Shadowplay

by Joseph O'Connor

  ‘No,’ I said. ‘It is not.’

  ‘Forgive him?’ she said. ‘For me, if no one else?’

  ‘Not even for you,’ I said.

  A coughing fit beset me, and I shooed her away. Racked, eyes streaming, I coughed half an hour. Took more arsenic. Chest felt on fire.

  5th June, 1897

  This evening, boxes packed, after the performance had started and I knew that everyone would be occupied, I made my last journey up to the attics to fetch my notebooks and type writing machine. Ribs aching badly. Sore to move.

  My lamp’s wick was damp and would not light but there was enough of the quarter-moon through the windows so that I could make a cautious way. As I moved through the murk, I could sometimes hear the applause from far below. It occurred to me, how little I have ever liked that sound. Always it makes me resentful.

  I placed my machine into its jacket, made a great pile of my notes and drafts and spent a not entirely unhappy half hour cutting them up into little pieces, scattering them from the rooftop and watching them drift away on the wind. As must be so with any murderer, the work in itself was not pleasant, but it felt a liberation to be rid of the evidence.

  The filthy air was at least cold, which gave some sort of respite. Took another grain of arsenic, determined not to cough. I tried to send my mind to my lungs.

  Returned inside, I dismantled the little desk I had contrived from old packing crates for I wished to obliterate all signs that I had ever roosted in this accursed eyrie. If I were unfortunate enough to see it in my mind’s eye from time to time, as I hoped I never should again in my life, it would at least be as when I saw it first, which would mean that I had never been there.

  It was at some point during this labour of moving the boxes and crates that I heard a clomp, which seemed to me a footfall. Below me, the performance was by now in full spate, Twelfth Night, but this sound had seemed to come from behind me, in the attic.

  Reassuring myself that the mind can work mischief in a lonesome place, I went back to my task, but again came the footfall, heavier than before. When I turned, I saw – thirty yards from me in the shadows – a now unmoving but unmistakable shape.

  ‘What do you want?’ I said.

  He came closer.

  ‘So this is where you lurk,’ he said. ‘Often wondered.’

  His presence had startled me but I would not give him the satisfaction of my saying so. Ignoring him, I resumed my task.

  ‘I thought you should know,’ he said, ‘that I have sold on the lease. I am closing the Lyceum for ever at the end of the season.’

  Now I had little true alternative but to speak, although my every wiser instinct begged me not to. Why is it so difficult to nod and turn away?

  I asked how he dared to do such a thing without consulting me or anybody else. Was this to be an absolute monarchy?

  ‘What else would it be?’

  Told him he had no right to trade the lease without at least a discussion of the matter but that his audacious selfishness would hardly surprise me any more.

  ‘Perhaps,’ he said with a shrug. ‘What is done is done.’

  ‘And the players? And the others who work here and need a livelihood? And Ellen?’

  ‘They will find other work.’

  ‘Have you had the decency or courtesy to tell them? It is quite clear from your demeanour that you haven’t.’

  ‘I have been a little preoccupied of late and worried about things.’

  Anger, by now, was fuming in me like a lust. Did his arrogance and insensitivity know no bounds whatever? What was it in him that must always destroy?

  But presently I was sorry I had uttered harsh words.

  ‘I have cancer of the throat,’ he said. ‘The surgeons are certain. My voice will go first. To a gasp, I am told. Then it will disappear. Before the inevitable.’

  He glanced up towards the skylights. A blear of rain was falling.

  We were quiet for a time together, in that dismal, dusty place. Then I asked when he had received the news.

  ‘Couple of months ago,’ he said. ‘They weren’t sure at first. Had me scuttling about to so-called specialists, nasty men most of them, but I’ve never minded a charlatan, long being one. Was certain myself of course, had been for a bit. Quite painful all the time, been worsening for a few years. Spitting up blood. Should have pootled along earlier.’

  ‘Surely something can be done?’

  ‘There’s this Harley Street panjandrum says he can make the pain tolerable. Thirty guineas a visit. It would be cheaper to die. But an actor without a voice, you know, is a year without winter. No point, I’m afraid. There it is.’

  I was silent, not because I felt nothing, but because I did not know the words to say. His composure was striking and seemed to flow from some spirit of stoicism that I had never once seen in him or suspected him of having. Felt a reluctant admiration for him, for this trait at least. If only one had seen more of it down the years.

  He was glancing about the attic now, with an expression of sad affability.

  ‘I should like to live my last up here,’ he said, ‘with the rats and the spiders. Ain’t it queer that spiders don’t have a voice either but that folks are so afraid of them? Well, perhaps that’s why. Their silence?’

  I said I had never given the matter much consideration.

  ‘And you could find me a coffin to sleep in,’ he pressed.

  It was his way of raising for discussion the most recent quarrel between us but I did not find his approach adept and did not want to reopen the scar. There are situations best brought quietly to a close.

  ‘So this is where you wrote it?’ he asked.

  He took my silence as affirmative.

  ‘Normal chap wouldn’t find it conducive,’ he continued, ‘a rum haunt like this. But I can see where you would, being the queer oddity you are. And I would, myself, too. Something delicious about being above the world of shit and malice, nobody knowing one was here.’

  Told him it was simply a matter of convenience, nothing more.

  ‘Ever see her, old thing?’

  ‘Who?’

  ‘Poor Mina.’

  ‘No.’

  ‘She feels close,’ he said. ‘Do you think she is watching us?’

  ‘Can you leave? I have work to do here.’

  ‘Saw her three times myself, at least I thought so, down the years. Twice during a show, she was standing at the back of the stalls. The third time on Exeter Street one midnight.’

  The sound of the audience applauding came up through the floor.

  ‘I shall be with her soon,’ he said.

  ‘Don’t talk like that.’

  ‘It shall be a very great success, you know. Your vampire book. I have seen it.’ He tapped his temple. ‘In here. When you and I are long gone, your thirsty Count shall be famous all over the world. Like Judas.’

  I said he must be taking leave of whatever was left of his senses.

  ‘Occasionally taking leave of one’s senses is medicinal,’ he said. ‘They always seem to be there when one returns.’

  From the pocket of his dressing-robe he pulled a bottle of Hungarian Tokay whose loosened cork he pulled out with his teeth, then spat it away.

  ‘I shall not ask you to shake my hand,’ he said. ‘We should neither of us like that. But will you have a parting drink with me, man to man? For old times’ sake?’

  From a second pocket, he produced two goblets, one inside the other, half filling each with the rich and heavy-scented liquor. To get matters over with, I accepted. He raised his glass and chinked mine.

  ‘King Lear, Act One, scene two,’ he said. ‘“Now gods, stand up for bastards.’”

  Through the floorboards the orchestra gave the closing fanfare of trumpets and timpani. He smiled at the absurdity. I did not.

  ‘The play is over,’ I said.

  ‘Let’s hide here a while.’

  ‘There will be guests to be entertained. I imagine they shall want t
o see you.’

  ‘Can you picture it?’ He chuckled. ‘The symphony of Englishness they’ll all have to perform, the glib and oily art to speak and purpose not.’ He took a deep, final swig and crushed the glass beneath his boot. ‘Like a pack of rats giving you a bath before gnawing out your eyes.’

  ‘You should go,’ I said. ‘It is not fair on Ellen to have to entertain them alone. I shall see you as far as the stairladder.’

  ‘Ever the gent. Lead on, Macduff.’

  ‘Tread carefully, the floor between the joists is old and very frail.’

  ‘Like myself,’ he replied. Predictably.

  The moon through the upper windows was yellow and vast, seeming closer than I had ever seen it, as though it was observing our progress along the lofts, indeed so close that I almost fancied I could make out the features many say it has, the cliffs, the great gorges, the dead riverbeds and canyons. Below us, the audience gave out its final cry of ‘huzzah’. Through the crevices in the floorboards, the house lights came slivering.

  ‘One thing I have learnt, old man,’ his voice croaked from behind me.

  ‘What is that?’

  ‘All things considered – one’s had time to think it over – there was no greater Shylock than I.’

  I stopped, astounded. ‘That is all you have learnt?’

  ‘What else did you think?’

  ‘Doesn’t matter.’

  He took a small step forward. Suddenly he was gone. From below me I heard the fall and the screams.

  From THE TIMES, June 6th, 1897, late edition

  The immediate closure of the Lyceum Theatre, the Strand, London, has been announced, following an accident suffered last evening by Sir Henry Irving, proprietor.

  Sir Henry, who holds the distinction of being the first member of his profession to be knighted, fell through the ceiling above the stage, a distance of some fifty feet, to the immense shock of the audience, players and orchestra. A performance of Twelfth Night was approaching conclusion.

  A doctor and his brother, a guardsman, were present among the house and were able to attend him. Sir Henry sustained broken ribs and a fractured leg, and for a brief time lost consciousness. ‘A fall such as this would have killed a lesser man,’ the doctor remarked to our reporter. ‘Sir Henry would appear indestructible.’

  Refunds will be furnished for cancelled performances.

  — CLOSE OF ACT II —

  ACT III

  Arriving At Bradford

  — XXI —

  In which midnight brings Friday the thirteenth

  They leave their bags with the porter at the Midland Hotel, walk from Duke Street to Manningham Lane. Irving is tired, leaning into his walking stick. Mill girls hurry by, doffers and pressers, their wimples giving them a look of postulant nuns.

  Down Darley Street and Victoria Street, ragged children are playing football. A rhubarb pedlar is going from door to door. Weary carthorses clop, pulling wagons of wool.

  Posters in the theatre’s noticeboards announce:

  STIRRING SCENES FROM SHAPESPEARE’S TRAGEDIES & ‘THE BELLS’.

  GOOD SEATS AVIALABLE.

  TONIHGT THE BRADFORD ROYAL BIDS IT’S FAREWELL TO SIR HENRY IRVING.

  ‘Christ,’ he mutters. ‘I wasn’t worth a proof-read.’

  ‘I shall have a word with them about a correction,’ Stoker says.

  ‘Shouldn’t bother if I were you. No one else will have noticed.’

  ‘That isn’t the point. Shall we go in?’

  ‘Aren’t we early?’

  ‘I thought you’d like to settle yourself. Take a look about the stage as usual. We’ll send out for a meal in a bit, play a hand or two of cards? Is something wrong?’

  Irving gazes, looking lost, as though seeing a northern English street for the first time.

  ‘Stomach’s a bit buggered, if I’m honest. You shouldn’t have let me sleep on the train like that. Hate waking up twice on the same day, like a waterfront tart.’

  ‘Would you prefer to go back to the hotel and rest a while?’

  ‘Buggeration to you and your hotel. Ruddy kip.’

  ‘I merely thought—’

  ‘You know what I’d like, old pet? Mouthful of fresh air up on the moors. But no time, I expect, on this slave-driven schedule you have me on.’

  ‘You agreed to the schedule.’

  ‘The slave must agree with the overseer.’

  ‘We have a couple of hours if you wish.’

  ‘How would we get there?’

  At that moment, as though preordained, a hansom appears at the end of the hilly street, the heavy-coated driver nodding to himself as if sleeping. It turns and trundles towards them, slowly, heftily, the piebald between the shafts whinnying at a passing duo of miners. The driver awakens, mumbles yes, he can take them up to the moors. But what part would they like to start from?

  Since neither of them knows, he suggests Hardcastle Crags, a few miles short of Top Withens.

  Through the town, past the factories, into brambled lanes and hedgerow-lined cart tracks, under arches formed by leaning oaks. Poachers and tinkers stare. Oaks turn to sycamores. The sky over Bradford pale as ice.

  Meadowsweet and forget-me-not in the overgrown ditches, the incense of distant woodsmoke and wetted bog garlic. A wooden bridge over a stream. At a waterhole in a distant copse, deer are nuzzling, drinking. From the middle distance, the whistle of a train and the tolling of chapel bells in the town, then the four o’clock siren from the colliery.

  Now birdsong and fox-bark, the gurgle of water over rocks. Clouds roam the sky like white-bearded warlocks. The stunted milestone for Hardcastle Crags.

  The driver helps them out, points a route marked by standing stones, agrees to wait an hour. ‘Tek tha time, gentlemen. No ’urry.’

  Heathers sway on the seeping heath. Birds whirl from blasted whins. Grouse, owl, skylark, snipe. In the distance a ruined manse-house cowers beneath a cliff.

  They follow the streamlet down, cross on moss-speckled stepping-stones, face into the oncoming hillcrest, and the iron light grows creamy. In a patch of tussocked bog, a donkey regards them as they pass, his glossy black eyes like overcoat buttons.

  ‘Yonder’s Haworth,’ Irving says. ‘Where the Brontës lived, you know. They were Paddies, like you, misfortunate wretches.’

  ‘I daresay you’ll find they were English as apple sauce.’

  ‘No, the mother was Cornish but Papa Brontë was born a Mick. Scuttled out of there soon as he could, poor jollocks. Isle of sentimental murderers and God-crazed old maids.’

  ‘You’re certain? It’s not a surname I ever heard in Ireland.’

  ‘They were “Prunty” over there. Daddy P changed his moniker at Cambridge. Added the umlaut as an aftertouch, rather stylish disguise don’t you feel. Of course every Irishman ever born is a fraud.’

  Stoker shades his eyes. Irving swigs from a hip flask. Years ago, he lost consciousness for three minutes, following an accident at the theatre. His joke was that he had awakened at the doors of Hell but been sent back by the devil. ‘Full House. Too many actors here already.’

  ‘Always thought it would make a cracking play,’ he says. ‘Wuthering Heights, you know. The violence. The graves. The suffocation. What a thing, with me as old Heathcliff. Monstrous tearing bastard. And Len as Catherine. That fire and ice she does. “Nelly, I am Heathcliff.” Never got around to it. Should have.’

  ‘Perhaps it isn’t too late?’

  A cheerless laugh is coughed back. ‘Heathcliff on a walking cane, with his cocoa before bed. Withered grey balls and a nightshirt.’

  ‘It’s many years since I read the book. I shall take a glance if you wish?’

  ‘Shouldn’t bother. Be nice if Len were here. Good old times, eh?’

  ‘Good old times.’

  ‘One’s been given so much. One can’t complain. But it wasn’t given me to have something I’d have liked, a happy little marriage. Nor to Len. Sometimes wonder, old chuck, if it
was given to you.’

  ‘What’s brought this on?’

  ‘You are so loyal to your wife that you never discuss it. But I hope you’ve had happiness, old duck. Really I do. Of course, every marriage looks a little strange from the outside. Even ours.’

  Stoker laughs.

  ‘I suppose Florrie and I married hurriedly,’ he says. ‘Our courtship hadn’t been long. In all truth we didn’t know one another well.’

  ‘Remained together for the sake of the boy, was it mainly?’

  ‘Oh I wouldn’t leave my Florrie. As well leave myself. She is the mother of my child, for which I could never repay her. But there is something more between us. It is hard to explain.’

  ‘Do tell.’

  ‘I remember – not long after we married. Coming to London, the excitement. I think it was in Green Park, it doesn’t matter where. We were looking at a little boy flying a kite near the bandstand. The expression on Florrie’s face, the good-naturedness and joy. I said to myself, “Stoker, old thing, you’re not much of a fellow. Not much of a writer, not much of a man. But she gave you her word. The noblest person you ever met.” And no one had ever given me that before. Rather floored me.’

  ‘For me the only family was at the Lyceum,’ Irving says wheezily. ‘You, Lenny, our children when they’d come in. Queer, it’s those hours one remembers lately, not the performances or the applause. Of course, so much of everyday life is performance, don’t you feel. Can we pause a moment or two? I’m a bit breathless, old love.’

  ‘Of course. Sit and rest. Over here near the trees?’

  ‘I wasn’t kind to you, Bram. About your scribbling, I mean. Most contemptible weakness in any man, envy. I’m sorry your ruddy old Drac fell so flat on his arse.’

  ‘He’d be flabbergasted by your generosity, I’m sure.’

  ‘Love to have written something myself. Never had the courage. To be revealed like that, it frightened me.’