Light Thickens

by Ngaio Marsh

  By midday they had all read the notices and by evening most of them had rung somebody else in the company and they were all delighted but feeling a sort of anticlimactic emptiness. The only thing left to say was: ‘Now we must keep it up, mustn’t we?’

  Barrabell went to a meeting of the Red Fellowship. He was asked to report on his tasks. He said the actors had been too much occupied to listen to new ideas but that now they were clearly set for a long run he would embark on stage two and hoped to have more to report at the next meeting. It was a case of making haste slowly. They were all, he said, steeped to their eyebrows in a lot of silly superstitions that had grown up around the play. He had wondered if anything could be made of this circumstance but nothing had emerged other than a highly wrought state of emotional receptivity. The correct treatment would be to attack this unprofitable nonsense.

  Shakespeare, he said, was a very confused writer. His bourgeois origins distorted his thought-processes.

  Maggie stayed in bed all day and Nanny answered the telephone.

  Sir Dougal lunched at the Garrick Club and soaked up congratulations without showing too blatantly his intense gratification.

  Simon Morten rang Maggie and got Nanny.

  King Duncan spent the afternoon cutting out notices and pasting them in his fourth book.

  Nina Gaythorne got out all her remedies and good luck objects and kissed them. This took some time as she lost count and had to begin all over again.

  Malcolm and Donalbain got blamelessly drunk.

  The speaking thanes and the witches all dined with Ross and his wife, bringing their own bottles, and talked shop.

  The Doctor and the Gentlewoman were rung up by their friends and were touchingly excited.

  The non-speaking thanes dispersed to various unknown quarters.

  And Gaston? He retired to his baleful house in Dulwich and wrote a number of indignant letters to those papers whose critics had referred to the weapons used in the duel as swords or claymores instead of claidheamh-mors.

  Emily answered their telephone and by a system they had perfected, either called Peregrine or said he was out but would be delighted to know they had rung up.

  So the day passed and on Monday morning they pulled themselves together and got down to the theatre and to the business of facing the second night and a long run of Macbeth.

  Part Two: Curtain Call

  CHAPTER 6

  Catastrophe

  The play had been running to full houses for a month. Peregrine no longer came down to every performance but on this Saturday night he was bringing his two older boys. There had been no more silly tricks and the actors had settled down to a successful run. The boys came home for half-term and Peregrine had a meeting with the management about how long the season should run and whether, for the actors’ sakes, after six months they should make a change and, if so, what that change should be.

  ‘We don’t need to worry about it if we decide to have a Shakespeare rep season: say Twelfth Night and Measure for Measure with Macbeth,’ said Peregrine. ‘We’ll just keep it in mind. You never know what may turn up, do you?’

  They said no, you didn’t, and the discussion ended.

  The day turned out to be unseasonably muggy and exhausting. Not a breath of wind, the sky overcast and a suggestion of thunder. ‘On the left,’ said Gaston as he prepared to supervise the morning’s fight. ‘Thunder on the left meant trouble in Roman times. The gods rumbling, you know.’

  ‘They ought to have heard you,’ said Dougal rudely. ‘That would have pulled them up in their tracks.’

  ‘Come on,’ said Simon. ‘Let’s press on with it. We’ve got a matinée, remember.’

  They shaped up and fought.

  ‘You are dragging. Dragging!’ Gaston shouted. ‘Stop. It is worse than not doing it at all. Again, from the beginning.’

  ‘Have a heart, Gaston. It’s a deadly day for these capers,’ said Simon.

  ‘I am merciless. Come. Begin. A tempo. Er-one. Er-two – ‘

  They finished their fight and retired, sweating heavily and sulking, to the showers.

  Peregrine was taking his two elder sons, Crispin and Robin, aged fifteen and nine, to the evening performance. Richard was going to a farce with his mother, being thought a little young for Macbeth.

  ‘Is it bloody?’ Richard asked ruefully.

  ‘Very,’ Peregrine replied firmly.

  ‘Extra special bloody?’

  ‘Yes.’

  ‘I’d like that. Is it going to run a long time?’

  ‘Yes.’

  ‘Perhaps I’ll grow up into it.’

  ‘Perhaps you will.’

  Emily took a taxi and she and Richard sailed off together, looking excited. Peregrine and his two boys took their car. Crispin’s form at school was working on Macbeth and he asked a great many questions that Peregrine supposed were necessary and that he answered to the best of his ability. Presently Crispin said: ‘Old Perky says you ought to feel a great weight’s been shifted off your shoulders at the end. When Macduff sort of actually lifts Macbeth’s head off and young Malcolm comes in for King.’

  ‘I hope you’ll feel like that.’

  ‘Does the lights man have to allow an exact time-lag between cue and performance?’ asked Robin, who at the moment wanted to become an electrical engineer.

  ‘Yes.’

  ‘How long?’

  ‘I’ve forgotten. About one second, I think.’

  ‘Gosh!’

  The foyer was crowded and the House Full notice displayed.

  ‘We’re in a box,’ said Peregrine. ‘Come on. Up the stairs.’

  ‘Super,’ said the boys. The usher at the door into the circle said, ‘Good evening, sir,’ and smiled at them. He wagged his head. Peregrine and the boys left the queue and slipped behind him into the circle.

  They passed round the back of the circle into the middle box. Peregrine bought them a programme each. The programme girl smiled upon them. The house was almost full. A tall man, alone, came down the centre aisle and made for a management seat in the stalls. He looked up, saw Peregrine and waved his programme. Peregrine answered.

  ‘Who are you waving to, Pop?’

  ‘Do you see that very tall man just sitting down, in the third row?’

  ‘Yes. He looks super,’ said Crispin. ‘Who is he?’

  ‘Chief Superintendent Alleyn. CID. He was here on our opening night.’

  ‘Why’s he come again?’ asked Robin.

  ‘Presumably because he likes the play.’

  ‘Oh.’

  ‘Actually he didn’t get an uninterrupted view on the first night. There were royals. He was helping the police look after them.’

  ‘So he had to sit watching the audience and not the actors?’

  ‘Yes.’

  A persistent buzzer began ringing in the foyer. Peregrine looked at his watch. ‘We’re ten minutes over time,’ he said. ‘Give them five minutes more and then the latecomers’ll have to wait until Scene 2. No, it’s OK. Here we go.’

  The house lights dimmed very slowly and the audience was silent. Now it was dark. There was a flash of lightning and a distant roll of thunder and the faint sound of wind. The curtain was up and the witches at their unholy work on the gallows.

  The play flowed on. Peregrine looked at the backs of his sons’ heads and wondered what was going on in them. He had been careful not to rub their noses in Shakespeare’s plays and had left it to them whether or not they would read them. As far as he could make out, Mr Perkins was not sickening Crispin with over-insistence on notes and disputed passages but had interested him first in the play itself and in the magic and strength of its language.

  Robin at six years old had seen a performance of the Dream and enjoyed it for all the wrong reasons. The chief comic character, in his opinion, was Hippolyta and he laughed very heartily at all her entrances. When Emily asked why, he said: ‘At her legs.’ He thought Bottom a very good actor and the ‘audience’ extreme
ly rude to laugh at him.

  At nine years old he would be less surprising in his judgements.

  Now they were both very still and attentive. Peregrine sat behind Robin. When Banquo and Fleance came in for their little night scene, Robin turned in his seat and looked at him. He bent down. ‘Nice,’ Robin whispered and they nodded to each other. But later, when Macbeth began to climb the stairs, Robin’s hand moved round behind him and felt for his father’s. Peregrine held it tightly until the end of the scene when the Porter came on. Both the boys laughed loudly at the bawdy-looking pieces of driftwood and the Porter’s description of the aggravating effects of drinking too much.

  In the interval Robin visited the lavatories. Crispin said he might as well go with him and their father had a drink with the management. They arranged to meet in the foyer. Under the photo of Macbeth.

  Winty came out to welcome Peregrine. They went into his office. ‘Still goes on,’ Winty said. ‘Booked solid for the next six months.’

  ‘Odd,’ said Peregrine, ‘when you think of the superstitions. There’s a record of good business and catastrophe going back hand in hand for literally centuries.’

  ‘Not for us, old boy.’

  ‘Touch wood.’

  ‘You too?’ asked Winty, giving him his drink.

  ‘No. No way. But it’s rife in the company.’

  ‘Really?’

  ‘Old Nina’s got the bug very badly. Her dressing table’s like a second-hand charm shop.’

  ‘No signs of catastrophe, though,’ Winty said. And when Peregrine didn’t answer he said sharply: ‘Are there?’

  ‘There are signs of some half-wit planting them. Whoever it is hasn’t got the results he may have hoped for. But it’s very annoying, for all that. Or was. They seem to have died out.’

  Winty said slowly: ‘I fancy we had a sample.’

  ‘You had? A sample? What sort of sample?’

  ‘I haven’t mentioned it to anybody except Mrs Abrams. And she doesn’t know what was typed and anyway she’s a clam of clams. But since you’ve brought it up – ‘

  The buzzer started.

  ‘I’m sorry,’ said Peregrine. ‘I’ll have to go. I promised my young son. He’ll be having kittens. Thank you, Winty. I’ll come in tomorrow morning.’

  ‘Oh. Well…I think we’d better have a talk.’

  ‘So do I. Tomorrow. Thank you.’

  Out in the foyer he found Robin under the photograph of Macbeth.

  ‘Oh, hullo,’ he said casually when Peregrine reached him. ‘There’s the bell.’

  ‘Where’s Cip?’

  Crispin was over in the crowd by the bookstall. He was searching his pockets. Peregrine, closely followed by Robin, worked his way over to him.

  ‘I’ve got it all but twenty p.,’ said Crispin. He clutched a book, Macbeth Through Four Centuries.

  Peregrine produced a five-pound note. ‘For the book,’ he said, and they returned to their box. The interval ended, the house darkened and the curtain rose.

  On Banquo. Alone and suspicious. Macbeth questions him. He is going out? Riding? He must return. For the party. Does Fleance go with him? Yes. Yes to all those questions. There is a terrible smile on Macbeth’s face, the lips stretch back. ‘Farewell.’

  Seyton is at once sent for the murderers. He has them ready and stands in the doorway and hears the wooing. Macbeth is easier, almost enjoys himself. They are his sort. He caresses them. The bargain is struck, they go off.

  Now Lady Macbeth finds him: full of strange hints and of horror. There is the superb invocation to night and he leads her away. And the scene changes. Seyton joins the murderers and Banquo is dispatched.

  Back to the banquet.

  Seyton tells Macbeth that Fleance escaped.

  The bloodied Ghost of Banquo appears among the guests.

  And now the play begins to swell towards its appointed ending. After the witches, the apparitions, the equivocal promises, the murder of Macduff’s wife and child, comes Lady Macbeth. Asleep and talking in that strange metallic nightmare voice. Macbeth again, after a long interval. He has degenerated and shrunk. He beats about him with a kind of hectic frenzy and peers hopelessly into the future. These are the death-throes of a monster. Please let Macduff find him and finish it.

  Macduff has found him.

  ‘Turn, hell-hound. Turn.’

  Now the fight. The leap, clash, sweep as Macbeth is beaten backwards, Macduff raises his claymore and they plunge out of sight. A scream. Silence. Then the distant approach of pipe and drums. Malcolm and his thanes come out on the upper landing. The rest of his troops march on at stage level and up the steps with Old Siward, who receives the news of his son’s death.

  Macduff comes on downstage, OP followed by Seyton.

  Seyton carries his claidheamh-mor and on it, streaming blood, the head of Macbeth.

  He turns it upstage, facing Malcolm and the troops.

  Macduff has not looked at it.

  He shouts, ‘“Behold where stands the usurper’s cursed head. Hail, King of Scotland.”’

  The blood drips into Seyton’s upturned face.

  And being well-trained, professional actors, they respond and with stricken faces and shaking lips repeat, ‘“Hail, King of Scotland.”’

  The curtain falls.

  II

  ‘Cip,’ Peregrine said, ‘you’ll have to get a cab home. Here’s the cash. Take care of Robin, won’t you? Do you know what’s happened?’

  ‘It seems – some sort of accident?’

  ‘Yes. To the Macbeth. I’ve got to stay here. Look, there’s a cab. Get it.’

  Crispin darted out and ran towards the taxi, holding up his hand. He jumped on the platform and the taxi-driver drew up. Peregrine said: ‘In you get, Rob.’

  ‘I thought we were going backstage,’ Robin said.

  ‘There’s been an accident. Next time.’

  He gave the driver their address and Crispin some money and they were gone. Someone tapped his arm. He turned and found it was Alleyn.

  ‘I’d better come round, hadn’t I?’ he said.

  ‘You! Yes. You’ve seen it?’

  ‘Yes.’ They found a crowd of people milling about in the alley.

  ‘My God,’ said Peregrine. ‘The bloody public.’

  ‘I’ll try and cope,’ Alleyn said.

  He was very tall. There was a wooden box at the stage door. He made his way to it and stood on it facing the crowd. ‘If you please,’ he said, and was listened to.

  ‘You are naturally curious. You will learn nothing and you will be very much in the way if you stay here. Nobody of consequence will be leaving the theatre by this door. Please behave reasonably and go.’

  He stood there, waiting.

  ‘Who does he think he is?’ said a man next to Peregrine.

  ‘He’s Chief Superintendent Alleyn,’ said Peregrine. ‘You’d better do what he says.’

  There was a general murmur. A voice said: ‘Aw, come on. What’s the use.’

  They moved away.

  The doorkeeper opened the door to the length of the chain, peered out and saw Peregrine. ‘Thank Gawd,’ he said. ‘Hold on, sir.’ He disengaged the chain and opened the door wide enough to admit them. Peregrine said: ‘It’s all right. This is Chief Superintendent Alleyn,’ and they went in.

  To a silent place. The stage was lit. Masking pieces rose up; black masses, through which the passage could be seen running under the landing in front of the door to Duncan’s chamber. At the far end of this passage, strongly lit, was a shrouded object, a bundle, lying on the stage. A dark red puddle had seeped from under it.

  They moved round the set and the stage director came offstage.

  ‘Perry! Thank God,’ he said.

  ‘I was in front. So was Superintendent Alleyn. Bob Masters, our stage director; Mr Alleyn.’

  ‘Have you rung the Yard?’ Alleyn asked.

  ‘Charlie’s doing it,’ said Masters, ‘now. Our ASM. He’s having some difficul
ty getting a line out.’

  ‘I’ll have a word with him,’ said Alleyn, and went into the Prompt corner.

  ‘I’m a policeman,’ he told Charlie. ‘Shall I take over?’

  ‘Ah? Are you? Yes. Hullo? Here’s a policeman.’ He held out the receiver. Alleyn said: ‘Superintendent Alleyn. At the Dolphin. Homicide. Decapitation. That’s what I said. I imagine that as I was here I’ll be expected to take it on. Yes, I’ll hold on while you do.’ There was a short interval and he said, ‘Bailey and Thompson. Yes. Ask for Inspector Fox to come down. My case is in my room. He’ll bring it. Get the doctor. Right? Good.’

  He hung up. ‘I’ll take a look,’ he said and went on stage.

  Four stagehands and the Property Master were on stage, keeping guard.

  ‘Nobody’s gone,’ Bob Masters said. ‘The company are in their dressing rooms and Peregrine’s gone back to the office. There’s a sort of conference.’

  ‘Good,’ said Alleyn. He walked over to the shrouded bundle. ‘What happened after the curtain fell?’

  ‘Scarcely anybody really realized it was – not a dummy. The head. The dummy’s a very good head. Blood and everything. I didn’t realize. I said “Picture” and they took up the final picture and the curtain went up and down. And then Gaston, who carried it on the end of his claidheamh-mor – the great claymore thing he carries throughout the play – that thing –’ He pointed at the bundle.

  ‘Yes?’

  ‘He noticed the blood on his gloves and he looked at them. And then he looked up and it dripped on his face and he screamed. The curtain being down.’

  ‘Yes.’

  ‘We all saw, of course. He let the – the head – on the claymore – fall. The house was still applauding. So I – really I didn’t know what I was doing. I went out through the centre break in the curtain and said there’d been an accident and I hoped they’d forgive us not taking the usual calls and go home. And I came off. By that time,’ said Mr Masters, ‘panic had broken out in the cast. I ordered them all to their rooms and I covered the head with that cloth – it’s used on the props table, I think. And Props sort of tucked it under. And that’s all.’