semi-jogging pace, jostling Brits as he passed. He was disappointed to find the station was so small. Not a single head turned as if to say, There’s that famous bloke off the telly; he must be doing something important so we’d better make way - or however else the goddamn Brits might phrase it. In the States things would be different. In the States, people knew the drill. They’d build bigger forecourts for a start, to give a TV presenter space for a good run-up. He couldn’t imagine reconstructing his arrival at Stratford for the show in this itty bitty place...unless they doubled the station with a London one - Victoria, for example.
With visions of crane shots tracking his progress through one of London’s busiest stations, he joined Ms Benn at the kerb. A taxi pulled up. Ms Benn leant in through the passenger window.
“The Birthplace; do you know it?”
“I should bloody say so,” said the taxi driver. “Two of you?”
Brownlow was already getting in the back. In
the reconstruction, it would be a proper black cab not this ordinary, boxy-looking thing. Britain was losing its photogenic qualities. No longer could you have establishing shots with red telephone boxes on every street corner, and red double-decker buses trundling in and out of shot. Out in the sticks the buses were mainly single-decker and came in all colours - how was his global audience supposed to cope with that?
He looked glumly at the streets as the cab pushed through the crowds. The town sure was pretty; he would give it that. It has a real Tudor vibe going on, as well as some Georgian deal with neo-classical columns outside a department store. It was like a trip through English history - not quite like Las Vegas where all the world’s most famous landmarks are laid out in one place so you don’t have to travel anywhere else to see them - but taken from certain angles, the town would look good on camera. This cheered him up but his mood ebbed again when the cab pulled up and the driver announced this was as far as he could go.
The Birthplace stands in a pedestrianized area. Brownlow’s vision of pulling up in a car with screeching tyres and running into the building dissolved. Perhaps, they could get special dispensation from the council or whomever and film a cab - a black one, of course - pulling up... He would get the icy Ms Benn to work her magic.
Trish at the box office recognised the American standing behind the arrogant woman. She grinned and stammered in the manner of fans and admirers the world over but she managed to inform Mr Brownlow’s assistant that, very sorry, Professor Cheese was not on the premises at the moment.
“But we had an appointment,” the woman Trish presumed to be Mr Brownlow’s secretary or something snarled through clenched teeth.
“I can put a call through to Sue?” Trish offered, picking up a receiver.
“Who the hell is Sue?” Ms Benn’s fuse was getting shorter.
“The professor’s secretary,” said Trish. She looked the woman up and down with undisguised disdain. “Your counterpart.”
“Don’t bother. Just tell me where we can find the man himself and we’ll leave you to your ticket touting.”
Trish glanced at her watch. “You might still catch him at Anne’s Gaff. Pardon me; Anne Hathaway’s cottage. Do you need a map?”
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