Shadowplay

by Joseph O'Connor

  ‘There is no need for you to speak to me – or to anyone here – in that demeaning fashion,’ I said. ‘It is a disgrace that you do so at all, but that you do so in front of others is calculated to humiliate. It is unmanly to insult people who may not answer back.’

  He scoffed. ‘I think you like it.’

  ‘You are insane, then,’ I said. ‘And ridiculous.’

  ‘Then why are you still here? ’

  This I ignored. The back-giving of cheap answers is not much of a gift, except in a music-hall comedian putting down a drunk. That is not a role I wish to play.

  He threw the question at me again and again, but I would give no reply, and in the end, he stormed from the stage in a fanfare of blasphemies.

  ‘This meeting is over,’ I announced to the company. ‘Be about your work. That is all.’

  They did as they were told but silently, surly. For which one cannot blame them. This cannot continue.

  Flo is entirely correct in what she feels about this wretched money-devouring Lyceum and its arrogant overlord, although she has permitted me to reach the inevitable conclusion alone.

  The fact – I have known it and attempted to ignore it – is that I must now begin to seek for a position elsewhere. Otherwise, harm will be done.

  Dear old Bram, my precious thing,

  I received your letter of resignation but have torn it. Don’t be silly.

  Went to your office just now but stoutheart Harks said you had sallied home. I left a couple of sketches on the desk and would value your estimation when you have a moment or two to look them over. Should you reckon them a lot of cock, we can start again, of course.

  As well, this note is to apologise for my beastly behaviour towards you this morning at the costumes call. It was quite, quite wrong of me. Do forgive me, old love. Lately I have felt drained white.

  Before the meet, a wretched reporter from a vulgar little excuse for a newspaper had been irritating me with his questions of almost hackle-raising impudence as to my private arrangements. On top of a sleepless night and the usual battalion of worries, I took it out on you, for which I am sorry.

  Let us give it cannons roaring; that was all I meant. I regret that I did not discuss my ideas for the dresses with you in advance, as I know I should have done. You were correct to remind me that I gave you that promise. I shall endeavour to do better in future.

  And I shall rein in the spending, I swear on my soul. I can never let something as filthy as money come between us, you and I. What you say is wise and proper, there is no need for extravagance. I shall make myself a veritable old maid of frugality whom you may address as Prudence Irving.

  I find, when I make the mistake of allowing myself to become strained, that it comes out in these filthy rages I can’t seem to grow out of. At these moments, which I hate, I seem to become a spectator, as a tramp encircled by moonlit wolves, at a brazier in which his own clothes are burning. The venomous things I shout at people, particularly at you, are the things I want to shout at my stupid, ugly, graceless, witless, obnoxious, ungrateful self.

  Your friendship is of such value to me that the word ‘friendship’ cannot describe it. In some space between words, this is where we live, you and I. You are my rock, old fellow. I lean on you too hard. You are the water I drink, the man I wish I were.

  I would never know the poetry to put my thankfulness into. But it will give some idea if I say that I love you as my companion and loyal true comrade, as my encouragement and hope, as the counsel I turn to whenever I am afraid. As the source of all courage and any dignity I possess.

  At one time I would not have thought it possible for two men to become so close as we two. Now I know that it is. You are my mirror, the other half of my self.

  I am ashamed to have taken you for granted and sometimes to have spoiled the happy peacefulness you have built at the Lyceum, for all of us.

  You are so highly thought of here. Len adores you, as do I. Given the hectic busyness of the everyday and the incessant demands on all our time, these things sometimes go unsaid but you must never think them unfelt.

  No theatre, no enterprise of any sort, could have a nobler or more admirable ambassador. The younger people here see in you an example of how to comport themselves, the older know you as a respecting friend, a gentle but strong protector, so full of common sense, always, but never too busy to spare a kindly word. These things are noticed and appreciated, not only by those who most benefit. The best of the Lyceum is no play we have ever presented. It is the way we have tried to do things. It is you.

  God knows I do not deserve your forgiveness, but heart in hand I ask it.

  I have been thinking that we – all of us – have been too long in filthy, foul, fallen-out-of-love-with-itself London. I should like to take the whole company on a trip, a little holiday, somewhere quiet where we might sit about and read and build ourselves back up and get a bit of good simple country food and peace for a day or two, far from prying eyes. And swim in the sea. And not think about Edinburgh tailors.

  To that end, I have been revolving a scheme, which I would like to discuss with you, perhaps over breakfast or a cuppa. Or might you let me give you luncheon at the Garrick tomorrow? The hot scoff is muck there but the cold table is not too bad and the Johnny who looks after the wines keeps a tolerable Mouton Rothschild up his apron for me. One must avoid the legions of baying bores there, of course, but with a little subterfuge and sitting with one’s back to the room it can be done.

  What might you think? I am sorry, my dearest love. Give me another chance, can you?

  Ever yours,

  Thane of Glamis and Cawdor

  Beneath the vast iron roof of King’s Cross station, the newspaper reporters are waiting. The morning being cold, they stand clustered together. Ignoring them, the Lyceum stagehands stack the packed gear for loading, Harks ticking off items in her notebook.

  Cases, hatboxes, haversacks and carpet bags, a large oaken wardrobe-trunk with iron clasps and thick ropes, its heavy lid plastered with labels from the American tour – Boston, Philadelphia, New Orleans.

  Fifty yards away, in the main entrance, Stoker and Irving are watching. A compromise of sorts has been negotiated. Irving’s dog on a length of chain cocks his back leg against a wall.

  ‘Fourth Estate, my royal arse,’ Irving mutters.

  ‘If you give them a word or two,’ Stoker says, patiently, ‘they have promised to leave. Let us not antagonise them at any rate.’

  Irving nods. ‘Into the valley of death.’

  Crossing the station, they see the reporters nudge and turn to face them. The dog gives a slavering snarl.

  ‘Gentlemen of the press,’ the Chief says. ‘The bastard children of Blood and Remorse. You hunt in a pack, I see.’

  ‘Why are you going to Scotland, Mr Irving, sir?’

  ‘In the coming season, we intend to give London a production of Macbeth. That is a piece by a playwright you won’t have heard of, a glove-maker’s son from Birmingham.’ He pauses to light one of his Parisian cigarettes. ‘The like of this production will never before have been seen. It shall be ambitious, spectacular, entirely without precedent, and a danger to public morality.’

  ‘Mr Irving is joking on the last point,’ Stoker interrupts.

  ‘Starring in the main role – naturally – my unassuming self. The zestful Miss Ellen Terry shall appear as Ophelia.’

  ‘How do you spell Ophelia, sir?’

  ‘With two effs.’

  ‘Again Mr Irving is joshing,’ Stoker says quickly. ‘Ophelia does not appear in Macbeth.’

  ‘Ah, Bram, you are spoiling my fun.’

  ‘What has any of this got to do with Scotland, Mr Irving?’

  ‘I have always found the Scottish people amenable and admirable. They are bookish and cultured, interested in science, progressive in their laws. I am leading my company to Inverness, from there into the Highlands, so that we may rinse London and its so-called civilisation out of our hai
r.’

  ‘Why would you want to do that, sir?’

  ‘Because Macbeth is not set in a public lavatory in the Earls Court Road, my little love, familiar as you might be with such a locus.’

  ‘Costing a bob or two I expect, sir, this production of yours?’

  ‘If the cost of the scenery alone were to be expressed as a stack of shillings, the stack would be the height of the moon from the earth. Add the price of Miss Terry’s costumes and the number becomes actually frightening.’

  ‘Blimey.’

  ‘As you say.’

  ‘Any chance of a word with Miss Terry, sir? We’d be awfully appreciative.’

  ‘That, my dear gentles, you must ask her yourselves. You will find her at the Lyceum, she is not accompanying us on the quest, but is posing this afternoon for a portrait by Mr Whistler, nude but for some judiciously placed oak leaves. Miss Terry, I mean, not Whistler, thank Christ. Now if you’ll excuse Mr Stoker and me, we have young minds to corrupt.’

  As they board, a hail of yelled questions is thrown after them but King’s Cross station has already begun to recede. The engine spews a gloomy hoot.

  Irving stands in the aisle, the whole company assembled before him, filling this carriage and the connected one beyond it. Harks and a stagehand unclasp the large oaken trunk. Out of it clambers the most celebrated actress of her generation, a little ruffled as she accepts Stoker’s help.

  ‘Rot me,’ she says, ‘someone get me a ruddy beer.’

  ‘Right,’ says the Chief. ‘We can let down our drawers. Thanks to all for your patient assistance with the little play we’ve been performing this morning. That coven of rats will be scuttling back to the Lyceum and from there to the night mail for Inverness. By then we’ll have arrived at our true destination.’

  ‘Where’s that, Chief?’ Harks asks. ‘Do tell.’

  ‘O a gloomy little dump. But we’ll liven it up, never fear. Now, who’ll start the sing-song? “Rule Britannia”? “Danny Boy”?’

  Groans of protest at his teasing come back at him like a wave.

  ‘Would you like to tell them where we’re bound, Bram? One feels they’ll mutiny otherwise.’

  ‘We shall see,’ Stoker says. With a smile.

  PAGE TORN FROM MITHRINGTON’S PLAINSPEAKING GAZETTEER

  Whitby, North Yorkshire, at 54.4863° N, 0.6133° W, a pleasant and healthful resort, lies in the borough of Scarborough, part of the North Riding. What at first appears a village is in fact a commodious port, with vessels from many lands seen regularly in the harbour and the tongues of many visitors, some from faraway nations, to be heard in the little cobbled streets.

  As with all ports, it must be owned with candour that the occasional ‘roughneck’ incident has occurred at Whitby. Not every public establishment is quite what one would wish. But the preponderant atmosphere, we are happy to report, is safe, of Christian character, and suitable for ladies.

  Fancies, jewellery, combs, frames and other keepsakes are offered by a goodly number of the small shops. Jet is mined at Bilsdale, Snotterdale and Stokesley. Articles of scrimshaw and nautical trinkets may also be had. Many an old fisherman of Whitby, seated on a stone bench in the somewhat eerie graveyard, regales those who will listen with stories of smugglers, whaling and shipwrecks, a certain number of these yarns containing more adjectives than veracity and all of them a good bucket of sea-spray.

  Since the railway reached Whitby the locale has attracted ‘trippers’. The town boasts a number of evocative ruins, including those of the 13th-century church of the Benedictine abbey whose lonesome desolate hulk, perched high on a cliff ‘that beetles o’er its base’, gives a melancholic stir to the viewer. It is said by local persons to be haunted by ‘poor Constance de Beverley’, a nun who broke her rule of chastity and, as punishment, was walled up alive. The ghost of St Hilda, too, has been witnessed, staring down from one of the Abbey’s high windows. While we give no credence to unchristian stories, our duty is to report them. Indeed, on a misty, starlit night, the Abbey seems to evince otherworldliness.

  The ‘Barguest Hound’, another of Whitby’s parliament of spooks, is a red-eyed Satanic dog. One of the port’s two lighthouses is haunted by a keeper who fell to his death on the rocks below. Add to this the spectral stagecoach whispered to carry drowned sailors about from their resting place in St Mary’s churchyard and the sceptic may come to feel that Whitby is bounteously supplied with tall tales, as Newcastle with coal, Texas with oil, Ireland with papist superstition.

  [The chapter ends here, on the upper recto of a page. Beneath the printed text and overleaf, the following passage appears, in pencilled Pitman shorthand.]

  3rd April, 1895

  The libel action taken by Wilde against Lord Queensberry began this morning. Am relieved to be away from London.

  Tonight had a crayfish supper but I think its meat was a day too old. Gave me frightful dreams. Awoke three hours ago here in boarding house – it was just before two in the morning – terribly shaken by nightmare of being locked in a box. Dreadful, dredger-like, hellish thirst. Palpitations of the heart. Should not have taken whiskey on top of champagne.

  Crept downstairs in search of water but whole house had retired. In the darkness could not find the kitchen.

  Went into the hall lavatory but nothing so much as the tiniest droplet left in the tap, tank must have been emptied, house being so full. Returned to my room, dressed hurriedly, went out.

  Bitingly cold night, many thousands of brilliant stars, half-moon high behind the Abbey. Everywhere in the town closed and shuttered up, every curtain in every street pulled. Walked about in search of fountain or pump for animals, could find none, which was queer, for I had noticed several as we went about in the course of the afternoon. By now, the thirst so terrible that my tongue felt made of salt. Agonising headache, I was trembling.

  Made my way down to the harbour, thinking a sailor or watchman might help me, but no boats tied up at the quay, only larger vessels at anchor further out in the bay. Saw lights on their decks and in some of the portholes. Had a rowboat been at the pier, I should have gone out to one of the vessels, there to beg for a sup. But nothing.

  Sat down on a bollard, wretched, very weak, red visions and flashings that stung my eyes. Before long, my supper came up. Felt a little better then, in stomach and head. But still destroyed with thirst, all the more for having vomited.

  Strange, all I could think on, damned story.

  Returning through the streets, dizzy, somehow sundered from myself, as though my mind were following or going ahead of my body, about to be sick again, and went into the gateway of a church, having no other resort. The violence inside my bowels and stomach was racking. Afterwards tried to clean myself with grass. Noticed, nearby on the footpath, a bottle some reveller had abandoned.

  Mercy gods, it had once been full of mild ale and had a few swallows remaining. These I got down with the humblest thanks to providence. It was the sweetest coldest drink I ever had.

  Came back here to the boarding house. Harks now was awake, with some of the other girls in the downstairs parlour, all speaking together quietly, playing rummy for buttons, the noise of my going out having disturbed them. They were talking of Wilde, will he win his action. She found me a pitcher of water and a blanket, for I was shivering uncontrollably, teeth chattering, sat with me a while, held my hands. Her womanly simple good-heartedness began to calm me, it was like the return of light. ‘There there, my poor Auntie, you’ve had a bad ’un, don’t be frightened so.’

  Had I seen on my moonlit expedition the monstrous dog?

  I had not.

  The party of drowned mariners?

  Not even those damp gentlemen.

  She laughed and made us up a cigarette and told me a saying of her mother’s, ‘ain’t the lucky dead but the living we should fear’. Asked my private opinion on Wilde’s chances. Said I felt certain he would win but feared it a great pity the action were ever taken at all, for, between she and
I, Lord Queensberry was a bullying, ice-hearted brute who would always wreak vengeance, though it take him ten years. Such leeches are creatures of violence, the infliction of agony is their drug. There are slurs better borne than contested.

  Did I think it possible that a man could fall in true love with a man, or a girl have a proper sweetheart another girl? Not ‘a passing crush or spooning’, she said – ‘everyone has those’ – but the marital sort of love that might have longevity and be the heart of a house where happiness would flower.

  I said it was late at night to go into the discussion but that I had heard of cases.

  ‘It’s all sorts in the world, sir,’ the dear girl said.

  I answered that she was right, that everyone can hope for the mercy of providence, and I asked if I might speak to her in a frank manner and she indicated that I might.

  ‘What I am about to say, Jenny, could have me jailed,’ I said. ‘It could destroy my wife and family and take me away from them in handcuffs. I want you to understand that.’

  ‘I’ve already disremembered you saying it, sir.’

  I told her that when God made time He made a ruddy great lot of it, and, when He made people, his artistry was not limited to This Sort and None Other, that Love is not a matter of who puts what where but of wanting only goodness and respectful kindliness for the loved one. There is no sort of love that can never find its home. Life has its cruelties but it is not as cruel as that.

  I felt that this settled and reassured her, sweet child. Said that I would always be her friend. She replied she would always be mine. Then we sat in silence for a time.

  ‘You still look a little peaked, Auntie,’ she said, then, bathing my forehead, ‘you shall sleep in with me and the other girls.’

  Thanked her but said that it would not be quite proper.

  ‘I should think you and I would be quite safe from one another, sir,’ she said, with a light laugh, ‘given God and so on.’ I made no answer for a bit.