Death Of A Hollow Man

by Caroline Graham

  Causton also had three eating places: Adelaide’s, which produced every combination of fried food known to man from behind a phalanx of hissing tea urns, and the Soft Shoe Cafe, which served home-made cakes, cream teas, dainty triangular sandwiches with the crusts cut off, and morning coffee. There was also a pub, the Jolly Cavalier (née the Gay Cavalier), which sold shepherd’s pie and goujons in a basket. And, of course, there was the theater.

  Saturday, November 17, was a brilliant day. The pavement sparkled crystalline with frost, and people strode briskly about, visibly preceded by the white exhalations of their breath. Carol singers held forth. Deidre and her father stood, arm in arm, outside the fishmonger’s. She was worried about the cold air on his chest, but he had so wanted to come out and had seemed very calm and collected, so she wrapped him up in two scarves and a balaclava, and here they were. Mr. Tibbs held tightly onto the empty shopping basket and gazed at his daughter with the same mixture of pride in achievement, anxiety in case he might be found wanting, and simple love that might have been found on the face of a Labrador in a similar position. Together they studied the display.

  Red mullet and a huge turbot flanked by two crabs rested on a swell of pale gray ice. Humbler creatures lay, nose to tail, on white trays, plastic parsley flowering in their mouths. Mr. Tibbs regarded this piscatorial cornucopia with deep interest. He was very fond of fish. Deidre opened her purse, guiltily aware that if it wasn’t for her involvement with the Latimer, her father could dine on fish every day of his life.

  “D’you think … the herrings look nice, Daddy?”

  “I like herrings.”

  “I could do them in oatmeal.” Deidre smiled gratefully and squeezed his arm. “Would that be all right? With brown bread and butter?”

  “I like brown bread and butter.”

  They joined the queue. Deidre was so used to people ignoring her father, even when she knew those same people to be his former pupils, that she was quite overwhelmed when a woman next to them turned and said how nice it was to see him up and about and how well he was looking.

  And he did look well, agreed Deidre, taking a sidelong glance. His eyes were clear and shining, and he was nodding in reply to the greeting and offering his hand. He evinced some concern when the plump, glittering herrings disappeared inside sheets of the Daily Telegraph, but relaxed again once they were safely in his basket. Then he shook hands with the rest of the queue, and he and his daughter left and made their way to the church.

  After listening to the carols for a few minutes and putting something in the vicar’s box, they went to the bakery, where Deidre bought a large, sliced loaf of white bread, and a cheap sponge cake oozing scarlet confectioner’s jelly and mock cream, then they went home. Mr. Tibbs took to his bed, saying he was tired after his walk, and Deidre made some tea.

  She made her own bed while waiting for the kettle to boil and, smoothing the coverlet, caught sight of herself in the wardrobe mirror. She avoided mirrors usually, except for the briefest of toilets in the morning. What was the use? There was no one special to make an effort for. This had not always been the case. Ten years ago, when she was eighteen and a boy at the office seemed to be interested, she had studied the magazines for a while and tried to do things with her dark curly hair that stuck out in all directions and her overly rosy complexion, but then her mother had died and she had got so involved with domestic affairs that the boy had, understandably, drifted off, and was now happily married with three children.

  It wasn’t that she was a bad shape, thought Deidre, removing her glasses so that her image became a reassuring blur. She was quite tall and quite slim, although her bottom was a bit droopy. And she had nice eyes if only she didn’t have to wear the hideous glasses. Joyce had suggested contact lenses at one point, but the expense made them out of the question, and in any case Deidre feared her prescription was too strong. She had worn the glasses since she was three. At school a Catholic friend, knowing her loathing for the wretched things, had offered to petition Lucia, patron saint of the nearsighted, on her behalf. But although she assured Deidre a few days later that this had been done, the results were negligible. Either the deity had not been in the giving vein that day or, more likely, had sniffed out a heretical supplicant and resolutely withheld the influence. Deidre gave a brief sigh, put the glasses back on and, hearing the kettle whistle, hurried downstairs.

  She took some tea and a piece of cake upstairs, waiting to make sure her father drank the warm brew. Suddenly he said, “How’s it all coming along, dear? Amadeus?”

  “Oh …’’ Deidre looked at him, surprised and pleased. It had been so long since he had shown any interest in the drama group. She always talked to him about the current production, playing down her subservient role, telling him only about her ideas for the play, but not for months had he been responsive. “Well, we had the most appalling dress rehearsal yesterday. In fact, it was so bad, it was funny.” She retailed some of the highlights, and when she came to the collapsing table, her father laughed so much he almost spilled his tea. Then he said, “D’you know, I think I might come to your first night. That is,” he added, “if I don’t have one of my off days.”

  Deidre picked up his cup and turned away. She felt the quick sting of tears, yet at the same time a flood of hope. This was the first time he had referred directly to his illness. And what a brave, lighthearted way to speak of it. “One of my off days.” What a calm, rational, intelligent, sane way to describe things. Surely if he could talk about his other self in this detached manner, he must be getting better. Going to the theater, mingling with other people, above all, listening to the glorious music, could surely do him nothing but good. She turned back, smiling happily.

  “Yes, Daddy,” she said. “I think that’s a lovely idea.”

  The Blackbird bookshop was, briefly, empty of customers. Avery sat at his beautiful escritoire near the door. The ship was on two levels connected by an ankle-snapping stone step glossy with use. There was a convex mirror over the step, revealing the only hidden corner, so that Avery had a comprehensive view. People still managed to pinch things, of course, especially during the Christmas rush. Avery got up, deciding to put away some of the volumes that browsers had left out any old way on the two round tables. The Blackbird’s stock was displayed under general headings, and customers occasionally replaced books themselves, often with hilarious results. Tutting loudly, Avery pulled The Loved One from the Romance shelf and A Room with a View from Interior Design.

  “Look at this,” he called a moment later to Tim, who was stirring something on the hot plate, in the cubbyhole at the rear of the shop. “Forever Amber in Collecting for Connoisseurs.”

  “I should leave it there, if I were you.”

  “And A Severed Head under Martial Arts.”

  “That’s nothing,” said Tim, lifting the spoon to his lips. “I found A Fatal Inversion under Pure Mathematics. In any case”—he sipped again—“I’m not sure that Martial Arts is an entirely inappropriate designation for Murdoch.”

  “I don’t know why you’re stirring and tasting in that affected manner,” cried Avery, moving to the cubbyhole, “we all know what a cunning way Mr. Heinz has with a tomato.”

  “You said I could have what I liked for lunch.”

  “I must have been mad. Even a bay leaf would add a smidgen of veracity.”

  “All right, all right.”

  “Or a little yogurt.”

  “Don’t make a meal of it.”

  “No danger of that, duckie.” They both laughed. “What’s in the rolls?”

  “Watercress and Bresse Bleu. And there are some walnuts. You can open the Chablis if you like.”

  “Which one?” Avery started pulling bottles out of the wine rack under the sink.

  “The Grossot. And give Nico a shout.”

  “Isn’t he at work, then?” Avery opened the bottle, then pulled aside the thick chenille curtain and bawled upstairs.

  “Says he couldn’t concen
trate with the first night so close.”

  “All those empty shelves. The housewives of Britain will be in a tizz. Nico …”

  “Who were you waving to just now?”

  “When?” Avery frowned. “Oh, then. Poor old Deidre and her papa.”

  “God, what a life. Will you promise to shoot me if I ever get like that?”

  Dazed with joy at this casual assumption that they would be together when Tim was old and gray, Avery took a deep breath, then replied crisply, “I shall shoot you long before you get like that if you bring any more muck into my kitchen.”

  There was a clattering of footsteps on the uncarpeted stairs, and Nicholas appeared. “What’s for lunch?”

  “Cheese and whine,” said Tim. “You’d be better off upstairs, believe me.”

  “I thought I smelled something nice.”

  “There you are,” said Tim. “Someone else with a nose for a bargain.”

  “Like Dostoevsky’s for a dead cert.”

  “Clever dick.”

  “Famous for it.”

  “Be quiet,” said Tim. “You’re embarrassing Nicholas.”

  “No, you’re not,” Nicholas replied truthfully, “but I am jolly hungry.”

  “Oh, Lord …” A woman wearing a squashed felt hat was staring urgently in at the window. “Nico—run and put the catch down, there’s a love. And turn the sign. I know her of old. Once she’s in, you’ll never get her out.” When Nicholas returned, Avery added, “She’s very religious.”

  “Obviously. What other reason would anyone have for wearing a hat like that?”

  “D’you know,” said Avery approvingly, “I think we shall make something of this boy yet. Would you like a little wine, Nico?”

  “If it’s not too much trouble.”

  “Oh, don’t be so silly,” retorted Avery, splashing the Chablis into three large tumblers. “I hate people who say things like that. They’re always the sort who never mind how much trouble they give you. She came in the other day prosing on—”

  “Who did?”

  “Her out there. Came rushing up and asked me what I knew of the Wars of the Spanish Succession. I said absolutely nothing. I hadn’t stirred from the shop all day.” Avery looked at his companions. “Laugh, I thought they’d never stop.”

  “Start.”

  “Start what?”

  “The joke is,” Nicholas explained patiently, “laugh, I thought they’d never start.”

  “You’re making it up.” Nicholas reached out for a second roll and got his fingers slapped. “And don’t be such a pig.”

  “Don’t mention pigs to me. Or meat of any kind.”

  “Oh, God—he’s turned vegetarian.” Avery blanched. “I knew all those beans would go to his head.”

  “That would make a change,” said Tim. “What’s up, Nicholas?”

  “The first-night frantics, I’ll be bound,” said Avery. “If you’re worried about your lines, I’ll hear them after we close.”

  Nicholas shook his head. He knew his lines and no longer feared (as he had in The Crucible) that they would vanish once and for all the moment he stepped onstage. What was disturbing him were his pre-first night dreams. Or rather dream. He was now quite used to having some sort of nightmare before the opening of a play, and had discovered most of his fellow actors had similar experiences. They dreamed they had learned the wrong part or their costume had vanished or they stepped onstage into a completely strange drama or (very common) they were in a bus or car that went past the theater again and again and refused to stop. Nicholas’s dream fell into this last category, except that he was traveling under his own steam to the Latimer. On roller skates. He was late and flying along, down Causton High Street, knowing he would only just make it, when his feet turned into the butcher’s shop. No matter how hard he fought to carry straight on, that is where they would go.

  Inside the shop everything had changed. It was no longer small and tiled with colorful posters, but vast and cavernous; a great warehouse with row after row of hanging carcasses. As Nicholas skated frantically up and down the aisles trying to find a way out, he passed hundreds of slung-up hares with their heads in stained paper bags, lambs with frills around newly beheaded necks, and huge sides of bright red marbled meat rammed with steel hooks. Sweating with fear, he would wake, the reek of blood and sawdust seemingly in his nostrils. He had had this dream now every night for a week. He just hoped to God once the first night was over, he never had it again.

  He described it lightheartedly to his companions, but Tim picked up the underlying unease. “Well,” he said, “there’s only two more to go. And don’t worry about Monday, Nico. You’re going to be excellent.” Nicholas looked slightly less wan. “Avery was in my box last night, and he cried at your death scene.”

  “Ohhh.” Nicholas’s face was ecstatic. “Did you really, Avery?”

  “That was mostly the music,” said Avery, “so there’s no need to get above yourself. Although I do think, one day, if you work very hard, you are going to be quite good. Of course, appearing opposite Esslyn, anyone would look like the new Laurence Olivier. Or even the old one, come to that.”

  “He’s so prodigiously over the top,” said Tim. “Especially in the Don Giovanni scene.”

  “Absolutely,” cried Nicholas, and Tim watched with approval as some color returned to his cheeks. “That’s my favorite. ‘Makea this one agood in my ears. Justa theesa one …’ ” His voice throbbed with exaggerated Italianate fervor. “ ‘Granta thees to me.’ ”

  “Oh! Can I play God?” begged Avery. “Please?.”

  “Why not?” said Tim. “What’s different about today?”

  Avery climbed onto a stool and pointed a chubby Blakean finger at Nicholas. “‘No … I do not need you, Salieri. I have … Mozart!’” Demon-king laughter rang out, and he climbed down holding his sides. “I’ve missed my vocation—no doubt about it.”

  “Didn’t you think,” said Nicholas, “that there was something funny about the whole dress rehearsal?”

  “Give that man the Barbara Cartland prize for understatement.”

  “I mean funny peculiar. I can’t believe all those upsets were accidental, for a start.”

  “Oh, I don’t know. One sometimes has glorious evenings like that,” said Tim. “Remember the first night of Gaslight?’’

  “And the Everards. They’re getting more and more contemptuous,” continued Nicholas. “That remark about the manhole cover. I don’t know how they dare.”

  “They dare because they’re under Esslyn’s protection. Though what he sees in them is an absolute mystery.”

  p> “Don’t talk to me,” said Nicholas, sulkily sidetracked, “about mysteries.”

  “You’re not going to start on that again,” said Avery. “I’m sorry, but I don’t see why I should let it drop. You promised if I told you my secret, you’d tell me yours.”

  “And I will,” said Tim. “Before the first night.”

  “It’s before the first night now. ”

  “We’ll tell you on the half, honeybun,” said Avery. “And that’s a promise. Just in case you tell someone else.”

  “That’s ridiculous. I trusted you, and you haven’t told anyone else … have you?”

  “Naturally not.” Tim was immediately reassuring, but Avery said nothing. Nicholas looked at him, eyebrows raised interrogatively. Avery’s watery pale blue eyes wavered and slid around, alighting on the remaining crumbs of cheese, the walnuts, anything, it seemed, but Nicholas’s direct gaze. “Avery?”

  “Well …” Avery gave a shamefaced little smile, “I haven’t really told anyone. As such.”

  “Oh, Christ—what do you mean, ‘as such’?”

  “I did sort of hint a bit… only to Boris. He’s the soul of discretion, as you know.”

  “Boris? You might as well have had leaflets printed and handed them out in the High Street!”

  “There’s no need to take that tone,” Avery shouted, equally loudly. “If peo
ple don’t want to be found out, they shouldn’t be unfaithful. And anyway, you’re a fine one to talk. If you hadn’t passed it on in the first place, no one else would know at all.”

  This was so obviously true that Nicholas could think of nothing to say in reply. Furiously he pushed back his chair and, without even thanking them for the lunch, clattered back upstairs.

  “Some people,” said Avery, and looked nervously across the table. But Tim was already stacking the glasses and plates and taking them over to the sink. And there was something about the scornful set of his shoulders and his stiff, repudiating spine that warned against further overtures.

  Poor Avery, cursing his careless tongue, tidied and bustled and kept his distance for the rest of the afternoon.

  Colin Smy was replacing the blocks of wood in the trestle table, and Tom Barnaby was painting the fireplace. It was a splendid edifice, which Colin had made from a fragile frame of wooden struts covered with thick paper. It had then been decorated with whorls and loops and arabesques and swags made from heavily sized cloth. It now looked, even without the benefit of lighting, superb. Tom had mixed long and patiently to find exactly the right faded brickish red, which, together with swirls of cream and pale gray, gave a beautiful marbled effect. (In the Penguin Amadeus the fireplace had been described as golden, but Harold hoped he had a bit more about him than to slavishly copy other people’s ideas, thank you very much.)

  Although Barnaby ritually grumbled, there had been very few productions over the past fifteen years that he hadn’t spent at least an hour or two on, sometimes even tearing himself away from his beloved garden. Now, looking around the scene dock, he remembered with special pleasure a cutout garden hedge, all silver and green, which had represented the forest in A Midsummer Night’s Dream, and how it had shimmered in the false moonshine.