The Playmakers (7 page)

“Yes. My wife …”

The big man waved the cane dismissively in
the air. “Sssh,” he said, “tell me no more. I’ve been on the road
long enough to know that a man’s past is not important to me. You
are talking about the Old Shakespeare, which I don’t need to be
regaled with. I only know of the New Shakespeare, and it is the New
Shakespeare that I am offering employment.”

The gargoyle moved forward again.

“Not your part, Soho,” said the big man. “No
one can take your place.”

“Employment?” said Shakespeare.

“Look,” said Budsby, pointing with the stick
to the wagons as the last of them crossed the stream. “What do you
see?”

“Wagons.”

“Yes, and what is pulling them?”

“Horses.”

“Precisely. And what do we need to combine
the horses with the wagons?”

“Harnesses,” said Shakespeare thoughtfully.
“And bridles!”

“Exactly. And forgive me if I am wrong, but
upon extricating himself from the cold stream, and thus saving his
spine from permanent injury, did not the New Shakespeare tell me he
is a leatherworker?”

“Why, yes.”

“And look at my friend, Soho here. What is he
wearing around his pantaloons?”

“Why, a belt.”

“And what do I have on my feet?”

Shakespeare looked down, marvelling again at
how such a giant body could be sustained by such tiny feet.

“Boots.”

“Top marks, Mr New Shakespeare. Excellent
observational skills. Bridles, harness, belts, boots. They are all
made of leather, not to mention the uniforms we have for the
tumblers, and the massive strapping the strong-man wears around his
girth.”

He walked forward, leaned close to
Shakespeare’s face, and continued almost conspiratorially. “It is a
tough business, travelling the road, Mr New Shakespeare.
Entertaining the populace, going from village to village, setting
up, pulling down, giving them what they want, a thrill for a couple
of pence. It causes much wear and tear on our equipment and
clothes, and requires someone to repair them and keep them in
shape. I believe you are just the man for the work!”

“Why, Mr Budsby, thank you.”

“Don’t thank me, young man, you are a
godsend! Fate has dictated that Soho and I should suddenly decide
to alight from the wagon at this point today and stretch our legs
for the last hundred yards or so - a rare event for me, you will
appreciate - and thus come across you.”

“Fate?”

“We have been struggling with rapidly
deteriorating equipment for weeks now, Mr New Shakespeare, since
our regular fix-it man, Mr Mullins, became the target of a group of
sailors at an inn in Portsmouth.”

“What happened?”

“They filled him to the gills with rum,
struck him a hefty blow on the back of his head with the leg of a
chair, and he was last heard of applying his stitching skills to
canvas on a ship heading for Norway.”

Shakespeare lightly touched the wound on his
head and winced. “I think I’ll be staying out of inns for a while
…”

Budsby let out a raucous laugh, joined by the
eerie mime of a laugh from the silent gargoyle.

“I think you should, Mr New Shakespeare,”
said Budsby. “By the looks of that, I agree that you should.”

Their laughter died down, and Budsby moved to
close the deal.

“I will be frank, Mr New Shakespeare, I can
only offer you a bed and meals in return, but are we in
agreement?”

“Yes, we are in agreement!” said Shakespeare
brightly.

“Splendid. Come on, then. We’re setting up
camp on the other side of the creek, let’s cross it and get you
cleaned up and into some dry clothes.”

By the time they had walked down to the ford,
and tip-toed across it, the wagons had been drawn up in a circle in
a clearing a little further into the forest, and the troupe was
busily making camp. Horses were being tethered, tables made up, and
already a big fire in the centre of the clearing was sputtering
into life.

Soho disappeared under instructions to get
some fresh clothes for their new employee, and Budsby ushered a
thankful Shakespeare towards the fire, where he crouched as close
he could to get some warmth into his drenched body.

A stocky, muscular man came walking quickly
across the clearing, and handed Budsby a tankard of ale, the sight
of which made Shakespeare feel inwardly ill.

The man had shiny black hair, a handsome
clean-skin face, and the muscular build of an acrobat. But by the
way he talked to the others and approached Mr Budsby, he appeared
to be some sort of second in command.

Shakespeare’s estimate proved correct when
the stocky man said to the big man, “All under control, Mr Budsby,”
he said.

“William Shakespeare,” said the big man,
waving his tankard, “Mr New Shakespeare, that is, allow me to
introduce you to Nick Sayers, gymnast, acrobat and my extremely
talented manager.”

Shakespeare stood up from the fire, and the
two shook hands, Shakespeare astonished by the ferocity of the
man’s grip.

The big man continued, “Once we have dried
him out, Mr Shakespeare is going to take over Mr Mullins’ job and
help us with the repair of our equipment.”

“Welcome aboard,” said Nick Sayers, looking a
little puzzled over the ‘New’ in the stranger’s title. “There’s
plenty of things to fix. And plenty of other things we can get you
to do, too. Can you juggle?”

Shakespeare looked surprised. “Oh, no,” he
replied. “No.”

“Mr New Shakespeare,” chipped in Budsby. “You
will find the key to success for an entertainment troupe on the
road is, above all other things, versatility.”

Shakespeare looked around, and took in the
lesson. Just as the leading hand was an acrobat, others, too, had
their tasks. It was the juggler’s job to get the fire going. The
wirewalker’s task to tend the horses.

And the company’s comic act, the one that
Budsby enjoyed most to introduce to his awe-struck audiences, “The
Amazing, Incredible, Indivisible Siamese Twins”- one of whom was
actually a giant jet-black Nubian woman, and the other a diminutive
blue-eyed albino from up near the border with Scotland - did the
cooking.

Even Soho had the task of checking the
grounds last thing at night to ensure everyone’s safety before they
went to sleep - although troupe members were bemused as to how,
should something nasty happen, the little silent fellow would raise
the alarm. But that’s what Mr Budsby wanted, and that’s how it
was.

The New Shakespeare discovered all this and
more as he warmed himself by the fire, listened to the conversation
of the troupe members, devoured two plates of the stew and
fresh-baked bread the so-called twins had prepared, and washed it
down with a huge mug of hot, sweet tea.

It was all very exciting for the young man
from tiny Stratford - not yet twenty-one, and whose life had
previously simply progressed from school to apprenticeship to
hasty, nasty marriage in a rapid and all-consuming blur.

That night, the New Shakespeare, dry, warm,
fed, and sober, snuggled down in his bed of hay and two well-worn
blankets underneath the wagon he had seen with the banging pots and
pans on it - the one he now knew to be the maintenance cart - and
stared at the glowing embers of the fire in the middle of the
clearing.

And for the first time in years, he felt
wanted.

CHAPTER FOUR

The next ten months were bliss. William
Shakespeare had never encountered anything like this before. New
faces, new places, new hope.

The Rufus J. Budsby Company of Mummers took
him in to their hearts like a long lost son, thrilled with his
keenness and diligence for work. “My little runaway,” Budsby would
boom, “he does me proud.”

And what work! The company had accumulated a
backlog of maintenance problems and repair jobs since the
late-departed Mr Mullins had involuntarily taken an unexpected
career change into the maritime business.

The easy part was the trimmings needed for
costumes, including gloves. These were made of the soft leather and
chamois that Shakespeare had worked on at his father’s business
since was thirteen. He astounded the performers, especially the
women, with his attention to detail as he not only repaired but
often re-cut their garments to make them more comfortable, thus
laying the foundations for a better performance.

The Siamese twins were especially thrilled
with the re-shaping he did of a brace that they wore on stage and
which give the impression they had been irretrievably joined at the
hip from birth. Designed by Budsby for concealment under their
scanty jungle costume, it fastened the giant dark-skinned beauty
and the diminutive pale northern border waif so tightly and
cleverly, it fooled the eye of even the most suspicious rural
fairground patron. But it had always been a troublesome piece,
leaving them sore and chafed after each show.

“Born of a black Nubian princess rescued from
the clutches of an emir of Arabia,” Mr Budsby would announce to the
startled customers as the pair hobbled from one side of the stage
to the other. “And sired by a valiant English gentleman
expeditioner, carrying the flag of our mighty nation and the
goodwill of our gracious Queen Elizabeth, and said to have sailed
with Sir Walter Raleigh himself.”

Patrons would leap back when the pair would
suddenly lunge in perfect unison to the edge of the stage and
hiss.

Meanwhile, the big man would continue, “Thus
perfectly producing two totally different embodiments - one of
English civilisation and the other of tribal primitiveness - in the
one indivisible form. And brought back exclusively to our fair land
by my good self Rufus J. Budsby for unique and once-only display
before your disbelieving eyes.”

The act was an absolute show-stopper,
especially when the dark one would suddenly roll her eyes back into
her head and babble in some sort of gibberish while the other
replied to her in the Queen’s own English. Jaws would drop when
they would then swap and exactly the same words would come out of
the opposite mouths.

Such was the act’s drawing capacity and
importance to the troupe, Mr Budsby pledged his eternal
gratefulness to his new maintenance man for having resolved the
thorny issue of the troublesome brace.

“They were going to leave me, Will!” Budsby
told him, after the new piece of equipment had been warmly received
by the duo and inspired them onto a bravura performance at
Salisbury.

“But by virtue of re-design of the brace, you
have assured the future of our little road-travelling family. The
twins now plan a long stay in their customary roles.” The big
fellow leaned forward and whispered. “Or, as the smaller of the duo
confided in me,” - and at this point he pitched his voice high to
mimic the girl’s voice - ‘It’s wonderful what Mr Shakespeare’s done
with the brace, Mr Budsby. It don’t ride up me crack no more …’” He
pulled back and let out the bassoon laugh - the deep, rolling laugh
that had so grasped Shakespeare’s imagination on the first day they
met - slapped his thigh, slopped his tankard, and concluded, “Ah,
she’s a delight that one. The epitome of all innocence. Doesn’t it
make you feel good to be amongst people like this?”

The Salisbury show was part of a long-running
tour that Mr Budsby had developed during his many journeys
criss-crossing England over the years.

They spent nearly a week at Salisbury, as
part of a local fair. But at some villages they would simply set
up, do a day’s show, stay the night and be gone the next morning.
The big fellow had the canny knack of knowing when the well was
drying up and it was time to pull up stakes and move on. “I smell
the coin of the realm in the wind,” he would intone, as they rolled
into a town, Soho at the head of the wagons drumming up patronage
with an incredible set of hand-stands, somersaults, and leaps. The
sight of a red-and-white gargoyle bouncing down the road to the
beat of a drummer-boy, and accompanied by a standard-bearer, was
enough to lure women, children and tradesmen out of homes and shops
into the street to watch the procession roll by.

Shakespeare noticed the love-hate
relationship Soho quickly developed with a crowd. Children were
especially intrigued and amused by his athleticism, but repelled by
the ugly face and misshapen body. This would not be helped when, on
most occasions, the road was muddy, and his stubby hands became
encrusted with black slime. There would be shrieks of both laughter
and horror when he would suddenly leave the centre of road and rush
at the crowd on the sidelines, holding his muddy palms out as if to
grab them. Children would hide behind their mothers’ skirts - the
mothers themselves retreating in alarm.

But, as Budsby always pointed out, there was
none better at the game than Soho.