Light Thickens ra-32 Read online

  Peregrine, on his way to the rehearsal room, saw this and found it all good. The turntables, right and left, presented outside walls. The fireplace appeared. The gallows came into view and was anchored.

  It was all smooth, he thought, and moved on into the rehearsal room. He had called the scene — he thought of it as the Aleppo scene — when the witches greet Macbeth. He was a little early but most of them were there. Banquo was there.

  If they had been the crew of a ship, he thought, Barrabell would have been the sea-lawyer. He knew what Barrabell had been like as a schoolboy. Always closeted with other, smaller boys who listened furtively to him, always behind the dubious plan but never answerable. Always the troublemaker but never openly so. A boy to be dreaded.

  Peregrine said: “Good morning, everybody.”

  “Good morning, Perry.”

  Yes. There he was with two of the witches. Silly little things, listening to his nonsense, whatever it was. The first witch, Rangi, hadn’t arrived yet. He would not listen to Barrabell, Peregrine thought. He goes his own way. He too is an actor and a good one. For that I respect him.

  Bruce Barrabell detached himself from the witches and made for him.

  “Happy, Perry?” he asked, coming close to him. “Sorry! I shouldn’t ask, should I? It’s not done. Unlucky.”

  “Very happy, Bruce.”

  “We haven’t got the Boy Beautiful with us this morning?”

  “Do you mean William Smith? He’ll be here.”

  “He’s dropped the hyphen, of course. Poor little chap.”

  Peregrine, inside himself, did what actors call a double-take. His heart skipped a beat. He looked at Barrabell, who smiled at him. Damn, Peregrine thought. He knows. Oh, damn, damn, damn.

  Rangi came in and looked at the clock. Just in time.

  “Second witches’ scene,” Peregrine said. “Witches on from the three points of the compass. There will be a rumble of thunder. Just a hint. You arrive at exactly the same time and at dead center. Rangi through the passage. Each with a disheveled marketing bag. Blondie, Prompt. Wendy, O.P. It wasn’t together last time. You’ll have to get a sign. Rangi’s got the farthest to walk. The other two are equal. Perhaps you should all have sticks? I don’t want any hesitation. Wait for the thunder and start when it stops. Try that. Ready? Rumble, rumble. Now.”

  The three figures appeared, hobbled on, met. “Much better,” said Peregrine. “Once more. This time greet each other. Rangi center. A smacking kiss on each of his cheeks simultaneously by each of you. In front. Together. Right. Dialogue.”

  They used their natural, well-contrasted voices. The rhymes were stressed. The long speech about the hapless sailor gone to Aleppo was a curse.

  “Though his bark cannot be lost

  Yet it shall be tempest-tos’t.

  Look what I have.”

  And Rangi scuffled in his market bag.

  “Show me, show me,” slavered the greedy Wendy.

  Rangi’s hand in his bag was stilled. He himself was still. Frozen. And then he suddenly opened the bag and peered inside. He withdrew his clenched hand.

  “Here I have a pilot’s thumb

  Wrack’d as homeward he did come,”

  said Rangi. He opened his hand very slightly.

  “What’s wrong?” Peregrine asked. “Haven’t they given you something for the thumb?”

  Rangi opened his hand. It was empty.

  “I’ll speak to Props. On you go.”

  “A drum! a drum!” said Wendy. “Macbeth doth come.”

  And now their dance, about, about, turn and twist, bow, raise their joined hands. All very quick.

  “Peace! The charm’s wound up.”

  “Yes,” Peregrine said. “That speech has improved enormously. It’s really alarming now. One feels the wretched sailor in his doomed ship, tossing and turning, not dying and not living. Good. We’ll go on. Banquo and Macbeth. One moment, though. Banquo, the whole scene has been very carefully ordered so that Macbeth, the convention of the soliloquy having changed over four centuries, will not seem to be within hearing distance of his brother officers. You and Ross and Angus are talking together. Way upstage. But very quietly and with virtually no movement. Shakespeare himself seems to have felt the usual convention not really good enough. His I thank you, gentlemen is a dismissal. They bow and move as far away as they can get. The soliloquy, I needn’t tell you, is of great importance. So no loud laughter, if you please. Okay?”

  “I took the point the first time you made it,” said Banquo.

  “Good. That will save me the fatigue of making it a third time. Are you ready? The earth hath bubbles.”

  The scene went forward. The messages of favors to come were delivered. The golden future opened out. Everything was lovely, and yet… and yet…

  Presently they embarked on the cauldron scene. Peregrine developed the background of whispering. “Double, double toil and trouble —” Would it be heard? He tried a murmur; not good. “We’ll try it whispered when the whole company is here,” Peregrine said. “Six groups, each beginning after trouble. I think that’ll work.”

  The witches were splendid. Clear and baleful. Their movements were explicit. They were real. But Peregrine was conscious that Rangi was troubled by something. He did not fumble a cue or muddle a movement or need a prompt, but he was unhappy. Unwell? Sickening for something? Oh, God, please not, thought Peregrine. Why is he looking at me? Am I missing something?

  “And points at them for his.” Thunder and fog. Blackout, the door shut, and Lennox knocking on it. The scene ends.

  “All right,” said Peregrine. “I’ve no notes specifically for you. It will need adjustments, no doubt, when we get the background noise settled. Thank you all very much.”

  They all left the rehearsal room, except Rangi.

  “Is something amiss? What’s the matter?”

  He held out his market bag. “Will you look in it, sir?” Peregrine took the bag and opened it.

  Out of it a malignant head stared up at him. Mouth open, eyes open, teeth bared. Pinkish paws stretched upward.

  “Oh, God!” said Peregrine. “Here we go again. Where was this bag?”

  “With the other two on the props table. Since yesterday.”

  “Anyone look in it?”

  “I shouldn’t think so. Only to put the rat in. There was no means of telling which bag belonged to whom. It might have been Blondie’s. She’d have fainted or gone into high-powered hysterics,” said Rangi.

  “She wouldn’t have looked in. Nor would Wendy. Their bags are filled with newspaper and fastened with thongs, tightly knotted. Yours isn’t because you are meant to open it and produce the pilot’s thumb.”

  “So I was meant to find it,” said Rangi.

  “It wouldn’t have worked with the other two.”

  “There’s an obvious man to have played all these silly tricks.”

  “Props?” said Peregrine.

  “Ask yourself.”

  “I do and I don’t believe it. Did you hear his outcries and threats to appeal to his union over the Banquo’s head business? Was that all my eye? We’d have to say we’ve got a bloody star-actor on the books. No. We’ve had him as Props for years. I simply cannot wear him for the job.”

  “Can’t you narrow down the field? Where everyone was at the different times? Who could have gone up to Duncan’s room with the head, for instance? As a matter of fact, I ran into him with it. Props. Coming down the ladder from Duncan’s chamber. Now I think of it,” said Rangi, “his manner was odd. I said: ‘What are you doing with that thing?’ and he said he was putting it where it ought to be. I’m sorry, Perry. I really think he’s your man, you know. He must have put it under the dish-cover, mustn’t he?”

  “He was taking the one back to the other heads in the walking men’s room. I told him to.”

  “Did you see him do it?”

  “No.”

  “Ask him if he did it.”

  “Of course I will. But
I’m sure he didn’t put it in the dish. I admit he doesn’t look too good but I’m sure of it.”

  “This blasted rat. Where did it come from? Have we been using traps?”

  “And who sets them? All right. Props. He put one up in a narrow passage where Henry couldn’t squeeze in.” (Henry was the theatre cat.) “Props told me so himself. He was proud of his cunning.”

  Rangi said: “We’ll have to look at it.”

  He opened the bag and turned it upside down. The rat’s forequarters fell with a soft plop on the floor.

  “There’s the mark of the bar across its neck. It’s deep. And wet. Its neck is broken. It’s bled,” said Rangi. “It doesn’t smell. It’s been recently killed.”

  “We’ll have to keep it.”

  “Why?”

  Peregrine was taken aback. “Why?” he said. “Upon my word I don’t know. I’m treating it like evidence for a crime and there’s no crime of that sort. Nor any sort, really. All the same… wait a bit.”

  Peregrine went to a rubbish bin, found a discarded brown-paper bag, and turned it inside out. He brought it back and held it open. Rangi picked the rat up by the ear and dropped it in. Peregrine screwed up the neck of the bag tightly.

  “Horrible beast,” he said.

  “We’d better — ssh.”

  A padded footfall and the swish of a broom sounded in the passage.

  “Ernie!” Peregrine called. “Props!”

  The door opened and he came in. How many years, Peregrine asked himself, had Ernie been Props at the Dolphin. Ten? Twenty? Dependable always. A cockney with an odd, quirky sense of the ridiculous and an oversensitive reaction to an imagined slight. Thin, sharp face. Quick. Sidelong grin.

  “Hullo, guv,” he said. “Fought you’d of gawn by now.”

  “Just going. Caught any rats?”

  “I never looked. ’Old on.”

  He went to the back of the room behind a packing case. A pause and then Props’s voice. “ ’Ullo! What’s this, then?” A scuffling and he appeared with a rattrap on a long string.

  “Look at this,” he said. “I don’t get it. The bait’s gone. So’s the rat’s head. There’s been a rat. Fur and gore and hindquarters all over it. Killed. Somebody’s been and taken it. Must of.”

  “Henry?” asked Peregrine.

  “Nah! Cats don’t eat rats. Just kill ’em. And ’Enery couldn’t get up that narrer passage. Nah! It’s been a man. ’E’s pulled out the trap, lifted the bar, and taken the rat’s forequarters.”

  “The caretaker?”

  “Not ’im. They give ’im the willies, rats do. It ought to be ’im that sets the trap, not me, but ’e won’t.”

  “When did you set it, then, Ernie?”

  “Yesterday morning. They was all collected in ’ere waiting for rehearsal, wasn’t they?”

  “Yes. We did the crowd scenes,” said Peregrine. He looked at Rangi. “You weren’t here,” he said.

  “No. First I’ve heard of it.”

  Peregrine saw an alert, doubtful look on Props’s face.

  “We’ve been wondering who knew all about the trap. Pretty well the whole company seems to be the answer,” said Peregrine.

  “That’s right,” Props said. He was staring at the brown-paper parcel. “What’s that?” he asked.

  Peregrine said: “What’s what?”

  “That parcel. Look. It’s mucky.”

  He was right. A horrid wetness seeped through the paper. “It’s half your rat, Props,” said Peregrine. “Your rat’s in the parcel.”

  “ ’Ere! What’s the game, eh? You’ve taken it off of the trap and made a bloody parcel of it. What for? Why didn’t you say so instead of letting me turn myself into a blooming exhibition? What’s all this about?” Props demanded.

  “We didn’t remove it. It was in Mr. Western’s bag.”

  Props turned and looked hard at Rangi. “Is that correct?” he asked.

  “Perfectly correct. I put my hand in to get the pilot’s thumb and” — he grimaced — “I touched it.” He picked up his bag and held it out. “Look for yourself,” he said. “It’ll be marked.”

  Props took the bag and opened it. He peered inside. “That’s right,” he said. “There’s marks.” He stared at Peregrine and Rangi. “It’s the same bloody bugger what did the other bloody tricks,” he said.

  “Looks like it,” Peregrine agreed. And after a moment: “Personally, I’m satisfied that it wasn’t you, Ernie. You’re not capable of such a convincing display of bewilderment. Or of thinking it funny.”

  “Ta, very much.” He jerked his head at Rangi. “What about him?” he asked. “Don’t ’e fink I done it?”

  “I’m satisfied. Not you,” said Rangi.

  There was a considerable pause before Props said: “Fair enough.”

  Peregrine said: “I think we say nothing about this. Props, clear up the wet patch in the witch’s bag, would you, and return it to its place on the table with the other two. Drop the rat in the rubbish bin. We’ve overreacted, which is probably exactly what he wanted us to do. From now on, you keep a tight watch on all the props right up to the time they’re used. And not a word to anyone about this. Okay?”

  “Okay,” they both said.

  “Right. Go ahead then. Rangi, can I give you a lift?”

  “No, thanks. I’ll take a bus.”

  They went out through the stage door.

  Peregrine unlocked his car and got in. Big Ben tolled four o’clock. He sat there, dog-tired suddenly. Drained. Zero hour. This time on Saturday: the opening night and the awful burden of the play. Of lifting the cast. Of hoping for the final miracle. Of being, within himself, sure, and of conveying that security somehow to the cast.

  Why, why, why, thought Peregrine, do I direct plays? Why do I put myself into this hell? Above all, why Macbeth? And then: It’s too soon to be feeling like this; five days too soon. Oh, God deliver us all.

  He drove home to Emily.

  “Do you have to go out again tonight?” she asked.

  “I’m not sure. I don’t think so.”

  “How about a bath and a zizz?”

  “I ought to be doing something. I can’t think.”

  “I’ll answer the telephone and if it’s important I swear I’ll wake you.”

  “Will you?” he said helplessly.

  “Come on, silly. You haven’t slept for two nights.”

  “Haven’t I?”

  “Not a wink.”

  She went upstairs. He heard the bath running and smelled the stuff she used in it. If I sit down, he thought, I won’t get up.

  He wandered to the window. There was the Dolphin across the river, shining in the late-afternoon sun. Tomorrow they’ll put up the big poster. MACBETH! OPENING 23 APRIL! I’ll see it from here.

  Emily came down. “Come on,” she said.

  She helped him undress. The bath was heaven. Emily scrubbed his back. His head nodded and his mouth filled with foam.

  “Blow!”

  He blew and the foam floated about, a mass of iridescent bubbles.

  “Stay awake for three minutes longer,” said her voice. She had evidently pulled out the plug. “Come on. Out.”

  He was dried. The sensation was laughable. He woke sufficiently to fumble himself into his pajamas and then into bed.

  “Sleep,” he murmured, “that knits up the ravell’d sleave of care.”

  “That’s right,” said Emily, a thousand miles away.

  He slept.

  Across the river, not very far away as the crow flies, the theatre trembled with the rebirth of the play. The actors were gone but business manager Winter Meyer and his staff worked away in the front-of-house. Telephones rang. Bookings were made. Royalty were coming and someone from Buck House would appear the day before they opened to settle the arrangements. The police and Security people would make decisions. Chief Superintendent Alleyn and his wife were coming. The Security pundits thought it a good idea if he were to be put in the box next to the
Royalty. Chief Superintendent Alleyn received the order philosophically if not jubilantly and asked for a seat later in the season when he could watch the play rather than the house.

  “Of course, of course, my dear chap,” Winty gushed. “Anytime. Anywhere. Management seat. Our pleasure.”

  Flower shop. Cleaners. Press. Programmes. Biographical notes. Notes on the play. Nothing about superstitions.

  Winter Meyer read through the proofs and could find nothing to crack the eggshell sensitivity of any of the actors. Until he came to the piece on Banquo.

  “Mr. Bruce Barrabell, too long an absentee from the West End.” He won’t relish that, thought Winty, and changed it to “… makes a welcome return to…”

  He went through the whole thing again and then rang up the printers and asked if the Royal Programme was ready and when he could see a copy.

  Winter Meyer’s black curls were now iron gray. He had been business manager at the Dolphin ever since it was restored and remembered the play about Shakespeare by Peregrine Jay that twenty years ago had been accompanied by a murder.

  Seems a long time ago now, thought Winty. Things have gone rather smoothly since then. He touched wood with his plump white finger. Of course we’re in a nice financial position, permanently endowed by the late Mr. Conducis. Almost too secure, you might think. I don’t, he thought with a fat chuckle. He lit a cigar and returned to his work.

  He had dealt with his “In” tray. There was only an advertisement left from a wine merchant. He picked it up and dropped it in his wastebasket, exposing a folded paper at the bottom of his tray.

  Winty was an extremely tidy man and liked to say he knew exactly where everything lay on or in his desk and what it was about. He did not recognize this folded sheet. It was, he noted, a follow-up sheet of office letter paper. He frowned and opened it.

  The typed message read: “murderers son in your co.”

  Winter Meyer sat perfectly still, his cigar in his left hand and in his right this outrageous statement.

  Presently he turned and observed, on a small table, the typewriter sometimes used by his secretary for taking down dictated letters. He inserted a sheet of paper and typed the statement.