My key! I reach out for the keyhole on this side, as stealthily as I can with my hands trembling. Thankfully, he doesn’t notice, immersed as he is in the serious activity of pouring aqua vitae into his glass. Oh, thank the Fates. My key is still there. This all happened; I’m not going mad, it’s this world that’s sideways. I remove the key as quietly as possible, secure it in my cloak once more, then mask the sound by banging the door shut behind me.
He looks up, annoyed. ‘Must you be so … Never mind, I suppose you must.’ He sits back in his chair, the one Shepherd had graced when the three of us were drinking here, in what feels like centuries ago but must have been only … Yesterday? Perhaps?
It’s hard to count the sands of time when there’s no day or night to guide you; when the only indication of its passage is that things keep trying to kill you, and the only thing to count is how many times you’ve barely managed to escape them.
‘Well, what are you waiting for then?’ Shakespeare beckons me to the table. ‘Come, shrew, torture me with your questions if you must, but let us drink while we’re at it.’
Perhaps another glass can’t hurt. I’ve grown a tolerance for aqua vitae now. As slowly as I can, just to annoy him, I walk to the table and take my seat across from him. The garden graveyard is once more within my sights, but from this distance, both the cloying smell and the hidden horrors that sustain it are more manageable.
‘How did you know?’ he asks, pulling me from my thoughts.
‘Hmm?’ I stall by pouring myself a glass and taking a small, dainty sip.
‘How did you know to launch an assault on my life’s work, on my study? To search for clues about your name? Frankly, I … Did Shepherd give you permission to do this? Her ways are often strange.’
I’ll say. ‘Her motives are indeed ineffable,’ I offer.
Who can tell, really, why a golden despot would torture their subjects, but only just enough for them to feel relief that they’ve escaped the worst? But I can see how Shakespeare’s eyes glaze over any time she’s mentioned. My speaking ill of Shepherd will not serve me. I empty my glass. ‘Our radiant goddess,’ I begin, as the aqua vitae burns my throat and Shakespeare nods as if he doesn’t find my words ridiculous, ‘wanted me to understand my situation. Who I was, how I came to be.’ Not who I am now. Not what I will be next. These things are mine to sculpt and to behold – and I’ll be damned if I surrender my newfound scalpel of identity to gods and scribblers who presume to know me better. I refill my glass, then refill his.
How fast he drinks!
‘She gave me context …’ Text, rather, but Shepherd did say I should refrain from mentioning the manuscript. I’m not convinced defying her in this regard would help me. I cough, and take another sip of this sweet medicine. Ah, much better. What was I saying? ‘Context, to understand that you are not my husband.’ I give him a salacious smile; let him hope he was. ‘So foolish of me to think so, really.’
His ears are red like ripened fruit. I should sever them and plant them in his garden, see what colour flowers will sprout out of them. See if they’ll do a better job at listening to his creations’ cries for help. ‘Such things are understandable,’ he mumbles. ‘But I am glad that we can now converse with more clarity.’
‘Indeed.’ I lean back on my chair, doing my best to emulate Shepherd’s unbothered, royal calm. ‘So, for the sake ofclarity, I asked our radiant Shepherd to divulge as much as possible. About your work, about your purpose when you made me so. But, I’m afraid Shepherd had other stories to attend to.’ Other souls to torture. Hopefully not Claret. ‘And in the end, there really was no better place to get my answers than your own sanctum sanctorum; the place where the …’ What’s a good simile, for what his butchery has done to us? ‘Where the sausage of our lives is squished together in the intestines of your intention.’ I raise my glass to him.
He’s not affronted, just amused. Good. I drink.
‘And so you found my treasure trove of ideas, the place I only visit in the space between dreaming and waking …’ His voice is low, thoughtful. ‘Marvellous feat, really. I may have underestimated you, on the page.’
I will not let his tepid flattery affect me. Time to strike.
‘My tale …The Tragedy of Macbeth…’ I shudder as I think back to that folio, its every word a shovel digging dirt to bury me, its every punctuation mark a drum beating towards inescapable demise. ‘It was inspired by a real story, wasn’t it?’
He bends forward, placing his elbows on his knees, his palms under his chin. ‘Well, as much as everything is, I suppose. I do consider myself a savant of Scottish history … And now with our King James, of course, aren’t we all the King’s Men?’ He winks at me.
I don’t know why he winks, or who King James is. Shakespeare hasn’t written anything about him, as I recall. Insignificant, then. ‘Tell me about this Scottish history that inspired you,’ I purr, approaching the table.
‘See, it’s very interesting,’ he starts. ‘It was such a bloody mess, that Holinshed fellow has penned a good recounting of it all –’
‘Holinshed?’ I think back to that paper, the smudged note in the margins. Holin-shed. Ah. ‘Another author?’ I ask, my eyes already drawn back to the garden.
‘Yes, yes, Raphael Holinshed,The Chronicles of England, Scotlande, and Irelande, do keep up. Anyway, in eleventh-century Scotland, there was a Macbethad mac Findláech, fascinating man, wish I had met him. His wife’s name was Gruoch, as you’ve surmised …’
I want to listen to his words, I do. He’s giving me the answers I’ve so sorely sought, he’s shedding light on the people who inspired my husband’s making. My making.
But the garden. I think I spot some movement there; a ripple of brocade amid the green. If Ophelia’s back … If she’s found Claret …
‘Am I boring you, my lady?’ Shakespeare seems irked. He wanted a more captivated audience, that much is obvious.
How do I play this to my benefit? How do I keep him talking, while at the same time ascertaining whether the girl’s mission was a success?
Then, the obvious answer dawns on me. ‘Of course not, my Bard. This is just so fascinating I cannot contain myself, you see. All these emotions and these humours, swirling in stillness … You wrote me to be living flesh, not patient stone. To have a beating heart, if hardened. Still eager to pump blood, to revel in the world around me.’ I get up from my chair and walk to him, batting my eyelashes and offering my hand. ‘To that end, will you accompany me on a walk in your glorious garden?’
30. Claret
Helene shakes her hands as if to ward the dripping skeleton girl off – to protect her from me. ‘Ophelia, no, don’t come closer … She’s dangerous!’
