Sleep of Death (4 page)

‘Master Burbage? Dick or Cuth?’

‘Dick. You don’t mean to say that they come to you,’ I said, genuinely shocked.

‘It’s a funny thing about that company, the Chamberlain’s, or most of the older ones at any rate,’ said Nell. ‘They’re different from the other companies we’ve had round here.’

‘What’s funny? Tell me, and just stop that for a moment.’

You can see how serious I was about my new company, that I would stop Nell just as she was getting properly started on me, so as to listen attentively to any scrap of whore’s gossip about the Chamberlain’s Men.

‘They’re pretty well all married, and every one of them’s got hundreds of brats – that Heminges for instance had a dozen or more when he last looked – and normally that’s a sure-fire combination, marriage and kids’ll drive anyone into the stews. But not the Chamberlain’s. They’re either henpecked or limp from so much fatherhood, or – I suppose it’s remotely possible—’

‘What?’

‘Can it be? That they actually love their wives?’

‘Uxorious,’ I said.

‘What’s that mean when it’s at home, clever dick?’ said Nell.

‘Forget it,’ I said. ‘I’ve already been in enough trouble over words today. All right, you can go on with what you were doing earlier.’

‘When did you become a paying customer, Master Revill? I will go on, but on condition you do this. See?’

‘Oh that’s how you do it? Here?’

‘Clever boy. Ah. And while you’re doing that you can tell Nell about your triumphs on the stage.’

‘I’m a poisoner in a sort of play within the play, if you see what I mean . . .’

‘No. You’ll have to go back to the beginning.’

‘Are you comfortable?’

‘Bugger comfort, get on with the job.’

‘It’s about this Prince, see, and he’s the Prince of Denmark—’

‘Hamlet?’

‘Yes, and he’s pissed off because his father who was King has just snuffed it, and he hasn’t been made King. The man who is now King is the late King’s brother. Hamlet’s uncle. What pisses Hamlet off even more is that the man who’s mounted the throne has also mounted his mother. Hamlet’s mother, that is. His uncle has married his late father’s widow and has gained the throne of Denmark. What makes it worse still is that only a few weeks have gone under the bridge between the death of husband number one and the marriage to number two. There’s a joke about them using the leftover food from the wake for the nuptials. Economising at Elsinore. Is that too fast for you?’

‘It’s good, Nick. Get on with the story.’

‘I meant the story. So for the first half hour Hamlet mopes around until the ghost of his father tips up on the battlements one nippy night, in fact on several nights in succession, and tells his son that he didn’t die as a result of a snake-bite in his orchard – which was the story that’d been spread around – no, the serpent that took his life now wears his crown and warms his wife, sort of thing. And then ghost tells him to revenge his murder.’

‘Out with his sword and into his uncle? End of play?’ said Nell.

‘We’ve hardly started,’ I said.

‘I hope so,’ she said.

‘I meant the story. Hamlet, you see, is a thinker, not a doer, and although he rages against his uncle and vows instant vengeance he doesn’t actually do anything. He wonders whether the ghost was actually the spirit of his father.’

‘Who else could it have been?’ said Nell, her breath coming slightly short. For myself, I was finding the narrative a useful distraction from an early (and, one might say, a dishonourable) discharge.

‘A devil maybe. Out to trick Hamlet. A devil in the guise of his father spinning some cock-and-bull tale about a murder so as to provoke the Prince into killing a totally innocent man.’

‘Sounds like a lot of trouble to go to for that.’

‘Hamlet is thinking, but he’s not thinking straight. He’s looking for reasons to avoid killing his uncle, maybe.’

‘So the ghost is a real ghost,’ said Nell. ‘My mother saw a ghost once.’

‘The ghost is real – and Claudius is guilty as sin – move down a bit.’

‘Claudius? Like this?’

‘Uncle, King, murderer, adulterer. Yes, that’s good.’

‘Oh, him.’

‘Do you want to change round yet?’

‘In a moment. When you’ve reached the end. Of the play.’

‘Luckily for Hamlet, who should fetch up in the Elsinore castle at this moment but a company of players. And he has the bright idea of getting them to do a play which will mirror the way his father died and be performed in front of an unsuspecting Claudius. This play inside the play’ll have a King and a Queen in it—’

‘Like most plays.’

‘—and the Queen will swear undying love to the King, et cetera. But then the poisoner steps out and knocks off said King. That’s me, poisoner. I have six lines – “Thoughts black, hands apt, drugs fit and time agreeing” – you get the idea.’

‘Put one of your apt hands right here – now.’

‘This is the twist. The poisoner – me – is announced as Lucianus, nephew to the King.’

‘When it should be the brother?’

‘Precisely.’

‘That’s deep, Nick.’

‘Good. This is a cleverness on the part of our author which I haven’t yet fathomed. Anyway, the play inside the play works because just after my entry Claudius storms off in rage. Oh! He has seen something to stir his conscience. He kneels down to pray. Hamlet comes in. Ah! Hamlet won’t kill him because he wants to catch his uncle when he’s gambling or pissed or in flagrante—’

‘In what?’

‘In this. Though, now I come to think of it, that’s a bit strange – because if Hamlet was catching the King in flagrante then he’d be catching his mother at it too, and I’m not sure that he’d want that . . .’

‘Dirty boy. Him . . . and you too.’

‘Claudius gets in a state, and sends Hamlet to England. Yes! This is after Hamlet’s killed a wise old fool of a councillor who was eavesdropping behind an arras on Hamlet and his mother – in the Queen’s bedchamber.’

‘What was Hamlet doing in his mother’s bedroom? Not in flag . . . what’s that word?’

‘Flagrante. No, he was just giving his mother a real ear-bashing . . .’

‘That’s all right then.’

‘So our hero gets shoved off to England in the company of a couple of old schoolfriends or snakes – you sure you don’t want to change round yet?’

‘Get on with it.’

‘And of course he’s right not to trust them because they’re carrying a warrant for Hamlet’s execution the moment they reach the English court. Oh Nell! But Hamlet never makes England. On the way his ship’s attacked by pirates and he is carried off after a daring single-handed boarding of the pirate boat—’

‘The groundlings enjoy a good fight.’

‘We don’t see the fight. Just hear about it in a letter. This is where Burbage is economising. Anyway pirates aren’t important, they’re a device to get Hamlet back to Denmark while his schoolfriends go sailing on.’

‘What happens to them?’

‘Chopped.’

‘Ah!’

‘Oh!’

‘Finish it, Nick.’

‘This is where I come in. Literally. I come in and I say what’s happened to the schoolfriends at the end. But before my appearance one or two other things have occurred – entailing the complete destruction of the Danish royal court.’

‘Get on with it. I don’t mean the story.’

‘Nearly at the end – don’t think I can hang on for you to turn round this time – in brief – Hamlet returns – the son of the councillor he killed is revenge-mad – will do anything – specially since his sister who Hamlet fancied – has gone round the bend – because of old man’s death – King Claudius sets up duel between Hamlet and this Laertes – to make sure nothing goes wrong he – he – oh Nell – Laertes puts poison on the tip of his sword – sword – sword – Jesus, that’s good – and the King drops poison – into goblet of wine – Hamlet’s meant to drink out of – all goes wrong – Jesus yes – Queen drinks out of goblet – drops down dead – Laertes gets stabbed own sword – but Hamlet stabbed too – before Hamlet drop dead he kill King poison sword poison goblet poetic justice all wrapped up very neat – ohNellohyesNell . . .’

‘Oh Nick.’

‘Nell.’

‘But you haven’t come yet, come on, I mean.’

‘Oh that. I forgot that for an instant. You are a lovely oblivion. Let me get my breath back. That’s better. But I do appear at the last moment, see, and almost the final words in the play belong to me. As the ambassador from England I stride on stage, diplomatically but confidently, to tell Claudius that his commandment has been fulfilled to the letter. The young men bearing the warrant are dead. Hamlet, you see, switched their names for his while they were on the boat. All this doesn’t make such an impression because at my feet are a dead King, a dead Queen, a dead Laertes and of course a dead Hamlet. “The sight is dismal”.’

‘That’s nice, Nick.’

‘It’s a grim story.’

‘Your arm round me like this.’

‘Funny thing is the spectators are cheerful enough when it’s all finished and we are in the Company, too. I’ve noticed before, people’s spirits are often lifted by a tragedy – while our comedies can leave them thoughtful, even disgruntled.’

Nell grunted something herself but she was already halfway to sleep. Hard day for her too. I wondered how many clients she’d entertained, and, as usual, struggled to stifle the thought. With her snuggled into me, and the evening light slanting on the panelled wood above my bed, I was glad to have some time to myself. I went over the afternoon in the playhouse again, like someone savouring a meal in retrospect. Naturally, I could not claim the lion’s share of anything in the way of lines, attention, applause. Rather than being the lion, I was the whelp. Still, the whelp remembers, and dreams of the day when he will take his rightful place at the feast.

While I was waiting in the tiring-house, much earlier than necessary, I’d seen our author dressed as the Ghost, that is, wearing armour – for Hamlet’s father’s spirit is in arms to signify that there is something rotten in the state of Denmark. I had it in mind to thank him again for saving me from the boatman that morning but he looked at me vaguely as if he were already making his transition to an incorporeal state. I went back to studying my lines for
A City Pleasure
: here I had a part of substance (at least eighty lines) as a man about town, and I was grateful that there’d be a rehearsal the next morning for we had to play the very next afternoon. Jobbing actors have frequently to step into sick or absent men’s shoes, and their first acquaintance with the play might be when they find themselves in front of three hundred groundlings impatient for the Company clown or tragedian.

So, to taste again my beginnings, my first course, with the Chamberlain’s Men.

My very first appearance in the tragedy of the Prince of Denmark is in the dumb-show that precedes the play inside the play, as Master Burbage termed it. I am the fellow that mimes the removal of the crown of the sleeping ‘King’ and pours poison in his ear; voicelessly, I condole with the widowed ‘Queen’; without a word, I make ardent love to her. I put expression into my action: the grasping hand that fondles the crown is the hand that tilts the imagined phial over the sleeper and the same hand that reaches towards the breast area of the flaxen-haired apprentice boy who is playing the player ‘Queen’. My hand is, I feel, a speaking hand. As this takes place I observe that Claudius and Gertrude are chatting together, while on the other side of the stage Hamlet is all eyes. I realise that Claudius must not understand too soon what is happening. And I see how tidily our author has, as it were, comprised all audiences in this royal audience: one half is always more interested in its own affairs even as the other forgets itself in the action. I do not notice this at the time but only as I think about it afterwards, lying in my bed next to my whore Nell. Then the riches of this play are laid open for me, right after Nell has laid herself open for me, and my unsleeping brain at once wants to throw a bridge across these two kinds of understanding or knowing . . . but I can make nothing of this at the moment.

After the dumb-show I reappear as Lucianus, nephew to the ‘King’. And this is something else that baffles me, that I should play the nephew. But none of this matters because I am upstaged by the King Claudius rushing off, crying out for light. And we ‘players’ are about to slink away because it is evident that we have displeased the King (the real King, that is), and then my lord Hamlet wrings our hands and claps our shoulders because we have pleased
him
greatly. And this is the fortune of the player in little! Up and down like a bucket in a well. Today a Claudius, tomorrow a Cassius, that’s the way of it. In the tiring-house once more, after I’ve conned
A City Pleasure
I make a pretence of studying my part in
A Somerset Tragedy.
Here I am a rustic boor. But I am really observing my fellows in the Chamberlain’s Company, and learning to put names to faces: Master Phillips, for example, or Cowley or Gough or Pope.

And before I know it I am out again as the ambassador from England, come with the news that Hamlet’s old schoolfriends Rosencrantz and Guildenstern are dead. But, as I’d said to Nell, this doesn’t go for much when rather more significant characters have bitten the dust. This time I am upstaged by Hamlet’s one genuine friend, Horatio, who informs the newcomer Fortinbras that he alone has the truth to tell. And now Fortinbras, who writes finis to the play, takes charge of everything, including the throne of Denmark. His first and last royal act is to order a military funeral for Hamlet. Then, like in most plays, we end with a little dance so that everyone goes off happy to their next diversion. The sun is shining behind the tower and tiring-house which throw their shadows across the groundlings and the lower seats. Hats bob, tobacco smoke weaves its way upwards, limbs are flexed in time with us as we jig on stage. The spectators make their dispositions.

Nell stirred and rolled away from me slightly. I took advantage of this to get up for a piss in the jerry in the corner of the room. Sometimes after I’d been with Nell I washed my equipment in wine – there was no insult to her in it, she’d told me herself of this method of prophylaxis. Once I’d tried vinegar, but once only. Hard pissing being also recommended as a defence against the perils of venery – and in the absence of a jug of white wine – I pushed the stream out with all the force I could muster. Then, bare-assed as Adam, I went to stand by the window.