Gaston hummed and occasionally muttered as he made the long wooden trough that was to contain clay from which the matrix would be formed. He made a good figure for a Vulcan, being hugely tall with a shock of black hair and heavily muscled arms.

‘“Double, double toil and trouble,”’ he hummed in time with his hammering. And then:

‘“Her husband’s to Aleppo gone, master o’th’ Tiger,

But in a sieve I’ll thither sail

And like a rat without a tail

I’ll do, I’ll do and I’ll do.”’

And on the final ‘I’ll do’ he tapped home his nail.

VI

Bruce Barrabell who played Banquo was not on call for the current rehearsal. He stayed at home and learned his part and dwelt upon his grievances. His newest agent was getting him quite a bit of work but nothing that was likely to do him any lasting good. A rather dim supporting role in another police series for Granada TV. And now, Banquo. He’d asked to be tried for Macbeth and been told the part was already cast. Macduff: same thing. He was leaving the theatre when some whippersnapper came after him and said would he come to read Banquo. There’d been some kind of a slip-up. So he did and he’d got it. Small part, actually. Lot of standing around with one foot up and the other down on those bloody steps. But there was one little bit. He flipped his part over and began to read it:

‘There’s husbandry in Heaven. Their candles are all out.’

He read it aloud. Quietly. The slightest touch of whimsicality. Feel the time-of-night and the great empty courtyard. He had to admit it was good. ‘There’s housekeeping in Heaven.’ The homely touch that somehow made you want to cry. Would a modern audience understand that housekeeping was what was meant by husbandry? Nobody else could write about the small empty hours as this man did. The young actor they’d produced for Fleance, his son, was nice: unbroken, clear voice. And then Macbeth’s entrance and Banquo’s reaction. Good stuff. His scene, but of course the Macbeth would overact and Perry let him get away with it. Look at the earlier scene. Although Perry, fair’s fair, put a stop to that little caper. But the intention was there for all to see.

He set himself to memorize but it wasn’t easy. Incidents out of the past kept coming in. Conversations.

‘Actually we are not quite strangers. There was a Macbeth up in Dundee, sir. I won’t say how many years ago.’

‘Oh?’

‘We were witches.’ Whispering it. Looking coy.

‘Really? Sorry. Excuse me. I want to – Perry, Perry, dear boy, just a word – ’

Swine! Of course he remembered.

VII