[Lambert and Hook 20] - Something Is Rotten Page 8

  He wasn’t going to achieve anything useful in the last hour of the working day: his thoughts were increasingly on the night’s rehearsal and his part in it. He took the draft of the poster down two floors, to the more populated part of the building, and found it noisy with conversation and laughter. This sudden cacophony of human exchange was quite startling after the isolation of his studio room at the top of the building. He tapped on the door of the office in the corner, put the draft of his poster in front of his boss, and said, ‘This is a first draft. I think it’s quite promising, but I’d like you to have a look at it before I go any further.’

  Without waiting for a reaction, Carey turned and left the room and the building. The older man stared after his young worker, half-irritated and half-amused, wondering exactly what went on in that talented, eccentric, very private mind. He looked down at the first draft of the poster. It was both witty and striking, making its point in the spare, precise lines of the drawing, scarcely needing a caption to convey its message. It would need very few amendments before they went ahead and printed it.

  Two girls from the office called greetings after Michael Carey as he moved out into the last dim light of the November day in the car park. With his fair hair and large, brilliant blue eyes, he attracted more than his measure of female attention. Usually he was polite and cheerful, but tonight he was too preoccupied to make more than a token acknowledgement of the young women.

  The old Fiesta started readily enough. He’d paid very little for it, but it had been a good buy; Michael Carey breathed his usual silent prayer of thanks to the young man who had found it for him six months ago. It had been an advantage having a friend who worked in a garage; he wasn’t usually able to turn his friendships to such useful ends.

  Michael lived four miles west of Cheltenham, in the village of Norton. He was well before the rush hour traffic tonight and home within quarter of an hour of leaving work. He hadn’t many possessions in the little flat; he had learned to travel light over the last few years. But he had been here for five months now, as long as he had spent in any one place in the last seven years, and he looked forward to reaching it in the evenings as his haven from the world.

  It was really a granny annexe, built on to the end of a big detached house to accommodate a relative who had long since died. But it suited Michael Carey admirably, giving him the privacy he had long desired but failed to achieve. The rent was low, because the owner wanted someone reliable to keep an eye on the main house during his frequent trips abroad. Michael had no real idea what an appropriate rent for his comfortable retreat would be, but he was sure that he was paying much less than the economic price.

  The owner was absent at present. The gaunt, irregular outline of the building was completely unlit as Michael drove around the curving drive and parked in front of his flat. He had made no plans when he left work, but by the time he reached Norton he knew what he was going to do. He did not bother with the mug of tea he often made himself whilst the place was warming up. Instead, he snatched a small drink of water and changed quickly into the dark blue track suit and the expensive trainers which were his one extravagant purchase since he came here.

  He slipped his small torch into his pocket, but found there was just enough light left in the western sky for him to see the deserted country lane. He dropped easily into the steady, loping stride which covered the ground so quickly. He had never been much good at any of the sports they had made him play at school and had eventually developed many ingenious ways of avoiding them. But this was different. He had been introduced to jogging a year ago, and had taken to it with unexpected enthusiasm. It now seemed as natural to him to run as it was for the horses in the fields or the stags on the moors.

  He wouldn’t go very far tonight: three hours from now, he would need all his energy and concentration for the rehearsal, when he wanted to impress everyone and convince them that Hamlet was a realistic proposition. He couldn’t have it snatched away from him now, when it was so nearly in his grasp. He dropped into the steady rhythm which was so important for running, using as usual lines from the play to beat time with his steps. Iambic pentameters were ideal for building up the rhythm of running. He’d used ‘To be or not to be...’ for many weeks, pounding his way through the metre of the soliloquy, beating the rhythm of the verse into his subconscious with the dropping of his feet on the tarmac.

  Tonight they’d be doing the first scenes of the play. He seized on that important early line which sets the tone of the first act. ‘Something is rotten in the state of Denmark,’ Michael Carey chanted softly and rhythmically, hammering it out over and over again as he ran, an invisible smile suffusing his face with pleasure in the darkness.

  Ian Proudfoot tried to control his excitement and his rising sense of anticipation as he ate his evening meal with his wife. However, he found himself at a loss for conversational topics. He knew he must avoid any mention of the evening’s activity if he was not to antagonize Angela, but his mind wouldn’t settle genuinely upon anything else as being of comparable importance or interest.

  He was confined to largely monosyllabic replies to his wife’s unimaginative trivia. He found himself suddenly surprised by the realization that he wanted to tell her that he had loved her once, could love her again if she would only try to recapture some of the humour and flexibility and liveliness she had possessed in the first years of their marriage.

  But she would take that as a criticism, and Angela didn’t respond well to any form of criticism.

  She said suddenly, throwing in the word she had thought up during the afternoon, ‘I haven’t forgotten you’re going off posturing tonight, so there’s no point in keeping quiet about it.’

  For a lunatic, intoxicating moment he was tempted to tell her that he would be playing a king in control of his court, with a lascivious queen who could hardly keep her hands off him. Instead, he said, ‘It will help to keep me sane, I suppose, dear. It might help me to escape from the drab world in which I have to exist from day to day into a little harmless excitement. My working world, I mean, of course!’ he added hastily.

  ‘It will be damp and draughty in that hall tonight,’ said Angela, with undisguised relish.

  ‘I expect it will.’ He tried to be light and amusing. ‘Still, we have to make sacrifices for the sake of our art, don’t we?’

  Where once she would have responded with a remark in a similar light, self-mocking vein, she merely said, ‘I expect you’ll be asking me if I’ve anything for a cold in a couple of days, and then snivelling all over the house and your clients at the bank. Peter bloody Pan!’

  How could he tell her about the familiar surge of adrenalin he could get in this and in no other way? How could he convey that he would come alive in the next few hours of trial and error and progress, as he now did in no other section of his life?

  He said mildly, allowing just a little of his excitement into the words, ‘It might just be very good, this one, you know. You might yet be able to boast a little to your friends about your husband’s triumph as the wicked king!’ Fortunately, the phone rang before she could reply. It was their youngest daughter, squeezing a phone call to her parents into the crowded schedule of her first year at university. Ian Proudfoot noted how his wife’s voice changed and softened as she responded to her daughter’s account of her life, how it seemed to change her back into the woman he had known and loved and still wished to love.

  He changed into his casual clothes for the rehearsal, found Angela still in animated conversation when he came down the stairs, had time for the briefest exchange with his daughter himself before she rang off. He left the house before the pleasure in the contact with her daughter could drain away from his wife’s face.

  In Bert Hook’s house, the anticipation of the first important rehearsal was very different.

  His two boisterous boys were intrigued by this new departure in a parent they thought they had safely summed up and filed away. Eleven-year-old Luke said, ‘I expect i
f this goes well, you could be “discovered”, Dad. This year Shakespeare, next year a pop idol!’ He strummed an imaginary guitar and leapt about the room grotesquely in his imitation of a boys’ band leader.

  Jack studied his younger brother’s efforts dismissively. ‘I see Dad as a serious artist. Discovering talents that he and the world never knew he had. Perhaps throwing up his dull life in the police and going off somewhere quite different.’ He leapt across the room to place an imaginary microphone two inches from his mother’s mouth and intoned in an unnaturally deep voice, ‘Eleanor Hook, how do you react to this alarming development in your middle-aged husband?’

  His mother sighed. ‘I shall just have to come to terms with it, I suppose. As I have had to come to terms with having lunatic children in a crazy world.’

  Bert contented himself with a portentous diatribe about homework and left the trio with a wry smile. It was only after he had driven two miles through the autumn darkness that his trepidation about what he had committed himself to returned.

  Jack Dawes’s mother was full of encouragement. ‘It’s just what you need, son. It will get you in with a better set.’ She leaned towards him as if to impart some startling original thought. ‘It’s who you know, not what you know, that’s important in this life.’

  Jack set out with a brave face and considerable inner apprehension. At school, amateur dramatics had all been a bit of a lark. Now that he was going to have to mix with older and very different people, he wondered whether he would be up to it. He decided to stop off at the empty shop where he knew his mates would be. A spliff of pot was what he needed.

  The back door was open as he knew it would be, and the three of them were sitting on the floor, backs against the wall, with the sweet smell of the cannabis dominating the room. He took his spliff, hesitated for a moment, then sat down on the floor opposite them, feeling against his back the sharp edge of the hole where the plaster had dropped away. A boy who was a year younger than him watched Jack’s every movement, then sniffed hungrily at his cannabis, as if he was reluctant to let even the thin smoke from it get away from him. He kept all expression out of his old-young face as he said with affected indifference, ‘You coming out with us tonight, Jack?’

  Dawes said, ‘I got other plans for tonight. I told you that yesterday.’

  ‘I thought you might have changed your mind. There’s a chance of a rumble, tonight. Other people are muscling in on our patch. We might need you.’

  For a moment, he was tempted by the prospect of continuing his leadership of this disreputable, dangerous group, by the excitements of what the night might bring for them. The status of leader and the thrills of breaking the law seemed much more attractive than the uncertainties of the effete world of amateur theatre. Then he said, ‘No, I’ve got other plans for tonight, like I said.’

  ‘I thought you were going to batter that Logan man. Thought you were going to see him off.’ The boy did not look at Jack now; he watched the smoke from his spliff wreathing up past the bulb towards the invisible ceiling.

  Jack couldn’t remember telling him about the play and his plans. But word got round quickly among a group like this, with mischief on their minds and too much time on their hands. He said carefully, ‘That was when we were kids. I might still batter him, but I’ll make sure the filth can’t pin it on me, if I do.’

  ‘If you say so.’ His follower allowed himself a secret, knowing grin.

  ‘That’s exactly what I do say!’ Jack Dawes stormed out of the empty shop. He stood panting in the night air, until he felt his breathing slow and he had control of his anger.

  Then he threw himself across the Yamaha 350 which was the envy of his peers and flung out a few pebbles behind him as he roared impressively away. He still wasn’t sure that he was doing the right thing.

  Maggie Dalrymple was trying to reassure a man who was never going to accept reassurance. ‘I don’t expect to be very late, but you can never be sure how long these first rehearsals are going to last,’ she said apprehensively.

  ‘Too long. They always do. But you’ll be enjoying every minute of it, I expect,’ grunted her husband. During the day, he had been determined to be relaxed, even gracious, but now that the moment had come his resentment had come bubbling to the surface.

  ‘I wouldn’t go if it didn’t give me pleasure, would I, Andrew? You know I enjoy the Players, and I’ll never get another chance to act in Shakespeare. That’s what you said when you hired the hall for us.’ She went over to where he had slumped with the paper and perched herself on the side of his armchair. ‘You’ll be proud of me, when it all comes off. We’re a long way from discussing costumes, but I suspect I might even be wearing a nightie in one scene. You might even quite fancy me.’ She dragged her hand seductively across his chest like some latter-day Delilah.

  It was the wrong approach. ‘Prancing about on stage for all the world to see!’ he said, his outrage only a little exaggerated. ‘You’re not twenty-one any more, you know!’

  ‘Neither of us is, unfortunately, Andrew.’ She ran the back of her fingers across his forehead, took a deep breath, and plunged on recklessly. ‘But I seem to remember from last night that someone retains all his old vigour and enthusiasm!’

  He smiled a little, despite himself. She surely couldn’t have forgotten the clumsy fumblings before he had got into his stride or how quickly it had all been over. But Andrew Dalrymple, like many middle-aged men, was not and did not want to be objective about his sexual performance. He took her hand in his, pressed his lips briefly against the back of it, and said, ‘Well, don’t be late, then. And don’t come back exhausted from your efforts.’

  They giggled amicably for a moment, and then she kissed him, suddenly and passionately. She left him without another word. It was only after she had gone that Andrew Dalrymple fell to wondering why Maggie should seem to be sexually stimulated by the prospect of her evening’s labours.

  Becky Clegg said firmly, ‘I’ll be moving out at the end of the month.’ Now was as good a time as any to tell them, when she was going to be safely out of the way for the rest of the evening.

  ‘This is part of your new life, is it?’ The boy with the lank yellow hair threw the sneer from his face into his voice.

  ‘I’ve got myself a proper job. It’s the right time to move on, that’s all.’

  ‘Not good enough for you any more, are we?’ The girl on the stained sofa looked at her resentfully.

  It was so nearly true that she didn’t deny it. ‘You’ll get someone else to share the rent easily enough. It’s not much, though it’s plenty for this place.’ She looked at the paint peeling from the ceiling, the smears of beer and wine on the wallpaper, and congratulated herself anew on her decision to get out now.

  ‘And who’s going to help us to lift stuff?’

  Becky hesitated. ‘You can take over yourself, if you want to, Carol. And Wayne will take care of the rough stuff.’ It didn’t sound convincing, because she wasn’t convinced of it herself.

  ‘We’ll come unstuck without you. The bloody pigs’ll have us.’

  The boy bestirred himself. ‘It’s true, girl. You’re the best, when it comes to lifting stuff and getting away.’ He hadn’t had a lot of practice at flattery, and it showed.

  Becky sighed. ‘No one gets away with it for ever. I always meant to stop before I ended up inside. You should do the same.’

  The girl said with a resentful whine, ‘It’s all right for you, Becky Clegg. You’ve got brains. You’ve got options the rest of us don’t have.’

  ‘Anyone can get a job, nowadays. You can get a job in the supermarket, if you want one.’ But even as she said it, she knew that the girl wouldn’t do that. She’d never be able to hold a job down, with the drugs and the sort of life she’d got used to leading. She’d never accept the discipline of long hours and taking orders. Becky was finding it hard herself, but she was going to stick at it. She looked at her expensive watch which was a reminder of that former life.
‘I’ve got to be on my way. I’ve got a lift.’

  Her companions continued to sit and stare sullenly ahead of them. She was glad to be out of the place and away from them. She’d move out as soon as she could - before the end of the month if she could find somewhere to go.

  She heard the noise of the engine before the motor cycle turned the corner of the street. She put on the helmet he gave her and threw her right leg over the pillion as if she had been travelling like this all her life. She mustn’t let him know how nervous she was. She shut her eyes and clasped her hands tightly around Jack Dawes’s waist. He twisted the grip and the big Yamaha leapt away beneath them.

  Terence Logan was savouring the buzz he always got before the first major rehearsal.

  Until now, he hadn’t really believed in his heart of hearts that this project would ever get off the ground. As he’d kept insisting all along, it was a hugely ambitious undertaking for amateurs, a production of Hamlet. It remained so, even with the fairly savage cuts they’d now agreed upon. But he had a cast which was stronger in all the major roles than he’d been able to envisage when the Mettlesham Players had first approached him with the idea.

  He acknowledged to himself that he was in fact delighted with the cast he’d assembled.

  There was no denying that he’d got serious history with most of his principals; there were some of them he’d cross the street to avoid in the rest of his life. But that didn’t matter: the play was the thing. As long as they were good in the parts they were playing on stage, that was all that mattered. No doubt they felt something similar about him as director.

  He’d directed all of them before, though not in the immediate past. Well, all except that lumpish detective fellow, who’d come to the house the other night and proved unexpectedly intelligent. He’d make an excellent Polonius, with a few pointers from his director. And it might even be good to have an experienced policeman around in case any of his old enemies cherished ideas of revenge.