STAGS 2, page 7
Gabriel Spenser.
I stared at that name for a moment. I’d seen it somewhere before. When I suddenly remembered where, I slammed the volume closed, stood up and left the Scriptorium without even putting the book back.
The others, bemused, followed me.
Scene ii
‘Look.’
We were standing at the entrance of the De Warlencourt Playhouse, and I was pointing up at the plaque above the timbered door. It said:
THE DE WARLENCOURT PLAYHOUSE
BY KIND DONATION OF THE DE WARLENCOURT FAMILY
OPENED ON 24th JULY 1969
AND DEDICATED TO
‘GABRIEL SPENSER’
PLAYER
‘Same guy, see? Gabriel Spenser, Player. It doesn’t mean he got loads of women. It means he was an actor. He was one of Pembroke’s Men.’
‘That’s funny,’ mused Nel. ‘I wonder why Gabriel Spenser’s name is in inverted com—’
Shafeen cut across her. ‘You should get out. Get out now.’
‘What are you talking about?’
‘Stop doing the play. Stop everything. Choose something else.’
‘But you were the one who said –’
‘I know, I know. But you need to stop. It’s too weird. The play turning up in the first place, Ridley getting behind it, Waterlow not knowing a thing about it. The acts being drip-fed week by week – I bet you any money you get Act Three on Sunday night. And then this.’ He waved his hands at the timbered structure. ‘The theatre that was built in 1969 – that’s when my dad was here – dedicated to some random actor who it turns out was most probably actually in The Isle of Dogs. The whole thing stinks.’
I saw his point, but I also saw that I had no choice. ‘I can’t quit now. We’ve lost another week. Cassandra’s cut her hair and everything. Everyone’s really into their parts. Ty’s come out of her shell and actually found some confidence, probably for the first time ever.’ I did actually feel weirdly responsible for her. She was the first de Warlencourt scholar, here in Henry’s memory, and although (maybe because) I’d largely ignored her for the first half-term of her time here, I now felt I owed her something. I wasn’t about to take this part away from her. ‘You should see her browbeating those twins onstage – it’s a total flip of how she is in real life. The sets are being painted by the art Probitio types, and the music Probitio people are writing the music. Plus Justitium’s coming up in a couple of weeks, so we lose three days of rehearsal then.’ It was true. Abbot Ridley had announced that the postponed Justitium weekend would now be in November. ‘And what about the play being my ticket to Oxford? I can’t just go in there now and say, Sorry, we’re doing Hamlet. I wouldn’t be able to do it justice. There’s no time.’
Shafeen held up both his hands. ‘All right, all right. But don’t say I didn’t warn you. And don’t expect me to rescue you again.’
That got me mad. ‘I don’t need rescuing. What do you think this is? I’m not a pre-Frozen Disney princess. And you are not my Prince Charming. In fact, at the moment you’re not charming at all.’
And he walked off.
He just walked off.
After that I was shaking.
Nel took my arm gently and we walked slowly and soberly across the frosted grass of Bede’s Piece to the Refectory. By the time we got there Shafeen was already sitting with a bunch of science types, determinedly eating his breakfast, looking neither left nor right.
Nel and I found a place together on the benches, not far enough away from him to cause comment, but not near enough for conversation. We ate in unhappy silence, until I said, ‘You think I’m right, don’t you? You think we should carry on with The Isle of Dogs?’
Nel ate a whole mouthful of toast and honey before answering. ‘Yes,’ she said. ‘After all, it is just a play. Words can’t hurt anyone. Whatever happens to the Earl of Greenwich in the drama, there’s nothing to suggest that anyone died in real life.’
I looked sideways at Shafeen, head down, his dark hair flopping in his face.
I thought of what I’d said to him.
Words can’t hurt anyone.
I wondered if Nel was right about that.
Scene iii
I had bigger problems than Shafeen right then.
There was another part in The Isle of Dogs, and no actor for it.
I had to find an Earl of Greenwich.
I went to talk to Abbot Ridley. It was one of those sparkling autumn days and when I entered his study in Honorius it was pretty dark. He was writing at his desk, as he always seemed to be.
‘Just a minute,’ he said, and wrote his signature with a flourish. Then he put his pen in its inkwell (yes, really) and said, ‘Greer. How can I help?’
Of course, that all made things much easier. I explained about the second act of The Isle of Dogs.
‘How exciting,’ he said.
‘Well, it is,’ I said, ‘except now I need another cast member.’
‘Oh, I see.’ He breathed in through his nose, banged both hands palms downwards on his desk and stood up. His full height was pretty impressive. ‘Let’s go for a walk,’ he said. ‘When I’m stuck I usually find that fresh air sorts me out.’
We went for a walk by the moat. The frosty grass crunched underfoot, the low sun gilded the water and the happy cries of the sports monkeys playing lacrosse on Bede’s Piece floated over to us. Friar Ridley shoved each hand in the other sleeve, in a curiously monkish way, and walked along like that.
‘Tell me about Act Two,’ he said. ‘I mean, I assume you’ll allow me to read it?’
‘Of course.’
‘But just give me the elevator pitch.’
I told him about the Earl of Greenwich, shopping for the queen’s hand in marriage, insulting the father–son courtiers, and them cooking up a way to punish him with the dog hunt.
‘Lovely,’ he said. ‘So far, so Elizabethan. Couldn’t you call someone back from the auditions to play this unfortunate soul?’
I made a throwing-up sound with my mouth, just a second before it occurred to me that it probably wasn’t the way to have a conversation with your head teacher. ‘Sorry, but all the boys were awful, except for Louis, and we already cast him.’
‘What about the girls?’
‘The girls?’
‘Yes, why not? Cross-dressing has ancient origins in theatre. In Elizabethan times all the players were boys. And in modern pantomime the principal boy is often played by a girl. What else would they do with the alumni of soap operas and reality TV?’
I smiled, and considered then how different he was from the bad old abbot of the bad old days.
‘Even in your own production,’ he went on, ‘you have Cassandra and Chanel playing male characters.’
‘I guess,’ I admitted. ‘But the sad truth is, the girls who auditioned were pretty awful too.’
We walked across the drawbridge and under the shadow of the gatehouse. ‘Isn’t there anyone else who could play the earl? Maybe someone who doesn’t even do drama?’
Shafeen, I thought. He’d always, whatever I’d just screamed at him, had that princely thing going on. Probably because he sort of was a prince, or at least his dad was. But he wasn’t an option. One, he was up to his eyes in science revision, and two … well, two, we’d just fallen out.
We walked on in silence for a bit, until Abbot Ridley said, ‘I’ll do it.’
‘Really?’ I squinted up at him. He was definitely tall and handsome, and certainly looked how I imagined an earl to look. And he wasn’t so old (I guessed early thirties?) that it would look weird pairing him with Ty. But still …
‘Why not? I’m there for all the rehearsals anyway. He just has to turn up and be unpleasant. I’m sure I could manage that.’
I quite dug his dry humour. But … ‘I don’t know,’ I said.
He glanced at me, then ahead. ‘Why not?’
‘I mean, well, you’re the Abbot and stuff.’
‘Interregnum Abbot. And not for long. The governors are appointing a new one. And frankly, I’ll be relieved.’
‘But won’t you be going for the job?’
‘I don’t think so. It’s not really my thing. I prefer teaching to admin, being the figurehead of the school and all that. They only parachuted me in because I’d been head at Ampleforth. But in fact, I left Ampleforth because I wanted to teach again.’
We walked on in silence while I considered the prospect of him being in the play. For all I knew, it was quite normal at private schools for teachers to get amongst it on the production side of things. And Abbot Ridley certainly had the potential to be that Dead Poets Society inspirational teacher type. By the time we’d got to the theatre I’d pretty much made up my mind, and then I remembered something else I’d meant to ask him. ‘O Captain! my Captain?’ I said.
I don’t know if he got it or not, but he smiled. ‘Yes?’
‘Have you heard of a guy called Gabriel Spenser?’ I’d been back to the Scriptorium to look for him in the Dictionary of National Biography, but he wasn’t there. Apparently, he was famous enough to have a theatre named after him, but not famous enough to have his own entry in a dusty old book. So I was pretty surprised when the Abbot said: ‘Yes.’
‘You have?’
‘He was an actor. And something of a hothead, by all accounts. Liked getting into fights. Why?’
‘Because the De Warlencourt Playhouse was dedicated to him.’
‘Really?’ He sounded surprised.
‘Yes. There’s the plaque. Look.’ I pointed.
‘Well, well,’ he said to the plaque. ‘So it is. I probably should have known that. But as the new boy I guess there are still some mysteries about STAGS I am yet to uncover.’
That was the understatement of the century, but now wasn’t the time to get into the school’s darker history. ‘I guess he must have been a pretty special actor, to have a dedication like that.’
He shifted his green gaze to me. ‘Well, that’s just it. He wasn’t. He was a journeyman, really. He was tall and he was handsome, he played lots of princes and dukes. But he would be an odd choice, unless he was directly connected with the family. There were much better-known actors. Richard Burbage, for one.’
‘Ooh, I love him!’ I exclaimed. ‘Where Eagles Dare, Who’s Afraid of Virginia Woolf?’
‘I said Richard Bur-bage, not Richard Bur-ton. He was a very famous player in the Elizabethan period. As was Will Kemp. And Ben Jonson.’
‘Back up,’ I said. ‘Ben Jonson was an actor?’
‘Oh yes. Also in Pembroke’s Men.’
‘D’you think he would have played Poetaster?’ That was the narrator’s role, my role. It was suddenly really important that it had been Ben Jonson.
‘Very probably. It was common for playwrights to act. Look at Shakespeare.’
That decided it. ‘Well then,’ I said, ‘if playwrights acted, I suppose it would be OK for a teacher to have a go.’
He looked amused. ‘None taken.’
Abbot Ridley was pretty funny. And it felt weirdly nice walking along with him like that, almost as if he was my friend, not my headmaster. Irrelevantly, as we entered the dark of the theatre, I found myself wondering what his first name was.
Scene iv
Thank Christ, Abbot Ridley could act.
He coped really well with rehearsal, and performed his wooing scenes with Ty, and his arguing scenes with the twins, with skill. He was no Daniel Day-Lewis, but he had good diction, probably from all that headmastering, and a great stage presence too.
Oddly, Abbot Ridley’s best bits onstage were between himself and Nel. The Earl of Greenwich and the lowly servant Canis had a really nice little subplot. Canis, tired of the bullying he had to endure from the father–son courtiers and Queen Cynthia, was shopping around for a new master. He got it into his head that the earl would be a perfect new employer and began to follow him around like a little dog, begging to be taken on.
As we rehearsed Act Two I watched them carefully. They had an indefinable something when they acted together, that mysterious thing called Chemistry. It was Bogey and Bacall, it was Tom Hanks and Meg Ryan, it was Audrey Hepburn and Cary Grant. There was no romance in their dialogue, as the connection was between a low-born servant and a great earl. But I definitely felt it, in one scene in particular. It was the one where Canis follows the earl from the palace after Greenwich has insulted Lupo and Volpone. Their hatred for those two nobles gives them something in common, and Greenwich decides to reward his new ally.
Greenwich
Come, what will you have? You follow me like my best pointer out hunting. Shall I give thee a bone for thy trouble?
Canis
If it please you, no less than the biggest bone in the body.
Greenwich
Wouldst thou have a skull, my dog?
Canis
Aye, sire, and the skin that covers it. Put orbs in the eyes, and hair on the pate, and a crown on the hair. Then stamp the thing entire upon a disc of gold, and pay it into my palm.
Greenwich
Thou art a clever cur! Here’s for thy pains.
(Greenwich throws Canis a coin.)
(Canis kisses his feet.)
I decided that Canis should flip out with joy at being given a coin, and that the little gesture should make him Greenwich’s slave forever. Nel and I agreed for his back-story that Canis had never been given a coin before, even though the queen was, according to the play, ‘richer than Solomon’.
Because of this I was keen to keep in the bit where Canis kissed Greenwich’s feet, A) because Ben Jonson had written it in the stage directions, and B) because it would show Canis’s devotion. Greenwich had kissed the queen’s hand in the previous scene, and Abbot Ridley told us that kissing in Elizabethan times said a lot about hierarchy and servitude and blah-blah-blah. If you kissed someone’s feet you were below them. If you kissed someone’s hand you were also below them, but not as much, and if you kissed someone’s lips you were an equal. I wondered if Nel would mind doing something as debasing as kissing a guy’s feet, but in that first rehearsal in the theatre she got right down, bless her, and kissed Abbot Ridley’s size elevens, even though he wasn’t even in costume. He looked slightly surprised.
Then she did this thing when she turned her head and laid her cheek on his foot with her eyes closed. It was great. It really conveyed love. But the reality of the gesture unsettled me.
I decided to have a word with Nel on the way back to Lightfoot. ‘What were you doing with Abbot Ridley?’
‘Er, acting?’ she sassed me. ‘But since you ask, what were you doing with Abbot Ridley?’
‘What?’
‘I saw you having your little chat by the moat.’
‘I was casting him in this!’
She turned on me. ‘Greer. You had Henry, and now you’ve got Shafeen, if you don’t screw it up. Leave someone for other people.’
‘By other people you mean you, I’m guessing.’
‘Why not?’
‘Why not?’ My mind boggled. ‘Well, for a start, he’s a teacher, you’re a schoolgirl. Oh yes, and he’s the headteacher. He’s thirty-odd, you’re eighteen.’
She looked around her at the frosty night, watching for eavesdroppers, and pulled me onto the stone bridge that spanned the moat, so we couldn’t be overheard. ‘Look,’ she hissed, ‘I’m not saying I’m going to act on it. I just think he’s nice. And fit.’
I couldn’t very well say I’d been thinking the same thing on our moatside walk.
‘Are you demented? You’re going to be on the news.’
She threw her hands up in the air and started walking again.
‘I’m just telling it like it is!’ I shouted to her back.
I caught her up and she walked along with me in silence, but not notably sulking. ‘What did you mean, if I don’t screw it up with Shafeen?’
‘Just that you might have to make the first move to patch things up. He’s got pride, our Shafeen.’ She snapped an icicle off one of the stone trefoils of the bridge and began sucking it like a popsicle. ‘You’re fond of telling it like it is. Well, now I’m telling you.’
Scene v
Even though we had fallen out, I still saw Shafeen every day.
He was in history with me, and the fact that this was the only time I really saw him now was a big part of the reason why I’d really started to enjoy the subject. The rest of the reason was to do with our history friar.
To be fair to the homicidal, cult-running maniac the Old Abbot had been, it seemed he had kept his word and employed a very different set of friars after last year’s cull. Abbot Ridley was one example of the new breed, and Friar Camden, our new history teacher, was another. She was very different to Friar Skelton, our last history friar. Friar Skelton was the one we’d called the Punctuation Police. He was the one who had talked to us about the importance of noticing punctuation, and had inadvertently (with his favourite little example about Hannibal and his elephants) put me onto the fact that the Old Abbot was the Grand Master of the Order of the Stag.
Friar Camden, on the other hand, was not a stickler for punctuation. She was all about the bigger picture of the politics of court, and, I suspected, a bit of a feminist on the quiet – something I imagined STAGS hadn’t really seen before. I wondered how she’d got past the stuffy old-white-male governors. (You know in Mary Poppins when Jane and Michael go to the bank with their father and we see the board members all with white beards? I imagined the STAGS governors to be very much like that.)
Friar Camden had been teaching us since the beginning of term and we’d chewed through Henry VIII and the Reformation, Edward VI pretty much just opening grammar schools and then promptly dying, and Mary Tudor burning all those Protestants like firewood. And now we’d cycled through womanising dad, sickly half-brother and crazy half-sister, we were onto Queen Elizabeth I of England herself.
