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“Where’s Banquo?”

“He went out. Having a pee, I suppose.”

“Give him my greetings,” said Peregrine, relieved.

On and on. The thanes, nervy and polite. The walking gents, much obliged to be visited. Finished at last.

Front-of-house waiting for him: Winty’s assistant.

“All right,” he said. “We’re pushing the whole house in. Bit of a job. There are the Royalty-hunters determined to stay in the foyer but we’ve herded them all in. Winty’s dressed up like a sore thumb and waiting in the entrance. The house is packed with security men and Bob’s your uncle. They’ve rung through to say the cars have left.”

“Away we go?”

“Away we go.”

“Beginners, please. Beginners,” said the tannoy.

The witches appeared in the shadows, came onstage, climbed the rostrum, and grouped around the gallows. Duncan and his sons and the thanes stood offstage, waiting for the short opening scene to end.

An interval of perhaps three interminable minutes. Then trumpets filled the air with their brazen splendor and were followed by the sound of a thousand people getting to their feet. Now the National Anthem. And now they settled in their seats. A peremptory buzzer. The stage director’s voice.

“Stand by. House lights. Thunder. Curtain up.”

Peregrine began to pace to and fro, to and fro. Listening.

After the fourth scene he knew. It was all right. Their hearts are in it, he thought and he crept into the Prompt-side box. Winty squeezed his arm in the darkness and said, “We’ll run for months and months. It’s a wow.”

“Thank God.”

He’d been right. They had left themselves with one more step to the top and now they took it.

You darling creatures, he thought, suddenly in love with all of them. Ah, you treasures. Bless you. Bless you.

The rest of the evening was unreal. The visit to the royal box and the royal visit to the cast. The standing ovation at the end. Everything to excess. A multiple Cinderella story. Sort of.

Emily came and hugged him and cried and said: “Oh, yes, darling. Yes. Yes.”

The company collected around him and cheered. And finally the critic whose opinion he most valued astonishingly came up to him; he said he was breaking the rule of a lifetime but it had undoubtedly been the best Macbeth since Olivier’s and the best Lady Macbeth in living memory and he must do a bolt.

“We’ll get out of this,” Peregrine said. “I’m hungry.”

“Where are we going?”

“The Wig and Piglet. It’s only minutes away and they stay open till the papers come in. The manager’s getting them for me.”

“Come on, then.”

They edged through the milling crowd of shouting visitors and out the stage door. The alley was full of people waiting for actors to appear. Nobody recognized the director. They turned into the theatre car park, managed to fiddle their way out and up the lane.

At the corner of the main street stood two lonely figures, a thin and faintly elegant woman and a small boy.

“It’s William and his mum,” said Emily.

“I want to speak to the boy.”

He pulled up beside them. Emily lowered her window. “Hullo, Mrs. Smith. Hullo, William. Are you waiting for a bus?”

“We hope we are,” said Mrs. Smith.

“You’re not doing anything of the sort,” said Peregrine. “The management looks after getting you home on the first night,” he lied. “Didn’t you know? Oh, good luck; there’s a taxi coming.” Emily waved to it. “William,” Peregrine said. William ran around to the driver’s side. Peregrine got out. “You can look after your mother, can’t you? Here you are.” He pushed a note into William’s hand. “You gave a thoroughly professional performance. Good luck to you.”

The taxi pulled up. “In you get, both of you.” He gave the driver the address.

“Yes — but — I mean —” said Mrs. Smith.

“No, you don’t.” They were bundled in. “Good-night.” He slammed the door. The taxi made off.

“Phew! That was quick,” Emily said.

“If she’d had a moment to get her second wind she’d have refused. Come on, darling. How hungry I am. You can’t think.”

The Wig and Piglet was full. The head waiter showed them to a reserved table.

“A wonderful performance, sir,” he said. “They are all saying so. My congratulations.”

“Thank you. A bottle of your best champagne, Marcello.”

“It awaits you.” Marcello beamed and waved grandly at the wine bucket on their table.

“Really? Thank you.”

“Nothing,” said Peregrine when he had gone, “succeeds like success.” He looked at Emily’s excited face. “I’m sorry,” he said gently. “On a night like this one should not think forward or back. I found myself imagining what it would have been like if we’d flopped.”

“Don’t. I know what you mean but don’t put the stars out.”

“No husbandry in our Heaven, tonight?” He reached out a hand. “It’s a bargain,” he said.

“A bargain. It’s because you’re hungry.”

“You may be right.”

An hour later he said she was a clever old trout. They had a cognac each to prove it and began to talk about the play.

“Gaston,” Peregrine said, “may be dotty but he’s pretty good where he is tonight, wouldn’t you say?”

“Exactly right. He’s like death itself, presiding over its feast.”

“You don’t think we’ve gone too far with him?”

“Not an inch.”

“Good. Winty says it’ll run for as long as Dougal and Maggie can take it.”

“That’s a matter of temperament, isn’t it?”

“I suppose so. For Maggie, certainly. She’s rock-calm and perfectly steady. It’s Dougal who surprises me. I’d expected a good, even a harrowing, performance but not so deeply frightening a one. He’s got that superb golden-reddish appearance and I thought, we must be very clever about makeup so that the audience will see it disintegrate. But, upon my soul, he does disintegrate, he is bewitched, he has become the devil’s puppet. I began, even, to wonder if it was all right or if it might be embarrassing, as if he’d discarded his persona and we’d come face to face with his naked personal collapse. Which would be dreadful and wrong. But no. It hasn’t happened. He’s come near the brink in the last scene, but he’s still Macbeth. Thanks to Gaston, he fights like a man possessed but always with absolute control. And so — evilly. For Macduff, it’s like stamping out some horror that’s lain under a stone waiting for him.”

“And his whole performance?”

“If I could scratch about for something wrong I would. But no, he’s going great guns. The straightforward avenger.”

“I think he plays the English scene beautifully. I’m sorry,” said Emily. “I wish I could find something wrong and out-of-key or wanting readjustment somewhere but I can’t. Your problem will be to keep them up to this level.”

They talked on. Presently the door into the servery opened and their waiter came in with an armful of Sunday papers.

Peregrine’s heart suddenly thumped against his ribs. He took up the top one and flipped over the pages.

At Last!

A Flawless Macbeth!

And two rave columns.

Emily saw his open paper trembling in his hands. She went through the remaining ones, folding them back at the dramatic criticisms.

“This is becoming ridiculous,” she said.

He made a strange little sound of agreement. She shoved the little pile of papers over to him. “They’re all the same, allowing for stylistic differences.”