His voice cracked and he wheeled himself off, crashing heavily into the corner of his desk and having a coughing fit.
I stood up, although whether I meant to help him or go after the Chief, I’m not sure and was never resolved, because, at that moment, Schiller and Van Owen arrived in the open doorway and in their excitement and impatience tried to get through together. I used the time it took for them to sort themselves out to pull myself together.
‘Max, we’ve done it. We’ve found it. You need to come and see this. We’ve found the tipping point.’
For a minute, they’d lost me. Then I remembered. Our play. The one where Bill the Bard had obviously in some sort of wonky moment immortalised the death of the wrong queen.
I said, ‘That was quick guys, well done. Show me,’ and we all clattered out together. I turned in the doorway and said, ‘Whenever you’re ready, David. I’d appreciate your input.’
Face still averted, he said, ‘Two minutes, Max,’ so I left him.
The hall was buzzing. It looked like everyone who wasn’t actually out on assignment was there. Whiteboards and walls were lined with pieces of paper. Two horizontal rows of paper, one pink and one yellow, ran round the walls. Things were circled or highlighted and arrows led from one page to another and back again. Table tops were littered with maps, photos, reference material, disks, cubes, and sticks. There were piles of paper on the floor with the skull and crossbones motif – the traditional St Mary’s sign for Do Not Touch. Housekeeping had been having a fit for a week. It looked like chaos, but it wasn’t.
I found the corner of a table, perched, and Van Owen yelled for quiet.
I said, ‘OK, let’s hear it.’
‘It’s a belter, Max. There are some powerful scenes. If it ever gets performed it’s going to be a sensation.’ She walked to the start.
‘The play begins with the Queen Mum, Mary de Guise, receiving the news that the English king, good old Fat Harry, is planning to marry his son, the future Edward VI, to her daughter.
She’s an astute woman and realises Mary will be a key player in the years to come. So Mary gets shunted off to France for safety. By marrying her to the sickly Dauphin, Mary’s uncles hope to rule France through her. It’s a fairly wordy scene, where everyone obligingly outlines their past histories and future motives. The Queen, Catherine de Medici, glides menacingly through everyone’s lives like a well-fed snake and battle lines are drawn up.
‘The next scene is the wedding. Everyone’s over the moon, except the Queen of course, and everything looks set for a happy ending.
‘Except that, as we know, the French King dies prematurely in a jousting accident and the young couple become King and Queen rather sooner than everyone intended. Then, of course, the Dauphin upsets everyone’s apple cart by dying himself, apparently of an ear infection. There’s a fantastic scene when uncontrollable hostility rises to the surface, Mary and Catherine are hissing venomously at each other over his deathbed, and the upshot is that Catherine forces Mary to return to Scotland. Her reluctance to do so is somewhat played down for the Scottish audience. But from our point of view, so far so good, everything’s pretty well spot on.’
She paused for a glug of water.
‘Mary returns to Scotland. In the traditional thick Scottish fog. Standing on the shore, she makes a stirring speech about how happy she is to return to her native land, how she will rule justly and fairly, and everything’s going to be rainbows and bunny-rabbits from now on. I suspect she actually said, “Shit, I’m soaked. Doesn’t the sun ever shine in this God-forsaken dump? Someone find me some dry shoes and give me a drink,” and in French too, but there you go.
‘In the light of subsequent events, her marriage to Darnley is somewhat played down and we move straight into what is the climax of the first part. The whole tone of the play darkens. Mary, heavily pregnant and attended only by two or three women is complaining bitterly about her new husband. She hates him. Everyone hates him. He’s a waster. He’s a loser. He’s a tosser, etc. etc. Rizzio arrives for an intimate supper as, apparently, is his wont. As we all know, Darnley and his friends rudely interrupt this little idyll. He restrains the Queen while they stab Rizzio. Many, many times. They counted fifty-six wounds, afterwards. That’s a lot. He’s clutching her skirts and screaming for her to save him. She’s screaming and cursing her husband. Her women are screaming for help, which doesn’t come. It’s actually a very disturbing scene, ending with the pregnant Queen collapsing in a pool of Rizzio’s blood.
She stopped and looked at me. ‘Now we come to it. According to the play she does not leave Holyrood. She stays put and Shakespeare gets round this by giving Mary a “Will no one rid me of this turbulent husband?? moment and a besotted and unbalanced Bothwell races off to do the deed. In other words, Mary is completely innocent.’