the great man performing, whose appearance and archness we both found amusing) and what appeared to be a standard list of demands he felt he had to make before he arrived: lighting requirements, the need for technical rehearsals, the raising and lowering of the curtains, use of stage apparatus and so on. There was nothing unusual in that, which would anyway be arranged in the technical rehearsals all performers underwent as a matter of course, but with it came a document that was obviously an extra item.
It consisted of a detailed drawing to scale, with measurements and angles drawn meticulously, of a large sheet of plate glass. At the bottom, written in capital letters, was the following:
‘PART OF MY ACT HAS TO BE PERFORMED WITH A LAYER OF CLEAN GLASS BETWEEN THE APPARATUS AND THE AUDIENCE. THIS SHOULD BE OBTAINED PRIOR TO MY ARRIVAL, AS PER OUR CONTRACT, AND MUST EXACTLY MATCH THE ABOVE SPECIFICATION. ON MY ARRIVAL THE PANE OF GLASS MUST BE FITTED TO THE APPARATUS WITH WHICH I TRAVEL, AND WHICH HAS PRECISE MEASUREMENTS. LORD.’
‘Do you suppose his parents gave him the name “Lord”?’ I said.
‘That’s how he signed the contract,’ Jayr said, showing me a copy.
He seemed amused by the whole matter. The act had been booked at the end of the previous season by the outgoing management. It was true that it contained a clause written in verbose language, presumably dictated by the Lord himself, about the venue’s responsibility to arrange the supply and fitting of the glass.
Other than the contract, Jayr knew nothing more about this Lord. He appeared to be resigned about it, saw it as part of the day-to-day life of a provincial theatre, a problem to take in his stride.
One morning, when the snow was blowing fiercely down the main street where I lived, I was as usual struggling towards the theatre. Staying upright on the slippery ground was always a problem but on that morning the difficulties were increased by the blustering of the wind. I had long developed the technique of watching the icy ground wherever I walked, but I also knew how to keep a general look-out where I was going. Moving about was hazardous in the snows of Omhuuv.
I was therefore not too surprised when I collided with a man walking in the other direction, although I had definitely not spotted him coming. He was somewhat shorter than myself, and as we bumped into each other his shoulder hit against my chest, spinning me around violently. I managed, just, to keep my footing, but I did so only by an ungainly manoeuvre with both legs spread and my hands reaching down desperately to avoid the fall. I skittered across the ridges of frozen snow, my chest aching from the blow and for a moment I found it difficult to breathe.
The man I had crashed into, though, was much more affected by the collision. As I was struggling to stay upright, I saw him first bounce away from me, and then in some fashion seemed to fly backwards, his arms flailing. He landed on his neck and shoulders in a heap of soft snow deposited during the night by the blowers, his legs aloft. He was struggling furiously to release himself as I skidded anxiously over to help him.
‘You bloody fool!’ he shouted at me, shaking his head and spitting out snow. ‘Why don’t you look where you’re walking?’
‘I’m sorry!’ I said. ‘Here — take my hand!’
He clasped my wrist and after much pulling and shouting I managed to tug him out of the heap of snow. He clambered laboriously to his feet, shaking his arms and head, trying to bang the loose snow away from his clothes.
‘You nearly killed me, you careless bastard!’ he yelled, as the wind continued to howl around us. ‘Look where you’re sodding well walking in future, do you hear?’
‘I said I was sorry.’
‘Sorry isn’t enough. You might have killed me.’
‘Were
‘Where are you from, you bloody fool?’ he said in a fierce voice. He leant towards me, as if trying to memorize my face. ‘I don’t recognize you. You don’t talk like a local.’
I was still struggling to get my breath back. The man was thrusting his face pugnaciously towards mine.
Although his aggressive behaviour was frightening, I was struck, in the extremity of the situation, with the calm thought that in fact I had never seen him before, either. My way to and from work every day was always the same, always along this road, skidding on the frozen ruts, and I usually passed or saw the same people every time. I knew none of them, but in harsh weather a silent brotherhood of wintry endurance seems to arise.
This was the first time I had seen this bellicose little man. Although he was wearing a hood over his head, and a scarf was wrapped around his forehead, his eyes were visible — they were a pale and watery blue. He was crusted with frost and snow, but I could see he had dark and bushy eyebrows, a moustache that grew outwards and down, and a brown-red beard. More than this I could not see because he was, like me, wrapped up thickly against the cold.
‘Look, I’m sorry if you were hurt,’ I said, although the more I thought about it the less responsible for the accident I felt.
‘Goornak Town, that’s where you’re from! I’d know that annoying accent anywhere!’
I tried to step past him, get away from him.
‘When you come to Omhuuv, young man, you bloody behave yourself. You get that?’
I pushed past him, and staggered on across the frozen surface. He was shouting something after me, but because of the wind I could no longer hear his words.
I was shaken up by this unpleasant encounter, and not just because of the physical impact. Of course I was an outsider in the small town, a newcomer, but until that moment the worst I had experienced from local people was a mild curiosity about where I had come from and what I was doing in Omhuuv. In almost every case, the reactions were friendly.
I arrived at the theatre, warmed up in the office while drinking a cup of hot coffee with Jayr, then started my round of the daily chores. I was upset and preoccupied for an hour or two, but by the time we broke off for lunch I was back to normal.
As I walked home that evening, though, I kept an eye open for the man, distinctly wary of seeing him again.
The next morning, not far from where I lived, the man suddenly appeared. He seemed to have been lying in wait for me, because he dashed out of an alley that ran between two houses. He skidded forward like a man making a sports tackle, his feet thrusting at me and catching me on my shins. I fell violently to the side, on to the hard and impacted snow beside the edge of the road. One of the haulage trucks went by at that moment, narrowly missing my head.
I struggled to my feet, but my assailant was up before me. By the time I was upright again he had stumped off down the road, head low against his shoulders, his hands thrust deep into his pockets.
I hurried after him, grabbed his arm and spun him around.
‘What’s the matter with you?’ I shouted. ‘You nearly killed me!’
‘Then we’re quits, you bastard. Leave me alone!’
He pulled his arm away from me with surprising strength, and slithered on.
‘Look — what happened yesterday was an accident. That wasn’t! You attacked me!’
‘Call the policier if you have a complaint.’ He turned to look at me, and once again I saw that unremarkable but hostile face, the frosted eyebrows furrowed against the cold, the droopy moustache, the pale skin.
I grabbed hold of him again, angry and frightened, but with great ease he released himself from me and carried on up the road once more. He seemed immensely strong, for all his small build.
I brushed myself down, knocking the snow off my arms and chest. I tried to be calm, tried to put him out of my mind, but it was difficult.
I stared up the road after him, watching the way he moved. Everything about his body language evinced anger and hostility, a tightly coiled rage, compressed violently into his hunched body. I knew nothing about him except that from that moment on I resolved I would watch every step of the way when walking through the town.
Aching again from this second rough encounter, I stayed put. I watched him until he was out of sight, disappearing around a bend in the road, somewhere near the bus terminus. From the way he was waving his hands, I guessed he was still yelling at me.
Jayr said he was too busy to be bothered with Lord, so he delegated the preparatory work to me, as I had
