“Well,” Menteith said reasonably, “what’s it about? Four murders. Three witches. A fiendish lady. A homicidal husband. A ghost. And the death of the name-part with his severed head on the end of a claymore. Rather a bellyful to shake off, isn’t it?”

“It’s melodrama pure and simple,” said Angus. “It just happens to be written by a man with a knack for words.”

Lennox said: “What a knack! No. That doesn’t really account for the thing I mean. We don’t get it in the other tragedies, do we? Not in Hamlet or Lear. Or even in Othello, grim as it is.”

“Perhaps it’s the reason for all the superstitions.”

“I wonder,” Ross said. “It may be. They all say the same thing, don’t they? Don’t speak his name. Don’t quote from it. Don’t call it by its title. Keep off.”

They turned into a narrow side street.

“I tell you what,” Caithness said. “I don’t mind betting anyone who’s prepared to take me up that Perry’s the only one of the whole company who really doesn’t believe a word of it. I mean that — really. He doesn’t do anything, but that’s so that our apple-carts won’t be upset.”

“You sound bloody sure of yourself, little man, but how do you know?” asked Menteith.

“You can tell,” said Caithness loftily.

“No, you can’t. You just kid yourself you can.”

“Oh, do shut up.”

“Okay, okay. Look, there’s Rangi. What’s he think of it all?”

“Ask him.”

“Hullo! Rangi!”

He turned, waved at the Swan, and pointed to himself

“So are we,” Angus shouted. “Join us.”

They caught up with him and all entered the barroom together.

“Look, there’s a table for six. Come on.”

They slipped into the seats. “I’ll get the beer,” Ross offered. Everybody want one?”

“Not for me,” said Rangi.

“Oh! Why not?”

“Because I do better without. Tomato juice. A double and nothing stronger with it.”

Menteith said: “I’ll have that too.”

“Two double tomatoes. Four beers,” Ross stated and went to the bar.

“Rangi,” Lennox said, “we’ve been arguing.”

“Oh? What about?”

Lennox looked at his mates. “I don’t know exactly. About the play.”

“Yes?”

Menteith said: “We were trying to get to the bottom of its power. On the face of it, it’s simply what a magical hand can do with a dose of blood-and-thunder. But that doesn’t explain the atmosphere it churns up. Or does it?”

“Suppose…” Caithness began. “You won’t mind, Rangi, will you?”

“I’ve not the faintest idea what you’re going to ask but I don’t suppose I will.”

“Well, suppose we were to offer a performance of the play on your — what do you call it —”

“The marai?”

“Yes. How would you react?”

“To the invitation or to the performance?”

“Well — to the performance, I suppose. Both, really.”

“It would depend upon the elders. If they were sticklers, really orthodox people, you would be given formal greetings, the challenge and the presentation of the weapon. It is possible —” He stopped.

“Yes?”

“It would have been possible, I believe, that the tahunga — that’s what you’d call a wise man — would have been asked, because of the nature of the play, to lay a tapu on the performance. He would do this. And then you would go away and dress and the performance would take place.”

“You don’t mind about using — well, you know — eyes, tongue, and everything in the play?”

“I am not entirely orthodox. And we take the play seriously. My great-grandfather was a cannibal,” said Rangi in his exquisite voice. “He believed he absorbed the attributes of his victims.”

A complete silence fell upon the table. Perhaps because they had been rather a noisy party before, their silence affected other patrons, and Rangi’s declaration, quite loudly made, was generally heard. The silence lasted only for a second or two.

“Four beers and two tomato juices,” said Ross, returning with the drinks. He laid the tray on the table.

In the third week the play began to consolidate. The parts that were clearly spurious had of course been taken out — the structure fully revealed. It was written with economy: the remorseless destiny of the Macbeths, the certainty from the beginning that they were irrevocably cursed, their progress, at first clinging to each other, then separated and swept away downstream to their damnation: these elements declared themselves in every phase of this destructive play.

Why, then, was it not dreary? Why did it excite rather than distress?

“I don’t know why,” Peregrine said to his wife. “Well, I do, really. It’s because it’s wonderfully well written. Simple as that. It’s the atmosphere that it generates.”

“When you directed it before, did you feel the same way about it?”

“I think so. Not so marked, though. It’s a much better company, of course. Really, it’s a perfect company. If you heard Simon Morten in the English scene, Emily, saying, My wife kill’d too? Then when Malcolm offers his silly conventional bit of advice, Simon looks at Ross and says, He has no children.”

“I know.”

“Come down to rehearsal one of these days and see.”

“Shall I?”

“Yes. Do. At the end of next week.”

“All right. How about the superstitions? Is Nina Gaythorne behaving herself?”

“She’s trying to, at least. I don’t mind betting she’s taking all sorts of precautions on the side but as long as she doesn’t talk about it… Barrabell — he’s the Banquo, you know — feeds her stories, I’m quite sure. I caught him at it last week. The scrap shed down by the river was struck by lightning, you know.”

“No! You never told me.”

“Didn’t I? I suppose I’ve clapped locks on anything that looks like superstition and don’t unfasten them even for you. I caught Barrabell nicely and gave poor old Nina the shock of her life.”

“What were they saying?”

“He was going on about one of the witches — Blondie — making a scene and getting the jimjams during the storm. Some people do get upset, you know — it’s electrical. They always say they’re sorry and they can’t help it.”

“Was Blondie all right?”

“Right as rain when the lightning stopped.”

“How unfortunate.”

“What?”

“That there should be a thunderstorm.”

“You don’t mean —?”

“Oh, you know how I feel about all the nonsense. I just thought how unfortunate from the point of view of the people who do.”

“The silly fatheads have got over it. The theatre wasn’t struck by lightning. Being fixed up with a good conductor, it wouldn’t have felt it anyway.”

“No.” After a short silence, Emily said: “How’s the little boy behaving?”

“William Smith? Very well. He’s a good actor. It’ll be interesting to see what happens to him after adolescence.

He may not go on with the theatre but I hope he does. He’s doubling.”

“The Bloody Child?”

“And the Crowned Child. They’re one and the same. You should hear him wail out his Great Birnam Wood to high Dunsinane Hi-i-ill shall come against him.”

“Golly!”

“Yes, my girl. That’s the word for it.”

“How are you working the scene? The apparitions?”

“The usual things. Dry ice. A trapdoor. A lift. Background of many whispering voices: Double, double. Strong rhythm. The show of Kings is all Banquo’s descendants. Each wears a Banquo head — Gaston’s handiwork, of course. The scene ends with And points at them for his. The next bit in the script is somebody’s incredibly silly addition. I should think the stage manager’s for a fourth-rate company in the sticks. It’s a wonder he didn’t give the witches red noses and slapsticks.”

“So you go on with — what?”

“There’s a blackout and great confusion. Crescendo. Noises. Macbeth’s voice. Sounds, possibly drums. I’m not sure. Footfalls, maybe. Lights dim up with Lennox at the door. Macbeth comes out. Rest of scene as written.”