Light Thickens

Chapter 2 SECOND WEEK

Peregrine had blocked the play up to the aftermath following the assassination of King Duncan. The only break in the performance would come here.

Rehearsals went well. The short opening scene with the witches scavenging on the gallows worked. Rangi, perched on the arm, was terribly busy with the head of the corpse. Blondie, on Wendy’s back, ravaged its feet. A flash of lightning. Pause. Thunder. They hop down, like birds of prey. Dialogue. Then their leap. The flash catches them. In the air. Blackout and down.

“Well,” said Peregrine. “The actions are spot-on. Thank you. It’s now up to the lights: an absolute cue. Catch them in a flash before they fall. You witches must remember to keep flat and then scurry off in the blackout. Okay?”

“Can we keep well apart?” asked Rangi. “Before we take off? Otherwise we may fall on each other.”

“Yes. Get in position when you answer the caterwauls. Wendy, you take the point farthest away when you hear them. Blondie, you stay where you are, and Rangi, you answer from under the gallows. Think of birds — ravens. That’s it. Splendid. Next scene.”

It was their first rehearsal in semicontinuity. It would be terribly rough but Peregrine liked his cast to get the feeling of the whole as early as possible. Here came the King. Superb bearing. Lovely entrance. Pause on steps. Thanes move on below him. Bloody Sergeant on ground-level, back to audience. The King — magnificent.

Up to his tricks again, thought Peregrine and stopped them.

“Sorry, old boy,” he said. “There’s an extra move from you here. Remember? Come down. The thanes wheel round behind you. Bloody Sergeant moves up and we’ll all focus on him for the speech. Okay?”

The King raised a hand and slightly shook his head. “So sorry. Of course.” He graciously complied. The Bloody Sergeant, facing front and determined to wring the last syllable from his minute part, embarked upon it with many pauses and gasps.

When it was over, Peregrine said: “Dear boy, you are determined not to faint or not to gasp. You can’t quite manage it but you do your best. You keep going. Your voice fades out but you master it. You even manage your little joke, As sparrows eagle or the hare the lion, and we cut to: But I am faint, my gashes cry for help. You make a final effort. You salute. Your hand falls to your side and we see the blood on it. You are helped off. Don’t do so much, dear boy. Be! I’ll take you through it afterward. On.”

The King returned to his place of vantage. Ross made an excitable entrance with news of the defeat of the faithless Cawdor. The King established his execution and the bestowal of his title upon Macbeth. Peregrine had cut the scene down to its bones. He made a few notes and went straight on to the witches again.

Now came the moment for the first witch and the long speech about the sailor to Aleppo gone. Then the dance. Legs bent. Faces distorted. Eyes. Tongues. It works, thought Peregrine. The drums and pipes, offstage, with retreating soldiers. Very ominous. Enter Macbeth and Banquo. Witches in a cluster, floor-level. Motionless.

Macbeth was superb. The triumphant soldier — a glorious figure: ruddy, assured, glowing with his victories. Now, face to face with evil itself and hailed by the title. The hidden dream suddenly made actual; the unwholesome pretense, a tangible reality. He writes to his wife and sends the letter ahead of his own arrival.

Enter the Lady. Maggie was still feeling her way with the part, but there were no doubts about her intention. She had deliberately faced the facts and made her choice, rejected the right and fiercely embraced the wrong. She now braces herself for the monstrous task of screwing her husband to the sticking-place. She knows very well that there was no substance in their previous talks although his morbidly vivid imagination gave them a nightmarish reality.

The play hurried on: the festive air, Macbeth’s piper, servants scurrying with dishes of food and flagons of wine, and all the time Macbeth is crumbling. The great barbaric chieftain who should outshine all the rest makes dismal mistakes. He was not there to welcome the King, is not in his place now. His wife has to leave the feast, find him, tell him the King is asking for him, only to have him say he will proceed no further in the business and offer conventional reasons.

There is no time to lose. For the last assault she lays the plot before her husband (and the audience) — quickly, urgently, and clearly. He catches fire, says he is “settled,” and commits himself to damnation.

Seyton, with the claymore, appears in the shadows. He follows them off.

The lights will be extinguished by a servant who leaves only the torch in a wall-bracket outside the King’s door. A pause, during which the stealthy sounds of the night will be established. Cricket and owl. The sudden crack of expanding wood. A ghostly figure, who would scarcely be seen when the lighting was established, appears on the upper level, enters the King’s room, waits there for a heartbeat or two, reenters, and slips away into the shadows… The Lady.

An inner door at ground-level opens to admit Banquo and Fleance and the exquisite little night scene follows.

Bruce Barrabell had a wonderful voice and he knew how to use it, which is not to say he turned on “the Voice Beautiful.” It was there, a gift of nature, an arrangement of vocal chords and resonators that stirred the blood in the listener. He looked up and one knew it was at the night sky where husbandry was practiced and the candles were all out. He felt the nervous, emaciated tension of the small hours and was startled by the appearance of Macbeth attended by the tall shadow of Seyton.

He says he dreamed of the three weird sisters. Macbeth replies that he thinks not of them and then goes on, against every nerve in the listener’s body, to ask Banquo to have a little talk about the sisters when he has time. Talk? What about? He goes on, with sickening ineptitude, to say the talk will “make honour” for Banquo, who at once replies that as long as he loses none he will be “counsell’d,” and they say good-night.

Peregrine thought: Right. That was right. And when Banquo and Fleance went off he clapped his hands softly but not so softly that Banquo didn’t hear him.

Now Macbeth is alone. The ascent to the murder is begun. Up and up the steps, following the dagger that he knows is a hallucination. A bell rings. Hear it not, Duncan.

Dougal was not firm in his lines. He started off without the book but depended more and more on the prompter, couldn’t pick it up, shouted “What!” flew into a temper, and finally started off again with his book in his hand.

“I’m not ready,” he shouted to Peregrine.

“All right. Take it quietly and read.”

“I’m not ready.”

Peregrine said: “All right, Dougal. Cut to the end of the speech and keep your hair on. Give your exit line and off.”

“Summons thee to heaven or to hell,” Dougal snapped and stamped off through the mock-up exit at the top of the stair.

Reenter the Lady at stage-level.

Maggie was word-perfect. She was flushed with wine, overstrung, ready to start at the slightest sound but with the iron will to rule herself and Macbeth. When his cue for reentry came Dougal was back inside his part. His return at stage-level was all Peregrine hoped for.

She glances at him. He stands there, blood-bedabbled and speaks of sleep. She sees the two grooms’ daggers in his hands and is horrified. He refuses to return them. She takes them from him and climbs up to the room.

Macbeth is alone. The cosmic terrors of the play roll in like breakers. At the touch of his hands the multitudinous seas are incarnadined, making the green one red.

The Lady returns.

Maggie and Dougal had worked together on this scene and it was beginning to take shape. The characters were the absolute antitheses of each other: he, every nerve twanging, lost to everything but the nightmarish reality of murder, horrified by what he has done. She, self-disciplined, self-schooled, logical, aware of the frightful dangers of his unleashed imagination. “These deeds must not be thought after these ways: so it will make us mad.”

She says a little water will clear them of the deed, and takes him off, God save the mark, to wash himself.

“We’ll stop here,” said Peregrine. “I’ve a lot of notes, but it’s shaping up well. Settle down, please, everybody.”

They were in the theatre. The stage was lit by working lights, and the shrouded house waited, empty, expectant, for whatever was to be poured into it.

The stage manager and his assistant shifted chairs onstage for the principals and the rest sat on the stairs. Peregrine laid his notes on the prompter’s table, switched on the lamp, and sat down.

He took a minute or two, reading his notes and seeing they were in order.

“It’s awfully stuffy in here,” said Maggie suddenly. “Breathless, sort of. Does anybody else think so?”

“The weather’s changed,” said Dougal. “It’s got much warmer.”

Blondie said: “I hope it’s not a beastly thunderstorm.”

“Why?”

“They give me the jimjams.”

“That comes well from a witch!”

“It’s electrical. I get pins and needles. I can’t help it.”

Ascendant thunder, startling, close, everywhere, rolled up to a sharp, definitive crack. Blondie screamed.

“Sorry!” she said. “I’m sorry.” She put her fingers in her ears. “I can’t help it. Truly. Sorry.”

“Never mind, child. Come over here,” said Maggie.

She held out her hand. Blondie, answering the gesture rather than the words, ran across and crouched beside her chair.

Rangi said: “It’s true, she can’t help it. It affects some people like that.”

Peregrine looked up from his notes. “What’s up?” he asked and then, seeing Blondie, said, “Oh. Oh, I see. Never mind, Blondie. We can’t see the lightning, can we, and the whole thing’ll be over soon. Brace up, there’s a good girl.”

“Yes. Okay.”

She straightened up. Maggie patted her shoulder. Her hand checked and then closed. She looked at the other players, made a long face, and briefly quivered her free hand at them.

“Are you cold, Blondie?” she asked.

“I don’t think so. No. I’m all right. Thank you. Ah!” She gave a little cry.

There was another roll of thunder; not so close, less precipitate.

“It’s moving away,” said Maggie.

It died out in an indeterminate series of three or four thuds and bumps. Then, without warning, the sky opened and the rain crashed down.

“ ‘Overture and Beginners, please,’ ” Dougal quoted and got his laugh.

By the time, about an hour later, when Peregrine finished his notes and recapped the faulty passages, the rain stopped almost as abruptly as it had begun, and the actors left the theatre on a calm night with stars shining, brilliant, above the rain-washed air. London glittered. A sense of urgency and excitement was abroad and when Peregrine whistled the opening phrase of a Brandenburg concerto it might have been a whole orchestra giving it out.

“Come back to my flat for an hour, Maggie,” said Dougal. “It’s too lovely a night to go home on.”

“No, thank you, Dougal. I’m tired and hungry and I’ve ordered a car and here it is. Good-night.”

Peregrine saw them all go their ways. Still whistling, he walked toward the car park and only then noticed that a little derelict shed on the waterfront lay in a ramshackle heap of rubble.

“I hadn’t realized it’s been demolished,” he thought.

Next morning a workman operating a scoop-lift pointed to a black scar on one of the stones.

“See that?” he said cheerfully to Peregrine. “That’s the mark of the devil’s thumb, that is. You don’t often see it. Not nowadays, you don’t.”

“The devil’s thumb?”

“That’s right, Squire. Lightning.”

Simon Morten had taken the part of Macduff by storm. His dark good looks and dashing, easy mockery of the Porter on his first entrance with Lennox, his assertion of his hereditary right to wake his King, his cheerful run up the stairs, whistling as he went into the bloodied chamber while Lennox warmed himself at the fire and talked cosily about the wild intemperance of the night, all gave him an easy ascendancy.

Macbeth listened, but not to him.

The door opens. Macduff stumbles, incoherent, ashen-faced, the former man wiped out as if by the sweep of the murderer’s hand. The stirred-up havoc, the alarum bell, the place alive, suddenly, with the horror of assassination. The courtyard is filled with men roused from their sleep, nightgowns hastily pulled on, wild and disheveled. The bell jangling madly.

The scene ends with the flight of the King’s sons. In a short, final scene Macduff, already suspicious, decides not to attend Macbeth’s coronation at Scone but to retire to his own headquarters at Fife. It is here that he will make his fatal decision to turn south to England, where he will learn of the murder of his wife and children. From then on he will be a man with a single object: to return to Scotland, find Macbeth, and kill him.

When Banquo has been murdered, Macduff moves forward and the end is now inevitable.

Morten had become enamored of the fight, which he continued to rehearse with Dougal. At Gaston’s suggestion they both began to exercise vigorously, apart from the actual combat, and became expert in the handling of their weapons: twirling and slashing with alarming dexterity. The steel replicas were now ready and they used them.

Peregrine came down to the theatre early on the morning after the storm and found them hard at it. Blue sparks flew, the claymores whistled. The actors leaped nimbly from spot to spot. Occasionally they grunted. Their shields were tightly strapped to their left forearms, leaving the hands free for the double-handed weapons. Peregrine gazed upon them with considerable alarm.

“Nimble, aren’t they?” asked Gaston, looming up behind him.

“Very,” Peregrine nervously agreed. “I haven’t seen them for a week. I–I suppose they are safe. By and large. Safe,” he repeated on a shriller note as Macduff executed a downward sweep, which Macbeth deflected and dodged by the narrowest of margins.

“Absolutely,” Gaston said. “I stake my reputation upon it. Ah. Excuse me. Very well, gentlemen. Call it a morning. Thank you. Don’t go, Mr. Jay. Your remark about safety has reminded me. There will, of course, be no change in the size and position of the rostra? They are precisely where they will be for the performance?”

“Yes.”

“Good. To the fraction of an inch, I hope? Their footwork has been rehearsed with the greatest care, you know. Like a dance. Let me show you.”

He produced a plan of the stage. It was extremely elaborate and was broken up into innumerable squares.

“The stage is marked — I daresay you have noticed — in exactly the same way. Let us say I am asking the Macduff to deliver a downward sweep from right to left and the Macbeth is to parry it and lean to the lower level. I shall say” — and here he raised his voice to a shriek — “Macduff! Right foot at thirteen-B. Raise claidheamh-mor — move ninety degrees. Sweep to twelve. Er — one. Er — two. Er — three. Meanwhile…”

He continued in this baffling manner for some seconds and then resumed in his normal bass: “So you will understand, Mr. Jay, that the least inaccuracy in the squares might well lead to — shall we say — to the bisection of the opponent’s foot. No. I exaggerate. Crushing would be more appropriate. And we would not want that to happen, would we?”

“Certainly not. But, my dear Gaston, please don’t misunderstand me. I think the plan is most ingenious and the result — er — breathtaking, but would it not be just as effective, for instance —”

He got no further. He saw the crimson flush rise in Gaston’s face.

“Are you about to suggest that we employ a ‘fake’?” Gaston demanded, and before Peregrine could reply said, “In which case I leave this theatre. For good. Taking with me the weapons and writing to The Times, to point out the ludicrous aspects of the charade that will inevitably be foisted upon the audience. Well? Yes or no?”

“Yes. No. I don’t know which I mean, but I implore you not to go waltzing out on us, Gaston. You tell me it’s safe and I accept your authority. I’ll get the insurance people to cover us,” he added hurriedly. “You’ve no objection to that, I hope?”

Gaston waved his hand grandly and ambiguously. He went up onstage and collected the weapons, which the users had put into felt containers. “I keep charge of the claidheamh-mors,” he explained. “And return with them each day. And now, if you will excuse me —”

“Thank you, Gaston,” Peregrine said with relief.

Peregrine had to admit, strictly to himself, that a slight change had come over the atmosphere in the theatre. It was not that rehearsals went badly. They went, on the whole, very well, with no more than the expected clashes of temperament among the actors. Barrabell was the most prominent when these were in question. He had only to appear on stage for an argument to begin about the various movements of the actors. Peregrine was, by and large, a patient and sagacious director, and he never let loose a formidable display of anger without considering that the time had come for it and the result would be salutary. He had never encountered Barrabell before but it didn’t take him long to suspect a troublemaker and this morning he had confirmation of it. Barrabell and Nina Gaythorne arrived together. He had dropped his beautifully controlled voice to its lowest level, he had taken her arm, and in her faded, good-natured face there appeared an expression that reminded Peregrine of a schoolchild receiving naughty but absorbing information upon a forbidden ground.

“Most unexpected…” the Voice confided. “We were sitting…” It sank below the point of audibility. “… concentrated… most extraordinary…”

“Really?”

“… Blondie… rigor…”

“No!”

“I promise.”

At this point they came through the scenic archway and saw Peregrine.

There was a very awkward silence.

“Good morning,” said Peregrine happily.

“Good morning. Perry. Er — good morning. Er.”

“You were talking about last night’s storm.”

“Ah. Yes. Yes, we were. I was saying it was a heavy storm.”

“I didn’t see it,” said Nina. “Not really.”

“Did you notice that old scrap shed on the waterfront has collapsed?” Peregrine asked.

“Ah!” said Barrabell on a full note. “That’s what it is! The difference!”

“It was struck by lightning.”

“Fancy!”

“The center of the storm.”

“Not the theatre.”

“No,” they both fervently agreed. “Not our theatre.”

“Did you hear about Blondie?”

Nina made noises.

“Blondie has this thing about lightning,” said Peregrine. “Electricity in the air. My mother has it. She’s seventy and very perky.”

“Oh yes?” said Nina. “How lovely.”

“Very fit and well but gets electrically disturbed during thunderstorms.”

“I see,” said Barrabell.

“It’s quite a common occurrence. Like cat’s fur crackling. Nina darling,” said Peregrine, putting his arm around her, “I’ve got three little boys coming this morning to audition for the Macduff kid. Would you be an angel and go through the scene with them? Here are their photographs. Look.”

He opened a copy of Spotlight at the child-actor’s section. Three infant phenomena were displayed. Two were embarrassingly overdressed and bore an innocent look that only just failed to conceal an awful complacency. The third had sensible clothes and a cheeky face.

“He’s got something,” said Nina. “I would feel I could bear to cuddle him. When was the photo taken, I wonder?”

“Who can tell? He’s called William Smith, which attracts one. The others, as you’ll see, are called Wayne and Cedric.”

“Little horrors.”

“Probably. But one never knows.”

“We’ll have to see, won’t we?” said Nina, who had recovered her poise and was determined not to get involved with Barrabell-Banquo again.

A girl from the manager’s office came through to say the juveniles had arrived, each with its parent.

“I’ll see them one by one in the rehearsal room. Nina, would you come, dear?”

“Yes, of course.”

They went together.

For a little while Barrabell was alone. He had offered his services as the obligatory Equity representative for this production. It is not a job that most actors like very much. It is not pleasant to tell a fellow player that his subscription is overdue or to appeal against an infringement, imagined or genuine, by the management, though the Dolphin, in its integrity and strong “family” reputation, was not likely to run into trouble of that sort.

Barrabell belonged to a small, extreme leftist group called the Red Fellowship. Nobody seemed to know what it wanted except that it didn’t want anything that was established or that made money in the theatre. Dougal Macdougal was equally far on the right and wanted, or so it was believed, to bring a Jacobite pretender to the throne and restore capital punishment.

Barrabell kept his ideas to himself. Peregrine was vaguely aware of his extremism but being himself hopelessly uncommitted to anything other than the theatre gave it no more consideration than that.

The rest of the cast were equally vague.

So when the business of appointing a representative came up and Barrabell said he’d done it before and if they liked he’d do it again they were glad to let him be their Equity rep. Equity is an apolitical body and takes in all shades of opinion.

But if they were indifferent to him, he was far from being indifferent to them. He had a cast list with little signs against quite a number of names. As rehearsals went on he hoped to add to it. Dougal Macdougal’s name was boxed in. Barrabell looked at it for some time with his head on one side. He then put a question mark beside it.

The rest of the cast for the morning’s rehearsal arrived. Peregrine and Nina returned with a fresh-faced child in tow.

“Quickest piece of casting in our records,” said Peregrine. “This is William Smith, everybody. Young Macduff to you.”

The little boy’s face broke into a delightful smile. Delighted and delightful. It was transformed.

“Hul-lo, William,” said Sir Dougal.

“Hullo, sir,” said William. Not a vowel wrong and nothing forced.

“His mama is coming back for him in an hour,” said Peregrine. “Sit over there, William, and watch rehearsal.”

He sat by Nina.

“This morning we’re breaking new ground,” said Peregrine. “Banquet scene with ghost of Banquo. I’ll explain the business with the ghost. You, Banquo, will wear a mask. A ghastly mask. Open mouth with blood running. You’ll have time to change your clothes. You will have a double, also masked, of course. The table will have a completely convincing false side with heavily carved legs and the black space painted between them. You and your double will be hidden behind this side. Your stool is at the head of the table.

“Now. The Macbeths’ costumes. The Lady has voluminous sleeves, attached all the way down to her costume. When she says Meeting were bare without it, she holds out her hands. She is standing in front of the stool and masks it. Macbeth goes up to her and on his own Sweet remembrancer takes and kisses her hands. They form, momentarily, a complete mask to the stool. Banquo, from under the table, slides up onto the stool. The speed with which you do this is all-important. Banquo, you sit on the stool with your back to Macbeth and your head bent down. The Macbeths move off to his right.

“On Macbeth’s Where? Banquo turns. Recognition. Climax. He’s a proper job. Bloody hair, throat cut, chest stabbed, blood all over it. On feed and regard him not the thanes obey her but rather self-consciously. They eat and mumble. Keep it quiet. Macbeth shrinks back and to the right. She follows. On Macbeth’s What care I, Banquo lets his head go back and then fall forward. He rises and exits left. This is going to take a lot of work. You thanes, all of you, cannot see him. Repeat: you can not see him. He almost touches you but for you he is not there. You all watch Macbeth. Have you all got that? Stop me if I’m going too fast.”

“Just a moment,” said Banquo.

Here we go, thought Peregrine. “Yes, Bruce?” he asked.

“How much room will there be under this trick-table affair?”

“Plenty. I hope.”

“And how do I see?”

Peregrine stopped himself saying: With your eyes. “The mask,” he explained, “is being very carefully designed. It is actually an entire head. The eyeholes are big. Your own eyes will be painted out. Gaston has done an excellent drawing for us. He will take a mold of your face and make the masks.”

“Oh, my God.”

“A bloodied cloak will be firmly fixed to the neck and ripped up in several places.”

“I’ll want to see all these things, Perry. I’ll want to rehearse in them.”

“So you shall. Till the cows come home.”

“Thank you very much,” said the beautiful voice silkily.

“Any more questions? No? Well, let’s try it.” They tried it slowly and then faster. Many times.

“I think it’ll work,” Peregrine said at last to Nina, who was sitting behind him.

“Oh, yes, Perry. Yes.”

“We’ll move on to the next ‘appearance.’ Sir Dougal, you have this distraught, confused, self-betraying speech. You pull yourself together and propose a health. You stand in front of the stool, masking it, holding out the cup in your left hand. Ross fills it. The understudy is in position. Under the table. Is he here? Yes, Toby. You’ve moved up to the end. You can see when Macbeth’s arm and hand, holding the goblet, are in place and you slip up on the stool. Macbeth proposes the toast. He moves away, facing front. He does, what we all hope he will not do: he names Banquo. The thanes drink. He turns to go upstage and there is the ghost. On unreal mockery, hence! the ghost rises. He moves to the stairs, passing between Menteith and Gaston and past the soldiers on guard, up into the murder chamber. Everyone watches Macbeth, who raves on. Now, inch by inch, we’ll walk it.”

They did so, marking what they did in their scripts, gradually working through the whole scene, taking notes, walking the moves, fitting the pieces together. Peregrine said: “If ever there was a scene that could be ruined by a bit-part actor, this is it. It’s all very well to say you must completely ignore the ghost, that for you it’s not there; it’s hellishly difficult to do it. If you can actually look at it without focusing your eyes, that’s fine, but again it calls for a damn good actor to achieve it. We’ve got to make the audience accept the reality of the ghost and be frightened by it. The most intelligent of you all, Lennox, has the line: Good-night; and better health attend his majesty. When next we see Lennox he’s speaking of his suspicions to Ross. The actor will, ever so slightly, not a fraction too much, make us aware of this. A hair’s-breadth pause after he says Good-night, perhaps. You’ve got your moves. Take them once more to make sure and go away and think through the whole scene, step by step, and then decide absolutely what you are feeling and doing at every moment.”

When they had gone Peregrine took Macbeth’s scene with the murderers. Then the actual murder of Banquo.

“Listen!” Peregrine said. “Just listen to the gift this golden hand offers you. It’s got everything. The last glint of sunset, the beat of hooves, the near approach of disaster:

And now we hear the thud of horses’ hooves. Louder and louder. They stop. A pause. Then the horses go away. Enter Banquo with a lanthorn. I do want a profoundly deep voice for this speech. I’m sorry,” he said to the First Murderer. “I’m going to give it to Gaston. It’s a matter of voice, dear boy, not of talent. Believe me, it’s a matter of voice.”

“Yes. All right,” said the stricken Murderer.

They read the scene.

“That’s exactly what I want. You will see that Seyton is present in both these scenes and indeed is never far from Macbeth’s business from this time on. We are very lucky to have Mr. Sears to take the part. He is the sword-bearer. He looms over the play and so does his tremendous weapon.”

“It is,” Gaston boomingly explained, “the symbol of coming death. Its shadow grows more menacing as the play draws inexorably towards its close. I am reminded —”

“Exactly,” Peregrine interrupted. “The play grows darker. Always darker. The relief is in the English scene. And now…” He hurried on, while Gaston also continued in his pronouncements of doom. For a short time they spoke together and then Gaston, having attained his indistinguishable climax, stopped as suddenly as a turned-off tap, said, “Good morning,” and left the theatre.

Peregrine opened his arms and let them flop. “One puts up with the unbelievable,” he said. “He’s an actor. He’s a paid-up member of Equity. He spoke that little speech in a way that sent quivers up and down my spine and he’s got Sir Dougal Macdougal and Simon Morten banging away at each other with a zeal that makes you sweat. I suppose I’m meant to put up with other bits of eccentricity as they recur.”

“Is he certifiable?” asked Maggie.

“Probably.”

“I wouldn’t put up with it,” said Bruce Barrabell. “Get him back.”

“What do I say when he comes? He’s perfect for the part. Perfect.”

Nina said: “Just a quiet word in private? Ask him not to?”

“Not to what?”

“Go on talking while you are talking?” she said doubtfully.

“He hasn’t done it since the first day until now. I’ll leave it for this time.”

“Of course, if one’s afraid of him —” sneered Barrabell and was heard.

“I am afraid. I’m afraid he’ll walk out and I don’t mind admitting it. He’s irreplaceable,” said Peregrine.

“I agree with you, dear boy,” said Sir Dougal.

“So do I,” said Maggie. “He’s too valuable.”

“So be it,” said Peregrine. “Now, William, let’s see how you shape up. Come on, Nina. And Lennox. And the murderers.”

They shaped up well. William was quick and unobjectionable. The boy was cheeky and he showed spirit and breeding. His mama returned, a quietly dressed woman from whom he had inherited his vowels. They completed the financial arrangements and left. Nina, delighted with him, also left. Peregrine said to Dougal and Maggie: “And now, my dears, the rest of the day is ours. Let’s consolidate.”

They did. They, too, went well. Very well. And yet there was something about the rehearsal that made Peregrine almost wish for ructions. For an argument. He had insisted upon the Lady using the sexual attributes she had savagely wrenched away from herself. Maggie agreed. Dougal responded. He actually shivered under her touch. When they broke for discussion, she did so absolutely and was at once the professional actress tackling a professional detail. He was slower, almost resentful. Only for a second or two and then all attention. Too much so. As if he was playing to an audience; in a way, as if he showed himself off to Maggie — “I’m putting on an act for you.”

Peregrine told himself he was being fanciful. It’s this play, he thought. It’s a volcano. Overflowing. Thickening. And then: Perhaps that’s why all these damn superstitions have grown up round it.

“Any questions?” he asked them.

“It’s about her feeling for Macbeth,” said Maggie. “I take it that from the beginning she has none. She simply uses her body as an incentive.”

“Absolutely. She turns him on like a tap and turns him off when she gets her response. From the beginning she sees his weakness. He wants to keep his cake and eat it.”

“Yes. She, on the other hand, dedicates herself to evil. She’s not an insensitive creature but she shuts herself off completely from any thought of remorse. Before the murder she takes enough wine to see her through and notes, with satisfaction, that it has made her bold,” said Maggie.

“She asks too much of herself. And pays the penalty. After the disastrous dinner party, she almost gives up,” Peregrine said. “Macbeth speaks disjointedly of more crimes. She hardly listens. Always the realist, she says they want sleep! When next we see her she is asleep and saying those things that she would not say if she were awake. She’s driven herself too hard. Now, the horror finds its way out in her sleep.”

“And what about her old man all this time?” asked Dougal loudly. “Is she thinking about him, for God’s sake?”

“We’re not told but — no. I imagine she still goes on for a time, stopping up the awful holes he makes in the facade but with no pretense of affection or even much interest. He’s behaving as she feared he might. She has no sympathy or fondness for him. When next we see him, Dougal, he’s half-mad.”

“Thank you very much!”

“Well, distracted. But what words! They pour out of him. Despair itself. To the last syllable of recorded time. You know,” Peregrine said, “it always amazes me that the play never becomes a bore. The leading man is a hopeless character in terms of heroic images. It’s the soliloquies that work the magic, Dougal.”

“I suppose so.”

“You know so,” said Maggie, cheerfully. “You know exactly what you’re doing. Doesn’t he, Perry?”

“Of course he does,” Peregrine said heartily.

They were standing onstage. There were no lights on in the auditorium, but a voice out there said: “Oh, don’t make any mistake about it, Maggie, he knows what he’s doing.” And laughed.

It was Morten, the Macduff.

“Simon!” Maggie said. “What are you doing down there? Have you been watching?”

“I’ve only just come in. Sorry I interrupted, Perry. I wanted to see the office about something.”

The door at the back of the stalls let in an oblong of daylight and shut it out again.

“What’s the matter with him?” Dougal asked at large.

“Lord knows,” said Peregrine. “Pay no attention.”

“It’s nothing,” Maggie said. “He’s being silly.”

“It’s not exactly silly, seeing that baleful face scowling at one and him whirling his claymore within inches of one’s own face,” Dougal pointed out. “And, if I catch your meaning, Maggie love, all for nothing. I’m as blameless as the Bloody Child. Though not, I may add, from choice.”

“I’ll have a word with him.”

“Choose your words, darling. You may inflame him.”

“Maggie dear,” Peregrine begged her, “calm him down if you can. We’re doing the English scene this week and I would like him to be normal.”

“I’ll do my best. He’s so silly,” Maggie crossly reiterated. “And I’m so busy.”

Her opportunity occurred the next afternoon. She had stayed in the theatre after working at the sleepwalking scene, while Peregrine worked with Simon on the English scene.

When they had finished and Morten was about to leave, she crossed her fingers and stopped him.

“Simon, that’s a wonderful beginning. Come home with me, will you, and talk about it? We’ll have a drink and a modest dinner. Don’t say no. Please.”

He was taken aback. He looked hard at her, muttered sulkily, and then said, “Thank you, I’d like that.”

“Good. Put on your overcoat. It’s cold outside. Have you got your part? Come on, then. Good-night, Perry dear.”

“Good-night, lovely lady.”

They went out by the stage door. When he heard it bang, Peregrine crossed himself and said, “God bless her.” He turned off the working lights, locked the doors, and used his torch to find his way out by the front-of-house.

They took a taxi to Maggie’s flat. She rang the bell and an elderly woman opened the door. “Nanny,” said Maggie, “can you give the two of us dinner? No hurry. Two hours.”

“Soup. Grilled chops.”

“Splendid.”

“Good evening, Mr. Morten.”

“Good evening, Nanny.”

They came in, to a bright fire and comfortable chairs. Maggie took his coat and hat and hung them in the hall. She gave him a pretty robust drink and sat him down. “I’m breaking my own rule,” she said, pouring a small one for herself. “During rehearsal period, no alcohol, no parties, and no nice gentlemen’s nonsense. But you’ve seen that for yourself, of course.”

“Have I?”

“Of course. Even supposing Dougal was a world-beater sex-wise, which I ain’t supposing, it’d be a disaster to fall for him when we’re playing The Tartans. Some people could do it. Most, I daresay, but not this lady. Luckily, I’m not tempted.”

“Maggie?”

“No.”

“Promise?”

“Of course.”

“He doesn’t share your views?”

“I don’t know how he feels about it. Nothing serious,” said Maggie, lightly. She added, “My dear Si, you can see what he’s like. Easy come, easy go.”

“Have you —” He took a pull at his drink. “Have you discussed it?”

“Certainly not. It hasn’t been necessary.”

“You had dinner with him. The night there was a rehearsal.”

“I can have dinner with someone without falling like an overripe apple for him.”

“What about him, though?”

“Simon! You’re being childish. He did not make a pass at me and if he had I’d have been perfectly well able to cope. I told you. During rehearsals I don’t have affairs. You’re pathologically jealous about nothing. Nothing at all.”

“Maggie, I’m sorry. I’m terribly sorry. Truly. Forgive me, Maggie darling.”

“All right. But no bedroom scenes. I told you, I’m as pure as untrodden snow while I’m rehearsing. Honestly.”

“I believe you. Of course.”

“Well, then, do stop prowling and prowling around like the hosts of whoever-they-were in the hymn book. ‘Lor’,’ as Mrs. Boffin said, ‘let’s be comfortable.’ ”

“All right,” he said and a beguiling grin transformed his face. “Let’s.”

“And clean as a whistle?”

“So be it.”

“Give yourself another drink and tell me what you think about the young Malcolm.”

“The young Malcolm? It’s a difficult one, isn’t it? I think he’ll get there but it’ll take a lot of work.”

And they discussed the English scene happily and excitedly until dinner was ready.

Maggie produced a bottle of wine, the soup was real, and the chops were excellent.

“How nice this is,” said Maggie when they had finished.

“It’s perfect.”

“So what a Silly Simon you were to cut off your nose to spite your face, weren’t you? We’ll sit by the fire for half an hour and then you must go.”

“If you say so.”

“I do, most emphatically. I’m going to work on the sleepwalking scene. I want to get a sleepwalking voice. Dead. No inflections. Metallic. Will it work?”

“Yes.”

She looked at him and thought how pleasant and romantic he seemed with his rich black curls and fair skin and what a pity it was that he was so stupidly jealous. It showed in his mouth. Nothing could cure it.

When he got up to go she said, “Good-night, my dear. You won’t take it out on Dougal, will you? It would be so silly. There’s nothing to take.”

“If you say so.”

He held her by her arms. She gave him a quick kiss and withdrew.

“Good-night, Simon.”

“Good-night.”

When she had shut the door and he was alone outside, he said: “All the same, to hell with Sir Dougal Macdougal.”

On Thursday morning there was a further and a marked change in the atmosphere. It wasn’t gloomy. It was oppressive and nervous. Rather like the thunderstorm, Peregrine thought. Claustrophobic. Expectant. Stifling.

Peregrine finished blocking. By Friday they had covered the whole play and took it through in continuity.

There were noticeable changes in the behavior of the company. As a rule, the actor would finish a scene and come off with a sense of anxiety or release. He or she would think back through the dialogue, note the points of difficulty, and re-rehearse them in the mind or, as it were, put a tick against them as having come off successfully. The actors would disappear into the shadows, or watch for a time with professional interest or read a newspaper or book — each according to temperament and inclination.

This morning it was different. Without exception they sat together and watched and listened with a new intensity. It was as though each actor continued in an assumed character, and no other reality existed. Even in the scenes that had been blocked but not yet developed there was a nervous tension that knew the truth would emerge and the characters march to their appointed end.

The company were to see the fight for the first time. Macduff now had something of a black angel’s air about him, striding through the battle on the hunt for Macbeth. He encounters men in the Macbeth tartan and mistakes them for him, but it must be Macbeth or nobody. Then Macduff sees him, armored, helmeted, masked, and cries out: “Turn, hell-hound, turn!”

Macbeth turns.

Peregrine’s palms were wet. The thanes, waiting offstage now, stood aghast. Steel clashed on steel or shrieked as one blade slid down another. There was no sound other than the men’s hard breathing.

Macduff swung his claymore up and then swiftly down — Macbeth caught it on his shield and lurched forward.

Nina, in the audience, screamed.

The boast while they both fight for breath that no man of woman born will kill Macbeth; Macduff’s reply that he was from his mother’s womb untimely ripped; the final exit, Macduff driving him backward and out. Macbeth’s scream, cut short, offstage. An empty stage for seconds, then trumpets and drums and reenter Malcolm, Old Siward, and the thanes in triumph. Big scene. Old Siward on his son’s death. Reenter Macduff and Seyton with Macbeth’s head on the point of his claymore. “Behold, where stands the usurper’s cursed head, ” shouts Macduff.

Malcolm is hailed King of Scotland and the play is over.

“Thank you, everybody,” said Peregrine. “Thank you very much.”

And in the sounds of relief that answered him the clearly articulated treble of William Smith spoke the final word.

“He got his comeuppance, didn’t he, Miss Gaythorne?”

After Peregrine had taken his notes and the mistakes had been corrected, the cast stayed for a little while as if reluctant to break the bond that united them. Dougal said: “Pleased, Perry?”

“Yes. Very pleased. So pleased, I’m frightened.”

“Not melodramatic?”

“There were perhaps three moments when it slid over. None of them involved you, Dougal. I’m not even sure about them.”

“Good. Maggie darling,” Dougal cried as she joined them. “You are wonderful. Satanic and lovely and baleful. I can’t begin to tell you. Thank you, thank you.” He kissed her hands and her face and seemed unable to stop.

“If I can get a word in,” said Simon. He was beside them, his hair damp with sweat stuck to his forehead and a line of it glinting on his upper lip. Maggie pushed herself free of Dougal and held Simon by his woolen jacket. “Si!” she said and kissed him. “You’re fantastic.”

They’ll run out of adjectives, Peregrine thought, and then we’ll all go to lunch.

Simon looked over the top of Maggie’s head at Dougal. “I seem to have won,” he said. “Or do I?”

“We’ve all won or hope we all have in three weeks. It’s too early for these raptures,” said Peregrine.

Maggie said: “I’ve got someone in a car waiting for me and I’m late.” She patted Simon’s face and freed herself. “I’m not wanted this afternoon, Perry?”

“No. Thank you, lovey.”

“ ’Bye, everyone,” she cried and made for the stage door. William Smith ran ahead of her and opened it.

“Ten marks for manners, William,” she said.

There was nobody waiting for her. She hailed a taxi. That’s settled their hashes, she thought as she gave her address. And the metallic voice will work wonders if I get it right. She made an arrangement in her vocal cords and spoke.

“Who would have thought the old man to have had so much blood in him?”

“What’s that, lady?” asked the startled driver.

“Nothing, nothing. I’m an actress. It’s my part.”

“Oh. One of them. Takes all sorts, don’ it?” he replied.

“It certainly does.”

Ross, Lennox, Menteith, Caithness, and Angus were called for three o’clock and had time to get a good tuck-in at the Swan. They walked along the Embankment and the sun shone upon them: four young men with a fifth, the Ross, who was older. They had a certain air about them. They walked well. They spoke freely and clearly and they laughed loudly. Their faces had a pale smoothness as if seldom exposed to the sun. When they were separated by other pedestrians they raised their voices and continued their conversation without self-consciousness. Lennox, when not involved, sang tunefully: “Not a flower, not a flower sweet on my black coffin let there be strown.”

“Wrong play, dear boy,” said Ross. “That’s from Twelfth Night.”

“Bloody funny choice for a comedy.”

“Strange, isn’t it?”

Lennox said: “Do any of you find this play… I don’t know… oppressive? Almost too much. I mean, we can’t escape it. Do you?”

“I do,” Ross confessed. “I’ve been in it before. Same part. It does rather stick with one, doesn’t it?”

“Well,” Menteith said reasonably, “what’s it about? Four murders. Three witches. A fiendish lady. A homicidal husband. A ghost. And the death of the name-part with his severed head on the end of a claymore. Rather a bellyful to shake off, isn’t it?”

“It’s melodrama pure and simple,” said Angus. “It just happens to be written by a man with a knack for words.”

Lennox said: “What a knack! No. That doesn’t really account for the thing I mean. We don’t get it in the other tragedies, do we? Not in Hamlet or Lear. Or even in Othello, grim as it is.”

“Perhaps it’s the reason for all the superstitions.”

“I wonder,” Ross said. “It may be. They all say the same thing, don’t they? Don’t speak his name. Don’t quote from it. Don’t call it by its title. Keep off.”

They turned into a narrow side street.

“I tell you what,” Caithness said. “I don’t mind betting anyone who’s prepared to take me up that Perry’s the only one of the whole company who really doesn’t believe a word of it. I mean that — really. He doesn’t do anything, but that’s so that our apple-carts won’t be upset.”

“You sound bloody sure of yourself, little man, but how do you know?” asked Menteith.

“You can tell,” said Caithness loftily.

“No, you can’t. You just kid yourself you can.”

“Oh, do shut up.”

“Okay, okay. Look, there’s Rangi. What’s he think of it all?”

“Ask him.”

“Hullo! Rangi!”

He turned, waved at the Swan, and pointed to himself

“So are we,” Angus shouted. “Join us.”

They caught up with him and all entered the barroom together.

“Look, there’s a table for six. Come on.”

They slipped into the seats. “I’ll get the beer,” Ross offered. Everybody want one?”

“Not for me,” said Rangi.

“Oh! Why not?”

“Because I do better without. Tomato juice. A double and nothing stronger with it.”

Menteith said: “I’ll have that too.”

“Two double tomatoes. Four beers,” Ross stated and went to the bar.

“Rangi,” Lennox said, “we’ve been arguing.”

“Oh? What about?”

Lennox looked at his mates. “I don’t know exactly. About the play.”

“Yes?”

Menteith said: “We were trying to get to the bottom of its power. On the face of it, it’s simply what a magical hand can do with a dose of blood-and-thunder. But that doesn’t explain the atmosphere it churns up. Or does it?”

“Suppose…” Caithness began. “You won’t mind, Rangi, will you?”

“I’ve not the faintest idea what you’re going to ask but I don’t suppose I will.”

“Well, suppose we were to offer a performance of the play on your — what do you call it —”

“The marai?”

“Yes. How would you react?”

“To the invitation or to the performance?”

“Well — to the performance, I suppose. Both, really.”

“It would depend upon the elders. If they were sticklers, really orthodox people, you would be given formal greetings, the challenge and the presentation of the weapon. It is possible —” He stopped.

“Yes?”

“It would have been possible, I believe, that the tahunga — that’s what you’d call a wise man — would have been asked, because of the nature of the play, to lay a tapu on the performance. He would do this. And then you would go away and dress and the performance would take place.”

“You don’t mind about using — well, you know — eyes, tongue, and everything in the play?”

“I am not entirely orthodox. And we take the play seriously. My great-grandfather was a cannibal,” said Rangi in his exquisite voice. “He believed he absorbed the attributes of his victims.”

A complete silence fell upon the table. Perhaps because they had been rather a noisy party before, their silence affected other patrons, and Rangi’s declaration, quite loudly made, was generally heard. The silence lasted only for a second or two.

“Four beers and two tomato juices,” said Ross, returning with the drinks. He laid the tray on the table.