Waking Caliban

by Mike Cartlidge

  He adjusted his glasses and peered at the document again. I kept quiet, letting him murmur and scratch his chin, as tourists streamed past us on their way to the museum’s exhibits. I noticed he had dried ink around the nail of his index finger and wondered idly whether he used a quill pen. “The interesting thing,” he finally said, “is that this could possibly pass for Shakespeare’s writing. I’m not an expert in this field but specimens of his signature indicate that he wrote in an archaic and very distinctive style known as ‘secretarial’.”

  “What else can you tell me?”

  He waved the paper. “Well, some of the characters on this list appear in Love’s Labor’s Lost but there are some characters from that play who don’t appear here and some apparently-new characters in this one. The clown Touchstone, meanwhile, appears in ‘As You Like It’.

  “Clearly, the paper also names the actors who took the roles. It’s believed that Shakespeare often recorded the names of actors in his own notes, although, of course, none of the originals survive. Let’s see. I’m not sure about ‘Hemings’ but there was an actor called John Heminge-with-an-e. And Phillips would be Augustine Phillips. They were sharers in the Chamberlain’s Men, along with Shakespeare, Kempe and Burbage.”

  “Sharers? What were they?”

  “What you’d call ‘shareholders’ or ‘partners’ today. They were part-owners of the acting company.” He peered closely at the list again before handing it back to me. “Some of the other names here are familiar but I’m not sure I can place them offhand. Still, it’s an interesting little document. Most likely someone has prepared it as a joke. Obviously, though, it’s been worked up by someone with a reasonable knowledge of Shakespeare and his contemporaries.”

  “So it’s probably a forgery of some sort?”

  “I’m sure it must be,” he said. “Shakespeare has been subject to hoaxes since the seventeenth century. While he was still alive, a notorious London fraudster called William Jaggard published a poetry collection called ‘The Passionate Pilgrim’ under Shakespeare’s name: most of the poems were actually by other people. In later centuries, there were some notable fraudsters, such as a man called Ireland, who produced ‘original’ Shakespearean manuscripts and even his very own ‘lost’ play. He’d written them all himself, of course. And John Payne Collier invented a whole collection of sonnets in the eighteen hundreds.”

  I took the paper back from him. “Is there any way we can prove or disprove this document’s authenticity?”

  “It would help to get the original document, of course.”

  “I’m afraid this is all I’ve got.”

  His hands did another fluttery dance as he thought. “You might find it useful to ask our curator, Dr Stephen Marr. He’s the real expert on the plays of Shakespeare. Unfortunately, he’s not here today. I could try calling his mobile for you, if you like.”

  I nodded and, explaining that he’d need to look the number up, he led me past the front desk and through a door marked ‘private’ to a small office surrounded by smoked-glass walls. A desk that could have once belonged to a Dickensian schoolmaster was bowing under the weight of scores of reference books and bound papers. The calendar on the wall was two years out of date. I examined a framed map of old Stratford as he rifled through a battered card index.

  Finally, he found and dialed the curator’s phone number. A moment later, I heard him identify himself and then describe me and my scrap of paper. His face grew serious as he listened. After a few seconds, he nodded and then, holding the phone away from his face, looked up at me.

  “The curator is intrigued by what I’ve told him. He says he’ll be happy to see you and take a look at your mysterious document.”

  “Good,” I said. “Tell him I can come and see him right now.”

  He spoke into the phone and listened for a moment before looking up at me again. “The curator says that won’t be convenient but that he’ll be happy to see you this evening. He’ll come to you if...”

  “The Almoner’s Arms,” I told him. I thought of arranging to meet the curator in the bar but then decided we’d be better off with privacy. “I’ll see him in my room. Number 207. Any time tonight will be fine.”

  He repeated this information into the phone and then rang off. “The curator says he’ll be there to see you around 8 o’clock.”

  I folded the paper and slipped it into my jacket pocket. “You’ve been very helpful, thanks.”

  He smiled again. Like a carnival reveler pulling away a mask, the face of the younger man shone through. “There’s another amazing mystery about Shakespeare, you know. It’s this: I mentioned John Webster? He was the last of the great playwrights of that period. His reputation is based on two plays, ‘The White Devil’ and ‘The Duchess of Malfi’. The rest of his works are nothing special. But then, two great works in a lifetime is more than most of us could hope for.

  “But here’s the thing with Will. He had a vocabulary five times larger than most modern, well-educated people and he was an expert on law, medicine, psychology, seamanship, even sports. He wrote ‘Macbeth’ and ‘Hamlet’ and ‘Julius Caesar’ and ‘A Midsummer Night’s Dream’ and ‘Antony and Cleopatra’ and all the rest. Dozens of works of unsurpassed genius. He wrote about all these people and places and events in a time when there were no computers or typewriters or even proper pens. So the real mystery is this: how on earth did he do it?”

  Chapter 12

  I walked into the town and bought myself an inexpensive black suit to wear to Thorpe’s funeral, dropping it off at the hotel before returning to the place where he’d been gunned down. The street outside the small cottage was still quiet with the hush of death. I talked to a number of local people but all they knew was what they’d picked up from the newspapers and local gossip. I began to feel ridiculous: I was, after all, no detective.

  I returned to my hotel room with two hours to kill before I was due to see Stephen Marr, the museum curator. If I thought killing time would be a problem, it was to prove one of the finer misjudgments of a well-misjudged life. Ten minutes after my return, I’d just sent more aspirin into action against the throbbing in my shoulder when there was a knock on my door. I opened it to find Detectives Tench and Rainbow standing in the gloomy hall. They pushed past me and walked into the room, Rainbow sitting himself in my only chair and Tench stepping around and inspecting the surfaces of the dresser and bed-side drawers, lifting one of the Shakespeare books I’d bought and gazing at the photo of a river-side church on the back of the dust cover.

  Tench spoke first, the lines on his face forming deep grooves around his down-turned mouth. “We thought we’d be the first to tell you. Your mate Thorpe’s body has been released by the Coroner. They had the autopsy and all. Him and the other one, Young. It seems they both died as a result of bullet holes.”

  I figured he was trying to provoke a reaction and kept my face carefully expressionless. “I’m sure their wives and kids would appreciate your attempts to find humor in the situation.”

  “Got yourself a gun yet?”

  I held the poker face and did my best to avoid thinking about the unregistered Smith and Wesson I’d placed casually under my socks in the top drawer of the dresser. “Why would you think I’d get myself a gun?”

  “These are violent times. I assume you’re not sticking around Stratford in the hope of getting Ken Branagh’s autograph.” He studied the book cover again for a moment. “We wouldn’t be impressed if we thought you were considering taking the law into your own hands.”

  “I’d be pretty stupid to do that.”

  “Even former Majors in the Parachute Regiment do stupid things from time to time.”

  That was interesting, I thought. We hadn’t discussed my earlier career during either of our chats in the police station. “Being an ex-soldier doesn’t mean you’ll automatically disregard the law of the land.”

  Rainbow cleared his throat and seemed to take an interest in proceedings for the first time. �
��We took the liberty of finding out about your distinguished service record,” he told me.

  “Nice of you to take an interest.”

  “It took a bit of doing,” Rainbow continued. “But we have a few ex-squaddies on the force, you know. And the Chief Constable was in the Coldstream Guards in younger days.”

  “What did he do? Look after the Regimental Mascot?”

  “We pulled a few strings,” Tench said, “and found out all about your career.”

  “And all about the end of it,” Rainbow said. He stood up again and walked closer to me. “I expect you’d rather we didn’t dig too much into your adventures in Kosovo.”

  I stared into his eyes, smelling his cigarette-tainted breath, and we both held our ground.

  “Four people dead,” Tench said. He’d come to stand beside me but I kept my eyes on Rainbow. “Three of them prisoners, that’s what we were told. Two men and one woman. Unarmed, of course. Killed in cold blood.”

  “So,” said Rainbow. “You didn’t think to mention that when we spoke before?”

  “It didn’t seem relevant,” I said slowly.

  “What?” Tench said. “We were interviewing you about the murder of a man, a few days after two other men were gunned down not two miles distant and you didn’t think to mention the fact that, eight years ago, you slaughtered at least three people in cold blood?”

  “Now, don’t get me wrong,” said Rainbow. “There are plenty of people who would say that those ethnic cleansing bastards got everything they deserved. That still doesn’t make it legal.”

  “And it gets worse, of course,” said Tench.

  “Yeah, I was forgetting,” said Rainbow. “It seems there was ever such a slight suspicion that you’d knocked off the fourth bloke, as well. And he was one of your own. What happened with him, then? Try to stop you, did he? Or did he just get in your way?”

  It took an effort for me to maintain the deadpan expression after that one. I thought about the contempt that had been directed my way in the days before and after I left the service and told myself what a fool I was. Did I really think I could lie to myself? Did I really believe I’d been so easily spared the humiliation of a court-martial or, worse, a civilian trial? I wondered for the thousandth time what intrigues had taken place back then between the British and NATO commanders and the politicians involved in the region’s struggling peace process. I felt the stirring of the dark wolf, the hopelessness of the moonless nights when you could crane your neck back and see all the way into space and know that void was nothing to the blackness of your own thoughts.

  “I was never charged with anything,” I said at last.

  “Oh, we know you weren’t,” Tench continued. “And we know all about the deals that get done so that embarrassing bits of history can get rewritten. The prisoners had been trying to escape, hadn’t they? Funny how they didn’t let the fact that they were wearing handcuffs and leg irons stop them.”

  I closed my eyes for a second and saw an image of bloody torsos and splayed limbs, arranged against floors and walls like a scene from a ballet choreographed by Jack the Ripper. I told myself that they were actual terrorists, who we knew for sure had captured two of our men and then executed them in cold blood. I opened my eyes and looked at the policemen in front of me. This didn’t seem like a good time to argue the point.

  “So,” Rainbow said, “a deal was done. You went quietly and the politicians could be told that it had all been dealt with and things could move on. Not a bad little deal for you. Kill three people, be – at the very least – responsible for the death of one more, and walk away scot-free.”

  Not exactly scot-free, I thought. Still…

  “No statement to make?” Rainbow moved closer to me. “No protestations of injured innocence?”

  Actually, what I wanted to do more than anything else was wipe the smug smile off his face. I forced myself to hold my temper in check and think calmly. “If you want to continue this pleasant little chat,” I said at last, “it might be an idea if we did it with my lawyer present.”

  He glared into my eyes. “I think we’ll hold off on that for a little while. You know what, though, Major? I have the strangest premonition that, one of these days, that chat with your lawyer is going to happen.”

  He held the stare a moment longer and then broke it off with another faint smile, stepping around me towards the door. Tench gave a tuneless whistle and followed him into the corridor, leaving the door wide open.

  When they’d gone, I closed and locked the door and then stood still for a while. My breathing was steady and so, I was pleased to find, were my hands. I was angry, though, and I could feel the destructive urge of bitterness reach its hoary hand towards me. I told myself for the thousandth time that no amount of recollection or revision could change a thing that had happened, either on that cold, wet night in the Balkans, or in all the devastating years since.

  I knew I should call Geordie Thorpe’s widow to talk about the funeral but I decided to wait until I felt calmer. I sat on the bed and picked up the book I’d started reading. It was hard to concentrate, though. Will Shakespeare wrote many times about good and hardy soldiers who sought the bubble reputation in the cannon’s mouth, but even he had no words for those accused and convicted without sentence or defense or hope of absolution.

  ***

  After a while, I rang room service and ordered a Caesar salad with a single glass of wine. As I waited for the meal to appear, I finally made my call to Julie Thorpe. When she answered the phone, her voice was low and faint and I had to ask to make sure it was her.

  “Yes, this is Julie Thorpe,” she said. I could hear the wavering in her voice as she held back her tears.

  “My name’s Hastings,” I said. “We have met, a few years ago. I don’t know if your husband mentioned me more recently…”

  “Yes, of course he did.” I couldn’t tell, from her tone, whether her thoughts of me were positive or negative. I understood only too well how the association of people and acquaintances could bring forth ghosts from the silent vault of memories.

  “Geordie and I-”

  “I know. He used to be your sergeant.”

  “I owed him a lot,” I said inadequately. “I don’t know if you understand…”

  “I’m an army wife. Or, at least, I used to be. I understand the way things would have been between the two of you.”

  “After I left the army, he got me back to work, as well. With the agency.”

  “I know. He used to talk about you. He was fond of you.”

  “That’s good to hear. I know it’s a stupid question, but how are you?”

  “Right now, I seem to alternate between being unbelievably busy and being alone in a state of disbelief. Mostly, though, I’m busy. There are lots of arrangements to make. And then there’s the children.”

  “And how-”

  “They’re as well as can be expected.”

  I was quiet for a moment, thinking about the customary lies and clichés that formalize our response to death. “You mentioned arrangements. How are they going?”

  “The police called a while ago to tell me Geordie’s body had been released by the Stratford Coroner. I’d already engaged a firm of funeral directors and they’re going to look after things for me.” She paused and I could hear her ragged breathing as she collected herself. “The funeral’s going be in Littlehampton.”

  “That’s where you and Geordie settled down, right?” I asked.

  “We bought a bungalow here after he left the Regiment. I’m from West Sussex originally.”

  She went on to tell me the time and day of the funeral – late afternoon, next Saturday – and I wrote down the details and promised I’d be there.

  My meal arrived as she rang off. As I sat on the bed and picked at my salad, I clicked codes on the mobile again and listened to the sound of distant ringing until Chantelle answered.

  “I won’t be back in London until Saturday night,” I told her. “I have
to go to Tom Thorpe’s funeral in Littlehampton during the day.”

  She cleared her throat. She sounded huskier, more American, on the phone. “You want company, my friend?”

  “You don’t have to do that.”

  “I know how much he meant to you. He meant a lot to me as well.”

  “You never met him, Chantelle.”

  “You talked about him. I felt I knew him.”

  “Littlehampton’s a long way south of London.”

  “Oh? Where’s this place at?”

  “It’s along the coast from Brighton.”’

  “That’s no distance,” she said quietly. “I’ll tell George. She always says she loves funerals. They give her a chance to wear something fancy.”

  I smiled despite myself. “Instead of the dull old stuff she normally wears?”

  “That’s another of your jokes, isn’t it, Hastings? I’ll talk to George. Maybe we’ll have us a day out.”

  ***

  I still had a half-hour before Marr was due to arrive at my hotel room. I used it to change my bandages, winding the old ones off and carefully lifting the layer of gauze from my shoulder. The area around the wound was a Technicolor mess, all yellow and purple bruising around blackened stitches, but the skin looked encouragingly non-gangrenous. I fumbled a clean dressing around my shoulder. It wasn’t as good a job as the doctor had done but it would have to suffice.

  I downed a couple more aspirin and changed into a pair of track pants and a tee shirt. I checked my watch and then returned to my book on Shakespeare, lying on the bed and sipping at a scotch as I waited for the museum curator to show up. By 8.15, there was still no sign of him. I put the book down and went back to the door, opening it and looking down the corridor. It was illogical to expect he’d appear just as I started to look for him but impatience was getting the better of me. The corridor was deserted and the only sign that anyone had been by recently was a laundry trolley, loaded with used sheets and towels, abandoned by the lift. I wondered how it could have escaped the smoothly-oiled machine that was the Almoner’s Arms maintenance operation.