v
VEDA had already decided to call in at the office. Although The Editor had not yet remarked on her absences (she could cover a number with "field research"), it was considered "good form" to be at least seen in the office every couple of days. She also wanted to protest about her latest assignment. With his usual infuriating chirpiness, the Editor had offered a choice:
1. An exhibition of pictures hand-carved in slate
OR
2. An introduction to the lows and lows of Jewish folk music (songs sung in Yiddish by Tomas Ben Timowiecz accompanied on the accordion by Jephtha Freylekh)
At least she had a weekend with Jules to look forward to. Maybe she'd get lucky. Maybe he'd accompany her to the Jewish music. Maybe they'd even be able to dance, Tomas's tunes permitting. Maybe she could ask him about Jason, for he too had a tattoo, neatly stencilled on his right shoulder blade in red and blue, reading
JASOn. Maybe.
She looked at the front page of the newspaper and the date: June 27th
JUNE
The sixth month, named from the Roman JUNIUS, a clan name akin to juvenis, or young. The
Dutch called it ZOMERMAAND (summer month), the Saxons SEREMONATH (Dry-month). In the
French Revolutionary calendar, it was named PRAIRIAL (Meadow-month, 20 May to 18 June)
then opened it and returned the now mutilated stare of Jachin the Statue, guardian (with Boaz) of the Jorum Gallery. Someone had "committed an act of desecration against one of the town's most notable figures" (the words of the leader writer). Someone had attempted to remove the jet-stone eye leaving a savage gouge around the socket. The lower jaw of the figure had also been smashed, perhaps with a cleaver, perhaps with a mallet, creating a deep cleft from nostril to chin.
Jachin (and Boaz)
The two bronze pillars erected at the entrance of Solomon's Temple. Jachin was the right-hand
(southern) pillar. The name probably expressed permanence and immovability. Boaz was the left
hand (northern) pillar. The name means "Lord of Strength" (see 1. Kings vii, 21 and Ezek. xl. 49)
"Why some juvenile (the Herald's writers (and readers) always described criminals, even those aged forty-two, as juvenile) delinquent should have committed such an atrocity is beyond comprehension (the paper fulminated). But we cannot stand by and watch our heritage destroyed by such senseless vandalism. The perpetrators must be caught and punished. Only a beating in the market square is sufficient deterrent (said the ranting writer) And if their poor little bottoms are too tender (blasted the Bugle) a thorough birching will toughen them up. After all (the clinching argument)
IT NEVER DID US NO
HARM"
Regarding the split in the jaw, Veda considered the hidden meaning.
There wasn't one.
Later that morning, driving past the Gallery, Veda saw Jumbuck Jorum himself berating the Oniony One for not keeping his eye on the eye, as it were. Some local wag had tied a grubby white bandage around the statue's jaw. She felt strangely satisfied.
The office of the
Herald and Bugle
Blazoning News since 1876
consisted of
several stories of that grey-beige concrete which always looks drab and damp, as though the rain has soaked to the core;
windows though large which always look dull, just glazeglazeglaze
and even the name
Herald and Bugle
Blazoning News since 1876
painted in dirty maroon letters on a spilt cream board merely announced rather than blazoned the news of the district. The company's bugle logo drooped wearily.
Veda collected her mail and a cup of machine-spawned espresso and went to see Anthea, the editor of the Wimmin's Page, who was filing her amber-lacquered nails and flicking idly through some fashion house catalogues.
"Anything in there?" Veda craned over Anthea's shoulder at a scarlet and yellow wraparound skirt and blue and silver spangled platform shoes with six-inch heels and realised the answer was an emphatic NO.
"Hiya, Ved." Anthea flapped over the page. A navy blue suit with pink polka dots and pink satin bow set on the hip. "Come to see how the workers live?"
"Collecting the post." Veda slit the envelopes with Anthea's spare emery board.
A turquoise lurex body suit with ochre leg warmers. "My letters are all about period pains and osteopathy and 'should I leave him?'s. Any goss?"
The editor of the Wimmin's Page spent her evenings burning baked beans and frying fishcakes for her husband (construction worker, fat, forty, with skin the colour of old washing up water and bad body odour) and their four snotty-nosed spotty-faced children who ranged in age from four to fourteen and who seemed to be permanently screaming. Veda had once babysat. Once had been enough. The snotty-spotty children gave her headaches and made her thankful to be single. She wished she could give a squealing, giggling, envious Anthea a detailed account of her evening with Jools, but she couldn't. He'd not even managed to stay awake for a jiffi, drooping as wearily as the company logo and passing out on the sofa, with no sign of a dragony snout.
"No," she said shortly, and glanced at the first mauve paper:
Dear Veda
I am writing to protest in the strongest possible terms about the production at the Fortune Theatre of Jump or the Devil will take you. I thought it was rubbish.
Which of the other eight or so theatregoers was this then?
blah blah much shouting blah blah much violence blah blah much bloodshed
blah blah
blah blah blah
"I thought that was the point of the theatre," Anthea remarked.
bad example blah blah young kiddy cutting out livers blah blah blah blah BLAH made me feel sick blah blah BLEURGH!!!! Your review was too kind. I wonder if you even saw the play. You arty people stick together and anyway
skim the rest of the spidery writing
Yours sincerely
Faye Frost (Miss)
PS You misspelled Ternour, you bloody ignorant bitch.
Veda grunted and looked at the next, a neatly typed and folded sheet.
Dear Veda
This was advertised as a play in the tradition of The Spanish Tragedy and Hamlet. I am angry with people who advertise one sort of play and produce another. I saw no sombreros, bulls or paella and as for cigars.... I have written to the manager of the Fortune Theatre to protest under the Trades Descriptions Act but have yet to receive a reply.
Veda sighed. She could feel a migraine developing. If ever the Editor wondered why she avoided the office, the answers were clenched in her fist.
Anthea was reading submissions for her letters page, imaginatively titled "Ask Anthea" and privately titled Anthea's Agony.
Dear Anthea
My boyfriend's suddenly turned into a dribbling pervert. He wants to chain me to the bedpost, put on nipple clamps and my knickers and whip me with leeks ... when I met him, he was only a bank clerk but now he's a sex fiend..... it's the sheepskin rug he likes me to wear. It's so itchy.
I'm only fourteen but I've met this man whose forty-two.... I think I'm in love but my parents don't know....he’s got a lovely beard and a ginormous…. She turned over the page ….. wallet. Phew.
My husband has thrown me out 'cos I failed to iron his favourite shirt ....
I've had my fifth child and I'm losing my figure. My breasts will soon be touching my knees and my hips are immense. I feel like a walrus. It's driving me crazy...
My husband suffers from premature ejaculation. Just as I'm getting warmed up, he dribbles marmalade on my tits....
"Men are only useful for one thing," said Veda, "And they're not even good at that." She opened the A5 brown envelope, slid the papers (two sheets) into her hand. "I'll write you a column..." and folded them flat. They were photocopied extracts from Vitriol and Jealousy: Theatre, Writing and Rivalry in the English Renaissance by Jurat Jarkman. There was a not
e:
Veda, Thought these might interest you, JJ
The first was an account of the 'prentice riot at the Golden Garter allegedly sparked by the Jubilee's production of A Maidenhead Taken. The sources of the account were given in the footnote as: G.E. Bentley, The Jacobean and Caroline Stage (7 vols. Oxford 1941-68) and the Calendar of State Papers (CSP) vol. lxciv.
We are fortunate to have an 'eye-witness' account of this incident in the diary of Simon Forman who also gives an account of a typical afternoon of leisure in London in the early years of James I. This account includes his impressions of A Maidenhead Taken itself. Forman's work has become a major source for literary historians...
Was fortunate to see the newe plaie by jenkin at the jubilee playhouse, A Maidenhead Taken. Mrs Stainsheet used disgracefully by jack, a juggeler, who set live jellyfish into her queynte. She seemed to enjoie it and screamed sweetly. The boy who plaied her, Thomas Tages, did it q well. Had two pigeons and a spatchcock with a flagon of Rhenish then to the beargardin. two dogges sett at the stake with a beare. Good sport. Returned to Golden garter for shaggyng of Mary several tymes. Wearie tonight.
"What a life!" Veda remarked. Anthea's eyes had glazed over.
The Prentizes, to the nomber of 4. or 500, comitted extreame insolencies on Tewsday last; part of this nomber leving the Jubbille playehouse hard by the Charinge Cross took their course for the Iack daw at Kilburn and passing the house of the Garter did there besett the house around, broke in, wounded divers of the women, breaking open trunckes & whatt apparell, bookes or other things they found, they burnt & cutt in peeces; & used the women in a manere most shameful notwithstanding the jelifish; & nott content herewith, they gott on the top of the house, & untiled it, trying to pull the house downe to the grownd. & had not the Justices of Peace & Sherife levied an aide, & hindred their purpose, they would have layed that house likewise even with the grownd.
In this skyrmishe a Justice of the Peece, while he was reading a Proclamacion, had his head broken with a brick batt, & one prentice was slaine, being shott through the head with a pistoll. Many other of their fellowes were sore hurt, & such of them as are taken his Majestie hath commaunded shal be executed for example sake. Methinks Mistress Termagent should sue Jedburgh's Men for this outtrage.
These boys were, what, thirteen? Fourteen? Tch. Young 'uns in the old days.
A Justice of the Peace arrested one suche prentize who besett the Jachyn at the jubile, & tryed to pull it downe to the grownd. He strucke the head so the eye fell owte.
Veda's blood suddenly ran cold. Hastily she scrabbled at the second paper. Some words had been highlighted in eye-searing jaune, and what she read made her freeze.
The fire at the Records Office at Jackdaw Lane, Kilburn, on July 9th 1776, destroyed forty-two plays, including those of a number of England's leading playmakers. Works by Shakespeare, Heywood, Dekker, Chettle, Jankyn and Hemmings were lost. The list of pieces destroyed follows:
Maƒter Gileƒ Iankyn
Ye Barmepot o Barneƒelie (pt 1)
A Maidenhead Ta'en
Jump, or the Divil will take thee
The cause of the fire is unknown, but one Timothy Thomas, a tailor from Kilburn, was arrested on suspicion of arson. He was later released, despite a number of eye witnesses testifying that they had seen Thomas bearing a burning rag and running towards the Jackdaw Lane office screaming "I'll settle this JASOn once and for all." Thomas was later found in a cellar in Frognal. His tongue had been slit, his eardrums burst, his genitals pierced and his eyes pecked out. One word was carved in the flesh of his arm, "JASOn". No-one was charged with his murder. Some have suggested that the murder, which bore the marks of a ritual killing, was the revenge of a secret society which existed to protect
The rest of the page had been torn away.
The ringing telephone shattered the spell. As though in a dream, Veda watched Anthea lift the receiver and simper to the Editor, cover the mouthpiece to relay the message that the police were making enquiries, that the attack on the statue was linked to the fight at the Jacquard, and had Veda seen anything on her way from the club? Apparently the curator had spotted a pug-face boy straddling Jachin's huge black head. Zombiefied, Veda shook a dumb head. Anthea simpered into the mouthpiece, replaced the receiver, flapped one amber-tipped hand, spoke once again.
"You look as though you've seen a ghost. You're white as a sheet." Anthea knelt on the carpet and scrabbled at the papers her friend had let fall. "Are you all right?"
This was a practical joke. All of it was a practical joke. Surely.
"Veda..."
There was only one way to find out.