The Ngaio March Collection

Light Thickens

For James Laurenson who played The Thane and for Helen Thomas (Holmes) who was his Lady, in the third production of the play by The Canterbury University Players.

Table of Contents

Cover Page

Title Page

Dedication

Cast of Characters

Part One: Curtain Up

CHAPTER 1 First Week

CHAPTER 2 Second Week

CHAPTER 3 Third Week

CHAPTER 4 Fourth Week

CHAPTER 5 Fifth Week. Dress Rehearsals and First Night

Part Two: Curtain Call

CHAPTER 6 Catastrophe

CHAPTER 7 The Junior Element

CHAPTER 8 Development

CHAPTER 9 Finis

By the Same Author

Copyright

About the Publisher

Cast of Characters

Peregrine Jay | Director, Dolphin Theatre
Emily Jay | His wife
Crispin Jay | Their eldest son
Robin Jay | Their second son
Richard Jay | Their youngest son
Annie | Their cook
Doreen | Her daughter
Jeremy Jones | Designer, Dolphin Theatre
Winter Morris | Business Manager
Mrs Abrams | Secretary
Bob Masters | Stage Director
Charlie | Assistant Stage Manager
Ernie | Property Master
Nanny | Miss Mannering’s dresser
Mrs Smith | Mother of William
Marcello | A restaurateur
The Stage-Door Keeper |

Sir James Curtis
Pathologist

DOLPHIN THEATRE
MACBETH

by

William Shakespeare

Sundry soldiers, servants and apparitions

The Scene: Scotland and England

The play directed by PEREGRINE JAY

Setting and Costumes by JEREMY JONES

Part One: Curtain Up

CHAPTER 1 First Week

Peregrine Jay heard the stage door at the Dolphin open and shut and the sound of voices. His scenic and costume designer and lights manager came through to the open stage. They wheeled out three specially built racks, unrolled their drawings for the production of Macbeth and pinned them up.

They were stunning. A permanent central rough stone stairway curving up to Duncan’s chamber. Two turntables articulating with this to represent, on the right, the outer façade of Inverness Castle or the inner courtyard with, on the left, a high stone platform with a gallows and a dangling rag-covered skeleton, or, turned, another wall of the courtyard. The central wall was a dull red arras behind the stairway and open sky.

The lighting director showed a dozen big drawings of the various sets with the startling changes brought about by his craft. One of these was quite lovely: an opulent evening in front of the castle with the setting sun bathing everything in splendour. One felt the air to be calm, gentle and full of the sound of wings. And then, next to it, the same scene with the enormous doors opened, a dark interior, torches, a piper and the Lady in scarlet coming to welcome the fated visitor.

Jeremy,’ Peregrine said, ‘you’ve done us proud.’

‘OK?’

‘It’s so right! It’s so bloody right. Here! Let’s up with the curtain. Jeremy?’

The designer went offstage and pressed a button. With a long-drawn-out sigh the curtain rose. The shrouded house waited.

‘Light them, Jeremy! Blackout and lights on them. Can you?’

‘It won’t be perfect but I’ll try.’

‘Just for the hell of it, Jeremy.’

Jeremy laughed, moved the racks and went to the lights console.

Peregrine and the others filed through a pass-door to the front-of-house. Presently there was a total blackout and then, after a pause, the drawings were suddenly there, alive in the midst of nothing and looking splendid.

‘Only approximate, of course,’ Jeremy said in the dark.

‘Let’s keep this for the cast to see. They’re due now.’

‘You don’t want to start them off with broken legs, do you?’ asked somebody’s voice in the dark.

There was an awkward pause.

‘Well – no. Put on the light in the passage,’ said Peregrine in a voice that was a shade too off-hand. ‘No,’ he shouted. ‘Bring down the curtain again, Jeremy. We’ll do it properly.’

The stage door was opened and more voices were heard, two women’s and a man’s. They came in exclaiming at the dark.

‘All right, all right,’ Peregrine called out cheerfully. ‘Stay where you are. Lights, Jeremy, would you? Just while people are coming in. Thank you. Come down in front, everybody. Watch how you go. Splendid.’

They came down. Margaret Mannering first, complaining about the stairs in her wonderful warm voice with little breaks of laughter, saying she knew she was unfashionably punctual. Peregrine hurried to meet her. ‘Maggie, darling! It’s all meant to start us off with a bang, but I do apologize. No more steps. Here we are. Sit down in the front row. Nina! Are you all right? Come and sit down, love. Bruce! Welcome, indeed. I’m so glad you managed to fit us in with television.’

I’m putting it on a bit thick, he thought. Nerves! Here they all come. Steady now.

They arrived singly and in pairs, having met at the door. They greeted Peregrine and one another extravagantly or facetiously and all of them asked why they were sitting in front and not on stage or in the rehearsal room. Peregrine kept count of heads. When they got to seventeen and then to nineteen he knew they were waiting for only one: the Thane.

He began again, counting them off. Simon Morten – Macduff. A magnificent figure, six foot two. Dark. Black eyes with a glitter. Thick black hair that sprang in short-clipped curls from his skull. A smooth physique not yet running to fat and a wonderful voice. Almost too good to be true. Bruce Barrabell – Banquo. Slight. Five foot ten inches tall. Fair to sandy hair. Beautiful voice. And the King? Almost automatic casting – he’d played every Shakespearean king in the canon except Lear and Claudius, and played them all well if a little less than perfectly. The great thing about him was, above all, his royalty. He was more royal than any of the remaining crowned heads of Europe and his name was actually King: Norman King. The Malcolm was, in real life, his son – a young man of nineteen – and the resemblance was striking.

There was Lennox, the sardonic man. Nina Gaythorne, the Lady Macduff, who was talking very earnestly with the Doctor. And I don’t mind betting it’s all superstition, thought Peregrine uneasily. He looked at his watch: twenty minutes late. I’ve half a mind to start without him, so I have.

A loud and lovely voice and the bang of the stage door.

Peregrine hurried through the pass door and up on the stage.

‘Dougal, my dear fellow, welcome,’ he shouted.

‘But I’m so sorry, dear boy. I’m afraid I’m a fraction late. Where is everybody?’

‘In front. I’m not having a reading.’

‘Not?’

‘No. A few words about the play. The working drawings and then away we go.’

‘Really?’

‘Come through. This way. Here we go.’

Peregrine led the way. ‘The Thane himself, everybody,’ he announced.

It gave Sir Dougal Macdougal an entrance. He stood for a moment on the steps into the front-of-house, an apologetic grin transforming his face. Such a nice chap, he seemed to be saying. No upstage nonsense about him. Everybody loves everybody. Yes. He saw Margaret Mannering. Delight! Acknowledgement! Outstretched arms and a quick advance. ‘Maggie! My dear! How too lovely!’ Kissing of hands and both cheeks. Everybody felt as if the central heating had been turned up another five points. Suddenly they all began talking.

Peregrine stood with his back to the curtain, facing the company with whom he was about to take a journey. Always it felt like this. They had come aboard: they were about to take on other identities. In doing this something would happen to them all: new ingredients would be tried, accepted or denied. Alongside them were the characters they must assume. They would come closer and, if the casting was accurate, slide together. For the time they were on stage they would be one. So he held. And when the voyage was over they would all be a little bit different.

He began talking to them.

‘I’m not starting with a reading,’ he said. ‘Readings are OK as far as they go for the major roles, but bit parts are bit parts and as far as the Gentlewoman and the Doctor are concerned, once they arrive they are bloody important, but their zeal won’t be set on fire by sitting around waiting for a couple of hours for their entrance.

‘Instead I’m going to invite you to take a hard look at this play and then get on with it. It’s short and it’s faulty. That is to say, it’s full of errors that crept into whatever script was handed to the printers. Shakespeare didn’t write the silly Hecate bits, so out she comes. It’s compact and drives quickly to its end. It’s remorseless. I’ve directed it in other theatres twice, each time I may say successfully and without any signs of bad luck, so I don’t believe in the bad luck stories associated with it and I hope none of you do either. Or if you do, you’ll keep your ideas to yourselves.’

He paused for long enough to sense a change of awareness in his audience and a quick, instantly repressed movement of Nina Gaythorne’s hands.

‘It’s straightforward,’ he said. ‘I don’t find any major difficulties or contradictions in Macbeth. He is a hypersensitive, morbidly imaginative man beset by an overwhelming ambition. From the moment he commits the murder he starts to disintegrate. Every poetic thought, magnificently expressed, turns sour. His wife knows him better than he knows himself and from the beginning realizes that she must bear the burden, reassure her husband, screw his courage to the sticking-point, jolly him along. In my opinion,’ Peregrine said, looking directly at Margaret Mannering, ‘she’s not an iron monster who can stand up to any amount of hard usage. On the contrary, she’s a sensitive creature who has an iron will and has made a deliberate evil choice. In the end she never breaks but she talks and walks in her sleep. Disastrously.’

Maggie leant forward, her hands clasped, her eyes brilliantly fixed on his face. She gave him a little series of nods. At the moment, at least, she believed him.

‘And she’s as sexy as hell,’ he added. ‘She uses it. Up to the hilt.’

He went on. The witches, he said, must be completely accepted. The play was written in James I’s time at his request. James I believed in witches. In their power and their malignancy. ‘Let us show you,’ said Peregrine, ‘what I mean. Jeremy, can you?’

Blackout, and there were the drawings, needle-sharp in their focused lights.

‘You see the first one,’ Peregrine said. ‘That’s what we’ll go up on, my dears. A gallows with its victim, picked clean by the witches. They’ll drop down from it and dance widdershins round it. Thunder and lightning. Caterwauls. The lot. Only a few seconds and then they’ll leap up and we’ll see them in mid-air. Blackout. They’ll fall behind the high rostrum on to a pile of mattresses. Gallows away. Pipers. Lighted torches and we’re off.’

Well, he thought, I’ve got them. For the moment. They’re caught. And that’s all one can hope for. He went through the rest of the cast, noting how economically the play was written and how completely the inherent difficulty of holding the interest in a character as seemingly weak as Macbeth was overcome.

‘Weak?’ asked Dougal Macdougal. ‘You think him weak, do you?’

‘Weak in respect of this one monstrous thing he feels himself drawn towards doing. He’s a most successful soldier. You may say “larger than life”. He “takes the stage”, cuts a superb figure. The King has promised he will continue to shower favours upon him. Everything is as rosy as can be. And yet – and yet –’

‘His wife?’ Dougal suggested. ‘And the witches!’

‘Yes. That’s why I say the witches are enormously important. One has the feeling that they are conjured up by Macbeth’s secret thoughts. There’s not a character in the play that questions their authority. There have been productions, you know, that bring them on at different points, silent but menacing, watching their work.

‘They pull Macbeth along the path to that one definitive action. And then, having killed the King, he’s left – a murderer. For ever. Unable to change. His morbid imagination takes charge. The only thing he can think of is to kill again. And again. Notice the imagery. The play closes in on him. And on us. Everything thickens. His clothes are too big, too heavy. He’s a man in a nightmare.

‘There’s the break, the breather for the leading actor that comes in all the tragedies. We see Macbeth once again with the witches and then comes the English scene with the boy Malcolm taking his oddly contorted way of finding out if Macduff is to be trusted, his subsequent advance into Scotland, the scene of Lady Macbeth speaking of horrors with the strange, dead voice of the sleepwalker.

‘And then we see him again; greatly changed; aged, desperate, unkempt; his cumbersome royal robes in disarray, attended still by Seyton who has grown in size. And so to the end.’

He waited for a moment. Nobody spoke.

‘I would like,’ said Peregrine, ‘before we block the opening scenes to say a brief word about the secondary parts. It’s the fashion to say they’re uninteresting. I don’t agree. About Lennox, in particular. He’s likeable, down to earth, quick-witted but slow to make the final break. There’s evidence in the imperfect script of some doubt about who says what. We will make Lennox the messenger to Lady Macduff. When next we see him he’s marching with Malcolm. His scene with an unnamed thane (we’ll give the lines to Ross) when their suspicion of Macbeth, their nosing out of each other’s attitudes, develops into a tacit understanding, is “modern” in treatment, almost black comedy in tone.’

‘And the Seyton?’ asked a voice from the rear. A very deep voice.

‘Ah, Seyton. There again, obviously, he’s “Sirrah”, the unnamed servant who accompanies Macbeth like a shadow, who carries his great claidheamh-mor, who joins the two murderers and later in the play emerges with a name – Seyton. He has hardly any lines but he’s ominous. A big, silent, ever-present, amoral fellow who only leaves his master at the very end. We’re casting Gaston Sears for the part. My Sears, as you all know, in addition to being an actor is an authority on medieval weapons and is already working for us in that capacity.’ There was an awkward silence followed by an acquiescent murmur.

The saturnine person, sitting alone, cleared his throat, folded his arms and spoke. ‘I shall carry,’ he announced, basso-profundo, ‘a claidheamh-mor.’

‘Quite so,’ Peregrine said. ‘You are the sword-bearer. As for the – ‘

‘ – which has been vulgarized into “claymore”. I prefer “claidheamh-mor” meaning “great sword”, it being – ‘

‘Quite so, Gaston. And now – ‘

For a time the voices mingled, the bass one coming through with disjointed phrases: ‘…Magnus’s leg-biter…quillons formed by turbulent protuberance…’

‘To continue,’ Peregrine shouted. The sword-bearer fell silent.

‘And the witches?’ asked a helpful witch.

‘Entirely evil,’ answered the relieved Peregrine. ‘Dressed like fantastic parodies of Meg Merrilies but with terrible faces. We don’t see their faces until “look not like the inhabitants of the earth and yet are on’t,” when they are suddenly revealed. They smell abominably.’

‘And speak?’

‘Braid Scots.’

‘What about me, Perry? Braid Scots too?’ suggested the porter.

‘Yes. You enter through the central trap, having been collecting fuel in the basement. And,’ Peregrine said with ill-concealed pride, ‘the fuel is bleached driftwood and most improperly shaped. You address each piece in turn as a farmer, as an equivocator and as an English tailor, and you consign them all to the fire.’

‘I’m a funny man?’

‘We hope so.’

‘Aye. A-weel, it’s a fine idea, I’ll give it that. Och, aye. A bonny notion,’ said the porter.

He chuckled and mouthed and Peregrine wished he wouldn’t, but he was a good Scots actor.

He waited for a moment, wondering how much he had gained of their confidence. Then he turned to the designs and explained how they would work and then to the costumes.

‘I’d like to say here and now that these drawings and those for the sets – Jeremy has done both – are, to my mind, exactly right. Notice the suggestion of the clan tartans: a sort of primitive pre-tartan. The cloak is a distinctive check affair. All Macbeth’s servitors and servitors of royal personages wore their badges and the livery of their masters. Lennox, Angus and Ross wear their own distinctive cloaks with the clan check. Banquo and Fleance have particularly brilliant ones, blood-red with black and silver borders. For the rest, thonged trousers, fur jerkins, and sheepswool chaps. Massive jewellery. Great jewelled bosses, heavy necklets and heavy bracelets, in Macbeth’s case reaching up to the elbow and above it. The general effect is heavy, primitive but incidentally extremely sexy. Gauntlets, fringed and ornamented. And the crowns! Macbeth’s in particular. Huge and heavy it must look.’

‘Look,’ said Macdougal, ‘being the operative word, I hope.’

‘Yes, of course. We’ll have it made of plastic. And Maggie…do you like what you see, darling?’

What she saw was a skin-tight gown of dull metallic material, slit up one side to allow her to walk. A crimson, heavily furred garment was worn over it, open down the front. She had only one jewel, a great clasp.

‘I hope I’ll fit it,’ said Maggie.

‘You’ll do that,’ he said, ‘and now – ‘ he was conscious of a tightness under his belt – ‘we’ll clear stage and get down to business. Oh! There’s one point I’ve missed. You will see that for our first week some of the rehearsals are at night. This is to accommodate Sir Dougal who is shooting the finals of his new film. The theatre is dark, the current production being on tour. It’s a bit out of the ordinary, I know, and I hope nobody finds it too awkward?’

There was a silence during which Sir Dougal with spread arms mimed a helpless apology.

‘I can’t forbear saying it’s very inconvenient,’ said Banquo.

‘Are you filming?’

‘Not precisely. But it might arise.’

‘We’ll hope it doesn’t,’ Peregrine said. ‘Right? Good. Clear stage, please, everybody. Scene 1. The witches.’

II

‘It’s going very smoothly,’ said Peregrine, three days later. ‘Almost too smoothly. Dougal’s uncannily lamblike and everyone told me he was a Frankenstein’s Monster to work with.’

‘Keep your fingers crossed,’ said his wife, Emily. ‘It’s early days yet.’

‘True.’ He looked curiously at her. ‘I’ve never asked you,’ he said.

‘Do you believe in it? The superstition business?’

‘No,’ she said quickly.

‘Not the least tiny bit? Really?’

Emily looked steadily at him. ‘Truly?’ she asked.

‘Yes.’

‘My mother was a one hundred per cent Highlander.’

‘So?’

‘So it’s not easy to give you a direct answer. Some superstitions – most, I think – are silly little matters of habit: a pinch of spilt salt over the left shoulder. One may do it without thinking but if one doesn’t it’s no great matter – that sort of thing. But – there are other ones. Not silly. I don’t believe in them, but I think I avoid them.’

‘Like the Macbeth ones?’

‘Yes. But I didn’t mind you doing it. Or not enough to try to stop you. Because I don’t really believe,’ said Emily very firmly.

‘I don’t believe at all. Not at any level. I’ve done two productions of the play and they both were accident-free and very successful. As for the instances they drag up – Macbeth’s sword breaking and a bit of it hitting someone in the audience or a dropped weight narrowly missing an actor’s head – if they’d happened in any other play nobody would have said it was an unlucky play. How about Rex Harrison’s hairpiece being caught in a chandelier and whisked up into the flies? Nobody said My Fair Lady was unlucky.’

‘Nobody dared to mention it, I should think.’

‘There is that, of course,’ Peregrine agreed.

‘All the same, it’s not a fair example.’

‘Why isn’t it?’

‘Well, it’s not serious. I mean, well…’

‘You wouldn’t say that if you’d been there, I dare say,’ said Peregrine.

He walked over to the window and looked at the Thames: at the punctual late-afternoon traffic. It congealed on the south bank, piled up, broke out into a viscous stream and crossed by bridge to the north bank. Above it, caught by the sun, shone the theatre: not very big but conspicuous in its whiteness and, because of the squat mess of little riverside buildings that surrounded it, appearing tall, even majestic.

‘You can tell which of them’s bothered about the bad luck stories,’ he said. ‘They won’t say his name. They talk about “the Thane” and “the Scots play” and “the Lady”. It’s catching. Lady Macduff – Nina Gaythorne, silly little ass – is steeped up to the eyebrows in it. And talks about it. Stops if she sees I’m about but she does all right, and they listen to her.’

‘Don’t let it worry you, darling. It’s not affecting their work, is it?’ Emily asked.

‘No.’

‘Well, then.’

‘I know. I know.’

Emily joined him and they both looked out over the Thames to where the Dolphin shone so brightly. She took his arm. ‘It’s easy to say, I know,’ she said, ‘but if you could just not. Don’t brood. It’s not like you. Tell me how the great Scot is making out as Macbeth.’

‘Fine. Fine.’

‘It’s his biggest role so far, isn’t it?’ Emily asked.

‘Yes. He was a good Benedict, but that’s the only other Shakespeare part he’s played. Out of Scotland. He had a bash at Othello in his repertory days. He was a fantastic Anatomist in Bridie’s play when they engaged him for the revival at the Haymarket. That started him off in the West End. Now, of course, he’s way up there and one of our theatrical knights.’

‘How’s his love life going?’

‘I don’t really know. He’s making a great play with Lady Macbeth at the moment but Maggie Mannering takes it with a tidy load of salt, don’t worry.’

‘Dear Maggie!’

‘And dear you!’ he said. ‘You’ve lightened the load no end. Shall I tackle Nina and tell her not to? Or go on pretending I haven’t noticed?’

‘What would you say? “Oh, by the way, Nina darling, could you leave off the bad luck business, scaring the pants off the cast. Just a thought!”’

Peregrine burst out laughing and gave her a slap. ‘I tell you what,’ he said, ‘you’re so bloody sharp you can have a go yourself. I’ll ask her for a drink here, and you can choose your moment and then lay into her.’

‘Are you serious?’

‘No. Yes, I believe I am. It might work.’

‘I don’t think it would. She’s never been here before. She’d rumble.’

‘Would that matter? Oh, I don’t know. Shall we leave it a bit longer? I think so.’

‘And so do I,’ said Emily. ‘With any luck they’ll get sick of it and it’ll die a natural death.’

‘So it may,’ he agreed, and hoped he sounded convincing. ‘That’s a comforting thought. I must return to the blasted heath.’

III

He wouldn’t have taken much comfort from the lady in question if he could have seen her at that moment. Nina Gaythorne came into her minute flat in Westminster and began a sort of de-lousing ritual. Without even waiting to take off her gloves she scuffled in her hand—bag, produced a crucifix which she kissed, and laid on the table a clove of garlic and her prayer book. She opened the latter, put on her spectacles, crossed herself and read aloud the 91st Psalm.

‘Whoso dwelleth under the defence of the Most High,’ read Nina in the well-trained, beautifully modulated tones of a professional actress. When she reached the end she kissed her prayer book, crossed herself again, laid her cyclostyled part on the table, the prayer book on top of it, the crucifix on the prayer book, and, after a slight hesitation, the clove of garlic at the foot of the crucifix.

‘That ought to settle their hash,’ she said, and took off her gloves.

Her belief in curses and things being lucky or unlucky was not based on any serious study but merely on the odds and ends of gossip and behaviour accumulated by four generations of theatre people. In that most hazardous profession where so many mischances can occur, when so much hangs in the precarious balance on opening night, when five weeks’ preparation may turn to ashes or blaze for years, there is a fertile soil indeed for superstition to take root and flourish.

Nina was forty years old, a good dependable actress, happy to strike a long run and play the same part for months on end, being very careful not to let it become an entirely mechanical exercise. The last part of this kind had come to an end six months ago and nothing followed it, so that this little plum, Lady Macduff, uncut for once, had been a relief. And the child might be a nice boy. Not the precocious little horror that could emerge from an indifferent school. And the house! The Dolphin! The enormous prestige attached to an engagement there. Its phenomenal run of good luck and, above all, its practice of using the same people, once they had gained an entry, whenever a suitable role occurred: a happy engagement. Touch wood!

So, really, she must not, really not, talk about ‘the Scots play’ to other people in the cast. It just kept slipping out. Peregrine Jay had noticed and didn’t like it. I’ll make a resolution, Nina thought. She shut her large faded eyes tight and said aloud:

‘I promise on my word of honour and upon this prayer book not to talk about you-know-what. Amen.’

IV

‘Maggie,’ shouted Simon Morten. ‘Hold on. Wait a moment.’

Margaret Mannering stopped at the top of Wharfingers Lane where it joined the main highway. A procession of four enormous lorries thundered past. Morten hurried up the last steep bit. ‘I got trapped by Gaston Sears,’ he panted. ‘Couldn’t get rid of him. How about coming out for a meal? It won’t take long in a taxi.’

‘Simon! My dear, I’m sorry. I’ve said I’ll dine with Dougal.’

‘But – where is Dougal?’

‘Fetching his car. I said I’d come up to the corner and wait for him. It’s a chance to talk about our first encounter. In the play, I mean.’

‘Oh. I see. All right, then.’

‘Sorry, darling.’

‘Not a bit. I quite understand.’

‘Well,’ she said, ‘I hope you do.’

‘I’ve said I do, haven’t I? Here comes your Thane in his scarlet chariot.’

He made as if to go and then stopped. Dougal Macdougal – it was his own given name – pulled in to the kerb. ‘Here I am, sweetie,’ he declared. ‘Hullo, Simon. Just the man to open the door for the lovely lady and save me a bash on the bottom from oncoming traffic.’

Morten removed his beret, pulled on his forelock and opened the door with exaggerated humility. Margaret got into the car without looking at him and said, ‘Thank you, darling.’

He banged the door.

‘Can we drop you somewhere?’ Dougal asked, as an afterthought.

‘No, thank you. I don’t know where you’re going but it’s not in my direction.’ Dougal pulled a long face, nodded and moved out into the traffic. Simon Morten stood looking after them, six foot two of handsome disgruntlement, his black curls still uncovered. He said: ‘Well, shit off and be damned to you,’ crammed on his beret, turned into the lane and entered the little restaurant known as the Junior Dolphin.

‘What’s upset the Thane of Fife?’ asked Dougal casually.

‘Nothing. He’s being silly.’

‘Not by any chance a teeny-weeny bit jealous?’

‘Maybe. He’ll recover.’

‘Hope so. Before we get round to bashing away at each other with Gaston’s claymores.’

‘Indeed, yes. Gaston really is more than a bit dotty, don’t you think? All that talk about armoury. And he wouldn’t stop.’

‘I’m told he did spend a short holiday in a sort of halfway house. A long time ago, though, and he was quite harmless. Just wore a sword and spoke Middle English. He’s a sweet man, really. He’s been asked by Perry to teach us the fight. He wants us to practise duels in slow motion every day for five weeks, building up muscle and getting a bit faster very slowly. To the Anvil Chorus from Trovatore.’

‘Not really?’

‘Of course not, when it comes to performance. Just as rehearsals to get the rhythm. They are frightfully heavy, claymores are.’

‘Rather you than me,’ said Maggie, and burst out laughing.

Dougal began to sing very slowly. ‘Bang. Wait for it. Bang. Wait again. And Bangle-bangle-bang. Wait. Bang.’

‘With two hands, of course.’

‘Of course. I can’t lift the thing off the floor without puffing and blowing. Gaston brought one down for us to try.’

‘He’s actually making the ones you’re going to use, isn’t he? Couldn’t he cheat and use lighter material or papier-mâché for the hilt or something?’

‘My dear, no good at all. It would upset the balance.’

‘Well, do be careful,’ said Maggie vaguely.

‘Of course. The thing is that the blades won’t be sharp at all. Blunt as blunt. But if one of us was actually hit, it would break his bones.’

‘Really?’

‘To smithereens,’ said Dougal. ‘I promise you.’

‘I think you’re going to look very silly, the two of you, floundering about. You’ll get laughs. I can think of all sorts of things that might go wrong.’

‘Such as?’

‘One of you making a swipe and missing and the claymore getting stuck in the scenery.’

‘It’s going to be very short. In time. Only a half-minute or so. He backs away into the OP corner and I roar after him. Simon’s a very powerful man, by the by. He picked the claymore up in a dégagée manner and then he spun round and couldn’t stop and got a way on, hanging on to it, looking absolutely terrified. That was funny,’ said Dougal. ‘I laughed like anything at old Si.’

‘Well, don’t, Dougal. He’s very sensitive.’

‘Oh, pooh. Listen, sweetie. We’re called for eight-thirty, aren’t we? I suggest we go to my restaurant on the Embankment for a light meal and we’ll be ready for the blood and thunder. How does that strike you? With a dull thud or pleasurably?’

‘Not a large, sinking dinner before work? And nothing to drink?’

‘A dozen oysters and some thin brown bread and butter?’

‘Delicious.’

‘Good,’ said Dougal.

‘By “settle our relationship” you refer exclusively to the Macbeths, of course.’

‘Do I? Well, so be it. For the time being,’ he said coolly, and drove on without further comment until they crossed the river, turned into a tangle of little streets emerging finally in Savoy Minor, and stopped.

‘I’ve taken the flat for the duration. It belongs to Teddy Somerset who’s in the States for a year,’ said Dougal.

‘It’s a smashing façade.’

‘Very Regency, isn’t it? Let’s go inside. Come on.’

So they went in.

It was a sumptuous interior presided over by a larger-than-life nude efficiently painted in an extreme of realism. Maggie gave it a quick look, sat underneath it and said: ‘There are just one or two things I’d like to get sorted out. They’ve discussed the murder of Duncan before the play opens. That’s clear enough. But always it’s been “if” and “suppose”, never until now, “He’s coming here. It’s now or never.” Agreed?’

‘Yes.’

‘It’s only been something to talk about. Never calling for a decision. Or for anything real.’

‘No. And now it does, and he’s face to face with it, he’s appalled.’

‘As she knows he will be. She knows that without her egging him on he’d never do it. So what has she got that will send him into it? Plans. Marvellous plans, yes. But he won’t go beyond talking about plans. Sex. Perry said so the first day. Shakespeare had to be careful about sex because of the boy actor. But we don’t.’

‘We certainly do not,’ he said. He moved behind her and put a hand on her shoulder.

‘Do you realize,’ Maggie said, ‘how short their appearances together are? And how beaten she is after the banquet scene? I think, once she’s rid of those damned thanes and is left with her mumbling, shattered lion of a husband and they go dragging upstairs to the bed they cannot sleep in, she knows that all that’s left for her to do is shut up. The next and last time we see her she’s talking disastrously in her sleep. Really it’s quite a short part, you know.’

‘How far am I affected by her collapse, do you think?’ he asked. ‘Do I notice it? Or by that time am I determined to give myself over to idiotic killing?’

‘I think you are.’ She turned to look at him and something in her manner of doing this made him withdraw his already possessive hand. She stood up and moved away.

‘I think I’ll just ring up the Wig and Piglet for a table,’ he said abruptly.

‘Yes, do.’

When he had done this she said: ‘I’ve been looking at the imagery. There’s an awful lot about clothes being too big and heavy. I see Jeremy’s emphasizing that and I’m glad. Great walloping cloaks that can’t be contained by a belt. Heavy crowns. We have to consciously fill them. You much more than I, of course. I fade out. But the whole picture is nightmarish.’

‘How do you see me, Maggie?’

‘My dear! As a falling star. A magnificent, violently ambitious being, destroyed by his own imagination. It’s a cosmic collapse. Monstrous events attend it. The Heavens themselves are in revolt. Horses eat each other.’

Dougal breathed in deeply. Up went his chin. His eyes, startlingly blue, flashed under his tawny brows. He was six feet one inch in height and looked more.

‘That’s the stuff,’ said Maggie. ‘I think you’ll want to make it very, very Scots, Highland Scots. They’ll call you The Red Macbeth,’ she added, a little hurriedly. ‘It is your very own name, sweetie, isn’t it – Dougal Macdougal?’

‘Oh, aye. It’s ma’ given name.’

‘That’s the ticket, then.’

They fell into a discussion of whether he should, in fact, use the dialect, and decided against it as it would entail all the other lairds doing so too.

‘Just porters and murderers, then,’ said Maggie. ‘If Perry says so, of course. You won’t catch me doing it.’ She tried it out. ‘“Come tae ma wummen’s breasts and tak’ ma milk for gall.” Really, it doesn’t sound too bad.’

‘Let’s have one tiny little drink to it. Do say yes, Maggie.’

‘All right. Yes. The merest suggestion, though.’

‘OK. Whisky? Wait a moment.’

He went to the end of the room and pressed a button. Two doors rolled apart, revealing a little bar.

‘Good Heavens!’ Maggie exclaimed.

‘I know. Rather much, isn’t it? But that’s Teddy’s taste.’

She went over to the bar and perched on a high stool. He found the whisky and soda and talked about his part. ‘I hadn’t thought big enough,’ he said. ‘A great, faulty giant. Yes. Yes, you’re right about it, of course. Of course.’

‘Steady. If that’s mine.’

‘Oh! All right. Here you are, lovey. What shall we drink to?’

‘Obviously, Macbeth.’

He raised his glass. Maggie thought: He’s a splendid figure. He’ll make a good job of the part, I’m sure. But he said in a deflated voice: ‘No, no, don’t say it. It might be bad luck. No toast,’ and drank quickly as if she might cut in.

‘Are you superstitious?’ she asked.

‘Not really. It was just a feeling. Well, I suppose I am, a bit. You?’

‘Like you. Not really. A bit.’

‘I don’t suppose there’s one of us who isn’t. Just a bit.’

‘Peregrine,’ Maggie said at once.

‘He doesn’t seem like it, certainly. All that stuff about keeping it under our hats even if we do fancy it.’

‘Still. Two successful productions and not a thing happening at either of them,’ said Maggie.

‘There is that, of course.’ He waited for a moment and then in a much too casual manner said: ‘They were going to do it in the Dolphin, you know. Twenty years or so ago. When it opened.’

‘Why didn’t they?’

‘The leading man died or something. Before they’d come together. Not a single rehearsal, I’m told. So it was dropped.’

‘Really?’ said Maggie. ‘What are the other rooms like? More nudes?’

‘Shall I show you?’

‘I don’t think so, thank you.’ She looked at her watch. ‘Shouldn’t we be going to your Wig and Piglet?’

‘Perry’s taking the witches first. We’ve lots of time.’

‘Still, I’m obsessively punctual and shan’t enjoy my oysters if we’re cutting it short.’

‘If you insist.’

‘Well, I do. Sorry. I’ll just tidy up. Where’s your bathroom?’

He opened a door. ‘At the end of the passage,’ he said.

She walked past him, hunting in her bag as she went, and thought: If he pounces I’ll be in for a scene and a bore.

He didn’t pounce but nor did he move. Unavoidably she brushed against him and thought: He’s got more of what it takes, Highland or Lowland, than is decent.

She did her hair, powdered her face, used her lipstick and put on her gloves in a bathroom full of mechanical weight-reducers, pot plants and a framed rhyme of considerable indecency.

‘Right?’ she asked briskly on re-entering the sitting room.

‘Right.’ He put on his overcoat and they left the flat. It was dark outside now. He took her arm. ‘The steps are slippery,’ he said. ‘You don’t want to start off with a sprained ankle, do you?’

‘No. That I don’t.’

He was right. The steps glimmered with untimely frost and she was glad of his support. His overcoat was Harris tweed and smelt of peat fires.

As she got into the car, Maggie caught sight of a tall man wearing a short camel overcoat and a red scarf. He was standing about sixty feet away.

‘Hullo,’ she exclaimed. ‘That’s Simon. Hi!’ She raised her hand but he had turned away and was walking quickly into a side street.

‘I thought that was Simon Morten,’ she said.

‘Where?’

‘I made a mistake. He’s gone.’

They drove along the Embankment to the Wig and Piglet. The street lights were brilliant: snapping and sparkling in the cold air and broken into sequins on the outflowing Thames. Maggie felt excited and uplifted. When they entered the little restaurant with its huge fire, white tablecloths and shining glasses, her cheeks flamed and her eyes were brilliant. Suddenly she loved everybody.

‘You’re fabulous,’ Dougal said. Some of the people had recognized them and were smiling. The mâitre d’hôtel made a discreet fuss over them. She was in rehearsal for a superb play and opposite to her was her leading man.

She began to talk, easily and well. When champagne was brought she thought: I ought to stop him opening it. I never drink before rehearsals. But how dreary and out-of-tune with the lovely evening that would be.

‘Temperamental inexactitude,’ she said quite loudly. ‘British Constitution.’

‘I beg your pardon, Maggie?’

‘I was just testing myself to make sure I’m not tiddly.’

‘You are not tiddly.’

‘I’m not used to whisky and you gave me a big one.’

‘No, I didn’t. You are not tiddly. You’re just suddenly elevated. Here come our oysters.’

‘Well, if you say so, I suppose I’m all right.’

‘Of course you are. Wade in.’

So she did wade in and she was not tiddly. In the days to come she was to remember this evening, from the time when she left the flat until the end of their rehearsals, as something apart. Something between her and London, with Dougal Macdougal as a sort of necessary ingredient. But no more.

V

Gaston Sears inhabited a large old two-storey house in a tiny culde-sac opening off Alleyn Road in Dulwich. It was called Alleyn’s Surprise and the house and grounds occupied the whole of one side. The opposite side was filled with neglected trees and an unused pumping-house.

The rental of such a large building must have been high and among the Dulwich College boys there was a legend that Mr Sears was an eccentric foreign millionaire who lived there, surrounded by fabulous pieces of armour, and made swords and practised black magic. Like most legends, this was founded on highly distorted fact. He did live among his armour and he did very occasionally make swords. His collection of armour was the most prestigious in Europe, outside the walls of a museum. And certainly he was eccentric.

Moreover, he was comfortably off. He had started as an actor, a good one in far-out eccentric parts, but so inclined to extremes of argumentative temperament that nobody cared to employ him. A legacy enabled him to develop his flair for historic arms and accoutrements. His expertise was recognized by all the European collectors and he was the possessor of honorary degrees from various universities. He made lecture tours in America for which he charged astronomical fees, and extorted frightening amounts from greedy, ignorant and unscrupulous buyers which more than compensated for the opinions he gave free of charge to those he decided to respect. Of these Peregrine Jay was one.

The unexpected invitation to appear as sword-bearer to Macbeth had been accepted with complacency. ‘I shall be able to watch the contest,’ he had observed. ‘And afterwards correct any errors that may creep in. I do not altogether trust the Macbeth. Dougal Macdougal indeed!’

He was engaged upon making moulds for his weapons. From one of these moulds would be cast, in molten steel, Macbeth’s claidheamh-mor. Gaston himself, as Seyton, would carry the genuine claidheamh-mor throughout the performance. Macbeth’s claymore he would wear. A second claymore, less elaborate, would serve to make the mould for Macduff’s weapon.

His workshop was a formidable background. Suits of armour stood ominously about the room, swords of various ages and countries hung on the walls with drawings of details in ornamentation. A lifesize effigy of a Japanese warrior in an ecstasy of the utmost ferocity, clad in full armour, crouched in warlike attitude, his face contorted with rage and his sword poised to strike.

Gaston hummed and occasionally muttered as he made the long wooden trough that was to contain clay from which the matrix would be formed. He made a good figure for a Vulcan, being hugely tall with a shock of black hair and heavily muscled arms.

‘“Double, double toil and trouble,”’ he hummed in time with his hammering. And then:

‘“Her husband’s to Aleppo gone, master o’th’ Tiger,

But in a sieve I’ll thither sail

And like a rat without a tail

I’ll do, I’ll do and I’ll do.”’

And on the final ‘I’ll do’ he tapped home his nail.

VI

Bruce Barrabell who played Banquo was not on call for the current rehearsal. He stayed at home and learned his part and dwelt upon his grievances. His newest agent was getting him quite a bit of work but nothing that was likely to do him any lasting good. A rather dim supporting role in another police series for Granada TV. And now, Banquo. He’d asked to be tried for Macbeth and been told the part was already cast. Macduff: same thing. He was leaving the theatre when some whippersnapper came after him and said would he come to read Banquo. There’d been some kind of a slip-up. So he did and he’d got it. Small part, actually. Lot of standing around with one foot up and the other down on those bloody steps. But there was one little bit. He flipped his part over and began to read it:

‘There’s husbandry in Heaven. Their candles are all out.’

He read it aloud. Quietly. The slightest touch of whimsicality. Feel the time-of-night and the great empty courtyard. He had to admit it was good. ‘There’s housekeeping in Heaven.’ The homely touch that somehow made you want to cry. Would a modern audience understand that housekeeping was what was meant by husbandry? Nobody else could write about the small empty hours as this man did. The young actor they’d produced for Fleance, his son, was nice: unbroken, clear voice. And then Macbeth’s entrance and Banquo’s reaction. Good stuff. His scene, but of course the Macbeth would overact and Perry let him get away with it. Look at the earlier scene. Although Perry, fair’s fair, put a stop to that little caper. But the intention was there for all to see.

He set himself to memorize but it wasn’t easy. Incidents out of the past kept coming in. Conversations.

‘Actually we are not quite strangers. There was a Macbeth up in Dundee, sir. I won’t say how many years ago.’

‘Oh?’

‘We were witches.’ Whispering it. Looking coy.

‘Really? Sorry. Excuse me. I want to – Perry, Perry, dear boy, just a word – ’

Swine! Of course he remembered.

VII

It was the Angus’s birthday. He, Ross, and the rest of the lairds and the three witches were not called for the evening’s rehearsal. They arranged with other free members of the cast to meet at the Swan in Southwark, and drink Angus’s health.

They arrived in twos and threes and it was quite late by the time the witches, who had been rehearsing in the afternoon, came in. Two girls and a man. The man (First Witch) was a part-Maori called Rangi Western, not very dark but with the distinctive short upper lip and flashing eyes. He had a beautiful voice and was a prize student from LAMDA. The second witch was a nondescript thin girl called Wendy possessed of a remarkable voice: harsh, with strange unexpected intervals. The third was a lovely child, a white-blonde, delicate, with enormous eyes and a babyish high-pitched voice. She was called Blondie.

Their rehearsal had excited them. They came in talking loudly. ‘Rangi, you were marvellous. You sent cold shivers down my spine. Truly. And that movement! I thought Perry would stop you but he didn’t. The stamp. It was super. We’ve got to do it, Wendy, along with Rangi. His tongue. And his eyes. Everything.’

‘I thought it was fabulous giving us the parts. I mean the difference! Usually they all look alike and are too boring for words – all masks and mumbles. But we’re really evil.’

‘Angus!’ they shouted. ‘Happy birthday, love. Bless you.’

Now they had all arrived. The witches were the centre of attention. Rangi was not very talkative but the two girls excitedly described his performance at rehearsal.

‘He was standing with us, listening to Perry’s description, weren’t you, Rangi? Perry was saying we have to be the incarnation of evil. Not a drop of goodness anywhere about us. How did he put it, Wendy?’

‘“Trembling with animosity”,’ said Wendy.

‘Yes. And I was standing by Rangi and I felt him tremble, I swear I did.’

‘You did, didn’t you, Rangi? Tremble?’

‘Sort of,’ Rangi mumbled. ‘Don’t make such a thing about it.’

‘No, but you were marvellous. You sort of grunted and bent your knees. And your face! Your tongue! And eyes!’

‘Anyway, Perry was completely taken with it and asked him to repeat it and asked us to do it – not too much. Just a kind of ripple of hatred. It’s going to work, you know.’

‘Putting a curse on him. That’s what it is, Rangi, isn’t it?’

‘Have a drink, Rangi, and show us.’

Rangi made a brusque dismissive gesture and turned away to greet the Angus.

The men closed round him. They were none of them quite drunk, but they were noisy. The members of the company now far outnumbered the other patrons, who had taken their drinks to a table in the corner of the room and looked on with ill-concealed interest.

‘It’s my round,’ Angus shouted. ‘I’m paying, all you guys. No arguments. Yes, I insist. “That which hath made them drunk hath made me bold,”’ he shouted.

His voice faded out and so, raggedly, did all the others. Blondie’s giggle persisted and died. A single voice – Angus’s – asked uncertainly: ‘What’s up? Oh. Oh hell! I’ve quoted from the play. Never mind. Sorry, everybody. Drink up.’

They drank in silence. Rangi drained his pint of mild and bitter. Angus nodded to the barman, who replaced it with another. Angus mimed pouring in something else and laid an uncertain finger on his lips. The barman winked and added a tot of gin. He pushed the drink over towards Rangi’s hand. Rangi’s back was turned but he felt the glass, looked round and saw it.

‘Is that mine?’ he asked, puzzled.

They all seized on this. They said confusedly that of course it was his drink. It was something to make a fuss about, something that would make them all forget about Angus’s blunder. They betted Rangi wouldn’t drink it down then and there. So Rangi did. There was a round of applause.

‘Show us, Rangi. Show us what you did. Don’t say anything, just show.’

‘E-e-e-uh!’ he shouted suddenly. He slapped his knees and stamped. He grimaced, his eyes glittered and his tongue whipped in and out. He held his umbrella before him like a spear and it was not funny.

It only lasted a few seconds.

They applauded and asked him what it meant and was he ‘weaving a spell’. He said no, nothing like that. His eyes were glazed. ‘I’ve had a little too much to drink,’ he said. ‘I’ll go, now. Good night, all of you.’

They objected. Some of them hung on to him but they did it half-heartedly. He brushed them off. ‘Sorry,’ he said, ‘I shouldn’t have taken that drink. I’m no good with drinking.’ He pulled some notes out of his pocket and shoved them across the bar. ‘My round,’ he said. ‘Good night, all.’

He walked quickly to the swing doors, lost his balance and regained it.

‘You all right?’ Angus asked.

‘No,’ he answered. ‘Far from it.’

He walked into the doors. They swung out and he went with them. They saw him pull up, look stiffly to right and left, raise his umbrella in a magnificent gesture, get into the taxi that responded and disappear.

‘He’s all right,’ said one of the lairds. ‘He’s got a room round here.’

‘Nice chap.’

‘Very nice.’

‘I’ve heard, I don’t know who told me, mark you,’ said Angus, ‘that drink has a funny effect on Maori people. Goes straight to their heads and they revert to their savage condition.’

‘Rangi hasn’t,’ said Ross. ‘He’s gone grand.’

‘He did when he performed that dance or whatever it was,’ said the actor who played Menteith.

‘You know what I think,’ said the Ross. ‘I think he was upset when you quoted.’

‘It’s all a load of old bullshit, anyway,’ said a profound voice in the background.

This provoked a confused expostulation that came to its climax when the Menteith roared out: ‘Thass all very fine but I bet you wouldn’t call the play by its right name. Would you do that?’

Silence.

‘There you are!’

‘Only because it’d upset the rest of you.’

‘Yah!’ they all said.

The Ross, an older man who was sober, said: ‘I think it’s silly to talk about it. We feel as we do in different ways. Why not just accept that and stop nattering?’

‘Somebody ought to write a book about it,’ said Wendy.

‘There is a book called The Curse of Macbeth by Richard Huggett.’

They finished their drinks. The party had gone flat.

‘Call it a day, chaps?’ suggested Ross.

‘That’s about the strength of it,’ Menteith agreed.

The nameless and lineless thanes noisily concurred and gradually they drifted out.

Ross said to the Angus: ‘Come on, old fellow, I’ll see you home.’

‘I’m afraid I’ve overstepped the mark. Sorry. “We were carousing till the second cock.” Oh dear, there I go again.’ He made a shaky attempt to cross himself. ‘I’m OK,’ he said.

‘Of course you are.’

‘Right you are, then. Good night, Porter,’ he said to the barman.

‘Good night, sir.’

They went out.

‘Actors,’ said one of the guests.

‘That’s right, sir,’ the barman agreed, collecting their glasses.

‘What was that they were saying about some superstition? I couldn’t make head or tail of it.’

‘They make out it’s unlucky to quote from this play. They don’t use the title either.’

‘Silly sods,’ remarked another.

‘They take it for gospel.’

‘Probably some publicity stunt by the author.’

The barman grunted.

‘What is the name of the play, then?’

‘Macbeth.’

VIII

Rehearsals for the duel had begun and were persisted in remorselessly. At 9.30 every morning Dougal Macdougal and Simon Morten, armed with weighted wooden claymores, sloshed and banged away at each other in a slow dance superintended by a merciless Gaston.

The whole affair, step by step, blow by blow, had been planned down to the last inch. Both men suffered agonies from the remorseless strain on muscles unaccustomed to such exercise. They sweated profusely. The Anvil Chorus, out of tune, played slowly on a gramophone, ground out a lugubrious, a laborious, a nightmare-like accompaniment, made more hateful by Gaston humming, also out of tune.

The relationship between the three men was, from the first, uneasy. Dougal tended to be facetious. ‘What ho, varlet. Have at thee, miscreant,’ he would cry.

The Macduff – Morten – did not respond to these sallies. He was ominously polite and glum to a degree. When Dougal swung at him, lost his balance and ran, as it were, after his own weapon, wild-eyed, an expression of great concern upon his face, Morten allowed himself a faint sneer. When Dougal finally tripped and fell in a sitting position with a sickening thud, the sneer deepened.

‘The balance!’ Gaston screamed. ‘How many times must I insist? If you lose the balance of your weapon you lose your own balance and end up looking foolish. As now.’

Dougal rose. With some difficulty and using his claymore as a prop.

‘No!’ chided Gaston. ‘It is to be handled with respect, not dug into the floor and climbed up.’

‘This is merely a dummy. Why should I respect it?’

‘It weighs exactly the same as the claidheamh-mor.’

‘What’s that got to do with it?’

‘Again! We begin at the beginning. Again! Up! Weakling!’

‘I am not accustomed,’ said Dougal magnificently, ‘to being treated in this manner.’

‘No? Forgive me, Sir Dougal. And let me tell you that I, Gaston Sears, am not accustomed to conducting myself like a mincing dancing master, Sir Dougal. It is only because this fight is to be performed before audiences of discrimination, with weapons that are the precise replicas of the original claidheamh-mor, that I have consented to teach you.’

‘If you ask me we’d get on a lot better if we faked the whole bloody show. Oh, all right, all right,’ Dougal amended, answering the really alarming expression that contorted Gaston’s face. ‘I give in. Let’s get on with it. Come on.’

‘Come on,’ echoed Morten. ‘“Thou bloodier villain than terms can give thee out.”’

Whack. Bang. Down came his claymore, caught on Macbeth’s shield. ‘Te-tum. Te-tum. Te – Disengage,’ shouted Gaston. ‘Macbeth sweeps across. Macduff leaps over the blade. Te-tum-tum. This is better. This is an improvement. You have achieved the rhythm. We take it now a little faster.’

‘Faster! My God, you’re killing us.’

‘You handle your weapon like a peasant. Look. I show you. Here, give it me.’

Dougal, using both hands, threw the claymore at him. With great dexterity, he caught it by the hilt, twirled it and held it before him, pointed at Dougal.

‘Hah!’ he shouted. ‘Hah and hah again.’ He lunged, changed his grip and swept his weapon up – and down.

Dougal leapt to one side. ‘Christ Almighty!’ he cried. ‘What are you doing?’

Grimacing abominably, Gaston brought the heavy claymore up in a conventional salute.

‘Handling my weapon, Sir Dougal. And you will do so before I have finished with you.’

Dougal whispered.

‘I beg your pardon?’

‘You’ve got the strength of the devil, Gaston.’

‘No. It is a matter of balance and rhythm more than strength. Come, we take the first exchange a tempo. Yes, a tempo. Come.’

He offered the claymore ceremoniously to Dougal, who took it and heaved it up into a salute.

‘Good! We progress. One moment.’

He went to the gramophone and altered the timing. ‘Listen,’ he said, and switched it on. Out came the Anvil Chorus, remorselessly truthful as if rejoicing in its own restoration. Gaston switched it off. ‘That is our timing.’ He turned to Simon Morten. ‘Ready, Mr Morten?’

‘Quite ready.’

‘The cue, if you please.’

‘“Thou bloodier villain than terms can give thee out.”’

And the fight was a fight. There was rhythm and there was timing. For a minute and a quarter all went well and at the end the two men, pouring sweat, leaning on their weapons, breathless, waited for his comment.

‘Good. There were mistakes but they were comparatively small. Now, while we are warm and limbered up we do it once more but without the music. Yes. You are recovered? Good.’

‘We are not recovered,’ Dougal panted.

‘This is the last effort for today. Come. I count the beats. Without music. The cue.’

‘“Thou bloodier villain than terms can give thee out.”’

Bang. Pause. Bang. Pause. And Bangle-bangle-bang. Pause. They got through it but only just and they were really cooked at the end.

‘Good,’ said Gaston. ‘Tomorrow. Same time. I thank you, gentlemen.’

He bowed and left.

Morten, his black curls damp and the tangled mat of hair on his chest gleaming, vigorously towelled himself. Sir Dougal, tawny, fair-skinned, drenched in sweat and breathing hard, reached for his own towel and feebly dabbed at his chest.

‘We did it,’ he said. ‘I’m flattened but we did it.’

Morten grunted and pulled on his shirt and sweater.

‘You’d better get something warm on,’ he said. ‘Way to catch cold.’

‘Night after night after night. Have you thought of that?’

‘Yes.’

‘Why do I do it! Why do I submit myself! I ask myself: Why?’

Morten grunted.

‘I’ll speak to Perry about it. I’ll demand insurance.’

‘For which bit of you?’

‘For all of me. The thing’s ridiculous. A good fake and we’d have them breathless.’

‘Instead of which we’re breathless ourselves,’ said Morten and took himself off. It was the nearest approach to a conversation that they had enjoyed.

So ended the first week of rehearsals.

CHAPTER 2 Second Week

Peregrine had blocked the play up to the aftermath following the murder 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 gibbet 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 hopped down, like birds of prey. Dialogue. Then their leap. The flash caught them in mid-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. OK?’

‘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. Blondie, you take the point furthest away when you hear them. Wendy, 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 semi-continuity. 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 moved 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. OK?’

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 one-speech 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 eagles 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 afterwards. On.’

The King returned magnificently 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 his new title. The hidden dream suddenly made actual; the unwholesome pretence a tangible reality. He wrote to his wife and sent 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 braced herself for the monstrous task of ‘screwing her husband to the sticking-point’, knowing 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 was crumbling. The great barbaric chieftain who should outshine all the rest made dismal mistakes. He was not there to welcome the King, was not in his place now. His wife had to leave the feast, find him, tell him the King was asking for him, only to have him say he would proceed no further in the business and offer conventional reasons.

There was no time to lose. For the last assault she laid the plot before her husband (and the audience) – quickly, urgently and clearly. He caught fire, said he was ‘settled’ and committed himself to damnation.

Seyton, with the claymore, appeared in the shadows. He followed them off.

The lights were extinguished by a servant, leaving only the torch in a wall-bracket outside the King’s door. A pause during which the stealthy sounds of the night were established. Cricket and owl. The sudden crack of expanding wood. A ghostly figure, who would scarcely be seen when the lighting was finalized, appeared on the upper level, entered the King’s rooms, waited there for a heartbeat or two, re-entered and slipped away into the shadows. The Lady.

An inner door at ground level opened to admit Banquo and Fleance, and the exquisite little night scene followed.

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 cords and resonators that stirred the blood in the listener. He looked up, and one knew it was at the night sky where husbandry was practised 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 dreamt of the three 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 ‘counselled’ 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 was alone. The ascent to the murder had begun. Up and up the steps, following the dagger that he knew was hallucination. A bell rings. ‘Hear it not, Duncan.’

Dougal was not firm on 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.

The Lady re-entered at stage level.

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

‘I have done the deed. Didst thou not hear a voice?’

‘I heard the owl scream and the crickets cry. Did not you speak?’

‘When?’

‘Now.’

‘As I descended?’

‘Ay.’

‘Hark! Who lies i’ th’ second chamber?’

‘Donalbain.’

‘This is a sorry sight.’

‘A foolish thought, to say a sorry sight.’

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 current piece having gone on tour. The stage was lit by working lights and the shrouded house waited, empty, expectant, for whatever was to be poured into it.

The assistant stage manager and his assistant shifted chairs on stage 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 willies.’

‘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. 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: ‘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. OK.’

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 precipitant.

‘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, Peregrine had finished his notes and recapped the faulty passages, the rain had stopped almost as abruptly as it began 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 downhill and only then noticed that a little derelict shed on the waterfront lay in a heap of rubble.

I hadn’t realized it had 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.’

II

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 opened. Macduff stumbled on stage, 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 filled with men roused from their sleep, nightgowns hastily pulled on, wild and dishevelled. The bell jangling madly.

The scene ends with the flight of the King’s sons. Thereafter, in a short final scene, Macduff, already suspicious, decides not to attend Macbeth’s coronation 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.

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

Morten had now become enamoured 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 ready and they used them.

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

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

‘Very,’ Peregrine agreed nervously. ‘I haven’t seen them for a fortnight or more. 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 promised. ‘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 dare say you have noticed – in exactly the same way. Let me say I am asking the Macduff to deliver a downward sweep from right to left and the Macbeth is to parry it and leap to the lower level. I shall say – ‘ and here he raised his voice and shrieked: ‘Mac-d. Right foot at 13b. Raise claidheamh-mor – move to 90 degrees. Sweep to 12. 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. The 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 on stage and collected the weapons which the users had put into felt containers.

‘I wish you good morning,’ he said. And, as an afterthought: ‘I will take charge of the claidheamh-mors, and will return them tomorrow. Again, good morning.’

‘Good morning, Gaston,’ Peregrine said thankfully.

III

Peregrine had to admit, strictly to himself, that a 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, the Banquo, was the most prominent where these were concerned. He had only to appear on stage for an argument to begin about the various movements of the actors. But Peregrine was, for the most part, 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 subject.

‘Most unexpected,’ the Voice confided. ‘I wasn’t here, of course, but I happened to look out…’ 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 one.’

‘Yes? But you were not here.’

‘No. I saw it from a window. In Westminster: well, Pimlico.’

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

‘Did you notice that old 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 centre of the storm.’

‘Not the theatre.’

‘No,’ they both fervently agreed. ‘Not our theatre.’

‘Did you hear about Blondie?’

They made noises.

‘She was here,’ said Peregrine. ‘So was I. Blondie has this thing about lightning. 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 thunder-storms.’

‘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-actors’ 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’s 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 extreme leftist views 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 Eq. 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.

‘Hal-lo, William,’ said Dougal.

‘Hallo, 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 doubles. 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 on to 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 the Lady 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, can not 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 said.

‘How much room will there be under this thick-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 attached to the headpiece. The eye-holes are big. Your own eyes will be painted out. Gaston has done an excellent drawing for us. They will take a mould of your face.’

‘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. Yes.’

‘We’ll move on to the next “appearance”. 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; but 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 near approach of disaster.

“The West yet glimmers with some streaks of day.

Now spurs the lated traveller apace

To gain the timely inn.”

‘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 occur.’

‘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 young Macduff 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.’

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