1982 Janine (32 page)

Rory nodded thoughtfully then said, “Should I hector them like an angry trade union official?”

“Certainly not. Bluster has no effect on the British public when uttered with a regional accent. You've got to be damned hard and dry and incisive. Use an Anglo-Scots accent. The Scotch do change their accents when they get into positions of power.”

“Thomas Carlyle didn't!” said the writer loudly.

“As far as I know Thomas Carlyle was never in a position of power,” said the actor, “fortunately for Britain.”

“You English are cunning bastards,” said the writer, and walked out. The director apologised. The actor said, “Think nothing of it. Writers are notoriously temperamental. Now, you, in the part of Sir Arthur–”

He spoke, we listened, and were gradually joined by the rest of the English company. We tried to hide how pleased and flattered we were beneath a certain stiffness, and failed, I think. The English mixed their practical suggestions with so much friendly appreciation that they seemed not to condescend at all. A feeling of festivity resulted. Our director said, “Have you a suggestion about the lighting?”

The English actor started to laugh. He said, “None! None at all! The lighting is perfect.”

I said, “So what's the big joke?”

He said, “You're the electrician aren't you? Congratulations on a splendid performance. I loved the way you appeared to be doing a difficult job which you thoroughly despised but were determined to do properly, no matter what anyone else thought. You were in silhouette most of the time, but when your effects were most theatrically stunning your whole body registered a sort of glum resignation and perseverance which nearly had me falling out of my seat. Who designed that amazing structure you occupy?”

“I did.”

He looked solemn for a moment. He said, “I apologise, but it's hard not to laugh at the wholly unexpected. You see, what you've built works wonderfully, but it could only work with this particular play, in this particular acting
space, with you operating it. You are either an undiscovered genius or an uninstructed amateur.”

“Our Jock is both,” said Diana, putting her arm around my shoulders. Helen looked at me closely, I think for the first time. With an effort I met her eyes and smiled slightly, then I told the English actor, “You are wrong, my lighting is not perfect. Your advice to Rory about the final speech has given me a better idea. Good night.”

I went back up to the acting area hoping Diana or Helen would follow me out of curiosity. They did not, so I went to bed.

A lot more people came to the front office in the earlier part of the day and signed on as members, so when the premises opened for the evening the public outnumbered the staff by two to one, and later by three to one. Our audience filled over half the available seats because the English company returned bringing actors and musicians and singers from other festival productions, and these applauded so generously that we felt as famous as they were. Downstairs afterward there was a lot of dancing, starting with jive which I disliked because it made the partners hold each other in harsh, spasmodic ways. Then there was Scottish country dance, which Old Red once said would be the ballroom dancing of the future after the Great British Revolution. In each group every dancer comes to handle all of the other sex equally, and when groups split and reform with adjacent groups the dance is supposed to go on until everybody has held, twirled or embraced all of the other sex on the floor. When we had exhausted ourselves with democratic revolutions we had some slow private-enterprise waltzing. I waltzed once with Diana and once with Helen. Diana told me she was afraid that Brian was becoming far too keen on her, which was a pity because she was becoming keen on someone else, someone in the same line of business. I said, “Oh?”

After a pause she said sadly, “Directors seem to be the only men I can fall for.”

With a pang of jealousy I realised that the new man was our
friend in the English company, who directed it. However, I wished her luck. Helen told me very little. She and I never had much to say to each other. I realised I enjoyed her conversation less than I enjoyed watching her on the stage, and that she knew this.

By four in the morning everyone had left except the artists and helpers. The practical radical gave everyone free toasted cheese and coffee, then the party became a ceilidh. Roddy, Rory, the director and I sang
The Ball of Kirriemuir
in a quartet, which led to each of us delivering a short solo, because in early adolescence we had all learned or invented a verse which the others did not know. The English theatre people sang the libellous and bawdy versions of songs they did differently on stage, and the folksingers sang the then unpublishable versions of Burns' songs, which have since been published, but fairly recently. The opera people were too shy to sing when not rehearsing privately or on stage so they performed some comic charades. The concert musicians were more daring. They borrowed instruments from the jazz and folksong people and joined with these in duets, trios, quartets etcetera which mostly sounded tuneful to me, though people who knew about music kept laughing because of the eccentric combinations. I drank none of the booze which was freely passed around yet felt as drunk as those who did. This was our happiest night.

The club received such an influx of new members that the practical radical recruited kitchen-staff from among his folksingers, and our company washed and dried plates in the earlier part of the evening before playing to a full house with a lot of people standing at the back. From the top of my tower, high above the familiar silhouettes of London, I conducted our actors on to the stage in travelling spots of light. I cast pools of it for them to plot and pontificate and die in, and floods of it for them to quarrel and make love in. I struck the chimes of Big Ben and made telephones glow in the dark. I was monarch of all I surveyed, my right there was none to dispute. In the final scene, when the whole
auditorium was used to represent the House of Commons and all the cast but Rory rose out of it to ask querulous questions, I bounced so much unexpected light into the audience from a reflector on the stage behind McGrotty that he became a shadow with a voice in the middle of a dazzling radiance. I struck the final notes of Big Ben, put on all the house lights and there was loud applause. The actors went forward and bowed to it and some audience voices shouted, “The electrician! The electrician!” The director beckoned to me. I climbed down to a very loud storm of applause. I removed my overalls, hung them neatly on the scaffolding and then (none of this had been rehearsed) Diana and Helen seized a hand on each side and led me to the front of the stage. I could not find it in me to acknowledge the applause by bowing, but I gave the audience a nod of approval. For some reason this provoked so much laughter that Diana and Helen, without changing their dresses or removing their make-up, led me out through the audience and down to the cellar where a table with food and wine was reserved for us. Diana kissed me enthusiastically (but chastely). Helen squeezed my arm and said, “You really are perfect, Jock.”

Bliss was it in that dawn to be alive, and to be young was very heaven. The director arrived and said, “What has he got that I haven't got?”

The girls coldly ignored him. Something was happening among these three which I did not understand, though I knew it had nothing to do with me. I suddenly thought how much Denny would have enjoyed the show and my success in it. I had not sent her a postcard yet, but promised myself I would send one next morning.

This was like the fourth night. The girls and I walked out through the audience again but since this was not a spontaneous act it felt phoney and we never repeated it.

Half the folk who queued for the show had to be turned away and were angry because they could not book for
subsequent performances. (Having no clerical staff we had simplified our book-keeping by not having tickets and admitting people when they paid cash at the door.) At the very end, without being beckoned, I climbed down, stood in line and bowed as gratefully to the audience as the rest of the company.

The
Daily Record
or the
Bulletin
or the
Scottish Daily Express
printed a double-page article about our club, three-quarters of it filled with photographs. One showed myself in silhouette at the top of the tower while Helen and Rory, fully clothed, simulated sexual intercourse on a carpet of light at the bottom. One showed the most glamorous girl in the university review drinking and laughing with the hairiest man in the Gorbals Young Communist Party. One showed Rae and Archie Fisher being applauded by Felix Stokowski and Albert Finney, or perhaps it was Robin Hall and Josh Macrae being applauded by Yehudi Menuhin and Tom Courtenay. The text said that the organisers of the Edinburgh Festival were seriously worried because our “friendly, informal Glaswegian atmosphere” was “attracting worldwide celebrities of the stage and concerthall away from the mausoleum-like solemnity of the official festival club”.

An article by Cordelia Oliver or Martin Baillie or someone else in the
Manchester Guardian
or the
Glasgow Herald
or the
Scotsman
said that our club provided the only truly Scottish contributions to the festival. After mentioning the folksingers and dancebands the critics said that the political pantomime
McGrotty and Ludmilla
, “although clearly an amateur production”, was performed with so much zest and technical ingenuity that it communicated more pleasure than the official festival production of a play by Bernard Shaw or Brendan Behan or John Osborne or John Whiting. Diana was especially commended in the part of Miss Panther and I as the electrician.

This publicity caused high spirits and hilarity among all the club performers except Helen, Diana and me. Helen
became very quiet. Diana said, “I feel like a traitor. Helen is a far, far better actress than I am. That critic has no judgment whatsoever.”

Helen said, “I don't give a damn for the critic, I'm worried about that photograph. What will my father do when he sees it? He's terribly square. He didn't want me to go to drama college.”

Diana said, “Maybe he won't see it.”

“Oh yes, he'll see it. The neighbours will show it to him.”

I realised that Helen's people were less posh than I had thought. Very posh people don't have neighbours, or none they care about. And I was sure we were all becoming too lucky too fast. I felt as my mother possibly felt one morning when the postman, delivering a parcel, told her it was going to be a fine warm summer day. She said grimly, “We'll pay for it.”

I went to the director and said, “Brian, the show is now making money. For reasons I will not explain to you I need money. I know that half our take goes to the club and the rest will be divided among us equally. Please pay what you owe me now, and hereafter I want my cut of each night's take on the following morning, or better still, after the show.”

He said, “Oh you are an impossible man. Frankly, I would prefer to give everyone their cut when the show ends and we've had time to add up the expenses.”

I said, “No. So far the expenses have been equally shared between us. The actors have provided their own costumes, I have bought petrol for the van, everything else has been borrowed.”

“But I've provided my own costume AND bought booze for the company.”

“None of which I have drunk. If you do not give me what is due to me today, or at the very latest tomorrow morning, I promise I will return to Glasgow and register as an unemployed student.”

The director groaned and said, “All right Jock, all right. But I wish you wouldnae clap a loaded gun to my skull every time you ask me for something.”

The Oxford accent and the mannerisms I had once hated in
him had almost vanished, he sounded like an ordinary man with ordinary worries and I was sorry for the change. As an ordinary man I respected him more but enjoyed him less. I was sure his worries came from his lovelife, and was glad my lovelife had no complications. I was lusting to return to Denny though I had been too busy to send her a postcard yet.

He gave me the money. I hurried over the bridge to the central post office and put it in my savings account. The show went on as usual.

More newspapers reviewed us favourably and so did the Scottish Home Service. I thought of asking my parents to come and see the show, but if I asked them to do that why should I not ask Denny? So I asked nobody.

At twenty to eleven Brian and I, who were on the door, had just told the end of the queue that the house was full when our friend the English director arrived with someone who wore very good clothes and had a well-groomed but strange head. The top half looked old and the bottom half young. The English director said, “Listen, could you possibly squash in just two more of us?”

Our director said, “Sorry, but if we let in one more body suffocation will ensue. We're almost a fire-hazard.”

The actor said, “But you see this is …”

His companion said, “No no no. I can surely come back tomorrow night, if your friend will be kind enough to keep us a couple of seats and not make a fire-hazard of his theatre.”

His English accent was so smooth and grave that it made the smoothly accented English director sound unstable.