Philip Gooden - Sleep of Death

Another, stranger possibility was that son William had killed father William. He had hidden up the tree, he had scampered towards the old man’s supine form, he had poured the deadly preparation in the porches of the paternal ear. There is no reason for thinking this, apart from the whisper in my innermost head that says that sons wish for dead fathers, and all so that they may have their mothers to themselves alone. If I examine the matter honestly, it was sometimes so with me.

A third possibility: the murderer of Sir William Eliot is none other than Master WS himself. I do not see our gentle, vanishing author wielding the knife or passing out the poisoned glass, but these feats of open or concealed violence he has done again and again in his mind’s eye, for his pieces are full of death and villains and destruction. I could not help remembering those initials carved into the trunk of the tree in the Eliots’ garden, or what the gate-keeper had said about the identity of the visitor who called at the house on the day of Sir Thomas’s death. I could not but think of the odd comments made by Master WS, of the looks he has cast in my direction. Perhaps within him some barrier has broken down, and he no longer knows what is art and what is life. He writes a murder, he enacts one. Or he does it first, then he tells us of it. It is no longer enough that he imagine himself a homicide, he must play the part in truth and see where it takes him.

But I have to prove my case.

As Master WS may have taken a leaf out of his own book, as it were, so too will I. In our author’s play, Prince Hamlet tests the King’s guilt by showing him to his teeth and face the image or pattern of his crime. When the travelling players arrive at Elsinore castle they are requested, even commanded, by the Prince to stage a play which, in words and dumb-show, exposes the uncle’s supposed deed. If he changes colour, if he squirms on his throne, if he hangs his head in shame, Hamlet will know him for what he is. He watches his uncle-father watching the play. Not trusting the testimony of his own eyes, he tells his good and faithful friend Horatio to watch the King too. But, in the end, there is no need because the entire audience sees what Hamlet sees.

Claudius runs from the play when it’s hardly got going. As the poisoner (me, Lucianus) appears to work his wicked will on the sleeping king, mouthing threats and making damnable faces, the real King calls out for lights. Daunted by a play he is. Frighted with false fire he is. In front of his court he flees. He is the man.

I planned something similar.

When I got down from the cart on the Southwark side of the Bridge that morning I first made my way to Nell’s. Her reaction was like Master Burbage’s.

‘My God, you look terrible, Nick.’

She had a little looking-glass and carried it to me. My face was a mass of bumps, bruises and scratches, from the beating I’d received and from my headlong flight through the forest. There was blood there too, and on my hands and clothing. Adrian’s as well as mine. My limbs ached and my wrists were badly chafed from the effort of freeing them from the ropes. I considered making some reference to our last meeting, in the Goat amp; Monkey with William, and to the way in which I had snubbed her because she was pursuing her trade with young Eliot. But I did not want to reopen old wounds — I had enough fresh ones.

Nell brought some water in a pewter bowl and a cloth and gently wiped away the mess around my face. I winced and drew my breath in sharp. She applied salves and ointments, of which she always kept a plentiful stock. Is there a mother in every woman?

Unlike a mother, though, Nell did not question me, at least not then. Perhaps because she deals so much with men, and with our strange and shameful needs, she is content to let things go unexplained. Instead, she chattered on about the remedies she was applying and how this one was compounded of rue and sanicula, and that one was made of strawberry leaves and fennel and mercury mortified with aqua vitae, you understand. . What I understood was that my Nell was a country girl at heart and knew the remedies of the fields and forests. I also understood that she’d spent plenty of time in Old Nick’s company. She was using expressions that were not natural to her. Her patter and expertise must have come, in part, from him. I wondered whether to tell her of the old apothecary’s fate, trussed up and dead in the place where his alligator had hung. I wasn’t certain of the nature of the relationship between Nell and the old man, whether their ‘arrangement’ was for business or pleasure. With a whore, of course, the one may be the other. On the whole I thought the news of Old Nick’s demise could wait. Sooner rather than later there would be a full accounting, after which she would know all.

I was grateful to be lovingly tended and, as I lay on the bed that we sometimes shared, I felt myself slipping into an exhausted sleep even as she talked away. But I couldn’t allow myself rest — the play had not yet run its course.

‘Nell. . ow-’

‘Don’t talk, Nick. Let me finish.’

‘This is important. It’s — oof — to do with what happened.’

‘I’m not asking any questions, Nick. Keep still.’

‘I will tell you everything later. But there is something — ah — I want you to do.’

‘It’s a bit early in the day-’

‘It’s — ouch-’

‘ — and you’re in no condition for that.’

‘It’s not that.’

‘What then?’

‘I want you to go to the playhouse.’

‘To ply my trade?’

Nell picked up some of her customers at the theatre, although I had asked her to keep away from the Globe, at least for as long as I was working there.

‘No, to watch.’

‘Are you in a play?’

‘Yes. I am Lucianus, nephew to the king — and a poisoner.’

‘Oh, that play.’

‘That play. But I don’t want you to watch that play. The play’s not the thing. I want you to watch someone watching it.’

‘This is deep, Nick. Perhaps you have a touch of fever and are not altogether sure of your words.’

‘I am altogether sane. (Although I am by no means sure that I was at this point.) Listen. I wish you to observe someone and to see how they respond to what is happening on stage.’

‘But you could do this.’

‘I will be watching someone else. Besides, Nell, two pairs of eyes are better than one. I do not trust my senses. I am stumbling in the dark.’

‘You are not well, Nick.’

I was moved by her words and, more, by the way that she uttered them.

‘Scratches and bruises only. My mind is clear. Nell, do you ever think of leaving London?’

‘Whatever for? How would I do for a living?’

‘There are men and towns everywhere, if you are determined to persist in your course of life.’

‘Why, you know London has more men — and more of them rich ones — than any other town. And you know what they say. Fair wenches cannot want favours while the world is so full of amorous fools. Where could I find such a good place again?’

‘ Good, Nell? Good for trade perhaps, but is it for your good?’

‘How solemn you sound, Nicholas. What has happened to you that you’ve turned moraliser?’

I thought of the deeds of the night before. I saw the body in the wood, but kept silent.

‘I’ve been thinking that I may not be welcome here much longer. I might return to the country.’

‘Not with me for company, my dear. Or not until I’m too dried up and raddled for the sacking law.’

‘Sacking law?’

‘Whoredom. Were you going to ask me to go with you?’

‘No. . well, not exactly. I just wondered. . Look, to come to the business in hand. That play. There is a performance this afternoon.’