The Great St Mary's Day Out (4 page)

I called up Peterson. ‘What's happening?'

‘Can't talk. Running.'

‘To or from?'

The link went dead.

Shit. Shit, shit, shit.

I took more deep breaths. Dr Bairstow dealt with this sort of thing all the time. No wonder he had no hair. I made a mental note to try to be more ... conventionally ... behaved in future. Out of consideration for the few wisps remaining around the back of his head.

Beside me, Markham and Lingoss, apparently not caring that the god of historians was pissing all over our chips again, were yelling excitedly at each other over the noise. Lingoss had Peterson's recorder discreetly palmed, all ready to begin. I considered splitting us up. Lingoss on one side of the stage, me on the other. To make sure we didn't miss anything. Lingoss had been a trainee historian until she left the programme to join the nutters in R&D. Where, I might as well say, she fitted right in. On the other hand, we were down to one security guard. We were better off staying together. It was going to be a long afternoon.

I closed my mind to whatever was going on outside the theatre – those were events I could do nothing about – and concentrated on the task in hand.
Hamlet
. We were going to see
Hamlet
. And William Shakespeare himself.

I grinned. Yeah – I love my job.

I didn't think, given the chaotic surroundings that the actors would be punctual, but they were. Three long blasts of a trumpet announced the performance was about to begin. Of course, they wouldn't want to hang around.
Hamlet
was four hours long. The nights were short in June, but although the Globe was open to the sky, the sides were high. The sun would soon disappear and the whole place would be plunged into shadowy gloom. It would grow cold. Yes, there were torches and braziers, but even so, compared with today's pampered theatre-goers, Elizabethan audiences were a tough crowd. In every sense.

The crowd fell nearly silent. There was a huge sense of anticipation.

I can't begin to describe how it felt to stand among people who didn't know the story. Who didn't know how the play would end. Who hadn't had to sit at school, sleepy with boredom, as the class takes it in turns to read Shakespeare's lines, droning on and on, fulfilling the education authorities' apparent ambition to render Shakespeare as boring as possible. The people here had never watched one of those trendy TV productions where the play is – for some reason known only to the director – set in a modern South American dictatorship, or a Victorian cotton mill.

There was no scenery and few props. There was just the play itself. Everything was left to the imagination. The costumes, though, were magnificent, blazing with colour and fake jewels. If the sun had been shining, they would have been dazzling. Even on this dull day, they were brilliant. The stones in the costumes sparkled and flashed in the light from the braziers.

The actors were good. They were better than good. They were amazing. I don't know why I was surprised. I can only assume that I'd thought, given the lack of scenery and the smallness of the stage, that the performance would be ... well ... unsophisticated, and it wasn't. Far from it.

The story progressed at a tremendous rate and the theatre crackled with energy. The actors were never still, continually moving around the stage. All of us, wherever we were, standing or seated, were made to feel included in the drama. To feel a part of what was going on. It was a very personal, intimate performance. They strode around the stage, cloaks swirling, taking the story to the furthest reaches of the theatre, their voices perfectly audible over the continual hum of those watching who, themselves, were never still.

I don't know about anyone else, but I was right there with them. I was there at Elsinore, on a dark winter's night, standing on the battlements as the frightened guards discussed the mysterious appearance of the spectral apparition, building up to the moment of the Ghost's entrance. Played by William Shakespeare himself.

And then, suddenly, there he was, appearing mysteriously from the back of the stage, dark and unmoving. The audience gasped. Like everyone else, I craned to see his face, lost in the shadows of his deep hood. I hopped with frustration. I hoped Lingoss, taller than me, was getting better shots. If everything had gone according to plan, there would have been historians at strategic points all around the theatre, capturing every moment, every line, every gesture, but they, of course, were all off irresponsibly sailing away to the New World or recklessly starting a riot in the market. You just can't get the staff these days.

Unlike the rest of the glittering cast, the Ghost was enveloped in voluminous draperies of grey, under which was just the hint of a breastplate, to denote his armour. I don't know what sort of material they'd used for his cloak, but even the slightest movement caused it to flutter away from his body, giving the appearance of wavering transparency. On this dull day, the effect was excellent. Mrs Enderby would be thrilled. Or would have been had she actually been here.

I was right there again when Horatio brought Hamlet to see the Ghost for himself. I watched the two of them exit, pause, to signify a new scene, and then reappear almost immediately.

The crowd shuddered with delicious horror at the Ghost's words of murder and incest, and if Markham had got any closer he would have been up on the stage with them.

The story thundered on. The Ghost admitted he was Hamlet's father and charged him to avenge his murder. All around me, people were nodding in agreement. This was accepted ghostly behaviour. The themes of the play were recognisable in any age. Murder and revenge.

I began to calm down a little. We were getting some great shots. Peterson and Sykes would sort out Professor Rapson. The combination of Dr Bairstow and Major Guthrie was unbeatable and, even should the unthinkable happen and they fail, there was always Mrs Mack. And actually, now I came to think of it, I wouldn't cross Mrs Enderby, either. She has a nasty repertoire of hard stares. And then there was Miss North. The universe had been smoothing her family's path to success for centuries. She was definitely not one to let anyone or anything stand between her and her goal. They'd be fine.

We'd be fine.

Everything would be fine.

And right at that very moment, Shakespeare burst into flames.

My first thought was that we were witnessing a case of spontaneous human combustion and how disappointed Professor Rapson would be to have missed it, and then common sense kicked in.

I'd been so involved in the various St Mary's crises – to say nothing of the play – that I hadn't notice the wind was getting up, sending dark clouds moving atmospherically across the sky. With a dramatic gesture of departure that sent his draperies flying out around him, the Ghost had flung out his arm. The movement, together with a sudden gust of wind, picked up the gauzy material of his cloak and blew it across one of the braziers. The next minute, Shakespeare – oh my God,
the
Shakespeare – was alight.

For a moment, everyone stood, frozen. Someone screamed. We stood on the brink of mass panic. The theatre was made entirely of wood. Fire exits hadn't been invented yet. A mass stampede would probably kill more people than any fire.

But not today. Before anyone else could move, Markham had vaulted up onto the stage and cannoned into Shakespeare, knocking him to the ground. I just had time to think – oh my God, that's
Shakespeare
, for God's sake be careful with him – when he began to roll him over, beating out the flames with his bare hands. The classic Stop, Drop and Roll. We're good at that. Markham can do it in his sleep. I scrabbled in my basket, pulled out my cloak, and tossed it up to him. He used it to envelop the Ghost and an instant later, the flames were out.

The crowd applauded wildly. I don't know if they thought it was part of the play. Someone shouted something I didn't catch, and the pair of them, Markham and Shakespeare, must have been lying on a trapdoor because, suddenly, they both disappeared from view.

‘And then there were two,' intoned Lingoss.

And with that unerring instinct for knowing exactly when his staff are cantering along the catastrophe curve towards disaster, Dr Bairstow spoke in my ear.

‘Good afternoon, Dr Maxwell.'

‘Oh, hello sir. How is your riot progressing?'

‘A most satisfactory resolution, thank you. We expect to be with you very soon. How is the play?'

I stared at the spot where I'd last seen Markham and Shakespeare. ‘I'm sorry sir, I can't hear you very well. There's a lot of noise here. I'll try again in a minute.'

I closed the link on him. In itself a capital offence.

‘Bloody hell,' said Lingoss beside me. ‘Did you just hang up on the Boss?'

‘Of course not,' I said, unconvincingly and inaccurately. ‘Carry on recording, please Miss Lingoss.'

I wasn't the only one promoting the whole ‘show must go on' scenario. Hamlet himself, taking one or two deep breaths, turned to Marcellus and Horatio, themselves realistically pale and shocked – as well they might be since their foremost playwright and actor/shareholder had just gone up in flames – and the play continued.

‘I hope to God he's all right,' said Lingoss, anxiously, and I was pretty sure she wasn't talking about Markham. ‘This is bloody Bill the Bard, you know.' Just in case I'd forgotten.

‘We'll know in a minute,' I said. ‘The Ghost speaks again very soon.'

And indeed, we were approaching that moment. Hamlet, having entreated his friends to silence, instructs them to swear an oath on his sword. They pause, uncertain and afraid, and, according to the play, the unearthly voice of the Ghost filters up, supposedly from the underworld, but in this case from below the stage, commanding them to swear.

There was a long silence. No voice from anywhere, never mind the underworld.

‘Shit,' said Lingoss, and then...

‘Swear,' boomed an unearthly voice, resonant with the terrors of Hell.

Lingoss stiffened. ‘I know that voice.'

‘Swear,' intoned the voice sepulchrally, throbbing with all the despair and grief and sorrow and desolation of a lost soul. And with a bit of a Bristol accent.

‘We all know that voice,' I said, through clenched teeth.

‘Swear by his sword,' commanded the eldritch voice, rising in tone and pitch and finishing on a strangulated note that even a banshee with its balls trapped in a vice couldn't have achieved. All around the stage people stepped back, and on the stage itself, Hamlet's companions completed the scene with almost indecent haste.

‘Oh my God,' said Lingoss to me, agitated, but still recording I was pleased to note. ‘What did he think he was doing?'

The scene ended and the actors swept from the stage.

Time to find out.

I opened my com and taking advantage of the milling crowd said quietly, ‘Mr Markham. Report.'

‘It's fine. Everything's fine.'

This is St Mary's speak for ‘Everything's gone tits up, but I'm trying to sort things out so leave me alone to get on with it.'

‘Do you require any assistance?'

‘No. No. Everything's fine.'

I stared at the stage as if I could see through the wood.

Dr Bairstow's voice sounded in my ear. ‘Dr Maxwell, we appear to have lost contact.'

‘Really, sir?'

‘Report, please.'

In situations like this – the ones where I'm not quite sure what's going on – it is important to report as fully and clearly as possible without actually saying anything at all.

‘It's fine,' I said, borrowing from the master. ‘Everything's fine.'

There was a short, disbelieving silence and then he closed the link.

‘Just act normally,' said Markham, in my ear again. ‘Everything's fine.'

‘Stop saying that.'

‘Well it is.'

Where are you?

‘I'm carrying Shakespeare out from under the stage.'

‘Oh my God, is he badly burned?'

‘No, not at all. His costume is, but he's fine.'

I was puzzled. ‘So why are you carrying him?'

‘He's just a little bit limp at the moment.'

‘He'd better not be. The Ghost appears again later on.'

‘That won't be a problem.'

I stopped. Did that mean that Shakespeare would have recovered by then? Or that someone was available to carry on? I wish people would report more clearly.

‘Was that you just now?'

Silence.

I ground my teeth again. ‘Was it?'

‘I'm not sure what the correct answer is to that one, so I'm not saying anything. Anyway, I can't talk now – I'm heaving a living legend around and I need to concentrate on what I'm doing.'

I took a moment. This was Markham. Himself a living legend, but for completely the wrong reasons. On the other hand, he usually managed to emerge from whatever crisis he had embroiled himself in more or less unscathed. I should let him get on with it.

‘Do whatever you think necessary,' I said, mentally crossing my fingers.

‘Okey dokey,' he said cheerfully and, if Major Guthrie had heard him say that, he'd suffer for it big time later on.

Guiltily, I remembered my other crisis. The one that didn't involve the world's most famous writer going up in flames.

‘Miss Sykes, report.'

‘Oh, hello Max.'

As always, she sounded delighted to hear from me. I wasn't fooled for an instant. Who did she think invented that voice?

‘Report.'

‘Well, there's good and there's bad. The original passenger has turned up and is accusing the professor of stealing his berth. He's quite indignant about it, actually. The captain and his first mate aren't actually on the ship at the moment. Popular opinion has it they're out rogering as many barmaids as they can find in preparation for the long voyage ahead, but the rest of the crew are accusing the professor of trying to stow away. Which I gather is quite a serious crime, although since he's been marching around the deck talking to all the sailors, demanding to know how everything works, and showing them new knots he's invented, there hasn't been a lot of stowing going on. I can't honestly see how they'll make the charge stick. Can I just ask – what's keelhauling?'