playing. . why not?’
‘I’m amazed. I never heard of that being done.’
‘Well, now you know. And if ever you see an actor on stage with a deaf-aid that is not integral to the plot — be suspicious.’
‘Has Micky agreed to use it?’
‘He’s still blustering and saying he never will and he once learnt lago in three days, but he’ll have to come round. There’s no alternative. Except for the obvious one.’
‘Which is?’
‘Reverting to the original casting.’ Alex Household let out the words in a hiss of frustration.
‘Which they won’t now they’ve got Micky’s name all over the posters.’
‘No, of course they won’t.’
‘I agree, it’s a bit of a cheek, asking you to do it.’
‘Oh, you should have heard the way it was put. Paul Lexington at his greasiest. Of course, Alex old man, it could be done by an A.S.M., but you do know the part so well, you could time it properly. And of course we would raise your money for doing it.’
‘By how much?’ No actor could have resisted asking the question.
‘Fifty quid a week.’
‘That’s pretty good.’
‘Oh yes, Paul Lexington pays you well for totally humiliating yourself.’
‘So you told him to get stuffed, did you?’
‘No, I haven’t yet.’ A cold smile came to Alex Household’s lips. ‘And do you know, I’m not sure that I will.’
‘You mean you’ll accept it?’
‘I just might.’
‘Good idea,’ said Charles soothingly. ‘Take the money and don’t think about it. That’s always been my philosophy.’
‘Yes.’ Alex’s mind was elsewhere. ‘Because now I come to think about it, it could be a good job.’
‘Sure, sure.’
‘A position of power.’
‘Power?’
‘Yes. How does one gain revenge for humiliation’?’
‘I’ve no idea.’ Charles didn’t like the way the conversation was going. The old light of paranoia gleamed in Alex’s eye.
‘Why, you humiliate someone else.’
‘Maybe, but — ’
‘And if you’re stuck in the wings feeding lines to some senile old fool who can’t remember them. .’ he laughed harshly, ‘. . then it’s really up to you what lines you feed.’
By the Saturday morning Michael Banks had accepted the inevitable. He sat in shamefaced silence while Paul Lexington explained to the company what was going to be done and was still silent, but attentive, while Wallas Ward, who had encountered the deaf-aid on a previous production, demonstrated the apparatus.
They started rehearsing with it straight away. Alex Household sat in a chair by the wall, smugly reading the lines into a small transmitter with an aerial, while Michael Banks moved about the stage area with the deaf-aid in his ear.
‘We can’t really work out sound levels properly until we get into the theatre. Better just work on timing the lines,’ advised Wallas Ward.
‘Come the day,’ asked Alex languidly, ‘where will I perch? On the Prompt Side?’
‘No. You’d be too near the Stage Manager’s desk there, might pick up his cues on the transmitter. No, you should sit OP.’ Wallas Ward used the theatrical jargon for the side opposite the Stage Manager.
‘Fine,’ said Alex, obtrusively cooperative.
They started. It was not easy. Michael Banks was not used to acting with a voice murmuring continuously in his ear, and Alex Household found it difficult to time the lines right. If he went at the natural pace, Michael Banks got lost and confused, unable to speak one line while hearing the next. The only way they could get any semblance of acting was for Alex to speak a whole sentence, Michael to wait for the end, and then repeat it. This method didn’t work too badly in exchanges of dialogue, but again it was disastrous in the long speeches. With all the waits as the lines came in, the pace slowed to nothing. The lines were coming out as written, but the play was dying a slow death.
Michael Banks struggled on gamely for about an hour, but then snatched out his ear-piece and said, ‘I’m sorry, loves. It’s just not working, is it?’
‘Persevere,’ said Wallas Ward. ‘Just persevere. It takes a long time to get used to it.’
‘How long? We don’t have that much time.’
‘Keep trying.’
It was painfully slow, but Michael Banks kept trying. His memory might have gone, but he showed plenty of guts.
Bobby Anscombe was due at three. Then they would do a run for him. By then they had to have mastered the device. By unspoken consent they worked on through their lunch-break. Every member of the company was willing their star to succeed.
Slowly, slowly, the pace started to pick up. Alex spoke more quickly and Michael Banks lost the flow less often.
It was a cooperative effort between the two. It had to be. Alex’s task of dictating the pace was quite as difficult as Michael’s of delivering the lines. And Charles noted with relief how Alex was rising to the challenge. Whatever resentments he might feel, whatever threats he might have voiced against the star, the understudy was now totally caught up in his task, spacing the lines with total concentration, caught up in the communal will for the subterfuge to work.
They staggered through the second act. It was half-past two, and the minutes were ticking away till Bobby Anscombe’s appearance. The tension in the room built up, the concentration of the entire company focusing on Michael Banks, living every effort with him.
He was approaching the big speech about the Hooded Owl, the speech which Malcolm Harris had rightly claimed to be the centre of his play, the speech that the star had not once got through since he had abandoned his script. All was silent in the rehearsal room, except for the actors speaking their lines.
The big speech was the climax of a scene between Michael and Lesley-Jane, playing his daughter. The dialogue which ran up to it showed good pace, and the strength of the star’s performance, absent in recent days, began again to show through.
The speech was partly addressed to the Hooded Owl of the title and ended with the bird in its glass case being smashed on the floor. Though this was to happen every night in the run, the Stage Management had requested that, to save on glass cases, the action should be mimed during rehearsal.
Lesley-Jane cued the big speech, and no one breathed. ‘But, Father,’ she said, ‘you will never be forgotten.’
‘Oh yes,’ said Michael Banks with new authority. ‘Oh yes, I will.
‘Three generations of us have lived in this house. Three generations have passed through this room, slept here, argued here, made love here, even died here. And the only marks of their passage have been obliterated by the next generation. New wallpaper, new furniture, new window frames. . the past is forgotten. Gone with no record. Unless you believe in some supernatural being, taking notes on our progress. A God, maybe — or, if you’d rather, a Hooded Owl. .
‘Why not? This stuffed bird has always been in the room. Imagine it had perception, a memory to retain our follies. Oh God, the weakness that these walls have witnessed! And this bird has lived through it all, has seen it all, impassively, in silence.’
He picked up the glass case and looked at the bird reflectively. Then, with a sudden change of mood, he shouted, ‘Well, I’m not going to be spied on any longer!’ and dashed it to the ground.
They all burst into applause. Lesley-Jane threw her arms round Michael Banks’s neck. The sense of
