“Smashing.”

“Well, I hope so. It’s going to need handling.”

“Yes. Of course.”

“It’s the only tricky one left from the staging point of view.”

“Could Gaston be a help? About witchcraft?”

“I daren’t risk asking him. He could, of course, but he does so — so go off at the deep end. He is a teeny bit mad, you know. Only on his own lay, but he is. He’s God’s gift when it comes to swords. What will you think of the fight? It terrifies me.”

“Is it really dangerous, Perry?”

He waited for a minute.

“Not according to Gaston, always making sure the stage is right. He’ll keep a nightly watch on it. The two men have reached an absolute perfection of movement. They’re getting on together, man to man, a bit better, too. Maggie had a go at Simon, bless her, and he’s less crissy-crossy when they are not fighting, thank God.”

“Well,” said Emily, “nobody can accuse you of being superstitious, I’ll say that for you.”

“Will you? And you’ll come next week when we’ll take it in continuity with props?”

“You bet I will,” said Emily.

“I don’t know what you’ll think of Gaston. I mean, of what I’m doing with him. He’s the bearer of the great ceremonial sword — the claidheamh-mor. We’re making a harness and heavy belt for him to take the hilt. It’s the real weapon and it weighs a ton. He’s as strong as a bull. He follows Macbeth everywhere like a sort of judgment. And at the end he’ll carry the head on it. He is watching Jeremy’s drawings for his costume with the eye of a hawk.”

“What’s it like?”

“Like all the other Macbeth menage. Embryo tartan, black woolen tights, thonged sheepskin leggings. A mask for the fights. In his final appearance with the head on the sword, he — er — he suggested a scarlet tabard.”

“Oh, for heaven’s sake, Perry!”

“I know. Where would he change and why? With fighting thanes milling all around. I pointed this out and for once he hadn’t an answer. He took refuge in huffy grandeur, said it was merely an idea, and went into a long thing about color and symbolism.”

“I feel I must meet him.”

“Shall I invite him for tea?”

“Do you like him?” she asked incredulously.

“Oh, one couldn’t exactly do that. Or, I don’t think one could. Collect him, perhaps. No, he might just turn into a bore and not go home.”

“In that case we won’t ask him here.”

“Or bring the Macbeth’s head with him to show you. He did that to me. When we’d finished afternoon rehearsal. It was in the shadows of the wardrobe room. I nearly fainted.”

“Frightful?”

“Terrifying. It’s sheet-white and so like Dougal. With a bloody gash, you know. He wondered if I had any suggestions to make.”

“Had you?”

“Just to cover it up quickly. Fortunately, the audience only sees it momentarily. He turns it to face Malcolm, who is up on the steps at the back. It’ll be back to audience.”

“They’ll laugh,” said Emily.

“If they laugh at that they’ll laugh at anything.”

“What do you bet?”

“Well, of course they have in the past always laughed at a head and the management always says it’s a nervous reaction. So it may be but I don’t think so. I think they know it isn’t, and can’t be, Macbeth’s or anybody else’s head and they laugh. It’s as if they said: ‘This is a bit too thick. Come off it.’ All the same, I’m going to risk it.”

“You jolly well do and more power to your elbow.”

“The final words are cut. The play ends with the thanes all shouting Hail, King of Scotland! and pointing their swords at Malcolm. He’s in a strong light. I hope the audience will go away feeling, well — relieved, uplifted, as if Scotland stands free of a nightmare.”

“I hope so, too. I think they will.”

“May you think so when you’ve seen it.”

“I bet I will,” said Emily.

“I’ll push off. So long, Em, wish me luck.”

“With all my heart,” she said and gave him a kiss and a packet and a thermos. “Your snack,” she said.

“Thanks, love. I don’t know when I’ll be home.”

“Okay. Always welcome.”

She watched him get into his car. He gave her a toot and was off.

He was taking the witches’ scenes. Mattresses had been placed on the stage behind the gallows rostrum. The body on the scaffold moved slightly in its noose, turned by one of the mysterious drafts that steal about backstage regions. When Peregrine walked in, Rangi was standing beside it, peering into the void beneath.

“Okay,” Rangi called. “If you can’t see the back of the gallery they can’t see you.”

“Can’t see nuffink,” came a muffled voice from the void.

“Fair enough,” said Rangi. “You can come up from down there.”

“Morning, Rangi,” said Peregrine. “Joined the Scene-shifters’ Union?”

Rangi grinned. “We wanted to make sure we were masked from down there.”

“You want to watch it. The right way is to ask me and I’ll check with the stage manager.” He put his arm across Ran-gi’s shoulders. “You’re not in the land of do-it-yourself, now,” he said.

“I’m sorry. I didn’t do anything. Just yelled.”

“All right. You do need to watch it. We might have the whole stage staff going out on strike. Is Bruce Barrabell here?”

“I don’t think so.”

“Good. Your part’s shaping up nicely. Do you like it?”

“Oh, sure. Sure.”

“We’ll give you a skirt for rehearsals.”

“A sort of lady-tohunga, uh? Except that tohungas are always men.”

“You’ll look like three disreputable old women until Macbeth sees your faces and they are terrible and know everything. In the opening scene we see them, birdlike, as they are — almost ravens. Busy on the gallows collecting from the corpse what’s left of the grease that’s sweaten from the murderer’s gibbet. In the third scene when Macbeth first meets them they’ve put on a sort of caricature of respectability: filthy aprons, dirty mutches that come under their chins like grave-cloths. Blondie is the sexy one. One breast hangs out. Brown and stringy. They are not like female tohungas, really.”

“Not in the least,” said Rangi cheerfully.

Dougal Macdougal arrived. He never “came in.” There was always the element of an event. He could be heard loudly greeting the more important members of the company who had now assembled, and not forgetting to say “Morning, morning” to the bit-parts. He arrived onstage, hailed Peregrine as if they hadn’t encountered each other for at least a month, saw the witch girls — “Good morning, dear. Good morning, dear” — and fetched up face to face with Rangi. “Oh. Good morning — er — Rainy,” he said loftily.

“Settle down, everyone,” said Peregrine. “We are taking the witches’ scenes. I’ve got the lights manager to come down and the effects man; I’d like them to sit beside me, take notes, and go away after this rehearsal to nut out their plots. The message I plan to convey depends very much upon dead cues for effects and I hope that between us we’ll cook up something that’ll raise the pimples on the backs of the audience’s necks. Right.”

He waited while the witches took up their positions and the others sat in the front-of-house.

“No overture,” he said, “in the usual sense. The house darkens and there’s a muffled drumbeat. Thud, thud, thud. Like a heart. Curtain up, flash of lightning. We get a fleeting look at the witches. Dry ice.”

Rangi on the arm of the gibbet reached down at the head. Wendy doubled up, and Blondie, on Wendy’s back, clawed the feet. Busy. Hold for five seconds. Blackout. Thunder. Fade up to half-light concentrated on the witches, who were now all on the ground. Dialogue.

“When shall we three meet again?”

Blondie’s voice was a high treble, Wendy’s gritty and broken, Rangi’s full and quivering.

“There to meet with — ” A pause. Silence. Then they all whisper, “Macbeth.”