Light Thickens

by Ngaio Marsh

  The relationship between the three men was, from the first, uneasy. Dougal tended to be facetious. ‘What ho, varlet. Have at thee, miscreant,’ he would cry.

  The Macduff – Morten – did not respond to these sallies. He was ominously polite and glum to a degree. When Dougal swung at him, lost his balance and ran, as it were, after his own weapon, wild-eyed, an expression of great concern upon his face, Morten allowed himself a faint sneer. When Dougal finally tripped and fell in a sitting position with a sickening thud, the sneer deepened.

  ‘The balance!’ Gaston screamed. ‘How many times must I insist? If you lose the balance of your weapon you lose your own balance and end up looking foolish. As now.’

  Dougal rose. With some difficulty and using his claymore as a prop.

  ‘No!’ chided Gaston. ‘It is to be handled with respect, not dug into the floor and climbed up.’

  ‘This is merely a dummy. Why should I respect it?’

  ‘It weighs exactly the same as the claidheamh-mor.’

  ‘What’s that got to do with it?’

  ‘Again! We begin at the beginning. Again! Up! Weakling!’

  ‘I am not accustomed,’ said Dougal magnificently, ‘to being treated in this manner.’

  ‘No? Forgive me, Sir Dougal. And let me tell you that I, Gaston Sears, am not accustomed to conducting myself like a mincing dancing master, Sir Dougal. It is only because this fight is to be performed before audiences of discrimination, with weapons that are the precise replicas of the original claidheamh-mor, that I have consented to teach you.’

  ‘If you ask me we’d get on a lot better if we faked the whole bloody show. Oh, all right, all right,’ Dougal amended, answering the really alarming expression that contorted Gaston’s face. ‘I give in. Let’s get on with it. Come on.’

  ‘Come on,’ echoed Morten. ‘“Thou bloodier villain than terms can give thee out.”’

  Whack. Bang. Down came his claymore, caught on Macbeth’s shield. ‘Te-tum. Te-tum. Te – Disengage,’ shouted Gaston. ‘Macbeth sweeps across. Macduff leaps over the blade. Te-tum-tum. This is better. This is an improvement. You have achieved the rhythm. We take it now a little faster.’

  ‘Faster! My God, you’re killing us.’

  ‘You handle your weapon like a peasant. Look. I show you. Here, give it me.’

  Dougal, using both hands, threw the claymore at him. With great dexterity, he caught it by the hilt, twirled it and held it before him, pointed at Dougal.

  ‘Hah!’ he shouted. ‘Hah and hah again.’ He lunged, changed his grip and swept his weapon up – and down.

  Dougal leapt to one side. ‘Christ Almighty!’ he cried. ‘What are you doing?’

  Grimacing abominably, Gaston brought the heavy claymore up in a conventional salute.

  ‘Handling my weapon, Sir Dougal. And you will do so before I have finished with you.’

  Dougal whispered.

  ‘I beg your pardon?’

  ‘You’ve got the strength of the devil, Gaston.’

  ‘No. It is a matter of balance and rhythm more than strength. Come, we take the first exchange a tempo. Yes, a tempo. Come.’

  He offered the claymore ceremoniously to Dougal, who took it and heaved it up into a salute.

  ‘Good! We progress. One moment.’

  He went to the gramophone and altered the timing. ‘Listen,’ he said, and switched it on. Out came the Anvil Chorus, remorselessly truthful as if rejoicing in its own restoration. Gaston switched it off. ‘That is our timing.’ He turned to Simon Morten. ‘Ready, Mr Morten?’

  ‘Quite ready.’

  ‘The cue, if you please.’

  ‘“Thou bloodier villain than terms can give thee out.”’

  And the fight was a fight. There was rhythm and there was timing. For a minute and a quarter all went well and at the end the two men, pouring sweat, leaning on their weapons, breathless, waited for his comment.

  ‘Good. There were mistakes but they were comparatively small. Now, while we are warm and limbered up we do it once more but without the music. Yes. You are recovered? Good.’

  ‘We are not recovered,’ Dougal panted.

  ‘This is the last effort for today. Come. I count the beats. Without music. The cue.’

  ‘“Thou bloodier villain than terms can give thee out.”’

  Bang. Pause. Bang. Pause. And Bangle-bangle-bang. Pause. They got through it but only just and they were really cooked at the end.

  ‘Good,’ said Gaston. ‘Tomorrow. Same time. I thank you, gentlemen.’

  He bowed and left.

  Morten, his black curls damp and the tangled mat of hair on his chest gleaming, vigorously towelled himself. Sir Dougal, tawny, fair-skinned, drenched in sweat and breathing hard, reached for his own towel and feebly dabbed at his chest.

  ‘We did it,’ he said. ‘I’m flattened but we did it.’

  Morten grunted and pulled on his shirt and sweater.

  ‘You’d better get something warm on,’ he said. ‘Way to catch cold.’

  ‘Night after night after night. Have you thought of that?’

  ‘Yes.’

  ‘Why do I do it! Why do I submit myself! I ask myself: Why?’

  Morten grunted.

  ‘I’ll speak to Perry about it. I’ll demand insurance.’

  ‘For which bit of you?’

  ‘For all of me. The thing’s ridiculous. A good fake and we’d have them breathless.’

  ‘Instead of which we’re breathless ourselves,’ said Morten and took himself off. It was the nearest approach to a conversation that they had enjoyed.

  So ended the first week of rehearsals.

  CHAPTER 2

  Second Week

  Peregrine had blocked the play up to the aftermath following the murder of King Duncan. The only break in the performance would come here.

  Rehearsals went well. The short opening scene with the witches scavenging on the gallows worked. Rangi, perched on the gibbet arm, was terribly busy with the head of the corpse. Blondie, on Wendy’s back, ravaged its feet. A flash of lightning. Pause. Thunder. They hopped down, like birds of prey. Dialogue. Then their leap. The flash caught them in mid-air. Blackout and down.

  ‘Well,’ said Peregrine, ‘the actions are spot-on. Thank you. It’s now up to the lights: an absolute cue. Catch them in a flash before they fall. You witches must remember to keep flat and then scurry off in the blackout. OK?’

  ‘Can we keep well apart?’ asked Rangi. ‘Before we take off. Otherwise we may fall on each other.’

  ‘Yes. Get in position when you answer the caterwauls. Blondie, you take the point furthest away when you hear them. Wendy, you stay where you are, and Rangi, you answer from under the gallows. Think of birds…ravens…That’s it. Splendid. Next scene.’

  It was their first rehearsal in semi-continuity. It would be terribly rough but Peregrine liked his cast to get the feeling of the whole as early as possible. Here came the King. Superb bearing. Lovely entrance. Pause on steps. Thanes moved on below him. Bloody Sergeant on ground level, back to audience. The King – magnificent.

  Up to his tricks again, thought Peregrine, and stopped them.

  ‘Sorry, old boy,’ he said. ‘There’s an extra move from you here. Remember? Come down. The thanes wheel round behind you. Bloody Sergeant moves up and we’ll all focus on him for the speech. OK?’

  The King raised a hand and slightly shook his head. ‘So sorry. Of course.’ He graciously complied. The Bloody Sergeant, facing front and determined to wring the last syllable from his one-speech part, embarked upon it with many pauses and gasps.

  When it was over Peregrine said: ‘Dear boy, you are determined not to faint or not to gasp. You can’t quite manage it but you do your best. You keep going. Your voice fades out but you master it. You even manage your little joke, “As sparrows eagles or the hare the lion,” and we cut to: “But I am faint, my gashes cry for help.”’ You make a final effort. You salute. Your hand falls to your side and we
see the blood on it. You are helped off. Don’t do so much, dear boy. Be! I’ll take you through it afterwards. On.’

  The King returned magnificently to his place of vantage. Ross made an excitable entrance with news of the defeat of the faithless Cawdor. The King established his execution and the bestowal of his title upon Macbeth. Peregrine had cut the scene down to its bones. He made a few notes and went straight on to the witches again.

  Now came the moment for the first witch and the long speech about the sailor to Aleppo gone. Then the dance. Legs bent. Faces distorted. Eyes. Tongues. It works, thought Peregrine. The drums and pipes. Offstage with retreating soldiers. Very ominous. Enter Macbeth and Banquo. Witches in a cluster, floor level. Motionless.

  Macbeth was superb. The triumphant soldier – a glorious figure: ruddy, assured, glowing with his victories. Now, face to face with evil itself and hailed by his new title. The hidden dream suddenly made actual; the unwholesome pretence a tangible reality. He wrote to his wife and sent the letter ahead of his own arrival.

  Enter the Lady. Maggie was still feeling her way with the part, but there were no doubts about her intention. She had deliberately faced the facts and made her choice, rejected the right and fiercely embraced the wrong. She now braced herself for the monstrous task of ‘screwing her husband to the sticking-point’, knowing very well that there was no substance in their previous talks although his morbidly vivid imagination gave them a nightmarish reality.

  The play hurried on: the festive air, Macbeth’s piper, servants scurrying with dishes of food and flagons of wine, and all the time Macbeth was crumbling. The great barbaric chieftain who should outshine all the rest made dismal mistakes. He was not there to welcome the King, was not in his place now. His wife had to leave the feast, find him, tell him the King was asking for him, only to have him say he would proceed no further in the business and offer conventional reasons.

  There was no time to lose. For the last assault she laid the plot before her husband (and the audience) – quickly, urgently and clearly. He caught fire, said he was ‘settled’ and committed himself to damnation.

  Seyton, with the claymore, appeared in the shadows. He followed them off.

  The lights were extinguished by a servant, leaving only the torch in a wall-bracket outside the King’s door. A pause during which the stealthy sounds of the night were established. Cricket and owl. The sudden crack of expanding wood. A ghostly figure, who would scarcely be seen when the lighting was finalized, appeared on the upper level, entered the King’s rooms, waited there for a heartbeat or two, re-entered and slipped away into the shadows. The Lady.

  An inner door at ground level opened to admit Banquo and Fleance, and the exquisite little night scene followed.

  Bruce Barrabell had a wonderful voice and he knew how to use it, which is not to say he turned on the Voice Beautiful. It was there, a gift of nature, an arrangement of vocal cords and resonators that stirred the blood in the listener. He looked up, and one knew it was at the night sky where husbandry was practised and the candles were all out. He felt the nervous, emaciated tension of the small hours and was startled by the appearance of Macbeth attended by the tall shadow of Seyton.

  He says he dreamt of the three Sisters. Macbeth replies that he thinks not of them and then goes on, against every nerve in the listener’s body, to ask Banquo to have a little talk about the Sisters when he has time. Talk? What about? He goes on with sickening ineptitude to say the talk will ‘make honour’ for Banquo, who at once replies that as long as he loses none he will be ‘counselled’ and they say good night.

  Peregrine thought: Right. That was right. And when Banquo and Fleance went off he clapped his hands softly, but not so softly that Banquo didn’t hear him.

  Now Macbeth was alone. The ascent to the murder had begun. Up and up the steps, following the dagger that he knew was hallucination. A bell rings. ‘Hear it not, Duncan.’

  Dougal was not firm on his lines. He started off without the book but depended more and more on the prompter, couldn’t pick it up, shouted ‘What!’, flew into a temper and finally started off again with his book in his hand.

  ‘I’m not ready,’ he shouted to Peregrine.

  ‘All right. Take it quietly and read.’

  ‘I’m not ready.’

  Peregrine said: ‘All right, Dougal. Cut to the end of the speech and keep your hair on. Give your exit line and off.’

  ‘“Summons thee to heaven or to hell,”’ Dougal snapped, and stamped off through the mock-up exit at the top of the stair.

  The Lady re-entered at stage level.

  Maggie was word-perfect. She was flushed with wine, over-strung, ready to start at the slightest sound but with the iron will to rule herself and Macbeth. When his cue for re-entry came he was back inside his part. His return to stage level was all Peregrine hoped for.

  ‘I have done the deed. Didst thou not hear a voice?’

  ‘I heard the owl scream and the crickets cry. Did not you speak?’

  ‘When?’

  ‘Now.’

  ‘As I descended?’

  ‘Ay.’

  ‘Hark! Who lies i’ th’ second chamber?’

  ‘Donalbain.’

  ‘This is a sorry sight.’

  ‘A foolish thought, to say a sorry sight.’

  She glances at him. He stands there, blood-bedabbled and speaks of sleep. She sees the two grooms’ daggers in his hands and is horrified. He refuses to return them. She takes them from him and climbs up to the room.

  Macbeth is alone. The cosmic terrors of the play roll in like breakers. At the touch of his hands the multitudinous seas are incarnadined, making the green one red.

  The Lady returns.

  Maggie and Dougal had worked together on this scene and it was beginning to take shape. The characters were the absolute antitheses of each other: he, every nerve twanging, lost to everything but the nightmarish reality of murder, horrified by what he has done. She, self-disciplined, self-schooled, logical, aware of the frightful dangers of his unleashed imagination. ‘These deeds must not be thought after these ways: so, it will make us mad.’

  She says a little water will clear them of the deed, and takes him off, God save the mark, to wash himself.

  ‘We’ll stop here,’ said Peregrine. ‘I’ve a lot of notes, but it’s shaping up well. Settle down please, everybody.’

  They were in the theatre, the current piece having gone on tour. The stage was lit by working lights and the shrouded house waited, empty, expectant, for whatever was to be poured into it.

  The assistant stage manager and his assistant shifted chairs on stage for the principals and the rest sat on the stairs. Peregrine laid his notes on the prompter’s table, switched on the lamp and sat down.

  He took a minute or two, reading his notes and seeing they were in order.

  ‘It’s awfully stuffy in here,’ said Maggie suddenly. ‘Breathless, sort of. Does anybody else think so?’

  ‘The weather’s changed,’ said Dougal. ‘It’s got much warmer.’

  Blondie said: ‘I hope it’s not a beastly thunderstorm.’

  ‘Why?’

  ‘They give me the willies.’

  ‘That comes well from a witch!’

  ‘It’s electrical. I get pins and needles. I can’t help it.’

  Ascendant thunder, startling, close, everywhere, rolled up to a sharp definitive crack. Blondie screamed.

  ‘Sorry!’ she said. She put her fingers in her ears. ‘I can’t help it. Truly. Sorry.’

  ‘Never mind, child. Come over here,’ said Maggie. She held out her hand. Blondie, answering the gesture rather than the words, ran across and crouched beside her chair.

  Rangi said: ‘It’s true, she can’t help it. It affects some people like that.’

  Peregrine looked up from his notes. ‘What’s up?’ he asked and then, seeing Blondie: ‘Oh. Oh, I see. Never mind, Blondie. We can’t see the lightning, can we, and the whole thing’ll be over soon. Brace
up, there’s a good girl.’

  ‘Yes. OK.’

  She straightened up. Maggie patted her shoulder. Her hand checked and then closed. She looked at the other players, made a long face, and briefly quivered her free hand at them.

  ‘Are you cold, Blondie?’ she asked.

  ‘I don’t think so. No. I’m all right. Thank you. Ah!’ she gave a little cry.

  There was another roll of thunder; not so close, less precipitant.

  ‘It’s moving away,’ said Maggie.

  It died out in an indeterminate series of three or four thuds and bumps. Then, without warning, the sky opened and the rain crashed down.

  ‘Overture and Beginners, please,’ Dougal quoted and got his laugh.

  By the time, about an hour later, Peregrine had finished his notes and recapped the faulty passages, the rain had stopped almost as abruptly as it began and the actors left the theatre on a calm night with stars shining: brilliant, above the rain-washed air. London glittered. A sense of urgency and excitement was abroad and when Peregrine whistled the opening phrase of a Brandenburg Concerto it might have been a whole orchestra giving it out.

  ‘Come back to my flat for an hour, Maggie,’ said Dougal. ‘It’s too lovely a night to go home on.’

  ‘No, thank you, Dougal. I’m tired and hungry and I’ve ordered a car and here it is. Good night.’

  Peregrine saw them all go their ways. Still whistling, he walked downhill and only then noticed that a little derelict shed on the waterfront lay in a heap of rubble.

  I hadn’t realized it had been demolished, he thought.

  Next morning, a workman operating a scoop-lift pointed to a black scar on one of the stones.

  ‘See that,’ he said cheerfully to Peregrine. ‘That’s the mark of the Devil’s thumb, that is. You don’t often see it. Not nowadays you don’t.’

  ‘The Devil’s thumb?’

  ‘That’s right, Squire. Lightning.’

  II

  Simon Morten had taken the part of Macduff by storm. His dark good looks and dashing, easy mockery of the porter on his first entrance with Lennox, his assertion of his hereditary right to wake his king, his cheerful run up the stairs whistling as he went into the bloodied chamber while Lennox warmed himself at the fire and talked cosily about the wild intemperance of the night, all gave him an easy ascendancy.