Shakespeare's Sword

by Alan Judd

  He had aged since we last met – more stoop, less hair, his face more pinched. Presumably I had aged too but that was harder to believe. Things outlive men and his workshop was as I remembered, full of tools, jigs, lathes, anvils and works in progress. Stuart is one of those increasingly rare craftsmen who, if he doesn’t have a part for something, be it a clock, an engine, a barometer or a pump, will set to and make one. Unlike our modern throwaway culture, this ethic of repair has for me an atavistic appeal, as a link with our ancestors.

  ‘What do you want with one of them things?’ he asked when I explained. ‘Got a customer with more money than sense? S’pose they must have if they come to you.’ He laughed. ‘I don’t keep that sort of stock any more. No point with all these modern imitations they turn out in China or India or wherever. No matter that it’s rubbish steel if they’re never put to use.’ He shook his head, squinting. ‘Could make one for you. Do you a nice one.’

  It would be, I was sure, but I had more sense than money and anyway couldn’t wait for the months he would probably spend on it. ‘You haven’t any old bits and pieces knocking around? Cobble something together?’

  ‘Have a rummage if you like.’ We went down into his cellar, a brick-lined cavern of metal and junk, larger than Gerald’s. ‘You stay where you are. Don’t want anything moved. I know where everything is down here. Don’t believe me, do you?’

  I did. He was that kind of man, cantankerous or helpful according to the day, his mood, the cut of someone’s jib. He would refuse to sell to anyone he took against, just as he had refused to speak to pupils he thought weren’t serious.

  Minutes later he emerged from behind a couple of grey government-issue security cabinets holding half a rapier, its blade snapped off a foot or so from the point. ‘This do you?’

  It was even more battered and discoloured than Shakespeare’s – as I now invariably thought of it – and the decoration on the swept hilt was different. But it was a similar shape to his and had an unbroken cross-guard. The handle felt like coiled wire, as with Shakespeare’s, but the pommel was squared off rather than ovoid. What was left of the blade showed a single fuller or groove running two-thirds of the length of it. With a new blade and with alterations, it might just pass. Gerald, uninterested, would almost certainly not notice. Getting it past Charlotte, now that she had seen it cleaned and knew of my interest, would be harder.

  ‘Might do. Might.’ I sounded as doubtful as I could, for the sake of my wallet. ‘Just. If you could make up a new blade or fit another old one. Any old iron will do but without the fuller and with, if possible, a ridge. Also without the curved bottom end of the cross-guard. Break that off.’

  He took it back from me, looking at it closely. ‘Want a lookalike, do you? Someone’s got a twin and wants to put it on his wall?’

  ‘That sort of thing.’

  ‘I could weld another bit of blade on but it would show if you look closely and the steel would be different. Also this has a fuller. Better dismantle it and make a complete new blade.’

  ‘So long as you can distress it, make it look old. And clean up the handle and guard and round off or replace the pommel. He’d like an ovoid.’

  Stuart’s little eyes twinkled. ‘Very particular, your customer, is he? Or won’t he know it’s been bodged?’

  ‘He wants to hang it on his wall with another, as you surmised. He wants an identical pair.’

  ‘Bring me the other one and I’ll make them into a pair.’

  ‘He’s not that fussed about accuracy and he’s in a hurry. Wants them for when he moves into his new house. How soon can you do it?’

  ‘Instant ancestral mansion, eh? Anything’s possible if he’s prepared to pay for it.’

  And, being Stuart, he made me pay through the nose. But he promised it in a week or two.

  Coaxing Stephanie into cleaning for Charlotte a couple of times a week proved easier than I had thought. In fact, she needed no coaxing. Charlotte fussed over her and made her laugh and Millie became the passion of her life. She still is. During each of these visits Charlotte and I would contrive time alone together, not quite as lovers’ trysts but they felt like it. It was almost as if, in assuming we would be lovers one day, we had got beyond that. In fact, we used those times for plotting. I was happy to prolong plotting for as long as possible, of course – at least until I had the replacement sword – and so eagerly discussed with her the various methods of disposal, as we called it.

  I realise now that words are not merely labels for thoughts but that they embody the thought, they are the thought incarnate. If you don’t have the word for it you can’t think it and if you do have a word it is the word that determines how you think of it. Thus, when calmly discussing how best to dispose of Gerald – a living, breathing being, as warm with life as ourselves – we talked as if he were recyclable waste. And because we talked of him like that, we came to see him as that; which, of course – along with the rest of us – is what ultimately he was.

  The other feature of those discussions was their erotic charge. Conspiracy, a secret shared, stimulates the erotic. When a man and a woman between whom there is already a half-acknowledged – or mutually feigned – attraction conspire together in a private place, it is hard to be indifferent to the possibilities. Most of our discussions were while she was supposedly showing me round the annex or cottage that Stephanie was to occupy, where it would have been easy to jump into bed together if we’d cared to chance it. But we did not. She indicated her awareness in small ways, a half-smile here, a lift of the eyebrows there, a shrug, an intonation, a playful glance. Being suggestive, these little signs were more erotic than any sudden clinching or groping for each other’s genitalia. But I could never quite make up my mind whether she was doing it to make me want her or because she thought it was what I expected, and she needed to keep me engaged. I did want her, up to a point, but held back because I was unsure of her. Was she really serious about killing Gerald? Was she mad? Was she playing a game I couldn’t fathom? Did she really want me or not?

  The result of this mutually teasing restraint was that the erotic energy generated was diverted into plotting. We discussed schemes and methods as eagerly as if we were planning a surprise party. It felt it had nothing to do with Gerald.

  We considered bludgeoning, poisoning, shooting, stabbing, running over. My favourite was that she should take him for a walk on Fairlight Cliffs in the dusk and push him off, claiming he’d slipped and fell. So long as there were no witnesses, no one could prove otherwise. But she claimed he was too big and heavy for her to push and it might only half-work, leaving him alive to tell the tale. In fact, I suspect she didn’t want to do it herself. The problem with virtually all other methods was disposal of the body, leaving us to conclude that either he had to disappear and never be found or his death had to look like an accident. Eventually, we settled on a combination of both: given that the police had already been involved in rescuing him from the sea, and so knew him to be liable to wander, we should try to arrange a repeat performance with, this time, no rescue.

  Once, when we’d discussed for the third time how we might get him to the water’s edge unseen, I asked her for how long she had been thinking of murdering her husband. I hadn’t planned to but she seemed relaxed and I had often wondered about it. I didn’t put it too bluntly, phrasing it something like, ‘How long have you been thinking of resolving your marital problem in this way?’

  ‘Years. Since very soon after our marriage when I realised how unbearable he was to live with.’

  ‘Wouldn’t it have been simpler to leave him?’

  ‘He couldn’t cope, he’d be helpless on his own. He needs someone to look after him. He lived with his parents until I married him. Besides, I’d have felt so guilty.’

  ‘And you wouldn’t feel guilty now if we . . . when we . . .?’

  She shook her head. ‘In losing his life now he wouldn’t be losing anything he’s conscious of having. Well, he is in fits and starts
but decreasingly. Quite soon he won’t be aware of anything. He’ll either wander off into the sea again and not be found – without our help – or he’ll walk under a bus or something and possibly cause other people to be injured. We can’t afford to put him in a home. I’m not a gaoler, this house wasn’t built as a prison, I can’t keep him in all the time. Even with your capable hands to help me.’ She finished with another half-smile.

  The obvious rejoinder, of course, was that if Gerald’s self-removal was inevitable and imminent there was no need for us to dispose of him. We had only to wait. But I didn’t want to suggest that until I had exchanged the swords.

  I had a few brief solo encounters with Gerald during the weeks running up to his removal, mostly inconsequential and meaningless. He might be standing in the hall or drawing room when I arrived with Steph. He would often stand, unmoving and expressionless, for twenty minutes at a time, gazing at nothing. Or perhaps his gaze was inward, focused on we know not what in the thickening fog of his brain. Sometimes he would respond almost normally to my greeting but at others I might as well have greeted the wall.

  There were two or three occasions he appeared to have recovered his normal self, albeit that wasn’t perhaps very normal by most people’s standards. Once, when he greeted me by name, shook my hand and thanked me for dropping by, I made the mistake of asking after the clock.

  ‘Clock?’ Fear and panic grew in his eyes. ‘Very well, thank you, very well. Much better.’ He turned and went into the drawing room, shutting the door behind him.

  Another time we almost had a conversation in which he nearly said something vital to my interests. It was a weekend and I was picking up Stephanie, who was reluctant to leave because Millie had gone out and couldn’t be found and Stephanie wanted to say goodbye. Charlotte was trying to reassure her that Millie would be back soon and that Stephanie could leave a little something for her in her bowl.

  Gerald came downstairs while this was going on. ‘Ah, Mr Gold – Simon – good of you to call. I don’t think I ever thanked you properly for taking that desk back. Rest assured I shall come to you next time I want anything.’

  I began the usual self-deprecatory remarks but he cut me short. ‘Yes, and that sword, that sword we’ve got that you were asking about, the one we use as a poker. Don’t think I ever told you, did I? Must’ve slipped my mind—’

  There was a squeal of delight from the kitchen as Stephanie greeted the return of Millie through the cat-flap. Charlotte turned to us both, smiling triumphantly. Gerald stopped, glanced at her, then back at me. He stared now as if he couldn’t place me, then nodded, smiled, patted me on the shoulder and turned back upstairs. That was the last time the three of us were together before his removal.

  Chapter Six

  Stuart Gillingham had my sword ready more or less within the agreed period but not within the agreed budget, which he now called an estimate. ‘Worth a few bob extra for a blade that does the job,’ he said. ‘As long as you don’t make me an accessory after the fact. Who you going to use it on, anyway?’

  We laughed at that as I paid up. He had done a proper job: neither the blade nor the ovoid pommel looked new and you had to look very closely indeed to see that it had been joined. That could have happened at any time, anyway, since swords were often re-bladed. The cross-guard looked fine, broken just where Shakespeare’s had been and looking as if it had been done a long time ago. If you had the two swords to compare, side by side, you would easily spot differences, but, apart, only someone with a real interest would be likely to spot them. If all went according to my plan, no one would ever see them together, anyway.

  When I got the sword home I dented the knuckle guard a little more, using the small hammer I normally kept for picture-hanging. My next task was to effect the substitution undetected. It would not be easy because Stephanie and I were never alone there without Charlotte, who would anyway be contriving opportunities for us to plot the removal of the obstacle, as she now referred to Gerald. At such moments I still wondered which of us was mad, or whether both, though I always absolved myself by reminding myself that I didn’t intend to go through with it. But for her, I really couldn’t say. She didn’t seem mad, as that imprecise term is conventionally understood. Everything else about her suggested a mind firmly – perhaps too firmly – planted in everyday reality. It was only when it came to discussing the disposal of the obstacle that there seemed to be a disconnect from the normal. Maybe she was unusually honest, voicing what many half-think but never articulate, even to themselves. It was easy to see that years of living with Gerald might have made her desperate, but she always seemed especially calm and logical when discussing the subject. Perhaps that was it – perhaps she was only logical, and that was where real madness lay. Eileen, their GP friend whom I had made such an effort to get on with because I disliked her so much, might have an opinion. But I daren’t confide.

  An opportunity for action came the following week. Charlotte told me she had to take Gerald to the hospital for half a day of memory tests on a day that Stephanie was due to clean. She asked whether I would be able to close the shop to be with her or whether she would cope alone in the house. Postponing her, she realised, was likely to be very upsetting. I said I’d bring Stephanie over and see how she got on, closing the shop if necessary. Charlotte gave me a spare key, saying, with a smile, ‘This feels pleasingly naughty, doesn’t it?’

  When the day came I didn’t want to be seen walking out of the shop sword in hand, even if it was wrapped in a blanket; nothing goes unnoticed in our part of town. I had a bag of Edwardian golf clubs in the shop, more as a stage-prop than seriously for sale, and so slotted the sword among them with a waterproof draped over the top. Just as well, since a neighbour from over the road, a man about my own age who told everyone he was an artist but never produced anything, came out as we were getting into the car. ‘Didn’t know you were a golfer, Simon?’ he called cheerily. ‘Locally or elsewhere?’

  ‘They’re antiques. Showing them to a customer.’

  He laughed. ‘Good luck with that.’

  Stephanie’s mind was fixed upon cleaning and the prospect of seeing Millie again. She neither saw the sword nor asked why I was bringing the clubs into the house. Charlotte had left instructions on the kitchen table that Stephanie was to start by vacuuming the kitchen and utility room. I left her fussing over Millie.

  Alone in the drawing room with my bag of clubs, I closed the door and lay the two swords side by side on the carpet. They looked near enough the same sort of thing but they clearly weren’t twins. You could have got away with showing them as examples of typical late-sixteenth- or early-seventeenth-century English rapiers influenced by continental fashion, possibly by the same hand. I hadn’t realised until that moment, however, that Stuart’s was a good three inches shorter than Shakespeare’s. I was pretty sure I had given Stuart the measurements; perhaps Gerald wasn’t the only one whose mind was going. Too late now, it would have to do.

  For some minutes I indulged myself again with Shakespeare’s sword, alone in that room under the disapproving gaze of Gerald’s ancestors. I lunged and parried, drew from an imaginary scabbard, cut and swished. For a while I simply walked around the room, holding the sword before me and once more wishing, willing, that by some strange alchemy something of William Shakespeare would transmit itself through that slim grip.

  Perhaps it did. His plays are full of abrupt exits and surprise entrances. The door opened to reveal Gerald staring at me, open-mouthed, his fist clasping the door handle. He wore a green tweed suit with a matching tie and yet another checked shirt. His jacket was undone – it wouldn’t have met across his belly anyway – and in his other hand he held a tweed cap. I saw him only when I turned so he must have witnessed my last pirouette. The golf clubs and Stuart’s sword were on the rug in front of the fire and I had just jumped over them.

  We all know how selective and erratic memory can be. If you had asked me a couple of years ago I should have said tha
t I spoke first, that I said something inane like, ‘Forgive me, I was just trying out your swords, making sure they work.’ But now I’m not so sure. I may have been about to say something like that, almost certainly I had thought of it, when Gerald forestalled me. He let go of the door and advanced into the room with slow steps, his face reddening. His glance took in not only me but Stuart’s sword on the floor. He stopped in front of me, much too close for comfort, then shouted, ‘Thief! You thief! You’re a thief, sir! Damn thief!’

  How he knew, I can’t say, but some defunct mental connection had sparked back into life and he had divined my intention. His shout brought Charlotte into the room. ‘We’re back early,’ she said, ‘the appointment was—’

  She stopped when she saw me with sword in hand and the other on the floor. From the kitchen came the sound of vacuuming. Gerald’s lips worked and twitched but no sounds came now. I could smell his breath, warm and rank.

  I stepped back from Gerald. I think I said ‘no’ a couple of times, adding, ‘It’s not like that.’ I’m not sure he heard me because he turned away, stepping across Stuart’s sword and the golf clubs and reaching for one of the military swords on the wall above the fireplace.

  In recollecting a number of actions it’s almost impossible to be sure one has the sequencing right. Things often happen simultaneously or so closely together that it’s difficult afterwards to distinguish accurately between one’s perceptions, one’s intentions and one’s actions. I’m confident that Gerald reached for the middle sword and that his intention was to grab it and use it, but whether to threaten or fight, or whether with some notion of necessary self-defence – though I wasn’t threatening him – I don’t know. I believe I said or shouted ‘No!’ again and may have added, ‘Don’t!’ I think Charlotte said something, too. She may have said, ‘Gerald!’