Death Of A Hollow Man (2 page)

Now, Avery replied crisply, “Long simmers, Joycey darling, must stop at precisely the right moment. The line between a wonderful, cohesive stew with every single item still quite separate yet relating perfectly to the whole and a great sloppy mess is a very narrow one indeed.”

“Bit like a theatrical production, really,” murmured Nicholas, lobbing a subversively winning smile across at his director. Catching the smile but quite missing the subversion, Harold nodded pompously back.

“Well …” Colin Smy got to his feet and struck a no-nonsense pose as if to emphasize both his importance to and difference from the surrounding actors. “Some of us have got work to do.” Having thrown his dart, he gave it a moment to sink in, standing chunkily on slightly bowed legs. He wore jeans and a tartan shirt and had rough, wiry hair cut very short. Tufts of it stuck up here and there, and this, combined with a great deal of snapping energy, made it, someone had once said, like having a rather ferocious fox terrier charging around the place. Now, he disappeared into the wings, calling pointedly over his shoulder, “If I’m wanted, you’ll find me in the scene dock. There’s plenty going on down there, if anyone’s interested.”

No one seemed to be, and the hammering that shortly reached their ears remained aggrievedly solitary. Over their heads Deidre turned on hot water and scrubbed at the mugs, clattering them crossly and adding yet more chips. Not a single person ever came up to give her a hand, with the exception of David Smy, who was often waiting around to drive his father home. She knew this was her own fault, for not putting her foot down long ago, and this made her crosser than ever.

“Well, I think we should give Tim five more minutes,” Emperor Joseph was saying back in the stalls, “and then get on.”

“No doubt you do,” replied Esslyn, “but I have no intention of ‘getting on’ until we have this practical problem solved. It’s all very well to say these things can be left till the last second …”

“Hardly the last second,” murmured Rosa.

“… but I’m the one who’s going to be out there facing the serried ranks.” (Anyone’d think, observed Nicholas to himself, that we were going on at the Barbican.) “It’s horrendous enough, God knows, a part that size.” (What did you take it on for, then?) “But after all, Salieri’s attempted suicide is the high point of the play. We’ve got to get it not only right but brilliantly right.”

Nicholas, who had always regarded
Mozart’s
death as the high point of the play, said, “Why don’t you use an electric razor?”

“For Christ’s sake! If this is the sort of—”

“All right, Esslyn. Simmer down.” Harold soothed his fractious star. “Honestly, Nicholas—”

“Sorry.” Nicholas grinned. “Sorry, Esslyn. Just a joke.”

“Stillborn, Nico,” said Esslyn loftily, “like all your jokes. Not to mention your …” He buried his lips in the golden fronds tenderly curling on Kitty’s neck, and the rest of the sentence was lost. But everyone knew what it might have been.

Nicholas went very white. He said nothing for a few moments, then spoke overcalmly, picking his words with care. “It might not seem like it, but I am concerned about this problem. After all, if Esslyn doesn’t have enough time to get used to handling what’s going to be a very vital prop, the whole business is going to look completely amateurish.” There was a crescendoed hum, and breaths were held. Harold got to his feet and fixed his Mozart with a rabid eye.

“Don’t you ever so much as breathe that word in my presence, Nicholas—Okay? There is
never
anything amateurish about my productions.”

In so boldly refuting the adjective, Harold was being a mite economical with the truth. The whole company was proud of what it fondly regarded as its professional standards, but let a breath of adverse criticism be heard, and suddenly they were only amateurs, mostly with full-time jobs, and really, it was a miracle any of them found time to learn their lines at all, let alone get a show on the road. Now, Nicholas, having drawn blood all around, appeared mortified at his clumsiness. But before he could open his mouth to make amends, the auditorium doors swung open, and Tim Young appeared. He walked quickly toward them, a tall man in a dark Crombie overcoat and Borsalino hat carrying a small parcel.

“Sorry I’m late.”

“Where have you been?”

“The paper work seemed to take forever … then the phone started. You know how it is.” Tim spread his answer around the group rather than replying directly to Avery, who then said, “Who? Who phoned?”

Tim slipped off his overcoat and started to undo his parcel. Everyone gathered around. It was very carefully wrapped. Two layers of shiny brown paper, then two of soft cloth. Finally the razor was revealed. Tim opened it and laid it across his palm.

It was a beautiful thing. The handle, an elegant curve of ebony, was engraved in gold:
e.v. bayars. master cutler. (c.a.p.s.)
Around this imprint was a wreath of acanthus leaves and tiny flowers inlaid in mother-of-pearl. The reverse side was plain except for three tiny rivets. The blade, its edge honed to a lethal certainty, winked and gleamed. Esslyn, mindful of its reason for being there, said, “Looks bloody sharp.”

“As it must!” cried Harold. “Theatrical verisimilitude is vital.”

“Absolutely,” seconded Rosa—rather quickly, some thought.

“I don’t give a fairy’s fart for theatrical verisimilitude,” enjoined Esslyn, holding out his hand and gingerly taking the razor. “If you think I’m putting this thing within six inches of my throat, you can think again.”

“Haven’t you ever heard of mime?” inquired Harold.

“Yes, I’ve heard of mime,” replied Esslyn. “I’ve also heard of Jack the Ripper, Sweeney Todd, and death by misadventure.”

“I’ll work something out by the next rehearsal,” Harold said reassuringly. “Don’t worry. Wrap it up again for now, Tim. I want to get on with Act Two, Deidre?” Pause. “Where is she
now?”

“Still washing up, I think,” said Rosa.

“Good grief. I could wash up the crockery from a four-course banquet for twenty in the time she takes to do half a dozen cups. Well … to our muttons. Phoebe—you’d better go on the book.” Everyone dispersed to the wings and dressing rooms with the exception of Esslyn, who remained, still studying the razor thoughtfully. Harold crossed to his side. “
Pas de problème
,” he said. “You have to get used to handling it, that’s all. Look—let me show you.”

He took the beautiful object and carefully eased the blade back toward the handle. Suddenly it sprang to forcefully, with a sharp click. Harold gave a little hiss of alarm, and Esslyn a longer one of satisfaction. “You don’t seem to have trained this very well, Tim,” called Harold, giving Esslyn a smile of rather strained jocularity. Then he put the razor down and took the other man’s arm companionably. “Now, when have you ever known me with a production headache I couldn’t put right? Mm? In all our years together?” Esslyn responded with a wary look, rife with disenchantment. “Believe me,” said Harold, spacing out his words and weighting them equally to emphasize the power of his conviction, “you are in safe hands. There is nothing whatsoever to worry about.”

In his room over the Blackbird bookshop Nicholas lay on the floor doing his Cicely Berry voice exercises. He did them night and morning without fail, however late he was getting up or getting in. He had reached the lip and tongue movements, and rat-a-tat sounds filled the room. Fortunately the neighbors on both sides (Browns, the funeral parlor, and a butcher’s) were past caring about noise.

Nicholas had been born nineteen years ago and brought up in a village midway between Causton and Slough. At school he had been regarded as just above average. Moderately good at games, moderately good at lessons, and, as he was also blessed with an amiable disposition, moderately good at making friends. He had been in the upper sixth and thinking vaguely of some sort of future in a bank or on the management side of industry when something happened that forever changed his life.

One of the texts for his English “A” level was
A Midsummer Night’s Dream.
(Or, as he had since learned to call it, simply
The Dream
.) A performance of the play by the Royal Shakespeare Company was booked to take place in the vast gymnasium of Nicholas’s comprehensive school. Within two days of the announcement, the performance was sold out. Several of the sixth form went, Nicholas more for the novelty of the thing than anything else. He was intrigued by the site the company had chosen for their performance. He had always believed that theaters, like cinemas, had a stage at one end, curtains, and rows of seats, and was curious as to how the RSC was going to cope in the gym, which had none of these.

When he arrived, there seemed to be hundreds of people milling about, and the place was transformed. There were rostrums and flights of steps, trestle tables, artificial green grass, and a metal tree with golden apples on it. Scattered about the floor were huge cushions made of carpet material. Five musicians were sitting on the vaulting horse.

Overhead was an elaborate grid of metal with dozens of lights attached. Two of the gym ropes had been released, and swung gently to and fro. Then Nicholas noticed, at the other end of the hall on a dais, a stocky man in evening clothes with a broad red ribbon across his breast pinned with a jeweled star and medals. He was chatting to a woman in a dark green bustled dress wearing diamonds in her ears and a tiny crown. Suddenly he held out his arm, she rested her gloved hand on his wrist, and they stepped down from the platform. The lights blazed white and hard, and the play began.

Immediately Nicholas was enthralled. The vigor and attack and intense proximity of the actors took his breath away. The brilliant costumes, their colors blurred by the quickness of the players’ movement and dance, dazzled him. He was caught up in the sweep and power of emotions that defied analysis. And they changed so quickly. He no sooner felt the most intense sympathy for Helena than he was compelled to laugh at her incoherent rage. The mechanicals, good for a snigger in his English class, moved him almost to tears as he saw how passionately, how urgently, they longed for their play to be performed. The scenes between Titania and Bottom were so sensual he felt his face burn.

He had to move lots of times. Red ropes were set up at one point and, standing just behind them, he was a part of Theseus’s court. Then he got bundled onto the dais to watch Bottom carried shoulder high by a shouting, cheering mob to his nuptials. The ass’s head turned, and the yellow eyes glared at him as the man went by braying and raising one brawny arm in unmistakable sexual salute. And in the midst of this seemingly unstoppable splendid flux of dance and movement and energy and rhythm were remarkable points of stillness. Oberon and Titania, each spinning casually on a climbing rope, silk robes fluttering, swinging nearer and nearer to each other, exchanging glances of passionate hatred, unexpectedly stopped and shared a chaste ironic kiss. Pyramus’s grief at Thisbe’s death expressed simply but with such pain that all the court and audience too became universally silent.

And then the wedding feast. After a great fanfare the court and servants threw plastic glasses into the audience, then ran around with flagons to fill them. Everyone toasted Theseus and Hippolyta. Balloons and streamers descended from the grid. Faery and human danced together, and the hall became a great swirling mass of color and light and melodious sounds. Nicholas climbed a flight of steps and stood watching, his throat closed and dry with excitement; then, as if on the stroke of midnight, all movement ceased, and Nicholas realized that Puck was standing next to him. So close their arms were touching. The actor spoke: “ ‘If we shadows have offended . .’ ”

Then Nicholas realized that it was coming to an end. That the whole glorious golden vision was going to fade away and die … “no more yielding but a dream.” And he thought his heart would break. Puck spoke on. Nicholas studied his profile. He could feel the dynamic tension in the man, see it in the pugnacious tightness of his jaw and the rippling muscles of his throat. He spoke with tremendous force, emitting a small silver spray of saliva as he declaimed the closing lines. And then, on “Give me your hand, if we be friends,” he stretched out his left arm to the audience in a gesture that was all benevolence and, with his right, reached out to Nicholas and seized his hand. For the space of one more line they stood, the actor and the boy whose life would never be the same again. Then it was over.

Nicholas sat down as the applause went on and on. When the company finally dispersed and the audience drifted away, he remained, clutching his glass, in a daze of passionate emotion. Then one of the stagehands took the steps away. Nicholas emptied his glass of the last spot of black currant, then spotted a red streamer and a pink paper rose on the floor. He picked them up and put them carefully in his pocket. The lighting grid was being lowered and he felt in the way, so he took himself off with the deepest reluctance.

Outside in the road were two large vans. Someone was loading the metal tree with golden apples. Several of the actors emerged. They set off down the road and Nicholas followed, knowing that tamely going home was out of the question. The group went into the pub. He hesitated for a while by the door, then slipped in and stood, a rapt observer, just behind the cigarette machine.

The actors stood in a circle a few feet away. They were not dressed stylishly at all. They wore jeans, shabby afghans, sweaters. They were drinking beer; not talking or laughing loudly or showing off, and yet there was something about them… . They were simply different from anyone else there. Marked in some subtle way that Nicholas could not define. He saw Puck, a middle-aged man in an old black leather jacket wearing a peaked denim cap, smoking, waving the smoke away, smiling.

Nicholas watched them with a degree of longing so violent it made his head ache. He wanted desperately to overhear their conversation, and was on the point of edging nearer when the door behind him opened and two teachers came in. Immediately he dodged behind their backs and into the street. Apart from feeling that he could not bear to be exposed so soon to the banalities of everyday conversation, Nicholas felt sure that the enthralling experience through which he had just passed must have marked him physically in some way. And he dreaded what he felt would be clumsy and insensitive questioning.