Nothing is perfect: Fleance has escaped. Macbeth gives Seyton money and signals for the curtains to be opened. And they open upon the opulence of the banquet. The servants are filling glasses. Lady Macbeth is on her throne. And the Ghost of Banquo, hidden, waits.

It was going well. The masking of the stool as rehearsed. The timing. The nightmarish efforts of Macbeth to recover something of his royalty. Every cue observed. Thank God! Peregrine thought. It’s working. Yes. Yes.

‘Our duties and the pledge.’

The servants swept the covers off the main dishes.

The head of Banquo was in pride of place: outrageous and glaring on the main dish.

‘What the bloody hell is this!’ Sir Dougal demanded.

CHAPTER 4
Fourth Week

The time for concealment was past. Strangely enough, Peregrine felt a sort of relief. He would no longer be obliged to offer unlikely explanations, beg people not to talk, feel certain that they would talk. Shuffle. Pretend.

He said ‘Stop,’ and stood up. ‘Cover that thing.’

The servant who still had the oval dish-cover in his hand clapped it back over the head. Peregrine walked down the aisle. ‘You may sit if you want to but remain in your positions. Any staff who are here, on stage, please.’

The Assistant Stage Manager, Charlie, two stagehands and Props came on and stood in a group on the Prompt side.

‘Somewhere among you,’ said Peregrine, ‘there is a funny man. He has been operating intermittently throughout rehearsals, his object, if he can be said to have one, being to support the superstitious theories that have grown up round this play. This play. Macbeth. You hear me? Macbeth. He put the Banquo mask on the wall of Duncan’s room. He’s put another one in this serving dish. In any other context these silly tricks would be dismissed but here they are reprehensible. They’ve upset the extremely high standard of performance. And that is lamentable. I ask the perpetrator of these tricks to let me know by whatever means he chooses that he is the – comedian.

‘I remind you,’ he said, ‘of the arrangement of this scene. It opens as a front scene with the curtains closed. They are held open by servitors while the Macbeths welcome the guests and closed again when they have all gone through. The servitors go off. Macbeth has his scene with the Third Murderer who is Gaston. At the end Gaston goes off. Macbeth claps his hands and the servitors from the sides open the curtains completely.

‘For the good of the production I undertake not to reveal the trickster’s name. Nor will I sack the man or refer to the matter again. It shall be as if it had never happened. Is this understood?’

He stopped.

They stared at him rather like children, he thought, brought together for a wigging and not knowing what would come next.

Bruce Barrabell came next, the silver-tongued Banquo.