The Death-Cap Dancers

which I imagine is French.’

‘Oh, yes, there’s Peter Warlock’s Capriole Suite. You ought to make up some dances to that music, Giles. I believe the Rambert Ballet used to do that, or so my oldest aunt told me. She saw them at the old Lyric Theatre in Hammersmith,’ said Ronnie, backing up Peter’s effort to calm the party.

‘There is another use for the word ‘caper’ which is not so generally known,’ said Willie. ‘There is a Manx proverb which says, “The weather is so foul that not even a caper will venture out.” In this connection a caper was an Irish fisherman from Cape Clear. These chaps had the reputation for venturing out to sea in any weather.’

‘Join Wild Thyme and get yourself a liberal education,’ said Giles. ‘Well, I think it’s time we got changed. If I mistake not, our audience will soon be arriving.’

It had been arranged that the caretaker would be ‘on the door’ to tear the tickets and that Peggy would show people to their seats as, for her, there would be no costume changes. The caretaker had strict instructions to let no latecomers in during a dance, but to allow them to find their seats (without Peggy’s assistance) if they arrived while nothing but a feast of song was being offered. All the songs were sung in unison as choruses. There were no vocal soloists. In any case, very few late arrivals were anticipated. As Peter put it: ‘We who live north of a line drawn from Stafford to Kings Lynn are jolly well going to see the whole of a performance for which we’ve shelled out our brass.’

‘Are you going to act on that tip the forestry warden gave you?’ Peggy enquired of Giles, while the company still kept their seats.

‘Worth trying, I think,’ he said. ‘It won’t be much fun pedalling our bikes forty miles to the next Youth Hostel after we’ve done the show, and the last twenty miles will be after dark. If I can get you two girls fixed up for the night it will be something. We chaps must take our chance. I’d like to get Mick a bed near here, as he’s got such an extra load of dancing to do now that we haven’t Judy with us, but that would involve Willie, because of the tandem. Oh, well, we’ll see what the response is from the forest cabins. I know there are one or two empty cabins at this time of year, but I suppose it would be against regulations for the warden to let us have a couple of those for the night, even at a reasonable fee which we could easily afford out of the ticket money.’

‘Well, I hope something comes up for us,’ said Peggy, ‘and for you boys, too. A few miles to the forest is a vastly different proposition from forty miles to the next hostel and some of it after dark. It wasn’t even dark when Judy was pulled off her bike.’

‘We don’t know that she was pulled off it,’ said Giles, ‘so don’t start all that up again. We’ve got the show to think about. ’ He was feeling his responsibilities acutely. There had been all too little time to rehearse the changes in the programme which had been made necessary by Judy’s absence, and there had even been serious discussion of a suggestion by Pippa that the most spectacular item should be left out altogether. This was their own version of the traditional sword dance called Kirkby Malzeard and titled by Giles, who had imposed a dramatically bloody ending on it, Ritual Slaughter at Kirkby Moorside.

‘We can’t do it properly with seven people, even if I do the hobby horse,’ she said, ‘and Peggy can’t dance in it because you say we must have her for the music, but I still can’t see why my flute wouldn’t do. Peggy would do the hobby horse better than I shall.’

‘We settled all that,’ said Giles, ‘and I’ve spent a lot of time coaching you.’

‘I know, but I’m still nervous about how I shall perform.’

‘It isn’t as though you have to dance,’ said Giles. ‘So long as you keep out of the dancers’ way and only make little dashes at the audience and flick the horse’s tail in their faces and cavort about a bit, you’ll do fine. And Peter made the head and the rest of the gear very light because Judy was going to wear it, so you know you can support it all right. We know it’s really a man’s part, but you’ll manage.’

Pippa began to cry.

‘I think it’s in dreadfully bad taste to dance a ritual killing when we know what’s happened to Judy,’ she said.

‘Oh, stop beefing!’ said Plum. ‘No need to bring that up.’

‘On another matter,’ said Giles, ‘I’ve notified the local press and I expect they’ll take photographs after the show, so nobody is to change out of costume until they’ve done with us.’

‘I’m not going to be photographed wearing that awful contraption you call the hobby horse’s head,’ said Pippa, still in tears.

‘All right, all right. You’ll still be wearing your beard, so you can take off the head, but be sure you hold it in profile. It’s Peter’s piece de resistance and I want it to stand out.’

‘I don’t want to be photographed in the beard, either.’

‘Look, I’ve explained about the beard. You and Mick must be differentiated.’

‘But he wears a beard for the Morris and the sword dances.’

‘Quite a different beard, and I’ve trimmed yours so that you can find your lips for your flute. What’s the matter with you, Pippa? It isn’t like you to kick up this sort of damn silly fuss.’

‘If you want to know, I’m scared. Judy was murdered — you know she was. And if Mick plays the victim he’ll be murdered, too. I don’t want to stay the night in one of the forest cabins, either. It’s not safe. As soon as the show is over I am getting on my bike and going home.’

The show was scheduled to last for an hour and a half. There were only two items which would not be repeated for an encore. Whether the audience called for encores or not was beside the point, Giles pointed out. The time had to be filled in somehow, or people would not feel they were getting their money’s worth. The exceptions were the four groups of folk-songs (‘they wouldn’t get an encore, anyway — we don’t sing well enough’) and the Ritual Murder dance with which the programme ended.

‘We may be offering a rather truncated version of what I originally planned,’ said Giles, ‘but even that would lose all its drama if we repeated it. That bloody head is another masterpiece of Peter’s. We end on that and I don’t expect much applause for any other item. People in these parts only really like vulgar comedians and audience participation in the songs, and they’ll be highly critical of our old-style folk-songs and dances and, of course, they do like a full orchestra which makes plenty of lively noise, not just a violin and a flute with occasional piano accompaniment.’

‘Oh, don’t encourage us, whatever you do,’ said Peggy bitterly. ‘As though we don’t already feel inadequate enough!’

‘Oh, quite a few of the forest cabin people are coming,’ said Ronnie soothingly. ‘They’ll appreciate us, I’m sure, and we are not repeating any of the songs unless they applaud them quite wildly — and they won’t.’

‘We had better get changed,’ said Giles. ‘Good luck, everybody.’

‘We shall need it,’ said Peter. The programme opened with three of the songs. All the songs, of which there were a round dozen, were arranged in groups of three and in all of them Judy’s clear soprano was sorely missed, although Peter could manage a passable counter-tenor and Mick what the others called ‘a Hinge-and-Bracket’ voice. Pippa did not sing, her lips being otherwise engaged, but Peggy, at the piano for the songs, had a robust contralto and Plum contributed a resounding bass.

As the first three songs were to be followed by the folk dances called Three Meet and Parsons Farewell, Mick was able to appear in his girl-rig for the opening choruses, so that he had no need of a costume change for the first two dances. The other men were in the white flannel trousers which they would also wear for the morris and sword dances,but would be without their ribbon-streamer hats and the bells on their legs. While any changes of costume were being made in the little room behind the platform, the two girls were to play the flute and violin solos taking it in turns to accompany one another on the piano, and there would also be a rendering of various sentimental airs known, it was hoped, to most of the audience.

‘The tickets are not numbered,’ said Erica, ‘so we had better get there in good time if we want to find a good seat. I’m surprised that a church hall has a stage big enough for dancing.’

‘It will probably be staged at floor level,’ said the knowledgeable Isobel. ‘When these sort of people come to give a performance at my school, they use the body of the hall and the kids sit around on all four sides, leaving a big space in the middle. I expect that’s what it will be like this afternoon.’

The church hall had its carpark and only half-a-dozen cars were in it when they arrived. Peggy, at her most gracious, her generous body encased in a small black velvet bolero and a very full flowered skirt topped by a white muslin blouse, was also wearing white stockings and shining black shoes. She asked whether they would like seats on the platform — ‘you can have four in the middle of the front row’ — or whether they would prefer to be in the body of the hall and, receiving an answer, took them on to the small stage.