Ha'penny (16 page)

As we only had two weeks, we were rehearsing on the stage from the start, though without any props, clothes, or scenery at first. Antony, naturally, wanted to do a cold run-through first, but before that he wanted to talk to everyone and arrange rehearsal schedules—because there’s no point in having everyone at every rehearsal, though I would have to be at most of them. I told him I’d make any rehearsal he wanted, but it would be really useful if I knew in advance when I’d be able to get away. Antony isn’t a total slave driver, and I think Mollie may have told him I had a new boyfriend, because he was quite reasonable about giving me a schedule and saying he wouldn’t change it without warning.

Then he introduced us to Bettina, the wardrobe mistress, and the ASM and the stagehands, and then he said he wanted to talk to everyone individually about their characters. I boned up on my lines as best I could, during this, though he kept calling me over so I could “bond” with Charlie and Pat, and then with Doug James, who was Horatio.

I told Doug about my idea about Hamlet getting a Ph.D. and teaching and not wanting to go home, and he asked whether, in that case, I saw Horatio as a colleague or a pupil, and it struck me that there was something about their relationship where perhaps Horatio had been a pupil and was now nominally an equal but still used to deferring. Doug liked this a lot, and we went through some of our exchanges quickly.

“It especially makes sense with her being a woman,” he said. “Because if she’d taught him, it would have reversed the usual male/female dynamic, she’d have been in charge, and even if, as Antony says, he wishes to be more than a friend, that would have been a reason for not speaking out.”

“And yet the suppressed romantic thing is a reason for him coming home with her, when she heard that her father has died,” I said. “He doesn’t want to leave her.”

“I’m so glad Antony decided on you and not Pam Brown, as he thought at first,” Doug said.

So much for the only woman Antony could picture as Hamlet, I thought. “It’s lovely to be acting with you, too,” I said.

“What do you think their subject was, at Wittenberg?” Doug asked.

“I hadn’t thought.”

“Well, I wonder if it might have been—well Horatio’s at any rate, and Hamlet’s too if she was teaching him—philosophy. If in the ‘more things in Heaven and Earth’ thing he meant to say our Philosophy, our subject of philosophy, if you see what I mean, rather than just Horatio’s own personal philosophy.”

“Oh I like that,” I said. “It gives it extra meaning. I wonder if I could be reading some philosophy in the words scene. Who’s a prominent philosopher I could be reading?”

“Plato?” Doug suggested.

“I’ll ask Antony.”

Antony was at that moment engaged with the Players, who would mostly rehearse alone after today and until the first full rehearsal, which was set for the following Wednesday afternoon. I stood at the front of the stage and looked out at the house.

The Siddons was a typical old London theater, a semicircle of seats facing a proscenium arch of stage. There was gilded scrolling, a little in need of upkeep, and the fronts of the circles and boxes were set with plaster cupids, and tragic and comic theatrical masks. The Royal Box, where presumably our potential victims would sit, was on my right as I looked up at it. It had a shield with the three gilded leopards. I couldn’t see anywhere immediately appropriate to put a bomb. The best place would presumably be inside the box itself, though what reason anyone might have for going there was beyond me.

It was strange how at one moment I could be completely absorbed in the play, excited about a better understanding of my character and of Horatio, and at the next remember that there would be no play, that if I did what Devlin wanted, I would destroy it myself. Being in the theater it was easy to be entirely swept up in the play’s reality, as being with Devlin I became swept up in his reality. For Devlin the most important thing in the world was killing the tyrants. For Antony and the others, the most important thing in the world was putting on
Hamlet
. Poor Hamlet couldn’t decide whether or not to take the word of a ghost and kill her uncle, and she had my complete sympathy.

I did think, for a moment at the front of the stage, waiting for Antony, that I could walk out now. Devlin wouldn’t be waiting for me. I could go home, get my passport, and be in France by the time Devlin came back to the theater. I needn’t break my word or tell anyone anything, I could just disappear. But what could I do in France? The Reich had no need of English actresses. I couldn’t imagine what I could possibly do there.

Then Antony was free, and he agreed that my book should be Plato and made a note of that and the way to play the philosophy line. He then began the walk-through.

I managed most of my lines, with only a little prompting. I wasn’t the only one who didn’t know them. We were all terrible, as you’d expect. Mollie, with much more excuse for not knowing her lines, was word perfect, but her conception of how she wanted to play Gertrude and Antony’s weren’t entirely congruent. As Antony was playing Claudius as well as directing, this meant that their scenes were being constantly interrupted. We stumbled and stammered our way to the end of the play, taking about six hours to get through what we hoped would come in under three on the night. Charlie corpsed both me and Mollie in the fight scene, to Antony’s great annoyance. It was well after six when we finished.

“Well, I’ve seen worse first rehearsals,” Antony said, picking himself up at the end. “But I don’t know when,” he added. “We’ve got less than two weeks to get this mess into shape. We’ve got eleven days before the dress rehearsal, twelve days before the first night. Pick up your schedules from Jackie, she’ll have them ready for you, for God’s sake learn your lines”—this with a glance at me—“and get back here tomorrow ready to give all of yourselves to it.”

Jackie, his long-suffering assistant, came up out of the pit and handed round the schedules. She’d found time somehow, between dealing with Antony’s tantrums and writing down his instructions, to get them typed up. I stuffed mine into my bag. I was aching with tiredness. Hamlet is an extremely physically demanding role, and we’d repeated the swordfight several times, for the blocking.

“Are you sure it wouldn’t be better to come home and get some sleep?” Mollie murmured.

If it had been up to me, I wouldn’t have hesitated. Wonderful as Devlin was, I’d have traded him right then for a bath, one of Mrs. Tring’s dinners, my own bed, and the chance to go over my lines. As it was I had no choice. “He’ll be waiting for me,” I said.

Mollie shook her head and went off. I collected my bag from my dressing room and waited a moment before following her.

The doorman smiled and opened the door for me.

“Is this the only exit from this theater, apart from the front-of-house?” I asked.

He blinked at me. “Well, there’s the back entrance, like, which we use for bringing in big things on a dolly—flats sometimes, or pieces of scenery that get built elsewhere that are too big for a normal door. It’s always kept double-locked when it’s not in use. Don’t you worry that anyone will be getting in to bother you in your changing room, miss.”

“Oh, thank you,” I said. “I know it’s silly but I always do worry and want to make sure.”

“It’s double-locked, and nobody has the keys except Nobby and me.” Nobby was the stage manager.

“That sounds safe enough,” I said, and thought that while he believed I was worried about people getting into my dressing room I’d keep on with it. “And there aren’t any unusual ways of getting around behind from front-of-house, are there?”

“Just the usual pass door or up the steps onto the stage, when the steps are there, miss. And front-of-house is locked, usually, and when it’s open before a performance there’s always a doorman there too.”

“Thank you so much for reassuring me,” I said, and tipped him again. I walked up the alley to where I could see that Devlin was waiting.

“Your friend Mollie told me to let you get some sleep tonight,” he said. He was smiling.

I was mortified. “She is a bit overprotective,” I said.

“Well, maybe I will and maybe I won’t. It all depends. Can you cook?”

“I can’t cook at all,” I admitted. I never had any chance to learn when I was young, and Mrs. Tring did all the cooking for me and Mollie.

“Then you’ll have to clean up after my cooking,” he said, and drove off without another word.

14

C
armichael realized as soon as he came through the door that it was a bad time to try to talk to Jack. The trouble was that it was always a bad time. Oh, they had their good times, the times when the flat felt like a magical haven of calm in a turbulent world, the times when Jack got up to make his breakfast, when they shared a pot of special tea, when Carmichael felt blessed with his luck and didn’t want to take risks with it. Then there were the other times, when Jack was restless, jealous, when he accused Carmichael of treating him like a servant, which strictly he was. There was nobody as sympathetic as Jack on a good day, and nobody as self-centered as him on a bad one.

Jack came out of the kitchen as Carmichael turned his key in the lock, and it was immediately obvious from his face that this wasn’t one of the good times.

“I need to talk to you,” Carmichael said, hanging up his coat and hat.

“And I need to talk to you,” Jack echoed. “Can’t we go out? We never go out. Can’t we go out to eat and then go dancing? You’re always away, or working late, or if you’re here you’re tired out.”

This was a very familiar complaint, and no easier to take because it happened to be true. The real trouble was that Jack was starved of excitement. He went nowhere and saw nobody. An occasional meal in a restaurant, with Carmichael constantly worrying that they would be recognized; an occasional dance in a dance hall, shuffling around the floor with tired tarts paid sixpence for the privilege; an even more occasional party with Jack’s friends, who Carmichael loathed; or a trip to the theater or cinema—these had been the highlights of Jack’s life for the last eight years, since the end of the war, since he and Carmichael had set up house together. Carmichael’s work brought him as much excitement and stimulation as he wanted. When he came home he wanted to relax. Only too often, Jack had spent a boring day at home and wanted some fun.

“Not tonight. I need to talk to you.”

“We could talk in a restaurant,” Jack said, putting his head on Carmichael’s shoulder.

“I eat in too many restaurants as it is,” Carmichael said, ruffling Jack’s hair. “When I come home, I want your cooking.”

“I don’t know why you don’t get married if what you want is home-cooked meals all the time,” Jack said.

“I don’t get married because I don’t like women and I do love you,” Carmichael said, evenly. This too was a familiar argument. He knew Jack’s lines as well as his own. “Never mind the food, come and sit down. I want to talk about something different.”

Jack followed him into the room they called the lounge. There was a divan and a coffee table and a cabinet with a large radiogram and a tiny television set Jack had coaxed Carmichael into buying a year ago for more than they could afford. On the coffee table was a tray with glasses and a bottle of Haig. Without waiting, Jack poured two small pegs and handed one to Carmichael. Then he perched on the other end of the divan.

Carmichael took a sip of the whisky. He would have preferred a cup of tea and some dinner, but he didn’t want to press the issue. He fixed his eyes on the little pile of Jack’s books on the coffee table. The
Alexiad
of Anna Comnena was on the top, and underneath it three hefty books with the word
Byzantine
or
Byzantium
in their titles. It was Jack’s latest enthusiasm. “How would it be if I left the Yard?” he asked.

Jack took down half his peg in one swallow. “And did what?” he asked.

“I don’t know,” Carmichael said. “Something else. Something where I wouldn’t constantly feel I was being forced into an impossible position.”

“But you love your job!” Jack leaned forward. He was twenty-eight, but there was still something boyish in the way his sandy hair fell across his forehead.

“I used to.” Carmichael sighed. “There’s something I didn’t tell you. At the end of the Thirkie case, I had all the evidence, everything, and I took it to Penn-Barkis and he told me to forget it, Kahn had done it. And he threatened me, he said he knew what I was, and if I didn’t forget it and agree that Kahn had done it, that he’d expose me, prosecute me, fire me, ruin my life even if I didn’t go to prison.”

Jack looked scared, and guilty. “You were always saying they’d find out about us, but I didn’t believe it.”

“I don’t think we were especially indiscreet,” Carmichael said. “I think someone worked something out, and then investigated. It’s not your fault. I relied on nobody asking too many questions. It’s tacitly got away with all the time, because nobody wants to know. If somebody did want to know, somebody high up, they could find out.”

“Penn-Barkis wanted to know?” Jack looked even more scared now.

“Penn-Barkis or someone higher,” Carmichael said. “There were people involved in the Thirkie case who are right at the top. The Home Secretary. The Prime Minister. They didn’t want me jumping to the right conclusions and exposing them. They may even have known before and sent me especially because they knew they had a lever to use against me if they needed it.” This bitter thought had been a torment to him ever since.

“But you went along with it? You did what they wanted? You said Kahn had done it, and Kahn hadn’t done it?”

“Kahn was as innocent as a baby. The person who did it was our dear Prime Minister, who talks on the BBC as if butter wouldn’t melt, but who is to my certain knowledge Thirkie’s murderer. And for what it’s worth, he also ordered the murder of several other innocent people.” It was a relief to say it, to have someone else know. “There was a hairdresser called Agnes Timms who was shot, and Lady Thirkie, the dowager Lady Thirkie, was killed because she wouldn’t cover it up for them. I met her. I liked her. But I went along and I helped cover what they wanted covered, and let them have the scare they wanted that put them securely into power, and now they know I’ll do what they want.”