Peregrine turned into the theatre private car park and they got out and locked the car. The foyer was crowded and the House Full notice displayed.
“We’re in a box,” said Peregrine. “Come on. Up the stairs.”
“Super,” said the boys. The usher at the door into the circle said: “Good evening, sir,” and smiled at them. He wagged his head. Peregrine and the boys left the queue and slipped behind him into the circle.
They passed around the back of the circle into the middle box. Peregrine bought them a programme each. The programme girl smiled upon them. The house was almost full. A tall man, alone, came down the center aisle and made for a management seat in the stalls. He looked up, saw Peregrine, and waved his programme. Peregrine answered.
“Who are you waving to, Pop?”
“Do you see that very tall man just sitting down, in the third row?”
“Yes. He looks super,” said Crispin. “Who is he?”
“Chief Superintendent Alleyn. C.I.D. He was here on our opening night.”
“Why’s he come again?” asked Robin.
“Presumably because he likes the play.”
“Oh.”
“Actually he didn’t get an uninterrupted view on the first night. There were Royals. He was helping the police look after them.”
“So he had to sit watching the audience and not the actors?”
“Yes.”
A persistent buzzer began sounding in the foyer. Peregrine looked at his watch. “We’re ten minutes over time,” he said. “Give them five minutes more and then the latecomers’ll have to wait until Scene Two. No. It’s okay. Here we go.”
The house lights dimmed very slowly and the audience was silent. Now it was dark. The flash of lightning, the distant roll of thunder, the faint sound of wind. The curtain went up and the witches were at their unholy work on the gallows.
The play flowed on. Peregrine, sitting between his sons, glanced at them and wondered what was going on in their heads. He had been careful not to rub their noses into the plays and had left it to them whether or not they would read them. As far as he could make out, Mr. Perkins was not sickening Crispin with overinsistence on notes and disputed passages but had interested him first in the play itself and in the magic and strength of its language.
Robin at six years old had seen a performance of Midsummer Night’s Dream and enjoyed it for all the wrong reasons. The chief comic character, in his opinion, was Hippolyta, and he laughed very heartily at all her entrances. When Emily asked why, he said: “At her legs.” He thought Bottom a very good actor and the “audience” extremely rude to laugh at him. At nine years old he would be less surprising in his judgments.
Now, they were both very still and attentive. When Banquo and Fleance came in for their little night scene, Robin turned and looked at Peregrine. He bent down. “Nice,” Robin whispered and they nodded to each other. But later, when Macbeth began to climb the stairs, Robin’s hand felt for his father’s. Peregrine held it tightly until the end of the scene when the Porter came on. Both the boys laughed loudly at the bawdy-looking pieces of driftwood and the Porter’s description of the aggravating effects of drinking too much.
Peregrine had not seen the play for almost a week, having been in Manchester on business with the touring company. He thought the Thane had begun to cherish his lines and slow up a bit, and reminded himself to speak to him. Otherwise all was well.
In the interval, Robin visited the lavatories. Crispin said he might as well stay with him while their father had a drink with the management. They arranged to meet in the foyer, under the photo of Macbeth.
Winter Meyer came out to welcome him. They went into his office. “Still goes on,” Winty said. “Booked solid for the next six months.”
“Odd,” said Peregrine, “when you think of the superstitions. There’s a record of good business and catastrophe going back hand in hand for literally centuries.”
“Not for us, old boy.”
“Touch wood.”
“You too?” asked Winty, giving him his drink.
“No. No way. But it’s rife in the company.”
“Really?”
“Old Nina’s got the bug very badly. Her dressing-table’s like a secondhand charm shop.”
“No signs of catastrophe, though,” Winty said. “Are there?” And when Peregrine didn’t answer at once, he said sharply: “Are there?”
“There have been signs of some halfwit planting them. Whoever it is hasn’t got the results he may have hoped for. But it’s very annoying for all that. Or was. They seem to have died out.”
Winty said, after a moment: “Something rather odd happened in our office, too. It was a week before we opened. I haven’t mentioned it to anybody. Except Mrs. Abrams. And she doesn’t know what was typed and anyway she’s a clam of clams. But since you’ve brought it up —”
There was a knock at the door and at the same time the warning buzzer sounded.
“I’m sorry,” said Peregrine. “I’ll have to go. I promised my younger son. He’ll be having kittens. Thank you, Winty. I’ll come in tomorrow morning. I think we’d better have a talk about this and the other things.”
“So do I. Tomorrow. Thank you, Perry.” Peregrine opened the door, sidestepped Mrs. Abrams, and went back to the foyer.
There he found Robin under the photograph of Macbeth. “Oh, hullo,” he said casually when Peregrine reached him. “There’s the second buzz.”
“Where’s Cip?”
Crispin was in the crowd by the bookstall. He was searching his pockets. Peregrine, closely followed by Robin, worked his way over to him.
“I’ve got it all but twenty p.,” said Crispin. He clutched a book called Macbeth Through Four Centuries.
Peregrine produced a five-pound note, and handed it to the clerk. “For the book,” he said. “Come on, boys,” and they returned to their box. The interval ended, the house darkened, and the curtain rose.
On Banquo. Alone and suspicious. Macbeth questions him. He is going out? Riding? He must return. For the party. Does Fleance go with him? Yes to all those questions. There is a terrible smile on Macbeth’s face, the lips stretch back. Farewell.
Seyton is at once sent for the murderers. He has them ready and stands in the doorway and hears the wooing. Macbeth is easier, almost enjoys himself. They are his sort. He caresses them. The bargain is struck; they go off.
Now Lady Macbeth finds him: full of strange hints and of horror. There is the superb invocation to night and he leads her away. And the scene changes. Seyton joins the murderers and Banquo is dispatched.
The banquet. Seyton tells Macbeth that Fleance has escaped.
The bloodied ghost of Banquo appears among the guests.
The play began its inexorable swell toward the appointed ending. After the witches, the apparitions, the equivocal promises, comes the murder of Macduff’s wife and child.
Then Lady Macbeth, asleep and talking in that strange, metallic, nightmare voice. Macbeth again, after a long interval. He has degenerated and shrunk. He beats about him with a kind of hectic frenzy and peers hopelessly into the future. These are the death throes of a monster. Please let Macduff find him and finish it.
Macduff has found him. “Turn, hell-hound, turn!”
Robin’s hand crept into his father’s and held it fast.
The fight. Leap, clash, sweep; hoarse, snarling voices. Macbeth is beaten backward, Macduff raises his claymore, and they plunge out of sight. A scream. A thud. Silence. Then the distant approach of pipe and drums. Malcolm and his thanes come out on the upper landing. The rest of his troops march on at stage-level and up the steps with old Siward, who receives the news of his son’s death.