Ngaio Marsh - Light Thickens

“It’s got to be there . You know? In every move we make. How did he put it, Wendy?”

“ ‘Trembling with animosity,’ ” said Wendy.

“Yes. And I was standing by Rangi and I felt him tremble, I swear I did.”

“You did, didn’t you, Rangi? Tremble?”

“Sort of,” Rangi mumbled. “Don’t make such a thing about it.”

“No, but you were marvelous. You sort of grunted and bent your knees. And your face ! Your tongue! And eyes!”

“Anyway, Perry was completely taken with it and asked him to repeat it and asked us to do it — not too much. Just a kind of ripple of hatred. It’s going to work, you know.”

“Putting a curse on him. That’s what it is, Rangi, isn’t it?”

“Have a drink, Rangi, and show us.”

Rangi made a brusque, dismissive gesture and turned away to greet the Angus.

The men closed around him. They were none of them quite drunk, but they were noisy. The members of the company now far outnumbered the other patrons, who had taken their drinks to a table in the corner of the room and looked on with ill-concealed interest.

“It’s my round,” Angus shouted. “I’m paying, all of you. No arguments. Yes, I insist. That which hath made them drunk hath made me bold ,” he shouted.

His voice faded out and so, raggedly, did all the others. Blondie’s giggle persisted and died. A single voice — Angus’s — asked uncertainly: “What’s up? Oh. Oh, I see. Oh, hell! Never mind. Sorry everybody. Drink up.”

They drank in silence. Rangi drained his pint of light and bitter. Angus nodded to the barman, who replaced it with another. Angus mimed pouring in something else and laid an uncertain finger on his lips. The barman winked and added a tot of gin. He pushed the drink over toward Rangi’s hand. Rangi’s back was turned but he felt the glass, looked around, and saw it.

“Is that mine?” he asked, puzzled.

They all seized on this. They said confusedly that of course it was his drink. “Go on, have it. Drink it up. No heeltaps.”

It was something to make a fuss about, something that would make them all forget about Angus’s blunder. They bet Rangi wouldn’t drink it down then and there. So Rangi did. There was a round of applause.

“Show us, Rangi. Show us what you did. Don’t say anything, just show.”

“E-e-e- ah !” he shouted suddenly. He slapped his knees and stamped. He grimaced, his eyes glittered, and his tongue whipped in and out. He held his umbrella before him like a spear and it was not funny.

It lasted only a few seconds.

They applauded and asked him what it meant and was he “weaving a spell.” He said no, nothing like that. His eyes were glazed. “I’ve had a little too much to drink,” he said. “I’ll go now. Good-night, all of you.”

They objected. Some of them hung on to him but they did it halfheartedly. He brushed them off. “Sorry,” he said, “I shouldn’t have taken that drink. I’m no good with drinking.” He pulled some notes out of his pocket and shoved them across the bar. “My round,” he said. “Good-night, all.”

He walked quickly to the swing doors, lost his balance, and regained it.

“You all right?” Angus asked.

“No,” he answered. “Far from it.”

He walked into the doors. They swung out and he went with them. They saw him pull up, look stiffly to right and left, raise his umbrella in a magnificent gesture, get into the taxi that responded, and disappear.

“He’s all right,” said one of the lairds. “He’s got a room round here.”

“Nice chap.”

“Very nice.”

“I’ve heard, I don’t know who told me, mark you,” said Angus, “that drink has a funny effect on Maori people. Goes straight to their heads and they revert to their savage condition.”

“Rangi hasn’t,” said Ross. “He’s gone grand.”

“He did when he performed that dance or whatever it was,” said the actor who played Menteith.

“You know what I think?” said Ross. “I think he was upset when you quoted.”

“It’s all a load of old bullshit, anyway,” said a profound voice in the background.

This provoked a confused expostulation that came to its climax when the Menteith roared out: “Thass all very fine but I bet you wouldn’t call the play by its right name. Would you do that?”

Silence.

“There you are!”

“Only because it’d upset the rest of you.”

“Yah!” they all said.

The Ross, an older man who was sober, said: “I think it’s silly to talk about it. We feel as we do in different ways. Why not just accept that and stop nattering?”

“Somebody ought to write a book about it,” said Wendy.

“There is a chapter about it in a book called Supernatural on Stage , by Richard Huggett.”

They finished their drinks. The party had gone flat.

“Call it a day, chaps?” asked Ross.

“That’s about the strength of it,” Menteith agreed.

The nameless and lineless thanes noisily concurred and gradually they drifted out.

Ross said to the Angus, “Come on, old boy, I’ll see you home.”

“I’m afraid I’ve overstepped the mark. Sorry. We were carousing till the second cock . Oh, dear, there I go again.”

“Come on, old boy.”

“All right.” He made a shaky attempt to cross himself. “I’m okay,” he said.

“Of course you are.”

“Right you are, then. Good-night, Porter,” he said to the barman.

“Good-night, sir.”

They went out.

“Actors,” said one of the guests.

“That’s right, sir,” the barman agreed, collecting their glasses.

“What was that they were saying about some superstition? I couldn’t make head or tail of it.”

“They make out it’s unlucky to quote from this play. They don’t use the title either.”

“Silly sods,” remarked another.

“They take it for gospel.”

“Probably some publicity stunt by the author.”

The barman grunted.

“What is the name of the play, then?”

“ Macbeth .”

Rehearsals for the duel had begun and were persisted in remorselessly. At 9:30 every morning Dougal Macdougal and Simon Morten, armed with weighted wooden claymores, slashed and banged away at each other in a slow dance superintended by a merciless Gaston.

The whole affair, step by step, blow by blow, had been planned down to the last inch. Both men suffered agonies from the strain on muscles unaccustomed to such exercise. They sweated profusely. Gaston had found an ancient 45-rpm record of the Anvil Chorus, which when played at a lower speed ground out a lugubrious, laborious, nightmarelike accompaniment, made more hateful by Gaston humming, also out of tune.

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

Morten — Macduff — 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.”