Hamnet(93)

‘Mmm,’ says Joan, her hand pressed over her mouth, standing to greet Agnes.

The two women meet in the middle of the room. Joan takes her stepdaughter by the upper arms with a grip that is resolute and swift. Her eyes flutter closed as she plants a kiss on her cheek; Agnes resists the urge to pull herself away. They ask each other how do they do, are they well, are the families well?

‘I fear,’ Joan says, as she returns to her seat, ‘I have interrupted you in . . . some task or other?’ She looks pointedly down at Agnes’s muddied apron, her dirt-encrusted hem.

‘Not at all,’ Agnes replies, taking a seat, putting a hand to Judith’s shoulder, in passing. ‘I’ve been at work in the garden, trying to save some of the plants. Whatever brings you to town in such fearsome weather?’

Joan seems momentarily wrongfooted by the question, as if she hadn’t been prepared to be asked. She smooths the folds of her gown, presses her lips together. ‘A visit to a . . . a friend. A friend who is unwell.’

‘Oh? I am sorry to hear that. What is the matter?’

Joan waves her hand. ‘It is but a trifle . . . a mere cold on the chest. Nothing to be—’

‘I would gladly give your friend a tincture of pine and elder. I have some freshly made. Very good for the lungs, especially over the winter and—’

‘No need,’ Joan says hastily. ‘I thank you, but no.’ She clears her throat, looking around the room. Agnes sees her eyes light on the ceiling, the mantel, the fire-irons, the painted drapes on the walls, which feature a design of forests, leaves, dense branches punctuated by leaping deer: a gift from her husband, who had them made up in London. Agnes’s recent and unexpected wealth bothers Joan. There is something unbearable to her about the sight of her stepdaughter living in so fine a house.

As if following her train of thought, Joan says, ‘And how is your husband?’

Agnes regards her stepmother for a moment, before replying: ‘Well, I believe.’

‘The theatre still keeps him in London?’

Agnes laces her hands together in her lap and gives Joan a smile before she nods.

‘He writes to you often, I suppose?’

Agnes feels a slight adjustment inside her, a minute sensation, as if a small, anxious animal is turning itself around. ‘Naturally,’ she says.

Judith and Susanna, however, give her away. They turn their heads to look at her, quickly, too quickly, like dogs awaiting a signal from their master.

Joan, of course, doesn’t miss this. Agnes sees her stepmother lick her lips, as if tasting something good, something sweet on them. She thinks again of what she said to Bartholomew, years ago, in the marketplace: that Joan likes company in her perpetual dissatisfaction. How is Joan hoping to bring her down now? What information has she that she will wield, like a sword, to slash though this house, this room, this place she and her daughters inhabit, trying to live as best they can in the presence of such enormous, distracting absences? What does Joan know?

The truth is that Agnes’s husband hasn’t written for several months, save a short letter assuring them he is well, and another, addressed to Susanna, asking her to secure the purchase of another field. Agnes has told herself, and the girls, that nothing is amiss, that he will be busy, that sometimes letters go astray on the road, that he is working hard, that he will be home before they know it, but still the thought has gnawed at her. Where is he and what is he doing and why has he not written?

Agnes crosses her fingers, burying them in the folds of her apron. ‘We heard from him a week or so ago. He was telling us that he is very busy, they are preparing a new comedy and—’

‘His new play is of course not a comedy,’ Joan cuts across her. ‘But you knew that, I expect.’

Agnes is silent. The animal inside her flexes itself restlessly, starts to scrape at her innards with its needling claws.

‘It’s a tragedy,’ Joan continues, baring her teeth in a smile. ‘And I am certain he will have told you the name of it. In his letters. Because of course he would never call it that without telling you first, would he, without your by-your-leave? I’m sure you’ve seen the playbill. He probably sent you one. Everyone in town is talking about it. My cousin, who came back from London yesterday, brought it. I’m sure you have one but I carried it with me, just the same, for you.’

Joan stands and crosses the room, a ship in full sail. She drops a curled paper into Agnes’s lap.

Agnes eyes it, then takes it with two fingers and flattens it against her mud-splattered apron. For a moment, she cannot tell what she is looking at. It is a printed page. There are many letters, so many, in rows, grouped into words. There is her husband’s name, at the top, and the word ‘tragedie’. And there, right in the middle, in the largest letters of all, is the name of her son, her boy, the name spoken aloud in church when he was baptised, the name on his gravestone, the name she herself gave him, shortly after the twins’ birth, before her husband returned to hold the babies on his lap.

Agnes cannot understand what this means, what has happened. How can her son’s name be on a London playbill? There has been some odd, strange mistake. He died. This name is her son’s and he died, not four years ago. He was a child and he would have been a man but he died. He is himself, not a play, not a piece of paper, not something to be spoken of or performed or displayed. He died. Her husband knows this, Joan knows this. She cannot understand.