Death and the Chaste Apprentice

by Robert Barnard

  Constance Geary sighed and said privately to Peter Fortnum: “I wonder if I could tip my maid with my castoff gin bottles.” Then suddenly a thought struck her, and she spoke up. “Oh—I’ve just remembered.”

  “What?” asked several people.

  “Yesterday morning, when I was in the bathroom—making the best, darlings, of what never was very much—the maid came in and started doing the room. I sang away like mad, to tell her not to interrupt my mysteries. When I finally emerged, blushing all too artificially, she wasn’t to be seen, and the door was open. So I poked my shy, virginal little head out, and there she was with this anthropoid Australian at the far end of the corridor. She had my wastepaper basket in her hand, and as far as I could see, darlings, they were actually counting the half bottles of gin in it.”

  “Really!” said everybody, laughing as they were intended to do.

  “Perhaps they were thinking of sending your score to the Guinness Book of Records, darling,” said Ronnie.

  “But isn’t it such fun?” exclaimed Connie. “What do you think he does with his knowledge?”

  “Enjoys it?” suggested Jason.

  “Oh, I rather hoped he might feed it into a computer or something so I could become a statistic.”

  Clarissa was annoyed at losing the limelight and annoyed that Connie had defused any anger she might have generated against their prying Mine Host.

  “You call this fun?” she demanded with a vocal swoop reminiscent of an eagle picking up a lamb. “Fun? To have this grubby little creature scrabbling around in our private lives?”

  “Well, it’s hardly something we need to take seriously, is it?” Connie said reasonably enough. “It’s a bit late in the day for me to go all coy about the fact that I spend much of my time pickled in gin. And you Galloways run much the most public private lives in the business.”

  “Carston and I have always been quite open about—”

  “Yes, darling—spare us the party manifesto. Since you have been so open, what’s the point in getting upset if this little Australian mole comes sniffing around in your underwear drawer? It’s been washed in public often enough, heaven knows.”

  Clarissa shot her such a look that they resembled nothing so much as two old bags in early Coward. She held her fire only because she knew Connie was a redoubtable opponent.

  “What’s he doing it for, that’s what I want to know?” she asked, looking around. “What does he want?”

  “It’s for the knowledge,” Gillian said. “It’s a sort of instinct, and as Jason said, he probably just enjoys it—hugs it to himself, makes good stories of it after we’re gone. He is unutterably loathsome, but he can hardly expect to be able to use things which none of us is trying to hide.”

  But Clarissa was far from being placated. “I think something should be done. You, Jason—you’re the obvious one to do it. You could go direct to the festival committee. It’s your first year here—you don’t remember how wonderful it was at the Saracen in previous years. If something’s not done quickly, the festival will lose all its spirit, all its old character. That man’s got to go.”

  Jason took that point, at least, seriously. “I think, actually, you may be right. But the time to do something is not now. All we would achieve would be bad blood, recrimination, frustration. Not good for the show, for any of the shows. What might work is a collective letter, after this festival is over, from all the artists staying or working at the Saracen—a letter sent both to the festival committee and to the hotel chain that appointed him. Though what on earth possessed them to appoint him in the first place I can’t imagine.”

  “Might one suggest blackmail?” said Clarissa sweetly.

  “That’s a point.” Jason was thoughtful. “If so, we’ve really got a problem on our hands. . . . Come on, boys and girls. Back to the grindstone. All onstage. We’ve really got to lick the brothel scene into shape.”

  Gillian had had to revise her opinion of Jason Thark as director somewhat. There were large areas of the play where he did, in everyone’s opinion, excellent things. He worked tirelessly with Carston Galloway on the part of Ralph Greatheart, and together they created a rounded, human, and funny character from the bare bones of the script. He coaxed from Constance Geary, whose technique had been formed in proscenium-arch theaters, a performance that exploited all the potential of the apron stage. All the swirling crowd scenes, including the Deptford brothel one, went with great brio. The chaste apprentice as arch-gay seemed to Gillian funny but misconceived, and with Clarissa he could do nothing—but Melinda Purefoy was never going to be much of a part in anybody’s hands. But all in all she had no doubt he was going to put together a real performance and probably have a critical success.

  Of Jason as director, then, her estimate had risen. On Jason as a person she felt she could reserve judgment. On Jason’s intelligence generally, her opinion took a nosedive one evening. (She was sitting with Peter, Constance, and him at a table for four and telling them how much better the food at the Saracen used to be.) Suddenly Jason came up with one of his “ideas.”

  “I say, wouldn’t it be effective if Singh could introduce each act with a few Elizabethan part songs?”

  “With what?”

  “Elizabethan part songs. I’ll suggest it to Brad.”

  “I didn’t know Singh was a ventriloquist,” said Gillian. “I suggest you say Elizabethan lute songs.”

  “That sort of thing,” said Jason blithely. “Something suitably bawdy could go down well.”

  Unfortunately the idea came to nothing. Singh had such songs in his repertoire and had performed them in Balliol College Hall and to other select musical societies. But on the first night of The Chaste Apprentice he would be performing Handel arias in an operatic concert in Town Hall.

  “The opening concert of the festival,” said Bradford Mallory. “A bit of a popular mishmash, to get audiences, but I’ve persuaded some of the London critics along to hear Singh. I am not having the dear boy dashing from one end of town to the other to fit you in. But he could sing on the other nights.”

  But Jason was only interested in the first night. That, after all, was the night the critics came. As with Brad, it was success with them that really counted with Jason.

  “Rather typical,” said Gillian. “And what appalling ignorance in somebody directing an Elizabethan play. I think he is essentially brilliant but vulgar.”

  She might, if she had thought about it, have admitted that this was a pretty good combination of qualities for the director of a minor Jacobean comedy. But Gillian was not disposed to like directors, and her nerves were just a little bit on edge as the first night of the festival drew nearer. So were all their nerves. The matter of Des didn’t help to keep them calm. They were all watching him, wondering. More to the point, they felt him watching them. Few of them had any inhibitions about their sexual lives, though few would care to conduct them under the sort of spotlight the Galloways directed on themselves. But it can be that the most lavishly open people in fact have corners in their lives that they reserve from public scrutiny, and the grubby, obsessive nature of Des’s interest made them feel threatened. It was a rare person who did not have a few private, personal things to be cherished in solitude, blushed about, cried over in the dark.

  Who could be sure that Des, in his snufflings in the undergrowth, would not find some path that would show him the way to those personal walled gardens?

  Chapter 4

  The Alhambra Theater

  FIVE DAYS before the festival was due to begin, in thin afternoon sunlight, Peter Fortnum made his way through the streets of Ketterick towards the Alhambra Theater. The afternoon session at the Saracen was mainly to be devoted to scenes involving the Greatheart family, and he was not required until later. There were great stretches of the play in which Peter Patterwit did not appear, and contemplating the arid desert of smutty facetiae and labored puns that constituted the dialogue when he did, Peter was inclined to think the audiences mig
ht wish those stretches still longer.

  On days when he was free he had got into the habit of going along to the Alhambra to see if he could be useful, which meant, in effect, to act as interpreter. Today, however, he had a more specific mission. He no longer looked at the silver-blue-and-maroon Moorish facade, merely nodded to the stage-door keeper, and forged his way unhesitatingly through the maze of cold, painted brick passageways to the backstage area. Today was to be the first full stage rehearsal with orchestra.

  As Peter slid into the wings, he signaled to Natalya.

  “Ah—Peter,” she said in a pause.

  “Oh, Peter—great,” shouted Terry Potts, the producer. “Sit there at the side in case we need you, will you?”

  Glad to be recognized and useful, Peter sat quietly in the wings and peered out into the auditorium. He recognized the director of the festival casting a benevolent eye over the second cornerstone of his two weeks of events. He saw Brad Mallory, with Singh, sitting in the third row and looking out for the interests of his other client performing at Ketterick. Very much his secondary interest, thought Peter rather bitterly.

  He turned his glance back to the stage area and took in his first view of the set. The festival organizers had gone back to a designing pair who had served them well two years before for Donizetti’s Il Diluvio Universale. (“This is less a revival than a resurrection, in the Burke and Hare sense of the word”—The Observer.) Now they had constructed a permanent set with fragmentary bits of castle dotted around. It was handsome and serviceable, and splashes of color were provided by tartan wall hangings, for just as Bellini had called his opera set in Portsmouth I Puritani di Scozia, so Donizetti had apparently been convinced (or preferred to believe for romantic/commercial reasons) that Birckenhead was north of the border. Indeed, to him or his librettist all England seemed to be an appendage of Scotland, which at least righted a balance, some might think.

  “With passion,” shouted Gunter Gottlieb, a domineering intensity oozing from every pore. “This man is your lover and your king! Thrill your audience!”

  For upstage had entered the handsome figure of the Swedish-American tenor who was to sing Roberto il Bruce (“Broo-chay,” as the language coach constantly insisted they all must call him). On stage Adelaide di Birckenhead, her husband Adalberto, and a motley collection of retainers and clansmen were about to launch into an exciting ensemble with choral backing. It was an ensemble that was later to serve for a vengeful heroine who had been abandoned in the catacombs in Maria di Rudenz and for conscience-tormented Christians and Romans in Poliuto, proving that Donizetti certainly recognized a showstopping tune when he hit on one.

  “Now—passion!” shouted Gunter Gottlieb. “Controlled, thrilling passion!”

  Adelaide di Birckenhead had had a history even more checkered than most of Donizetti’s immense output. Composed originally in 1825 for the soprano Ferron and the castrato Velluti, it had been put aside when the latter deserted the company for meatier pickings in London. Later, at the height of his powers in 1835, Donizetti had unusually found himself without a libretto “For God’s sake write me a libretto,” he had gone around frenziedly wailing to all his poet friends, displaying all the withdrawal symptoms of today’s druggies. To no avail. He had had to reset almost the entire text of Adelaide, recasting Velluti’s part for tenor. Unluckily, he had promptly forgotten about it in the excitement of composing Lucia di Lammermoor. Part of the manuscript score had lain for years in the Sterling Library in London, while the rest had been discovered only the previous year serving as a doorstop in the Conservatory of Music in Naples. This was to be its first-ever performance.

  The story concerned a crucial moment in Scottish history, which it travestied. It was said by one Italian commentator to have “origine walterscottiana,” a suitably vague description which obviated the need to ransack the works of the great unread Walter. The noble and patriotic Adelaide is unfortunate enough to be married to the skulking Adalberto, who supports the English tyrant Edgardo, who is busy suppressing the noble Scots. Adelaide is in love with the true Scottish king Roberto il Bruce, who is in hiding from the ravaging English armies. When he comes to il castello di Birckenhead in disguise, seeking succor, he presents her with a crisis of conscience which she solves spectacularly in the last act by hacking off her husband’s head, then stabbing herself at the climax of a thrilling cabaletta. The stalwart clansmen of Birckenhead, typically willing to change sides at the drop of a coin, acclaim Roberto as their king.

  The American tenor Krister Kroll stood at the Romanesque doorway at the very back of the stage, decked in furs left over from Attila (“proving that even Verdi nodded”—The Observer) in 1978 and tartan bought in bulk from the local Pricewise chain of discount stores. He was the only one in costume, because he said it was the sort of costume you needed to get the feel of. He was in the mold of so many American tenors: stalwart, clean limbed, and rather small of voice. He had appeared, pleasantly, in Rossini’s Torvaldo e Dorliska (“a stillborn curiosity”—The Observer) the year before. As he stood, dramatically, at the doorway, first Adelaide whispered her apprehensions at the sight of her lover, then her husband expressed his suspicions at the sight (in furs and tartan) of the handsome stranger. And then Krister Kroll launched himself into the great tune:

  Io son pari ad uom cui scende

  Già la scure sulla testa . . .

  Even to Peter, sitting in the wings, it was an anticlimax: It was like being handed lemonade when you had expected champagne. He saw the festival director mask an expression of dismay; he seemed to be wondering what sound, if any, would penetrate to the gods.

  Gunter Gottlieb, with an impatient gesture, stopped the orchestra. Silently, pregnantly, he pointed with his baton to the center front of the stage. Krister Kroll looked uncertainly from Gottlieb to Terry Potts, the producer, in the stalls. Terry was already jumping out of his seat in agitation.

  “But, Gunter, you can’t have him there. He’s just arrived, and he’s apprehensive and agitated, uncertain of his reception. He can’t just barge his way right to the center of things.”

  Natalya seemed to agree with him. She was expostulating violently in Russian against the improbability of the thing, which Peter was just about, somewhat nervously, to translate when he saw that Brad Mallory, with Singh in tow, had come on to the stage and Brad was expostulating with her and calming her. He seemed to be able to do it without benefit of common language, but that was doubtless a necessary talent of agents.

  None of which cut any ice at all with Gunter Gottlieb. He pointed icily once more to center stage. Nervously, Krister Kroll moved forward.

  “Now again from the soprano.”

  The annoying thing was that the man was undoubtedly right. You couldn’t have the opera’s one big moment, comparable with the Sextet from Lucia, go by default because the tenor couldn’t be heard. Now Kroll rang out sweet and true, lacking only that dash of kingly swagger and animal excitement that the part seemed to demand. In a conflict between what made musical sense and what made dramatic sense, the music had to win. And yet, and yet . . .

  “Now,” said Gottlieb, stopping the orchestra at the end of the number and gesturing to the producer as if he were a dog he was sending to retrieve a partridge, “now you rearrange the staging.”

  And with a sigh the poor man, knowing when he was beaten, did just that.

  “All right, if we must, we must. Yes, I know it’s improbable, Natalya. I agree with you, darling. But you’ll have to go there, center left, and . . .”

  “I know how he feels, poor bastard” came a voice behind Peter’s shoulders. He turned and was astonished to see the figure of Des Capper arriving in the wings. His eyes gleamed brightly with malice as he contemplated the scene. “Been a bit of a brouhaha, has there? Looks like it.”

  Peter, for some reason that he could not analyze, did not want to swap derogatory opinions of a fellow artist with Des Capper. Gottlieb was a bastard, but a brilliant bastard. He merely
said: “They’re just having to rearrange the positions a bit.”

  “Looks like there’s been a good old-fashioned blowup to me. I know the signs. That swine has got the light of battle in his eyes. I know just how that producer must feel.”

  “Oh, yes?”

  “Just how he feels. I’ve felt his nasty tongue myself. He’s got no thought for the feelings of others. I’m sensitive. I don’t like being spoken to like I was dirt.”

  Peter did not comment on Des’s sensitivity. “What are you doing here?” he asked.

  “Oh, I’m committee. Ex-officio as landlord of the Saracen. I’ve a right to go anywhere—” He suddenly caught sight of Singh, still onstage with Brad Mallory. “My! I see they had Indians in Birckenhead even then. Running the corner shops, I suppose.”

  Peter turned away with a grimace of distaste and didn’t bother to correct him. He wondered about Des’s right to go anywhere. It wasn’t a right that any other member of the committee seemed to exercise. Peter turned back to the stage. Gunter Gottlieb, on the podium, was softly tapping his baton on the score. His expression suggested that he was long-suffering but had been pushed near the limits of even his saintly endurance.

  “Now,” he said when Terry Potts paused for breath, “is all clear? We go from there to the end of scene.”

  It was only ten minutes of music, but it seemed endless to Peter. The ensemble developed into a big scene of suspicion and suppressed fears, with every character generously sharing his innermost feelings with the audience. The problems of balance were acute, not least because of Krister Kroll’s sweet but small tenor, which was swamped by the larger voices around him. Again and again Gottlieb stopped the music, reorganized the singers, hushed the orchestra, subjected Krister Kroll to heavy, biting irony, lashed the other singers, and ridiculed members of his orchestra. Even Peter felt himself sweating with tension. It was at the height of the unpleasant session, when the frayed tempers of singers and players were beginning to conquer their fear of Gottlieb and find open expression, that Peter from the wings saw Gottlieb’s “heavy” sitting in the front row of the stalls, a slow, relishing smile on his face. He might not like music, but he certainly did appreciate aggro.