Chapter 48

8th oh July 1925 (Wednesday)

Detective Shaw started his Wednesday morning at work, as he would have started every other morning. With the files of the cases he had been in charge of and a hot cup of tea. There was still not that much of a progress on the case of the break in, in Lord Wooster's residence. He really hated that. He had taken the statements of Lady Ophelia, and Terry Graham, the victim - Christian Blake - who sounded cagey at points and his girlfriend, Rose White. She too, he had felt, was hiding something. If he recalled his brief chat with her, the moment he touched the subject of her relationship with Christian, she had become defensive. Mr. Blake who had a pristine record in all other accords, had said he had a lot in his mind but by the method of subtraction, money problems was the one that rung the alarm bells in his mind. But overall, he felt he had reached this wall, he couldn't get through.

He took a sip from his tea and picked the file from his desk. A police officer had brought it over the evening before. He opened it and read the summary at the front, while brushing his moustache with his thumb and his index finger. He reached the bottom of his page.

Items gathered at crime scene:

a. Pocket knife - used at the stabbing.

His eyes widened.

"Constable Grable!" He yelled from his desk.

The officer showed up through the door of Det. Shaw's office after a couple of minutes. "Did you ask for me, Detective?"

"I have!" Robert exclaimed. "What can you tell me about this here?" He asked and turned the file, with his finger pointing at the bottom of the page.

Melvin leaned towards the page, read the bit Robert was referring to.

"Ah! The knife!" Melvin said knowingly. He raised his head up and looked at Robert. "Lord Wooster's wife called us yesterday morning. She was tending the flower beds in the garden - she found a pocket knife by the flowers next to the side window that was used to break in the house."

"What the good Lord's name?! Why wasn't I informed straight away?" Robert said, sounding angry.

"It was yesterday sir! It was your day off..."

"There are no days off for a detective!" He shouted. "Where is the knife?"

Constable Grable disappeared on the spot and came back a few minutes later with a pocket knife in his hands and a little card attached to it.

Item A - Pocket Knife

It wasn't a very big knife. Standard pocket knife, ideal to hide on the body of the carrier. In a concealed pocket perhaps, inside a boot, strapped mid-leg. The carvings on the handle however...a black bird with its wings tucked on his body. A raven it could be, most definitely. At the very bottom however...two tiny letters. Initials?

CB

"Melvin!" He shouted while putting the knife inside his pocket. The police officer showed up on the spot. "I'm going out if anyone asks for me" Robert said as he put his hat on. "Police matters, ok?"

"Certainly sir!" Constable Grable said. He saw Detective Shaw leaving the police station in a hurry, wishing one day, it would be him a detective, running out the same door on an important mission.

The rehearsal had finished for quite some time. People had started gathering outside, taking their seats in the auditorium. If Terry played with as much fire in his gut and his gaze the same night, Hamlet would rock the theatre to its foundations.

Robert had been delighted and worried at the same time. The line between reality and fiction had been blurred so much...the same way a stone is thrown in a glass like lake, disturbing the peace, making the floor disappear only momentarily but doesn't Fate always act in those fleeting moments of blindness?

Terry balanced precariously on that blurred line. He could be the controlled, mature self he had managed to build over the years with much difficulty and equal measure of courage or descent into Hamlet's madness, letting himself a hostage of his thoughts and feelings.

The sweat that had soaked his clothes, during the rehearsal had dried up. His shirt was left open down to a deep V, since when it was sticking like wet paper on his skin. He was sitting on the chair in the dressing room, with his head bowed between his legs, gathering himself before the play started.

"Are you alright?"

"I'm fine Robert." Terry said without having moved from his place. "I just need a few minutes alone."

"Just to know, you were mesmerising, Terry..." He said before leaving him. "Whatever bothers you, channel it my son inside your acting, don't let it inside..."

Terry lifted his head up, his stare still blazing like the stars in the sky. He gave his boss a tired but sincere smile. Robert closed the door behind him, leaving Terry alone.

The day was overcast with a sky an endless grey canvas, even if the warmth of summer was still present. The "Street of Silk Stockings" was as busy as ever. Alice had taken her place behind the stall, relieving one of her girls from her post so she could go to have her lunch. The market itself was a kaleidoscope of colours, sounds and smells coming from the food stalls. Everything and everyone came together in this chaotic concert that took place every day in Berwick Street Market in Soho.

Alice herself and some of the young women she employed, kept a stall there, selling silk scarves, big floppy sun hats for the ladies, and all kinds of little trinkets that could attract the eyes and tickle the fancy of passer-byes, women especially who were prone to such type of impulse buying.

The street was always quite busy and the number of stalls and shops that were open on both sides, made it quite narrow, enough for a car to pass through on slow speed. Detective Constable (DC) Shaw ordered the driver to turn into Berwick Street. The man turned to question the order with a doubtful look in his eyes, but his superior insisted. People were parting on both sides for the police car to pass through, till they reached Alice's stall. Robert opened the door and looked at the woman behind the merchandise.

"A'right Guv?" She shouted, with one brow arched, sounding playful.

"Hello Alice..." He said back to her. He raised his voice to be heard.

"Is there somfing you need...buyin' for the missus?" She shouted once more with her arms crossed around her chest but not having moved an inch from behind the stall.

"Aye, why don't you pick me up this scarf over there and bring it over Alice?" He said and pointed to a light blue and green that was hanging at the sides of the stall.

Alice told the other girl who was still with her to pick up the scarf.

"I want you to bring it, Alice..."

The girl stopped and looked at the woman, whose brain was working fast behind her liquid hazel eyes. The edges of her lips curled up. Hid all her thoughts behind the smile but her eyes remained those of an animal measuring the danger that may be coming their way. "Certainly, as you wish Guv..." She said. She walked at the front of the stall, picked up the scarf, folded it neatly. She stood in front of the open car door. The detective pulled the scarf from Alice's hand and found resistance. "It'll be two guineas Guv..." She said, with her stare firmly on him.

"Why don't go come in the car Alice...we'll go for a ride and we can negotiate the price..." He said slowly, moving towards the other side of the car. People had started paying attention. Alice didn't want that. She came in after telling her girl to take care of a stand for a little while. DC Shaw gave the order for the driver to leave once she closed the door behind her.

Soon after they were speeding through the roads of Soho. She turned towards him with the eyes of a fox. "Looking good Guv."

He smiled, playing his part. "Long time no see Alice." He said. "You've turned into the straight and narrow now?"

"We do what we can..." She said back and shrugged her shoulders.

"Why don't I believe you...?" He asked, stretching his words.

She looked out on the streets, trying to understand where they were heading. "You choose to do so, Guv." She replied without turning to face him.

He stretched his hand towards her. Grabbed her chin between his fingers, forcing her to turn to him. "A fox like you...change her ways...?" He said slowly and tutted in denial.

Her stare hardened on the spot. "Where we're goin' Constable Shaw?" She asked, suspicions flying in her eyes.

"Oh, just a drive...that's all Alice. Nothing to worry your pretty head 'bout..."

She turned back to looking at the streets. The houses were turning posher the more they drove. They were passing through good neighbourhoods. Suddenly she realised. Her body tensed.

"Where were you by the way on the night of 26th of June, Alice?" He asked her.

She didn't move. Her stomach twisted inside her but she remained calm. "Guv, I don't even remember what I ate yesterday..." She responded.

"I could book you and bring you to the police station. You can remember there." He threatened her.

"Bullshit!" She reacted. "What for? I'm clean."

"Non-licensed stall, it's not difficult to make papers disappear..." He said with an outmost conviction. She was certain he would do it.

"I was with my man..." She turned and looked at him.

"You have a man now, do you?" He asked her and came nearer her. "I thought I was your weakness..." He whispered with his eyes only a breath's distance from hers.

She clenched her jaw to the feeling of his index finger sliding alongside it. The car turned and reduced speed. The detective turned to the driver. Stop here. They had arrived to their destination. Alice's eyes widened. She had realised they were heading towards the crime scene. The detective came out the car. He leaned inside and looked at Alice. "Why don't you come with me, Alice? "He prompted her to come out the car and follow him.

He knocked the door and asked at the servant to get the lady of the house downstairs. A few minutes later, Lady Ophelia Wooster stood at the front door. Detective Constable Shaw greeted her.

"I believe you found this, Lady Wooster..." He said and produced out of his pocket Christian's knife. His eyes were on Alice's face despite the direction of his question. She took a sharp breath in as if someone had punched her in the stomach. She had warned that bastard and he had done nothing...The flames of anger rose inside her gut.

"Indeed Constable Shaw." She said while she kept looking at the unknown woman that stood by his side. She looked working class, that was for certain, but her face was somewhat familiar.

Shaw's eyes moved from the one woman to the other. "Er, excuse me to ask, but do you know each other?" He asked. Lady Ophelia looked perplexed, trying to remember.

"Definitely not." Alice said almost immediately, wanting to quench any possibility of Lady Ophelia to remember her. She indeed had visited once before, her being the seamstress assistant. Together they had arrived to adjust some of her dresses as she had lost weight and wanted to take them in a little bit to make them fit better. That is when she had mapped the downstairs house. Where the study room and the safe was...It took some skill to be able to get the information without making the lady feel suspicious. Alice turned her head down.

"Can you point me Lady Wooster at the point where you found the knife?" He asked. Se was more than keen to help. She smiled and led them both to the side of the house. The pathway was narrow with the flower beds running along the tall evergreen hedges. They passed by the window where Alice had entered the house. She glanced at it. The whole window with the hole she had cut with the diamond had been replaced.

They stopped a little further down. "Here it was." Lady Ophelia said and knelt down, showing the exact spot, between the mustard yellow and violet pansies. Robert kept looking at Alice. Her worry had turned into sweat. She could feel it at her neck, her hairline. They walked a little further down. Reached the back garden. There was an opening at the hedges. "Suppose the woman run and escaped through there..." He said to himself, loud enough for both of women to hear him. He walked towards that opening. When he reached it, he turned and looked at Alice. "Isn't that right Alice?" He asked with a raised voice. "What do you say?"

Lady Ophelia, turned and fixed her stare on Alice. She was confused and started looking worried. "What is this all about Constable?" She turned and asked the detective who was walking back, to where the women were.

"Tell her Alice..." He ordered her. She wanted to run but she kept her ground. Her face turned to stone.

"There is nothing to say Guv." She said.

"Does her voice remind you of anything Lady Wooster?" He turned and asked her.

The woman's eyes widened. "You're scaring me Constable! Are you're implying this woman is...was...?"

He chuckled. "Of course not!" He said. "I'm just testing a new way of researching...getting to the truth by association." He added and looked at Alice. She was paler than before. Blazing was her stare.

The woman breathed a sigh of relief. "I see!" He exclaimed. "Well without meaning anything Miss...Alice, the woman had similar timbre in her voice but hers was an angrier tone, can't very much explain it." She added. "I'm sorry Constable." Her lips stretched into an apologetic smile.

"Oh, you were more than a great help Lady Wooster!" He said back while they walked back to the front of the house. "And thank you for being such a good sport with my unfamiliar detective ways." They went inside the car.

He turned to Alice when they left. "So this is the knife you used to stab Christian Blake..."He said to her.

She retracted to the side of the car as if he held something poisonous. Looked at him. "You're not going to pin this to me Robert." She said to him. "You've got nothing. Absolutely nothing."

He smiled.

"My man won't like this either..." She whispered.

"Are you threatening me Alice?" He asked her.

She denied it. "I'm just saying, I'm innocent, ok?" She said, letting the anger out. "Go find another poor sod to pin this on."

They had reached their spot. Close to Berwick Street. He opened the door for her. "Oh, I think I'm in the right direction." He said as she went out. "Goodbye Alice."

He came in the car, lowered the window down. "I'm sure we'll meet again."

She paced between the four walls of her living room, a trail of cigarette smoke mapping her anxiety as it snaked above her. Christian was late. Very late in fact. If he wasn't to show up in the next five minutes she wasn't sure whether they'd be in time for the curtain opening.

If you asked Candy right now, she was crossed with all men in her life. Christian and his unexplained disappearances. Archie and his incessant meddling in her life.

Last but not at all least, Terry...

Who came out of nowhere, barging in her life, turning it upside down. Siding with Archie, messing up with her love life. Her fingers rested on her cheek. She still felt the slap of his hand on her face. She knew her sharp words cut him but he had been so infuriating!

He hadn't understood what it meant to actually seek to find happiness. She had worked hard for that damn feeling. She had crossed an ocean in search for it. She had changed her name. But most of all, she went in head on collision with everything that she was before. Becoming selfish, putting herself first for once. Having no fear to feel.

Feel everything, try everything, live everything. Embrace. Not hide in the middle of nowhere, letting her life get by, writing endless letters to everyone like a prison inmate. She loved her mothers and she loved Pony's home, she would give her life for them, they were her family and it was her home she left back. But finally she had felt happy. There had been a whole wide world out there and she had been drowning inside thoughts, and memories and what ifs, wondering what Terry was doing. Was he happy with Susanna? Cutting all the articles she used to find inside the newspaper, carrying his name.

Then one day, as she laid under the Father tree, watching the sunlight playing hide and seek within the thick foliage, she realised two things. She had been blessed with love. She had felt love, she had loved and she was loved by many people. Her memories...however, there was so much heartache in them. All her life she kept repeating how lucky she had been. But was she really? Or was it something she kept saying just to be able to move on, every time she was knocked down? The grief and the abuse she had suffered from Eliza and Neil. The discrimination from Annie's family without her friend stopping them. Anthony's death and how Aunt Elroy accused her for his death. Every good memory she had in her life, she had to pay with double the heartache. Someone outside her life, could have said that she was cursed. Even after Terry and herself had been in the States, they kept chasing each other. Only to finally meet when Fate had decided to part them.

She really had to put one feet in front of the other, consciously climbing out of the deep hole she found herself after her break up. In the end, even Albert was snatched away from her. Leukaemia ate his body away. It was hereditary, the doctor had said in the case of the Ardleys. The thought of changing her life which till then, remained only a thought, a ghost in her mind that kept visiting her during the time she was falling asleep, slowly was becoming more and more real. The day she held the tickets to Great Britain in her hands, the ghost had become real. A new life was awaiting. She crashed her cigarette in the ashtray. Looked at the big clock on the wall. They would just about make it in time for the drawing of the curtains. There was a knock at the door.

Police officer Melvin Grable came inside the office of DC Shaw. He was deep inside papers and files, reading in silence. The copper cleared his voice. Shaw lifted his head up.

"Well?" He asked Melvin.

"You were right, Constable."

"She went over to see him..."

"She did."

"How long did she stay, approximately?"

"Could have been forty-five minutes...an hour even. They came out the building together."

"I see..." DC Shaw said, scratching his head.

"They kissed...Constable..." The police officer said. "Like properly kissing...They looked like they had the hots for each other..."

Shaw raised his brow. "You don't say..."

"You don't think them two are having a relationship Constable?...She in particular looked a bit dishevelled when they came out...there could 'ave been a lot of tossing about happening inside..."

"Hmm...Don't know yet Melvin." The Detective said. "But I do know, it's about time to pay another visit to Mr. Christian Blake."

He pressed the pedal on his motorcycle hard, speeding his way towards the theatre at Haymarket. They were quite late. Rose hadn't been impressed. Her arms were around his torso, holding him tight. He felt her leaning her body on his back. He threw excuses again. Alice like a hurricane had entered his house, swearing with an intensity and a force that could put the men at the Thames docks to shame.

She had given him a right old royal bollocking and he had deserved it. With all that business finding out who Terry was in Rose's life, the warning Alice had given him on Sunday afternoon had flown straight into oblivion. Thus now the knife was at the hands of Robert Shaw. And he had pressed Alice into a mighty tight corner for it. In front of Ophelia Wooster. He had to tip his hat to him however. That was one smart move to unsettle Alice big time, test her, wait for that mistake to happen.

He had realised that the moment she described everything that happened to her. She had looked like a madwoman the way she walked up and down, without any stop, riding hard the adrenaline rush the fear had injected inside her veins.

"Slow down." He had said slowly.

She had stopped. Flames coming out of her eyes. "You mean that this happened today and you rushed here to tell me - on the same day, today?"

Indeed, this had been her mistake. Her mind having been dipped inside thick fog. He had stood up, pushed her back to the wall. "First of all, the knife was your bloody mistake, alright?!" He had shouted.

She hadn't said anything. He had turned equally angry. Was he to blame? He had suffered a fucking stabbing, he had been head over heels inside the shit MacDonald had caused for him and now...Alice had lost the knife. She had the nerve to come all the way to give him a hammering because he had forgotten to go and have a look for it...Oh, he risked to explode. It had been so clear inside his eyes where a huge storm was gathering. "I said, alright?!"

She had nodded her head. "How can you be so stupid? You know that you've been used as a fucking bait right?"

Most probably, someone would have been downstairs, across the street, behind the corner of the buildings, following her moves already. "What shall we do now?" She had asked him.

"You stay here; we stay here for a good hour..." He said back to her. "I'll have to go Alice, and now I'll be late."

He had disappeared in the bedroom. She had come behind him. Watched him change shirts. The bandage had been only a small one now, covering just about the spot where the knife had gone in. She hadn't pull her eyes away from his half naked body. Her cheeks had been burning when he had turned to look at her, while he buttoned up the shirt.

"It's fine. Doesn't even bother me much." He had said, referring to his wound. He had shoved the shirt inside his trousers. Passed the suspenders over his shoulders. Wore his black waistcoat. His jacket.

"You look dressed up to the nines. Going anywhere special?" She had asked him.

"Going to see Hamlet at Haymarket with Rose" He had said.

"Ahhh! I see...That actor with his sights to your Rose." She had commented, while crossing her arms on her chest.

"Not of your goddamn business Alice." His voice had changed.

Her eyes were lit with surprise. "It's true then!"

He had stopped and nailed a stare on her face. "Hey!" He had shouted. "Did you hear me what I said?"

"Cagey...! Ok! Keeping my mouth shtum..."

He had rolled a cigarette. Sat down at the table, poured him a glass of wine, poured another one, passed it to her. "Here." He had given her the glass. She had taken it and sat on the couch. He had taken a drag of his cigarette, examining her face. On another day, another time, she could have modelled for him. With those light-coloured hazel eyes of hers, able to throw arrows without fear, her expressive mouth, strong jaw, will and life inside her movements. "Did he frighten you?" He had asked her.

"He did a little...but I know him already, we go way back." She had said.

"Is that so...?"

Robert Shaw was the one to catch her, years ago, her first big loot. A jewellery shop. But she had thought on her feet. She had been daring. Managed to slip the rocks in his pocket before he could even realise what was going on. She escaped. He had made it his mission to put her behind bars since then. He had the hots for her.

"Oh, the famous pocket slip." He had smiled.

The hour had passed. Rose would not be happy. They would have to rush to the theatre. He had got up, prompted Alice to get up too. He had stood in front of her, looked at her appearance. He had put his fingers through her hair, messed them up. He had seen the surprise in her eyes. Chose to say nothing, enjoying the question in her mind. She should learn to trust him. He unbuttoned the two top buttons of her shirt. Pulled the shoulder down from her light cardigan.

"We can go now..." He had said to her. She didn't move straight away. "We had a lot of fun with your visit, didn't we?" He had asked her with a side smile and a wink. If someone had followed them, best approach was to convince them that the reason was nothing else than some fling between them two.

They were approaching Haymarket. How he would explain that to Rose, he left for a later moment to think. Or perhaps come clean once and for all, while away. He came to hate all those lies he was laying upon her. And they seem to get worse, the more he entered deep into this mess. When you are sucked in quick sand, the more you drown, the thicker the rope you need to get out of this. He pressed his lips. "Almost there, love!" He shouted to Rose. He cupped her hands briefly with his left hand, before he put it back on the handle of the motorcycle.

Alice and himself had come out the building. His motorcycle parked at the front. He had looked around, thoughtful, then turned towards her, put his hand around her waist and drew her on his body. Without any warning, covered her lips with his.

"This is strictly business." He had whispered inside her mouth.

Deepened his kiss. Explored her mouth with his tongue. After a moment of hesitation, she had followed him, responded to everything he was doing. Put her arms around his neck. He pulled back and had looked deep inside her eyes, cupped her cheeks with his hands.

"If your man finds out, explain...ok?" She had nodded. "Go now...I'll be in touch."

Robert had come out on the stage, while the curtains were still down. Almost everyone had taken their seats. Not long before the curtains would go up.

"Ladies and gentlemen." He began to say. "I am delighted to see once again a full Theatre Royal. There is an announcement I have to make. Due to personal reasons in today's Hamlet performance, we won't see our esteemed John Barrymore, but rather a new actor. New, of course, is in the manner of speaking. The young and very talented Terrence Graham has already more than ten years of acting with us under his belt, and his progress into becoming one of the lead actors in the Stratford troupe has been unwavering and very exciting.

Rose and Christian rushed inside the theatre. Showed the tickets to the theatre manager that stood on the door of the auditorium. Gave him their apologies for being so late and were shown in. They saw Robert on the stage. Rose breathed a sigh of relief. The play hadn't started. They took their seats at the centre of the third row, on the front stalls. Robert glanced at the late couple who were taking their seats. He smiled.

"Without further ado, I hope you enjoy the performance tonight. Ladies and Gentlemen, Hamlet..." He said, bowed and left the stage. The lights dimmed, the curtains went up.

Terry had a lot riding in this performance. Perhaps one of his most important ones. From all the roles he had played through his career so far, Hamlet resonated in his heart the most. For he had felt all the feelings, Hamlet had felt. And how indecision had torn him inside. For ten years even. Revenge, passion, seeking the reasons to live, what was life about? On his darkest days, it was Hamlet's question whether he would dream when dead, that kept him going. He had lost her, but he had her visit him, in his dreams.

She'd be here, finally to see him. She had refused first time round, when Eleanor sent her tickets. It was the only time he had done this. It was childish to want so much for her to see him but she had been the one who had inspired in him the courage to follow his dreams.

And then there was Sir Archibald Flower, the manager of the Shakespeare estate. If he was impressed enough...his stay in New York could come to an end. A possible new life beckoned. Only problem was...did he want to live in the same place where Christian and Rose lived? Witness their relationship develop and change, mature, create a family even in front of his eyes? He shuddered. He rubbed his face with his hands in an effort to surface from the Neverland of his thoughts.

Whatever the situation was, his gut was telling him he stood at the precipice of something. For the time being it remained unknown. He tried to hold everything within. He had to. For Robert, if for no one else. He wiped the sweat off his neck before he switched the lights off and left the dressing room.

It was time.

With black kohl smudged eyes, and wrinkled, sweat drenched clothes, by God, Terry had left long ago. Hamlet walked towards the stage.

Elsinore castle came into the view, dark and looming, under the light of the torchlights. Silence spread in the audience, watching the play unfold. The army officers were on the night guard, when the ghost of their late King of Denmark appeared.

Candy tried to settle down and be absorbed by the play. She wondered how Terry was doing. Was he behind the curtains perhaps? She cast a side glance to Christian. He seemed quiet. He had been held back by some clients, he had told her...She really hated everything that Terry had revealed to her. She was questioning everything that wasn't going according to plan now. Was Christian telling her the truth? She really had to trust him.

The Ghost exited the stage and the officers followed. The walls of the castle darkened, the audience was transported in one of its rooms. Sombre, austere room. A long table with a couple of candelabras on it. A light shone, lighting up the "room". Some chairs and stools were around. A celebration is taking place. King Claudius has married Queen Gertrude - Hamlet's mother - two months after the King and Hamlet's father died. Hamlet suspects Claudius of having murdered his father.

Scene II. A room of state in the Castle

Enter KING CLAUDIUS, QUEEN GERTRUDE, HAMLET, POLONIUS, LAERTES, VOLTIMAND, CORNELIUS, Lords, and Attendants

The breath left from inside Candy's chest. Her world shrunk to only that she viewed on the stage, the moment Terry's figure, dressed in black, looking dishevelled and melancholic, his face was mesmerising. You couldn't draw your eyes away.

"Well, I'll be damned..." She heard Christian whisper. He turned and stared at his girl. She too was trying to work what had happened. She looked more taken aback than he. She had brought her hands to her chest. Turned to see him.

"I had no idea..." She whispered to him. "Something must have happened to Barrymore." They both turned to the stage. Rose however, had to steady her breath because her heart had jumped to her throat by the shock. Hundreds of butterflies flew inside her stomach, when Terry took a chair, sat down and looked at the audience. His stare fell on their row. He seemed he had seen her, but he wasn't Terry. It was Hamlet that had cast his eyes on her. Exactly as he looked when he caught up with her at the backstage corridor, forcing her with his kiss to face her feelings for him. Goosebumps erupted on her skin.

KING CLAUDIUS

Take thy fair hour, Laertes. Time be thine, And thy best graces spend it at thy will! But now, my cousin Hamlet, and my son -

HAMLET (He speaks with his face to the audience)

[aside] A little more than kin, and less than kind!

KING CLAUDIUS

How is it that the clouds still hang on you?

HAMLET (Turned, gave a seemingly naive smile, hiding sarcasm)

Not so, my lord. I am too much i' th' sun.

GERTRUDE (Stepped in the conversation, trying to talk some sense to her son)

Good Hamlet, cast thy nighted colour off,
And let thine eye look like a friend on Denmark.
Do not for ever with thy vailed lids
Seek for thy noble father in the dust.
Thou know'st 'tis common. All that lives must die,
Passing through nature to eternity.

HAMLET (Turned to her, says in a mocking tone)

Ay, madam, it is common.

GERTRUDE

If it be,
Why seems it so particular with thee?

HAMLET (His stare becomes more alive in its protest)

Seems, madam, Nay, it is. I know not 'seems.'
'Tis not alone my inky cloak, good mother,
Nor customary suits of solemn black,
Nor windy suspiration of forc'd breath,
No, nor the fruitful river in the eye,
Nor the dejected havior of the visage,
Together with all forms, moods, shapes of grief,
'That can denote me truly. These indeed seem,
For they are actions that a man might play;
But I have that within which passeth show-
These but the trappings and the suits of woe.

Claudius attempts to describe to Hamlet how it is the course of life, everything that is alive to die. A father losing his father and the father of his having lost a father too.

We pray you throw to earth
This unprevailing woe, and think of us
As of a father; for let the world take note
You are the most immediate to our throne,
And with no less nobility of love
Than that which dearest father bears his son
Do I impart toward you. For your intent
In going back to school in Wittenberg,
It is most retrograde to our desire;
And we beseech you, bend you to remain
Here in the cheer and comfort of our eye,
Our chiefest courtier, cousin, and our son.

GERTRUDE

Let not thy mother lose her prayers, Hamlet.
I pray thee stay with us, go not to Wittenberg.

HAMLET

I shall in all my best obey you, madam.

Claudius asks for his newly wedded wife and mother of Hamlet to follow him to their room. Everyone leaves Hamlet alone on the stage.

Hamlet gets up, walks on the stage. The anger he was hiding, mixed with the grief of losing his father sips out his soul and sinks into his words. Disgusted he speaks of this union between his mother and his uncle having become formal two months after the death of his father. Before even the salt of her tears dried on her cheeks.

Ere yet the salt of most unrighteous tears
Had left the flushing in her galled eyes,
She married. O, most wicked speed, to post
With such dexterity to incestuous sheets!
It is not, nor it cannot come to good.

But break my heart, for I must hold my tongue!

He said, with glazed eyes, his stare falling at the front stalls.

Christian threw side glances to Rose who was watching as if hypnotised. He had to admit, he didn't expect this performance either. This intensity of the feelings behind Terry's voice, having inhabited Hamlet's life and psyche utterly and completely. But on the same hand, knowing what he knew by now, he wondered whether Terry was using Hamlet's voice to express his own grief and anger of another relationship which he must have detested from the moment he found out. He wondered whether he could see them, but in the semi darkness they had been under, he doubted he would.