Clive Barker - Books Of Blood Vol 1

And, my God, she rose to the occasion. She began the play as she meant to go on, giving her whole heart to the role, not needing physicality to communicate the depth of her feelings, but speaking the poetry with such intelligence and passion the merest flutter of her hand was worth more than a hundred grander gestures. After that first scene her every entrance was met with the same applause from the audience, followed by almost reverential silence.

Backstage, a kind of buoyant confidence had set in. The whole company sniffed the success; a success which had been snatched miraculously from the jaws of disaster.

There again! Applause! Applause!

In his office, Hammersmith dimly registered the brittle din of adulation through a haze of booze.

He was in the act of pouring his eighth drink when the door opened. He glanced up for a moment and registered that the visitor was that upstart Calloway. Come to gloat I daresay, Hammersmith thought, come to tell me how wrong I was. ‘What do you want?’

The punk didn’t answer. From the corner of his eye Hammersmith had an impression of a broad, bright smile on Galloway’s face. Self-satisfied half-wit, coming in here when a man was in mourning.

‘I suppose you’ve heard?’

The other grunted.

‘She died,’ said Hammersmith, beginning to cry. ‘She died a few hours ago, without regaining consciousness. I haven’t told the actors. Didn’t seem worth it.’

Galloway said nothing in reply to this news. Didn’t the bastard care? Couldn’t he see that this was the end of the world? The woman was dead. She’d died in the bowels of the Elysium. There’d be official enquiries made, the insurance would be examined, a post-mortem, an inquest:

it would reveal too much.

He drank deeply from his glass, not bothering to look at Galloway again.

‘Your career’ll take a dive after this, son. It won’t just be me: oh dear no.’

Still Galloway kept his silence.

‘Don’t you care?’ Hammersmith demanded.

There was silence for a moment, then Galloway responded. ‘I don’t give a shit.’

‘Jumped up little stage-manager, that’s all you are. That’s all any of you fucking directors are! One good review and you’re God’s gift to art. Well let me set you straight about that —‘

He looked at Galloway, his eyes, swimming in alcohol, having difficulty focussing. But he got there eventually.

Galloway, the dirty bugger, was naked from the waist down. He was wearing his shoes and his socks, but no trousers or briefs. His self-exposure would have been comical, but for the expression on his face. The man had gone mad: his eyes were rolling around uncontrollably, saliva and snot ran from mouth and nose, his tongue hung out like the tongue of a panting dog.

Hammersmith put his glass down on his blotting pad, and looked at the worst part. There was blood on Gallo-way’s shirt, a trail of it which led up his neck to his left ear, from which protruded the end of Diane Duvall’s nail-file. It had been driven deep into Galloway’s brain. The man was surely dead.

But he stood, spoke, walked.

From the theatre, there rose another round of applause, muted by distance. It wasn’t a real sound somehow; it came from another world, a place where emotions ruled. It was a world Hammersmith had always felt excluded from. He’d never been much of an actor, though God knows he’d tried, and the two plays he’d penned were, he knew, execrable. Book-keeping was his forte, and he’d used it to stay as close to the stage as he could, hating his own lack of art as much as he resented that skill in others.

The applause died, and as if taking a cue from an unseen prompter, Calloway came at him. The mask he wore was neither comic nor tragic, it was blood and laughter together. Cowering, Hammersmith was cornered behind his desk. Galloway leapt on to it (he looked so ridiculous, shirt-tails and balls flip-flapping) and seized Hammersmith by the tie.

‘Philistine,’ said Galloway, never now to know Hammersmith’s heart, and broke the man’s neck — snap! — while below the applause began again.

‘Do not embrace me till each circumstance

Of place, time, fortune, do cohere and jump

That I am Viola.’

From Constantia’s mouth the lines were a revelation. It was almost as though this Twelfth Night were a new play, and the part of Viola had been written for Constantia Lichfield alone. The actors who shared the stage with her felt their egos shrivelling in the face of such a gift.

The last act continued to its bitter-sweet conclusion, the audience as enthralled as ever to judge by their breathless attention.

The Duke spoke: ‘Give me thy hand;

And let me see thee in thy woman’s weeds.’

In the rehearsal the invitation in the line had been ignored: no-one was to touch this Viola, much less take her hand. But in the heat of the performance such taboos were forgotten. Possessed by the passion of the moment the actor reached for Constantia. She, forgetting the taboo in her turn, reached to answer his touch.

In the wings Lichfield breathed ‘no’ under his breath, but his order wasn’t heard. The Duke grasped Viola’s hand in his, life and death holding court together under this painted sky.

It was a chilly hand, a hand without blood in its veins, or a blush in its skin.

But here it was as good as alive.

They were equals, the living and the dead, and nobody could find just cause to part them.

In the wings, Lichfield sighed, and allowed himself a smile. He’d feared that touch, feared it would break the spell. But Dionysus was with them tonight. All would be well; he felt it in his bones.

The act drew to a close, and Malvolio, still trumpeting his threats, even in defeat, was carted off. One by one the company exited, leaving the clown to wrap up the play.

‘A great while ago the world began,

With hey, ho, the wind and the rain,

But that’s all one, our play is done

And we’ll strive to please you every day.’

The scene darkened to blackout, and the curtain descended. From the gods rapturous applause erupted, that same rattling, hollow applause. The company, their faces shining with the success of the Dress Rehearsal, formed behind the curtain for the bow. The curtain rose:

the applause mounted.

In the wings, Galloway joined Lichfield. He was dressed now: and he’d washed the blood off his neck.

‘Well, we have a brilliant success,’ said the skull. ‘It does seem a pity that this company should be dissolved so soon.’

‘It does,’ said the corpse.

The actors were shouting into the wings now, calling for Galloway to join them. They were applauding him, encouraging him to show his face.

He put a hand on Lichfield’s shoulder.

‘We’ll go together, sir,’ he said.

‘No, no, I couldn’t.’

‘You must. It’s your triumph as much as mine.’ Lichfield nodded, and they went out together to take their bows beside the company.

In the wings Tallulah was at work. She felt restored after her sleep in the Green Room. So much unpleasantness had gone, taken with her life. She no longer suffered the aches in her hip, or the creeping neuralgia in her scalp. There was no longer the necessity to draw breath through pipes encrusted with seventy years’ muck, or to rub the backs of her hands to get the circulation going; not even the need to blink. She laid the fires with a new strength, pressing the detritus of past productions into use: old backdrops, props, costuming. When she had enough combustibles heaped, she struck a match and set the flame to them. The Elysium began to burn.

Over the applause, somebody was shouting:

‘Marvellous, sweethearts, marvellous.’ It was Diane’s voice, they all recognized it even though they couldn’t quite see her. She was staggering down the centre aisle towards the stage, making quite a fool of herself.