Perfect Gallows

by Peter Dickinson

  “Oh. All right.”

  “You like Benny. He’ll want to see you.”

  “Of course I do.”

  “I will instruct Robin to protect you from Louise.”

  “You don’t have to.”

  “What is the matter? Tell me. Tell me.”

  “I … You’ll be angry.”

  “Angrier still if you refuse.”

  “Oh dear. It makes me feel so stupid when everyone else … I mean I know it’s what you do, better than anyone else, and this time it’s special, terrific, everyone says so …”

  “You disagree?”

  “Oh no no no! That isn’t what … I mean, that’s why, being so marvellous, and me sitting there, can’t get out, having to look … Can I stop? Please, A.”

  “You are sitting there watching my performance and wishing it were over. It is my performance, not the play itself?”

  “It’s just worse with this play. I feel so frightened.”

  “Worse?”

  “Please, A.”

  “Go on.”

  “Let me think … You see, it isn’t you. It’s something else up there.”

  “Some thing? Not some one?”

  “That’s right. You’re magical at the someones. I can see that. I can feel it. But … but … I mean, for instance, this time, when Polly goes out thinking she’s won and you get up from the table, and then … then you make yourself bigger than you are … that’s not someone. That’s some thing. I have to stop myself screaming.”

  “Some nights they do scream. You are lucky to have seen it. It is an instant which theatregoers will recall in their memoirs long after I am dead.”

  “But that’s not … I mean, when they scream, they’re frightened for them. I’m frightened for you. Where does it come from, A.?”

  “What?”

  “The something?”

  He shrugged and sipped his brandy. Her explanation seemed to have appeased him. His left hand gentled the nape of her neck. He made his voice ironically portentous.

  “It sleeps within its cave until I summon it forth. Thou earth, thou, speak!”

  “Don’t. I’m not joking. I really do get terrified. Like in nightmares. I sit there and look and look and I can’t find you. Where’ve you gone?”

  “I am there too, watching, invisible.”

  “I wish I could see you.”

  “And spoil my magic?”

  “Not if it did that. That’s the important thing.”

  “The only thing.”

  The calm of the ritual seemed to have been restored, intensified, after the brief rift. Perhaps her tribute to his power, by its very unwillingness, was the small sacrifice essential to the egotism of art. He put his glass down and lolled himself into the crook of the sofa so that she could lie with her head on his shoulder, her fingers teasing the braid of his dressing-gown.

  “In one sense it is only a trick,” he said. “The eye chooses how it sees things. A man standing twenty yards away from you ought to appear only half the height of a man standing ten yards away from you, but the visual cortex makes the necessary adjustments. When I grow in that scene I do it by an alteration of posture which brings me an inch or two down stage without seeming to have moved, and the visual cortices of the audience are tricked into increasing my height. Of course there is more to it than that. Making the actual movements is not enough. Consciously or unconsciously the audience would perceive what I was doing and my height would not change. So I must by the force of my performance so obsess them with the stillness of the moment that they cannot believe that I have moved. The movement is the trick. The stillness is the art. As a matter of fact I learnt it by watching Samuel Mkele, though he himself was probably largely unaware of how he achieved his effects. His first entrance was a tour de force. He had been on stage all along, crouching among some seaweed-covered rocks and seeming to be one himself. His change from rock to creature took, oh, fifteen seconds. If you had stopped it halfway through he would have seemed to be still partly stone. He made it appear that in calling him forth I had by my power created him out of the rock.”

  “And only just that once.”

  “Just that once. Just that once. It was enough.”

  “And then he was dead.”

  “Yes.”

  The syllable had a finality about it that seemed to have closed the conversation, but after a short pause Adrian picked the subject up.

  “As a matter of fact I have been thinking about Samuel off and on throughout the last couple of weeks.”

  “Yes, I know.”

  “Know?”

  “Well, sort of guessed. Only you’d said I mustn’t ask.”

  “That still applies.”

  “I don’t know if it counts, but just now, when you said ‘It was enough.’ What did you mean? You don’t have to tell me.”

  “Have you ever heard of a man called Barrie Oakley?”

  “I don’t think … oh, sex-scandal? Before I was born?”

  “He was killed in a drunken squabble in the mid-Fifties by his lover, a clever but lightweight actor called Jonny Price. Before the war he had been a successful and innovative producer, and during it he became a key figure in some of the official organizations which were supposed to keep the troops’ morale up by staging plays and other performances around the world. My Cousin Elspeth arranged for Oakley and Price to come and watch my Prospero. Afterwards he was extremely encouraging. He wrote down the details of my call-up and said that he would arrange to have me transferred as soon as possible into one of his outfits. That indeed did happen. I spent three years technically in the army after my basic training and never heard a shot fired, and moreover I made a number of contacts that were invaluable to me when I was demobbed. So what I meant was that the one performance of The Tempest which we were able to stage before Samuel was killed …”

  He froze. His error, his momentary loss of control (tiredness? the relaxation of guard in her company? subconscious need to have the thoughts that had been troubling him out into the open?) were so unusual that the girl froze beside him, waiting, tenser if anything than he was. He produced a casual light-comedy laugh, making it a meaningless sound out of his immense repertoire.

  “Action is momentary—a word, a blow,

  The motion of a muscle this way or that—

  ’Tis done, and in the after vacancy

  We wonder at ourselves like men betrayed.”

  “You needn’t tell me,” she said again.

  “I think I had better. The floor of the dovecote was thick with bird-droppings. I climbed the ladder beside Samuel’s body to see if there was anything I could do. I then realized that the soles of his feet—he always went barefoot in summer—were clean, and the rungs on which I was standing were clean too. Automatically I looked down and saw in the droppings on the floor the imprints of American army boots. It was just after sunrise, with the light striking sideways through the flight-holes. The marks would have been barely perceptible in any other light, and then only from directly above. Samuel had told me only a few weeks before that he had been attacked by two soldiers from the American camp in the park, and one of their sergeants had warned me of the same possibility. The camp was a transit-point for troops leaving for France. I had heard one of their regular convoys going off as I was walking towards the dovecote. You can imagine a group of wild young men, southern roughs, breaking out for this final hideous fling before going into action; if so, they would already be in France. There would have been enormous delays in finding them and bringing them to trial. At least it was clear to me that I must not allow myself to become an important witness. If that were to happen I might have to hang about indefinitely, and thus miss the chance that had opened for me with Oakley’s offer of patronage. He was notoriously wayward and impulsive, not the type to maintain his interest over a period of
months. My having found the body was already tiresome enough—I could not escape that. But in fact it all turned out better than I could have hoped. The official who interviewed me for my affidavit asked no questions about the footprints, nor about the door having been forced when Samuel had a key to the dovecote on his board. Of course I did not say anything, unasked, but if I had been I would have lied.”

  “They hushed it up? And you could’ve …”

  He shook his head.

  “I wasn’t at the inquest, but evidence was given that Samuel had been seriously depressed, which was true. Charles added that while they were changing for the play he had dismissed Samuel for gross impertinence. I imagine he gave them to understand that Samuel had attempted some kind of sexual assault on him …”

  “He couldn’t have!”

  “I’m afraid he could. We’d all seen them come out of the hut, both extremely agitated and Charles only half dressed. The play started almost at once. I don’t know whether evidence was given about Samuel’s performance, which as I told you was remarkable and to the naïve spectator might have seemed an exhibition of pure frenzy. It was of course perfectly under control, but even I was surprised at times by its vehemence, and Elspeth told me that the coroner had seen fit to animadvert on the unwisdom of involving a man of primitive race, without the sophistication to distinguish between role and reality, in a part such as that of Caliban. Suicide certainly appeared a logical verdict.”

  “You keep saying things like ‘appeared’.”

  “Bed now, I think.”

  He waited for her to rise and pull him two-handed to his feet. Deliberately she pulled too hard, using the momentum to bring him into her arms. Standing, they were of equal height, but she relaxed her joints to give him an inch of domination. He smiled, but as he bent to kiss her the movement froze. They stuck in their pose for an instant before he took his right arm from round her and pushed their bodies apart so that he could feel in the gap between them, first just above her diaphragm and then with spider-creeping fingers tracing a line up to her collarbone. She endured his touch but was clearly troubled as he slid his hand inside the soft roll of her jersey-collar and hauled out a loop of the white lace of a training-shoe. She bent her head to let him lift the lace clear. As he continued to haul, the object that had caught his attention, intruding its hardness between their bodies, moved visibly up under her jersey, like a cartoon mouse running under a carpet. He eased it free and held it in his palm.

  It was the hand-carved butter mould that had attempted to portray his own boyhood face. She had knotted black thread round the neck and tied it to the shoelace. He stared at the object for a couple of seconds, then closed his fist, turned his wrist, gripped the lace with his other hand and snapped the thread. With a movement of utter rejection, not bothering to watch it fall, he tossed the image into the fire.

  “Oh, no!” she shrieked, and rushed past him.

  He grabbed at her arm but, used to her total compliance, was unprepared for the violence of her movement and lost his hold. She flung herself down on the hearth, plunged her hand into the embers and seized the already flaming head.

  This time he picked her up bodily, hefted her to his chest and strode round the sofa and across the room.

  “Ow!” she mewed. “Ow!”

  He kneed the kitchen door open, lurched through, dumped her on her feet in front of the sink, turned the cold tap full on and pushed her still-clenched fist under the stream of water.

  “Keep it there,” he snapped.

  There was a plastic bowl in the sink, full of the pans in which she had cooked his supper. He lifted it out and tilted its contents splashing and clattering on to the floor, then set it beneath the tap. She was grey with pain, and crying. As the bowl filled he took her arm, more gently now, and eased it below the surface, leaving the tap running. She shouted as he forced her clenched fingers open.

  “Please, A. Please!”

  Black embers floated up, bobbling around in the rush of water, and then a larger morsel. He paid no attention, letting her fish the knob out with her unburnt hand; the top of the disc and one side of the head were charred dark brown. He fetched the kitchen stool and made her sit sideways to the sink so that she could keep her whole forearm under the water. He took his dressing-gown off and wrapped it round her shoulders.

  “How does it feel?”

  “Ow, it’s sore. I’m sorry, A. I’m sorry.”

  “Keep it in the bowl. I’ll be back in a minute.”

  In the living-room he checked a number on the card by the telephone, pressed the buttons.

  “Fritz? Adrian Waring. Woke you up, I’m afraid. Listen, a fairly serious burn to a hand and forearm … Yes, I did that at once. She’s still got it under water … Tripped and fell into the fire … I’d be more than grateful … One second—it’s clearly hurting considerably … I’ve got Codeine … Thanks, old boy. See you then.”

  He went to the washroom, took pills from a cabinet and set them to fizz in a tumbler which he left on the table by the sofa as he crossed the living-room again. In the kitchen he soaked a tea towel, wrung it, lifted her limp arm from the bowl and gently wound the cloth around it, bandaging the bundle with a dry roller-towel and finally a plastic bin-liner.

  “Other arm round my neck.”

  “I can walk.”

  But she did as she was told and let him lift her from the stool and carry her to the sofa.

  “I’m sorry, A. I couldn’t help it. Really I couldn’t.”

  “So I gathered. Drink that. Fritz will be here in ten minutes.” He fetched a rug to cover her, then went back to the telephone. This time he needed to find the number in a pocket diary.

  “Louise? … I won’t apologize—we all know New Yorkers have evolved to do without sleep. It’s Adrian … How very kind of you. Let me guess. A designer sponge? … Then I’ll wait and be astonished. How was the trip? … And Benny. That’s good to hear—what did you see? … No, I haven’t had a chance. A bit stodgy? … That’s why I’m calling—we may not be able to make it—we’ve had a mishap—I won’t go into details … Well, I can’t at the moment be sure. I think my understudy might be very good indeed, if Benny would be interested to watch a young man seizing his chance … Oh, I would be desolated to disappoint you both, and it may well be all right. I really called to ask about your movements tomorrow, so that I can get in touch when our problem is clearer. Right … Got that … Right … Oh, I shall know before then … No, you’re wrong—I had to take three days off from Misanthrope in ’81 … Very kind of you to say so, my dear. I’ll be in touch in the morning.”

  He put the receiver down and turned. She had thrown the rug aside and was starting to rise but he squatted beside the sofa and pushed her gently back.

  “You mustn’t, A. I’ll be all right. I won’t even have to cook for you. It can’t be serious—it was only a couple of seconds. I could come with you if you like and wear a sling, only you’d have to think of a story.”

  “You tripped and fell in the fire.”

  “All right. It’s not hurting nearly as much. It’ll be gone in just a few days.”

  “Superficially. There is a phenomenon called shock.”

  “I’ll be all right.”

  “Yes, I think you probably will.”

  “Then …”

  “But I cannot yet be sure whether I shall.”

  He rose and stood looking down at her, warming his calves and hams in the ember-glow, until they heard a car come scrunching up the gravel.

  August 1944

  ONE

  Shoulders back, chin in, head against bar, heels on the ground. Right … You bending at the knees, lad? … Then five three and a quarter’s the best we can do for you …”

  “Hm … Usual childhood illnesses? Polio? … Know your father’s height? … Runs in the family, evidently—nothing wrong with that …
”

  “Here’s one just right for the midget submarines! Only joking, lad. You want the navy you got to volunteer, and you’re too late for that.”

  Queue to have your chest thumped and listened to. Queue to piss in a bottle. Queue for eye-test. Tempter at your elbow all the time—epilepsy, myopia, nameless wheezings … No! When you were seventy you needed to be able to count on your fingers the performances you had missed through illness. Summon such a familiar now and it might nestle inside you through the years. Pure superstition, but real. He couldn’t. He let Adrian rattle off the bottom line of the eye-chart.

  Then another wait, this time sitting in a side room till a second batch was ready to join them in the written test.

  “’ow much choice’ve we reely got, sarge?”

  “Sergeant to you, lad.”

  Interest woke at the voice. The sergeant was Education Corps. Andrew had been wondering how you got into that. Gold-rimmed specs, twenty-fiveish but balding, born to become a teacher. And the voice … it was the tone, not the accent, a Midland whine. There was a deadness about it, as if it was numb with the repetition of its own arguments. Know-all, unbeliever, preacher, fanatic, assassin of Czars, builder of glistening cities … One day … If only …

  “Sorry, sergeant.”

  “You’ve got just as much choice as they feel like giving you, if you want to know. Just now I wouldn’t say you’d got much. Armour’s been suffering over in France, and the way they’re running this war it’ll go on suffering, and that means they have gaps to fill. Drive a car and you’ll find yourself learning to drive a tank. Twenty-twenty vision and you’ll be finding out how the gun works. Anything else and you’re a fitter, no matter how cack-handed you turn out. That’s how they do it in the army. It’s what we call a microcosm. If you don’t learn anything else you’ll learn what the world’s really like behind the Saturday football and the Sunday sermons. Them and us, that’s the army. Them and us, run mad.”

  Bicycling the familiar route in the unfamiliar early afternoon Andrew felt not unhappy. He had dreaded the medical, the gateway to his nightmare, but the actual event had been almost neutral. The presence of so many others all going through the same process, none of them liking it, some much more bewildered than he was, had diluted his terror, making it not much different from the others’ nervousness. Now there was almost a month before call-up. He had Jean and the play to take his mind off it …