Anthony Burgess - Enderby's Dark Lady

"Except for someone," Silversmith said obscurely from the floor.

"A sort of er fart," Enderby went on, "like this:

'Prrrrrrrp

We ha' done for the Don,

Clawed off his breeches

And rent every stitch he's

Had on -' "

"Right," Toplady said to the company, "you can see a lot of work has to be done yet, and our friend here says that this is only what he calls an induction -"

"Shakespeare, too," Enderby cut in. "You all know your Taming of the."

"Watch noticeboard for next reading call. Okay," dismissively. To Enderby he said: "You and me and Mike have to talk. In ten minutes in my office."

"You," Enderby said, "do not appear to like the project."

"I like any project that has a fan in hell's chance of working. This project we've got to do. There's money gone into it from Mrs Schoenbaum. She wants it and to Mrs Schoenbaum you don't say no. But we don't do the project the way you see the project or think you see it." He breathed on Enderby and exuded a memory of breakfast blueberry pancakes. "Ten minutes in my office." Both he and Enderby had to leave by the same door, but it was if they were to exit by opposed wings. Silversmith remained on the floor. Enderby said harshly to him:

"Good friend for Jesus' sake forbear

To dig the dust enclosed here.

Blest be the man who spares these stones

But curst be he who moves my bones."

"That too," Silversmith said, "is a shitty lyric." Enderby was constrained, though silently, to agree with him. He then lost himself in the bowels of the theatre among shut cabin doors, fat heating pipes, growling engines. A big place, he concluded, having passed twice the same boilersuited men playing cards. At length he found himself in the wings of a stage and he timidly ventured onto the stage itself which, true, had no curtains and jutted far into an auditorium far too large for the town of Terrebasse but not for playgoers from the state capital, which was near. Less shyly, he moved downstage in the dusk mitigated by a working light and tried certain lines:

"By God, I will follow them to London and make my fortune there, acting plays and eke writing them." Terrible. A man who now appeared in the wings with a hamburger seemed to think so too, for he clapped faintly.

Enderby went down to the auditorium and through it, uphill, to doors which led to a wide corridor. Then there were stairs and he came to the administrative area, where girls and grown women were typing. He was somewhat late. Toplady glowered from his open office. Silversmith was already lying on the floor. Toplady's office was full of framed posters of his triumphs in high colour and fancy lettering. Toplady drank coffee from a paper cup and so, with some loss of the substance, did Silversmith. No coffee was offered to Enderby but a chair was. Toplady sat behind his desk. He said:

"What's the story?"

"The story, yes. Shakespeare, or Will as we may call him for brevity's sake, said that already, sorry, leaves wife and children in Stratford and goes to London. He sees how the Londoners like violent sports like bearbaiting and beheadings at Tyburn, so he writes the most violent play ever written. I see you presumably know it, Mr Ladysmith, since a poster there says you once directed it. Not a good play. In fact," he said daringly, "a lousy one."

"Go on."

"This leads him to the Henry VI plays and the friendship of the Earl of Southampton and at least acquaintanceship with the Earl of Essex, who wants to be king of England. Then there is Richard III, which leads him to the Dark Lady. She sees the play and falls for Burbage who plays the lead, and wants him to come to her bed with the announcement at the door that Richard III is here. But Will gets there first and is at his work when the announcement comes and says tell him William the Conqueror comes before Richard III."

The anecdote made Enderby smile but the two others remained gloomily watching. He continued:

"The Earl of Southampton takes the Dark Lady away from him and he falls into depression and whoring and drinking. You could have a song about that," he suggested.

"Depression, whoring and drinking," Silversmith sang from the floor.

"And then comes the news that his son Hamnet is very sick. He rushes to Stratford to find his boy dead and being buried. But he becomes a gentleman. Too late, too late, alas. This," Enderby saw fit now to explain, "is a play about guilt."

"Go on."

"End of first act. Second act Will is involved in Essex rebellion through putting on Richard II, which appears to justify usurpation. He sees Essex beheaded and fears he will be beheaded himself. But the Queen tells him to stay out of the big world of politics. He is a little man, she says. He goes home to Stratford and looks after his land and sues everybody in the manner of a country gentleman. Then he dies. A brief outline only." Silence. "It could be expanded." Silence. "A lot of things happen really. Marlowe, Ben Jonson. Sex and murder." Silence. "No limit to dramatic possibilities. Gentlemen," he added.

"You know what this is really about?" Toplady eventually said.

"Of course he could have syphilis, if that would help at all. He probably did have. Marvellous description of symptoms in Timon of Athens. Read it sometime. Nose dropping off, voice getting hoarse and so on. Everybody had syphilis in those days. America 's gift to Europe. All the world's a tertiary stage, he might have said. I don't know why I'm telling you all this."

"What I said," Toplady said more loudly though untruthfully, "is that this play is about its two stars."

Enderby coldly answered his cold stare. "You mean," he said, "like the Guide Michelin?" He had no confidence whatsoever in Toplady.

"I mean," Toplady said, "Pete Oldfellow and April Elgar. They're the stars. You'd better believe it. You can't put April on for a single scene and then shovel her off like dogshit. Once she's there she's there. You see that?"

"I don't," Enderby said, "think I know the lady. The name, of course. Elgar's a great name. But I thought the family had died out. Worcestershire, as you know."

"April is black," reproved the voice from the floor. "April is only Worcester in the sauce sense. April is the hottest property. April is tabasco." Enderby listened with unwilling approval. This was pure poetry.

"April Elgar," Toplady explained, "is a great singing star. You don't seem to realize what's on here. We take this show to Broadway by way of here and Toronto and Boston. It could run for ever."

"Why," Enderby asked, with seeming irrelevance, "did you pick on me?"

"Had to pick on somebody," Toplady said. "We didn't want one of these professors. Mrs Schoenbaum has to be convinced she's getting what she asked for. Meaning Shakespeare. Now get this first act ready. Shakespeare comes from Stratford bringing his kid with him."

"Hamnet? But he didn't. Hamnet stayed with his mother."

"You may," Toplady said, "think I'm an ignorant bastard, but I know what I don't know. More important, I know what you don't know. What you don't know is what really happened. Okay, who's to say he didn't bring his kid with him? He brings his kid with him but he protects him from the dirty world. He puts this dirty world on the stage. The Dark Lady comes into his life. He neglects his kid and his kid dies – plague, mugging, falls from a scaffold, gets roughed by a mad horse, gang rape, anything will do. So, right, you can have your guilt and remorse or whatever the hell it is." He scooped the gift towards Enderby with a Toledo dagger Enderby assumed was used as a paperknife. "She leaves him for this other guy, the Earl of Southampton or Sussex. She's got ambitions, right?"

" Essex. But look here -"

"Who cares what sex, right, but she's back in Act Two. In Act Two Shakespeare wants his son back so he turns him into Hamlet, and Shakespeare plays the Ghost."