It was then that Tim decided that he had had enough and put forward his proposition. It was simply that, on the first night, he would light the play from his own original plan. Once the curtain was up, there would be nothing Harold or anyone else could do about it, and he would hardly wish to make a scene during intermission. Of course, it would mean the end of their time at the Latimer, but both were prepared to face that and had already put out feelers toward a group in Uxbridge. They had sneaked into the theater on Sunday afternoon to reset everything and run through the new plot.
Now, Nicholas entered the dressing room bursting with suppressed information and squeezed into the only remaining space. Around him actors were nearly all in costume. Von Strack was pulling on white stockings, David Smy struggled with his cravat, the Venticelli—caped and masked and looking more like bats than grasshoppers— whirled about with seedily sinister affection. The air smelled of powder, after-shave, and hair spray. Nicholas got into his lace-trimmed shirt, picked up a tube of Kamera Klear, and rubbed some in, watching his pallid complexion turn a warm apricot. He wore very little makeup now, and looked back to his debut in The Crucible, where he sported heavy lake wrinkles and wisps of crinkly snow-white hair with not a little condescension.
On the other side of the room Esslyn was shaking powder onto his wig, and Nicholas, seeing in his mirror the other man’s reflection, was uncomfortably reminded of his own loose-lippedness. Behind Nicholas, the emperor Joseph, heavy in white satin and jeweled decorations, paced slowly up and down like a great glittering slug. Nicholas imagined the small rouged lips pushed forward and whispering what had once been his own secret into the collective company ear.
Esslyn, apparently unaware of his invisible horns, was looking especially pleased with himself, like a cat that has swallowed a particularly succulent canary. He lifted his hands and adjusted his wig, and Nicholas saw his rings sparkle. He wore six. Most were encrusted with stones, and one had short, savage spines and perched on his finger like an embattled baby porcupine. Now, he pushed a tin of Cremine that had had the temerity to stray onto his turf smartly aside and began to speak.
Even as he tuned in, Nicholas knew he would not like what the other man was going to say. There was relish in his voice; it curled with spite. He was talking about Deidre. Relaying something that she had told him in confidence but that he felt was too delightful not to pass on. Apparently she had received a telephone call at work last week from the police. It seemed her father had wandered off from the day center in the rain without a coat or even a jacket, and had been found half an hour later attempting to direct the traffic at the junction of Casey Street and Hillside.
“So I said,” continued Esslyn, “trying to keep a straight face at the thought of that senile old fool out in the pouring rain, ‘How dreadful.’ And she said, ‘I know’— he paused then, giving them the benefit of his immaculate timing—‘he doesn’t know that area at all.’ ”
Spontaneously they nearly all roared. Nicholas included. True, he laughed less long and heartily than the others, but still, he did laugh. A moment later Deidre appeared in the doorway.
“A quarter of an hour, everyone.”
There was an immediate chorus of overloud and falsely grateful thank you’s. Only Esslyn, carefully applying lip liner, said nothing. It was hard to tell, thought Nicholas, whether she had overheard or not. Her high color would conceal a blush, and as her expression was always riddled with anxiety, this gave no clue, either. She stood poised in the doorway for all the world, as the Everards said the second she’d disappeared, as if she was about to break into a gallop. To do the dressing room credit, there was no laughter this time.
Someone got up and followed her out, and Nicholas nearly got up and followed him, he was so sick of them all. He felt he should try to make amends, and pictured himself approaching Deidre in the wings. But what could he say? I wasn’t one of those who laughed? Deeply embarrassing as well as untrue. I’m sorry, Deidre, I didn’t mean to be hurtful and I’m really sad about your father? Even stickier, and what if she hadn’t overheard at all? In that case, putting her so firmly in the picture would simply cause unnecessary pain. Then, to make himself feel better, he started to feel irritated with her. Honestly, he thought, for someone always dependent on the kindness of strangers, she could certainly pick her confidants. A callous sod like Esslyn was the last person she should be opening her heart to. What else did she expect? But shifting a fair proportion of his guilt onto Deidre’s already bowed shoulders made him feel even worse. He became aware that he was furious with Esslyn for catapulting him into this emotional distraction when all his thoughts should be channeled toward Act I, scene 1. Almost before he knew he meant to, he spoke.
“You know your trouble, Esslyn?” Esslyn’s hands were still. He looked inquiringly into his glass. “You’re too full of the milk of human kindness.”
There was an immediate hush. Blanched faces turned exaggeratedly to each other. Boris stopped pacing and stared aghast at the back of Nicholas’s head. Van Swieten said, “You fool.” Nicholas stared back at them all defiantly. This respect for Esslyn could be taken too far. He may have been the company’s leading man for fifteen years, but that didn’t make him God Almighty.
“Do you know what you’ve done?” asked Boris.
“I’ve spoken my mind,” said Nicholas. “Anyone’d think it was a hanging matter.”
“You’ve quoted from The Scottish Play.”
“What?”
“ ‘Yet I do fear thy nature,’ ” quavered Boris. “ ‘It is too full of the milk of human kindness—’ ”
“Shut up!” yelled Orsini-Rosenberg. “You’ll make it worse.”
“That’s right,” said Clive Everard. “Nicholas did it unknowingly.”
“It’s Boris who’ll bring trouble on our heads.”
“You must both go out and turn round three times and come back in,” said Von Strack.
“I’ll do nothing of the sort,” said Nicholas, but hesitantly. After all, if he was going to enter the profession, he should (longed to) embrace all its myths and mysteries. “It’s not as if I did it on purpose.”
“Come on.” Boris was already in the doorway. Nicholas hovered half out of his seat. “It’s the only way to avert disaster.”
“That’s true, Nicholas. There are terrible stories about what happens if you quote The Scottish Play and don’t put it right.”
“Oh … if you say so.” Nicholas joined Boris at the door. “Which way do we turn? Clockwise or anticlockwise?”
“How should I know?”
“I don’t suppose it matters.”
“It matters terribly,” called Van Swieten.
“In that case, we’ll turn three times each way.”
“But”—Boris had almost chewed off all his carmine lip rouge in his anxiety—“won’t that mean they cancel each other out?”
Colin had finished setting the pianoforte, and now disappeared behind his superb fireplace to check that the struts and weights that held it secure were firmly in position. Crouching down, he heard footsteps and, looking through the huge space beneath the mantel, saw Deidre almost run through the wings opposite. A second person followed and disappeared into the toilet, coming out again almost immediately. Colin was about to stand up and call across the stage when he was struck by something intensively furtive about the figure. It stood very still looking round the deserted wings, then it moved to the dark area at the back of the props table and bent down. A minute later it straightened up, glanced around once more, and hurried back into the bathroom. Colin crossed the stage and approached the table, but he had no time for more than a quick check (it all looked perfectly in order) when Deidre returned from the clubroom shepherding her giggling gaggle of assistants. She crossed to him and said, “Oh, Colin, would you call the five please? My father’s taxi’s due in a minute, and I have to get him to his seat.”