Swan Song. Edmund Crispin

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СКАЧАТЬ and his anger with Shorthouse rose afresh. To calm himself, he took a third piece of chewing-gum. It was a pity the stuff lost its taste so quickly, and became merely rubbery.

      A few moments later he was joined by Dennis Rutherston, the producer, and a dark, rather ill-looking young man whom he vaguely remembered as being the apprentice whose sole duty it is, in the first act, to explain (in two words) the absence of Niklaus Vogel from the Masters’ gathering.

      ‘It’s a trial,’ said Rutherston, ‘not being able to move people when they’re singing. A convention, if you ask me.’ He was a melancholy, youngish man who was never to be seen without a battered trilby hat on his head.

      ‘It sends one out of tune,’ Adam told him kindly.

      ‘And what a nuisance Shorthouse is being … The meadow scene’s going to be an unholy muddle,’ Rutherston prognosticated gloomily. ‘These damned apprentices will not stand still when they get to their places. They seem to imagine that if they shift about from foot to foot it produces an appearance of animation. Actually, it looks like a mass attack of incipient D.T.s.’

      Beyond them, the music ceased abruptly. ‘Hullo,’ muttered Rutherston. ‘What now?’

      ‘It seems impossible to rehearse this work for five minutes’ – Peacock’s voice was shaking – ‘without an obbligato of muffled altercation from the wings. Will you please be quiet!’

      ‘That’s us,’ said Rutherston, faintly surprised. ‘Well, anyway, I must be off.’ As the music started again, he drifted away, followed by the dark young man.

      ‘God help us all,’ said Adam to himself, with some feeling. He had not liked the nerve-racked tone of Peacock’s voice, which suggested an imminent explosion. And he knew from experience that if one person loses control of himself at a rehearsal, the rest always begin to sulk, and the only thing to do is to pack up and go home. He devoutly hoped that Shorthouse would keep quiet for a while.

      Magdalena trotted to the stage and held her brief colloquy with Eva. It occurred to Adam that he had better get upstage in readiness for his entry, and he affixed his chewing-gum providently to a piece of scenery. Damn Shorthouse, he thought, as he passed Beckmesser twanging faintly at his lute; damn the man.

      In another moment Joan was rushing to greet him. ‘Hero, poet, and my only friend!’ she sang, embracing him, and added under her breath: ‘You smell revoltingly of peppermint.’

      Very much to Adam’s surprise, the rest of the second act passed without untoward incident. The lovers attempted to elope and were foiled by Sachs: Beckmesser performed his ludicrous serenade and was chased by David amid a rout of apprentices and masters (‘Looks like a lot of fairies,’ said Rutherston with disapproval, ‘dancing a ballet’); sleepy-eyed, the night-watchman came on, intoned his formula, blew his horn; and to echoes of the summer-night motif and of Beckmesser’s serenade the music came to an end. But Adam suspected that Shorthouse, whose tactics in nuisance were subtle, was merely holding his fire until the third act: and events proved him to be right.

      The cast gathered on the stage to hear the respective strictures of conductor, producer, and chorus-master. There followed a quarter-hour break, in which people drifted out to get a cup of tea. Adam joined Joan Davis and Barfield, who was eating an apple, in the stalls.

      ‘There are times,’ he said, ‘when I really think we ought to get together and raise Hades about Shorthouse.’

      ‘Calm before the storm,’ said Barfield indistinctly. ‘That’s all this is. But if you ask me, the management wouldn’t take it kindly.’

      ‘For the simple reason,’ Joan put in, ‘that they don’t realize what a marvel Peacock is with the orchestra. He makes that cynical old gang of scrapers and blowers sound positively beautiful.’

      ‘It’s youth,’ Barfield mumbled through his apple. ‘Emotional osmosis.’

      ‘Where is he, by the way?’ Adam asked. ‘Has he gone out?’

      He stared about him. On the stage a number of unlikely objects which had been temporarily employed to represent a Nuremberg street were now being shifted about to represent a meadow. In his gallery at the back, the electrician was conversing with a couple of apprentices. And several members of the chorus were wandering dispiritedly up and down the gangways of the auditorium. But of Peacock there was no sign.

      ‘Having a heart-to-heart with Shorthouse, perhaps,’ suggested Barfield. ‘Poor devil.’ He took out a piece of cake and offered it perfunctorily to Adam and Joan; he was obviously relieved when they refused.

      The dark young man whom Adam had seen with the producer crossed the back of the stage, talking to Judith Haynes. ‘Who’s that?’ Adam enquired generally.

      ‘The man?’ Joan sat up to get a better look. ‘Oh, Boris somebody. One of the apprentices.’

      ‘Isn’t the girl something to do with Shorthouse?’

      ‘As to that,’ said Joan rather definitely, ‘I couldn’t say. If so, I’m sorry for her. She’s a pretty child.’

      ‘Chorus?’

      ‘Yes. One of the boatload of maidens. It’s she who dances with David.’

      ‘Oh, yes, so it is.’ Adam considered. ‘I felt sure I’d seen her with Shorthouse, but she looks very much attached to that young man.’

      ‘Promiscuous probably,’ said Barfield, dropping cake-crumbs on to his knee. ‘Are we doing scene one of the last act? If so, I’ve time to go out and get a bite to eat.’

      Joan shook her head. ‘No, only the second scene. Just as well, too. Everyone’s a bit worn.’

      Barfield was staring at the door leading backstage, which now opened. ‘Cripes,’ he said. ‘Here’s Mephisto. Turn on the charm, everyone.’

      Shorthouse came up to them, sat down, and heaved a sigh. He smelled, as usual, of gin.

      ‘Thank God the show’s in a week,’ he said. ‘I can’t stand much more of this. Peacock’s all right,’ – he spoke with such manifest insincerity that Adam started – ‘but he can’t make up his mind about anything.’

      Joan said: ‘Are you deliberately trying to harry him into a nervous breakdown, Edwin?’

      ‘Good heavens, Joan’ – Shorthouse looked genuinely shocked – ‘what’s put that idea into your head? I’m sorry if I’ve been holding the production up, but I must understand what I’m supposed to be doing. Yet every time I ask, I get some kind of vulgar insult hurled at me … Not that I mind, personally – the man’s inexperienced and he’s obviously nervous. But I’m worried about the production as a whole. This is the first time Meistersinger’s been done since before the war, and it seems to me that for that reason it’s more than ordinarily important to get everything exactly right.’ He paused, and involuntarily a smile flitted across his face. ‘I’ve been considering going to the management and asking them to replace Peacock.’

      ‘Don’t be such a damned fool,’ said Adam, more sharply than he had intended. ‘He’s under contract.’

      ‘So am I,’ Shorthouse countered unpleasantly. ‘But that’s not going to stop me walking out if rehearsals continue СКАЧАТЬ