Shakespeare 2012 - Part I Read online

  “Fucking shut it, Tony!” Paulina snapped back irately. “This is serious. You wouldn’t joke if you were the one up there with him. God, it’s torturous when he messes up his lines. And distracting. He ruins the flow for everyone on the stage. He drags the entire production down.” Paulina slapped the table angrily. “Fuck!”

  Nobody said anything for a short time. Paulina broke the silence. “Look, he’s even bringing this evening down, and he’s not even fucking here! He’d better sort himself out by tomorrow evening. If he ruins this play ...”

  “He’ll be fine,” Hermione said unconvincingly. “He’ll be fine. He’ll be fine. And if I say it enough times then I may even start to believe it myself.”

  Chapter 04

  Tuesday 19th June 2012

  John Venison woke up as usual at 7:00 am when his bedside radio switched itself on. He rolled his head around on the pillow to listen to the broadcast. A moment after waking, Venison was at work. He had bought the radio years earlier but had only tuned it in once, because he only listened to one station: Bloomberg Radio, a channel dedicated to broadcasting news from the world’s financial markets. He reached out for his Blackberry and glanced at the screen. There were no messages, so he replaced the phone on the bedside cabinet, then folded his hands on the pillow under his head as he absorbed the latest reports of share price movements and currency exchange fluctuations.

  As he listened to the broadcast, Venison uncritically acknowledged yet again the insatiable compulsion that drove him. He had a one-track mind – and he knew it. With the deep self-awareness others normally attain after years of meditation, Venison knew what obsessed him. He was comfortable with his obsession, comfortable with how others bitterly disdained it, and, crucially in his own view, for it was what allowed him to be successful, comfortable with his utter lack of conscience over how the more dubious aspects of his actions affected the lives of others. Venison had long ago torched his morals to placate his unquenchable ambition.

  He wanted to be the wealthiest man in the world. But more than that, he wanted to be the wealthiest man who would ever live. He was a competitive man, and craved a promotion to the premier league of money where he would be challenging Russian oligarchs, Arab sheiks, and American IT entrepreneurs. He had implacable confidence that he would catch up with them eventually, and possibly within the year if certain projects he was running were as outrageously successful as he believed they could be. Already stupendously minted, Venison imagined the digital count of his wealth perpetually ascending like the storage capacity displayed on the homepage for Google Mail. But Venison’s ticker ascended much more rapidly, steadily – and stealthily.

  The fuel for this wealth ticker was Venison Investments, a multinational hedge fund he had founded in 1994. The fund managed billions of pounds of investors’ money. Venison Investments charged a 8% administration fee, and earned 20% of the profits of the investments. After years of runaway success, Venison Investments had wealthy would-be clients clamouring to be allowed to invest their money with them. Yet Venison coolly rebuffed most of them, knowing that limiting supply, whilst guaranteeing success, would boost demand allowing him to cherry-pick clients.

  The principal focus of Venison’s morning routine was a check on the market news from Beijing and Tokyo for any major developments affecting his investments there. If there had been anything urgent then Evans, his man in Asia, would have been in touch. He absolutely trusted Evans to handle anything that needed handling as he slept. Venison trusted Evans because, besides his ferocious drive and an intuitive market acuity, Evans had a substantial personal interest in Venison Investments. Venison insisted on keeping all his senior staff financially committed to the fund as well as professionally, it kept the duvet days at bay.

  With nothing from Evans, Venison turned the radio off at the end of the news summary. The second element of his routine was a peaceful breakfast with no radio or television. It allowed him time to preview and plan his day ahead. He would meet with Rob Emerald, his senior assistant, at 9:00 am for their daily briefing. Emerald was going to present the figures from three major trades that had been completed in the US late the previous evening. If all three coined in, Venison was going to look at allocating a larger slice of the profits to an investment in a risky venture involving a mining company from Peru he had been eyeing for weeks. If the three trades hadn’t delivered, Venison was going to sack someone.

  Chapter 05

  The undergraduate degree in drama and theatre at the Central School of Speech and Drama in Swiss Cottage was a hotbed of shape-shifting politicking. With over one hundred fiercely ambitious students on the course, competition for roles was intense. Underhand tactics to undermine other actors was an unspoken-of reality. The lecturers, mostly frustrated and failed actors themselves, didn’t not approve; they believed the hidden curriculum of learning to compete ‘realistically’ was as important an element of the students’ training as the tutorials. They believed that getting ahead in acting, more than other creative professions, was an unholy mixture of talent, hard work, luck and playing a ‘clever’ game. Too many underused actors and too few roles encouraged students to develop a ruthless streak a boxer would appreciate. Climbing the ladder was all-important, and if a rung on the ladder was a fellow student then it was doubly fortunate, for as you ascended a level, you knocked a potential rival down one.

  Each student’s acting was assessed annually at the end of the summer term. Some students proposed productions, others agreed to participate, and the roles were divvied up. Similar to picking football teams at school, the meeker, less popular and less talented actors were sidelined into the fringe roles, The lecturers occasionally observed rehearsals to offer feedback, but students mostly had to direct themselves.

  Paulina had proposed putting on A Midsummer Night’s Dream on 20th June. Several students in the third year had scoffed at her obvious and cheesy choice, but Paulina didn’t care. She wanted to draw a large crowd, and all the tickets had sold out weeks ago. Leon had instantly volunteered to help her. They had assigned themselves two of the key roles. Three other male actors had joined their production and then mutinied, challenging Leon’s decision to award himself the role of Lysander. Standing up to the challenges, Paulina had supported Leon’s insistence that he had first choice as it was partly his play. When the huffy ultimatums had been resolved, Leon had won his role.

  And now there was just one day to the performance. Paulina was appalled that Leon was still not ready. His ambition exceeded his motivation, and Paulina’s patience with him had finally evaporated. She loved him, he’d helped her several times during the course, and he’d staunchly backed her up in several battles her abrasiveness had caused. But now his lack of preparation threatened to detract from her performance, her grade and possibly ruin her chances of impressing one of the invited agents. The agents were the students’ principal motivation. A high grade in the college assessments was useful portfolio fodder, but the casting agents made decisions on what they saw and heard in front of them, not a grade on a page. Paulina was hoping a sublime performance as Hermia would dazzle one of the agents into inviting her to an audition for one of the new plays that was going to open during the London theatre scene’s autumn season. She knew she was as good an actor as anyone else in the year, but she needed the others to perform well too, as agents were known to judge a play and remember all those performing in it by the weakest actor onstage.

  At that moment onstage during the dress rehearsal, it was blatant to Paulina that Leon was still struggling. He looked uptight and stressed, he was concentrating too hard on his lines, prompting himself instead of acting.

  “How now, my love?”

  Awkward pause.

  “Why is your …

  Awkward pause.

  “… cheek so pale?”

  Awkward pause.

  “How chance the roses …

  Awkward pause.

  “… there do fade …”

>   Awkward pause.

  “… so fast?”

  He’d made it to the end of the line, but did he know his next? Paulina’s delivery was effortless.

  “Belike for want of rain, which I could well beteem them from the tempest of my eyes.”

  Paulina sighed the word ‘eyes’ to prompt Leon. It seemed to work.

  “Ay me! For aught that I could … ever read could ever hear by … tale or history … the course of true love never did run smooth. But either it was different in blood.”

  Paulina, in full flow, strode across the stage to Leon, hugely relieved he’d recovered from his flubs. “O cross! Too high to be enthralled to low.”

  “Or else misgraffed in respect of years – “

  “O spite! Too old to be engaged to young.”

  “Or else it stood upon the choice of friends – “

  “O hell! To choose love by another’s eyes.”

  Then Leon froze. Paulina noticed his expression flip from acting Lysander to actor Leon. She cursed inwardly but held her anguished pose and Leon’s blank gaze. Leon was motionless, distant. Paulina was willing him, “Come on Leon. ‘Or if …’ ‘Or if …’ Come on.”

  Leon seemed to read the signal.

  “Or if … there were a …”

  He’d clearly lost the rest of the line.

  “Or if there were a …”

  Paulina rolled her eyes in rage. Leon was flubbing. When Paulina met Leon’s eyes again he winked at her.

  “A … sympathy … A sympathy of all the choices and selections of love and romance, making it momentary as a … momentary as a sound … as a sound … that echoes through my heart …”

  Paulina was stunned. Leon was improvising. Paulina knew his lines, yet Leon wasn’t saying them, ambling off in his own adlibbed creations instead. The students had booked the college theatre for a full dress rehearsal and had invited Mr Rumpold, the course leader and acknowledged Shakespeare boffin, to observe and offer constructive criticism. Rumpold had seen enough.

  “CUT!” he roared. “No, no, and thrice no! Leon, I’m sorry dear boy, but that is dreadful, quite dreadful. One may not improvise Shakespeare. May one speculate you have been neglecting your preparations? You need to learn those lines. Opening night is tomorrow. TOMORROW! You are being assessed. There will be agents present. Do not mess this up dear boy.”

  Message delivered, Rumpold turned and left the practice room.

  Paulina shoved Leon’s shoulder. “’As a sound that echoes through my heart?’ What sort of made-up fucking shit are you spouting now?”

  Leon looked hurt. “Ok, ok, not you as well.”

  “Yes me as well! I’m the one who’s on the stage with you when you’re fumbling and stumbling your lines! And then making them up. For fuck’s sake Leon, sort yourself out. You’re not fucking Shakespeare.”

  “Oh lay off Paulina. I’ll be fine.”

  “Not good enough Leon. ‘I’ll be fine.’ You’ve had two months to learn those lines. ‘I’ll be fine’ one day before the show when you clearly don’t know them is not good enough. I do not want to be onstage with you fucking flubbing.”

  Paulina knew ‘flub’ was Leon’s trigger word. He had confided in her that that word had haunted him, had taunted him.

  “I’m not going to flub,” he replied meekly.

  “Looks like it’s a strong possibility to me.”

  “I’ll be fine Paulina.” His tone changed from defiant to serious. “Trust me. It’ll all be alright on the night.” He stepped back and swung his arms out, frivolously. “Midsummer magic will strike me, and I will flow with the spirit of the blessed William Shakespeare himself.”

  Paulina glared at him furiously. “Oh fuck off. Just learn the fucking lines you twat.”

  Chapter 06

  Rob Emerald had been with Venison Investments from the start. The company was currently based in an exclusive, plush set of offices near the top of the Heron Tower in Bishopsgate in the City of London. It had started out in 1994 from an office in a run-down, pre-fabricated block in Leytonstone in the less salubrious east end of London. It wasn’t a place to bring clients, but it was cheap, functional and on the Central Line for easy access to the City. As the client base grew, and the returns on Venison’s astute investments multiplied, the company had moved in 1997 to a nondescript office in Elephant and Castle, then in 2002 to one tucked away in an unknown side street in the City. The company’s big break came in 2007 when the first ripples of the impending financial tsunami broke. Venison had speculated heavily on three reputable, high street banks he suspected were on wobbly liquidity foundations, and he had won. The size of the fund quadrupled within three months, and Venison Hedge Fund had become a major player. Major players required appropriate surroundings in the heart of the City. A suite of offices in the newly completed Heron Tower reflected Venison’s ambitions and sense of destiny. Emerald knew that Venison believed the company belonged here. From his office Venison could look out, over and down upon the rest of the City. Venison Hedge Fund were on top physically, and would soon be on top financially.

  Whilst the long-term vision was grand, the short-term visibility was muddy. Venison was sitting in his high-backed, leather seat when Emerald knocked on the door and walked in.

  “Ah Emerald. Just the man,” Venison said. “My money man. This is my favourite part of the day. Such a shame all the fun is always at the very start. So, how much money did you make me yesterday?”

  Emerald appreciated Venison’s lack of small talk. Get to the point and then get going to the next one was a principle of business Emerald agreed with. “Total or breakdown?” he replied.

  “Ooh, choices. Today let’s start with the big picture and then detailise.”

  Emerald winced. ‘Detailise’ was one of Venison’s cringeworthy attempts to sound like a go-getting, dynamic entrepreneur. His wince was exaggerated by the bad news he bore. He knew that Venison could pick up on unspoken hints and implications. “From three trades we’re up sixty million pounds.”

  “Good, good. Is that a silent ‘but’ trailing at the end …?”

  “Fifty million came from the Jansen trade. Twenty million from the Venglos tr–“

  “But you lost ten million pounds somewhere,” Venison interrupted. “I hope such carelessness won’t detract from this beautiful morning.”

  Emerald swallowed. “The Barnes trade. The price was plummeting. We cut to avoid further losses.”

  He watched Venison’s face for a reaction. There wasn’t one. Venison put out his hand. “Ok, that may be excusable. May. Details please.”

  Emerald handed him a document with a breakdown of the previous day’s trade figures. Venison took the sheet and studied it for thirty seconds.

  “Who was in charge of the Jansen trade?” Venison asked without looking up.

  “Jones.”

  “And the Barnes?”

  “Smith.”

  “Send them both in.”

  Venison had used his military voice, the voice he used to issue instructions that were, in essence, orders. Emerald recognized the voice and knew not to respond. He nodded, turned and left the office.

  One minute later there was a knock on the door. It opened slowly. Emerald entered the office again, followed by Tony Jones and Barry Smith. Emerald walked to the side of Venison’s desk and turned around to face the pair of young traders who stood erect and silent in front of the desk. Venison stayed seated, absorbed in his thoughts long enough to make Tony and Smith uncomfortable.

  “Good morning gentlemen,” Venison said, looking up from the document on his desk.

  “Good morning sir,” Tony and Smith responded deferentially. They both knew a summons from Venison through Emerald so early in the day meant something major. Stories of Venison’s clinical use of rewards and punishments were common topics of after work pub sessions.

  Venison turned his head slightly to look at Tony who had folded his hands behind his back. He’s digg
ing his thumbnail into his index finger, Emerald thought. Emerald watched Tony anxiously sneak a peek up at Venison’s eyes then lowered his look again.

  “Well done Jones. An extra zero has just been added to your summer bonus after yesterday. Well played son.”

  Tony met Venison’s eyes with relief and nodded. “Thank you sir.”

  Venison turned his head towards Smith. “Smith. I will say this just once. Close the door, then empty your desk.”

  Smith seemed to take a second to process the words, another to process the impact, and a third to process a response. “Sir? I –“

  Venison swung around in his seat to look at the computer screen. Emerald walked across the room and opened the door. Jones and Smith turned and exited the office.

  Chapter 07

  London Fields is a park in Hackney with a layered sociological blend. For one strata of the local population, London Fields was a notorious, violent teenage gang. For another it was a hipster hangout, a place for twenty-somethings to have picnics or play Ultimate Frisbee. The two groups never met and never mingled. Early evening on Tuesday 19th June, Leon, Hermione and Paulina were picnicking in the park. Hermione had insisted that rehearsing in the park with hundreds of people around him would help Leon’s memory on the stage. Paulina had agreed as she was willing to give anything a go to help him. It was a warm summer evening with long streaky clouds high in the atmosphere. The park was sprinkled with dozens of similar groups of friends lolling on the long, unmown grass, and drinking wine out of plastic cups. Several individuals lay on their bellies reading, others kicked or threw balls between themselves.

  Hermione had just finished describing her tarot reading from Madama Sibyl on Monday evening. Paulina smirked affectionately at Hermione’s latest little hippy outburst. Leon preferred to flirt and play the cheeky cynic, teasing Hermione as he believed a dutiful doting boyfriend should. Hermione had moved on to expound on her theories concerning the mysteries of 2012 and humanity’s shared collective consciousness. She looked around the park. “It’s much, much more than ’we’re all connected man’. We are all connected, and much deeper than most people know. We’re not just billions of independent individuals sharing one planet. All our minds tap into a shared source. We have a collective consciousness which all of us, all of us, that old man,” Hermione pointed across the park, “that young baby, City bankers, football players, bar staff, burger flippers all contribute to and draw from.”