Light Thickens (10 page)

It’s accomplished. The terrible imaginings are real, now, and they go to wash the blood from their hands.

Now comes the knocking at the south entry. Enter from below the drunken Porter with his load of obscenely shaped driftwood. He commits it to the fire, piece after piece, staggers to the entry, and admits Macduff and Lennox.

Simon Morten looked fit, his fair skin bright with the flush of health. He and Lennox brought the fresh morning air in with them, and Simon ran swiftly upstairs into Duncan’s bedroom. The door shut behind him.

Macbeth stood very still, every nerve in his body listening. Lennox went to the fire, warmed his hands, and gossiped about the wildness of the nights.

The door upstairs opened and Macduff came out.

Extraordinary! His face was totally drained of color. He whispered: “
Horror. Horror. Horror
.”

Now disaster broke: the alarum bell, the disordered guests, Lady Macbeth’s “fainting” when her husband’s speech threatened to get out of hand, the appearance of the two frightened sons, their decision to flee. The little front scene when Macduff, an old man, and Ross speak an ominous afterword, and the first part closes.

Peregrine finished his notes. Macbeth and Macduff waited behind. They were onstage.

“Come on,” said Peregrine. “What was the matter? You’re both good actors but you don’t turn sheet-white out of sheer artistry. What went wrong?”

Sir Dougal looked at Simon. “You went up before I did,” he said. “You saw it first.”

“Some idiot’s rigged a bloody mask in the King’s chamber. One of those Banquo things of Gaston’s. Open mouth, blood running out of it. Bulging eyes. I don’t mind telling you it shocked the pants off me.”

“You might have warned me,” said Sir Dougal.

“I tried, didn’t I? Outside the door. You and Lennox. After I said,
Destroy your sight with a new Gorgon
.”

“You muttered something. I didn’t know what you were on about.”

“I could hardly yell, ‘There’s a bloody head on the wall,’ could I?”

“All right, all right.”

“When you went up the first time, Sir Dougal, was it there?”

“Certainly not. Unless —”

“Unless what?”

“What’s the color of the cloak attached to it?”

“Dark gray,” said Peregrine.

“If it was covered by the cloak I might have missed it. It was dark up there.”

“Who could have uncovered it?”

“The grooms?”

“What grooms? There are no grooms,” said Simon. “Are you crazy?”

“I was making a joke,” said Sir Dougal with dignity.

“Funny sort of joke, I must say.”

“There’s some perfectly reasonable explanation,” Peregrine said. “I’ll talk to the Property Master. Don’t let a damn silly thing like this upset you. You’re going very well indeed. Keep it up.”

He slapped them both on the shoulders, waited till they had gone, and climbed the stairs to the room.

It
was
extremely dark: an opening off the head of the stairs with a door facing them. The audience would see only a small inside section of one wall when this door was open. The wall, which would have a stone finish, faced the audience and ran down to stage-level, and the third wall, unseen by the audience, was simply used as a brace for the other two. It was a skeleton. A ladder leading down to the stage was propped against the floor. A ceiling, painted with joists, was nailed to this structure.

And looming in the darkest corner, facing the doorway, the head of murdered Banquo.

Peregrine knew what to expect but even so he got a jolt. The bulging eyes stared into his. The mouth gaped blood. His own mouth was dry and his hands wet. He walked toward it, touched it, and it moved. It was fixed to a coat hanger. The ends of the hanger rested on the corner pieces of the walls. The gray shroud had a hole, like a poncho, for the head. He touched it again and it rocked toward him and, with a whisper, fell.

Peregrine started back with an oath, shut the door behind him, and called out, “Props!”

“Here, guv.”

“Come up, will you? Put the working light on.”

He picked the head up and returned it to its place. The working light took some of the horror out of it. Props’s head came up from below. When he arrived, he turned and saw it.

“Christ!” he said.

“Did you put that thing there?”

“What’d I do that for, Mr. Jay? Gawd, no.”

“Did you miss it?”

“Last I checked, it and its mates were all laid out in the walking gents’ room. Gawd, it’d give you the willies, woon’t it? Seeing the thing unexpected, like.”

“Take it down and put it back, and, Ernie —”

“Guv?”

“Don’t mention this. Don’t say you’ve seen it. Not to anyone.”

“Okay.”

“I mean it. Hope to die.”

“Hope to die.”

“Cross your heart, Ernie. Go on. Do it. And say it.”

“Aw, hell, guv.”

“Go on!”

“Cross me ’eart. ’Ope to die.”

“That’s the style. Now. Take this thing and put it with the other. Half a jiffy.”

Peregrine was wrapping the head in the shroud. He turned back the hem and found a thin stick about two feet long slotted into the hem. A string was knotted halfway across into another and very much longer piece. He took it to the edge of the floor and let the loose end fall. It reached to within three feet of the stage.

Peregrine detached it, coiled it up, and put it in his pocket. He pulled out the stick, snapped it into small pieces, and gave Ernie the head, neatly parceled. He looked at the place where the head had rested and, above it, saw a strut of rough wood.

“Preposterous!” he muttered. “Okay,” he said aloud. “We push on.” He went downstairs.

“Second part,” he called. “Settle down, please.”

The second part opened with Banquo alone, suspecting the truth yet not daring to cut and run. Next, Macbeth’s scene with the murderers and Seyton nearer, ever present, and then the two Macbeths together. This is perhaps the most moving scene in the play and reveals the most about them. It opens up, in extraordinary language, the nightmare of guilt, their sleeplessness, and when at last they sleep the terrifying dreams that beset them. She fights on but knows now, without any shadow of doubt, that her power over him is less than she had bargained for, while he is acting on his own, hinting at what he plans but not telling. There follows the coming of darkness and night and the release of night’s creatures. It ends with self-dedication to the dark. Now comes the murder of Banquo and the escape of Fleance. And now the great banquet.

It begins as a front scene before the curtains. Macbeth, crowned and robed, seems for the moment in command as if he actually thrives on the shedding of blood. He is a little too loud, too boisterous in his welcome. He is sending his guests through the curtains and is about to follow when he sees Seyton in the downstage entrance. He waits for the last guest to pass through and then goes to him.

Nothing is perfect: Fleance has escaped. Macbeth gives Seyton money and signals for the curtains to be opened. And they are opened, upon the opulence of the banquet. The servants are filling glasses. Lady Macbeth is on her throne. And the ghost of Banquo, hidden, waits.

It was going well. The masking of the stool. The timing. The nightmarish efforts of Macbeth to recover something of his royalty. Every cue observed. Thank God! Peregrine thought. It’s working. Yes. Yes.

The servants swept the covers off the main dishes.

The head of Banquo was in pride of place: outrageous and glaring on the main dish.

“What the bloody hell is this!” Sir Dougal demanded.

This was too much. The time for concealment was past. Strangely, Peregrine felt a sort of relief. He would no longer be obliged to offer unlikely explanations, beg people not to talk, be certain they would talk.

He said, “Stop!” and stood up. “Cover that thing.”

The servant who still had the oval dish-cover in his hand clapped it back over the head. Peregrine walked down the aisle. “You may sit if you want to but remain in your positions. Any staff who are here, onstage, please.”

The assistant stage manager, Charlie, two stagehands, and Props came on and stood in a group on the Prompt side. The entire cast drew forward, some sitting onstage, others leaning against the set.

“Somewhere among you,” said Peregrine, “there is a funny man. He has been operating intermittently throughout this rehearsal, his object, if he can be said to have one, being to support the superstitious theories that have grown up around this play. This play.
Macbeth
. You hear me,
Macbeth
! This person put a Banquo mask on the wall of Duncan’s room. He’s put another one in this serving dish. In any other context these silly tricks would be dismissed but here they are reprehensible. They’ve upset the extremely high standard of performance, and that is lamentable. I ask the perpetrator of these tricks to let me know, by whatever means he chooses, that he is the — comedian.

“For the good of the production I undertake not to reveal the trickster’s name. Nor will I sack the man or refer to the matter again. It shall be as if it had never happened. Is this understood?”

He stopped.

They stared at him rather like children, he thought, brought together for a wigging and not knowing what would come next.

It was Bruce Barrabell who came next, the silver-tongued Banquo.

“No doubt I shall be snubbed,” he said. “But I really feel I must protest. If this person is among us, I think we should all know who he is. He should be publicly exposed and dismissed. By us. As the Equity representative, I feel I should take this stand.”

Peregrine had not the faintest notion of what, if any, stand the Equity representative was entitled to take. He said grandly: “Properties belonging to the theatre have been misused. Rehearsal time interrupted. This is my affair; I propose to continue. The time for Equity to butt in may or may not arise in due course. If it does I shall advise you of it. At this stage I must ask you to sit down, Mr. Barrabell.”

If he won’t sit down, he wondered, what the hell do I do?

“Hear, hear,” said Sir Dougal helpfully.

There was an affirmative murmur. Nina was heard to say she felt faint. Peregrine said: “Props. When did you last look under the lid of that dish?”

“I never looked under it,” said Props. “It was in place on the table, which was carried on as soon as the curtains closed. The dish would ’ave a plastic boar’s head for performance, but not until the dress rehearsal.”

“Was anyone there? A scene-shifter or an actor?”

“The two scene-shifters who carried the table on. They went off on the other side. And ’im,” said Props, jerking his head at Barrabell, “and the other ghost. The double. They got down under the table just before the curtains reopened.”

“Familiar business for Banquo,” said Sir Dougal and laughed.

“What do you mean by that, may I ask?” said Barrabell.

“Oh, nothing. Nothing.”

“I insist on an explanation.”

“You won’t get one.”

“Quiet,
please
,” Peregrine shouted. “Go on, Props. When was the dish actually put on the table?”

Props said: “It’s stuck down. All the props not used are stuck down, aren’t they? I put the lid on it after I got it ready, like.”

“Before the rehearsal started?”

“That’s right. And if there’s anybody finks I done it with the ’ead, I never. And if there’s any doubts about that I appeal to my union.”

“There are no doubts about it,” said Peregrine hurriedly. “Where
was
the head? Where are all the heads? Together?”

“In the walking gents’ dressing-room. All together. Waiting for the dress rehearsal, next week.”

“Is the room unlocked?”

“Yes, it is unlocked. And if you arst ’oo ’as the key, I ’as it. The young gents arst me to unlock it and I unlocked it, din’ I?”

“Yes. Thank you.”

“I got me rights like everybody else.”

“Of course you have.” Peregrine waited for a second or two and then said: “Anyone else?”

“Certainly,” said a sepulchral voice. “I was there. But very briefly. I simply informed Macbeth of the murder. I came off downstage, Prompt. Somebody was there with my claidheamh-mor. I seized it. I ran upstage, engaged it into my harness, and entered near the throne, as the curtains were reopened. The previous scene,” reminisced Gaston, “was that of the murder of Banquo. The claidheamh-mor was correctly held. It would never be used for that affair. It is too large and too sacred. An interesting point arises —”

He settled into his narrative style.

“Thank you, Gaston,” said Peregrine. “Very interesting,” and hurried on. “Now, Banquo. You were there during this scene. At what stage did you actually get under the table, do you remember?”

“When I heard Macbeth say,
Thou art the best o’ the cutthroats
. The curtains were shut and the scene between Macbeth and Gaston, the murderer, was played in front of them. The head and cloak were stuffy and awkward and I always delay putting them on and getting down there. They are made in one and it takes only seconds to put them on. Angus and Caithness popped the whole thing over my head. I collected the cloak around my knees and went down.”

“And the ghost double? Toby?”

A youth held up his head. “I put my head and cloak on in the dressing-room,” he said, “and I got under the table as soon as it was there. The table has no upstage side and there was lots of room, really. I waited at the rear until Bruce got under and crawled forward.”

Peregrine looked at the familiar faces of his actors and thought: This is ridiculous. He cleared his throat. “I now ask,” he said, “which of you was responsible for these tricks.”

Nobody answered.

“Very well,” Peregrine said. “I would beg you not to discuss this affair among yourselves but,” he added acidly, “I might as well beg you not to talk. One point I do put to you. If you think of linking these silly pranks with the
Macbeth
superstitions you will be doing precisely what the perpetrator wants. My guess is that he or she is an ardent believer. So far no ominous signs have occurred. So he or she has planted some. It’s as silly and as simple as that. Any comments?”