He says he dreamt of the three Sisters. Macbeth replies that he thinks not of them and then goes on, against every nerve in the listener’s body, to ask Banquo to have a little talk about the Sisters when he has time. Talk? What about? He goes on with sickening ineptitude to say the talk will ‘make honour’ for Banquo, who at once replies that as long as he loses none he will be ‘counselled’ and they say good night.

Peregrine thought: Right. That was right. And when Banquo and Fleance went off he clapped his hands softly, but not so softly that Banquo didn’t hear him.

Now Macbeth was alone. The ascent to the murder had begun. Up and up the steps, following the dagger that he knew was hallucination. A bell rings. ‘Hear it not, Duncan.’

Dougal was not firm on his lines. He started off without the book but depended more and more on the prompter, couldn’t pick it up, shouted ‘What!’, flew into a temper and finally started off again with his book in his hand.

‘I’m not ready,’ he shouted to Peregrine.

‘All right. Take it quietly and read.’

‘I’m not ready.’

Peregrine said: ‘All right, Dougal. Cut to the end of the speech and keep your hair on. Give your exit line and off.’

‘“Summons thee to heaven or to hell,”’ Dougal snapped, and stamped off through the mock-up exit at the top of the stair.

The Lady re-entered at stage level.

Maggie was word-perfect. She was flushed with wine, over-strung, ready to start at the slightest sound but with the iron will to rule herself and Macbeth. When his cue for re-entry came he was back inside his part. His return to stage level was all Peregrine hoped for.

‘I have done the deed. Didst thou not hear a voice?’

‘I heard the owl scream and the crickets cry. Did not you speak?’

‘When?’

‘Now.’

‘As I descended?’

‘Ay.’

‘Hark! Who lies i’ th’ second chamber?’

‘Donalbain.’

‘This is a sorry sight.’

‘A foolish thought, to say a sorry sight.’

She glances at him. He stands there, blood-bedabbled and speaks of sleep. She sees the two grooms’ daggers in his hands and is horrified. He refuses to return them. She takes them from him and climbs up to the room.

Macbeth is alone. The cosmic terrors of the play roll in like breakers. At the touch of his hands the multitudinous seas are incarnadined, making the green one red.

The Lady returns.

Maggie and Dougal had worked together on this scene and it was beginning to take shape. The characters were the absolute antitheses of each other: he, every nerve twanging, lost to everything but the nightmarish reality of murder, horrified by what he has done. She, self-disciplined, self-schooled, logical, aware of the frightful dangers of his unleashed imagination. ‘These deeds must not be thought after these ways: so, it will make us mad.’