The Death-Cap Dancers

Chapter 10: WILD THYME (2)

« ^ »

The rehearsal over, the dancers sat on the rather uncomfortable chairs and put their stockinged feet up while Peggy and Pippa were sent out by Giles to the shops in Gledge End to purchase food and soft drinks for the party. The meal was to be taken in the church hall to save time and conserve energy.

‘Take the tandem,’ said Willie handsomely. ‘If you hitch the trailer you can bring back lots of grub and plenty to drink. Your little handlebar baskets won’t hold nearly enough for all of us.’

‘Not too much liquid,’ said Giles, the leader. ‘When it’s over we’ll go to the pub, but we don’t want a lot of fizz sloshing about inside us before we dance.’

The platform in the hall, dignified, when the building was hired, by being called the stage, was on this occasion to be used to seat some of those who had bought the most expensive tickets. On one side of it there was an entrance through a doorway in the back wall to a room in which, on Sundays, a class for the youngest Sunday School children could be held, and when the hall was let on weekdays the room served as a changing-room and had a washroom attached to it. It also contained a very roomy cupboard for the caretaker’s brooms and buckets.

After the indoor picnic-style lunch the company rested while Pippa practised an obbligato she was to play with an orchestra in a concert in her own town and Giles knit his brows over the afternoon programme and hoped that Mick would be able to cope with the extra rôles assigned to him in place of Judy. The show was to open at three and was to begin with a set of three folk-songs sung by the whole company including the violinist. The plump Peggy was to wear a print dress and a sunbonnet and at Giles’s orders, although against her own wishes, Pippa was to be disguised in a beard and false eyebrows. These were in the property box, but seldom used except for the more bucolic of the folk-songs, when they were worn by Plum. Pippa had done her best to repudiate them, but Giles was adamant.

‘As Mick looks so much like you now he is dressed as a girl for the hornpipe and Three Meet and Parson’s Farewell,’ he said, agreement having been reached that Mick would take the girl’s part in these dances, with Peggy as the other girl in Parson’s Farewell, ‘we simply must iron out the resemblance, don’t you see, dear?’

‘It’s very unorthodox,’ said Peggy, ‘to have Mick in the hornpipe as a sort of bumboat woman.’

‘Well, it makes it more fun,’ said Giles. ‘I still don’t see why a white sweater and your navy shorts, with the sailor cap and your bare feet, wouldn’t do for you, but there you are. You insist on playing your fiddle for it. And Mick, you dance it straight. If you go putting on an ad lib and ogling the two sailors, the audience will know you’re a man, and that may get you a laugh, but it will utterly ruin Three Meet, so no capers, if you please. Save them for the Morris where they belong.’

‘In name, if not in nature,’ said Plum.

‘I wonder why the things you pickle are also called capers?’ said Peter, who thought the conversation was becoming charged with nervous tension.

‘The vegetable kind are named after a Middle English word, caperes,’ said Giles. ‘The movements called capers in a dance are a sort of bowdlerised version of capriole, which I imagine is French.’

‘Oh, yes, there’s Peter Warlock’s Capriole Suite. You ought to make up some dances to that music, Giles. I believe the Rambert Ballet used to do that, or so my oldest aunt told me. She saw them at the old Lyric Theatre in Hammersmith,’ said Ronnie, backing up Peter’s effort to calm the party.

‘There is another use for the word ‘caper’ which is not so generally known,’ said Willie. ‘There is a Manx proverb which says, “The weather is so foul that not even a caper will venture out.” In this connection a caper was an Irish fisherman from Cape Clear. These chaps had the reputation for venturing out to sea in any weather.’

‘Join Wild Thyme and get yourself a liberal education,’ said Giles. ‘Well, I think it’s time we got changed. If I mistake not, our audience will soon be arriving.’

It had been arranged that the caretaker would be ‘on the door’ to tear the tickets and that Peggy would show people to their seats as, for her, there would be no costume changes. The caretaker had strict instructions to let no latecomers in during a dance, but to allow them to find their seats (without Peggy’s assistance) if they arrived while nothing but a feast of song was being offered. All the songs were sung in unison as choruses. There were no vocal soloists. In any case, very few late arrivals were anticipated. As Peter put it: ‘We who live north of a line drawn from Stafford to Kings Lynn are jolly well going to see the whole of a performance for which we’ve shelled out our brass.’

‘Are you going to act on that tip the forestry warden gave you?’ Peggy enquired of Giles, while the company still kept their seats.

‘Worth trying, I think,’ he said. ‘It won’t be much fun pedalling our bikes forty miles to the next Youth Hostel after we’ve done the show, and the last twenty miles will be after dark. If I can get you two girls fixed up for the night it will be something. We chaps must take our chance. I’d like to get Mick a bed near here, as he’s got such an extra load of dancing to do now that we haven’t Judy with us, but that would involve Willie, because of the tandem. Oh, well, we’ll see what the response is from the forest cabins. I know there are one or two empty cabins at this time of year, but I suppose it would be against regulations for the warden to let us have a couple of those for the night, even at a reasonable fee which we could easily afford out of the ticket money.’

‘Well, I hope something comes up for us,’ said Peggy, ‘and for you boys, too. A few miles to the forest is a vastly different proposition from forty miles to the next hostel and some of it after dark. It wasn’t even dark when Judy was pulled off her bike.’

‘We don’t know that she was pulled off it,’ said Giles, ‘so don’t start all that up again. We’ve got the show to think about. ’ He was feeling his responsibilities acutely. There had been all too little time to rehearse the changes in the programme which had been made necessary by Judy’s absence, and there had even been serious discussion of a suggestion by Pippa that the most spectacular item should be left out altogether. This was their own version of the traditional sword dance called Kirkby Malzeard and titled by Giles, who had imposed a dramatically bloody ending on it, Ritual Slaughter at Kirkby Moorside.

‘We can’t do it properly with seven people, even if I do the hobby horse,’ she said, ‘and Peggy can’t dance in it because you say we must have her for the music, but I still can’t see why my flute wouldn’t do. Peggy would do the hobby horse better than I shall.’

‘We settled all that,’ said Giles, ‘and I’ve spent a lot of time coaching you.’

‘I know, but I’m still nervous about how I shall perform.’

‘It isn’t as though you have to dance,’ said Giles. ‘So long as you keep out of the dancers’ way and only make little dashes at the audience and flick the horse’s tail in their faces and cavort about a bit, you’ll do fine. And Peter made the head and the rest of the gear very light because Judy was going to wear it, so you know you can support it all right. We know it’s really a man’s part, but you’ll manage.’

Pippa began to cry.

‘I think it’s in dreadfully bad taste to dance a ritual killing when we know what’s happened to Judy,’ she said.

‘Oh, stop beefing!’ said Plum. ‘No need to bring that up.’

‘On another matter,’ said Giles, ‘I’ve notified the local press and I expect they’ll take photographs after the show, so nobody is to change out of costume until they’ve done with us.’

‘I’m not going to be photographed wearing that awful contraption you call the hobby horse’s head,’ said Pippa, still in tears.

‘All right, all right. You’ll still be wearing your beard, so you can take off the head, but be sure you hold it in profile. It’s Peter’s pièce de resistance and I want it to stand out.’

‘I don’t want to be photographed in the beard, either.’

‘Look, I’ve explained about the beard. You and Mick must be differentiated.’

‘But he wears a beard for the Morris and the sword dances.’

‘Quite a different beard, and I’ve trimmed yours so that you can find your lips for your flute. What’s the matter with you, Pippa? It isn’t like you to kick up this sort of damn silly fuss.’

‘If you want to know, I’m scared. Judy was murdered — you know she was. And if Mick plays the victim he’ll be murdered, too. I don’t want to stay the night in one of the forest cabins, either. It’s not safe. As soon as the show is over I am getting on my bike and going home.’

The show was scheduled to last for an hour and a half. There were only two items which would not be repeated for an encore. Whether the audience called for encores or not was beside the point, Giles pointed out. The time had to be filled in somehow, or people would not feel they were getting their money’s worth. The exceptions were the four groups of folk-songs (‘they wouldn’t get an encore, anyway — we don’t sing well enough’) and the Ritual Murder dance with which the programme ended.

‘We may be offering a rather truncated version of what I originally planned,’ said Giles, ‘but even that would lose all its drama if we repeated it. That bloody head is another masterpiece of Peter’s. We end on that and I don’t expect much applause for any other item. People in these parts only really like vulgar comedians and audience participation in the songs, and they’ll be highly critical of our old-style folk-songs and dances and, of course, they do like a full orchestra which makes plenty of lively noise, not just a violin and a flute with occasional piano accompaniment.’

‘Oh, don’t encourage us, whatever you do,’ said Peggy bitterly. ‘As though we don’t already feel inadequate enough!’

‘Oh, quite a few of the forest cabin people are coming,’ said Ronnie soothingly. ‘They’ll appreciate us, I’m sure, and we are not repeating any of the songs unless they applaud them quite wildly — and they won’t.’

‘We had better get changed,’ said Giles. ‘Good luck, everybody.’

‘We shall need it,’ said Peter. The programme opened with three of the songs. All the songs, of which there were a round dozen, were arranged in groups of three and in all of them Judy’s clear soprano was sorely missed, although Peter could manage a passable counter-tenor and Mick what the others called ‘a Hinge-and-Bracket’ voice. Pippa did not sing, her lips being otherwise engaged, but Peggy, at the piano for the songs, had a robust contralto and Plum contributed a resounding bass.

As the first three songs were to be followed by the folk dances called Three Meet and Parsons Farewell, Mick was able to appear in his girl-rig for the opening choruses, so that he had no need of a costume change for the first two dances. The other men were in the white flannel trousers which they would also wear for the morris and sword dances,but would be without their ribbon-streamer hats and the bells on their legs. While any changes of costume were being made in the little room behind the platform, the two girls were to play the flute and violin solos taking it in turns to accompany one another on the piano, and there would also be a rendering of various sentimental airs known, it was hoped, to most of the audience.

‘The tickets are not numbered,’ said Erica, ‘so we had better get there in good time if we want to find a good seat. I’m surprised that a church hall has a stage big enough for dancing.’

‘It will probably be staged at floor level,’ said the knowledgeable Isobel. ‘When these sort of people come to give a performance at my school, they use the body of the hall and the kids sit around on all four sides, leaving a big space in the middle. I expect that’s what it will be like this afternoon.’

The church hall had its carpark and only half-a-dozen cars were in it when they arrived. Peggy, at her most gracious, her generous body encased in a small black velvet bolero and a very full flowered skirt topped by a white muslin blouse, was also wearing white stockings and shining black shoes. She asked whether they would like seats on the platform — ‘you can have four in the middle of the front row’ — or whether they would prefer to be in the body of the hall and, receiving an answer, took them on to the small stage.

The choice had been made by Tamsin, who immediately saw that John Trent was up there. She appropriated the chair next to his at the end of the front row.

‘We thought you had gone home,’ she said.

‘No,’ he said. ‘We had to get out of our cabin before ten this morning, so we left soon after breakfast and I took my parents home and came back here, but I’m afraid I can’t stay to the end.’

‘We didn’t think we should see you again.’

‘Oh, these bad pennies, you know. Hullo, isn’t that your clinging vine in the doorway?’

‘Oh, dear, yes. We hoped he had moved on.’

‘It doesn’t look like it, and he is headed this way. He’s got two people with him.’

Adam, who was coming towards the platform, was waylaid by Peggy. They heard her say: ‘Sorry, but your ticket doesn’t entitle you to sit up there. This way, please.’ The middle-aged couple who had accompanied him were already being directed by the caretaker to the second row down below. Adam shrugged his shoulders and took a seat in the body of the hall as near to the door as he could get, and the couple got up and joined him, but, a few words having been exchanged, they returned to the more central seats in the second row to which they had first been directed, and the bulk of the audience began to come in.

Like many amateur performances, the show started late, Mick having mislaid a shoe, but by twenty minutes past three the two musicians had taken their places and soon the company was rendering the first of three folk-songs with Pippa at the piano, her flute in its case resting on the chair next to Peggy, who was accompanying on the violin.

The audience was not a large one, although a certain amount of money had been taken at the door, but the applause was more generous than Giles had expected it to be. The songs went down well, the dances even better, and it was a flushed and happy company which gathered in the dressing-room at the end of the dance in which Mick had been ritually slain and the bloody head carried round in triumph, a considerable alteration to the original version, but one well received by the audience.

John Trent, among others, missed this grand finale and Adam Penshaw saw even less of the show than John, for he stayed only for the three opening songs and the two folk-dances which followed them. John stayed until four o’clock and then took advantage of his place at the end of the row near the platform steps, which he had chosen so that he could slip away without disturbing anybody, gave Tamsin’s hand a squeeze and made an unobtrusive exit in the middle of three sea-shanties which preceded the hornpipe. The songs were to give Mick time to take off the beard he wore as a morris and sword dancer (different in colour and shape from the one which Pippa so much disliked on herself) and get into the blonde wig, black stockings and a skirt borrowed from Peggy, ready to dance as a bumbboat woman between Giles and Plum, the two sailors. The choruses were left therefore to the depleted choir consisting of Peter, Ronnie, Willie and Peggy, with Pippa, also singing, at the piano.

Under cover of the sea-shanties Tamsin murmured to Hermione, who was seated between her and Isobel, ‘John asked for my address.’

‘Did you give it to him?’

‘Yes. he said he would write.’

‘Pity he has to go home.’

As soon as the performance was over and the audience were beginning to leave the hall, the performers, pleased with themselves, remained in the dressing-room while the audience was dispersing. The hall being clear except for the chairs and a certain amount of litter, the caretaker came round to say that the photographer was ready. Giles went out to speak to him and learned that he wanted to take several pictures from which the editor of the local paper would make a selection.

As the company, including Pippa as the hobby horse, were still in their sword-dance costumes, that group was taken first and was to be followed by the folk-dancers. This involved only four of the company: Giles, Willie, Peggy, and Mick in his impersonation of a girl. The first three had little alteration to make in their costumes, but it was different for Mick.

‘I’ll be a minute or two getting my beard off and myself into the petticoats,’ he said. ‘Tell the chap I’ll be as quick as I can.’

‘Well, while you’re changing, the rest of us can begin clearing the hall. It’s wanted for the Youth Club tonight and the caretaker has to get the floor and the platform swept and the table-tennis trestles and boards out. I promised we would stack up the chairs and move the piano to where he wants it, so we can save a bit of our own time if we start the chores now. The photographer will have to wait,’ said Giles.

This business of changing his clothes took Mick so long, apparently, that when all the chairs were stacked, the platform cleared and the piano moved, he still had not joined the others.

‘He must have stuck too much glue on that beard, or something,’ said the photographer, who was becoming restless. ‘Could one of you go and hurry him up a bit? I’ve got another assignment to cover.’

‘I’ll go,’ said Peggy immediately. She darted away before anyone else could offer to go, and banged the heavy door shut behind her. Ten more minutes went by and the photographer said that he proposed to make do with the pictures he had already taken, and promptly removed himself and his camera. Giles, who had bounded towards the dressing-room, returned to find him gone. He had news for his team.

‘Not a sign of either of them,’ he said. ‘Mick must have got changed, because his girl-outfit has gone and his flannels and bells and things are on the floor in the little washroom. I can’t think what has happened.’

‘I can,’ said Pippa and Willie in unison. They looked at one another and Willie continued, ‘She was always after him. I reckon it was a put-up job between them. He is a weak, soft-hearted fellow, so she’s had her own way at last and taken him off with her. She swore to Judy that she would have him all to herself one day, and I think she’s proved herself right.’

‘Well, some girls in one of the forest cabins have offered to take Pippa for the night,’ said Giles to the others, ‘but the rest of us have got to get to the next hostel and that’s forty miles off. Be hanged to those two idiots! They’ll have either the tandem or Peggy’s own bike and one of ours. They must have slipped out by the back door. It was open when I went in.’

The bicycles had been left in an unlocked shed near the main door of the hall, so the party went out that way. The tandem was gone, but the trailer which held the properties was still there.

‘We’ll have to leave it here for a day or two,’ said Giles to the caretaker. ‘I’ll get it picked up as soon as I can. Willie, you’ll have to put up the saddle on Peggy’s bike and ride that, I’m afraid. It’s no good cursing. Come on, or we shall hardly make the hostel by ten and that’s the deadline.’

‘What’s that on your shoe?’ asked Peter. Giles glanced down and said, ‘Looks as though I trod on a tube of red greasepaint in the changing-room. Somebody must have dropped it. Come on! Come on! Pippa, you know the way to the forest and they gave you the number of the cabin, didn’t they? Be seeing you!’

‘I want to go with you.’

‘No, no. You be a good girl and go to that forest cabin for the night. They’ll be expecting you. We shall be better on our own. We’re going to scorch. You would never be able to keep up.’

‘Oh, all right.’ She mounted her bicycle, waved good-bye and cycled northwards to where Erica was preparing a hot supper for the four young women and the two visitors they expected, for Peggy had also been offered a bed in the cabin.

‘I’m sorry for those boys,’ Tamsin had said, ‘but we’re doing our bit, anyway.’

‘Oh, who cares about boys?’ retorted Isobel. ‘They are simply little things which are sent to try us. You’d know, if you had them in school, as I have.’

‘I have them on building-sites, and I’m inclined to agree with you,’ said Erica.

‘Fancy John turning up like that! ’ said Tamsin. ‘I was awfully glad.’

‘A marriage has been arranged and will shortly take place,’ said Hermione. Tamsin picked up a lump of dough from Erica’s pastryboard and flung it at her.