The Queen's Cipher (31 page)

He didn’t want to listen to this. “Do you have to talk dirty all the time? It’s really depressing. You’re such a bright attractive girl.”

“What have I done now?” she wailed, lifting her breasts to him in mock horror. “I’m telling you about my latest cultural encounter and you go, time to give that young slut a right bollocking. Not that I blame you. I can be a bit of a dobber, particularly after five Bacardi Breezers, but even I can tell the play’s plot is a mess. Here’s Prospero, a single parent on a deserted island, worrying about his daughter’s sexuality. He stops Caliban from having it off with Miranda and then marries her to the first young man who sets foot on the island. And what do the happy couple get up to on their wedding night? They play chess. What’s that about?”

Freddie couldn’t help grinning at the face she pulled. “Chess is associated with love in literary tradition.”

“Not where I come from, it isn’t! The only game we played with boys was strip poker but then we didn’t have a ‘literary tradition.’ The loser got shagged by the lift shaft. Chess is for posh people. Shakespeare is playing to the gallery.”

“Chess is a metaphor for romantic pursuits,” he ventured. “But you may well be right about the class thing.”

Cheryl Stone fluttered her eyelashes. “Pleased to hear it, I’m sure. Now, Dr Freddie Brett, my friends and I are on our way to Arabella’s party in Summertown. Why don’t you come along for the ride?”

In accepting her offer Freddie was aware of the unstated agenda but reckoned it wouldn’t amount to more than a bit of harmless flirting. Besides which, he didn’t want to be on his own and rather fancied going to an Arabella Wordsworth party. The daughter of a bonus-rich banker, she had turned daddy’s present of a big Victorian redbrick into a kind of literary salon.

The massive house was built in the Italianate style with a clumsy looking portico, a rooftop cupola and more rooms than anyone could possibly need. Cheryl led the way into a lounge roughly the size of an aircraft hanger with floor to ceiling French windows elegantly draped with brocade curtains, an ebony floor carpeted with oriental rugs and a Feng-Shui fountain on an antique table. The room smelt of beeswax and positively hummed with entitlement.

Attention-seeking actors from OUDS upstaged one another in their Antonio Berardi wool tuxedos and Alexander McQueen velvet trim blazers while well-muscled young men in navy sports jackets stood near the fountain, champagne flutes in hand, swapping Boat Race stories. Behind the cascading water, those who had come to Oxford to collect good degrees huddled in earnest conclave discussing exam timetables, trying not to notice the two dandies in their mustard waistcoats who were wrestling on the Persian rug for the favour of a sun-tanned beauty in killer heels.

As the worst dressed man in the room in his grubby fleece and fraying jeans, and the only member of staff at the party, Freddie felt conspicuously out of place. He was looking for an escape when his hostess caught sight of him. “Dr Brett, what a pleasant surprise,” Arabella gushed in her good-natured way. “Let me introduce you to a few of my guests.”

With Arabella as his guide, he had brief encounters with a rock star reading chemistry at Keble, two undergraduate novelists and a beautiful black Ruskin girl with sculpted cheekbones who wanted to paint his portrait. “It’s time someone challenged all the preciousness over the Shakespeare thing,” she cooed, dropping her cigarette butt in the fountain before reaching out to stroke his chest.

“Fuck off, Patsy, you slag! Get your own man. This one is with me.” Cheryl was back, her face ugly and contorted, defending her territory.

“I can’t leave you alone for a moment,” she grumbled, yanking him away from the artist. After that one drink had led to another as her legs grew longer and her breasts more provocative.

So here he was now, lying next to a sleeping girl, nursing a splitting head and a guilty conscience. He slid out of bed and got dressed. He would save the remorse for later. Tearing a page out of his pocket diary, he left a carefully worded note. ‘Last night cheered me up. I had a wonderful time. Perhaps we should play chess in future.’

Hopefully she would understand. This was one mistake he couldn’t afford to repeat.

Outside, as he tried to gather his scattered wits, church bells were ringing and the sun dappling the tree-lined paths in The Parks. Then it hit him. He had a long-standing social engagement. One he ought to keep. With Trinity Term drawing to a close, custom dictated that Beaufort’s graduate students should throw a lunchtime cocktail party and that he should attend it, leaving him time only for a quick shower and change of clothes before heading up St Cross Road towards the hall of residence that had once been a home for persecuted refugees.

As it turned out, persecution was the main talking point at the party. The gossip was all about him. Apparently, he was on the verge of being sacked on trumped up charges of plagiarism when his only offence had been to challenge the validity of the Shakespeare biography. Dr Brett, the students whispered, was ‘toast’, a martyr for free speech.

Time to get out of Dodge, he thought, putting down his glass. But before he could make his apologies and leave, a deep voice boomed out. “Where is he? Take me to him. I must see the man of the hour.” The voice belonged to a bald man in a striped boating blazer. His flatmate was back from the equatorial rain forests of Africa.

Simon Nicholas barrelled across the room and enveloped him in a bear hug. “Frederick Brett, what have you been doing while I was getting up close and personal with chimpanzees in the Congo? Only shacking up with that American beauty queen and flushing your career down the toilet. Such outrageous goings on – you must tell me all about it.”

Freddie smiled weakly. “How was the field trip, Simon?” he asked.

“Well, my dear, the bonono chimp is a positive sex machine. He is at it around the clock and here’s the hot news, he reserves his best stuff, the oral sex, for his own gender. I tell you, Freddie, these chimpanzees are my kind of people. But let’s get back to you. I’ve only been in Oxford a few hours and absolutely everyone is talking about you. They think you have been hung out to dry. And it’s not as though you were Jimmy Savile or a Holocaust denier. Those conservative shits on the college governing body can’t stand non-conformity, especially coming from one of their own. It’s quite scandalous and we must do something about it.”

“Really, Simon, it isn’t that bad. All that’s happened so far is ...” back slapped so hard he spilt wine down his shirt. Chants of ‘Save Freddie Brett’ echoed in

His friend wasn’t listening. Turning away, Simon clapped his hands to command attention. “What say you comrades,” he shouted. “Are we going to let Brother Frederick be dismissed from his post or shall we defend the cherished principle of free speech by making a stand against the college authorities, chain ourselves to the chapel door and, if needs be, set fire to the Master’s prize cotoneaster conspicuous and uproot his fuchsia-flowered gooseberry. Who is with me on this?”

Simon’s call to arms was greeted with loud cheers, Freddie’s hand was grabbed and his back slapped so hard he spilt wine down his shirt. Chants of 'Save Freddie Brett' echoed in his ears as he slunk away. He was not cut out for celebrity.

*

“I hear you’re something of a star in student circles.” It was an innocent enough remark but it made Freddie cringe. The news travelled fast in Oxford.

“Best dim sum to be had. Try one of these steamed dumplings. They slip down a treat.”

Not having eaten all day and loving Chinese food, he needed no second invitation. His host was a tall, rather handsome middle-aged man in an expensive charcoal wool two button suit. They say you should never judge a man by his appearance but Sebastian Christie gave off an air of up-from-his bootstraps business acumen that was at odds with his scholastic background.

As they ate, Christie outlined the part-time consultancy he was offering Freddie. It involved taking parties of American tourists to see Shakespeare plays in Stratford. As a Much Ado Tours representative he would be expected to describe each play beforehand and, time permitting, lead an après-theatre discussion. The company guaranteed him a minimum of fifty days work at £300 a day, plus travel expenses and a hospitality allowance. For a hard-up academic these were riches indeed.

“Forgive me, but there’s one thing I must raise with you.” Freddie could feel Christie’s grey eyes boring into him. “I’m told you are not entirely happy with the current state of Shakespeare scholarship and that you may even harbour doubts as to whether the Stratford actor wrote the plays in the first place. Now, I am prepared to concede that the absence of contemporary documents about Shakespeare’s life and the apparent mismatch between the man and his work create certain problems but I do not think Much Ado Tours should get embroiled in such controversy. It would be bad for business. You understand, don’t you?”

“I fully understand. Who Shakespeare was doesn’t matter a jot.”

“And you believe that?”

“No, I can’t say that I do. If we get Shakespeare wrong, we get the whole Elizabethan age wrong. Of course it matters who he was. But I don’t think your coach parties want to hear this. For them, the play is the thing and I’m happy to go along with that.”

Christie nodded slowly and began to eat the king prawn dish that had just been placed in front of them. “So you can sit through ten performances of
King Lear
without falling asleep?”

“What do you think?” Freddie chortled. It was the first time he had laughed in a while.

With the tension broken between them, Christie called for another bottle of wine.

“The Daughters of the American Revolution are on the warpath,” he announced in a hushed tone. “They’re coming here in a week’s time to see Shakespeare performed in ‘standard’ English.”

Freddie almost choked on his egg fried rice. “Don’t they realise that Elizabethans spoke with a West Country burr much closer to their own dialect than our clipped, modern speech.”

“Easy now, the Daughters are valued customers of ours. Besides which, I read somewhere that there was an Irish cadence to Elizabethan English – probably because English soldiers spent so much time looting our country.”

“Now who’s showing his prejudice? Never fear, I will treat your ancestor worshipping ladies with the utmost respect but what can they see? I hear
Richard II
is fully booked.”

“Yes, but I can get hold of plenty of tickets for matinee performances of
Antony and Cleopatra
and
Pericles
. Which one would you go for?”

“Oh,
Antony and Cleopatra
I suppose. Cleopatra is a great role and the play contains a couple of lines the Daughters are bound to love.”

“How do you know that?” Christie inquired.

“Believing in their sexual potency, mature women lap up Enobarbas’ description of Cleopatra, ‘Age cannot wither her, nor custom stale her infinite variety’ without realising he was being cynical.”

The evening ended with laughter and the promise of a contract in the post. There was a spring to Freddie’s step as he left the restaurant. The day had started badly and got better. He would expunge all thoughts of Cheryl Stone along with those of banner-waving students and conspiracy theorists and concentrate instead on what was in his best interest – the works of William Shakespeare.

Friday 30 May 2014 •
Cherwell

Much Ado about Brett

News just in that the man Beaufort College authorities love to hate has acquired a nice little sinecure. Stratford based company Much Ado Tours has decided to give its theatre parties a bit of academic snob appeal. In future, culture loving American tourists will be told about Shakespeare by our old friend Dr Freddie Brett. When asked to comment on Brett’s impending plagiarism charge, Much Ado Tours director Sebastian Christie denied his new recruit was guilty of unethical behaviour. With Dr Brett they were getting a young man at the cutting edge of Shakespeare scholarship.

The divisive nature of the Brett affair is poisoning staff-student relations at Beaufort. Having failed to persuade the college to drop its disciplinary action against Dr Brett, student leaders are planning to put up the barricades on his behalf. We hear a student sit-in will be held tomorrow. One of the demonstrators Simon Nicholas told us: ‘We can’t allow the college authorities to victimise Dr Brett.’

First of all, belated thanks for lunch in Oxford ten days ago. It was a kind gesture on your part, particularly when you were so upset about the way certain things had turned out.  That French restaurant in Little Clarendon Street is a real find.

I am glad you are as keen as I am to publish and fully understand your need to clear your name first. It is in our joint interest that your academic reputation should not be sullied. A lucrative book deal depends on it. Jack Van Horn, the reclusive American media tycoon I mentioned, has now put an offer into writing. He proposes to publish our book on the Bacon cipher and to use his cable news network to publicise it. Van Horn is very pissed off with Roland Emmerich and all the wealthy Republicans who bankroll the Oxford Theory and looks forward to proving them wrong.

By now, you will almost certainly have heard about the death of the Hove bookseller with whom I had business dealings. The idea that he burned to death in an accidental shop fire seems very far-fetched to me. Major Duncan was a meticulous man. I think he was killed and that his murder is somehow connected to the burglaries. We are treading on dangerous ground, you and I, and I think it’s important we anchor ourselves; get some thoughts down on paper before it’s too late.

5 JUNE 2014