Light Thickens

Chapter 3 THIRD WEEK

In the third week the play began to consolidate. The parts that were clearly spurious had of course been taken out — the structure fully revealed. It was written with economy: the remorseless destiny of the Macbeths, the certainty from the beginning that they were irrevocably cursed, their progress, at first clinging to each other, then separated and swept away downstream to their damnation: these elements declared themselves in every phase of this destructive play.

Why, then, was it not dreary? Why did it excite rather than distress?

“I don’t know why,” Peregrine said to his wife. “Well, I do, really. It’s because it’s wonderfully well written. Simple as that. It’s the atmosphere that it generates.”

“When you directed it before, did you feel the same way about it?”

“I think so. Not so marked, though. It’s a much better company, of course. Really, it’s a perfect company. If you heard Simon Morten in the English scene, Emily, saying, My wife kill’d too? Then when Malcolm offers his silly conventional bit of advice, Simon looks at Ross and says, He has no children.”

“I know.”

“Come down to rehearsal one of these days and see.”

“Shall I?”

“Yes. Do. At the end of next week.”

“All right. How about the superstitions? Is Nina Gaythorne behaving herself?”

“She’s trying to, at least. I don’t mind betting she’s taking all sorts of precautions on the side but as long as she doesn’t talk about it… Barrabell — he’s the Banquo, you know — feeds her stories, I’m quite sure. I caught him at it last week. The scrap shed down by the river was struck by lightning, you know.”

“No! You never told me.”

“Didn’t I? I suppose I’ve clapped locks on anything that looks like superstition and don’t unfasten them even for you. I caught Barrabell nicely and gave poor old Nina the shock of her life.”

“What were they saying?”

“He was going on about one of the witches — Blondie — making a scene and getting the jimjams during the storm. Some people do get upset, you know — it’s electrical. They always say they’re sorry and they can’t help it.”

“Was Blondie all right?”

“Right as rain when the lightning stopped.”

“How unfortunate.”

“What?”

“That there should be a thunderstorm.”

“You don’t mean —?”

“Oh, you know how I feel about all the nonsense. I just thought how unfortunate from the point of view of the people who do.”

“The silly fatheads have got over it. The theatre wasn’t struck by lightning. Being fixed up with a good conductor, it wouldn’t have felt it anyway.”

“No.” After a short silence, Emily said: “How’s the little boy behaving?”

“William Smith? Very well. He’s a good actor. It’ll be interesting to see what happens to him after adolescence.

He may not go on with the theatre but I hope he does. He’s doubling.”

“The Bloody Child?”

“And the Crowned Child. They’re one and the same. You should hear him wail out his Great Birnam Wood to high Dunsinane Hi-i-ill shall come against him.”

“Golly!”

“Yes, my girl. That’s the word for it.”

“How are you working the scene? The apparitions?”

“The usual things. Dry ice. A trapdoor. A lift. Background of many whispering voices: Double, double. Strong rhythm. The show of Kings is all Banquo’s descendants. Each wears a Banquo head — Gaston’s handiwork, of course. The scene ends with And points at them for his. The next bit in the script is somebody’s incredibly silly addition. I should think the stage manager’s for a fourth-rate company in the sticks. It’s a wonder he didn’t give the witches red noses and slapsticks.”

“So you go on with — what?”

“There’s a blackout and great confusion. Crescendo. Noises. Macbeth’s voice. Sounds, possibly drums. I’m not sure. Footfalls, maybe. Lights dim up with Lennox at the door. Macbeth comes out. Rest of scene as written.”

“Smashing.”

“Well, I hope so. It’s going to need handling.”

“Yes. Of course.”

“It’s the only tricky one left from the staging point of view.”

“Could Gaston be a help? About witchcraft?”

“I daren’t risk asking him. He could, of course, but he does so — so go off at the deep end. He is a teeny bit mad, you know. Only on his own lay, but he is. He’s God’s gift when it comes to swords. What will you think of the fight? It terrifies me.”

“Is it really dangerous, Perry?”

He waited for a minute.

“Not according to Gaston, always making sure the stage is right. He’ll keep a nightly watch on it. The two men have reached an absolute perfection of movement. They’re getting on together, man to man, a bit better, too. Maggie had a go at Simon, bless her, and he’s less crissy-crossy when they are not fighting, thank God.”

“Well,” said Emily, “nobody can accuse you of being superstitious, I’ll say that for you.”

“Will you? And you’ll come next week when we’ll take it in continuity with props?”

“You bet I will,” said Emily.

“I don’t know what you’ll think of Gaston. I mean, of what I’m doing with him. He’s the bearer of the great ceremonial sword — the claidheamh-mor. We’re making a harness and heavy belt for him to take the hilt. It’s the real weapon and it weighs a ton. He’s as strong as a bull. He follows Macbeth everywhere like a sort of judgment. And at the end he’ll carry the head on it. He is watching Jeremy’s drawings for his costume with the eye of a hawk.”

“What’s it like?”

“Like all the other Macbeth menage. Embryo tartan, black woolen tights, thonged sheepskin leggings. A mask for the fights. In his final appearance with the head on the sword, he — er — he suggested a scarlet tabard.”

“Oh, for heaven’s sake, Perry!”

“I know. Where would he change and why? With fighting thanes milling all around. I pointed this out and for once he hadn’t an answer. He took refuge in huffy grandeur, said it was merely an idea, and went into a long thing about color and symbolism.”

“I feel I must meet him.”

“Shall I invite him for tea?”

“Do you like him?” she asked incredulously.

“Oh, one couldn’t exactly do that. Or, I don’t think one could. Collect him, perhaps. No, he might just turn into a bore and not go home.”

“In that case we won’t ask him here.”

“Or bring the Macbeth’s head with him to show you. He did that to me. When we’d finished afternoon rehearsal. It was in the shadows of the wardrobe room. I nearly fainted.”

“Frightful?”

“Terrifying. It’s sheet-white and so like Dougal. With a bloody gash, you know. He wondered if I had any suggestions to make.”

“Had you?”

“Just to cover it up quickly. Fortunately, the audience only sees it momentarily. He turns it to face Malcolm, who is up on the steps at the back. It’ll be back to audience.”

“They’ll laugh,” said Emily.

“If they laugh at that they’ll laugh at anything.”

“What do you bet?”

“Well, of course they have in the past always laughed at a head and the management always says it’s a nervous reaction. So it may be but I don’t think so. I think they know it isn’t, and can’t be, Macbeth’s or anybody else’s head and they laugh. It’s as if they said: ‘This is a bit too thick. Come off it.’ All the same, I’m going to risk it.”

“You jolly well do and more power to your elbow.”

“The final words are cut. The play ends with the thanes all shouting Hail, King of Scotland! and pointing their swords at Malcolm. He’s in a strong light. I hope the audience will go away feeling, well — relieved, uplifted, as if Scotland stands free of a nightmare.”

“I hope so, too. I think they will.”

“May you think so when you’ve seen it.”

“I bet I will,” said Emily.

“I’ll push off. So long, Em, wish me luck.”

“With all my heart,” she said and gave him a kiss and a packet and a thermos. “Your snack,” she said.

“Thanks, love. I don’t know when I’ll be home.”

“Okay. Always welcome.”

She watched him get into his car. He gave her a toot and was off.

He was taking the witches’ scenes. Mattresses had been placed on the stage behind the gallows rostrum. The body on the scaffold moved slightly in its noose, turned by one of the mysterious drafts that steal about backstage regions. When Peregrine walked in, Rangi was standing beside it, peering into the void beneath.

“Okay,” Rangi called. “If you can’t see the back of the gallery they can’t see you.”

“Can’t see nuffink,” came a muffled voice from the void.

“Fair enough,” said Rangi. “You can come up from down there.”

“Morning, Rangi,” said Peregrine. “Joined the Scene-shifters’ Union?”

Rangi grinned. “We wanted to make sure we were masked from down there.”

“You want to watch it. The right way is to ask me and I’ll check with the stage manager.” He put his arm across Ran-gi’s shoulders. “You’re not in the land of do-it-yourself, now,” he said.

“I’m sorry. I didn’t do anything. Just yelled.”

“All right. You do need to watch it. We might have the whole stage staff going out on strike. Is Bruce Barrabell here?”

“I don’t think so.”

“Good. Your part’s shaping up nicely. Do you like it?”

“Oh, sure. Sure.”

“We’ll give you a skirt for rehearsals.”

“A sort of lady-tohunga, uh? Except that tohungas are always men.”

“You’ll look like three disreputable old women until Macbeth sees your faces and they are terrible and know everything. In the opening scene we see them, birdlike, as they are — almost ravens. Busy on the gallows collecting from the corpse what’s left of the grease that’s sweaten from the murderer’s gibbet. In the third scene when Macbeth first meets them they’ve put on a sort of caricature of respectability: filthy aprons, dirty mutches that come under their chins like grave-cloths. Blondie is the sexy one. One breast hangs out. Brown and stringy. They are not like female tohungas, really.”

“Not in the least,” said Rangi cheerfully.

Dougal Macdougal arrived. He never “came in.” There was always the element of an event. He could be heard loudly greeting the more important members of the company who had now assembled, and not forgetting to say “Morning, morning” to the bit-parts. He arrived onstage, hailed Peregrine as if they hadn’t encountered each other for at least a month, saw the witch girls — “Good morning, dear. Good morning, dear” — and fetched up face to face with Rangi. “Oh. Good morning — er — Rainy,” he said loftily.

“Settle down, everyone,” said Peregrine. “We are taking the witches’ scenes. I’ve got the lights manager to come down and the effects man; I’d like them to sit beside me, take notes, and go away after this rehearsal to nut out their plots. The message I plan to convey depends very much upon dead cues for effects and I hope that between us we’ll cook up something that’ll raise the pimples on the backs of the audience’s necks. Right.”

He waited while the witches took up their positions and the others sat in the front-of-house.

“No overture,” he said, “in the usual sense. The house darkens and there’s a muffled drumbeat. Thud, thud, thud. Like a heart. Curtain up, flash of lightning. We get a fleeting look at the witches. Dry ice.”

Rangi on the arm of the gibbet reached down at the head. Wendy doubled up, and Blondie, on Wendy’s back, clawed the feet. Busy. Hold for five seconds. Blackout. Thunder. Fade up to half-light concentrated on the witches, who were now all on the ground. Dialogue.

“When shall we three meet again?”

Blondie’s voice was a high treble, Wendy’s gritty and broken, Rangi’s full and quivering.

“There to meet with — ” A pause. Silence. Then they all whisper, “Macbeth.”

“Flash of lightning,” said Peregrine. “And two caterwauls. Fog, lots of it.”

“… hover through the fog and filthy air.”

“Blackout! Catch them in midair still going up. Split-second cue. Hold blackout for scene change. Witches!Ask them to come on, will you, someone?”

“We heard you,” said a voice, Rangi’s. “We’re coming.” He and the two girls came on from behind the rostrum.

“There’ll have to be means for a quick exit from behind in the blackout. Okay? Charlie there?”

“Okay,” said the assistant stage manager, coming onstage.

“Got it?”

“Got it.”

“Good. Any questions? Rangi, are the mattresses all right?”

“I was all right. What about you two?”

“All right that time,” said Wendy. “We might sprain an ankle.”

“Fall soft, lie flat, and crawl off,” said Peregrine. “Wait a bit.” He used his makeshift steps to the stage and ran up onto the rostrum. “Like this,” he said, and jumped high. He fell out of sight with a soft thud.

“We’ll have to deal with that,” said the effects man. “How about the muffled drum again?”

There followed a complete silence. Wendy on the edge of the rostrum looked over. Perry looked up at her.

“All right?” she asked.

“Perfectly,” he said in a strange voice. “I won’t be a moment. Next scene. Clear stage.”

They moved away. Peregrine gingerly explored his left side, swearing under his breath. Below the ribs. Around the hip. Nothing broken but a hellishly sore bruise. He crept up into a kneeling position on the tarpaulin-covered mattress and from there saw what had happened. Under the tarpaulin was an unmistakable shape, cruciform, bumpy, with the hilt tailing out into the long blade. He felt it: undoubtedly a claymore. A wooden claymore, discarded since they had begun using the steel replicas of the original.

He got painfully to his feet and, holding his bruise, stumbled onto the clear area behind the scenery. “Charlie?”

“Here, sir.”

“Charlie, come here. There’s a dummy claymore under the cover. Don’t say anything about it. I don’t want anyone to know it’s there. Mark the position with chalk and then move it out and tuck the cover back in position. Understand?”

“I got you.”

“If they know it’s there, they’ll start talking a lot of nonsense.”

“Are you all right, sir?”

“Perfectly,” said Peregrine. “Just a jolt.”

He straightened up and drew in his breath. “Right,” he said and walked onstage and down to his improvised desk in the auditorium.

“Call Scene Three,” he said and sank into his seat.

“Scene Three,” called the assistant stage manager. “Witches. Macbeth. Banquo.”

Scene Three was pretty thoroughly rehearsed. The witches came in from separate spots and met onstage. Rangi contrived an excretion of venom in voice and face, egged on by moans of pleasure from his sisters. Enter Macbeth and Banquo. Trouble. Banquo’s position. He felt he should be on a higher level. He could not see Macbeth’s face. On and on in his beautiful voice. Peregrine, exquisitely uncomfortable and feeling rather sick, dealt with him, only just keeping his temper.

“The ladies will vanish as they did before. They get up to position on their Banquo and Macbeth, all hail.”

“May I interrupt?” fluted Banquo.

“No,” said Peregrine over a vicious stab of pain. “You may not. Later, dear boy. On, please.”

The scene continued with Banquo disconcerted, silver-voiced, and ominously well behaved.

Macbeth was halfway through his soliloquy. “Present fears,” he said, “are less than horrible imaginings and if the gentleman with the fetching laugh would be good enough to shut his silly trap my thought whose murder yet is but fantastical will probably remain so.”

He was removed by the total width and much of the depth of the stage from Banquo, who had been placed in a tactful conversation with the other lairds as far away as possible from the soliloquist and had burst into a peal of jolly laughter and slapped the disconcerted Ross on his shoulders.

“Cut the laugh, Bruce,” said Peregrine. “It distracts. Pipe down. On.”

The scene ended as written by the author and with the barely concealed merriment of Ross and Angus.

Dougal went into the auditorium to apologize to Peregrine. Banquo affected innocence. “Cauldron Scene,” Peregrine called.

Afterward he wondered how he got through the rest of the rehearsal. Luckily the actors and apparitions were pretty solid and it was a matter of making the lighting manager and the effects man acquainted with what would be expected of them.

The cauldron would be in the passage under the steps up to what had been Duncan’s room. A door, indistinguishable when shut, would shut at the disappearance of the cauldron and witches amidst noise, blackout, and a great display of dry-ice fog and galloping hooves. Full lighting and Lennox tapping with his sword hilt at the door.

“You’ve seen our side of it,” Peregrine said to the effects man. “It’s up to you to interpret. Go home, have a think. Then come and tell me. Right?”

“Right. I say,” said the effects man, “that kid’s good, isn’t he?”

“Yes, isn’t he?” said Peregrine. “If you’ll excuse me, I want a word with Charlie. Thank you so much. Good-bye till we three meet again. Sooner the better.”

“Yes, indeed.”

The men left. Peregrine mopped his face. I’d better get out of this, he thought, and wondered if he could drive.

It was not yet four-thirty. Banquo was not in sight and the traffic had not thickened. His car was in the yard. To hell with everything, thought Peregrine. He said to the assistant stage manager: “I want to get off, Charlie. Have you fixed it up? The sword?”

“It’s okay. Are you all right?”

“It’s just a bruise. No breakages. You’ll lock up?”

“Sure!”

He went out with Peregrine, opened the car door, and watched him in.

“Are you all right? Can you drive?”

“Yes.”

“Saturday tomorrow.”

“That’s the story, Charlie. Thank you. Don’t talk about this, will you? It’s their silly superstition.”

“I don’t talk,” said Charlie. “Are you all right?”

He was, or nearly so, when he settled. He could manage. Charlie watched him out of the yard. Along the Embankment, over the bridge, and then turn right and right again.

When he got there he was going to sound his horn. To his surprise, Emily came out of their house and ran down the steps to the car. “I thought you’d never get here,” she cried. And then: “Darling, what’s wrong?”

“Give me a bit of a prop. I’ve bruised myself. Nothing serious.”

“Right you are. Here we go, then. Which is the side?”

“The other. Here we go.”

He clung to her, slid out, and stood holding onto the car. She shut and locked the door.

“Shall I get a stick or will you use me?”

“I’ll use you, love, if you don’t mind.”

“Away we go, then.”

They staggered up the steps. Emily got the giggles. “If Mrs. Sleigh next door sees us she’ll think we’re tight,” she said.

“You needn’t help me, after all. Once I’ve straightened up I’m okay. My legs are absolutely right. Let go.”

“Are you sure?”

“Of course,” he said. He straightened up and gave a short howl. “Absolutely all right,” he said and walked rather quickly up the steps into the house and fell into an armchair. Emily went to the telephone.

“What are you doing, Em?”

“Ringing up the doctor.”

“I don’t think —”

“I do,” said Emily. She had an incisive conversation. “How did it happen?” she broke off.

“I fell on a sword. On the wooden hilt.”

She repeated this into the telephone and hung up. “He’s looking in on his way home,” she said.

“I’d like a drink.”

“I suppose it won’t do you any harm?”

“It certainly will not.”

She fetched him a drink. “I’m not sure about this,” she said.

“I am,” said Peregrine. He swallowed it. “Better,” he said. “Why did you come running out of the house?”

“I’ve got something to show you but I don’t know that you’re in a fit state to see it.”

“Bad news?”

“Not directly.”

“Then show me.”

“Here, then. Look at this.”

She fetched an envelope from the table and pulled out a cutting from one of the more lurid Sunday tabloids. It was a photograph of a woman and a small boy. They were in a street and had obviously been caught unaware. She was white-faced and stricken. The little boy looked frightened. “Mrs. Geoffrey Harcourt-Smith and William,” the caption read. “After the verdict.”

“It’s three years old,” said Emily. “It came in the post this morning.”

“My God,” Peregrine said. “I remember. It was a murder. Decapitation. The last of five, I think. The husband was found guilty but insane and he got a life sentence.” Peregrine looked at the cutting for a minute and then held it out. “Burn it?” he said.

“Gladly.” She lit a match and he held the cutting over an ashtray. It turned black and disintegrated. He let it drop.

“This too?” Emily asked, holding up the envelope. It was addressed in capital letters.

“Yes. No. No, not that. Not yet,” said Peregrine. “Put it in my desk.”

Emily did so. “You’re quite sure? It is your little William?”

“Three years younger. Absolutely sure. And his mother. Damn.”

“Perry, you’ve never seen the thing. Put it out of your mind.”

“I can’t do that. But it makes no difference. The father was a schizophrenic monster. Lifetime in Broadmoor. They called him the Hampstead Chopper.”

“You don’t think — it’s — anybody in the theatre who sent this?”

“No.”

Emily was silent.

“They’ve no cause. None.”

After a pause he said: “I suppose it might be a sort of warning.”

“You haven’t told me how you came to fall on the claymore.”

“I was showing the girls and Rangi how to fall soft. They don’t know what happened. They’ve each got a special place. The sword was halfway between two places, under the tarp covering the mattresses they fall on.”

“It was there when they fell?”

“Must have been.”

“Wouldn’t they have seen it? Seen the shape under the cover?”

“No. I didn’t. It’s very dark down there.”

They were silent for a moment. The sound of London swelled into the gap. On the river a solitary craft gave out its lonely call.

“Nobody knew,” Emily ventured, “that you were going to make that jump?”

“Of course not. I didn’t know myself, did I?”

“So it being you that got the jab in the wind was just bad luck.”

“Must have been.”

“Well, thank God for that, at least.”

“Yes.”

“Where was it? Before someone hid it?”

“I don’t know. Wait a sec. Yes, I do. The two wooden claymores were hung up on nails, on the back wall. They were somewhat the worse for wear, in spite of having cloth shields on the blades. One was split. Being Gaston’s work they were carefully made: the right weight and balance and grip but they were really only makeshift. They were no good for anything except playing soldiers.” He stopped and then hurriedly said: “I won’t elaborate on the sword to the doctor. I’ll just say it’d been left lying there and nobody cleared it up.”

“Yes. All right. True enough as far as it goes.”

“And as for William, beyond taking care what we talk about, we ignore the whole thing.”

“The play being what it is —” Emily began and stopped.

“It’s all right. He shouted out, ‘He got his comeuppance, didn’t he?’ last week, just like any other small boy. At rehearsal, I mean.”

“How old was he when it happened?”

“Six.”

“He’s nine now?”

“Yes. He looks younger. He’s a nice boy.”

“Yes. Does it hurt much? Your side?”

“If I move it’s unpleasant. I wonder if for the cast there’s some chronic affliction I could have had at odd times? The result of something that happened long before Macbeth.”

“Diverticulitis?”

“Why diverticulitis?”

“I don’t know why,” said Emily, “but it seems to me it’s something American husbands have. Their wives say mysteriously to one: ‘My dear! He has diverticulitis.’ And one nods and looks solemn.”

“I think I’d be safer with a gimpy leg. Perhaps I wrenched it years ago?”

“We can ask the doctor.”

“So we can.”

“Shall I have a look at you?”

“No, we’d better leave well enough alone.”

“What a dotty remark that is. After all,” said Emily, “the bit in question is a bit of you that is not well, so how can we leave it alone? I’ll get our dinner instead. It’ll be a proper onion soup and then an omelet. Okay?”

“Lovely,” said Peregrine.

Emily made up their fire, gave Peregrine a book to read, and went to the kitchen. The onion soup was prepared and only needed heating. She cut up bread into snippets and heated butter in a frying-pan. She opened a bottle of Burgundy and left it to breathe.

“Emily!” called Peregrine.

She hurried back to the study. “What’s up?”

“I’m all right. I’ve been thinking. Nina. She won’t be satisfied with the chronic gallstones or whatever. She’ll just think my chronic thing coming back now is another stroke of bad luck.”

They had their dinner on trays. Emily tidied them away and they sat with modest glasses of Burgundy over their fire.

Peregrine said: “The sword and the photograph? Are they connected?”

“Why should they be?”

“I don’t know.”

The doctor came. He made a careful examination and said there were no bones broken but there was severe bruising. He made Peregrine do painful things.

“You’ll survive,” he said facetiously. “I’m leaving something to help you sleep.”

“Good.”

“Don’t go prancing about showing actors what to do.”

“I’m incapable of even the smallest prance.”

“Jolly good. I’ll look in again tomorrow evening.”

“Thank you.”

Emily went to the front door with the doctor. “He’ll be down at the theatre on Monday come hell or high water,” she said. “He doesn’t want the cast to know he fell on a sword. What could he have? Something chronic.”

“I really don’t know. Stomach cramp? Hardly.” He thought for a moment. “Diverticulitis?” he suggested. And then: “Why on earth are you laughing?”

“Because it’s a joke word.” Emily put on a grave face, raised her eyebrows, and nodded meaningfully. “Diverticulitis.” she said in a sepulchral voice.

“I don’t know what you’re on about,” said the doctor, and then, “Is it something to do with superstitions?”

“That’s very clever of you. Yes. It is. In a way.”

“Good-night, me dear,” said the doctor and left.