Ngaio Marsh - Light Thickens

“They’ll laugh,” said Emily.

“If they laugh at that they’ll laugh at anything.”

“What do you bet?”

“Well, of course they have in the past always laughed at a head and the management always says it’s a nervous reaction. So it may be but I don’t think so. I think they know it isn’t, and can’t be, Macbeth’s or anybody else’s head and they laugh. It’s as if they said: ‘This is a bit too thick. Come off it.’ All the same, I’m going to risk it.”

“You jolly well do and more power to your elbow.”

“The final words are cut. The play ends with the thanes all shouting Hail, King of Scotland ! and pointing their swords at Malcolm. He’s in a strong light. I hope the audience will go away feeling, well — relieved, uplifted, as if Scotland stands free of a nightmare.”

“I hope so, too. I think they will.”

“May you think so when you’ve seen it.”

“I bet I will,” said Emily.

“I’ll push off. So long, Em, wish me luck.”

“With all my heart,” she said and gave him a kiss and a packet and a thermos. “Your snack,” she said.

“Thanks, love. I don’t know when I’ll be home.”

“Okay. Always welcome.”

She watched him get into his car. He gave her a toot and was off.

He was taking the witches’ scenes. Mattresses had been placed on the stage behind the gallows rostrum. The body on the scaffold moved slightly in its noose, turned by one of the mysterious drafts that steal about backstage regions. When Peregrine walked in, Rangi was standing beside it, peering into the void beneath.

“Okay,” Rangi called. “If you can’t see the back of the gallery they can’t see you.”

“Can’t see nuffink,” came a muffled voice from the void.

“Fair enough,” said Rangi. “You can come up from down there.”

“Morning, Rangi,” said Peregrine. “Joined the Scene-shifters’ Union?”

Rangi grinned. “We wanted to make sure we were masked from down there.”

“You want to watch it. The right way is to ask me and I’ll check with the stage manager.” He put his arm across Ran-gi’s shoulders. “You’re not in the land of do-it-yourself, now,” he said.

“I’m sorry. I didn’t do anything. Just yelled.”

“All right. You do need to watch it. We might have the whole stage staff going out on strike. Is Bruce Barrabell here?”

“I don’t think so.”

“Good. Your part’s shaping up nicely. Do you like it?”

“Oh, sure. Sure.”

“We’ll give you a skirt for rehearsals.”

“A sort of lady-tohunga , uh? Except that tohungas are always men.”

“You’ll look like three disreputable old women until Macbeth sees your faces and they are terrible and know everything. In the opening scene we see them, birdlike, as they are — almost ravens. Busy on the gallows collecting from the corpse what’s left of the grease that’s sweaten from the murderer’s gibbet . In the third scene when Macbeth first meets them they’ve put on a sort of caricature of respectability: filthy aprons, dirty mutches that come under their chins like grave-cloths. Blondie is the sexy one. One breast hangs out. Brown and stringy. They are not like female tohungas , really.”

“Not in the least,” said Rangi cheerfully.

Dougal Macdougal arrived. He never “came in.” There was always the element of an event. He could be heard loudly greeting the more important members of the company who had now assembled, and not forgetting to say “Morning, morning” to the bit-parts. He arrived onstage, hailed Peregrine as if they hadn’t encountered each other for at least a month, saw the witch girls — “Good morning, dear. Good morning, dear” — and fetched up face to face with Rangi. “Oh. Good morning — er — Rainy,” he said loftily.

“Settle down, everyone,” said Peregrine. “We are taking the witches’ scenes. I’ve got the lights manager to come down and the effects man; I’d like them to sit beside me, take notes, and go away after this rehearsal to nut out their plots. The message I plan to convey depends very much upon dead cues for effects and I hope that between us we’ll cook up something that’ll raise the pimples on the backs of the audience’s necks. Right.”

He waited while the witches took up their positions and the others sat in the front-of-house.

“No overture,” he said, “in the usual sense. The house darkens and there’s a muffled drumbeat. Thud, thud, thud. Like a heart. Curtain up, flash of lightning. We get a fleeting look at the witches. Dry ice.”

Rangi on the arm of the gibbet reached down at the head. Wendy doubled up, and Blondie, on Wendy’s back, clawed the feet. Busy. Hold for five seconds. Blackout. Thunder. Fade up to half-light concentrated on the witches, who were now all on the ground. Dialogue.

“ When shall we three meet again ?”

Blondie’s voice was a high treble, Wendy’s gritty and broken, Rangi’s full and quivering.

“ There to meet with — ” A pause. Silence. Then they all whisper, “ Macbeth .”

“Flash of lightning,” said Peregrine. “And two caterwauls. Fog, lots of it.”

“… hover through the fog and filthy air .”

“ Blackout ! Catch them in midair still going up. Split-second cue. Hold blackout for scene change. Witches !Ask them to come on, will you, someone?”

“We heard you,” said a voice, Rangi’s. “We’re coming.” He and the two girls came on from behind the rostrum.

“There’ll have to be means for a quick exit from behind in the blackout. Okay? Charlie there?”

“Okay,” said the assistant stage manager, coming onstage.

“Got it?”

“Got it.”

“Good. Any questions? Rangi, are the mattresses all right?”

“I was all right. What about you two?”

“All right that time,” said Wendy. “We might sprain an ankle.”

“Fall soft, lie flat, and crawl off,” said Peregrine. “Wait a bit.” He used his makeshift steps to the stage and ran up onto the rostrum. “Like this,” he said, and jumped high. He fell out of sight with a soft thud.

“We’ll have to deal with that,” said the effects man. “How about the muffled drum again?”

There followed a complete silence. Wendy on the edge of the rostrum looked over. Perry looked up at her.

“All right?” she asked.

“Perfectly,” he said in a strange voice. “I won’t be a moment. Next scene. Clear stage.”

They moved away. Peregrine gingerly explored his left side, swearing under his breath. Below the ribs. Around the hip. Nothing broken but a hellishly sore bruise. He crept up into a kneeling position on the tarpaulin-covered mattress and from there saw what had happened. Under the tarpaulin was an unmistakable shape, cruciform, bumpy, with the hilt tailing out into the long blade. He felt it: undoubtedly a claymore. A wooden claymore, discarded since they had begun using the steel replicas of the original.

He got painfully to his feet and, holding his bruise, stumbled onto the clear area behind the scenery. “Charlie?”

“Here, sir.”

“Charlie, come here. There’s a dummy claymore under the cover. Don’t say anything about it. I don’t want anyone to know it’s there. Mark the position with chalk and then move it out and tuck the cover back in position. Understand?”

“I got you.”

“If they know it’s there, they’ll start talking a lot of nonsense.”

“Are you all right, sir?”

“Perfectly,” said Peregrine. “Just a jolt.”

He straightened up and drew in his breath. “Right,” he said and walked onstage and down to his improvised desk in the auditorium.