Death Of A Hollow Man Read online

  DEIDRE: Oh, no, Harold. You mustn’t think—

  HAROLD: Hear me out, please. What I’m working around to is our summer production. There’s such a lot of work involved in Uncle Vanya …

  DEIDRE: I’ll be happy to help.

  HAROLD: No, Deidre, I’ll help. What I’d like—what we’d all like—is for you to direct the play.

  Even Deidre’s feverishly yearning soul found this final dialogue a bit hard to credit. As she scraped out the last bit of solid, shiny yellow salad dressing and distributed it patchily on the spongy bread, she reverted to simpler fantasies. Harold crashing his car. Or Harold having a heart attack. The latter was the most likely, she thought, recalling his stout tummy under its popping brocade vest. She surveyed her completed sandwich. The beetroot was falling out. She caught it, stuffed it back in, and took a bite. It wasn’t very good. The milk boiled over again.

  “How do you think it went then, Constanze?”

  Kitty was sitting by the dressing table. She had peeled off her tights and propped up her milk-white legs on an embroidered footstool. Although she had announced her pregnancy barely three months ago, she was already inclined to hold the small of her back and smile brave, aching smiles. She winced sometimes, too, in the manner of one reacting to tiny blows. Now, she carefully dotted cleansing cream over her face before giving the expected response.

  “Well, darling, I thought you were wonderful. It’s coming along brilliantly.”

  “Almost there, wouldn’t you say?”

  “Oh, I would. And with so much against you.”

  “Absolutely. Christ knows what Nicholas thinks he’s doing. I’m amazed Harold lets him get away with it.”

  “I know. Donald and Clive are the only ones who say anything. And then only because they know how you feel.”

  “Mm. They’re useful creatures in many respects.” Esslyn had brushed his teeth, put on his midcalf-length pajamas with the judo-style top, and was sitting up in bed tautening his facial muscles. Mouth dropped open, head tilted back, mouth closed, aiming bottom lip at the tip of his nose. He had the jawline of a man of twenty-five, which, on a man of forty-five, couldn’t be bad. He blew out his cheeks and let them collapse slowly. (Nose-to-mouth lines.) Then studied his pretty wife as she finished taking off her makeup.

  He always fell slightly in love with the most attractive female member of the cast (they expected it), and in Rookery Nook had got really carried away in the props room with the frisky young ingenue who was now Mrs. Carmichael. She had been playing Poppy Dickie at the time. Unfortunately, when the pregnancy was discovered, he was unmarried, so had felt it incumbent upon him to propose to Kitty. He did this rather ruefully. He had been looking forward to several years of louche living before finding someone to care for him in his old age. But she was a biddable little piece, and he couldn’t deny that this latish fatherhood had upped his status potentwise in the office. And of course it had been the most tremendous sock in the eye for Rosa.

  He felt he owed her one for the way she had behaved when he had asked for a divorce. She had screamed and wailed and wept. And bellowed that he had had the best years of her life. Esslyn—reasonably enough, he felt-pointed out that if he hadn’t had them, someone else would have. She could hardly have kept them, pristinely unlived, in a safe-deposit box. Then she had sobbed that she had always wanted children, and now it was too late and it was all his fault. This seemed to Esslyn just plain ridiculous.

  They had sometimes discussed starting a family, usually when cast as parents in the current production, but Esslyn always felt it only right to point out that while their stage children would disappear after the final performance, real ones would be around for a whole lot longer. And that although his own life might not be much affected, Rosa’s, since he would definitely not be shelling out for a nanny, would never be quite the same again. He’d thought she’d appreciated the logic of this, but she brought it all up when the question of moving out of White Wings was broached, refusing to budge until she had had some compensation for her “lost babies.” Quite a hefty sum they had cost him, too. He had got his own back, though. When Kitty had become pregnant, he had announced it and their forthcoming nuptials at the end of a rehearsal of Shop at Sly corner. Tenderly holding Kitty’s hand, his eyes on Rosa’s face, Esslyn had more than got his money’s worth.

  Of course, by then she had married that boring little builder. To be fair, though, Esslyn admitted to himself, finishing his cheek exercises and starting on some head rolling to reduce the tension in his neck, there were people who thought accountancy just as dreary a job as putting up houses. Perhaps even drearier. Esslyn could not agree. To him, the sorting and winnowing of claim and counterclaim, the reduction of stacks of wild expense-account imaginings to a column of sober, acceptable figures, and the hunting down of obscure wrinkles and loopholes in the law enabling him to reduce his clients’ tax bill was a daily challenge that he would not have felt it too imprecise to call creative.

  Esslyn preferred to handle the accounts of individuals. His partner, a specialist in company law, dealt with larger concerns, with the single exception of the charitable trust that supported the Latimer. As an insider with an intimate knowledge of the company’s affairs, Esslyn had automatically taken this on, together with the accounts for Harold’s import-export business, which was a modest one but not without interest. He never charged Harold quite as much as he would a nonacquaintance, and often wondered if his producer-director really appreciated this.

  Having come to the end of his reminiscences and rolling his head about, Esslyn returned his attention to Kitty. Becoming aware of his regard, she tossed her highlighted curls in a coquettish gesture, which a less complacent husband might have thought a touch calculated. Then she admired her neck in the mirror. Esslyn admired her neck as well. Not a ring or a blur or a fold in sight. She had a charming little face. Too pointed to be called heartshaped, it obtained more to a neat foxiness that, combined with the narrow tilt of her sparkling eyes, was very appealing. Now, she stood up, smoothing the rosy fabric of her nightdress close against her belly, as yet no rounder than when they had wrestled in the props room, and smiled into the glass.

  Esslyn did not smile back, but contented himself with a simple nod. He was very sparing with his smiles, bringing them out only on special occasions. He had long been aware that, while they lit up and transformed his face, they also deepened and reinforced the nose-to-mouth lines somewhat. Now, he called, “Darling,” in a manner that spoke more of instruction than endearment.

  Obediently Kitty crossed to the four-poster and stood by his side. Esslyn made a “going up” gesture with his hand, palm held flat, and his wife lifted her nightdress over her head and let it fall, a cool raspberry ripple of satin, into a pool around her feet. Esslyn let his gaze slide over her lean, almost boyish flanks and hips, and small, appley breasts, and his lips tightened with satisfaction. (Rosa had allowed herself to become quite grotesquely fat during the last years of their marriage.) Esslyn tugged at the cord of his pajamas with one hand while patting his wife’s pillow with the other.

  “Come along, kitten.”

  She felt really nice. Firm and young and strong. She smelled of honeysuckle and the iffy white wine they sold in the clubhouse. She was sweetly compliant rather than saucily active, which, it seemed to Esslyn, was just how things should be. And to round off her character to perfection, she couldn’t act for beans.

  This last reflection recalled the rehearsals for Amadeus, and as Esslyn started to move briskly inside his wife, he mulled over his latest role at the Latimer. Quite a challenge (Salieri was never offstage), but he was starting to feel that acting was no longer quite enough. It had been suggested that he might try a spot of directing, and the truth was that Esslyn was rather drawn to this idea. He had once read a biography of Henry Irving, and quite fancied himself in a long dark coat with an astrakhan collar and a tallish hat. He might even grow sideburns—

  “How was that for you, darl
ing?”

  “How was what? Oh—” He gazed down at Kitty’s face, her lips shinily parted, her eyes closed in soft eclipse. “Sorry. Miles away as per usual. Fine … fine.” He gave her a postcoital peck on the cheek in the manner of one putting the finishing touch to an iced cake and rolled over to his own side of the bed. “Do try and get your lines down for Tuesday, Kitty. At least for the scenes when we’re together. I can’t stand being held up.” Unconsciously he echoed Harold. “I don’t know what you find to do all day.”

  “Why”—Kitty got up on one elbow and beamed a shining, blue glance in his direction—“I think of my petti-poos, of course.”

  “And I think of you too, puss-wuss,” rejoined Esslyn, really believing at that moment that he did. Then he said, “Don’t forget—by Tuesday,” plumped up his pillows, and, two minutes later, was fast asleep.

  The Everards, toadies to the company’s leading man, lived in unspeakable disarray in the crumbling terraced house down by the railway lines.

  They were objects of curiosity to the rest of the street, who could not make them out. They did not seem to have jobs (the curtains were still sometimes drawn at midday), and would often not come flitting out with their expandable string shopping bags until well past teatime.

  That they had little money seemed obvious. They never gave at the door and could occasionally be seen at five o’clock on market day scavenging behind the stalls with dainty precision, picking over the thrown-out fruits and vegetables. Various subtle and not-so-subtle attempts by the neighbors to get into the house had failed. They had not even managed to set foot on the tacky linoleum in the hall. And the windows were so thickly coated with grime that even when the tattered curtains were pulled aside, the mildewed interior of the house remained a mystery.

  The sour patch of ground that passed for a back garden was overgrown with nettles and thistles and tall grass that occasionally swayed and rustled, disturbed by the passing of rodents. On the asphalt beneath the front bay window, their car slumped. This was a fifteen-year-old Volkswagen held together by spot welding and willpower, with a Guinness label where the tax disc should have been. Mrs. Griggs at the corner newsagent’s had reported them to the police over this, and the label had disappeared for a while but was now back again. The Everards, Mrs. Griggs was fond of saying, gave her the creeps. She couldn’t stand Clive’s front teeth, which looked very sharp and protruded slightly, or Donald’s blinking and squinting. She called them Ratty and Moley, although never in their presence.

  They were rarely seen apart, and if they were, a certain dimness about the single Everard was noticeable. It was as if only by close physical proximity could the spark be struck that enabled them to shine with their full malevolent wattage. They seemed to feed off each other; wax fat on spiteful prediction and exchange. Nothing gave the brothers more happiness than the intense discomfiture of their fellow men, although they would never have been honest enough to say so. For hypocrisy was their middle name. Nobody could have been more surprised than they when someone took a remark amiss. Or when a plot or a plan resulted in the collapse of frail parties and distress all around. Who would have thought it? they would cry, and would retire to their appalling kitchen to plot and plan some more.

  Passers by number 13 Axon Street would stare at the gray windows and mutter and raise their eyebrows. Or tap their foreheads. The question “What are they up to?” was not infrequently posed. Answers ranged pleasurably over a wide spectrum of subversive activities, from the stealthy printing of underground literature to the making of bombs for the IRA. They were all quite wide of the mark. The beam of the Everards’ malice, though powerful, was a narrow one, and if they could make just a little mayhem within the immediate circle of their acquaintances, they were quite content.

  Rehearsals

  The theater was perfectly situated in the very center of Causton, at the corner of the main thoroughfare. Actually it turned the corner, having originally been the last shop (a baker’s) on the High Street and the first, (haberdashery and sewing-machine repairs) on Carradine Road. Both shops went back a long way (the bread had been baked on the premises), and they each had several poky rooms above. Having the strong support of the then-mayor Latimer, the Causton Amateur Dramatic Society leased the two buildings and, with the aid of a grant from the council, the proceeds from various fund-raising activities, and a modest amount of professional help had gutted them both and transformed the shell.

  They had built a stage with a plain proscenium arch, fitted a hundred dark gray plastic seats to a raked floor, and installed a simple lighting grid. There was a stage door and two large plate-glass doors that fronted the tiny foyer. This doubled as an office and had in it a desk, a chair, a telephone, an old filing cabinet, and a pay phone. There was also a board showing colorful photographs of the current production. A huge cellar running between both shops became the scene dock and dressing rooms. These were more than adequate except at Panto time or during the run of a play with an exceptionally large cast, such as Amadeus. Toilets for the actors were halfway along a corridor connecting the wings to the foyer.

  Three quarters of the top floor was taken up by the club-room, which was open to the public at performance times, when coffee and glasses of wine were available. Plastic tables and chairs were scattered about, and there were a couple of settees, which, imperfectly disguised, performed onstage as often as some of the actors and, it must be said, frequently with more conviction. The rest of the upstairs space was taken up by two rest rooms for the audience and Tim’s lighting box, which had a notice on the door: private, keep out. The Latimer was carpeted throughout in charcoal haircord, and the walls were roughcast white.

  Many of the CADS now looked back wistfully to those early days fifteen years past when, surrounded by rubble and timber and cables, and choking on brick dust, they had wrought out of chaos their very own theater. Things had been different then. Harold, for example. Beardless and slim in old corduroys, he had mucked in, getting filthy in the process, cheering them on when they were tired, holding the dream before their flagging spirits and their gritty, dust-filled eyes.

  They had all seemed equal then, in those glorious early days. Each with his part to play, and no part more valuable than any other. But after the theater was officially opened and Mayor Latimer had made his long-winded speech, imbibed hugely, and vanished under the drinks table, things started to change, and it soon became plain that some were very much more equal than others. For gradually, sinuously, Harold had eased his way to the top, stepping firmly on the necks of those too timid, too dim, or just too lazy to complain until (no one could quite put their finger on the point of no return) a czar was born. And now, occasionally people joined the company who knew nothing of those grand pioneering times when each member could have his say and be treated with respect. Renegade newcomers who couldn’t care less about the past.

  Like Nicholas, for instance, now approaching the Latimer stage door. As far as Nicholas was concerned, the Causton Amateur Dramatic Society came into existence during the rehearsals of French Without Tears and would die the death if his audition at Central was successful (as it must be, it must) with Amadeus. He fumbled in his pocket for the key. He had been given his own as soon as Colin became aware of his willingness to appear early, stay late, run about, fetch and carry, and generally make himself useful. Even now, in his illustrious position as what Esslyn grudgingly admitted to be second lead, Nicholas had arrived a good half hour before the stage management.

  In fact, it was barely six o’clock when he entered the building, so he was not surprised to find himself immediately swallowed up by silence. He stood for a moment inhaling voluptuously, and although the air smelled of nothing more exotic than the peel of an orange left in a tin wastebasket, it became transmuted in his apprentice’s nostrils to something rare and ambrosial. Nicholas padded silently, happily down the stone stairs to the dressing rooms.

  He flung his anorak down, slipped on Mozart’s brocade coat, and
picked up his sword. Nicholas was a short man, barely five feet six, a fact that caused him considerable anguish—Ian Holm, Antony Sher, and Bob Hoskins notwithstanding. Even on a good day when the wind was southerly, the sword caused him problems, especially when getting up and down at the pianoforte. He had planned to take it home and practice wearing it about the place, but had foolishly asked Harold’s permission, which had promptly been refused. “You’ll only lose it, and then where shall we be?”

  Now, Nicholas buckled it on and made his way toward the stage muttering the lines leading up to his move, anticipating the first night when he tripped over the thing and fell flat on his face, firmly putting this anticipation aside. A moment later, sneakers muffling his footsteps, he was on the set. He stood for a moment excitedly aware of that frisson—half terror, half delight—that seized him whenever he walked onto a stage, even when the theater was empty.

  But in fact it wasn’t. There was a sound. Startled, he looked about him. All the seats were unoccupied. He turned, facing the way he had come, but there was no one in the wings. Then he crouched and looked along the raked floor of the auditorium, expecting to see Riley mauling some disgusting tidbit. But no cat. Then it came again. Squeaky. Almost rubbery-sounding in its effect. Such as might be made if you dragged your finger over a window-pane. What could it be? And where was it coming from? Having checked the stage, the wings, and the auditorium, Nicholas was quite baffled. Until he lifted up his head.

  The sight that met his eyes was so surprising that it took him a couple of seconds to realize precisely what he was staring at. Someone was in Tim’s box. A girl. Nicholas swallowed hard. A naked girl. At least naked as far as he could see, which was to just below her waist. Below this the glass panel changed to solid wood. The girl had tumbling fair hair and narrow shoulders, and her back was pressed against the glass. When she arched it, as she now did, her skin imprinted uneven misty circles, like pearly flowers. Her arms were outstretched, and it was her fingers, clenching and unclenching against the glass, that had made the strange sound. He knew who it was. Even before she wrenched her body suddenly sideways, revealing one small pointed breast and a swooning profile. Her eyes (thank God) were closed. Cemented to the floor, he stared and stared, unable to drag his eyes away, and Kitty smiled, an intense, private smile gluttonous with satisfaction.