The don patted his pockets wondering in which one he kept his house keys. For a moment, he had a flash of panic: what if he had left the keys in his office? He couldn’t go back - his previous host would most probably have been discovered. Oh, why had he left her where she could so easily be found?
Not your fault, he told himself. The previous host hadn’t possessed great intelligence. She was certainly not Oxbridge material. She hadn’t thought ahead. She hadn’t thought beyond securing the next host. The privacy of the office had been adequate for the transfer but she had not thought of concealing the husk of what she was about to evacuate.
He was glad to be rid of her and the limiting capacity of her brain. Now ensconced in an Oxford don, no less, he was supposedly residing in one of the greatest minds in the country.
If only he could remember what he had done with his keys.
The briefcase!
He pulled open the battered leather bag and delved inside. Forgotten sandwiches squished under his fingers. Incomplete crossword puzzles torn from library copies of daily newspapers crumpled in his grasp. A notebook bulging with papers and envelopes. The last page of some undergraduate’s dissertation on John Donne’s relevance in the digital age.
At last, the wrinkled fingers closed around a bunch of keys. He pulled them out, allowing the briefcase to fall to the flagstones. Trial and error led his liver-spotted hands to select the correct key on the fifth attempt and he pushed his way into his campus flat. Like his office, it was dominated by books. He couldn’t remember what colour the walls were and frankly, he wasn’t interested. Who wants to look at walls when there are so many books in the world?
He forced himself to focus. He had a task and this dithering brain wasn’t proving easy to drive. The body was reasonably spry for its advanced age. A little stooped, perhaps, with the shoulders hunched forwards from decades of poring over the pages of lofty tomes... And there I go again, drifting off. Focus, you old fool!
He waddled through the front room to his study where the infestation of books was even worse - or better, depending on your point of view. A mountain of books and papers had for its foothills, a sturdy oak desk. The old man shuffled around it, taking care not to dislodge towers of books with his elbows. Now...which drawer?
He paused to think. The host didn’t know, the blithering old fool. He tried each drawer in turn. Taped to the underside of the lowest was an envelope. The envelope came away easily; the tape was brittle and had lost most of its adhesive properties over time. The old man’s fingers, curling into arthritic hooks, fumbled with the flap. He withdrew a slip of paper. There was a sequence of numbers in fading ink. He peered at it with and without his half-moon spectacles. He reached to turn on the desk lamp and sent a stack of papers cascading to the carpet. Bugger it; Mrs Bedser could sort that out when she came to ‘do’.
Mrs Bedser... A candidate for the next stage of the journey perhaps?
When was she due in? Not until Thursday. Botheration! He couldn’t hang around until Thursday. He had to keep moving. Time was of the essence.
Oh, how he wished he’d kept hold of the previous body’s mobile telephone! It contained notes and messages from her cantankerous employer that had proved invaluable in keeping one step ahead of the American charlatan.
But of course, once the change had been made from girl to old man, there had been the usual disorientation before he became acclimatised. And, of course, the old man’s wetware was disappointing and cumbersome. He might have a head full of knowledge but he was a dozy old sod. Sad, really, how the human mind deteriorates. The body might survive well into advanced years but the mind could fog, or parts of it could shut down like rooms in a stately home, shut off from occupation in a bid to preserve energy to occupy the rest of the building.
Also, he’s a wistful old bugger.
He stirred himself and returned to the front room. An occasional table was not a table at all. He whisked off the lace tablecloth, sending a vase of flowers and, of course, several books flying, to reveal a metal box, at odds with the rest of the furnishings. With difficulty he lowered himself onto his knees, creaking and gasping. It occurred to him that he might not get up again and would have to crawl on hands and knees until he found the next body to house him.
Panting, he consulted the slip of paper again and twisted the dial on the safe this way and that according to the sequence of numbers, listening for the tumblers to click into place.
It took considerable effort to get the thick door open. He had to pause to rest before delving his hand inside and withdrawing the only object protected within. He unwrapped the velvet cloth in his palm, like a packed lunch he had remembered not to neglect, and revealed a piece of dark wood, five or six inches in length and a couple of inches in diameter. Runic symbols spiralled around it, a tantalising fragment that on its own was meaningless.
He felt the old heart racing behind the old ribs.
Mother will be pleased!
He wrapped the cloth around the wood and stuffed the parcel into a pocket of his tweed jacket. Sweating and swearing, he used the safe and the back of an armchair to climb up and get back on his feet. Standing as straight as possible, he wondered what he’d done with his briefcase.
There was no doubt about it; it was imperative he moved on to the next host as soon as possible. This old man could only slow him down.
But first, a drink of water! He could not believe how parched he was.
He shuffled into the kitchen and ran the tap. He didn’t reach into a cupboard for a glass. Damn that Mrs Bedser; always putting things away where he couldn’t reach them without difficulty. Instead, he clutched the edge of the sink and thrust his head under the water, the divinely cold, flowing water. He gulped in mouthfuls as the water drenched his head like a benediction, a baptism, a - He decided not to search for similes and allusions and other figures of speech, and just to enjoy the water.
He loosened his collar and tie. Tiny filaments expanded and contracted at the sides of his neck, flashing deep red with oxygenated blood.
***
Harry’s working day was not off to a good start. He was distracted, losing his place several times when he was supposed to be explaining the significance of certain sites to his group of tourists. He was barely bothering to ‘authenticise’ his speech patterns; they hadn’t got so much as a single ‘aye, verily’ from him, and if they hoping for a ‘hey nonny, nonny”, well, they could fuck right off. A couple of them - Yanks, he reckoned - insisted on asking questions, but he sidestepped them or responded with obfuscation worthy of a politician.
Unsurprisingly, his tips were non-existent. He returned the group to the museum courtyard, thanked them for their custom, and slunk away to the staff room, leaving them nonplussed and dissatisfied.
Fuck them. Harry’s head wasn’t in the best place. He was worried he might be losing the plot again. And if he wasn’t, if what he had witnessed, if that weirdo was the genuine article - whatever that article maybe - then that posed many more questions that Harry’s head couldn’t cope with either.
But Ariel was on his mind. The things he had done - what were they? Tricks? Illusions? Or something else? Was there such a thing as magic? Real, actual magic, altering the laws of nature and physics, making the impossible possible?
Harry needed to know more. He had left his schooldays copy of The Tempest at home but he suspected he needed more specialised information. He had never considered it before but it was lucky that Stratford built so much of its industry, commerce and general activity around the playwright who had happened to have been born there. The town was crawling with experts of international renown.
Harry changed back into his civvies. He was due a break before clocking back on for the early evening ghost walk.
“I want a word with you,” Mary called after him as he hurried through Reception. He raised a hand to acknowledge he had heard her but continued on his way.
Complaints, probably, Harry reckoned. Fuck it.
He sped around the block, stepping off the kerb to avoid several groups of tourists, milling around like zombies on holiday, and made his way to the pedestrianized stretch of Henley Street.
The birthplace! Mecca for scholars and tourists alike!
It was still a pretty building, criss-crossed with the Tudor fashion for beams. Alongside it, a more modern and angular annexe; the business end of the enterprise, where you paid your money to view the exhibits, where you bought coffee and cake or a pot of tea, so you could sit in the garden and enjoy actors performing your favourite excerpts...
Harry had been there, done that, bought the tea towel and, inexplicably, a rubber duck dressed as the Bard himself. Today his interest went beyond the surface of the tourist traps. He was seeking expert knowledge and he knew just the man.
He waited at the box office for the attention of the girl.
“Hey, Trish,” he turned on the charm. “Is the Big Cheese in?”
Trish looked him up and down. “Didn’t recognise you without your tights on,” she grinned. “I think he’s gone to lunch.”
“Ah. Oh. Right.”
“I think. I can ring through and check?”
“Um, no; no thanks, I know where he’ll be.” Harry saluted her with his index finger.
“Harry?” Trish called him back. She twirled her hair between her fingers. “Fancy a drink sometime?”
“Um...” Harry blushed. He’d told her before he wasn’t ‘that way inclined’ but every time he saw her, she asked the same question.
“Just a bit of fun,” she winked. “I can give you free entry to the birthplace, if you know what I mean...”
Harry backed away. “See you, Trish.” He turned and fled, colliding with a life-size cut-out of Sir Laurence Olivier dressed as Richard III.
Trish’s laughter followed him out into the street.
He sprinted through the town to the best place to find the Big Cheese taking lunch. To the Filthy Fowl, a pub near the theatre, frequented by actors, academics, tourists and locals alike. The landlord poured a good pint and the food was substantial and filling - Harry always pointed out the place even though it wasn’t part of the official tour. For that service, his first drink was always on the house.
The Fowl was busy - it invariably was. Harry squeezed past the tables out front, greeted the barman as he passed through the bar to the dining room behind. There in the corner was his quarry, the world-renowned professor and unrivalled Shakespearean expert, Professor Auberon Cheese, sporting a bright striped blazer. His customary straw boater was hooked on the back of his chair.
Harry signalled to a waitress to bring another of what the Cheese was drinking as well as a pint of the guest bitter for himself.
“Hullo, Professor Cheese,” he hovered at the table’s edge, waiting for the great man to look up from his reading matter. Eventually, the white head lifted and a pair of bright eyes gave Harry a quick appraisal. The luxurious handlebar moustache twitched.
“Oh, Christ,” said the professor, “it’s you.”
***
The don headed for Oxford station. Already he was noticing a change in the host body. The back was straighter and the limbs seemed longer - in fact, a quick glance at the turn-ups of the tweed trousers showed they were revealing expanses of bare leg and Argyll sock. There was no time to acquire new clothes. He had to leave Oxford as soon as he could. People weren’t altogether stupid; they would find the previous host and would want to question the current one - at least! And there simply wasn’t time.
The American was making better progress than he would have credited. Two pieces of the staff remained. The don was determined to secure them as soon as possible. Without them, the two pieces already in his possession were useless.
He withdrew cash from a machine on his way to the station. The transaction was traceable but with a bit of luck, the purchase of his single ticket to Birmingham would take longer to detect. There were such things as CCTV everywhere, he knew, but it could take them hours - days, even! - to scour the footage. And they were probably as yet unaware that he had left town. For the moment, time was on his side.
He fed ten pound notes into the automated ticket machine, grateful for the absence of interaction with a ticketing clerk. The machine refused the money several times, try as he might to smooth out each banknote with his fumbling fingers. The arthritis was in remission; the hands were gradually becoming more pliable. One would think the host would be grateful for the benefits he was providing - if there was anything left of the host to feel anything.
At last, the ticket dropped into the trough. The don fished it out with his newly bendable fingers and headed off to consult the departures board. With a bit more luck, he wouldn’t have to ask anyone which platform he needed.
“Hoi, mate!” a voice called out across the forecourt, sending a chill down his straightening spine.
Keep walking, keep walking, keep walking...
“Mate!” the voice was closer, louder. The don found his sleeve tugged by an insistent young man. “You left your change in the machine.”
“Uh?”
“Here.” The man poured a handful of coins into the don’s palm. The don stared at it in confusion. “Are you all right, mate? Should you be out on your own?” The young man glanced around for the old boy’s carer or nurse or someone.
The don stamped hard on the young man’s foot and scurried away. The young man hopped around and swore.
“Miserable old fucker! This is the thanks I get.”
The don paused at a newsagent’s, panting heavily. Damn; the last thing he wanted was to draw attention to himself, and that little piece of street theatre was attracting commentary from just about everyone. He slid the door of a refrigerated cabinet to one side, pulled out a bottle of water and poured it over his head.
“Here!” the shop assistant cried, bustling around from behind the counter. “I hope you’re paying for that.”
With a grunt, the don thrust his hand towards the girl, tossing the handful of coins to her feet. He helped himself to four more bottles and left the shop with his eyes rolling wildly.
Damn it; he needed to calm down. And get away from all these witnesses.
He lumbered across the forecourt to the toilets. He shut himself in a cubicle and, leaning against the door, enjoyed his bottled water at a more leisurely pace. He considered changing body again. He would feel safer if he could shed this one. No one would have a clue who he was.
He waited, listening for someone else to come in. No matter who it was, he would approach the fellow and effect the exchange before the poor blighter knew what was happening. Then he would take the train to Birmingham and the third piece of the staff would be in his hands before sundown.
But no one came in.
Damn and blast. He checked the don’s fob watch. The train was due. With regret, he left the gents and made his way to the platform, checking the electronic departures board on the way. Typically, the train was delayed.
The don experienced fifteen antsy minutes on the platform, feeling exposed and vulnerable. He was down to his last bottle of water. He wasn’t going to risk an attempt to purchase more from the vending machine. He didn’t want to face anyone else approaching him with their kind offers of assistance when the machine refused to cooperate and surrender his purchase.
The disembodied voice of the station announcer informed him his train was imminent. Gradually, it hove into view. Impatient to get on board, the don forced himself to hang back and allow a woman with a pushchair to get on ahead of him. He walked hurriedly along the carriage, looking not only for an empty seat but preferably one facing a suitable candidate for a quick exchange.
He was out of luck. The train was overcrowded. He just managed to beat a young woman to the last remaining seat at a table for four.
“Thank you, my dear,” he grinned, remembering to add something of the doddery to his movements for extra sympathy. He had become altogether too sprightly for a man of his host’s age and condition.
He settled into the seat and smiled at his travelling companions. They, a young couple of backpackers with beads in their hair and braided bangles around their wrists, and a businessman in a three-piece suit, barely acknowledged the presence of the elderly gent in the ill-fitting tweeds. The businessman tapped importantly into a laptop. The couple held hands across the table, watching the world (well, Oxfordshire) go past the window.
The don closed his eyes. It was too public for a chat with Mother. He decided to relax and enjoy an hour of peace before the next stage of his quest.
***
The waiter brought the drinks. Upon seeing them Professor Auberon Cheese resigned himself to inviting the young pest to join him. Harry didn’t need asking twice. He dropped onto a chair and raised his pint to toast the professor.
“What is it this time, Harry?” Cheese raised his own glass in acknowledgment. “Don’t tell me you’ve penned more execrable sonnets.”
Harry blushed; he didn’t think his attempts at ‘finding’ Shakespeare’s lost sonnets had been that bad. Cheese had seen through them right away, of course.
“I won’t keep you,” Harry began.
“Thank heaven!” Cheese smirked. “Go on.”
“Quick question: what can you tell me about Ariel?”
Cheese wiped beer suds from his moustache. “It’s really good with stubborn stains.”
“Not the washing powder; the character!”
“Just teasing, my boy. Do they still make that particular brand, I wonder?”
“I don’t know. But what can you tell me of the character. He’s in The Tempest.”
Cheese looked like he had been slapped in the face. Oops, thought Harry, he probably knows that already.
“Have you tried reading the play, my boy? Or attending a performance?”
“Well, yes and no, but I thought the insight of an expert might -”
Cheese’s moustache curled as the professor’s lips pouted beneath; Harry stopped speaking.
“You want a quick fix. Can’t even be bothered to read the students’ notes.”
“Well, if you put it like that, yes.”
Cheese took a longer sip of the beer Harry had bought him. “Ariel is a spirit, of water, of air. At the beginning of the play, he is enslaved to Prospero. In return for his eventual freedom, he performs a series of tasks, tricks and spells on his master’s behalf, including the eponymous tempest.”
“So, he’s one of the good guys?”
“My boy, you cannot divide Shakespeare’s characters into who wears white hats and who wears black. Although some directors have that very approach. There are exceptions. Iago, for example -”
Harry cut him short, fearing the professor would launch into one of his lectures that may not be entirely pertinent.
“And what happened to him?”
“To whom? Iago?”
“To Ariel.”
Cheese made an expansive gesture. “Prospero set him free. Happy endings all round.”
“And then what?”
“And then what - what?”
“And then what became of him?”
“Of Ariel?”
“Yes.”
“My dear boy, what happened is what happens to every character once the story is over. And that is absolutely nothing. They exist only as long as the story exists.”
Harry frowned. This was not what he wanted to hear. “So long lives this and this gives life to thee.”
Cheese chuckled. “You could say that. If you want me to tell you there is some kind of afterlife for characters in plays and fiction, then you’re mistaken. Oh, there are some misguided fools who attempt to write sequels for these things. They take characters and inflict a very narrow interpretation of those characters into some tawdry retelling - it’s all quite unsatisfactory. You’re not...” he grasped Harry’s hand, “you’re not planning one of these ill-advised sequels yourself, are you? Say it ain’t so!”
The professor laughed to see Harry’s expression. He patted the young man’s hand and released him.
“No! But...” Harry chewed his lower lip. “Where did Shakespeare get him from? What did he base Ariel on? What gave him the idea?”
Professor Cheese made another expansive gesture. This one said, Who knows? Harry’s expression implored him to say more. Cheese downed the rest of his beer and signalled to the waitress to bring another.
“In this day and age, people are wont to believe - or rather, give credence to - tales of aliens. Today, our sense of the ‘other’ comes from outer space. In Elizabethan times, the ‘other’ was very much a part of daily life. They lived among us, unseen, and only detected by the very few. I’m talking of the faerie folk - you may have heard of A Midsummer Night’s Dream; that play is riddled with them. Ariel is very much a Puck figure, a Robin Goodfellow able to defy the laws of nature in order to perform his master’s bidding. In this respect, Shakespeare is revisiting old ideas, ideas that did not originate with him but were part and parcel of the nation’s collective subconscious. It’s all there in the folklore.”
Harry was nodding. He didn’t fancy the prospect of having to read two bloody plays. Neither did he like the idea that Ariel was part of his subconscious.
The waitress brought Cheese his beer. There was not one for Harry on her tray. Harry took the hint. He stood up.
“Well, thank you, Professor. I’d best be off. Doing the ghosts tonight and I’m a bit rusty. Have to brush up on the patter.”
Professor Cheese shook his head. “Ah, commercial enterprise,” he said sadly. “Where would we be without it?”
Harry took this to be a rhetorical question, which indeed it was. He knew of Cheese’s dislike for Harry’s line of work, regarding it as somehow disrespectful to the playwright. The sorry truth of the matter was the town needed its tourist traps, needed its Shakespeare industry, to keep the place alive. Without its unique selling point to protect it, it would be just another pretty English market town, subjected to the vagaries of the economy, with its shop windows as boarded up as any other town’s.
“Your moustache is slipping,” Cheese pointed out. Harry hadn’t been aware he’d left it glued on after the morning’s lacklustre tour. “You look nothing like him, you know.”
“From the portraits I’ve seen,” Harry grinned, “I’ll take that as a compliment.”
He left the professor to his third pint and - Harry only just noticed what he’d interrupted - resume the marking of a TV listings magazine with a highlighter pen. Professor Cheese had a penchant for antiques shows and old Tom and Jerry cartoons and made a concerted effort every week not to miss a single one.
Harry’s feet took him past the theatre. Olly would be in there now, he thought. Lucky bastard. Lucky, talented bastard.
Posters for the current production of The Tempest adorned hoardings and windows. Harry groaned. There was no getting away from the thing.
But - he recalled Cheese’s words - if Ariel is a figure of my subconscious and not a real - whatsit - fairy, sprite or what-have-you, then perhaps I need a holiday and get out of town for a while.
Or perhaps he needed a doctor’s appointment. The softly spoken man who had led Harry’s cognitive behaviour therapy sessions had made an open invitation. Come back any time, he’d said. If things get a little too much.
Ha! Harry scoffed. How could he possibly breathe a word of anything that had happened in the last twenty-four hours?
They would throw the key away.
***
The members of the Group sat in their circle in the flickering candlelight of the disused chapel. No one spoke. They each looked at their shadowy confederates from under the cowls of their hooded gowns but each one was as anonymous as the next. They had gathered again but no one seemed sure of what to do or what was expected of them.
Someone coughed. It echoed around the room. It was cold in there - silent gratitude was expressed for the thick wool of the ceremonial robes.
From the rafters a dart of pigeon shit splash-landed in the centre.
The members of the Group shifted uncomfortably on the creaky chairs but still no one spoke.
Someone cleared his (or indeed, her) throat. Hooded heads turned in that direction but nothing further was forthcoming.
Two hours later, the Group left, filing out in silence. The last one to go thought to blow out the candles and almost set her (or indeed, his) cowl on fire.