Nicola Barker - Darkmans

‘Did Beede mention why it was that he wanted this book?’ Kane suddenly enquired.

‘Pardon?’

‘Beede. Did he ever mention why ?’

‘No. Well, yes . He’s become totally fascinated by the period. And he has this crazy theory about how the British Renaissance took place — at least in part — because of the evolution of English as a language…’

‘Sure,’ Kane said flatly, ‘I heard all about that.’

‘There’s actually another book which I haven’t managed to get a hold of yet called Tales of the Jesters . I was chatting to this guy — this comedy journalist — who had his own copy, and he was telling me how Scogin’s final request when he died was that he should be buried beneath a waterspout in Westminster Abbey. “I ever liked good drinks,” he apparently said. And that’s exactly what happened. They buried him there, under this dripping waterspout. But only a handful of years later the king decided to build a new chapel on that spot — so the old jester’s bones were just casually unearthed. I don’t know where they ended up…’

Kane was staring out of his window again, over towards the house. ‘That’s very interesting,’ he said, finally.

‘Yeah. I mean this stuff’s a fair old hike away from my usual scholastic stamping ground, but since I’ve been studying the original texts again this morning I’ve become totally fascinated by the whole thing. Completely hyped-up. Really excited. In Board’s book we definitely see the jester ducking and hiding between words. Words are his allies. It’s like he’s at his most powerful, his most mischievous, when experimenting with the variableness of language. Does that make sense at all?’

Kane didn’t bother to answer her.

‘Many of the stories are about deceiving and then disappearing, about pulling a fast one and then doing a runner, and the language itself really seems to aid and abet him. Beede’s little hypothesis has some validity in that respect…In fact I was having a quick look at this book edited by Gamini Salgado which I noticed Beede reading the other week — it’s a collection of texts from the mid-sixteenth century — many of them totally contemporaneous with the Scogin book — and one of them in particular by a John Awdeley called The Fraternity of Vagabonds is basically a dictionary of the slang of the Elizabethan criminal underclass. This bizarre secret language. It’s amazingly weird. Very beautiful, too. Most of it’s probably fallacious — just a wild fabrication. But that hardly even matters, really. I mean where do words come from anyway? What is it that gives a word its longevity, its staying power? Who legitimises it? Why? And how? I’m seriously thinking about researching further into this whole area now, creating some kind of spontaneous academic thesis around it. Bringing it all right up to date, too, via patois —my speciality — musical and urban street-slang, African prison languages…Maybe even researching another book.’

Kane snorted, bitterly, ‘Beede’ll be ecstatic.’

‘Yeah…’ (She didn’t take his bait.) ‘I mean just this idea that language is constantly changing, that it creates these weird little loopholes which allow people of different classes and races and backgrounds to gain ready access to an otherwise inaccessible parent culture…’

‘So I guess you had your own little epiphany, too, huh?’ Kane said. He was almost joking.

Silence

‘Uh…I hadn’t really thought about it that way…’

Pause

‘Yeah. How very odd . I guess I did…’

Kane frowned. ‘I hate to burst your bubble, Win, but didn’t you say that Kelly wasn’t actually related to the Board guy?’

‘No. No, she probably isn’t. Uh…At least I’ve certainly got my doubts…’

‘So everything doesn’t fit so snugly, after all…?’

(He struggled not to sound too smug about it.)

‘In one of the books I was looking at this morning,’ Winnie began rapidly paging through her notes, ‘they’d reprinted this totally bizarre attack on Board — who apparently at some point wrote something negative about beards…’

‘Sorry?’

‘Beards.’

‘Beards? ’

‘Yeah. About beards — growing beards, wearing beards…He thought beards were unhygienic. He hated beards. And this caused quite a stir at the time. Beards were huge back then. Anyhow, I happened across this long kind of “answer poem” to Board’s hypothesis — completely bloody obscene , coincidentally — all about the virtues of beards — which includes several side-swipes to what an acknowledged con -man Board is, how disreputable, what a criminal …’

‘But how exactly does this relate to Kelly?’

‘Hold on. I’m getting to that. Because in the detailed analysis accompanying the text the author of the book — I forget who , exactly, but he certainly seems to’ve had a certain amount vested in upholding the doctor’s reputation — says that after much investigation he’s discovered that there was actually another family of Boards, also from East Sussex — which is where the original Board was raised, in Cuckfield, a place called Board Hill…’

‘Okay… Okay …’ Kane was struggling to keep up. ‘And this other family…’

‘A really bad lot. Undistinguished. Opportunistic. Constantly cited in local court files…But with the same name, from the same area, and so this understandable confusion naturally arose…’

‘Ah. Now I get you…’

‘It just seems…’ Winifred almost sounded ashamed of her hypothesis, ‘I don’t know…somewhat probable …’

Kane shook his head. ‘Nah…’ he stubbed out his cigarette, ‘I’m not buying it.’

‘You aren’t?’

‘Nope. Because for starters, the original Board, the doctor, was a disreputable bastard himself…’

‘Well that’s hardly fair…’

‘Fair? He was a monk who kept whores in his chambers. A Catholic bishop who signed the Oath of Conformity and betrayed his faith …’

‘These were different times, Kane…’

‘Yeah, yeah. Colours were brighter, smells were stronger. I know all about that. But the guy was a snob. He even lied in print about working for the king…’

‘But he didn’t , not necessarily. As I already said, the Scogin book was probably…’

‘No. You’ve been banging on for hours now about how certain clues in the text strongly indicate that Board did write the thing…’

‘I was just speculating …’

‘It’s pure, academic snobbery ,’ Kane scoffed, ‘plain and simple. This pathetic need on the part of subsequent intellectuals to protect their own. To try and remove any stain from the great doctor’s name…’

Winnie was quiet for a while, and then, ‘So you don’t think I should tell her, after all?’

‘Come on , Win,’ Kane exclaimed, growing impatient, ‘you’re a historian , for Christsakes. Work it out for yourself. Anyone who’s studied the past in any real detail knows that people will invariably draw their own loaded conclusions, whatever the actual facts are. Why should Kelly be any different?’

‘I just feel…’ Winifred paused, thoughtfully. ‘This may sound odd — no, it is odd — but I just feel strangely protective of her — of the story — strangely grateful to her…’

‘Why?’

‘I dunno. Because our brief conversation — this stupid conversation — just made everything crystallise, somehow. It brought these arguments, these ideas, these people into an extraordinary kind of relief…Made them throw all these weird shadows inside my head…’