‘You’ll do that,’ he said, ‘and now – ‘ he was conscious of a tightness under his belt – ‘we’ll clear stage and get down to business. Oh! There’s one point I’ve missed. You will see that for our first week some of the rehearsals are at night. This is to accommodate Sir Dougal who is shooting the finals of his new film. The theatre is dark, the current production being on tour. It’s a bit out of the ordinary, I know, and I hope nobody finds it too awkward?’

There was a silence during which Sir Dougal with spread arms mimed a helpless apology.

‘I can’t forbear saying it’s very inconvenient,’ said Banquo.

‘Are you filming?’

‘Not precisely. But it might arise.’

‘We’ll hope it doesn’t,’ Peregrine said. ‘Right? Good. Clear stage, please, everybody. Scene 1. The witches.’

II

‘It’s going very smoothly,’ said Peregrine, three days later. ‘Almost too smoothly. Dougal’s uncannily lamblike and everyone told me he was a Frankenstein’s Monster to work with.’

‘Keep your fingers crossed,’ said his wife, Emily. ‘It’s early days yet.’

‘True.’ He looked curiously at her. ‘I’ve never asked you,’ he said.

‘Do you believe in it? The superstition business?’

‘No,’ she said quickly.

‘Not the least tiny bit? Really?’

Emily looked steadily at him. ‘Truly?’ she asked.

‘Yes.’

‘My mother was a one hundred per cent Highlander.’

‘So?’

‘So it’s not easy to give you a direct answer. Some superstitions – most, I think – are silly little matters of habit: a pinch of spilt salt over the left shoulder. One may do it without thinking but if one doesn’t it’s no great matter – that sort of thing. But – there are other ones. Not silly. I don’t believe in them, but I think I avoid them.’

‘Like the Macbeth ones?’

‘Yes. But I didn’t mind you doing it. Or not enough to try to stop you. Because I don’t really believe,’ said Emily very firmly.

‘I don’t believe at all. Not at any level. I’ve done two productions of the play and they both were accident-free and very successful. As for the instances they drag up – Macbeth’s sword breaking and a bit of it hitting someone in the audience or a dropped weight narrowly missing an actor’s head – if they’d happened in any other play nobody would have said it was an unlucky play. How about Rex Harrison’s hairpiece being caught in a chandelier and whisked up into the flies? Nobody said My Fair Lady was unlucky.’

‘Nobody dared to mention it, I should think.’

‘There is that, of course,’ Peregrine agreed.

‘All the same, it’s not a fair example.’

‘Why isn’t it?’

‘Well, it’s not serious. I mean, well…’

‘You wouldn’t say that if you’d been there, I dare say,’ said Peregrine.