School of Media, Culture and Creative Arts Hybrid Texts and Historical Fiction Ian Nichols This thesis is presented for the Degree of Doctor of Philosophy (Creative Writing) of Curtin University May, 2011 ABSTRACT Hybrid Texts and Historical Fiction Composed of The Bloodiest Rose , Novel And Truth, Fiction and History, Exegesis By Ian Nichols The Bloodiest Rose is based on the premise that the fair copies of Shakespeare’s plays are discovered, and a production of his previously unknown Henry VII takes place in Sydney. It is an attempt to create a narrative which is factual, entertaining and truthful. The exegesis is an analysis of how fiction is able to form a framework by which the facts may be told differently, but still faithfully, as human truths. INDEX The Bloodiest Rose page 1 Truth, Fiction and History 230 1 Introduction 230 2 Truth and Fiction 233 3 Alternate History 243 4 The Flashman Novels 250 5 The Bloodiest Rose 258 6 Conclusion 266 7 Bibliography 267 THE BLOODIEST ROSE By Ian Nichols 1 2 A History of King Henry the Sixth of England The first part By William Shakespeare. 3 Right Worshipful, Henry Wriothesley, Earl of Southampton, My humble duty remembered, hoping in the Almighty of your health and prosperity, my most humble and dutiful thanks for your Lordship’s bountiful goodness towards me at all times, I have made bold to present your Honourable Lordship with such poor and homely things as I have made under your patronage and after, in the hope that such memories as are within these will remain with you when I am gone. My life is within these words. Much of it you already know and it has become familiar to you as you were my good patron for many years. The poor attempts at poetry were for you, although, for a time, you favoured another, one who lies dearly within both our memories as a mark for our love, and as great a poet as ever lived upon this weary world. Of him, I could not be jealous, although he, for a poor moment in time, made me fear for your path. Enough, he is dead, sadly dead, with no more jests. I have added not one morsel to the texts; they are my fair copies, held close by me these many years, as close as my children. Forgive them their imperfections, as I forgive my children theirs, for these are in the ways of making some kin of yours, my good lord, engendered by your generosity and your love. I have put words to them regarding their nurture and their case, a few pardons for how they came to be made and for what beggarly purposes they were performed. I have, in particular, noted some details regarding the poor work that walked once upon a guarded stage, which came from the rudiments of intrigue and a history unknown by common chroniclers, but known to the few who walked in shadows for a while. I place it in your hands as evidence of the trust and love in which I hold you, for it is my very life if seen by unwonted eyes. Your Humble and Obedient Servant, Wm Shakespeare. 4 5 CHAPTER ONE Dirty old town, dirty old town . The words to the Pogues’ song ran through Ed Cahill’s head as the bus ground its gears going down Broadway towards Central Station. He’d been away eight years, and Sydney hadn’t got much cleaner, even if some of the warehouses in Pyrmont were expensive flats now. There were memories that overlaid his sight as the shops and restaurants passed by. Grace Brothers, the La La Rooke, bits and broken pieces of the Sydney that used to be, turned into glossy toys and stood up on end for people to celebrate the architecture until it fell down, which wouldn’t be too long in the future. So much is false here, now , he thought, that used to be honest; tatty, dirty, but honest. When he’d been a kid here he’d marvelled at the old buildings and how they’d seemed to be built to last forever. Later, as a young man, catching the bus home to Balmain when he’d been on leave from the Navy, he’d started to see that they didn’t last forever, after all. They lasted right up until the time that they were too old-fashioned to be fashionable any more. As he got off the bus and made his way up to the station to catch the train to Newtown, he though that he, too, might be getting a bit like that; too old-fashioned to be fashionable any more. Ah, well, let’s see what this new show would bring. Another opening, another show. 0o0 Ed said into the intercom, “Bring up the house lights, Terry.” What had been dark, a gulf of silence, brightened into an auditorium. Down the aisle to the stage, cushions lay eviscerated like gutted animals, all horse hair and springs. Cobwebs hung from banisters and festooned the faux sconces that held the side-aisle lights. Ed stood by the central pair of double doors from the foyer, studded with leather and set in felt jambs, and looked up to the vaulted ceiling far above, hidden in gloom but with a ghostly chandelier just visible. He said “Christ, it’s a big bastard.” “The pride of the late nineteenth century.” A tall, slender figure walked from behind him into the auditorium. “It can seat roughly 2,300 people in the stalls, mezzanine and up there,” he pointed towards the ceiling, “in the gods. There are a dozen private boxes for the elite, six on each side on three levels, and they could probably squeeze another hundred people into them if they tried.” His voice was as soft and cultured as a fine Brie. Ed looked around and scratched his ginger crop. “Barry, it’s a fucking wreck.” 6 “No, not at all,” Barry MacGuire said. He waved a graceful hand in the general direction of the stage. “The engineers say it’s as structurally sound as the night its first show went up, which was, eerily enough, Richard III . The vandalism you see is all cosmetic. A team of volunteers from the local historical society will be here to start the restoration work on Monday week.” “What’s the stage like?” Ed said. “Basically sound,” Barry replied. “But it hasn’t been used for over thirty years. All the mechanisms have to be tested and repaired, if it’s absolutely necessary.” Ed looked down to the distant stage, shrouded by its velvet curtain, deep red with a gold fringe pooled on the stage floor. “Let’s go up and have a look, then.” He spoke again into the intercom next to the door. “Terry, we’re going up on the stage. How’s the bio box?” A voice came back, somewhat distorted by static. “Out of the ark. The lighting board must have been the latest thing in about 1970, and there are a couple of beautiful Grundig reel to reel tape decks for effects. There are tapes in them, but I’m scared to turn them on.” “We’ll try to get you some new stuff.” “Don’t you dare! These are classics. They make me feel like a real lighting man again.” Ed grunted and switched off the intercom. He followed Barry as he picked his way through the debris in the aisle towards the stage. Ed spotted a pair of lacy black knickers on a seat, frosted with dust. Further down there was a single grubby Adidas sneaker tied to a chair arm. The auditorium towered around him in its tatty glory, up to the ornate ceiling rose, richly decorated with plaster figures. He could see the faded gilding on the proscenium and the mantles of the boxes. Rich crimson panels lined the gods and the mezzanine, decorated with Tudor roses at their corners. There were shields painted on wooden blanks in their centres, and he could make out the designs of those on the boxes, all of them different. He mentioned that to Barry as they walked around the pit to the stairs beside the stage. “The noble houses of Britain,” Barry said. “The great houses on the boxes,” he waved languidly to the OP side, “and the household shields from Tudor to Hanover are on the Royal Box. Fin de siecle aesthetics at their most triumphant. Built in time for Victoria’s Diamond Jubilee.” He opened the little door to the steps and started to climb them, careful to keep his tailored black slacks and mohair cardigan from the dust on the brass banisters. “When it was sold, fifty years later, and the name changed, it would have been too expensive to change all the shields over, so they settled for putting a banner over the Royal Box.” 7 Ed looked to where Barry pointed, and saw the sad, dusty bunting that drooped over the first OP box. “Did the Queen ever see a show here?” he said. Barry sighed as he delicately pushed away a fold of the burgundy velvet curtain and edged towards the wing. “No, not even when she visited Australia in 1954. The theatre was dark then, after it had been made into a cinema to entertain the troops in the war. It never saw full-scale theatrical productions again, only a few touring shows. Pity, really; it was a beautiful place once.” Ed could see that. The whole design had an elegant classicism that put him in mind of the great old British theatres.