O' for the love of Shakespeare (11 page)

I feel like my head swivels three hundred and
sixty degrees.  Just behind Angela stands a man, in what I think to be, his
early forties.  His dark brown hair has started to pepper around his temples.  Even
in his short beard there are a few odd greys that I can spot.  There is the
beginning of wrinkles around his dark eyes which I am guessing are from frowning
rather than smiling.  He has a rugged, handsome face.  Wearing grey chinos and a
white short sleeved polo top, he is lean with broad shoulders.  Although he
looks slightly awkward, holding a folding chair in one arm and a bottle of red
wine in the other.

“Hello Mother.”  He leans down to kiss Angela’s
cheek and I hear him say “I didn’t realise you were inviting someone; I would
not have bothered coming if I had known.”

“Behave.”  She hisses back. 

“You look different Mum, what are you
wearing?”  He says disapprovingly. 

Ignoring Ben’s comment, she turns to me and
says a little too brightly “Jane this is my son Ben, Ben this is my lovely new
young friend Jane.”

“Hi,” I say quietly but instead of doing the
polite thing and saying hello back he turns his back to me to set up his chair
next to his mum.  Angela turns to me and giving me a nervous smile mouths sorry.
 So we all sit there in silence.  This was not what I was expecting at all.

Act III Scene II

‘Lord what fools these
Mortals be!’  A Midsummer Night’s Dream

Soft yellow spot lights come to life pointed at
the makeshift stage.  Everyone gathered stills and quiets as Theseus, Duke of
Athens, and Hippolyta, his fiancée, take to the stage.  Just like falling
asleep I am swept along in to the marriage preparations.  Egeus physically
pushing Hermia at Demetrius and completely ignoring his daughter’s pleas of her
love for Lysander.  My heart thrums harder as Hermia and Lysander plan to elope
in secret and my heart weeps for Helena’s unrequited love for Demetrius.   The
four lovers disappear off the stage as they all head in to the woods with Hermia
and Lysander quickly followed by Demetrius and Helena.

Then it is the fairies turn to weave their
magic on the audience juxtaposed with the hilarious craftsmen rehearsing a play. 
This of course is to be the entertainment for the upcoming wedding of the Duke
and his bride.   I glance across at Ben who is heartily laughing at the
craftsmen’s antics.  He is actually really quite handsome when he smiles.  Not
the panty dropping looks that Malcolm has.  Ben is more masculine, outdoorsy
handsome.

As the night progresses
I sit open mouthed as the love triangle unfolds as both Lysander and Demetrius
fall in love with Helena leaving Hermia feeling abandoned.
 
The first half ends
with Hermia trying to challenge her friend Helena to a fight.

“Wow!” I turn to Angela
completely forgetting her son is with her.

“Brilliant isn’t it? 
And it is so nice to sit outside as if we really are in the woods with the
lovers.”  Angela is smiling and obviously completely enjoying the performance. 
“I’m just going to pop to the ladies I won’t be a sec.”  Before leaving she turns
quickly to her son and says “be nice” to him.

We both watch her
leave, catching each other’s eye we quickly look away from each other
awkwardly.  The sun has now almost set and the stars are making their way to
the celestial stage.  In any other circumstances this would be incredibly
romantic.

Angela pauses at a
mound of limbs on a picnic blanket not far in front of where we are sitting.  A
petite woman with elfin like brown hair pops her head up.  After a quick chat
with Angela, Helen kneels and makes an enthusiastic wave over at me.  At least
someone is getting to enjoy the dreamy atmosphere.  Chris rolls over to look at
me sitting awkwardly with Ben.  He smiles and then says something back to Helen
and Angela that they both find hilarious. 

Once Angela leaves them
they go back to their embrace, rolling around on the picnic blanket oblivious
to everyone else there.  And not for the first time since I have arrived I am
envious of their closeness.  Although urgh what is that?  Surely that’s illegal
in a public place.  For public displays of affection, they really do take it to
the next level.  Glancing at Ben he looks horrified at Helen and Chris and if I
am not mistaken I hear him mutter “Great!  Shakespeare and a sex show!”  However
I do also notice that he does not look away.  I think he senses that I am
watching him.

“So why do you keep
your light on at night?”  He barks at me.  Although he continues to
occasionally glance back at Chris and Helen.

“I’m sorry?”  What is
he talking about now?

“You left your bathroom
light on, you do know my mother is really struggling for money at the Bed and
Breakfast, she can’t afford for people like you to waste electricity.  Are you
that much of a child you are afraid of bad things happening in the dark?”  He
looks at me directly in the eye.  I then remember that first night, the person
who wondered in to my room.

“I thought that was a
dream, how dare you come in to my room!  I could have been in the shower.”  How
dare he be so presumptuous, not only to just walk in to my room but also to
then attack me for just leaving a light on?

“I would have heard it
if the shower was on.”  Although he does look slightly embarrassed and taken
aback. “Anyway it was the middle of the night so very unlikely.  Sorry for
trying to help mum not to go bankrupt and for trying to save the planet.”  He
says childishly.  We sit glaring at each other.

“Everything OK?”  We
both turn to see Angela standing watching us.

“Fine,” he says
grumpily as he turns back to face the stage.

Angela turns to me
looking confused but I just shrug my shoulders not wanting to tell her that her
son is an imbecile.

“Are Helen and Chris
enjoying the performance?”  I say to Angela trying to ignore Ben.

“To be honest I don’t
think they have watched any of it.”  She says with a soft chuckle.

The soft spotlights
have turned blue and pink, Titania wakes from her sleep to find Bottom who has
been transformed in to an ass.  Ben is a complete ass with a lot less charm
than Bottom.  Titania on becoming infatuated with Bottom begins to dote so
tenderly it is a really touching performance.  By morning all is fixed, Puck
has worked his magic so Demitrius now loves Helen and Lysander loves Hermia and
they all go back to Athens to be married.  All the lovers then watch the
craftsmen perform the play of Pyramus and Thisbe.  As the play concludes Puck
is left alone on the stage and asks us to remember the play as if it had been a
dream.  Sitting in the rose scented garden with the stars pricking the black
sky it very well could be.

Everyone in the audience stands to clap the
performers and watching the actors I cannot help but wonder what Malcolm is
doing now. 

“So what did you think of watching it outdoors?” 
Angela is still clapping the actors enthusiastically.

“Wonderful, by far the best performance of
A
Midsummer Night’s Dream
that I ever watched.  It fits so perfectly being
performed in the gardens so you feel part of nature and of course part of the
dream.”  It really was brilliant and an experience that I will never forget. 
“Thank you so much Angela for sharing it with me.”

“Yes well let’s pack up and get going.”  Ben
starts to fold up the chairs while Angela smiles as she stands watching him.  I
pick up the empty bottle of wine, the half-eaten box of chocolates and the
plastic wine glasses and slip them back in to the cool bag that Angela
brought.  Feeling relieved we will be finally saying goodbye to Ben and his
childish wit I go to pick up the folded chairs that Ben has laid on to the
grass while he collects his barely touched bottle of red.  Ben however beats me
to it, picking up all three folded chairs.

“Here I’ll take those.”  I just want him to go
so that Angela and I can talk about the play on our walk back.

“Are you always this polite?”  Keeping hold of
the chairs he instead drops his bottle of wine in to my hands.

“Are you always this juvenile?”  I snip back.

He takes off towards the exit holding the three
chairs leaving me standing holding his bottle of wine.  Picking up the cool bag,
Angela and I follow him a few paces behind.

“I’m sorry.”  I suddenly feel as though I
should apologise to Angela, she did after all invite me and the play really was
unique.   

“Well at least you realise how impolite and
discourteous you have been.”  Ben calls over his shoulder sullenly.

I pause briefly, no one has ever treated me
this way.  I feel like a naughty child being told off.  Angela wraps her arm in
mine and pulls me along with her.  We walk back to the Bed and Breakfast in
silence.  It has become cool out and I am thankful that I put my jacket on.

“Wasn’t that wonderful.”  Helen calls as both
she and Chris catch up to us. 

Once we get through the front door Ben storms
off in the direction of the kitchen with the three chairs without saying a word.

“Nightcap everyone?”  Chris says jovially
rubbing his hands together. 

“What a fantastic idea sweetheart.”  Helen
slides her hand down her husband’s arm.  Angela nods in agreement while I stand
feeling like this night is going to get a whole lot worse especially if Ben is
going to join us.  The foreboding threatens like a thunder storm.

“Cool I’ll go get some glasses and another
bottle.”  Cool he says, this is going to be far from cool.  Chris walks off
towards the kitchen.

Chris returns with Ben, laden with glasses and
a bottle of red.  Helen and Chris curl up together on the armchair while I act
as the filling of a Ben and Angela sandwich on the three seater floral sofa. 
This is not how I wanted my birthday to end.  Silence.  Sweet, awkward,
uncomfortable silence.  We all look at each other nervously hoping someone will
start a conversation.

“So has anyone heard about the theory that
Shakespeare did not write the plays?”  Ben starts as a conversation starter.  His
topic choice has made him go down even further in my estimation. 

“Yes I think I watched a programme or maybe a
film on that.”  Helen says clearly trying to remember what it was all about. 
“Yes don’t they think it was the Earl of Oxford or someone?”

“There are lots of different theories as to who
wrote the plays; Earl of Oxford, Sir Francis Bacon, Christopher Marlowe or
perhaps even a group of all different authors.”

“That’s just ridiculous.”  I snort.  “Of course
William Shakespeare wrote the plays.”  I have of course read about the
suggestions that others may have penned the Bard’s work but I never read
anything that could convince me even in the slightest.

“Wow your powers of argument are genius I’m
convinced.”  Ben says sarcastically at me.  Chris stifles a chuckle.  “There is
after all no actual evidence that Shakespeare wrote the plays.  We do not even
have one manuscript written in Shakespeare’s hand.  Didn’t even Charlie Chaplin
say he could hardly think it was the Stratford boy or something like that?” 

“But don’t you think it strange that for more
than two centuries after Shakespeare’s death, not one person suggested that he
didn’t write the plays?  In fact the first person who suggested the theory
did it as a joke, nothing more than that.  A joke.  I mean, Christopher
Marlowe died long before some of the plays were even written for goodness sake,
so how could he even possibly be considered to be the real author?”  That
should stump him.  Take that you smug, narrow-minded strange man!

“But how do you explain the fact that he didn’t
mention even one book or manuscript in his will?  Do you not think it odd that
he didn’t even own a book?”

“Many at that time made no reference to books
in their wills so that means nothing at all.  William Shakespeare of
Stratford-upon-Avon wrote those beautiful words and that is all.”  I’m not
having this argument with someone who so clearly does not appreciate what a
genius Shakespeare was.  “Sorry everyone I’m feeling a little tired. 
Goodnight.  Sorry Angela I’ll wash up in the morning if that’s alright, I have
a sudden headache.”  I have had my fill of today.  I need to go to bed and
start a new Act.

“Goodnight Jane and a Happy Birthday for one
last time.  Don’t worry about those couple of plates I’ll sort them out in the
morning.”  Angela turns to give me a quick kiss on the cheek. 

“Thank you Angela and thanks again for
tonight.”  I’m still disappointed that this is how the evening has ended after I
had such high hopes.  Still the play in the gardens was exceptional.  I am glad
though to be going up to my room where I do not have to spend a minute longer
with her son.  I feel thoroughly worn out after spending so much time with
Ben. 

“Night.”  Chris and Helen call in unison.  They
sit together looking awkward.  I hope Ben is happy with himself for ruining
everyone’s night by being a cantankerous, grouchy idiot.  Ben says nothing at
all, instead he sits taking large gulps from his glass of red wine.  I run up
the stairs not wanting to risk anyone calling me back and after today I have
most definitely learnt my lesson to lock the bedroom door behind me.

The next morning, I wake up far too early, the
first sunlight of the day streams in to my room through the small patch of
window not covered by the curtains.  I do my little stretchy dance to help the
rest of my body wake up.  Today is the last full day that I will spend here and
I feel so sad that my trip is nearly over.  If nothing else, it has been an
adventure.

The room comes into focus and I start to get
flashbacks of being in here with Malcolm yesterday.  He is pretty delicious
even if he is an action hero wannabe.  Although the pants still disturb me on a
very deep level.  Maybe in time he could come to appreciate Shakespeare and he
could still end up being cast in more Shakespeare plays.  Even if I do not
particularly believe that, compared to Ben he is still perfection really. 
Wrongly, I do also still want to get into his vile neon underwear.  Does that
make me shallow I wonder?  No he is still sweet, generous, kind and sexy as
hell.  Hmmm OK maybe this is still mainly physical.

After a quick shower I decide to slip on a
tight pair of blue denim jeans and a dark grey vest.  Unceremoniously I drop my
phone, keys and drawing pad in to my bag.  Quickly surveying the room to check
I haven’t forgotten anything I spot my blue cardigan half hanging out of one of
the drawers where I had pulled out my grey vest.  Just in case, I decide to
also pop the cardigan into my oversized handbag.