The Pyramid (15 page)

“Yes. I can imagine.”

“Now don’t you pay any attention to Mr. Claymore, Oliver! Mr. De Tracy is producer. You do what he tells you.”

“What part’s he playing?”

“But he’s not!”

“Why’s he dressed like that, then?”

“He’s a professional. From London. A term at Oxford hasn’t made you entirely sophisticated, has it?”

“Finished?”

“Don’t be impatient, dear.”

“I’m
fed
up
!”

“And don’t be like Mr. Claymore, dear! Did you hear the very last thing he said?” And my mother lifted her nose in a Claymore gesture of the face so that her spectacles flashed—“‘Evelyn, old man, I shall spend the afternoon Lying Down!’ But—” And she flashed her spectacles at me over my hat—“Mr. De Tracy can see further than most through a brick wall, you may depend on it! He has the measure of that man! He knows the only way to handle that man—any of that family indeed—is flattery. Did you notice how he laid it on?”

“Yes. I did.”

“Of course we must seem the veriest amateurs to him. But he’s always kind and cheerful—and
most
appreciative of the music. He told the reporter in my hearing that he thought the orchestra was worthy of special mention. He said he’d never heard anything like it. Though of course with Claymore at the helm we shall just get our usual ‘The orchestra rendered yeoman service under the direction of—’ I only hope they spell our name properly this time!”

“That seems about right, doesn’t it?”

“I shall have to put a bit of elastic at the back here, so that the split doesn’t open too wide. You don’t want your hat falling off, dear! To tell you the truth, I’m
determined
that Mr. Claymore shall have absolutely nothing to complain of. He may quarrel if he wishes to, but I shan’t take part! It takes two to make a quarrel, after all. Besides, we ought to let Mr. De Tracy take away a good impression!”

“His knees are funny, aren’t they?”

“Knees? Oh! I see what you mean! When I was a girl, we used to call them ‘Horseman’s knees’. You were too young when Lord Cromer opened the Institute, of course. You wouldn’t remember. I wonder if Mr. De Tracy was ever in the cavalry?”

“It’s not very likely is it?”

“I’m sure he’d look most distinguished!”

My mother jumped up gaily, and tried on my hat herself, then handed it to me.

“It doesn’t seem very safe at the back, Mother. It kind of rides up.”

“Oh dear. You couldn’t hold it on, I suppose? With one hand?”

“I’ve got to salute with a blo—”

“Oliver!”

“—oming great halberd!”

“I’ll sew in a stay. You can wear it under your chin, like the sailor hat you used to have. I always thought you looked so sweet in it. There was HMS LION on the band. When we had that fortnight in Weymouth you went right up to some sailors and said, ‘I’m a sailor too!’”

“Oh my God.”

“Put the kettle on, would you, dear? We’ll have a sort of High Tea; then if you’re hungry after the performance you can forage when you come back. There’ll be coffee and cakes afterwards, of course, but people don’t really eat anything. Everyone’s
much
too excited. That’s right, dear! Now you’d better practise your violin.”

“I don’t need to.”

“You don’t want Mr. Claymore to have anything to
complain
of, now, do you?”

“Oh all right.”

“And take the penny out!”

“Mr. Claymore—”

“I didn’t mean for the actual performance, silly,” said my mother, laughing again. “I mean for now. You oughtn’t to have left the penny there, Oliver. It can’t be good for your violin.”

“I didn’t.”

“Leave it in the case!”

“I’ll keep it in my pocket.”

“So long as there
is
one. In your gipsy costume, I mean.”

“I’d better go down to the garage and see if my halberd’s dry.”

“Don’t be long, will you?”

I went back to my halberd, bent down and touched it. The paint was still tacky and I left it where it was. Henry, being Henry, was still in the office. But when I went to him and
explained
, he had nothing to suggest. This surprised me a little for I had grown accustomed to thinking of Henry as a man who settled things. I strolled home slowly, to find my mother ready with my tea and a newly stayed hat. My father was there too, gloomily munching his way through a Cornish pasty. My mother ate nothing but talked vivaciously and moved as though a foot above the earth.

I felt a great kinship with my father.

“Well, Father? Happy in your work?”

My father turned his head and looked at me solemnly. Then he turned back and went on eating.

“You might
answer
the boy, Father!”

“Bach,” said my father. “Handel. What I enjoy is a
good
grind
!”

“Some of the
King
of
Hearts
is very tuneful,” said my mother. “You admitted as much!”

My father looked up with a haunted expression.

“Yes I did. That was the first time I heard it.”

My mother supervised my change into a gipsy costume and advised me on makeup. My moustache was particularly fierce. Then they went off together to take up their positions in the orchestra pit. The streets near the Town Hall were a
remarkable
sight. Ladies in ample and most improbable crinolines, guardsmen with helmets and plumes, a yokel or two, flitted from one side of the Square to the other and clambered furtively into shelter up the stairs under the Town Hall. I was encouraged by this exhibition to think that I myself might not be noticed; so carrying my violin case I crept through the Square. But when I reached the stairs it was clearly no time to ascend them—they were jammed with
helmets
and crinolines. I thought I would investigate the chances of entering by the main door since any possible audience would surely not have arrived yet. I stole through the market space under the Town Hall and peeped round into the High Street and my heart fell first into my buckled shoes, then leapt right up into my throat.

There was a queue at the main door of the Town Hall. I had known, in some sort of abstract sense, that people would attend the performance; but here they were, solid, real and alive. I knew them all and by dint of a kind of interior determination and extreme care in my movements could pass them in the street without blushing too deeply or falling over my feet. Normally I hoped myself and sometimes believed myself to be at worst unnoticeable, at best, invisible. Now I saw that I was to exhibit myself, not in theory but in horrible fact to these real, queuing people; was to assault their ears with the inadequacy of my double stopping. My very arms began to shiver at the enormity of it and I shrank back into the shadows of the Town Hall and the temporary safety of its pillars. The queue filed silently into the entrance hall. From above my head I heard the sudden blast of
Sergeant
Major O’Donovan’s trombone. It was the overture, and we were off. I hurried to the stairs but it was still jammed and I had another worry. I could not see where I was to leave my violin case; so I ran home again, thinking how calm and attractive our sitting room looked, and left it there. I ran back with my violin in one hand and bow in the other, and hearing that the overture was finished, began to burrow my way up the stairs. They were crowded with fierce and nervous persons who had no care for me nor my instrument. I managed to get up to the first corner, and was carried to the second by a surge of performers which left me only just off stage. It was here that I remembered I had not inserted my penny between the strings and I tried to get back down the stairs. This led to a series of passionate arguments all
conducted
in a whispering hiss and I lost them all. I could have cleared a way easily enough by brute strength, but some of the blockage consisted of relatively delicate girls and in any case I was carrying my violin. I pulled myself together and used my intelligence. Whenever a made-up face thrust itself into mine and hissed at me, I told it I needed a penny. Had it a penny? But there was not a single penny, apparently, in the whole mob, and some of them were even callous enough to laugh at me. Then my moustache fell off, and the crush was too complete for me to retrieve it. My last hope—that of being thoroughly disguised—was gone. I gave up,
submitted
to my fate and stood just behind a painted flat, waiting for Mr. Claymore to give me my cue. There was a horrible silent pressure coming now, not from the cast on the stairs but from the unseen audience. I began to shiver and my hands froze on the violin. Every instruction went completely out of my head.

“I’m beginning to find it
the
most enchanting place in the world!”

I took a splendid stride beyond the painted flat, and stood on the stage, blinded by the lights.

As I stood there, blinking in the light and frozen to my violin, there came first a solitary clap, then another, then a warm flow of applause. There was a kind of ‘coo’ in it. It was clear that I was recognized, known, the dispenser’s son; clear too, that I was one of the right sort of people. In a flash I understood that the faces in the street had noticed me and had approved my conduct, or at least, condoned it. From fright, panic even, I soared to the other extreme of
self-confidence
. Upright, a musician to the fingertips, a violinist who had not merely got a certificate but could play as well, I struck my first chord. My fingers seemed warm and live, my bowing arm loose and agile. I had no doubts at all, and I played as loudly as Mrs. Underhill sang. When I finished my piece—knowing in advance that my last three spectacular double-stopped chords were going to be exact and
stupendously
resonant—the applause was instantaneous and
overwhelming
. My new selfconfidence and selfpossession did not desert me. I was more accustomed to the lights now and I could see my mother at the piano, nodding her head and laughing and applauding. I bowed with much composure; and as I straightened up, a bag of money flashed past my face and struck the cyclorama. I bowed again, backing off stage. There was stamping from the audience.

“’core! ’core!”

I had modesty enough to believe this was going too far. It was, after all, Mr. Claymore’s scene and I did not want to spoil it for him. The sweat cooling on me, I edged myself back among the throng on the stairs, smiling gently and courteously to each person in turn from the height of my new stature. I had plenty of time, most of the evening indeed, before I needed to become a beefeater and already I was feeling it would be something of an anticlimax. Still there was consolation in the thought of how easy it would be. No playing, no acting. Just dress the scene. I came out at the bottom of the stairs and found the evening air astonishingly fresh. I stood there for a while, enjoying the sheer normality of things and the memory of my triumph.

Mr. De Tracy was leaning against one of the pillars a yard or two away. He was still smiling gently.

“Whither away, laddy?”

“I’ve got to get changed. Weren’t you round in front then, sir?”

“I felt that standing out
here
—one was able to concentrate wholly on the music. Did you have any difficulties?”

“I didn’t catch the money, come to think of it. And my moustache came off.”

Mr. De Tracy smiled down and uttered sweet breath.

“Charming, charming!”

He felt in the skirts of his coat and produced a bottle which he held up to the light, discovered to be empty and replaced.

“I think the two of us might steal off for a drink, don’t you, Oliver?”

“I’m in costume!”

“So am I. May I drop the ludicrous affectation of calling you ‘laddy’?”

“Did you hear me play?”

“I did indeed. Something told me you didn’t have a penny with you.”

“I’m awfully sorry!”

Mr. De Tracy quivered about the knees.

“It won’t have pleased your hated rival.”

“My what?”

“Our splendid male lead.”

I swallowed, looking up at him. He smiled back, breathing the memory of gin at me. I gaped, but strangely, did not blush.

“How—?”

“The manly feet turned ever so slightly in. The look of—hangdog adoration. Charming, charming!”

“I didn’t—”

“Your secret is safe with me.”

“She doesn’t—”

He put a long arm round my shoulder. It was oddly pleasant and secure.

“She doesn’t know much, does she? I think it’s time you were cured.”

“As long as I live—”

He massaged my shoulder.

“Shock treatment.”

“I’m all right. Honestly.”

“Ten guineas and a third class return. I suppose one can’t complain. One does of course. And the need to escape is so desperate that by the end, most of the ten guineas—However. Come to the mausoleum.”

“Where’s that?”

I saw he was looking at the Crown; and broke out in nervous expostulation.

“Oh I say! I’d have to change, first! After all—I live here!”

“The only consolation I can offer you for such a fate, Oliver, is a large gin. You’ve lots of time before you dress Mr. Claymore’s scene for him.”

“I thought you called him ‘Norman.’”

Mr. De Tracy nodded, gently.

“Yes, I do, don’t I?”

“But oughtn’t you to be round in front, sir?”

“I am,” he breathed down at me. “You know I am, don’t you, Oliver? You can vouch for me, can’t you?”

I laughed excitedly.

“You bet!”

“And call me ‘Evelyn.’”

“Like Norman?”

“
Not
like Norman, child. Like my friends.”

“Golly.”

Outside the Crown he held me back, and stood, looking at the Town Hall, his head cocked on one side.

“Judging by the complete absence of sound, Mr. Claymore is singing.”

I giggled, loving him.

“Yes! Yes! My God!”

“I’ve produced them, you see—for my sins—so I know all about them. Particularly about
her
.”

“How?”

“By what Mr. Shaw calls ‘The woman in myself’. I have a great deal of woman in me, Oliver. So I know, you see.”