The Pale Horse

Mark Easterbrook’s Narrative (#ulink_b7197535-a5bb-5fb6-b2d0-b52fdf1049f6)

I came out of the Old Vic, my friend Hermia Redcliffe beside me. We had been to see a performance of Macbeth. It was raining hard. As we ran across the street to the spot where I had parked the car, Hermia remarked unjustly that whenever one went to the Old Vic it always rained.

‘It’s just one of those things.’

I dissented from this view. I said that, unlike sundials, she remembered only the rainy hours.

‘Now at Glyndebourne,’ went on Hermia as I let in the clutch, ‘I’ve always been lucky. I can’t imagine it other than perfection: the music—the glorious flower borders—the white flower border in particular.’

We discussed Glyndebourne and its music for a while, and then Hermia remarked:

‘We’re not going to Dover for breakfast, are we?’

‘Dover? What an extraordinary idea. I thought we’d go to the Fantasie. One needs some really good food and drink after all the magnificent blood and gloom of Macbeth, Shakespeare always makes me ravenous.’

‘Yes. So does Wagner. Smoked salmon sandwiches at Covent Garden in the intervals are never enough to stay the pangs. As to why Dover, it’s because you’re driving in that direction.’

‘One has to go round,’ I explained.

‘But you’ve overdone going round. You’re well away on the Old (or is it the New?) Kent Road.’

I took stock of my surroundings and had to admit that Hermia, as usual, was quite right.

‘I always get muddled here,’ I said in apology.

‘It is confusing,’ Hermia agreed. ‘Round and round Waterloo Station.’

Having at last successfully negotiated Westminster Bridge we resumed our conversation, discussing the production of Macbeth that we had just been viewing. My friend Hermia Redcliffe was a handsome young woman of twenty-eight. Cast in the heroic mould, she had an almost flawless Greek profile, and a mass of dark chestnut hair, coiled on the nape of her neck. My sister always referred to her as ‘Mark’s girl friend’ with an intonation of inverted commas about the term that never failed to annoy me.

The Fantasie gave us a pleasant welcome and showed us to a small table against the crimson velvet wall. The Fantasie is deservedly popular, and the tables are close together. As we sat down, our neighbours at the next table greeted us cheerfully. David Ardingly was a lecturer in History at Oxford. He introduced his companion, a very pretty girl, with a fashionable hairdo, all ends, bits and pieces, sticking out at improbable angles on the crown of her head. Strange to say, it suited her. She had enormous blue eyes and a mouth that was usually half-open. She was, as all David’s girls were known to be, extremely silly. David, who was a remarkably clever young man, could only find relaxation with girls who were practically half-witted.

‘This is my particular pet, Poppy,’ he explained. ‘Meet Mark and Hermia. They’re very serious and highbrow and you must try and live up to them. We’ve just come from Do it for Kicks. Lovely show! I bet you two are straight from Shakespeare or a revival of Ibsen.’

‘Macbeth at the Old Vic,’ said Hermia.

‘Ah, what do you think of Batterson’s production?’

‘I liked it,’ said Hermia. ‘The lighting was very interesting. And I’ve never seen the banquet scene so well managed.’

‘Ah, but what about the witches?’

‘Awful!’ said Hermia. ‘They always are,’ she added.

David agreed.

‘A pantomime element seems bound to creep in,’ he said. ‘All of them capering about and behaving like a three-fold Demon King. You can’t help expecting a Good Fairy to appear in white with spangles to say in a flat voice:

Your evil shall not triumph. In the end,

It is Macbeth who will be round the bend.’

We all laughed, but David, who was quick on the uptake, gave me a sharp glance.

‘What gives with you?’ he asked.

‘Nothing. It was just that I was reflecting only the other day about Evil and Demon Kings in pantomime. Yes—and Good Fairies, too.’

‘À propos de what?’

‘Oh, in Chelsea at a coffee bar.’

‘How smart and up to date you are, aren’t you, Mark? All among the Chelsea set. Where heiresses in tights marry corner boys on the make. That’s where Poppy ought to be, isn’t it, duckie?’

Poppy opened her enormous eyes still wider.

‘I hate Chelsea,’ she protested. ‘I like the Fantasie much better! Such lovely, lovely food.’

‘Good for you, Poppy. Anyway, you’re not really rich enough for Chelsea. Tell us more about Macbeth, Mark, and the awful witches. I know how I’d produce the witches if I were doing a production.’

David had been a prominent member of the O.U.D.S. in the past.

‘Well, how?’

‘I’d make them very ordinary. Just sly quiet old women. Like the witches in a country village.’

‘But there aren’t any witches nowadays?’ said Poppy, staring at him.

‘You say that because you’re a London girl. There’s still a witch in every village in rural England. Old Mrs Black, in the third cottage up the hill. Little boys are told not to annoy her, and she’s given presents of eggs and a home-baked cake now and again. Because,’ he wagged a finger impressively, ‘if you get across her, your cows will stop giving milk, your potato crop will fail, or little Johnnie will twist his ankle. You must keep on the right side of old Mrs Black. Nobody says so outright—but they all know!’

‘You’re joking,’ said Poppy, pouting.

‘No, I’m not. I’m right, aren’t I, Mark?’

‘Surely all that kind of superstition has died out completely with education,’ said Hermia sceptically.

‘Not in the rural pockets of the land. What do you say, Mark?’

‘I think perhaps you’re right,’ I said slowly. ‘Though I wouldn’t really know. I’ve never lived in the country much.’

‘I don’t see how you could produce the witches as ordinary old women,’ said Hermia, reverting to David’s earlier remark. ‘They must have a supernatural atmosphere about them, surely.’

‘Oh, but just think,’ said David. ‘It’s rather like madness. If you have someone who raves and staggers about with straws in their hair and looks mad, it’s not frightening at all! But I remember being sent once with a message to a doctor at a mental home and I was shown into a room to wait, and there was a nice elderly lady there, sipping a glass of milk. She made some conventional remark about the weather and then suddenly she leant forward and asked in a low voice:

‘“Is it your poor child who’s buried there behind the fireplace?” And then she nodded her head and said “12.10 exactly. It’s always at the same time every day. Pretend you don’t notice the blood.”

‘It was the matter-of-fact way she said it that was so spine-chilling.’

‘Was there really someone buried behind the fireplace?’ Poppy wanted to know.