Shadowplay

by Joseph O'Connor

  ‘As ever, the Chief is wrong. Mathematics and science. Didn’t trouble the professors much. For me it was theatre that opened the door.’

  ‘I think you are in love.’

  ‘It is unrequited, I’m afraid.’

  ‘How so?’

  ‘I had hoped, when I was younger, that writing would be my profession. That I might have had success with it, provided for a family, so on. Made a name. But many are called. Few are chosen.’

  ‘You are working on something at present?’

  ‘A notion’s churning around. Probably nothing.’

  ‘A novel?’

  ‘A play.’

  ‘Is there a lead role for a vain actress?’

  He is silent. She tries again, less probingly.

  ‘May I ask how it commences?’

  ‘An arrogant aristocrat, preying on his subjects.’

  ‘I wonder where you can possibly have found such an idea.’

  ‘It is not a portrait of anyone. If that is what you mean.’

  ‘Nothing comes of nothing?’

  ‘King Lear was wrong.’

  ‘Oh, look at the sky, won’t you. Blue as cornflowers today.’

  For a moment she is silent. The river-song rises. The gurgle of water, the lapping against hulls. She is the only woman he has ever seen blow smoke-rings.

  ‘You blush when you speak of your work,’ she says. ‘Like a girl about her boy. I wish you could see yourself. Your face changes.’

  ‘To tell a story to another,’ he says. ‘To touch another person, someone you never met. That hope – moves me. Someone out in the darkness, near the back of the stalls. Or a lonely young man or woman who couldn’t afford a seat so is standing in the gods. And words themselves are so beautiful. Just to play with them. Like music. I feel – when I write – as though I become another person. A stronger and better man. Silly notion.’

  ‘I don’t see anything silly about it. Au contraire.’

  ‘I do.’

  ‘Purple or scarlet, do you reckon? With my eyes.’

  ‘I’m sorry?’

  ‘My dress, nitwit. For Cleopatra.’

  ‘I would have thought, if I might, smoke-blue,’ he says.

  ‘Ah. Smoke-blue. ’Tis a mystery you are, sweet and noble Mr Stoker. Your beautiful words. I should like to know you better. Would this stronger and better man care to buy a girl a cuppa?’

  As they turn towards the teashop, a dark sight takes them.

  Ahead, on the street, a police barricade has been set up. Constables are herding male pedestrians into groups to be searched. From time to time a hooded man in a boilermaker’s doorway points a gloved finger; the indicated passer-by is dragged, protesting, into the line.

  ‘Mr Stoker,’ she says quietly. ‘Who can that be?’

  ‘An informer, perhaps.’

  ‘Do you suppose another poor girl has been found?’

  ‘I hope not,’ he says. ‘Shall we go?’

  9th November, 1888

  After Miss Terry and I had a cup of coffee and a talk, we went to a little draper’s she likes on the southern bank of the Thames. The shop is in a dark lane whose name I did not notice and is owned by an Indian gentleman and his good lady wife (although run, it would seem to me, by an Indian lady and her husband).

  The fabrics were breathtakingly exquisite, mostly silks, but also some fine-spun cottons, of astonishing radiance, colour and reverberating vividness, the lady explaining to me – Miss Terry knew already – that a ‘saree’ of such high quality can be exceedingly expensive but will last and can be given by the woman as an heirloom.

  The ships bearing these garments all the thousands of miles from the East are moored at the dock immediately perpendicular to this laneway, a remarkable thought in itself. The best sarees are made of diaphanous silk so fine that the garment may be passed through a wedding ring.

  I waited while Miss Terry selected a few (actually many) (actually too many) samples to be delivered by these pleasant and hard-working people to our Costume Shop. From time to time she would go into a private room behind the counter and, with the lady’s assistance, don a saree, then emerge and ask my view, wearing the garment in what I am told is the traditional manner, wrapped around the waist, with one end draped over the shoulder, baring the midriff.

  I must say, she was a sight of great grace.

  After a time, two beautiful-looking English children came down to the shop from an upper room in which, it seemed, they had been playing with an Indian girl, the daughter of the house, whom I should say was fifteen, pretty as a sunflower and full of smiling kindness. They ran to Miss Terry and embraced her, addressing her as ‘mummie’. Imagine my surprise to be told that these were Miss Terry’s son, Gordy, and daughter, Edy. She is in the habit of leaving the little ones here to be minded when she is at rehearsal, she explained, a happy arrangement for all parties, as I could see by the delighted faces. I gave the girl of the house five shillings so that cream buns might be enjoyed later by all and was hurrahed in several languages as a result.

  Returning to the Lyceum not long after lunchtime, we were met by an unusual scene. Miss Terry and I – I am not comfortable calling her ‘Len’ because Len is the name not of our plumber exactly but of a frequently inebriated Welshman we call upon when the drains overflow – found Harks on the stage with an angry-looking fish-eyed sort of man in a raincoat and unappealingly crushed homburg.

  Harks was a bit consternated and, as is sometimes the way when this happens, flustering her words. The man interrupted her in a manner I felt to be rude but we must not underestimate the great burden that is physical unattractiveness. He introduced himself as one George Orbison, a detective with the Metropolitan Police. He wished, so he said, to speak with the Chief.

  When I asked to what purpose, Orbison was again a bit sullen. He was one of those types that enjoys having something he can’t possibly tell you, and rather lording it about. It interested me that, seeing Miss Terry, he took her in for a moment but that his face displayed no emotion whatever. One imagined him practising that in a mirror.

  At this point, the Chief steamed out of Backstage Right and a queer sort of play then ensued.

  Chief: What is the meaning of this interruption to our work?

  Orbison: Afternoon, sir. It’s about these murders in the East End.

  C: What about them?

  O: This play you are presenting at the moment, sir. Doctor Jekyll and Mister Hyde. We’d like you to take it off, if you’d be so good.

  Why so?

  We are hunting a savage madman, as must be obvious to anyone. Another girl was found this morning, this time in Dorset Street near Spitalfields. We believe so-called entertainments such as the one you are presenting might set him off. As it were. Or others might be inspired to copy him. If they haven’t already.

  You are standing in a playhouse. What we do is put on plays.

  I’ve been advised to insist, sir.

  By whom?

  I’m not at liberty to say.

  This is England or hadn’t you noticed? The police do not close theatres where freemen live.

  I will thank you not to take that tone with me, sir, and to lower your voice. I am not one of your minions to be bullied.

  Dare you speak to me in my own theatre like this, you odious pipsqueak?

  Here’s an envelope for you, sir. It’s all copies, you can keep ’em. It’s a file on your good self, sir, very thorough you’ll find it. Certain interests you enjoy, certain late night companions. Shame if it were ever to fall into the wrong hands.

  The Chief paled, growing older, as he looked through the packet. I have rarely seen him silenced, never so quickly, and I found myself wondering what the contents of such a powerful envelope might be. Exaggerations and gossip, no doubt. He likes to pose as a great libertine and spread rumours about his vices, a habit I have for years advised him to put down, unavailingly. Hamlet, Act Three, scene four comes to mind. Hoist by one’s own petard.

&nbs
p; Observing his eyes was like watching a stream into which a stone has been dropped, clouding, blooming with grit, now clearing.

  The nasty visitor was now staring at him in a hateful way. I am certain that the glare, like the inscrutability, had been practised in some lonely, ill-smelling room above a pawnshop where they accept deadmen’s clothes. ‘I can close this establishment now,’ he said. ‘Or you can comply. The decision is yours.’

  Orbison’s voice had somehow changed, had become husky and piping, as though his throat contained an organ.

  At this point, Miss Terry, who had been quiet, stepped forward. ‘We can play Othello tonight,’ she said with gay excitement. ‘I know Desdemona back to front, the scenery is similar. Harks, run and see if the dresses are in store, like a love?’

  ‘We’ll do no such thing,’ the Chief snapped. ‘Over my dead body.’

  ‘Mr Stoker,’ said Miss Terry, ‘perhaps you’d call the company for rehearsal at half past two, the opening scene, all attending.’

  ‘When broken shells make Christmas bells,’ said the Chief angrily.

  ‘Thank you, Detective Orbison,’ said Miss Terry, shaking the nasty man’s paw. ‘The Lyceum shall be delighted to accede to your request. Perhaps you and Mrs Orbison would like tickets?’

  ‘I shan’t play the part,’ said the Chief. ‘I warn you. I shan’t.’

  ‘Shut up, do,’ she said. ‘Go get your blackface.’

  Less than seven hours later, as I watched from Backstage Left, a worried-looking Othello drifted over towards me during a fanfare from the pit. ‘Where is Len?’ he hissed. ‘For Christ’s sake, she’s on in ninety seconds.’

  I hurried out to the corridor and witnessed a memorable sight, a vision seen by no other in the storied history of theatre. Sliding frontward down the banister, pursued by a near-hysterical trio of dressers, came Miss Alice Ellen Terry in all her tousled magnificence, barefoot, grim-faced, ardent. The gown was the glowing indigo of a peacock’s neck, the cigarillo between her lips was not lit.

  ‘’Pologies,’ she whispered. ‘I was taking a wee. Button me, would you, Auntie?’

  She turned, hands held high, the dressers buffed up her paints, hair and kohl, as I attended to the gown’s rearward fastenings.

  ‘Buggeration,’ she said. ‘Get a move along, ladies. Where in ruddy hell are my dinky doos?’

  Shoes donned, she stamped, then did a burst of an Irish jig (‘to break ’em in’), then on she strode, precisely on cue, to an oceanic roar that seemed to rock the whole house, the ovation lasting fully two minutes. It was like watching a changeling, as though her physical being had altered, become – I have no other way to say it – somehow more intensely itself. Not once did she acknowledge the applause but stared up at the gods, holding the back of her hand to her brow.

  Othello trudged over again and glowered at me as they cheered.

  ‘Scene-stealing cow,’ he muttered.

  14th November, 1888

  Coming on to dawn.

  Chirrups and caws.

  Have been awake all night.

  At one o’clock this morning, following a lavish supper (crustaceans, champagne, Tokay wine) that was held on the stage for the company, Harks and I put the Chief, who was weary, to a camp-bed in his office, then lit our lamps and went out to the street so that we might see our ladies into the long line of cabs we had ordered. One by one, they went, last to go being Harks herself who shared with Miss Terry and Patience Harris, our costumier.

  Their hansom had not yet rounded the corner of Exeter Street when I found myself beset by the old compulsion.

  Stood alone for a time. The feeling would not melt.

  How I willed away my visitor. But no.

  Rain had fallen earlier in the night and the air was still damp, but a stinking fog was rolling its inexorable way back in from the river, wrapping the filth of its muddied gauze about the gaslights and candlelit windows so that one could scarcely discern the doorways of the shops across the street. Again I attempted to summon the will to wend home but the thought of the empty house was so saddening.

  I returned inside the theatre for some minutes, used the lavatory, washed my face in cold water. But what stared back at me from the mirror was no cleansed or soothed soul. I found and donned my heavy frieze overcoat, took a long knife from the Green Room, extinguished the last lamps and left.

  As I set out along the Strand, the silence was unearthly. Onward I walked, through the writhing, filthy fog. Every window was darkened, the thoroughfares and alleys empty, feelings tumbling through my mind like rats in a sack. Reaching the riverbank, I made for the East End.

  The distance from Exeter Street to Whitechapel is scarcely three miles but something queer happened to time, I was at once fast and slow, and I had the frightful sensation of not being able to blink, of being worked by something other than myself. It is hard to put into words the torrent of thoughts, the fierceness of the isolation, the terrifying passivity. It was as though I was not in control of my steps.

  I turned a few blocks from the river and went by my instincts, into a barren neighbourhood of warehouses, gantries and depots. The few dwellings and tenements were pitiably shabby, doorless, in decrepitude, rags doing duty as curtains. Not a tree nor a single flower, but rank weeds in rusted troughs, here and there a starved dog tearing open a dumped mattress or pile of rotting trash. Every other wall carried the pasted warning:

  IT IS FORBIDDEN TO WALK ALONE IN THIS QUARTER AFTER DARK – BY ORDER, METROPOLITAN POLICE.

  Ahead of me, in a red-lit doorway, I saw the figure of a skeletal young woman awaiting custom. Poor child. How wretched the abjection of one who must ply that trade even on such fearful nights. Now sensing my presence, she moved quickly backwards, into the shadows. Her scarlet lamp was extinguished.

  I reached into my pocket to remind myself the knife was still there.

  And that was when I saw him.

  Before me, in shadow.

  There was no mistaking the sight.

  The black-cloaked man moved with weird slowness and yet springiness across the gloomy street, glanced up at the icy moon and made away, southerly, in the direction of the docks, with a curious half-trotting sort of gait. I could see that his right fist held a short, heavy cane, say a cudgel, on his head a large-brimmed black hat, like a matador’s.

  As I followed, I fought the urge to vomit, so strong was the terror. My dress shirt and undergarments were heavy with sweat, my tongue slick and sour, my blood fizzing. I was horribly cognisant of the click of my shoes and wished I could somehow silence them.

  Soon my quarry and I reached the riverside. Tall ships were tied-on at the gantries, their bare masts and empty decks giving them a look of death-vessels in a dream.

  To fight my fear, I decided I should sing in my mind. But my mind was so ablaze that, ridiculously, I could only think of one song.

  The boy I loves, is up there in the gallery.

  The boy I loves, is smiling dahn at me.

  There he is, a-waving of his ankerchief.

  Pretty as the robin, wot sits upon the—

  The scream that split the night was bloodcurdling, abject.

  It had come from a hundred and twenty yards away, a railway culvert beneath the river. I wanted to run, to pretend I had not heard it. Now came the gruntings and cries of a violent struggle, a volley of hard, dull clunks that brought to mind lead pipes being beaten against brick, a girl’s voice in gasping terror, and the most awful guttural echoing snarl, like that of a wolf.

  Looking about, I saw no one who might come to my aid.

  … Help … He’s killed me … Help a poor girl

  I took out the knife I had brought for my protection but my palm was so drenched that I could scarcely make a grip on the hilt.

  ‘There are four of us here,’ I called. ‘I warn you, come out.’

  Silence now from the culvert, broken only by the slapping of water.

  Again was I tempted to turn and run hard as I could throug
h the streets to my house, not even to look back, never to speak of what I had heard. But cowardice is the cause of every evil in the world. Steeling myself as best I could, I crept onward.

  From behind came a sound that froze me: the breathing of a man. That was all it was; the intake, the expulsion. That such a sound, the evidence of life, could strike shafts of abject terror. It is something I shall never forget.

  When I turned, he was standing in a pool of silver moonlight, a sacking mask over his head, with eye-holes burnt. In his left glove was the cudgel I had seen him with earlier. In his right was a butcher’s cleaver.

  I cried out, as loud as I could, in the hope that someone passing even at a distance might hear me, perhaps one of the sailors on the moored ships.

  ‘Shhhhhss,’ he hissed in a weird simulacrum of gentleness.

  Without otherwise moving, he now opened his horrid mouth wide, baring saliva-dripping teeth and dog-like tongue. And then came a snuffling chuckle I recognised.

  As he took off and pocketed the hood, I thought my temples would burst.

  ‘So now you know all,’ he said.

  I was unable to speak.

  A long moment passed before he crumpled into laughter.

  ‘I followed you, idiot,’ he said. ‘When I saw you’d left the theatre unaccompanied on one of your insane bloody strolls. You don’t think any self-respecting Chief would let you alone to be gobbled by Saucy Jack?’

  ‘You damned. Unspeakable. Wretch,’ I said. ‘You are a cur, not a man.’ And I continued in obscene vein. But all he did was laugh. And point his shaking finger.

  ‘Your face, o dear Auntie, how I wish you could see yourself.’

  By now he was helpless with mirth but after a couple of moments recovered himself sufficiently to gasp, in finest falsetto, ‘Help me, Aunt … Oh do … I’m a girl in a pickle …’

  As I left him, I could hear his cruel glee dying slowly away.

  ‘Hello?’ he called out. ‘I say, you’re not leaving me alone here, old man? Don’t go!’