Alms for Oblivion

by Philip Gooden

  “I thank you for this,” I said, patting the place where I’d secreted the purse of money from my Company. “You are to convey my love and gratitude to my friends. God willing, I shall see them all again.”

  “God willing, you will, and soon,” said Jack Wilson.

  And with that he left me.

  I was cheered by his visit and for a time indulged myself in notions of acquittal and release. But soon I sank into the glooms once more. My fellow prisoners, whose predicaments had seemed amusing or interesting while I’d described them to Jack, now wearied me. So I retreated to my cobwebby box. I fingered the purse which Jack had given me. At least I was guaranteed a few more days and nights in here through the generosity of my friends, the players. I could buy more candle-stubs. What was the point though? I lamented that I had nothing to read, nothing to distract me. I watched a spider going about his horrid business, scuttling backwards and forwards between the centre of his web and a fly which was trapped in the suburbs of his kingdom. Well, this little room was my kingdom. Like WS’s imprisoned King Richard the Second I strove to draw parallels between my cell and the great world outside. But it was too easy to see myself as the fly with Coroner Talbot as the energetic spider, and I soon abandoned the effort.

  If this was a story I would have been looking about for ways to escape from my captivity. There would have been a hidden floor-trap under the straw, or a whole section of the wall capable of being removed at a single stroke or by dint of scrabbling with hands and nails. (But the stonework, although powdery in places, was solid. There wasn’t even a finger’s width of a crevice to burrow into.)

  In a story the purse which Jack had given me would contain a scrawled map illustrating a secret route out of my cell. A map sketched in invisible ink, made with onion juice or urine, which would emerge when held over the flickering flame of a candle. (But the purse contained nothing more than coins. I opened it and checked.)

  In a story, Wagman the turnkey would have a beautiful daughter who, falling for the charms of the handsome young player-prisoner, comes to him in the middle of the night and, after a hasty embrace and whispered endearments, leads him out past the slumbering guards and turnkeys. It is quite safe, my darling, she breathes in my ear, they are dead to the world. I slipped a draught into their possets. Remember me in your dreams. (But, if Wagman possessed a daughter, it was most unlikely that she was beautiful. And, anyway, she would know better than to spend her time hanging around prisons in the hope of meeting handsome young players.)

  Soothing myself with these stories I fell into an uneasy slumber. I didn’t dream of tearing down the prison walls to emerge into the sunlight or of the gaoler’s beautiful daughter ushering me past the drugged guards. Instead I dreamed a grotesque scene in which I was indeed being executed on the stage of the Globe playhouse, more or less as I’d described it to Jack Wilson.

  Dick Burbage approached me in the middle of the performance – although this was not Kyd’s Spanish Tragedy but some other play as yet unwritten – while I was actually standing on the scaffold. Except that it was not a scaffold but a chair. I remember being irritated at this. If I was prepared to go to the trouble of being hanged for the Chamberlain’s, they might have provided something more colourful, more dramatic than a humble chair. Then, as if sensing my displeasure, Burbage insisted on paying me at a double rate, telling me it was the least he could do considering the size of the audience that afternoon. I kept on protesting that this was unprofessional – couldn’t he see that we were in the middle of a play, for God’s sake? I was doing it for the good of the Company and, besides, what use would the money be to me after I was dead? But Burbage talked about keeping the books straight and at last, to shut him up, I wrapped my hand round the coins he was holding out.

  Then it all happened very quickly. Even as I felt the warm money in my grasp, someone tugged the chair from beneath my feet. The noose tightened about my neck. The rope was rough and it burned. A sea of faces looked up at me. Burbage was right, we had a full house. Some gazed in excitement, some in horror, but all with interest. I didn’t blame them. In their position I’d have done the same. I was glad that, with my dying breaths, I was conferring a benefit on my Company. Then I concentrated on fighting for those breaths. But the noose was tougher than my windpipe and I could hear wheezing. In my mind’s eye I now saw the noose as a closing circle towards which I was running. If I could only get through it before it closed altogether . . . I urged myself forward but my legs could find no purchase on the ground and my lungs would only drag in spoonfuls of air and the circle of rope was fast shrinking to a zero, to a pinprick, to a nothing . . .

  I woke up, sweaty and shivering. A grimy sheet had knotted itself around my neck. In my slick palm lay a mound of coins from Jack’s purse. I was doubled up as if to shield myself from an assault. I stretched out at full length on the straw pallet, panting and shaking and wondering whether I was really so very glad to be recalled to life. I feared that the scene which I’d just dreamed about would soon be enacted in reality, and that the last faces I’d see would be not the Globe spectators but the howling mob at Tyburn. I saw myself at the bottom of the ladder with the gibbet and the slack, hungry noose standing out against the blue sky. The light was dazzling. I wanted to shade my eyes but my hands were shackled behind my back. It was a beautiful day, though . . . the sun sat snug in his heaven . . . not a day to die . . .

  I must have fallen asleep again because the next thing was that someone was pulling at me by the shoulder. It was William Topcourt, the gentleman with more than one wife. He was holding a lighted candle-stub. What was he doing in my room? There was barely space for one.

  “Master Revill, Master Revill!”

  Topcourt’s worried face hung over me, elongated in the flickering light.

  “You must go now,” he said.

  “What?”

  “It is time for you to leave.”

  I sat up on my pallet. Was this part of some continuing dream?

  “What are you talking about?”

  “I have a paper.”

  Stooping down, he waved something white in front of my eyes. I took it from him. With his other hand he held the candle so close to the sheet that the paper almost scorched.

  “Be careful!” I said.

  Topcourt withdrew the candle to a safe distance. I screwed up my eyes and tried to make out the writing. There was an imposing signature at the bottom together with a red seal. After a moment I dropped the paper in exasperation. Why was he bothering to show me this? Had he woken me just so that I could share in his good fortune?

  “You’re a lucky man,” I said, hardly striving to keep the irritation out of my voice.

  “A lucky man?” said Topcourt, as if amazed anyone might see him in that perspective. He squatted down beside me on his long haunches. “Oh, I see, you mean because my name is ... ”

  “Yes, because your name is on this paper. Or, to put it another way, this is a ticket of leave with your name entered on it.”

  For an instant I wondered whether he could read but I knew already from his voice and demeanour – long-faced and donkey-nosed as he was – that he was a gentleman. Therefore he could read.

  “It’s your passport out of this place, man,” I said. “It gives you your liberty, liberty under licence. So you’d better keep it away from the candle flame.”

  “But you are to take it. Those are the instructions.”

  “Instructions? Master Topcourt, if I’m to understand you you’ll have to talk slow and take things in order.”

  For some reason this was the style that one fell into when talking to the bigamous – maybe the trigamous – Topcourt. A weary and slightly patronizing style. Maybe this was the tone which his wives had adopted when they made him marry them.

  “I shall do my best to explain, Master Revill. This – this ticket of leave I have had for a few days. But this note has just been given to me.”

  From somewhere within the folds of his volumi
nous coat Topcourt extracted a second sheet of paper with writing on it. He made to hand it to me but I brushed it aside.

  “Just tell me in your own words.”

  “I – I am given – in short – my freedom has been bought.”

  “Yes, I know. Bought by your, ah, friends. I am happy for you,” I said.

  “But I don’t want that freedom out there. I am more free in here. I prefer the freedom of prison.”

  What had Jack Wilson said about Topcourt? Perhaps he’d rather stay here in the Counter than face the wives outside. Remembering the way I’d seen him being berated and struck by one of them, and of the similar attentions he’d received from the children, this probably wasn’t so far from the truth. In this topsy-turvy world it seemed as though most of the occupants of the Counter prison had actually sought their incarceration or, once inside, preferred to stay here.

  “Well,” I said, “de gustibus non est disputandum.”

  “No indeed,” said Topcourt, “you cannot argue with a man over – over his tastes and preferences.”

  And, whereas before I’d thought of this individual as a gentleman and an ass, I now saw him in a new light as a scholar and a gentleman – but still a bit of an ass.

  “How can you be more free in a prison, Master Topcourt?” I said, to lead him on.

  “Master Revill, it will not have escaped you that – my relations with women are – not of the happiest.”

  “An inkling, I had an inkling,” I said.

  “I am afraid that if I left this place, I would be compelled to face the wrath of – of various individuals.”

  His long face took on an even longer cast in the candle’s uncertain gleam. He spoke with resignation.

  “And I have another fear. Once outside these walls I fear that I will be made to marry again.”

  “Made to marry?”

  “Some demon urges me to put my head in the yoke of matrimony – again and again.”

  “I know that you are already married.”

  “Yes. Triply so.” He sighed. “That is why I am here.”

  You can’t help but admire a man with three wives even though you may at the same time doubt his sanity. I spoke with a new respect.

  “Just think, though, sir. If you were free of the Counter prison you would have a choice of three bolt-holes to rest your, er, head in.”

  “I cannot house with my wives. I am not friends with them. They are wild horses.”

  He seemed to shiver.

  “You could have refused your wives in the past,” I said, interested despite myself. “Refused all but one of them anyway, and saved yourself some trouble. Just as you could refuse all future offers.”

  “But they are all so persuasive beforehand. So winning.

  And my demon is always urging me to bow my head beneath the yoke of matrimony once more.”

  “I can see it might be safer for you to stay in prison. Or safer for the women of London. But there are females here in the Counter too.”

  “I know,” he sighed. “Temptation is everywhere.”

  “Show me that note,” I said, realizing that we would get no further in this direction.

  I read the note and then read it again. Matters became a little clearer, or rather became less obscure. I was jolted, though, by the initials on the bottom.

  “Did this individual – ” I indicated the initials – “give you this in person?”

  “Through an intermediary,” said Topcourt. “A friend of yours. They are both waiting.”

  “Waiting where?”

  “Near this place.”

  “Aren’t you afraid of what might happen to you if you stay, Master Topcourt?”

  With my hand I mimed a rope tightening round my neck.

  Topcourt looked baffled and then said, “No. But anything would be better than – than to face the wrath of my wives or to run my head into the noose of marriage again.”

  “You don’t mean it,” I said. “Anyway I can’t let you do it.”

  “They’ll discover their mistake soon enough,” he said.

  I wasn’t sure who was going to discover their mistake. His wives? Our gaolers? But I allowed it to pass.

  “I can’t let you do it,” I said again.

  I could let him do it, of course. I was simply testing the waters, seeing how far he would go. And it seemed somehow improper to take advantage of a madman. For Topcourt must be mad. A man who is three times married, a man who talks of being compelled to marry again by his inner demon, a man who prefers to stay in gaol. If he hadn’t already been in a prison, he ought to have been locked up in a madhouse.

  And there was no guarantee that the substitution scheme would work. Every chance it wouldn’t work, in fact. But what alternative was there . . .?

  “Very well,” I said. “Give me your coat.”

  Topcourt hesitated a moment then, standing up, shrugged himself out of his woollen coat. I took off my doublet and gave it to him in exchange. We were about the same size or, if anything, he was slightly taller than me. The coat, more of a cloak, enveloped me. I hunched up my shoulders and pulled it about my ears. I probably looked truly villainous now, like one of the conspirators in WS’s Julius Caesar.

  Topcourt stooped and ran his hand over the floor of my cell, smearing it with grime. Then he rubbed his bony fingers over my cheeks and forehead. I flinched at first but soon realized his purpose.

  “I have been here longer than you, Master Revill – ”

  “Nicholas, please, seeing as we are so familiar.”

  “ – and I wear a prison-smudge.”

  Topcourt spoke of this as though it was a kind of mark or badge to be proud of. He stood back to admire his handiwork. My face felt as though it had been painted for a performance on stage.

  “Wagman is no fool, he will not be fooled,” I said.

  “It is night. The turnkey should be elsewhere.”

  “So I’m just to walk out of here – with this?”

  I held up the ticket of leave. The seal looked like a blotch of fresh blood.

  Topcourt nodded, stroking his long face.

  “It is simple, Master – Nicholas. You want to go while I want to stay. We can both be satisfied.”

  “And your wives?”

  “Keep away from them.”

  That wasn’t what I meant but I didn’t pursue the matter. That vision of a hanging which I’d had earlier – the gibbet and the hungry noose against the blue sky, the dazzling light – flashed before my inward eye. It was worth going out of one’s way to avoid such a fate. As for Topcourt’s fate . . .? Well, what harm could come to Topcourt that he wouldn’t welcome in preference to his trio of wives? I had a quick tussle with my conscience and won easily.

  I grasped him by the hand and walked out of my cell. I decided to get as far as I could before I was stopped or before Topcourt returned to his senses. It was late evening and the main passage of the prison, the ‘aisle’ where the inmates wandered during the day, was empty, as far as I was able to tell in the dimness. From down below, from the subterranean Hole, came nocturnal moans and wails.

  I walked steadily down the aisle and towards the first of the various lobbies and chambers which lay between Revill (or rather Topcourt) and the outside world. I knew that these rooms would be guarded, for however lax and corrupt the gaolers, two or three of those gentlemen were always in attendance looking for the chance to levy some payment. I had in my hand the ‘ticket of leave’ signed and sealed by a magistrate and purchased by the wives of another man. It gave formal permission to a prisoner by the name of William Topcourt to depart from the precincts of the Counter prison in the Liberty of Southwark. It granted him freedom under licence.

  I put to one side all the problems which lay in the future, even though that future might be only a few minutes away – problems such as what would happen once I was outside the walls of the Counter (but I very much doubted I’d get so far), or what would happen to Topcourt or to me if I was stopped, unmasked and
returned to my cell. Instead I concentrated entirely on the present moment. My mind raced. A dozen thoughts passed through it in half a dozen seconds.

  I was walking out of the Counter in the guise of William Topcourt, a man three times married. It was all quite simple, wasn’t it? Where was the obstacle? All I had to do was present the ticket, signed and sealed, to the gaoler or gaolers and wait for them to wave me through. If challenged, what should I do? What would Topcourt do? He would withstand indignity in a dignified way, be wearily patient. I imagined myself as Topcourt, poor harassed Topcourt. Although he carried something of a hang-dog look which caused him to stoop, he was taller than me. So possibly the two factors cancelled each other out. He had a bigger, longer nose. I tugged mine in the hope of making it larger. His face was thinner. I sucked in my cheeks. I needed a gesture, and found it straightaway in Topcourt’s reflective habit of stroking his face.

  But none of this mattered a great deal. I didn’t really look like William Topcourt, I’m glad to say. (It’s funny how tough vanity is. It will survive almost anywhere.) In the first guardroom, which I was approaching at a steady, stealthy pace, there shouldn’t be much light. Candles aren’t cheap. My collar was pulled well up. I was wearing the smudge of prison. On the playhouse stage, it’s not only the sceptre or the crown which marks out the king, any more than the distracted lover is signified by disordered clothes and folded arms. These props and gestures do signify but they’re not enough by themselves. Rather, it is attitude. The player is a king because he looks like a king, and he looks like a king because he knows he is a king, at least for one afternoon in his life. And the player is a lover because he looks like a lover . . . & cetera.

  Not just playing the part of William Topcourt therefore, but as William Topcourt, I quietly opened the inner door of the first guardroom. This was the chamber where the chief turnkey was accustomed to sit during the day behind his fine gilt table, toying with his quill pens and balancing his books. I paused on the threshold and breathed deep. The table and the throne-like chair were unoccupied. I’d been dreading the possibility that Wagman might still be here. I wouldn’t have got past his sharp eyes, not unless they’d been blinded with gold scales. On my induction into this place, only four days earlier, the two gaolers whom I’d christened Gog and Magog had also been in attendance. Now there was only one guard, a fellow I didn’t think I’d seen before. I heard him before I spotted him. He was noisily asleep on a bench in the corner. A candle guttered by his feet. It gave off just enough light to catch the pewter rim of a pint pot lying on its side nearby. The room reeked of small ale. The gaoler’s snores ruffled the gloom. Obviously he had not dared to make himself more comfortable on the chief turnkey’s throne – or had simply fallen asleep where he sprawled on the bench.