Shakespeare 2012 - Part II

by Cathal McCarron

  Chapter 20

  Hermione was still trying to comprehend the bizarre events of the night before and the morning just gone. William Shakespeare. The William Shakespeare. In her flat! In 2012. As open-minded as Hermione believed herself to be, this was so unbelievable that, like Doubting Thomas, she thought she would never have believed it if she hadn’t met him herself. And there Shakespeare had been. And she did not doubt it was true. The truth had been revealed to and accepted by her intuition through Will’s presence more than his words. She was convinced that Will’s involuntary summons through time had to be related to the unprecedented concentration of collective consciousness that had become focused during the performances of A Midsummer Night’s Dream and the power of the summer solstice. And … the Mayans? Could they have been onto something about humanity’s evolving consciousness? Hermione had developed a deep interest in the Mayan prophecies for 2012 back in 2010 when a book about the Mayan calendar had caught her eye in Dalston library. She’d read it through once, then read it again, slower, taking notes. Since then she had ordered numerous books about 2012 online, more than she had been able to read.

  Leon was texting her frequently to keep her informed of Will’s and his movements around London. Hermione decided to use the afternoon to plunge back into her books about 2012. She collected five books from her bookshelves and carried them to the dining table. She took a pad of paper and a pen out her of bag. And the previous day’s copy of the Metro, the free daily newspaper for London, distributed at tube stations across the city.

  The first book she picked up a book was called 2012: Truth and Myth. This book was a compendium of articles by twenty writers with an interest in 2012. There was a wide-ranging selection of pieces exploring different aspects of the 2012 phenomenon. She had read some of this book before. One author argued that the Mayans were aliens who had come to Earth to leave secret messages to encourage humanity’s spiritual development. Another argued that the Earth’s magnetic poles were going to swap places, causing chaos. Another claimed that social media on the internet was causing humanity to create a global shared consciousness. Hermione flicked through to the index at the back. She wasn’t sure what she was looking for precisely. Nobody had yet written about the potential for time travel to 2012 from other eras. She didn’t spot anything that caught her eye. She picked up another book, this one called Perspectives on the End of an Age: 2012. Again, nothing instantly leaped out of the contents or index at Hermione. She repeated the same process for the three other books. Nothing suggested itself as being relevant to Will’s mysterious arrival. What was she looking for? In frustration, she pushed the books away from her and opened the copy of the Metro. A headline on page 3 had the attention-grabbing effect she had been looking for in the books about 2012: Armageddon 2012 – Time Is Changing.

  Hermione circled the headline and read on. The story concerned a doom-laden report from a respected financial consultancy that a perfect storm of economic hurricanes was converging around the world. The report analysed economic trends, and claimed that these trends, alongside political instability in China, the Arab world and Russia, were pushing the world towards a financial meltdown unprecedented in scale, one that would make the credit crunch of 2007 minuscule by comparison. The report’s author described a desire to travel forward in time four hundred years when the world would be either saved or doomed. It ended with an oblique comment that “ancient predictions about the end of the financial era are coming true in 2012”.

  Hermione felt a shiver run through her, similar to those she had felt whilst watching Leon become Lysander and when Will had intoned his incantation at her the previous evening, albeit less intense. She had attributed the first shiver during the play to a soppy, romantic swoon at seeing her beloved perform so magnetically, and the second to Will’s beguiling poetry. But Hermione was self-aware, and quickly learned to attune herself to her mind’s and body’s signals. Her unconscious was suggesting something, advising her to intuit a discovery. What was stirring this shiver? She put the pen down, and reached out for one of her books about 2012.

  Chapter 21

  From the Globe, Leon escorted Will on an improvised, guided tour along South Bank, across Hungerford Bridge, then through Trafalgar Square to Charing Cross Road. Even as Leon perceived Will’s comfort increase, so did his amazement. On Charing Cross Road Will glanced up at the signs adorning the many theatres. “Words, words everywhere ... on every building ...,” he observed.

  “I thought you’d spot these,” Leon replied. “More theatres. They often put the playwright’s name in lights.”

  “Their names in lights?” Will repeated. “Could I see my name in lights ...?” he asked tentatively. He panned his hand across the space above his head. “William Shakespeare’s Romeo and Juliet ...”

  Leon laughed at Will’s revelation that even scriptwriters from the seventeenth century had the Hollywood Gene. “Probably!” Beyond the theatres they walked past some musty second-hand bookshops. “This road is also famous for its bookshops,” Leon said.

  “Books and theatres blooming on one road?” Will asked. “This must be the poetic heart of London.”

  Near the northern end of Charing Cross Road, Leon pointed out Foyle’s, London’s largest and most famous bookshop. “Here we are,” Leon said. “Follow me. I want to show you something.”

  They entered the shop. The ground floor stretched out in front of them for thirty metres. Partitions had been erected to break the store into smaller sections. Bookcases two metres high were packed, floor to ceiling, with new books. The floor was a labyrinth of books. Will put his hand to his mouth, astounded. Just inside the entrance, Leon stopped to scan the sign explaining which floor each department was on. Will crossed to the bookcase nearest the door, displaying the ‘New Releases’.

  “How many lives I would need to read all these lives?,” he said wistfully.

  “Ground floor,” Leon replied. “This way.”

  They walked ponderously through the store as Will took in the spread of books laid out before him. Leon thought he was still babysitting, like he was holding Will’s hands as Will was taking his first steps. Will looked like a child in Santa’s grotto, dumbfounded with the spread of delightful treasure laid out before him. They entered a section at the back of the ground floor. Leon checked the sign to confirm it was the theatre section. The bookcases along the partitions here were also two metres high. Smaller bookcases filled the spaces between the walls. Leon walked around a bookcase.

  “Voila!” he announced with a small flourish.

  “What is this?” Will asked.

  “This,” Leon did a sweep with his hand across one high bookcase, “is the William Shakespeare department. “ He walked around another corner and did another sweep. “And this. And this.”

  Will followed Leon around the bookcases. “All these books, about me?”

  “How many lives do you need to read about your own life?”

  Will approached a bookcase and scanned the shelves. The bookcase contained copies of all of his plays. He pointed at a book on a lower shelf. “That one’s not by me.” He continued stepping around the bookcase. He noticed the other bookcases with plays by other writers. “And all these are plays?” he asked, performing his own sweep with his hand. “And these? And these? I have a new mountain range of drama to ascend.”

  Chapter 22

  Paulina’s hangover finally began to subside after her third glass of orange and lemonade spiked with Nurofen. She’d stayed out with the rest of the cast and crew of A Midsummer Night’s Dream till after the solstice sun had risen. She’d half-staggered and half-giggled herself home through a blindingly bright but soothingly silent and eerily deserted Hackney. Slovenly prostrate on the sofa in her darkened living room for over an hour, she felt the Nurofen gradually extract the vodka pickaxe she had wedged into her own skull the night before. She was contemplating a daredevil trip to the kitchen to force some food into her system when Hermione texted
her: “hows party babe hermia doin today? up 4 coffee? xxx”. Paulina wasn’t sure if she was ready to commit to visit the outside world just yet, but a café would mean not having to cook. “climpsons in 30?” Paulina texted back.

  She waited for Hermione on one of the benches at the south side of London Fields. A small group of alcoholics were gathered around a stone table tennis tables that Hackney Council had installed in the park. Two of them were playing a match, a can of Strongbow in one hand, a table tennis bat in the other. At least they’re getting a workout, Paulina joked to herself. When Hermione arrived they walked along Broadway Market to Climpson’s cafe, finding a table outside on the pavement.

  “So no major screw ups then?” Hermione asked, fishing for actor gossip from the play.

  “None for me, thank God. But Leon, bless him, despite his phenomenal performance, couldn’t make it through completely unscathed. He flubbed that one line towards the end. Which was a major improvement on the dress rehearsal. I don’t think anyone noticed though.”

  Hermione laughed. “Did he indeed? Damn. I didn’t notice it. And he didn’t tell me, sly dog! Although to be fair, he did reveal another, much bigger secret last night instead.”

  “Oh yeah?”

  “I’m sworn to secrecy - for now,” she said with a raise of her eyebrows.

  Paulina picked up the paper. “Damn bankers. When will it ever stop?”

  “Not till the revolution. What’s the latest?”

  “Oh nothing, just more bankers getting millions more in bonuses for needing billions more in bailouts.”

  Hermione had not promised anyone to keep her latest research secret. “Listen, this was all predicted by the Mayans you know.”

  “ Yes Hermione,” Paulina stated monotonously, mocking dumb compliance.

  “Seriously,” Hermione replied gravely. “2012 really means something. Leon’s big secret proves it. And I’ve been researching the Mayans’ predictions.”

  “Aw come on, all those predictions can be linked to anything. Like Nostra-bleedin ’the white horse cometh and muncheth your nice lawn’ damus. Meaningless twaddle from ignoramuses with overactive imaginations.”

  “No, seriously. Listen. It all links in and makes sense.” Hermione lowered her voice and leaned closer towards Paulina. “I think there’s going to be the biggest bank crash ever on the 21st of December. There’s gonna be a major bank run that’s gonna ruin the economy, no, the country. Seriously.”

  Paulina suspended her cynicism. She loved Hermione’s quirky, out-there cosmicness. She had experienced Hermione’s uncanny perceptiveness previously. “You really are serious aren’t you?”

  “Totally,” Hermione replied.

  Paulina spotted a stern earnestness in her friends eyes. “So what can we do?”

  “I don’t think we can do anything. How can we stop a bank run?”

  Chapter 23

  Leon tapped Will’s Oyster card onto the reader in Swiss Cottage underground station and pushed him out through the open gates, then tapped himself out. He’d already had to nudge Will off the end of the escalator. Will stared wide-eyed as the gates slammed shut behind Leon who handed Will his new Oyster card.

  “The gates magically open with a touch of this?” Will asked turning the card over in his hand.

  Leon led Will out of the tube station towards the Central College of Speech and Drama. “You know, Will, all this ‘magic’ can be explained to you with the word ‘physics’. It’s just science, all researched, experimented, understood.”

  “Physic, like a treatment for illness?” Will asked.

  “Ah, no,” Leon spotted Will’s use of the older meaning of the word. “Physics, plural. It’s the study of how the physical world works, and the forces behind it. Like this for example.”

  Leon took his wallet out of his pocket and dropped it. Will picked the wallet up then dropped it again.

  “Physics is dropping things?”

  Leon reclaimed his wallet and returned it to his pocket. “Gravity is the force which makes things fall when they’re dropped. It’s one of the forces of nature. There are others, like electricity.”

  “In London 1612 we have a word for mysterious forces – witchcraft.”

  “Yeah, it sometimes seems like witchcraft to me too! But all of these forces are measured and controlled. Don’t worry mate. You’ll get the hang of it.”

  They entered the drama school. “This is where I study drama,” Leon said. “There’s someone I want you to meet.”

  “Leon! Great job last night,” a voice called mockingly across the reception, “only one flub!”

  Leon had been the recipient of the receptionist Camilla’s teasing banter before. Camilla had attained a semi-legendary status amongst the students at the college. A single mother in her mid-forties, after work she frequently accompanied groups of students to the student union bar and nightclub as if she was determined to defy her years by living a perpetual student lifestyle. The female students loved her frivolity and spark, the male students loved her flirtatiousness, and had often discussed their chances of a liaison.

  “Flub? Flub? I flub not my dear Camilla,” he replied with faux-gravitas. “It was an idiosyncratically artistic interpretation of a pivotal moment of deep emotional response within the character.”

  “Exactly. A flub,” Camilla countered with a snort.

  “Yeah, but an idiosyncratically artistic flub at a pivotal moment of deep emotional response within my character. But thanks for the near compliment!”

  As they crossed the reception Leon noticed that Will was shamelessly eyeing Camilla more intently than was polite. He tugged Will’s sleeve and strode towards the corridor beyond the reception. Will followed reluctantly, glancing back at Camilla every other step. Camilla offered Will an effete smile which he enthusiastically returned before being dragged away by Leon.

  Up two flights of stairs, along a corridor, then Leon and Will paused outside a closed door. The sign on it read ‘Mr Bertram Rumpold – Senior Lecturer’. Leon knocked twice. A voice from inside shouted, “Enter”. Leon opened the door and walked in, with Will behind him.

  “Ah, Leon, how wonderfully pleasant to be graced with a visitation from you today, dear boy.”

  Rumpold was sitting behind his dark oak desk. Perfectly groomed, with neat silver hair smoothly parted to the left, wearing a pink shirt, a waistcoat and a bowtie, Rumpold was a staunch English gentleman in his late fifties. He folded his copy of the Telegraph and placed it on the desk. “Congratulations on such a supremely majestic performance last night. I was truly entranced! And with only the one inconsequential and barely perceptible flub to wit. To what do we owe the current pleasure?

  “Oh you know, just coming in to catch up on some coursework,” Leon replied. “Jeez, did everyone notice the flub?”

  “You are the talk of the school today my boy! And it’s mostly positive. Now then, coursework duties, when can I expect your essay on Troilus and Cressida?”

  “Oh very soon, sooner than I originally thought.” Leon shifted his bag from one shoulder to the other. “Mr Rumpold, I’m curious about Shakespeare the man and was wondering if I could pick your brains about him for a minute or two if you’re free?”

  “Why certainly dear boy. What would you like to know?” Rumpold stood up and walked around his desk. “Oh, and please do excuse this ill-mannered child.” He put his hand out towards Will. “Bertram Rumpold, very pleased to meet you. How do you do?”

  “Oh, sorry!” Leon interjected bluntly, drawing stunned looks from both Will and Rumpold. “Mr Rumpold, this is ... this is … Billy ... Wavearrow. Billy, this is Mr Rumpold.”

  “Bertie, please,” said Mr Rumpold to Will. ”Pleased to meet you Mr Wavearrow. Are you also an actor?”

  Leon cut in again. “Billy has appeared in one or two plays. Shakespeare mostly. Isn’t that right Billy?” Leon raised his eyebrows at Will.

  Will regarded Leon with a puzzled expression, then awkwardly rep
lied, “I’ve played some of his roles ... yeah.”

  “Splendid!” said Rumpold with a soft clap of his hands. “I’m a devout and practising Shakespearean! He is my religion, and I attend theatres to praise and worship at his altar weekly.”

  “Mr Rumpold is a world-recognised authority on you-, um, on the works and world of Shakespeare,” Leon explained to Will. “He’s written several authoritative books and is regularly consulted by actors, writers and directors working on a Shakespeare project. “

  “Oh shush Leon,” Rumpold said attempting modesty, “I’m just a humble fan of this towering man and his unique genius.”

  “We’re both very curious about what is known about Shakespeare, and keen to hear your ideas. How much do we really know about him?“ Leon asked.

  Rumpold sat on the edge of his desk. “Well, it’s a fascinating question, and has been asked and fiercely debated innumerable times by writers, actors and academics, but it’s quite impossible to give a definitive answer. Shakespeare is only known through his work. There are no extant contemporary records which reveal anything about his life beyond the absolute minimum details of his birth, marriage and death ...”

  Leon noticed Will take a slight step back, as Rumpold continued.

  “... and there are no contemporary descriptions of his character. All we have to go on is his work.”

  “And what do his plays and poems reveal about the man?” Leon enquired.

  “Oh where to begin! The man is an infinitely mystifying wonder! However I do believe I have a deep understanding of what he would have been like. To start with, it’s indisputable that Shakespeare was incredibly hard-working. To produce as many works as he did shows commendable determination and self-discipline. He wrote 38 plays and almost 200 poems. And those are just the ones we know for certain. He may have written more, indeed there are still frequent and often times bitter debates over the origin and authenticity of potential new works. But his textual fingerprints are unmistakable.”

  “Intriguing. Can you imagine what it would be like to actually meet him?” Leon asked.

  Rumpold looked wistfully at the bookcases lining three sides of his office, all piled high with hundreds of books. “Sometimes I feel like I already have.”