Soliloquy for Pan

by Beech, Mark

  Of course the film crew and the actors were a terrible disruption, but, after all, I was being paid handsomely for the trouble. There were days when one of my rooms would be taken over, lit blindingly, and coils of electric cables, like monstrous serpents, would litter the floors and spew out of doorways. There were days when I might wander into a room which I imagined was unused to find it inhabited by a gaggle of actors or extras, dressed uncomfortably in a variety of costumes from the 1920s, spilling coffee on my carpets and mulling over crossword puzzles. As soon as I entered they would fall silent and no effort on my part could restore their spirits until I had left. Both cast and crew tended to treat me with an exaggerated respect which at times amounted, I thought, to fear. I wondered if rumours of my alchemical practices had been spread abroad by Seymour. Ignorance is the handmaid of terror.

  All this, however, was perfectly bearable; the real trouble came with the maze.

  On the afternoon that Seymour came to stay I showed him the grounds. Knowing him to be impatient to see the maze I left it till last. It is situated at the bottom of a gentle slope and is just visible from the back of the house. Standing in a grove of ash trees it is, even on the brightest days, a shady and sepulchral spot. This atmosphere is enhanced by the fact that at its entrance my ancestors have chosen to erect a number of granite tombstones above the graves of their dogs. I myself have broken with family tradition and gone in for cats who are buried elsewhere.

  The maze itself is unusually large, covering more than an acre of ground. Its yew hedges have grown tall, in some cases over ten feet in height. I have tried to prune them a little, but I must admit to a certain remissness in keeping it in order. The man who comes to mow the lawns and perform other gardening tasks is not allowed to enter the maze. It is the one area of Huntsmere’s park that I tend myself.

  I have always liked the maze, but I know that its effect on the few apart from myself who have experienced it has been mixed. It was the only part of the grounds that my late wife positively detested. She once even suggested grubbing it up, but a mere look from me quelled that proposal and she never mentioned it again.

  It was a bright April afternoon when Seymour and I approached it. Light filtered through the young greens of the surrounding trees filling the air with a dance of dappled sunlight. Nothing could have been more pleasant, and yet I noticed that Seymour, whose conversation as we toured the grounds had been as mellifluous as ever, became subdued when we came near the high green-black walls of yew. Some brighter green new growth showed through but did not substantially alleviate the sense of menace that they exuded. As a child, even before I had been told about the yew’s traditional association with graveyards, I always had a feeling that in going into the maze I entered a world that was beyond death, or somehow associated with it.

  “Ah, yes,” said Seymour. “Very impressive. Yew, you say? I thought there would be more berries.”

  “They’ve mostly been eaten by the birds. The new berries come in autumn.”

  “Eaten by birds? Aren’t the berries poisonous?”

  “It’s the leaves that are poisonous, I believe.”

  Seymour nodded several times like a schoolmaster who knows the answers but is just checking up on his pupils’ acquaintance with the facts. We entered the maze.

  When you go to a familiar place with someone who is new to it, you tend to re-experience it to some extent through their eyes. So it was with the maze. I noticed how high and threatening were the walls of green, how narrow the path of beaten earth between them, and how distant seemed the sun, glittering through innumerable screens of leaf.

  Seymour followed me doggedly for the most part, but once or twice I had to say: “Not that way! This way!”—as he took a wrong turning. He barely said a word, beyond the occasional “Golly!”—and even a “Wow!”

  I led him by the most direct route to the centre of the maze. In it there is a circle of bright green turf on one edge of which is an elegant but lichened stone bench with a scrolled back support, and opposite there stands a statue in white Carrara marble.

  “Wow!” said Seymour again. He was breathless and sweating. As he sank onto the stone bench he took a red silk handkerchief from the top pocket of his tweed suit and mopped his vast and glistening bald head, then he just stared at the figure opposite.

  The statue on which he gazed was of Pan. He is perched on a marble tree stump, one goat foot dangling, the other planted on the flower strewn earth. His pose is somewhat aslant, as if he is in the act of turning towards you and both hands grasp a set of Pan pipes which he is bringing to his lips. The musculature of his arms and torso is formidable: not heavy and bloated like a weightlifter but thin and wiry like a champion swimmer or a lightweight boxer. Perhaps the most formidable thing about him is his look. The horned and curly head is slightly lowered, as if he is bending towards the reeds of his pipes, but his glance comes straight at you from beneath his shaggy brows. It is only the blank white stare of weathered marble, naturally, but it still has a force. The lips above the curled tuft of beard are turned upwards in a mirthless, mocking rictus.

  Over the years I have exchanged glances with Pan many times and become accustomed to him, but I can understand how daunting the first look into those eyes can be. I tried to relieve the situation with a little art history.

  “It’s believed to be by Giambologna,” I said. “The third Lord Huntsmere acquired it in Italy around 1740 on his Grand Tour.”

  Seymour went on puffing and staring for some time, slowly recovering his composure.

  “Giambologna, eh?” he said eventually. “Interesting attribution. Doubtful, though, I’m afraid. Probably fobbed off on your gullible ancestor by a shady Italian dealer. Eighteenth century, I would have said, rather than early seventeenth. Certainly not late Renaissance or Mannerist. More Baroque period. Early Rococo. Not bad workmanship, though.”

  “So, as well as being an authority on aristocratic mores, you are also a connoisseur of art. Is there no end to your expertise, Seymour?”

  He smiled complacently, apparently oblivious to the note of sarcasm. I glanced at Pan who leered back viciously. I said: “shall we go?”

  “Well, well,” said Seymour, as he lumbered along in my wake while I led him to the exit. He really was very out of condition. “Yes. It’s a brilliant location. Positively inspiring. The cameraman is going to love it. I can just see Hiram Katz pursuing Lady Winifred along these dark leafy corridors. Then when they get to the middle Hiram is going to try to rape Lady Winifred just under that statue of Pan. Perhaps he succeeds! I haven’t worked it out yet. Could be quite a moment. What do you think, Charles?”

  “It sounds suitably melodramatic,” I said noncommittally.

  That night after dinner we stood on the terrace sipping the last of a bottle of Taylor’s 1970 that my father had laid down. It was a clear dark blue night richly sewn with stars.

  “Ah, the country is the place, isn’t it?” said Seymour. “You never see stars in Cadogan Square, just a sort of leprous orange haze all the year round. Why don’t I buy this place off you?”

  “My price would be far too high, even for you, Seymour.”

  “Only kidding, Charles. Only kidding. But this place—that maze. Usually I’m about as psychic as a smoked salmon canapé, but that maze today, it had something. An atmosphere. Can’t put my finger on it... Good God, did you hear that?”

  Far away but from the direction of the ash grove and the maze came a faint but distinct thread of sound, like that of a high flute or recorder. It wandered up and down the scale seemingly at random, not creating a tune, rather an irregular ripple of notes. Then, as if in mid sentence, it suddenly stopped.

  “What?”

  “That noise. Was it a bird or something? Sounded almost like a musical instrument. Didn’t you hear it?”

  “I heard nothing, I’m afraid. There’s sometimes a nightingale down there, but not this early in the year.”

  “Ah... Well... Must have been my imagi
nation. Or this most excellent port of yours.”

  A week later the crew began to set up in the maze for the scene in which Hiram Katz pursues and rapes Lady Winifred. By this time Seymour was resolved upon a full rape and had adjusted the script accordingly. Neither the cast nor the crew cared very much for the maze, I noticed, but they tolerated it because of Seymour’s enthusiasm. Catriona Faye, the actress playing Lady Winifred, said that the place “gave her the creeps”; but she was one of those actresses who believe that the best way of enhancing their status as an artist is to demonstrate their extreme sensitivity by creating scenes.

  As a rule I made myself scarce during shooting, but I was curious about the filming in the maze. Nevertheless I tried to be as inconspicuous as possible. Having acted in some television in the seventies and eighties, I knew how disconcerting it could be to have an unfamiliar spectator on set.

  The scenes in which Hiram pursues Lady Winifred through the maze were very effectively done, and seemed to bring out qualities in the performers I had not seen before. The cameraman, the lighting crew, and the director had managed to enhance the sinister qualities of the location. Seymour was delighted. He did not confide to me as much, but I think he was surprised by the depth and weight that his script had somehow acquired. I myself felt a curious frisson of anticipation, knowing that I was playing a part, however small, in a moment of significance.

  Then came the day when the rape scene was to be shot. The morning was spent in setting up and a rehearsal which I did not attend. When everyone broke for lunch I watched from the library window as the participants came up the drive towards the catering wagon. They were not, as usual, in little chattering, giggling clumps but walking separately with rather solemn faces. Catriona Faye wore a particularly worried expression under her shingled 1920s hair. She walked fast, her flimsy flapper skirt swinging in the breeze, and reached the serving hatch of the wagon well ahead of the others. I accosted Seymour and asked him if everything was all right. He was unconcerned.

  “Oh, nothing to worry about, my dear Charles. A few technical hitches. The statue of Pan was rather difficult to light for some reason. Then in rehearsals Ray, the boy playing Hiram, got a little carried away during his rape scene with Catriona. Played his part rather too enthusiastically, shall we say, and Catriona got a bit shirty with him. Poor boy! And they were getting on so well before.”

  He seemed amused by the whole business, positively exuberant in fact. Then he said: “Why don’t you come down after lunch and watch the—the climax, as it were?” He chuckled at his little joke. I was conscious of a slight reversion to his former self: perhaps this was what he was like when he was with actors and film people.

  When everyone was called back to the set after lunch. I found myself walking down to the maze beside Catriona. I couldn’t help staring at her beautiful long legs, encased alluringly in white silk stockings. To prevent myself from seeming like a mere voyeur I introduced myself.

  “Hello, I’m Charles Huntsmere. I expect you’ve seen me around.”

  She gave me a nervous look and I noticed that she moved slightly further away from me.

  “Oh. Yes. You own this place, don’t you?”

  I nodded.

  “Do you go into the maze often?”

  “Fairly often, I suppose. Yes.”

  “You don’t find it—frightening?”

  “I’ve known it since I was a child.”

  When we entered the maze Catriona took a wrong turning. I redirected her and led the way into the centre. When we got there the place was deserted except for a lighting technician fiddling with one of the lamps. The atmosphere was still and silent, a little stuffy. Then Catriona screamed, rushed into my arms and buried her head in my tweed jacket.

  “What’s up?”

  “There!” She pointed but kept her face turned away. “Under that—statue thing!”

  On the marble base of Giambologna’s Pan lay a dead hare, its grotesquely long limbs stretched out like a sacrificial victim. The throat had been cut and blood was staining the marble flowers beneath the god’s goat foot.

  I turned to the techie, a stockily built but good-looking youth with blonde curly hair.

  “How did that get there?—” I asked.

  “I don’t know. I only just got here myself.” I was staring into blank, innocent eyes.

  Others began to arrive and Catriona, still hysterical, was taken into the care of the director’s assistant. I decided to leave the scene, but not before receiving suspicious looks from Seymour and the director. I wondered at the cause until I noticed that Catriona had left a substantial amount of face powder and make-up on the right lapel of my jacket.

  I heard later that the rape scene in the maze had at last been shot, though not without considerable trouble and complaint, mainly from Catriona. I resolved to take no further interest in the filming.

  Late the following afternoon I was reading in the library when there was a tentative knock on the door. The hesitancy was uncharacteristic of Seymour, but who else could it be? I commanded the knocker to enter.

  It was Alison, the director of Denton Park, a middle-aged woman with strong features and a puffer jacket. We had been introduced and had exchanged a few polite words on the first day of shooting. She had seemed a confident, forceful type, but not this evening.

  “Excuse me. I’m so sorry to disturb you, Lord Huntsmere.”

  “Not at all. Come in, Alison. And please, call me Charles. I hate being my-lorded.”

  “Oh.” She entered the room, still tentative.

  “Unlike Seymour who, I suspect rather enjoys being addressed as ‘Sir Seymour’ now.” Alison relaxed and smiled a little. “So what is it? Have I done something to displease you?”

  This made Alison nervous again. “Oh, no! No, no. Of course not... Charles... Actually it was Seymour I wanted to talk to you about.”

  “Whisky?” Alison nodded and smiled. Still she hesitated. Finally, having swallowed a mouthful of Glen Gowdie (my favourite single malt) she explained.

  That afternoon the young technician whom Catriona and I had come upon in the maze the previous day, was there again, dismantling the lights. Seymour had strolled into the maze and had, apparently, begun to proposition the young man whose name was Paul. Details were vague but I gathered that a certain amount of physical harassment took place. Paul, who was not at all inclined that way, took violent exception to Seymours advances. As Paul was younger and a great deal fitter than Seymour, the older man was easily repulsed, but Paul was not at all happy about it. There was talk of suing for sexual harassment, even of bringing the police into it.

  “And you know what people are like nowadays,” said Alison, “since all those high profile celebrities were found to be at it. It could be a disaster.”

  I said I quite understood, but why was she talking to me about it?

  “I thought you might have a word with Seymour. Make him see the gravity of the situation. He appears to be on a weird sort of high at the moment. I’d have said it was drugs, but that’s not Seymour at all.”

  “Can’t you talk to him?”

  “Oh, yes...! Well, not really. We get on and everything, but, you see, I’m a subordinate as far as he’s concerned, an employee. The truth is, Charles...” She paused and looked at me, anxiously gauging my reaction. “The only people he really respects are people with titles.”

  “Ah! I see. All right, then. I’ll have a quiet word.”

  “Oh, thank you! Thank you so much.” Alison took a large swig of whisky and began to back towards the door.

  “Please!” I said. “Do take your time with that whisky. It’s a particularly fine single malt. Don’t insult it by gulping it down like that.”

  “Right. Yes. Sorry.” She stopped backing off.

  “You seem to be scared of me.”

  “Oh, no...! Well, yes. Sort of.”

  “Why?”

  “I don’t know really. Actually, we all are... In a way.”

  �
��That makes me feel very strange.”

  “Yes. I suppose it must do. I’m sorry. No offence intended.”

  “None taken, I hope.”

  “But you are—sort of—weird. I mean, living here alone, and all... That sort of thing.” Her voice trailed away. She still looked like a rabbit caught in the headlights.

  “It’s because I’m an unknown quantity. Is that it?”

  “Yes. I suppose so. In a way.”

  At that moment I must have felt as helpless and bewildered as she did. “Well,” I said eventually, “I shall just have to live with it, won’t I?”

  “Yes,” said Alison. “Poor you!” And she gave a nervous little laugh. We left it at that.

  That evening, while we were having a drink before going out to dinner, I tackled Seymour on the subject of Paul. At first he blustered and dismissed it as “a silly misunderstanding.” After I had pointed out the seriousness of the situation in the light of recent scandals he became more subdued. He began to excuse himself with a degree of realism and humility.

  “I really wasn’t getting heavy about it. It was just a bit of playfulness. Banter... Horseplay, you know... Fooling around. He took it the wrong way.”

  “Or feared he was about to.”

  “Look here, Charles, it was nothing. I don’t know. I got carried away. I admit it was very uncharacteristic. I don’t know what got into me.”

  “It was what was about to get into him that worries me.”

  “Oh, really, Charles! Do you have to be so vulgar? Well, naturally I regret it now. It was a momentary aberration. But what am I supposed to do about it? Does Paul want paying off or something?”