Light Thickens ra-32 Read online

  William invited him in.

  “I’ll deliver you but I won’t come in, thank you. I’m due at home. Overdue, in fact.”

  A brisk knock brought his mother to the door. A woman who was worn down to the least common denominator. She was dressed in a good but not new jacket and skirt and spoke incisively. “Yes?”

  “Hullo, Mrs. Smith,” said Peregrine. “I’ve got a call to make in this part of the world so I’ve brought William home. He’s doing very well, may I add.”

  “Thank you, Mr. Jay.” She smiled briefly at him and ushered William in as all three said good-bye in chorus.

  Peregrine drove home in a state of some confusion. He was glad the hidden-sword mystery was solved, of course, but uncertain about how much, if anything, of the explanation should be passed on to the company. In the end he decided to say something publicly to Gaston about his promising to give the wooden sword to William and William hiding it. But what about Nina Gaythorne and the others? According to William, Nina knew about the sword. How the hell did the silly old trout find out? Peregrine asked himself. Charlie? Perhaps he let it out. No. No. I’ve got it. Banquo. He was there, probably lurking around before his entrance. He could have seen. And pretty well satisfied that this was the truth, he arrived home.

  Emily heard the story of William. “Do you think he’ll keep his word?” she asked.

  “Yes, I do. I’m quite persuaded he will.”

  “What was it like? The house. And his mother?”

  “All right. I didn’t go in. Tiny house. Their own furniture. She’s as thin as a lath and definitely upper-class. I don’t remember if her circumstances came out at the trial but my guess would be that after the legal expenses were settled there was enough to buy the house or pay the rent and furnish it from what they had. He had been a well-heeled stockbroker. Mad as a hatter.”

  “And William’s at a drama school?”

  “The Royal Southwark Drama School. It’s good. They get the whole works, all school subjects. Registered as a private school. There must have been enough for William’s fees. And she’s got some secretarial job, I fancy.”

  “I’ve been trying to remember what it was like when I was six. What was he told and how much does he retain?”

  “At a guess, I’d say he was told his father was mentally very ill and committed to an asylum. No more.”

  “Poor little man,” said Emily.

  “He’ll be a good actor. You’ll see.”

  “Yes. How’s your bruise?”

  “Better every day.”

  “Good.”

  “In fact, everything in the garden is —” He pulled up. Emily saw that he had crossed his first and second fingers.

  The next day shone brightly. Peregrine and Emily drove happily along the river, over Blackfriars Bridge, and turned right for Wharfingers Lane and the theatre. The entire company had been called and had nearly all arrived and were assembling in the auditorium.

  It was to be a complete run-through of the play, with props. This would be the last one entirely for the actors. After that would come the mechanical, effects, and lights rehearsals with endless stops, adjustments, and repositionings. And then, finally, two dress rehearsals.

  Emily knew a lot of the company. Sir Dougal was delighted that she had come down to rehearsal. Why did they not see more of her in these days? Sons? How many? Three? All at school? Wonderful!

  It struck her that he was excited. Keyed up. Not attending to the answers she gave him. She was relieved when he strolled away.

  Maggie came up to her and gave her a squeeze. “I’ll want to know what you think,” she said. “Really. What you think and feel.”

  “Perry says you’re wonderful.”

  “Does he? Does he, really?”

  “Really and truly. Without qualifications.”

  “Too good. Too soon. I don’t know,” she muttered.

  “All’s well.”

  “I hope so. This play, Emmy, my dear.”

  “I know.”

  She wandered away and sat down, her eyes closed, her lips moving. Nina Gaythorne came in, draped in a multiplicity of hand-woven scarves. She saw Emily and waved the end of one of them, at the same time making a strange grimace and raising her faded eyes to contemplate the dome. It was impossible to interpret; some kind of despair? Emily wondered. She waved back conservatively.

  The man with Nina Gaythorne was unknown to Emily. Straw-colored. Tight mouth, light eyes. She guessed he was the Banquo. Bruce Barrabell. They sat together, apart from the others. Emily had the uncomfortable feeling that Nina was telling him who she was. She found herself momentarily looking into his eyes, which startled her by their sharpness and the quick furtive withdrawal of his gaze.

  Macduff, Simon Morten, she recognized from Peregrine’s description. He was physically exactly right; dark, handsome, and reckless, and, at the moment, nervous and withdrawn. A swashbuckler nevertheless.

  Here came the three witches, two girls gabbling nervously and Rangi: aloof, indrawn, anxious. Then the Royals: King Duncan, magnificent, portentous, and his two sons, to whom he seemed to lend a condescending ear. Two Murderers. The Gentlewoman and the Doctor. Lennox and Ross. Menteith. Angus. Caithness. And, coming over to Nina Gaythorne, a small boy. So that’s William, she thought. Last: huge, brooding, his claymore held upright in its harness, Gaston, the sword-bearer.

  I’m thinking about them as they are in the play, mused Emily. And they are behaving as they do in the play. No. Not behaving. How absurd of me. But they are keeping together in their groups.

  The front curtains parted and Peregrine came through.

  “This,” he said, “is an uninterrupted run-through, with props and effects. It will be timed. I’ll take notes at the end of the first half. There has been a slight tendency to drag. We’ll watch that, if you please. Right. Act One, Scene One. The Witches.”

  They went up through the box.

  Peregrine came down the temporary steps into the house and to his desk. His secretary was beside him and the mechanical people behind.

  Emily’s heart thumped. A faint, wailing cry, a gust of moaning wind, and the curtain rose.

  There are times — rare but unmistakable — in the theatre when, at rehearsal, the play flashes up into a life of its own and attains a reality so vivid that everything else fades into threadbare inconsequence. These startling transformations happen when the play is over halfway to achievement: the actors are not in costume, the staging is still in its bare bones.

  Nothing intervenes between the characters and their projection into the void. This was such a day.

  Emily felt she was seeing Macbeth for the first time. She was constantly taken by surprise. Perfect, Wonderful. Terrible, she thought.

  Duncan arrives at the castle. The sound of wings fluttering in the evening air. Peaceful. Then the squeal of pipes, the rumble of the great doors, the opening and the assembly of servants. Seyton. Lady Macbeth a scarlet figure at the top of the stairs. Don’t go in, don’t go in.

  But she welcomes him. They all go in and the doors rumble and close on them.

  Afterward Emily could not remember if the sounds Shakespeare introduces actually were heard: the cricket, the owl, the usual domestic sounds that continue in an old house when the guests are all asleep in bed. Other ambiguous sounds the Macbeths think they hear…

  It’s accomplished. The terrible imaginings are real, now, and they go to wash the blood from their hands.

  Now comes the knocking at the south entry. Enter from below the drunken Porter with his load of obscenely shaped driftwood. He commits it to the fire, piece after piece, staggers to the entry, and admits Macduff and Lennox.

  Simon Morten looked fit, his fair skin bright with the flush of health. He and Lennox brought the fresh morning air in with them, and Simon ran swiftly upstairs into Duncan’s bedroom. The door shut behind him.

  Macbeth stood very still, every nerve in his body listening. Lennox went to the fire, warmed his hands, and go
ssiped about the wildness of the nights.

  The door upstairs opened and Macduff came out.

  Extraordinary! His face was totally drained of color. He whispered: “Horror. Horror. Horror.”

  Now disaster broke: the alarum bell, the disordered guests, Lady Macbeth’s “fainting” when her husband’s speech threatened to get out of hand, the appearance of the two frightened sons, their decision to flee. The little front scene when Macduff, an old man, and Ross speak an ominous afterword, and the first part closes.

  Peregrine finished his notes. Macbeth and Macduff waited behind. They were onstage.

  “Come on,” said Peregrine. “What was the matter? You’re both good actors but you don’t turn sheet-white out of sheer artistry. What went wrong?”

  Sir Dougal looked at Simon. “You went up before I did,” he said. “You saw it first.”

  “Some idiot’s rigged a bloody mask in the King’s chamber. One of those Banquo things of Gaston’s. Open mouth, blood running out of it. Bulging eyes. I don’t mind telling you it shocked the pants off me.”

  “You might have warned me,” said Sir Dougal.

  “I tried, didn’t I? Outside the door. You and Lennox. After I said, Destroy your sight with a new Gorgon.”

  “You muttered something. I didn’t know what you were on about.”

  “I could hardly yell, ‘There’s a bloody head on the wall,’ could I?”

  “All right, all right.”

  “When you went up the first time, Sir Dougal, was it there?”

  “Certainly not. Unless —”

  “Unless what?”

  “What’s the color of the cloak attached to it?”

  “Dark gray,” said Peregrine.

  “If it was covered by the cloak I might have missed it. It was dark up there.”

  “Who could have uncovered it?”

  “The grooms?”

  “What grooms? There are no grooms,” said Simon. “Are you crazy?”

  “I was making a joke,” said Sir Dougal with dignity.

  “Funny sort of joke, I must say.”

  “There’s some perfectly reasonable explanation,” Peregrine said. “I’ll talk to the Property Master. Don’t let a damn silly thing like this upset you. You’re going very well indeed. Keep it up.”

  He slapped them both on the shoulders, waited till they had gone, and climbed the stairs to the room.

  It was extremely dark: an opening off the head of the stairs with a door facing them. The audience would see only a small inside section of one wall when this door was open. The wall, which would have a stone finish, faced the audience and ran down to stage-level, and the third wall, unseen by the audience, was simply used as a brace for the other two. It was a skeleton. A ladder leading down to the stage was propped against the floor. A ceiling, painted with joists, was nailed to this structure.

  And looming in the darkest corner, facing the doorway, the head of murdered Banquo.

  Peregrine knew what to expect but even so he got a jolt. The bulging eyes stared into his. The mouth gaped blood. His own mouth was dry and his hands wet. He walked toward it, touched it, and it moved. It was fixed to a coat hanger. The ends of the hanger rested on the corner pieces of the walls. The gray shroud had a hole, like a poncho, for the head. He touched it again and it rocked toward him and, with a whisper, fell.

  Peregrine started back with an oath, shut the door behind him, and called out, “Props!”

  “Here, guv.”

  “Come up, will you? Put the working light on.”

  He picked the head up and returned it to its place. The working light took some of the horror out of it. Props’s head came up from below. When he arrived, he turned and saw it.

  “Christ!” he said.

  “Did you put that thing there?”

  “What’d I do that for, Mr. Jay? Gawd, no.”

  “Did you miss it?”

  “Last I checked, it and its mates were all laid out in the walking gents’ room. Gawd, it’d give you the willies, woon’t it? Seeing the thing unexpected, like.”

  “Take it down and put it back, and, Ernie —”

  “Guv?”

  “Don’t mention this. Don’t say you’ve seen it. Not to anyone.”

  “Okay.”

  “I mean it. Hope to die.”

  “Hope to die.”

  “Cross your heart, Ernie. Go on. Do it. And say it.”

  “Aw, hell, guv.”

  “Go on!”

  “Cross me ’eart. ’Ope to die.”

  “That’s the style. Now. Take this thing and put it with the other. Half a jiffy.”

  Peregrine was wrapping the head in the shroud. He turned back the hem and found a thin stick about two feet long slotted into the hem. A string was knotted halfway across into another and very much longer piece. He took it to the edge of the floor and let the loose end fall. It reached to within three feet of the stage.

  Peregrine detached it, coiled it up, and put it in his pocket. He pulled out the stick, snapped it into small pieces, and gave Ernie the head, neatly parceled. He looked at the place where the head had rested and, above it, saw a strut of rough wood.

  “Preposterous!” he muttered. “Okay,” he said aloud. “We push on.” He went downstairs.

  “Second part,” he called. “Settle down, please.”

  The second part opened with Banquo alone, suspecting the truth yet not daring to cut and run. Next, Macbeth’s scene with the murderers and Seyton nearer, ever present, and then the two Macbeths together. This is perhaps the most moving scene in the play and reveals the most about them. It opens up, in extraordinary language, the nightmare of guilt, their sleeplessness, and when at last they sleep the terrifying dreams that beset them. She fights on but knows now, without any shadow of doubt, that her power over him is less than she had bargained for, while he is acting on his own, hinting at what he plans but not telling. There follows the coming of darkness and night and the release of night’s creatures. It ends with self-dedication to the dark. Now comes the murder of Banquo and the escape of Fleance. And now the great banquet.

  It begins as a front scene before the curtains. Macbeth, crowned and robed, seems for the moment in command as if he actually thrives on the shedding of blood. He is a little too loud, too boisterous in his welcome. He is sending his guests through the curtains and is about to follow when he sees Seyton in the downstage entrance. He waits for the last guest to pass through and then goes to him.

  “There’s blood upon thy face.”

  “Tis Banquo’s, then.”

  Nothing is perfect: Fleance has escaped. Macbeth gives Seyton money and signals for the curtains to be opened. And they are opened, upon the opulence of the banquet. The servants are filling glasses. Lady Macbeth is on her throne. And the ghost of Banquo, hidden, waits.

  It was going well. The masking of the stool. The timing. The nightmarish efforts of Macbeth to recover something of his royalty. Every cue observed. Thank God! Peregrine thought. It’s working. Yes. Yes.

  “Our duties and the pledge.”

  The servants swept the covers off the main dishes.

  The head of Banquo was in pride of place: outrageous and glaring on the main dish.

  “What the bloody hell is this!” Sir Dougal demanded.

  This was too much. The time for concealment was past. Strangely, Peregrine felt a sort of relief. He would no longer be obliged to offer unlikely explanations, beg people not to talk, be certain they would talk.

  He said, “Stop!” and stood up. “Cover that thing.”

  The servant who still had the oval dish-cover in his hand clapped it back over the head. Peregrine walked down the aisle. “You may sit if you want to but remain in your positions. Any staff who are here, onstage, please.”

  The assistant stage manager, Charlie, two stagehands, and Props came on and stood in a group on the Prompt side. The entire cast drew forward, some sitting onstage, others leaning against the set.

  “S
omewhere among you,” said Peregrine, “there is a funny man. He has been operating intermittently throughout this rehearsal, his object, if he can be said to have one, being to support the superstitious theories that have grown up around this play. This play. Macbeth. You hear me, Macbeth! This person put a Banquo mask on the wall of Duncan’s room. He’s put another one in this serving dish. In any other context these silly tricks would be dismissed but here they are reprehensible. They’ve upset the extremely high standard of performance, and that is lamentable. I ask the perpetrator of these tricks to let me know, by whatever means he chooses, that he is the — comedian.

  “For the good of the production I undertake not to reveal the trickster’s name. Nor will I sack the man or refer to the matter again. It shall be as if it had never happened. Is this understood?”

  He stopped.

  They stared at him rather like children, he thought, brought together for a wigging and not knowing what would come next.

  It was Bruce Barrabell who came next, the silver-tongued Banquo.

  “No doubt I shall be snubbed,” he said. “But I really feel I must protest. If this person is among us, I think we should all know who he is. He should be publicly exposed and dismissed. By us. As the Equity representative, I feel I should take this stand.”

  Peregrine had not the faintest notion of what, if any, stand the Equity representative was entitled to take. He said grandly: “Properties belonging to the theatre have been misused. Rehearsal time interrupted. This is my affair; I propose to continue. The time for Equity to butt in may or may not arise in due course. If it does I shall advise you of it. At this stage I must ask you to sit down, Mr. Barrabell.”

  If he won’t sit down, he wondered, what the hell do I do?

  “Hear, hear,” said Sir Dougal helpfully.

  There was an affirmative murmur. Nina was heard to say she felt faint. Peregrine said: “Props. When did you last look under the lid of that dish?”