O' for the love of Shakespeare (2 page)

“Yes I know and I want that, I do really. OK -
do your magic - set me up.  I look forward to a painfully awkward double date
with you and what’s-his-face, coming my way soon.”     

Houses, apartment blocks, roads whizz pass the
window of the train, the heavy beat of music penetrates the noise of the train
from someone who is clearly hoping for a brain aneurysm.

One of the few joys in my life is being in
London in the early morning, the history grows from the ground.  Where we’ve
been, to where we are going, all squeezed together in a short distance.  The
City pulls you in and pushes you on your way, everyone rushing to get to their
far too important lives.

I do not ever rush to start my day.

After leaving University I was faced with the
dilemma of what could I actually do with an English Degree.  Although I am sure
most children are adorable in their parent’s eyes, to me they are little
complicated pieces of machinery that I don’t understand, nor really do I want
to figure out.  So that was a “no” to teaching and so all that was left was to
apply for an office job.  I had a few temporary positions after University and
then finally joined a company specialising in Insurance.  The monotony of the
role dulled my senses so much that years passed by without me even noticing. 
The job where every day is the same and the days merge, until ten years later I
am still working in the same office with the same annoying, awful people.

Yesterday I had the day from hell.  My boss,
Mark, had inflicted tortuous public humiliation by spending thirty minutes
yelling that I was just a stupid girl not fit to be in his oh-so-special
presence.  Small flecks of spittle hitting my desk as I tried to sink below it. 
A small group of bystanders gathered to sharpen their pitchforks, enjoying the
public spectacle.  All I had forgotten to do was confirm cover on a client. 
Nothing major.  The client was now on cover and no major catastrophe had
happened in those twenty-four hours.  OK - maybe it was sort of a big deal.

Even if I do something well, he speaks to me
like I have only a slightly above monkey intellect.  I may as well be the
photocopier for how much he thinks of me as an actual human being.  I hate him. 
Most of my days are spent imagining handing in my notice in more and more
elaborate ways.  Mark is in his late fifties and even on the bleakest, coldest
of winter’s days, he perpetually has a gleam of sweat on his face.  By
yesterday afternoon I was concocting the idea of photocopying hundreds of
pictures of his horrible red sweaty face with the words ‘I have a teeny tiny
penis’ written underneath.  Childish I know, but it helped me get through the
rest of the day.   

I leave Vic at the corner of Leadenhall Street
wishing her luck for her meeting and with heavy feet I trudge to my offices. 

Exit Victoria.

Act I Scene II

‘Something wicked this
way comes.’  Macbeth

I make my way to my desk through the
battlefield of waste paper baskets and photocopiers, when I come face to face
with the office bitches.  Often on days like today their heads become bent
together, their eyes dart, roaming the room for their next victim.  Their gaze
swiftly appraises my appearance, then they go back to their huddle.  The three
witches, the twisted sisters, sit at their computer terminals.  Plotting
cursing and occasionally checking their social media.  I can smell the eye of
newt boiling, billowing through the office.  In muted tones they chant “double,
double toil and trouble; fire burn, and cauldron bubble.”
Cackling crazily.

My boss Mark, like Macbeth himself, flitters
around them hoping for any piece of information that may fall from their mouths,
that will assist in his climb up the power hierarchy.  I quickly side step them
to find my desk in the corner of the office.  After years of slavery my one
main accomplishment is that I have secured the desk where no one can see my
screen, the Holy Grail of all offices.  I power up the computer to check my
emails trying to pull together my enthusiasm for the day. 

Email after email drops in to my Inbox setting
me up for the day.  I scroll through the work emails, glancing at a few news
and celebrity gossip updates.  Controlling my mouse with my left hand to flick
through emails, with my other hand I sketch random shapes that slowly morph in
to an image.  From a very small child I would use crayons to sketch on the
walls of the hallway of my home, a fact that at the time I would of course
vehemently deny I had anything to do with, even though I was the only child in
the house.  Ever since then, l have doodled whatever pops into my head.  My pen
smoothly glides over the page of my sketch pad.  Before I know it, there is a
witch hunched over her boiling cauldron, although on closer inspection she
looks a little more like a cartoon witch than how I would imagine one of the
witches from
Macbeth
to look like. 

Trying to concentrate on work, I spot an
ominous looking email third from the bottom, from my mother.

“Subject: Birthday Dinner

Hello sweetheart

We haven’t heard from you the last couple of
nights and we just wanted to check you are still coming over tonight for your birthday
dinner, we’ve got all your favourites in so please don’t cancel on us.  Just
let us know if it’s just you or if you are bringing a friend with you.

Can’t wait.

Mum x”

Birthday dinner.  At my parents.  Tonight. 
Fuck.  I had completely forgotten.  I love the ‘bring a friend’ comment, a
thinly veiled dig at my single, depressing status.  That, or they are hoping
Vic will come with me to brighten up the evening.  I’m sure they, like so many
other people, prefer Vic to me.  Although you do always hope your parents will
vote for you.

My father had a few years previously retired
from the village funeral business that he had run for thirty-five years. 
During his working life, every moment of the day was taken up with funerals and
bereaved families.  My parents had an extremely fiery relationship not what you
would imagine from a funeral director and a stay at home mum.   Growing up I
remember them barely talking to each other for weeks, moving in perfect
symmetry with each other but in complete silence.  Then would come the sparks. 
These either took the form of arguments, or the other thing that no child wants
to think about. 

I am sure that it has got even worse now that dad
has retired.  Mum had always thought he should have been running a large chain
of funeral businesses by the time he got to retirement.  My dad has been a big
disappointment in her eyes as he only ever achieved the status of a lowly Manager. 
Something she had always freely commented on as often as she could, although
this has mellowed a little since dad retired.  Lady Macbeth has nothing on my mum. 
The only problem is all the people my dad had worked with were already dead so
there was no one she could bump off to propel his career.

My mum craved attention from me, from my dad,
from the 28-year-old Embalmer she had had an affair with just before dad
retired.  It finished before it began but it had devastated my dad and I think
this had fuelled his decision to bring forward his retirement.  I don’t think he
had fully comprehended that this decision would mean being with my mum around
the clock, feeding her the attention she constantly needed.  So he would relish
nights such as tonight where I would be the one to squirm under the spotlight
of mum’s one-woman show. 

I force myself to send a quick reply;

“See you tonight, should get there by 7.30pm,
just me.  Jane x.”

There that should hold them until tonight, the
‘just me’ will give mum the rest of the day to think of some funny quirks to
trill out during the evening to make me feel even worse about my life.

The fact that my day looked as though it was
heading towards near certain catastrophe doesn’t matter because this weekend is
my birthday.  Now I know most women would not be too thrilled about the prospect
of turning thirty-five - especially as on the outside my life looks like a shambles
- but this year is different.  This year I am treating myself.  After weeks of
me begging, Vic has finally agreed to come to Stratford-upon-Avon with me.  She
of course had voted to go get drunk in Covent Garden for the weekend.  

Vic and I have taken lots of holidays together
over the years, but she has always won the argument on the choice of
destination, so we have always ended up in sun drenched paradises where men
wear budgie smugglers and tank tops.  Days spent stretched out on sun loungers,
Vic turning a glorious deep tan and even though I ensured I stayed in the shade,
I would still always end up red and blotchy.

Taking quick sneaky peaks over the top of my
computer to make sure no one is heading my way, I fire up the search engine.  
To go to the birthplace of my beloved Bard had been a goal of mine since I went
to University.  

We are getting the train tomorrow morning from
London Euston and staying at ‘The Verona Bed, Breakfast and Balcony’ for four
nights, Thursday to Monday.  The website describes it as ‘a tranquil beauty
spot in the perfect location to explore the historic theatre town where
England’s greatest jewel was born.’  It sounded perfect.   I am really very
confident that visiting Stratford-upon-Avon will be the pivotal moment in my
life that I am looking for.

“Jane.”  Mark barks at me making me jump.  I
quickly minimise everything on my screen.

“Yes.”  I try to say as sweetly as possible.

“My office.  Now.”  He grunts.  Who says
politeness is dead?  I grab a notepad and start the Funeral March towards
Mark’s office.  Mark’s office is a modern glass box in the corner of the floor,
which allows him to survey his kingdom from his throne of power.  Taking a seat
on the chair facing Mark’s desk, I start to tap my pen on the notepad.  This
has become my nervous tick whenever I am forced to spend time alone with him. 
He shoots me an annoyed look.

“You’re on holiday from tomorrow aren’t you?”

“Yes I am.”  I say brightly, maybe he has asked
me in to just wish me a pleasant holiday. 

“Right I have a list of things you need to
finish before you leave tonight.  Most of which I would have expected you to
have finished some time ago.”  Well he’s definitely not interested in my
holiday plans.  I write furiously trying to keep up with the list of jobs that
Mark spews out.   I try to concentrate as I write the tenth item on the list
but I know already there is no way I am going to get all these things finished
before I have to leave tonight. 

The truth is I do want to do my job well.  I
know it doesn’t sound that way, but I do.  I’d love to be successful in the way
that Vic is.  It is just so hard when the people you work with would sooner
squash you than help you.  The office politics are well on par with the
scheming and underhand actions of the Macbeths.  I see the bloodbath murderous
actions on a daily basis here.  Everyone loves a public dethroning.  As
Shakespeare wrote ‘uneasy lies the head that wears a crown.’  That’s why I am
glad to be a nobody in the office and I stay quietly in my lowly position. 

I fumble my way through the rest of the day not
really paying attention to the tasks, relieved when five o’clock finally hits
and my extra-long weekend can begin.  As predicted, I haven’t finished half of
the things that I should have, even with working through my lunch break, but
for once I am going to leave on time.  I’ll worry about my in-tray when I get
back next Tuesday, after all, I have a whole five days before I have to face up
to my career shortcomings.  I’m on holiday, yay!  Well almost…

I decide to go straight from work to my
parents’ house, like a plaster, I think it best to get it over and done with as
quickly as possible.   Sitting on the train heading out of London, to pass the
time I retrieve my sketch book from my work bag.  After a few moments of
digging, I am rewarded with a pencil.  Tongue poking out from the corner of my
mouth, I lean on the small table in front of me, my hand as always begins to
sketch without me really thinking what form the picture will take.   I wrap my
arm around my book to hopefully shield it from the gaze of anyone else on the
train.  I would be horrified if someone actually saw my silly little scribbles. 
I have always been fascinated by the relationship of parents and their children
in Shakespeare’s plays.  Shakespeare’s son Hamnet died at the age of eleven; he
was his only son.  Many have speculated as to what effect this had on
Shakespeare’s writing and how this coloured the relationships of the parent and
child characters of his plays.

The plain white page of my sketch book is now
coloured with different shades of grey to show Hamlet embracing his mother.  In
one corner of the page stands his uncle scrutinising the scene and in the other
the Ghost of Hamlet’s father.  I stare at the image of Hamlet’s mother as the
train hurtles towards my destination.

Walking to my parents’ house from the train
station, I can’t help but think about my childhood.  I have always thought my
parents had me and then realised that their expectation of having children was
completely off and so didn’t bother to have anymore.  Don’t get me wrong, I had
a perfectly adequate upbringing by my parents.  It wasn’t all trips to the
seaside Three Musketeers’ style, but it wasn’t child neglect either.  It was as
though I was a lodger in their house.  Although we lived together and knew each
other fairly well I didn’t particularly feel like I was related to them.  My mother
was always more concerned about the appearance of our family rather than what
actually happened when the front door was closed.  

I turn my key in the lock and before I have
even walked through the door my mum’s squawk from the kitchen hits me like a
slap in the face.  I grimace at her voice knowing that she can’t see me.

“Janey is that you?  We weren’t expecting you
until later, you should call if you are going to arrive at a different time”. 
The joy of feeling wanted.

“Sorry Mum, I realised that it didn’t make any
sense me going home first tonight. Vic and I are going away early tomorrow
morning so I wanted to get an early-ish night and I still need to pack.”  I
call out apologetically, I should have thought this through, I know mum hates
plans changing at the last minute, she needs structure.

“Well your dad is not back yet.  He’s out
walking and dinner won’t be ready until seven-thirty as that was when we were
expecting you.”  She says churlishly at me.

Enter Mum, the epitome of a disappointed
housewife. 

My mum stands in the kitchen shuffling pans
around trying to look like she is cooking a banquet for fifty people, rather
than the actual small birthday meal she is making for the three of us.  My
parents’ house is stuck in the seventies when it comes to decoration.  The
cupboards in the kitchen are a bright pea green colour.  For some reason when
my mum had this room decorated four years ago, she picked a heavily patterned
wallpaper which has a collage of greens and oranges.  It reminds me of
children’s vomit when they have eaten too many sweets.  I give her a quick peck
on the cheek and a smile hoping to soften her a little.

“Hi Mum, sorry.” I try one more time and offer
to help in the hope it might speed things up.  I go about the job of peeling
and cutting potatoes, something even in my very limited experience of cooking,
I can actually do to an adequate standard. 

Mum is sixty-three and very glamorous, I wish
some of her glamour could have rubbed off on me over the years.  Today mum is
wearing a bright fuchsia dress with matching lipstick.  It fascinates me how
whatever she wears she always manages to find a lipstick to match.   She wears
an apron tied tightly around her small frame to protect her outfit.  Her blonde
hair is perfectly coiffed into a neat bun at the nape of her neck.  I have
never seen her with even the slightest hair out of place.  As a child, I was
always too scared to hug her, in case I accidentally creased her.   For as long
as I can remember she has always worn the same perfume, a strong floral scent. 
I remember once when I was off from school, I had fallen asleep on the sofa, when
I awoke mum had draped her trench coat over me.  I pulled her coat close to me
breathing in her fragrance.   It was a rare tender moment of affection that I
cherished.