Books of Blood (20 page)

Lichfield alone. The actors who shared the stage with her felt their egos shrivelling in the face of such a gift.

      The last act continued to its bitter-sweet conclusion, the audience as enthralled as ever to judge by their breathless attention.

      The Duke spoke: ‘Give me thy hand;

      And let me see thee in thy woman’s weeds.’

      In the rehearsal the invitation in the line had been ignored: no-one was to touch this Viola, much less take her hand. But in the heat of the performance such taboos were forgotten. Possessed by the passion of the moment the actor reached for Constantia. She, forgetting the taboo in her turn, reached to answer his touch.

      In the wings Lichfield breathed ‘no’ under his breath, but his order wasn’t heard. The Duke grasped Viola’s hand in his, life and death holding court together under this painted sky.

      It was a chilly hand, a hand without blood in its veins, or a blush in its skin.

      But here it was as good as alive.

      They were equals, the living and the dead, and nobody could find just cause to part them.

      In the wings, Lichfield sighed, and allowed himself a smile. He’d feared that touch, feared it would break the spell. But Dionysus was with them tonight. All would be well; he felt it in his bones.

      The act drew to a close, and Malvolio, still trumpeting his threats, even in defeat, was carted off. One by one the company exited, leaving the clown to wrap up the play.

      ‘A great while ago the world began,

      With hey, ho, the wind and the rain,

      But that’s all one, our play is done

      And we’ll strive to please you every day.’

      The scene darkened to blackout, and the curtain descended. From the gods rapturous applause erupted,

that same rattling, hollow applause. The company, their faces shining with the success of the Dress Rehearsal, formed behind the curtain for the bow. The curtain rose:

      the applause mounted.

      In the wings, Galloway joined Lichfield. He was dressed now: and he’d washed the blood off his neck.

      ‘Well, we have a brilliant success,’ said the skull. ‘It does seem a pity that this company should be dissolved so soon.’

      ‘It does,’ said the corpse.

      The actors were shouting into the wings now, calling for Galloway to join them. They were applauding him, encouraging him to show his face.

      He put a hand on Lichfield’s shoulder.

      ‘We’ll go together, sir,’ he said.

      ‘No, no, I couldn’t.’

      ‘You must. It’s your triumph as much as mine.’ Lichfield nodded, and they went out together to take their bows beside the company.

      In the wings Tallulah was at work. She felt restored after her sleep in the Green Room. So much unpleasantness had gone, taken with her life. She no longer suffered the aches in her hip, or the creeping neuralgia in her scalp. There was no longer the necessity to draw breath through pipes encrusted with seventy years’ muck, or to rub the backs of her hands to get the circulation going; not even the need to blink. She laid the fires with a new strength, pressing the detritus of past productions into use: old backdrops, props, costuming. When she had enough combustibles heaped, she struck a match and set the flame to them. The Elysium began to burn.

      Over the applause, somebody was shouting:

      ‘Marvellous, sweethearts, marvellous.’

     
It was Diane’s voice, they all recognized it even though they couldn’t quite see her. She was staggering down the centre aisle towards the stage, making quite a fool of herself.

      Silly bitch,’ said Eddie.

      Whoops,’ said Galloway.

      he was at the edge of the stage now, haranguing him.

      Got all you wanted now, have you? This your new lady-love is it? Is it?’

      he was trying to clamber up, her hands gripping the hot metal hoods of the footlights. Her skin began to singe: the fat was well and truly in the fire.

      For God’s sake, somebody stop her,’ said Eddie. But she didn’t seem to feel the searing of her hands; she just laughed in his face. The smell of burning flesh wafted up from the footlights. The company broke rank, triumph forgotten.

      Somebody yelled: ‘Kill the lights!’

      A beat, and then the stage lights were extinguished. Diane fell back, her hands smoking. One of the cast fainted, another ran into the wings to be sick. Somewhere behind them, they could hear the faint crackle of flames, but they had other calls on their attention.

      With the footlights gone, they could see the auditorium more clearly. The stalls were empty, but the Balcony and the gods were full to bursting with eager admirers. Every row was packed, and every available inch of aisle space thronged with audience. Somebody up there started clapping again, alone for a few moments before the wave of applause began afresh. But now few of the company took pride in it.

      Even from the stage, even with exhausted and light dazzled eyes, it was obvious that no man, woman or child in that adoring crowd was alive. They waved fine silk handkerchiefs at the players in rotted fists, some of

them beat a tattoo on the seats in front of them, most just clapped, bone on bone.

      Galloway smiled, bowed deeply, and received their admiration with gratitude. In all his fifteen years of work in the theatre he had never found an audience so appreciative.

      Bathing in the love of their admirers, Constantia and Richard Lichfield joined hands and walked down-stage to take another bow, while the living actors retreated in horror.

      They began to yell and pray, they let out howls, they ran about like discovered adulterers in a farce. But, like the farce, there was no way out of the situation. There were bright flames tickling the roof-joists, and billows of canvas cascaded down to right and left as the flies caught fire. In front, the dead: behind, death. Smoke was beginning to thicken the air, it was impossible to see where one was going. Somebody was wearing a toga of burning canvas, and reciting screams. Someone else was wielding a fire extinguisher against the inferno. All useless: all tired business, badly managed. As the roof began to give, lethal falls of timber and girder silenced most.

      In the Gods, the audience had more or less departed. They were ambling back to their graves long before the fire department appeared, their cerements and their faces lit by the glow of the fire as they glanced over their shoulders to watch the Elysium perish. It had been a fine show, and they were happy to go home, content for another while to gossip in the dark.

      The fire burned through the night, despite the never less than gallant efforts of the fire department to put it out. By four in the morning the fight was given up as lost, and the conflagration allowed its head. It had done with the Elysium by dawn.

     
In the ruins the remains of several persons were discovered, most of the bodies in states that defied easy identification. Dental records were consulted, and one corpse was found to be that of Giles Hammersmith (Administrator), another that of Ryan Xavier (Stage Manager) and, most shockingly, a third that of Diane Duvall. ‘Star of The Love Child burned to death’, read the tabloids. She was forgotten in a week.

      There were no survivors. Several bodies were simply never found.

      They stood at the side of the motorway, and watched the cars careering through the night.

Lichfield was there of course, and Constantia, radiant as ever. Galloway had chosen to go with them, so had Eddie, and Tallulah. Three or four others had also joined the troupe.

      It was the first night of their freedom, and here they were on the open road, travelling players. The smoke alone had killed Eddie, but there were a few more serious injuries amongst their number, sustained in the fire. Burned bodies, broken limbs. But the audience they would play for in the future would forgive them their pretty mutilations.

      ‘There are lives lived for love,’ said Lichfield to his new company, ‘and lives lived for art. We happy band have chosen the latter persuasion.’

      ‘There was a ripple of applause amongst the actors.

      ‘To you, who have never died, may I say: welcome to the world!’

      Laughter: further applause.

      The lights of the cars racing north along the motorway threw the company into silhouette. They looked, to all intents and purposes, like living men and women. But then wasn’t that the trick of their craft? To imitate life

so well the illusion was indistinguishable from the real thing? And their new public, awaiting them in mortuaries, churchyards and chapels of rest, would appreciate the skill more than most. Who better to applaud the sham of passion and pain they would perform than the dead, who had experienced such feelings, and thrown them off at last?

      The dead. They needed entertainment no less than the living; and they were a sorely neglected market.

      Not that this company would perform for money, they would play for the love of their art, Lichfield had made that clear from the outset. No more service would be done to Apollo.

      ‘Now,’ he said, ‘which road shall we take, north or south?’

      ‘North,’ said Eddie. ‘My mother’s buried in Glasgow, she died before I ever played professionally. I’d like her to see me.’

      ‘North it is, then,’ said Lichfield. ‘Shall we go and find ourselves some transport?’

      He led the way towards the motorway restaurant, its neon flickering fitfully, keeping the night at light’s length. The colours were theatrically bright: scarlet, lime, cobalt, and a wash of white that splashed out of the windows on to the car park where they stood. The automatic doors hissed as a traveller emerged, bearing gifts of hamburgers and cake to the child in the back of his car.

      ‘Surely some friendly driver will find a niche for us,’ said Lichfield.

      ‘All of us?’ said Galloway.

      ‘A truck will do; beggars can’t be too demanding,’ said Lichfield. ‘And we are beggars now: subject to the whim of our patrons.’

      ‘We can always steal a car,’ said Tallulah.

      ‘No need for theft, except in extremity,’ Lichfield said. ‘Constantia and I will go ahead and find a chauffeur.’

     
He took his wife’s hand.

      ‘Nobody refuses beauty,’ he said.

      ‘What do we do if anyone asks us what we’re doing here?’ asked Eddie nervously. He wasn’t used to this role; he needed reassurance.

      Lichfield turned towards the company, his voice booming in the night:

      ‘What do you do?’ he said, ‘Play life, of course! And smile!’

IN THE HILLS,

THE CITIES

      IT WASN’T UNTIL the first week of the Yugoslavian trip that Mick discovered what a political bigot he’d chosen as a lover. Certainly, he’d been warned. One of the queens at the Baths had told him Judd was to the Right of Attila the Hun, but the man had been one of Judd’s ex-affairs, and Mick had presumed there was more spite than perception in the character assassination.

      If only he’d listened. Then he wouldn’t be driving along an interminable road in a Volkswagen that suddenly seemed the size of a coffin, listening to Judd’s views on Soviet expansionism. Jesus, he was so boring. He didn’t converse, he lectured, and endlessly. In Italy the sermon had been on the way the Communists had exploited the peasant vote. Now, in Yugoslavia, Judd had really warmed to his theme, and Mick was just about ready to take a hammer to his self-opinionated head.

      It wasn’t that he disagreed with everything Judd said. Some of the arguments (the ones Mick understood) seemed quite sensible. But then, what did he know? He was a dance teacher. Judd was a journalist, a professional pundit.

     
He felt, like most journalists Mick had encountered, that he was obliged to have an opinion on everything under the sun. Especially politics; that was the best trough to wallow in. You could get your snout, eyes, head and front hooves in that mess of muck and have a fine old time splashing around. It was an inexhaustible subject to devour, a swill with a little of everything in it, because everything, according to Judd, was political. The arts were political. Sex was political. Religion, commerce, gardening, eating, drinking and farting — all political.

      Jesus, it was mind-blowingly boring; killingly, love deadeningly boring.

      Worse still, Judd didn’t seem to notice how bored Mick had become, or if he noticed, he didn’t care. He just rambled on, his arguments getting windier and windier, his sentences lengthening with every mile they drove.

      Judd, Mick had decided, was a selfish bastard, and as soon as their honeymoon was over he’d part with the guy.

      It was not until their trip, that endless, motiveless caravan through the graveyards of mid-European culture, that Judd realized what a political lightweight he had in Mick. The guy showed precious little interest in the economics or the politics of the countries they passed through. He registered indifference to the full facts behind the Italian situation, and yawned, yes, yawned when he tried (and failed) to debate the Russian threat to world peace. He had to face the bitter truth: Mick was a queen; there was no other word for him. All right, perhaps he didn’t mince or wear jewellery to excess, but he was a queen nevertheless, happy to wallow in a dream-world of early Renaissance frescoes and Yugoslavian icons. The complexities, the contradictions, even the agonies that made those cultures blossom and wither were just tiresome to him. His mind

was no deeper than his looks; he was a well-groomed nobody.

      Some honeymoon.

      The road south from Belgrade to Novi Pazar was, by Yugoslavian standards, a good one. There were fewer pot-holes than on many of the roads they’d travelled, and it was relatively straight. The town of Novi Pazar lay in the valley of the River Raska, south of the city named after the river. It wasn’t an area particularly popular with the tourists. Despite the good road it was still inaccessible, and lacked sophisticated amenities; but Mick was determined to see the monastery at Sopocani, to the west of the town and after some bitter argument, he’d won.

      The journey had proved uninspiring. On either side of the road the cultivated fields looked parched and dusty. The summer had been unusually hot, and droughts were affecting many of the villages. Crops had failed, and livestock had been prematurely slaughtered to prevent them dying of malnutrition. There was a defeated look about the few faces they glimpsed at the roadside. Even the children had dour expressions; brows as heavy as the stale heat that hung over the valley.

      Now, with the cards on the table after a row at Belgrade, they drove in silence most of the time; but the straight road, like most straight roads, invited dispute. When the driving was easy, the mind rooted for something to keep it engaged. What better than a fight?

      ‘Why the hell do you want to see this damn monastery?’ Judd demanded.

      It was an unmistakable invitation.

      ‘We’ve come all this way . . .‘ Mick tried to keep the tone conversational. He wasn’t in the mood for an argument.

      ‘More fucking Virgins, is it?’