He Played for His Wife and Other Stories by Anthony Holden

Author:Anthony Holden [Holden, Anthony and Galustian, Natalie]
Language: eng
Format: epub
Publisher: Simon & Schuster UK

Shakespeare smiles indulgently, and Diana applauds with a grin while beside her Charles looks distinctly unamused. Young has meanwhile interposed his body between Hunt and the prince, so I can’t see what he’s up to. Still he has his back to me when suddenly it’s my turn to act. Shakespeare has raised. ‘A modest raise,’ quoth he, ‘perhaps even an ill-favoured raise, but mine own.’

Out of the corner of my eye I notice Charles sipping his martini. But I cannot let that distract me now. ‘Call,’ I eventually blurt, somewhat to my own surprise. The flop has brought 7c-9h-10h, and I have 4h-Jh. I badly need a heart, or an eight or a queen, but the turn brings the ace of clubs. Shakespeare bets the pot. He must have another ace, I decide, and/or a club or two.

In mid-conversation both Mozart and Olivier fold, the latter absurdly asking the former if he ever knew Peter Shaffer. All eyes are now on me.

While I sit motionless, deep in the tank, Shakespeare intones: ‘γνῶθι σεαυτόν.’

The table is a sea of blank faces.

‘Gnothi seauton,’ I transliterate helpfully for them. ‘ “Know thyself.” The Delphic oracle. So much for Ben Jonson’s taunt about “small Latin and less Greek”!’

‘It’s all Greek to me!’ quips Olivier.

‘Now you’re quoting our friend here again,’ I tell His Lordship. ‘Also Julius Caesar. Casca to Cassius. Surely you remember that?’

‘Never played Casca. I think, when playing Caesar, I was offstage at the time.’

‘But Brutus . . .’

‘Oh, do get on with it,’ Mozart intervenes. ‘I have no idea what you two are on about. And we haven’t got all . . .’ – he gestures to the expectant conductor behind him – ‘all night!’ The casino Big Band strikes up Eine kleine Nachtmusik.

‘No music during play!’ barks the floor manager.

‘Oh, I was enjoying that,’ laments the Bard. ‘One of yours, Wolfgang?’

‘Yes, indeed, one of his mighty output!’ cries a late arrival who has finally turned up, it seems, just at the right moment. ‘An honour to meet you, maestro. I’m a great admirer. My name is Pyotr Ilyich Tchaikovsky.’ He pulls up a chair between Mozart and Olivier.

The band strikes up the 1812 Overture, before being silenced again by the Grim Reaper. ‘A pleasure to meet you all, whoever most of you may be!’ smiles Tchaikovsky. ‘This looks a bit like vint. I was a dab hand at that! Bit of an obsessive, actually.’

Again all the other players look flummoxed. ‘A Russian variant of whist,’ I fill them in. ‘Pyotr here was obsessed with it. Cost him a lot of money, actually . . .’

Everyone suddenly perks up. ‘Are you ever going to play, Holden?’ snaps Mozart. His Italian librettist Lorenze da Ponte, through whom I first met Amadeus, told me he could be like this. ‘You’re about as much use as da Ponte when that Jewish-born Catholic priest was down on his luck, playing his violin in his monk’s habit in a Venetian brothel!’

‘But he lived to be ninety, Wolfgang,’ I can’t resist replying.

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