The Marlowe Papers Read Online Free PDF Page B

Christi?’
                                                                     ‘You are sharp.’
    And serious. ‘My father kept blades like you
for skinning rabbits.’
                                           Trying to prick a laugh,
    to distract you from your purpose. To no avail.
     
    ‘They train good heretics,’ you say as plain
as if I’d just assented.
     
                                               ‘I would say
    they train young men to question and debate
both sides of all positions.’
                                                         ‘And is there
    a bar on what may be counter-argued?’
                                                                         ‘No.’
    ‘The existence of God?’
                                             ‘Ah, come now.’ Watson leaps
    ahead of my answer. ‘Let us get to know
each other first. Thank goodness it’s a play.
As quite opposed to something serious.’
He clasps your shoulders. ‘Come now, gentle friend!
A play is only playful. There’s no threat
if we are entertaining make-believe.’
Your eyes assess the set of my mouth and jaw
precisely as a housewife squeezes fruit;
remain there lest I slip away. ‘I don’t
believe he’s made it up.’
                                                 ‘What are you saying?’
    ‘The atheism. Are you an atheist?’
    Watson laughs loudly, ‘Faith, he isn’t, Tom!
He’s toying with you.’
                                           ‘No, I’m not,’ I say.
    ‘Not an atheist?’
                                 ‘Not toying with you.’
                                                                             ‘Oh,’
    you say, and I watch your face fall like a bird
hit by a slingshot. So surprised by ‘Oh’
that the fight quite leaves me.
                                                             ‘Nothing more than “oh”?’
     
    There is a folding sadness in your face.
‘If you don’t know God’s not an argument,
I cannot help,’ you say.
                                               ‘You want to help?’
    ‘A talented writer like yourself? I do.’
The strangest sense, then, of your tenderness
washed over me. I’d read you very wrong.
‘I’m open to help,’ I say, ‘all kinds.’
                                                                             And Tom
    slips in, ‘He hasn’t any money, Kit.
He’s a second son. His brother has the manor.
Handsome place, too. At Scadbury, in Kent.
But Tom’s as penniless as the rest of us.’
     
    We spent some borrowed pennies anyway
on further beers. You softened visibly.
and as we parted, grasped my hand and said,
‘You know God’s name is Jove?’
                                                           ‘Of course.’
                                                                                   You dipped
    my finger in the frothy head that lay
at the bottom of my exhausted cup and spelt
across the tabletop: ‘I-O-V-E’.
‘As it is written,’ you said, quietly.
     
    I close that memory, and sleep alone.

HOTSPUR’S DESCENDANT
    Just two days later, I was called away
to the continent. The Spanish invasion fleet
was building off the Netherlands. Inland
the Duke of