When the rehearsal proper began, Naomi went off to prompt from the wings and the Colonel sat at the back of the hall, watching.
Things had moved on considerably since the first ragged read-through. The evil sorcerer, owner of the magic mirror that had fallen to earth and shattered into trillions of evil splinters, had toned down his manic cackle, and the girl, Gerda, was word-perfect. The boy, Kai, needed constant prompting from Naomi, but he was trying hard. The kindly old grandmother braved many interruptions from the director’s chair.
‘I can hardly hear a word you’re saying, Mrs Simcocks. You must speak louder or they’ll never hear you at the back. Could you hear her, Colonel?’
‘Not entirely.’
‘Not at all, I should imagine. The grandmother is a key part of the story. If the audience can’t hear her, they won’t know what’s going on.’
The Colonel wasn’t too sure himself, but the story seemed the sort of thing that young children would enjoy: the kindly old grandmother’s garden where Gerda and Kai played happily together in summer, winter coming when everything would change to snow and bitter cold, the boy’s heart and eyes struck by splinters from the sorcerer’s broken mirror so that he became cruel to Gerda and the grandmother. Children seldom seemed upset by even the most horrific fairy tales. This one was comparatively tame by comparison.
When Kai went out to play in the snow with other boys, the Colonel waited with interest for the Snow Queen to arrive on the polar bear sledge and carry him off.
She did not disappoint. Joan Dryden not only looked the part, she had learned it. Her few lines were delivered in glacial tones that, unlike the kindly old grandmother’s, reached him clearly.
She beckoned to Kai. ‘Come with me, my child, and I will take you to my beautiful palace in the land of ice and snow.’
The boy obeyed and the sledge took a careful turn of the stage under Steph’s expert steering from the wings.
‘Creep into my warm fur,’ said the Snow Queen, tucking the polar bear around Kai and kissing him on the forehead so that he fell under her spell and the glass splinters in his heart and eyes turned to ice. ‘I will take care of you for ever and ever.’
The sledge took another turn and disappeared off stage. The Colonel joined in the clapping.
The rehearsal went on.
Gerda set off in search of Kai, encountering an enchantress with a garden of talking flowers, a black raven who befriended her and a prince and princess. As she travelled through a dark forest she was captured by cruel robbers. Fortunately, an obliging reindeer helped her escape and carried her on his back all the way to Lapland where a wise old woman – the part indignantly declined by Mrs Pudsey – sent them on to another wise old woman in Finland who told her that Kai was being kept in the ice palace of the Snow Queen.
Conveniently, the Snow Queen decided to go off on a visit to warmer countries and turn them cold (cue for a dramatic reappearance of the polar bear sledge and the delivery of another chilling line from Joan). A barefoot, very cold and very weary Gerda arrived at last at the ice palace to be set upon by the snowflake guards and then rescued by angels who fought the guards off with their spears. Inside the palace, Gerda discovered Kai alone in the empty hall. When she hugged him, her tears of joy melted the ice in his heart and washed away the ice splinter from his eye, so that he was his old and kind self again. Before long, they were back home where the town church bells were ringing and it was summer with flowers in full bloom. Gerda delivered the final words.
‘Our roses bloom and fade away,
Our Infant Lord abides always;
May we be blessed His face to see,
And ever little children be.’
The Colonel had more or less followed the story and thought it should please all the young members of the audience, though it seemed a bit of a pity that the Snow Queen hadn’t got more of her just deserts at the end, rather than just going off to have fun.
Joan Dryden came up to him. ‘I must say your sledge was very comfortable, Hugh.’
He smiled. ‘All thanks to the bear.’
‘Where on earth did it come from?’
‘My neighbour’s attic. Her great uncle shot it.’
‘Well, I’m glad he did. I wouldn’t have liked to meet the animal when it was still alive. Was I all right, do you think?’
‘You were better than all right.’
‘Thank you, Hugh. You always know what to say. Actually, I’m rather enjoying myself. Mrs Cuthbertson has told me to choose my own costume from some local hirers, but if they don’t have anything up to scratch I’ll get one from London. It will be rather fun dressing up. Do you know that woman standing over there? She’s just told me she’ll be doing my make-up.’
‘Her name’s Thora Jay. She used to be a professional make-up artist. She’s meant to be very good.’
‘We’ll see. I know something about make-up myself, as you can imagine. She doesn’t exactly inspire confidence, does she? Look at her!’
‘Looks can be deceptive.’
‘Oh, do you think so, Hugh? I disagree. Looks tell you everything about a person. If people look dull and ordinary it’s usually because they are.’
The sledge was stowed away in the room off the stage and Steph gave the Colonel, Naomi and the polar bear a lift home in the pickup truck. Marjorie Cuthbertson, recognizing Steph’s superior sledge-pulling skills, had lost no time in co-opting him as an honorary Player. He seemed rather embarrassed about it.
‘I hope you don’t mind, Colonel? After all, it’s your sledge.’
‘And they’re your wheels, Steph. I’d much sooner you were in charge of them. Safer for everyone.’
Since it was already Chivas Regal time, he carried the polar bear into Pond Cottage and lowered him into a corner of the sitting room while Naomi prised Thursday off his cushion.
The Colonel lit the log fire and fetched the Scotch. ‘Good health, Naomi.’
‘Same to you, Hugh. Well, I think that went jolly well, don’t you? Your sledge is a winner.’
‘Thanks to your great uncle’s polar bear.’
‘He certainly helped. Hardly any forgotten lines, for once, and I must say I thought Joan was rather good. By the time we’ve got scenery and costumes and make-up, everything’s going to come together quite well. I hope Bob Fox does a decent job with the lighting. He says he’s got big plans for the Northern Lights when they get to Lapland. All the colours flickering away.’
‘How about sound effects?’
‘Lavinia Warner always does those. Remember her from the fête bric-a-brac stall? We’ve got a wind machine for the blizzard scenes – you just turn a handle and it shrieks and moans like anything. Sounds just like the real thing. She’s jolly good at doing horse’s hooves with coconuts too, though, of course, we don’t need those this time.’
‘Any music?’
‘Some new chap in the village has taken that on. He’s going to play suitable snatches of Sibelius. All very Nordic.’
‘No sing-a-longs?’
‘Definitely not. Marjorie has vetoed any of the panto stuff. By the way, Ruth and Tom are inviting all the village to the Manor after the last performance. Mince pies and mulled wine.’
‘All the village? That’s kind of them.’
‘Yes, isn’t it? It was always the tradition every Christmas when Sir Alan was alive, then Ursula dropped it like a hot potato as soon as he died. Didn’t want us riff-raff in the house fingering the curtains, I suppose. Anyway, Ruth has revived it now that Ursula’s no longer with us and she’s married Tom. Thank God she’s nothing like her mother. Just think, if Tom hadn’t turned up to be our GP in Frog End, Ruth might have sold the Manor when her mother got bumped off and people like the Drydens could have bought it. Unthinkable as well as unimaginable.’
The Colonel agreed that it was hard to picture Kenneth and Joan Dryden playing the Manor role with any enthusiasm, and very unlikely that invitations would have been forthcoming en masse at Christmas. ‘
I’ll look forward to the party.’
‘We muck in, of course. People make mince pies to take. Enough to go round.’
‘Could I buy some instead?’
‘They’re supposed to be home-made. It’s part of the tradition too, which means some are very good and others are inedible. It’s the thought that counts. Anyway, people only eat a token one. Don’t worry, Hugh, you can take some wine to be mulled instead. That’s always welcome. Do you realize that it’ll soon be Christmas?’
He realized very well because Susan had reminded him when she had rung that morning.
‘You will be coming to us, won’t you, Father? The children will be so disappointed if you don’t. It’s Eric’s school carol service on the sixteenth. If you’re here by then, you can come to it.’
Grandfathers, he knew, were meant to do exactly that sort of thing: go to school carol services and concerts and plays and stand on touchlines, cheering. He had missed out on most of it with Marcus and Alison because he had spent so much time serving abroad while they had been at boarding school in England.
‘Unfortunately I can’t, Susan. I’m so sorry. The village is putting on a Christmas play during that week and I’m supposed to be helping with the scenery.’
‘Do you have to, Father? I’d have thought that family should come first during the festive season.’
She was absolutely right, of course. He had felt very guilty.
When Naomi’s other half drink was finished, he offered to carry the polar bear over to her cottage.
‘Would you mind keeping the wretched thing here, Hugh? It upsets the dogs. They keep barking at it.’
He wasn’t surprised. Two Jack Russells would have made a nice snack for the bear when he was alive.
Thursday had gone off to the kitchen to have his Munchies supper and, in his absence, the Colonel made the bear comfortable on the sofa, laying him on his back, head supported by the armrest, front paws placed neatly together and rear paws propped up against the arm at the other end. He sat down to drink the remains of his whisky and, presently, Thursday returned. Cats, he knew, were very good at summing up a new situation at a glance and judging if it was to their advantage or otherwise. It only took a moment for the decision to be reached. Thursday jumped up on to the sofa and settled down between the bear’s front paws, kneading the thick white fur with his claws. He blinked his eyes once or twice at the Colonel. He even purred.
TWELVE
The dress rehearsal of The Snow Queen took place three days before the first performance, with full costume, make-up, scenery, props, lighting and music.
The Major, who had somehow managed to avoid attending most of the previous rehearsals, found himself kept busy hauling things around behind the scenes. The fake rose trees in the kindly old grandmother’s summer garden kept keeling over and shedding their paper petals, and the real Christmas trees, standing about in buckets and sprayed with glitter on one side for winter, were damned prickly to manoeuvre.
Bloody stupid idea of Flora Bentley’s, he thought. Typical of the woman. No consideration at all. He had neither forgotten, nor forgiven, the time when she had argued with him at the summer fête committee meeting over the allocation of trestle tables. She had taken three of them for her cakes while he had been left with only one for the bottle stall. She’d even had the nerve to tell him that there shouldn’t be a bottle stall at all. Drinking shouldn’t be encouraged, she’d said, as though there were rows of Johnny Walker and Smirnoff and Gordons instead of the cheap British sherry and the homemade wines that were usually donated. During his several years’ tenure of the fête bottle stall, he had discovered that people would make wine out of the most extraordinary things – peapods, parsnips, nettles, dandelions, gorse, turnips … old socks, he shouldn’t wonder, if they found some lying about.
Luckily, the Colonel was there, lending a dependable hand. He was a good sort of chap to have on your side when the going got tough. No slacking or anything like that. Poor old Toby Jugge had wanted to help but Marjorie had spotted him hanging around the dressing room and sent him packing. It was damned unfair. He was still a member of the Players, after all.
The Major waited in the wings as the two children pretended to play together in the kindly old grandmother’s garden. Boring as anything, in his opinion. Not a patch on Puss in Boots last year. Or had it been Cinderella? Still, everyone seemed to be remembering their lines, more or less, and the snow-capped mountains on the back cloth strung up behind the Christmas trees looked all right from a distance.
The curtains rattled across at the end of the first scene, one of them sticking halfway so that he had to climb on a chair and free it. Time to cart the rose trees off and turn the bloody Christmas trees round to their glittery winter side. More damned prickles. His hands and face were as sore as hell.
As the next scene opened, the boy, whose name the Major had forgotten, was pretending to play with some other village boys, throwing cotton wool snowballs at each other. One of them hit the Major on the head – aimed deliberately, he reckoned. He shook his fist. Little tykes.
The lighting went down and Lavinia Warner started cranking up her wind machine to blizzard strength, drowning out the taped music composed by some Finnish chap. Cue for the Snow Queen to show up.
He waited expectantly. According to Marjorie, Joan Dryden had insisted on her costume being hired from London. The old girl had been furious about it.
‘She’s expecting the Players to pay and it’s far more than we can afford. Quite unnecessary.’
Mrs Dryden had also insisted on having a corner of the communal dressing room curtained off for herself, which had left even less room for the other players to change in. There had been a lot of muttering and grumbling, but the old girl couldn’t do much about that either, or about the full-length mirror that had been installed for Her Majesty’s private use. Or about the make-up woman taking ten times as long over the Snow Queen as the other leads, closeted with her behind the apartheid curtain.
Two spotlights, one on each side of the stage, came on and the Snow Queen rolled slowly into view on her sledge, reclining on the polar bear skin. The Major caught his breath. Whatever the London costumier was charging, it was worth every damned penny. The glittering crown, the filmy cloak draped over a gown that looked as though it was made of frozen snowflakes. And the queen’s face, framed by long silver tresses, might have been carved from ice. Hats off to that make-up woman, whatever her name was! As the sledge advanced smoothly, followed on foot by the bedazzled boy, the queen sprinkled handfuls of silver dust around and beckoned seductively to him. No surprise that the lad jumped to it, the Major thought wistfully. At his age, he’d have gone like a shot.
The first two performances were matinées. The audiences were either very young or very old and the Snow Queen made a big impression on everybody.
The Colonel, on scene-shifting duty backstage, saw rows of gaping mouths whenever she appeared. The London costume was sensational and the queen’s icy make-up a work of art. Thora Jay certainly knew her job. Even Joan had acknowledged it.
‘I looked rather fabulous, didn’t I, Hugh?’
‘Extremely.’
‘And Thora’s not quite as dull and boring as I thought. We got on rather well, as a matter of fact. Chatting away like old friends. I practically told her my life story.’
‘Did she tell you hers?’
‘No, I wasn’t interested. But she knew a lot of luvvy gossip. She had some amusing tales to tell about actors she’d worked with.’
The third and final performance of The Snow Queen started in the early evening, attended by the rest of the village. After the queen’s dramatic appearance on the sledge, accompanied by piercing wolf whistles, the audience lapsed into silence. This time, the Colonel saw bored faces and stifled yawns. The valiant efforts of Gerda to find and rescue Kai went unappreciated until the scene where she entered the dark forest – the haunt of the robbers. As she stopped, centre stage, looking fearfully left
and right, a polar bear emerged from behind one of the potted Christmas trees. Someone in the audience immediately shouted out: ‘He’s behind you!’
Everyone woke up. There were roars of laughter as the bear dodged back behind the tree and more warning shouts when he reappeared from another tree and crept up to the girl.
‘He’s behind you! Behind you!’
As soon as Gerda turned round to look, the bear vanished again and so the game went on until the robbers arrived.
The audience hissed the dastardly robbers, clapped the helpful reindeer, oohed and aahed at the flickering multi-coloured Northern Lights, booed the evil Snow Queen in her ice palace, cheered on the winged angels in their fight with the villainous snowflake guards, gave exaggerated sighs when Gerda’s tears melted Kai’s icy heart and eyes, clapped the happy ending back at the kindly old grandmother’s house and whooped and whistled and stamped the floor with their feet as the cast took their bows. There were calls for the polar bear, but in vain.
‘I’ve no idea who it was,’ the Major said, all hurt innocence. ‘I was busy moving things around.’
Drawn up to her full height, chest inflated like a wartime pilot’s Mae West, the old girl could be a frightening sight. Boadicea on the warpath, luckily without the helmet and the chariot – and the knives.
‘Do you really expect me to believe that, Roger? Of course it was your Mr Jugge. It was just the sort of thing he’d do. His idea of a joke. And you must have encouraged him.’
‘I did nothing of the sort.’
‘I hope you realize that he ruined the whole final performance. Wrecked everything.’
‘Well, the audience seemed to enjoy themselves.’
‘I dare say they did. They thought it was supposed to be just another rowdy pantomime when it was intended to be a serious and uplifting story of the triumph of good against evil. I blame you for letting that happen, Roger.’
The Major sighed. There was no justice. He’d no idea who had been under the polar bear skin – obviously filched at some point from the Snow Queen’s sledge – but the finger pointed to old Toby, it had to be said. He’d seen him hanging round backstage. If so, he’d done it damned well. The bear had looked alive, and the audience had come to life, too. Everyone had had a good laugh and there was nothing wrong with that. Not much else to laugh about, these days.
Bitter Poison Page 10