Alchemy (24 page)

At last the messenger from the duke who had stood at the gate all this time, was admitted and it was again as if he who writ it knew my case. ‘I am not that I play.’ Yet for me the tables were turned for I loved my lady and she I feared only played with me while I could see that the lady Olivia might love the false Cesario, but he only feigned a passion in behalf of another. So at one and the same time I watched the play played out
before me, and yet watched my lady in the front rank among the court and myself where I stood upon my stool in the darkest part of the hall.

The scene came to an end. All clapped and refreshments were brought on for those of the court. Taking a salver from one of the servants I went forward and knelt before my countess.

‘Well, well, my little Cesario,’ she said low so that others might not hear, ‘have you brought me one of your famous potions? I would not sleep through the rest of the play.’

‘It is only wine my lady, unless you bid me otherwise.’

‘These men make fine maids do they not master physician? And maids may make fine men to strut and peacock but not upon the stage. And if you should take a motto Amyntas I think I know what it might be.’

‘Non sum quod gero.’

‘You are a clever child. Now I remember I have seen this played before in the late earl his day before his last illness. At the behest of the young gentlemen of the Inns of Court but I had forgot much of it, even the Lady Olivia grieving for her brother. These toys are well enough for the public stage, the multitude, not keeping to the classic mould as my brother wrote, and as I did in my translation of the French
Antonius
which I will give you to read. Or better we will read it aloud together as I have done before with Mr Daniel. But see, they are to begin again.’

So I watched as the action unfolded, sometimes entranced with the words of love from the Lady Olivia for the young Cesario, sometimes cast down at the impossibility of his loving her, and instead setting his affections on the duke. Between came the tediousness of the clowns and fools though once when the poet seemed to call in doubt that the devil may deal in witchcraft I remembered my father his belief that witchcraft was but delusion as the words seemed to hint at. I thought a shadow passed across the king’s face and he did not laugh at
these antics as he did before. Then I remembered his own
Demonologie
and that the Scots are said to be more credulous in these matters under the influence of their mists and mountains.

I thought that plays were witchcraft enough in themselves for what we supposed we saw or believed for a little time under the spell of the words was all imaginings, the stuff of dreams. Those persons who seemed to move so solidly before us were not that they seemed but the actors I had seen in the barn, and the one who played the rude sea captain, Antonio, was he who had gently urged me in jest to join their troupe as player and travelling physician.

At last in the resolution of the action I saw all my hopes and fancies expire when Cesario was revealed as Viola and the Lady Olivia was married to her brother Sebastian as if one might substitute for the other with no loss but only gain. And I understood that all my hope might be to conjure up my dead brother from the grave and assume his shape by that alchemy I did not believe in, not even if I should take up my father’s quest again for the philosopher’s stone which had the power to transmute all things, and should find the secret where he and all others had failed. For indeed it could not engraft upon another stem to improve the fruit, and without I was thus pricked out, as my lady said, there was no remedy for my love but only the chaste pain of virtuous devotion. Yet even had I been so endowed by nature what mistaken pride made me think, apart from the actor’s simulated passion of the Lady Olivia, that her gaze would fall on me who had not even Cesario’s pretence to be a gentleman?

‘Make love to me,’ she’d said but did she really mean it or just ‘fuck me’, ‘screw me’ or whatever the in-term is for what can carry all or nothing of tenderness or lust. The dreary shoals of spam with their pathetic peddled porn are more and more
depressing. Yet someone out there must love them, sitting alone in front of a screen clicking down on penile enlargement, tossing off among the titties, crawling the ‘mega adult sites’, the stickers of the prossies in the old phone boxes replaced by cyber softwares. At least they promised flesh and blood pleasures. Now I’m left with that old lament of Yeats: ‘tell how love fled and hid his face among a crowd of stars’.

Forget it, Jade. That was in another country and the wench is dead, to you anyway. Time to get on your bike and mingle with the natives of Wessex. Let’s see if your smart card will get you in. Soon they’ll be asking for a DNA sample before you’re allowed to buy a discouraged substance, not just drugs, booze or smokes but a packet of full-fat crisps leading to the obesity of nations and a drain on the medical resources of the state.

Full summer’s abloom now and because I’m not in a hurry I can take my time, idling almost, and arrive at the gates with my heart thumping but not from doing a ton on the motorway, just the natural excitement of the chase, the adrenaline of fight or flight we share with all our mammal kin though whether I’m hunter or prey I’m never sure when I fetch up against the Wessex security system. I take off my helmet, get out the plastic pass card and wheel the Crusader up to the metal fence. I swipe the card and wait. Hey presto, Aladdin’s cave is opening before me. I push the bike inside. The gates must be operated by sensors; they begin to close silently, purposefully, behind me. What would happen if I stepped back between them? An alarm? Crushed bones? It’s something I might badly need to know sometime: how to get out if things go pear-shaped or my card doesn’t work and I’m trapped inside.

But this time all’s well. I’m through. Students are sitting around on academe’s innocent lawns or strolling to classrooms. I catch a flutter of black gown as I head for the bike shed, feeling an old hand now, strip off my gear to blend in with the crowd, take my briefcase holding my mobile and fleshed-out
synopsis from the pannier under the camera’s unblinking eye and saunter towards the main building. I’m going to drop the synopsis in on Davidson, push it under the door if that’s the only way, sit in the library for a bit pretending to do some research and wander about getting more of the feel of the place. Somewhere there must be a dining room or caff where the students can sustain themselves. Somehow I don’t feel Wessex runs to a bar. It might lead to bacchanals or punch-ups.

Following the tangled line of what I remember from that first visit I track down Davidson’s room and knock. There’s no answer but a notice on the door tells me he’s available for consultation from 12-1.0. The door fits too tightly for me to be able to push my envelope under it. I’ll have to come back. OK. On to the library where I sign up for a place in the round room in the afternoon then join the other students in the modern extension where one part is set aside by a rank of gleaming desktop PCs.

At other tables fingers are flickering over the keyboards of a dozen laptops while eyes strain at the small screen. Though it’s called a library books don’t seem to come into it much. I bag a place with my notebook and briefcase, and go to the reference shelves to take down
A Dictionary of Shakespeare’s Contemporaries.
Now I can look up Amyntas’ countess: Mary Herbert, née Sidney, Countess of Pembroke. It’s strange to see her as an actual biographical entry in a book. It makes her both more and less real, without Amyntas’ intervening interpreter’s gaze. It says John Donne called her her brother’s phoenix, rising from his ashes borne up by their psalms. There’s a list of her works, her children, her houses and interests, yet all the time she seems to be receding into the distance.

Distracted by a flicker of movement at the edge of my field of vision, I look up from the page to see a dark-haired student has come in and is standing by the door searching for an empty place. His hair has the blackbird’s wing sheen of Asia. He turns his face towards me. With a shock I see, or think I do, that it’s
the Gao nephew, Charlie. Hastily I duck my head. Now I’m not sure. Ashamed of my ‘they all look alike’ knee jerk, I risk another quick glance. Now I’m sure.

What shall I do? Pretend I haven’t seen him? Maybe he won’t recognise me. ‘The round eyes all look alike.’ But it’s too risky. I could bump into him at any time in the corridors. Or he could spot me now when I get up to leave and think I’m avoiding him. No, I’ll have to sit tight till he goes and follow him out. What a coincidence. But then they happen all the time. It’s an effect of randomness. Something like that. Chance. The numbers game. I can’t imagine he’s following me. Why should he? Even normal paranoia can’t make me think that. I remember Mary telling me about his carefully counted hours of study that make his stay in the country legitimate.

I put my head down and try to concentrate on Amyntas’ countess but the moment has gone. I mustn’t miss Charlie leaving. He goes over to speak to the librarian on duty at the information desk. She consults her screen; says something to him. He turns away, picks up the pad he’s left on the table and heads for the door again. I get up, put the dictionary quickly back on the shelf and follow him out, snatching up my briefcase.

‘Charlie, Charlie Gao. It is you, isn’t it?’

He turns, puzzled. Then smiles. ‘Miss Green. What are you doing here?’

‘I was going to ask you the same.’

‘This is where I do my studies. My uncle in Chicago he pays for me to go to an American college. Then I can get a job in America. And you?’

‘Same sort of thing. I’m topping up my qualifications. Maybe take an American master’s to give me more options. You didn’t stay long in the library.’

‘I was hoping for one of the computers but there’s nothing free until one o’clock. So I shall go to the gym, and practise my martial arts. Perhaps we can meet later.’

‘I hope to see my tutor.’ I bend the truth a little. ‘But another day. Is there somewhere we could have a cup of coffee?’

‘Sure. There’s the campus coffee bar on the other side of the quad.’

‘I’ll ask Mary to let me know when we could get together.’ Why don’t I want to give him my mobile number, which she will certainly do? Does he really want to meet or is he just being polite? He wears the uniform jeans and long-sleeved T-shirt, black with a yellow and green dragon, and his face is smooth and clear, his hair glossy clean. I’ve never really looked at him before, going in and out of the shop with deliveries and leaving when I took over.

‘I would like to thank you, Miss Green. Mary told me you had offered to help if I was in any difficulty with the immigration authority or the police.’

‘It’s just that I’ve had some legal training that might be useful. Please call me Jade since we’re students together.’

He laughs, an embarrassed giggle. ‘Still I do thank you, Miss Jade. My aunt and uncle are very kind but they are not rich. Lawyers are expensive. I hope I won’t need to trouble you but I do thank you very much. I am worried for them. The shop is their only income and now the big takeaway has opened next door perhaps they will need your help too. Meanwhile I practise the martial arts in case there is trouble.’

‘Maybe we can do a swap and help each other.’ I’m warming to Charlie Gao.

‘I would be proud if I could help you, Miss Jade.’ He bows a little. ‘See you around. Now I go to the gym.’

I have a sudden vision of him in Bruce Lee stance, kick-boxing and karateing his way out of trouble as we fight for our lives with the rest of the Gao family clinging to each other behind us. Only I can’t see the faces or make out the distinct shapes of the enemy.

At first Charlie’s presence on Wessex campus made me
nervous. Now I’m comforted by it. I feel I’m not alone. Batman has a Robin.

In my meanderings away from the library I find I’m near the chapel. I’ll just stroll past the door nonchalantly under the eye of the CCTV. On the off chance I pause and try the door handle. It turns. The door opens; I almost fall inside. Hastily I pull the door to behind me but without quite shutting it in case it should lock me in or set off some alarm. Nothing happens. I go forward into St Walburgha’s old haunt, the saint who became the patron of Walpurgisnacht. Today the chairs are set out in rows in a semicircle leaving a space in front of the pulpit.

Molders had said the chapel was always open for meditation but this is the first time I’ve found it unlocked. There’s a waiting feel about it, as if the place itself is expectant. Maybe it’s just me, unconsciously building on the unstacked chairs. I sit down in one and stare up at the frescoed saints as if they might bend down and tell me everything they know.

A sound behind at the door alerts me that someone has come in. I bend my head as if in prayer. I hear feet, the scrape of a spindly chair, more sounds from the doorway. Several people must be entering the chapel but I daren’t look round. I keep my head devoutly bowed. What’s the custom here? Do people kneel or sit? A figure passes me to take a place further into the crescent of chairs, and then another. The whole chapel seems to be filling up. Nobody speaks. There’s none of the gossipy pre-service chatter you might expect from people who share an institution. Maybe these are the elite, theological students and they’ve taken a vow of silence.

Suddenly everyone is standing up and there’s the sound of an organ. I stand up too so as not to be conspicuous, the spare prick at the wedding. A group, a double crocodile in black gowns, files past me with the Revd Bishop bringing up the rear. They station themselves in front of the pulpit facing us in a line. The dean climbs up into the pulpit. The organ music swells
to fill the chapel and the choir joins in, followed by the congregation. It’s a hymn I know from way back, from my nan’s tales of her days at the Band of Hope when she was a child and sent to church on Sunday morning along with her four nearest siblings to give their mother peace to knock up a Sunday dinner while their father was at the pub or at the allotment.

Joy, joy, joy, with joy my heart is ringing,
Joy, joy, joy, his love to me is known.
My sins are all forgiven;
I’m on my way to heaven.
My heart is bubbling over
With its joy, joy, joy.