This Rough Magic (9 page)

As at the Villa Forli, there were long windows opening from the terrace into some big room, all of them shuttered against the sun except the one through which Max Gale had vanished. Through this dark opening I thought I could make out the shapes of a grand piano, what looked like a huge gramophone, and a revolving bookcase. The tops of the two last were stacked with books and records.

‘Sun or shade?’ asked Sir Julian, pulling up a gaudy camp chair for me. I chose sun, and he settled himself beside me, the sombre wall of cypresses beyond the balustrade making as effective a backcloth for him as the ferns had for the white cat. The latter, purring, jumped up on to the actor’s knee, turned carefully round twice, and settled down, paws going.

The pair of them made a striking picture. Sir Julian was not – had never been – handsome, but he was a big man, of the physical type to which the years can add a sort of heavy splendour. (One remembered his Mark Antony, and how after it all other attempts at the part seemed to be variations of his; attempts, in fact, to play
him
.) He had the powerful breadth of chest and shoulder that runs to weight in middle age, and his head was what is commonly called leonine – thick grey hair, a brow and nose in the grand manner, and fine grey eyes – but with some hint of weakness about the jaw from which the charm of the wide mouth distracted you. His eyes looked pouchy and a little strained, and there were sagging lines in his face which naturally I
had never seen across the footlights, lines which might be those of petulance or dissipation, or merely a result of his illness and consequent loss of weight. It was difficult to tell just where his undeniable attractiveness lay; it would, indeed, be hard to give any definite description of him: his face was too familiar for that, melting as one watched him into one character after another that he had made his own, as if the man only existed as one saw him on the stage – king, madman, insurance salesman, soldier, fop … as if in leaving that lighted frame, he ceased to exist. It was a disquieting idea when one remembered that he had, in fact, left his frame. If he could not be himself now, he was nothing.

He glanced up from the cat, caught me staring, and smiled. He must be very used to it. What he cannot have realised is that I was trying to find in his face and movements some evidence of nervous strain that might justify Phyllida’s fears. But he seemed quite self-contained and relaxed, his hands (those betrayers), lying motionless and elegantly disposed – perhaps just a bit too elegantly disposed? – over the cat’s fur.

‘I’m sorry,’ I said, ‘was I staring? I’ve never been so close to you before. It’s usually the upper circle.’

‘With me tastefully disguised behind several pounds of false beard, and robed and crowned at that? Well, here you see the man himself, poor, bare forked creature that he is. I won’t ask you what you think of him, but you must at least give me your opinion of his setting. What do you think of our crumbling splendours?’

‘The Castello? Well, since you ask … I’d have said
it wasn’t quite
you
. It would make a marvellous background for a Gothic thriller –
Frankenstein
, or
The Mysteries of Udolpho
, or something.’

‘It would, wouldn’t it? One feels it ought to be permanently shrouded in mist, with vampires crawling down the walls – not surrounded by flowers, and the peace and sunshine of this enchanted island. However, I suppose it’s highly appropriate for a decayed actor to retire to, and it’s certainly a haven of peace, now that Max has clamped down on the sightseers.’

‘I heard you’d been ill. I’m sorry. We – we miss you terribly in London.’

‘Do you, my dear? That’s nice of you. Ah, Max, here you are. Miss Waring thinks the house is a perfect setting for Frankenstein and his monster.’

‘I did not! I never said – I certainly didn’t put it like that!’

Max Gale laughed. ‘I heard what you said. You could hardly insult this kind of crazy baroque anyway. Loco rococo. This is fresh orange, is that all right for you?’

‘Lovely, thank you.’

He had brought the same for himself, and for his father. I noticed that the latter’s hand, as he put it out for the glass, shook badly, and his son quickly lifted a small iron table within reach, set the glass down on that, and poured the iced juice in. Sir Julian dropped his hands back into the cat’s fur, where they once more lay statue-still. I had been right about the self-consciousness of that pose. But it hadn’t been vanity, unless it is vanity that conceals a weakness of which one is ashamed.

As Max Gale poured my drink, I made to lay the roses on the table, but he set the jug down and put out a hand.

‘Give them to me. I’ll put them in water for you till you go.’

‘So I’m to be allowed to keep them, after I’ve paid the forfeit?’

‘My dear child,’ said Sir Julian, ‘you’re welcome to the lot! I hope you don’t take my teasing seriously, it was only an excuse to make you come up. I’m only glad you liked them so much.’

‘I love them. They look like the roses in old pictures – you know,
real
roses in old story-books.
The Secret Garden
, and Andrew Lang’s
Sleeping Beauty
, and the
Arabian Nights
.’

‘That’s just what they are. That one was found growing on a pavilion in Persia, where Haroun al Raschid may have seen it. This is the one out of the Romance of the Rose. And this was found growing in Fair Rosamund’s garden at Woodstock. And this, they say, is the oldest rose in the world.’ His hands were almost steady as he touched the flowers one by one. ‘You must come back for more when these die. I’d leave them in the music-room, Max, it’s reasonably cool … Now, pay up, Miss Lucy Waring. I’m told you’re in the business, and one of the reasons I lured you up here was to hear all you can give me of the latest gossip. The facts I can get from the periodicals, but the gossip is usually a great deal more entertaining – and quite often twice as true. Tell me …’

I forget now just what he asked me, or how much I
was able to tell him, but though I moved in very different theatrical circles from him, I did know a good deal of what was going on in Town; and I remember that in my turn I found it exciting to hear him using, casually and in passing, names which were as far above my touch as the clouds on Mount Pantokrator. He certainly gave me the impression that he found me good value as an entertainer, but how far this was due to his own charm I can’t guess, even today. I know that when, finally, he turned the conversation to my affairs, you’d have thought this was the big moment towards which all the star-spangled conversation had been leading.

‘And now tell me about yourself. What are you doing, and where? And why have we never met before?’

‘Oh, heavens, I’m not anywhere near your league! I’d only just got to the West End as it was!’

I stopped. The last phrase had been a dead giveaway, not only of the facts, but of feelings which I had not discussed, even with Phyllida. I had my vanities, too.

‘Play folded?’ Where a layman’s sympathy would have jarred, his matter-of fact tone was marvellously comforting. ‘What was it?’

I told him, and he nodded.

‘Yes, that was McAndrew’s pet pigeon, wasn’t it? Not a very wise venture on Mac’s part, I thought. I read the play. Who were you? What’s-her-name, the girl who has those unlikely hysterics all over Act Two?’

‘Shirley. Yes. I was rotten.’

‘There was nothing there to get hold of. That sort of fantasy masquerading as working-class realism needs rigid selection and perfect timing – not merely uncontrolled verbal vomit, if you’ll forgive the phrase. And he never can do women, haven’t you noticed?’

‘Maggie in
The Single End
?’

‘Do you call her a woman?’

‘Well … I suppose you’re right.’

‘I’m right in telling you not to blame yourself over Shirley. What comes next?’

I hesitated.

‘Like that, is it?’ he said. ‘Well, it happens. How wise of you to cut and run for Corfu while you could! I remember …’ and he turned neatly off into a couple of malicious and very funny stories involving a well-known agent of the thirties, and a brash young actor whom I had no difficulty in identifying as Sir Julian Gale himself. When he had finished, and we had done laughing, I found myself countering with some of my own experiences which I had certainly never expected to find funny – or even to tell anybody about. Now, for some reason, to talk about them was a kind of release, even a pleasure, while the crenellated shadow of the Castello advanced unheeded across the weedy flags, and Sir Julian Gale listened, and commented, and asked questions, as if he had ‘lured’ me to his terrace for no other reason than to hear the life story of a mediocre young actress who would never play anything but seconds in her life.

A slight sound stopped me, and brought me sharply round. I had forgotten all about Max Gale. I hadn’t
heard him come out of the house again, but he was there, sitting on the balustrade well within hearing. How long he had been there I had no idea.

It was only then that I realised how the light had faded. My forfeit was paid, and it was time to be gone, but I could hardly take my leave within seconds, as it were, of acknowledging Max Gale’s presence. I had to make some motion of civility towards him first.

I looked across at him. ‘Did you go to watch the procession this morning, Mr. Gale?’

‘I? Yes, I was there. I saw you in the town. Did you get a good place?’

‘I was on the Esplanade, at the corner by the Palace.’

‘It’s rather … appealing, don’t you think?’

‘Very.’ I smiled. ‘Being a musician, you’d appreciate the bands.’

He laughed, and all at once I saw his father in him. ‘Very much. And when all four play at the same time, it really is something.’

‘The leitmotive for your
Tempest
, Max,’ said his father, stroking the white cat. ‘“
The isle is full of noises
.”’

Max grinned. ‘Perhaps. Though even I might fight shy of reproducing some of them.’

Sir Julian turned to me. ‘My son is writing a score for a film version of
The Tempest
.’

‘Is that what it’s to be? How exciting! I gather you’ve come to the right place to do it, too. Is that why you chose Corfu after you’d drowned your book at Stratford, Sir Julian?’

‘Not really; the thing’s fortuitous. I’ve known the
island on and off for thirty years, and I’ve friends here. But it’s a pleasant chance that brought this work to Max when we happened to be marooned here.’

‘Do you really think this is Prospero’s island?’

‘Why not?’ asked Julian Gale, and Max said, ‘That’s torn it,’ and laughed.

I looked at him in surprise. ‘What have I said?’

‘Nothing. Nothing at all. But if you will invite a man to explain a theory he’s been brooding over for weeks, you must be prepared for a lecture, and by the gleam in my father’s eye, nothing can save you now.’

‘But I’d love to hear it! Besides, your father could make the Telephone Directory sound like
War and Peace
if he tried, so his private theory about
The Tempest
ought to be
something
! Don’t take any notice of him, Sir Julian! Why do you think this might be Prospero’s island?’

‘You are a delightful young lady,’ said Sir Julian, ‘and if you wish to dig my roses out by the roots and carry them away, I shall send Adoni to help you. No, on second thoughts, Max can do it. It would be good for him to do a little real work, instead of floating around in that lunatic fringe where musicians seem to live … Who was it who said that the really wise man isn’t the man who wants a thing proved before he’ll believe in it, but the man who is prepared to believe anything until it’s shown to be false?’

‘I don’t know, but it sounds to me like somebody’s definition of a visionary or a genius.’

‘
All
the roses,’ said Sir Julian warmly. ‘Did you hear
that, Max? My theories about
The Tempest
are those of a visionary and a genius.’

‘Oh, sure,’ said his son.

He was still sitting on the balustrade, leaning back against the stone urn that stood at the corner. I had been watching his face covertly for some resemblance to his father, but, except for his build, and an occasional chance expression, could see none. His eyes were dark, and more deeply set, the mouth straighter, the whole face less mobile. I thought the hint of the neurotic was there, too, in the faint lines between the brows, and somewhere in the set of the mouth. The careful under-emphasis in all he said and did might well be a deliberate attempt to control this, or merely to avoid profiting by his father’s charm. Where Sir Julian seemed automatically, as it were, to make the most of his lines, Max threw his away. It seemed to me that he was even concerned not to be liked, where his father, consciously or not, had the actor’s need to be loved.

‘There is no evidence of any kind,’ Sir Julian was saying, ‘to connect this island with the island of the play, any more than we can prove it was the Scheria of Odysseus and Nausicaa; but in both cases tradition is strong, and when traditions persist hard enough, it seems only sensible to conclude that there may be something in them worth investigating.’

‘Schliemann and Troy,’ murmured Max.

‘Exactly,’ said Sir Julian. He gave me that sudden smile that was so like his son’s. ‘So, being like Schliemann a genius and a visionary, and being determined
to believe that Corfu
is
Prospero’s island, I’ve been looking for evidence to prove it.’

‘And is there any?’

‘Perhaps not “evidence”. That’s a strong word. But once you start looking, you can find all sorts of fascinating parallels. Start with the easiest, the description of the natural details of the island, if you can remember them.’

‘I think I can, fairly well. There’s rather more physical description of the setting than you usually find in Shakespeare, isn’t there?’

‘I’d say more than anywhere, except
Venus and Adonis
. And what description one gleans from the play fits this island well enough; the pines, tilled lands, the fertility (not so many of the Mediterranean islands are really fertile, you know), the beaches and coves, the lime groves outside Prospero’s cave …’ He lifted a hand to point where a group of trees stood golden-green beside the pines on the southern promontory. ‘There are young limes growing all down the cliff beyond Manning’s villa, and the whole coast is honeycombed with caves. You might say these things are found on any island, but one thing isn’t – the brine-pits that Caliban talks about, remember?’