‘No I haven’t.’
‘You should. You have good features. Manly. About the chin. In a certain light you might be mistaken for handsome.’
He turns the low flame of his gaze on Florence.
‘You are here to apply as a hat-girl, dear? See Mrs Reilly with your references. You will find her in her lair backstage. Only don’t trip over her broomstick, will you.’
‘Mr Irving,’ Stoker says. ‘If I might—’
‘First names among theatre folk. Surnames bring bad luck.’
‘Henry, then, if you insist. May I present to you my wife, Florence.’
‘Your wife, do you tell me? Well now, my old beardsplitter. Forgive me, Mrs Stoker. I didn’t know Bram was taken. And what a handsome couple you make to be sure, to be sure. Such big eyes you have, Mrs Stoker. As a wolf once said.’
[At this point in the manuscript a 97-word paragraph appears in a code that has proven impossible to decipher. The text resumes in Pitman shorthand ‘rough note’ form as follows, predominantly in dialogue.]
Flo nonplussed. As who would not? He behaving oddly, refusing to look at us.
He: I should have wept at your wedding had I only been invited. (Now taking F by the arm). I feel we shall be great friends, you and I. I have an instinct for such connections. Do you care for the theatre?
F: I care for my husband and what gives him pleasure and happiness.
He: A saint, not a wife. And you are named for my favourite of the great quattrocento cities. The stars are in alignment.
He spoke briefly of the renovations, huge expense of same. Foremen kept fetching him documents to sign which he did without looking. He called for towels and a bowl of water the better to wash the colour from his face, which was not ‘make up’ as I had supposed but plain watercolour and sloe oil, a system of his own devising. (Memo: the name of his dresser is Walter Collinson.) Presently a large black bull mastiff appeared in the wings and he called out to it. ‘This is Fussy’. Its maw full of drool. Clearly adores him.
Then I said:
I thought we might go over some of my duties this afternoon? If you had a little time. Or I can come back later if you are busy, as you seem to be.
He: Seeming to be is my stock-in-trade.
I: Just so.
He: But how do you mean, ‘your duties’?
I: I assume letter-writing and so on, answering your correspondence? Assisting with booking the actors. Is that what a personal secretary does?
He: One supposes so.
I: I thought I could have a word with my predecessor and compile a list of the tasks. Or perhaps such a list exists already?
He: You haven’t a predecessor.
I: But then, who has been attending to your correspondence?
He: Not entirely certain. Might I show you and your husband around the old ruin, Mrs Stoker? The building I mean. Not myself.
Flo: I am sure you must be terribly busy. I have seen the stage already.
He: Oh the stage is merely the face, dear, the eyes of the body. We need to familiarise with the innards. As it were. Allons nous.
Led us out through Stage Left and into the backstage dock, which is in need of a fleet of handymen and scrubwomen but is magnificent, the original early 18th Century dock, hundred-foot ceiling, many lanes, 400 ropes. Scenery of Mountainous Pass being delivered (for King Lear), also the musicians store their instruments here. But rats and mice everywhere, despite the profusion of cats in proximity. Many buckets here and about to catch leaks from rafters. Generally a sorry picture of decrepitude and filth.
From there we doubled back through a passageway so narrow that we could go only one at a time, into the backstage itself, remarkable assortment of flywheels, sliders, traps, cogs, winches, backdrops on spindles, weighted guys, leads, pulleys, levers, sloats, like the belly of a ship but all candlelit, dusklike, strange gloaming. Thought of the Gaelic word amhdhorchacht, the twilight, taught me many years ago by Bridget something or another, our Roscommon maid of all work when I was six. Means ‘the darkness before it is cooked’.
He enjoyed showing us the Thunder Run, a long tubed wooden track along which cannonballs are rolled to produce the rumpus of storms. Building was in the 1700s a chapel, he told us, later a Quaker meeting hall, then a picture-gallery, turned into a theatre a century ago. He has played here many times, before taking over the lease three months ago, ‘a long story, tedious, lawyers, a bank, the uttering of disingenuous promises’.
Took the opportunity to ask him where on the premises was located the famous ‘Lyceum Beef-steak Room’ of legend, where the rakes of olden times were wont to carouse and gamble and summon up Lucifer. He laughed like a chimp. Had very much hoped to find it, had read of it in old books, but no room in the actual theatre corresponded to its description in the naughty old stories, some of which would not be proper to discuss in front of Flo, and he suspected it had never existed or was an amalgam of other such dens. So much of theatre life was mirrors and smoke, he added, leading us on through the gloom. ‘Actors like a dirty story. It relieves the monotony of the job. There is a lot of standing about in our work.’
He (walking us): We are not at our best just yet, my dears, as you see. Thank the fates you’ve arrived to sort everything out. But one rather likes the corruption in its way, don’t you feel? Purity is so dull.
Up a winding staircase, very steep, past the Band Room and Green Room – ‘mind how you go’ – through a long sort of annex, then down steps (stone) and into what must be an old Costume Store. Tabards, doublets, hosiery, gowns, Arthurian robes, all ruined by moths. No glass in barred windows.
He: A young dog like you won’t know Wills’ play Vanderdecken?
I: I twice saw you play it in Dublin.
He: Bloody Nora, you didn’t? That was a thousand years ago. The moment in Act Four when the ghost answers Thekla’s question?
I (quoting): ‘Where are we?’
He: ‘Between the living and the dead.’
Then, to Florence:
He: You see, the hero is dead, dear. Terrifying thing. One thinks of it always, backstage in a theatre. For we, too, are neither living nor dead. A thought one finds strangely consoling. Don’t you think?
Flo: These abstractions of the artist hold little interest for me, I’m afraid. I choose to live in the real world.
He: Ah, the real world, that vile dungeon of cruelty and hunger. You are welcome to it.
Flo: It must be a very heavy burden to think that of the world.
He: I never trust a thinker – to feel is the only calling. But without what we do as artists your real world would be less bearable, no?
F: I distrust those who say life would not be possible without art. For millions of the poor it must be. They have no choice in the matter. Life would not be possible without little fripperies like food. Or shelter. The contention of anything else is a pose.
He: You have spirit, Mrs Stoker.
F: I have a good deal more than that.
He: Of course. You have Bram.
F: I mean to keep him.
He: Offices up the stairs, my private sitting room also, company Dressing Rooms to the left as one approaches the Coal Store. Then Paint Room, Prop Room, Wig Room, Gas Room, Carpentry, Leading Lady, Chorus, Chief Musician. Some mumblecrust or another is running about with a map. Can’t remember his name, little bow-legged chappie, dandruff, Welsh, always looks as though he’s coming at you through a snowstorm. Delicious old maze but you’ll soon work it out. Now if you’ll excuse me, I must return to this wretched sitting, if I can find it, and I’m to have a strychnine injection in my throat beforehand – asthma, you know. You’ll start tomorrow morning? I thought ‘General Manager’ as your title?
I: You are joking I assume.
He: Joking is for schoolgirls.
I: But I couldn’t manage a theatre. I have no experience of such matters.
He (with a shrug): How difficult can it be? Let it manage you.
I: Look here, w
ith respect, that was not the understanding. You mentioned part time secretarial work and that alone. I have my writing to consider. The time—
He: Oh don’t be such a fustlilugs, you have managed yourself, have you not, and I daresay no one has died? You appear to be a going concern. And with a wife, no less. Don’t talk such a royal lot of rubbish.
I: No but you will want someone who has performed the General Manager’s role in a large theatre previously. There is a great lot of work to be done here.
He: You fear new experience? Then how can you hope to be an artist?
I: I hope to be an artist by devoting proper time to that aim. False pretences are a dashed poor foundation for anything.
He (suddenly angry, tight mirthless smile): I say, Stoker, let me apprise you as to how much I care about your judgements: somewhere between almost zero and zero. But you will not calumniate me in my own theatre, sir, while I stand here and nod. Do you mind what I say, sir? Or shall we step out the door?
Silence for a time. He lit a cigarette.
He: Apologies, Mrs Stoker. I should not have spoken uncouthly in your presence. It seems, alas, that your husband and I have had a misunderstanding. My hope was to offer a foothold here in a working, professional theatre, a well-paid position where he might learn and absorb and in time do something worthwhile. Evidently I misread. Perhaps so did he. If he would rather return to clerking in Dublin, then go, with my blessing and only a little of my disappointment. See Walter with your expenses. Here’s my hand to you both.
F: Might we take an hour or two to discuss your proposal, my husband and I?
He: Of course. Again, forgive me. I can give you one hour. After that, I must find a replacement.
I: When do you open?
He: In six weeks, with Hamlet.
I: For Christ’s sake, six weeks. There are holes in the roof!
He (stone-faced): Then give the audience umbrellas.
I: I would need to make a study of the principal assets of the company.
He: You’re looking at them.
I: I mean the accounts, the books, your deed on the lease.
He (a sudden, disconcerting laugh and a clap on my back): You perplex me a little, you beetle-headed old mary. Such littleness in a lumping great ox of your size. The deed is with the lawyers, Braithwaite, Lowrey and Klopstock, 19, the Strand. You will find the ledgers in the office immediately to the right as one exits Stage Left. Cheerless reading, I’m afraid. Like an essay by Bernard Shaw. Here are the keys. Make yourself cosy. Oh, I took the liberty of having some drudge or another put your nameplate on the door.
I: Look here I shall need to speak with you later today, there will be questions, arrangements—
He: I go, I go; look how I go, swifter than arrow from the Tarter’s bow.
Pushing open the filthy window, he looks down into Exeter Street and watches his wife hail a cab for her appointment at the Museum. He wishes that he had not lost his temper, not spoken so abruptly. She has rarely seen him in that mode. He’d hoped to hide it or kill it.
A ballad singer down in the street is working a marionette of a witch. Children gather about him, laughing, clapping; one little boy waving a streamer.
The wind she blew
The wicked hag
Wrapped her baby in the bag
The bag she threw
All in the sea
The wind she blew
For thee and me.
Lunch hour has coaxed crowds out of offices and shops, the narrow pavements overflowing, the beggars hard at work.
Suddenly, across the street, in the doorway of an apothecary’s, he notices the young girl who opened the Stage Door to them earlier. Something sickly and kicked-down about her, all in black, like a waif, shuffling her bare feet from side to side, a ghastly dance. She holds her hand out to passers-by but nobody stops. Not right, to see a child of that tender age in beggary. For a girl, it is worse, can only lead to one thing.
In Regent Street, the dolls slowly blink.
If she works here in the theatre, she should be paid, protected. If she doesn’t, she should be assisted somehow. Slowly, she raises her gaze, as though sensing his observance. Her smile is cold, freezingly violent. What has he done wrong? Does she mistake him for someone else? She turns and limps away down the street.
He is a strong man but it takes effort to haul open the rusted, creaking wall-safe. He takes out the heavy legal ledger, the thick packets of time-stiffened wax-sealed documents, places them on the desk, clears a space for his notebook. For an hour, he works a careful way through the columns of figures, a correction here, a small adjustment there, until his temples are pounding with tension. But no matter how he comes at them, the numbers will not tally. He begins the work over, this time speaking the figures aloud to himself. The gap is narrowed but still it exists.
We will dement you, say the figures. We will chew out your mind. Run, while you still have the chance.
From time to time, a workman or scrubwoman happens past his open door. He asks if they might know how many seats the theatre contains, is there a map of the stalls and circles, a plan? How much should the tickets cost? Where do we advertise? Are the players paid ready cash? Where is the Box Office? Where are the lavatories? Who is the leader of the orchestra? How do things work here?
Nobody knows anything. Some scarcely pause as they pass. It’s like being the uninteresting exhibit in a freak show, or acting in a play no one would want to see performed.
That evening, over a simple supper in their boarding-house flat, Florence is pale, seems absent, full of silences. He brings the ledger to the dining table, keeps up his calculations and rebalancings all through the meal, cursing quietly at the stubbornness of the numbers. She stares into her coffee cup. There is something she wishes to ask.
‘Did he get around to mentioning your salary?’
‘Not in person but he sent me round a note late this afternoon. Three guineas a week to start, rising to four in a year.’
‘But that’s wonderful, Bram, we shall be able to take a little house, maybe in Chelsea or Pimlico?’
‘Think it’s better we stay close to the theatre, if you don’t mind.’
‘I do mind, rather.’
‘Let’s discuss it at another time?’
From somewhere the yelp of a dog, then the bells tolling nine in St Mary le Strand.
‘I had an interesting day at the library,’ she says. ‘The assistants are kindly and knowledgeable.’
‘Good.’
‘You might spend some time there yourself, Bram. The Celtic literature collection is fascinating. Better than anything one’s come across in Dublin.’
‘I must.’
‘One of the librarians showed me through a manuscript about a fellow called Averock. Lopping off people’s heads, doing hunnish things to virgins. They had a jolly good go at killing him but of course he couldn’t die.’
‘Do you realise what he’s done?’
‘Averock?’
‘Borrowed from one bank in order to pay the rent on the lease, then borrowed from three more using the same loan as collateral. Then the costumes, the carpentry, the upholsterers, it’s eye watering. New music has been commissioned. Venetian chandeliers. The stage curtains cost seven thousand guineas.’
‘Can I help in some way?’
‘This extravagance – it’s insane. I’m quite up a tree trying to understand.’
‘I might go to bed now.’
‘For curtains.’
‘Why don’t you come, Bram?’
‘I’ll just finish up this. Be along in a minute.’
Close to eight the following morning he awakens on the sofa. There’s a note from her to say she’s gone to the library. The fire in the grate is lighted but the room is cold. Raindrops on the windows cause strange shadows down the walls.
An hour later, returned from his swim at the Jermyn Street baths, he is making through the hallway when he sees that a letter has arrived for him. He r
ecognises his mother’s small, careful copperplate. Opening the envelope, he realises that the landlady has come out of her room and is peering at him worriedly as she wipes her hands on her apron.
‘Come sta, signore? All is good?’
‘Yes, ma’am. Thank you.’
‘We might please have a brief little talk one moment?’
‘Is anything the matter?’
‘The Signora, she is well and happy today?’
‘Very well indeed. She has gone out on an errand.’
‘I wish and ask you one question, sir. About the Signor Irving.’
‘Yes?’
‘How is it done?’
‘Forgive me?’
‘In my village – at home – the old people say, there is reason the Lord give us two ears and one mouth, sir, so’s we’d listen twice as much as we’d speak, sir, e vero? But rumours. Many actor lodge in this house down the years and their stories of him? Santo Cielo!’
‘I’m afraid I’m not much of a one for listening to tittle-tattle.’
‘Si, si. Certo. I say nothing, you understand. But here is an actor, Signore. Sometime work, sometime no. Like all the actor. But he live in a five-room apartment on Duke Street Saint James, no? Go to auctions. Buy the paintings. The peacock’s clothes and the hand-stitched boots. Ellen Terry she the greatest actress of England, Signore, but she don’t live like that, she live modest. This man spend on suit of clothes what another eat with for one year. Tell me – how is it done?’
Shadowplay Page 6