Swan Song

‘God help us all,’ said Adam to himself, with some feeling. He had not liked the nerve-racked tone of Peacock’s voice, which suggested an imminent explosion. And he knew from experience that if one person loses control of himself at a rehearsal, the rest always begin to sulk, and the only thing to do is to pack up and go home. He devoutly hoped that Shorthouse would keep quiet for a while.

Magdalena trotted to the stage and held her brief colloquy with Eva. It occurred to Adam that he had better get upstage in readiness for his entry, and he affixed his chewing-gum providently to a piece of scenery. Damn Shorthouse, he thought, as he passed Beckmesser twanging faintly at his lute; damn the man.

In another moment Joan was rushing to greet him. ‘Hero, poet, and my only friend!’ she sang, embracing him, and added under her breath: ‘You smell revoltingly of peppermint.’

Very much to Adam’s surprise, the rest of the second act passed without untoward incident. The lovers attempted to elope and were foiled by Sachs: Beckmesser performed his ludicrous serenade and was chased by David amid a rout of apprentices and masters (‘Looks like a lot of fairies,’ said Rutherston with disapproval, ‘dancing a ballet’); sleepy-eyed, the night-watchman came on, intoned his formula, blew his horn; and to echoes of the summer-night motif and of Beckmesser’s serenade the music came to an end. But Adam suspected that Shorthouse, whose tactics in nuisance were subtle, was merely holding his fire until the third act: and events proved him to be right.

The cast gathered on the stage to hear the respective strictures of conductor, producer, and chorus-master. There followed a quarter-hour break, in which people drifted out to get a cup of tea. Adam joined Joan Davis and Barfield, who was eating an apple, in the stalls.

‘There are times,’ he said, ‘when I really think we ought to get together and raise Hades about Shorthouse.’

‘Calm before the storm,’ said Barfield indistinctly. ‘That’s all this is. But if you ask me, the management wouldn’t take it kindly.’

‘For the simple reason,’ Joan put in, ‘that they don’t realize what a marvel Peacock is with the orchestra. He makes that cynical old gang of scrapers and blowers sound positively beautiful.’

‘It’s youth,’ Barfield mumbled through his apple. ‘Emotional osmosis.’

‘Where is he, by the way?’ Adam asked. ‘Has he gone out?’

He stared about him. On the stage a number of unlikely objects which had been temporarily employed to represent a Nuremberg street were now being shifted about to represent a meadow. In his gallery at the back, the electrician was conversing with a couple of apprentices. And several members of the chorus were wandering dispiritedly up and down the gangways of the auditorium. But of Peacock there was no sign.

‘Having a heart-to-heart with Shorthouse, perhaps,’ suggested Barfield. ‘Poor devil.’ He took out a piece of cake and offered it perfunctorily to Adam and Joan; he was obviously relieved when they refused.

The dark young man whom Adam had seen with the producer crossed the back of the stage, talking to Judith Haynes. ‘Who’s that?’ Adam enquired generally.

‘The man?’ Joan sat up to get a better look. ‘Oh, Boris somebody. One of the apprentices.’

‘Isn’t the girl something to do with Shorthouse?’

‘As to that,’ said Joan rather definitely, ‘I couldn’t say. If so, I’m sorry for her. She’s a pretty child.’

‘Chorus?’

‘Yes. One of the boatload of maidens. It’s she who dances with David.’

‘Oh, yes, so it is.’ Adam considered. ‘I felt sure I’d seen her with Shorthouse, but she looks very much attached to that young man.’

‘Promiscuous probably,’ said Barfield, dropping cake-crumbs on to his knee. ‘Are we doing scene one of the last act? If so, I’ve time to go out and get a bite to eat.’

Joan shook her head. ‘No, only the second scene. Just as well, too. Everyone’s a bit worn.’

Barfield was staring at the door leading backstage, which now opened. ‘Cripes,’ he said. ‘Here’s Mephisto. Turn on the charm, everyone.’

Shorthouse came up to them, sat down, and heaved a sigh. He smelled, as usual, of gin.

‘Thank God the show’s in a week,’ he said. ‘I can’t stand much more of this. Peacock’s all right,’ – he spoke with such manifest insincerity that Adam started – ‘but he can’t make up his mind about anything.’

Joan said: ‘Are you deliberately trying to harry him into a nervous breakdown, Edwin?’

‘Good heavens, Joan’ – Shorthouse looked genuinely shocked – ‘what’s put that idea into your head? I’m sorry if I’ve been holding the production up, but I must understand what I’m supposed to be doing. Yet every time I ask, I get some kind of vulgar insult hurled at me … Not that I mind, personally – the man’s inexperienced and he’s obviously nervous. But I’m worried about the production as a whole. This is the first time Meistersinger’s been done since before the war, and it seems to me that for that reason it’s more than ordinarily important to get everything exactly right.’ He paused, and involuntarily a smile flitted across his face. ‘I’ve been considering going to the management and asking them to replace Peacock.’

‘Don’t be such a damned fool,’ said Adam, more sharply than he had intended. ‘He’s under contract.’

‘So am I,’ Shorthouse countered unpleasantly. ‘But that’s not going to stop me walking out if rehearsals continue on the present lines. I can assure you it isn’t a personal matter: it’s only Wagner I’m thinking of.’

The notion that Shorthouse might be thinking of anyone but himself was almost too much for Adam; he uttered an incoherent snorting sound. Barfield was unwinding a packet of chocolate. Pogner strode across the stage, muttering fiercely to himself, and Rutherston appeared, gesticulating at the electrician in his gallery. A horn-player in the orchestra pit was engaged in a prolonged Jeremiad about some infraction of Union rules.

Ten minutes later the rehearsal was under way again. The Guilds entered; the boatload of maidens arrived; the apprentices danced (‘like a Sunday School treat,’ Rutherston remarked); and last of all came the Mastersingers, headed by a banner bearing an effigy of David and his harp. The chorus sang in honour of Sachs; as the acclamation died away, all was ready for the moving response of the cobbler-poet.

Chapter Five (#u14a58352-2f2d-5454-9030-6e1750ae22f6)

And that was when the real trouble started.

There was a minor hitch over positioning, followed by a misunderstanding as to the point in the score at which the music was to be recommenced. Shorthouse snapped at Peacock; Peacock snapped back at him, and then they went for one another, as Adam afterwards put it, ‘like a nationalization debate in the Commons’. Although it was an eruption which everyone had expected, the embarrassment was general, since the sight of two grown-up men bawling at one another like children is at the best of times dispiriting. No one, however, interfered; only, when Peacock finally stalked out, after smashing his baton on the conductor’s desk in an access of blind fury, Adam went quietly after him. He heard the murmur of released tension as he left the stage.

Peacock was in the rehearsal-room. He stood quite still, gripping the lid of the piano with both hands and struggling to control his emotions. His bony, irregular, sensitive features betrayed the strain he was undergoing, and his eyes were momentarily vacant and unseeing. Adam hesitated for an instant in the doorway; then said briefly:

‘You have my sympathy.’

There was a considerable pause before Peacock replied. At last he relaxed and said with great bitterness:

‘I suppose I should apologize.’

‘Technically, yes,’ Adam commented. ‘Humanly, no. You must realize that everyone is on your side. Edwin is behaving intolerably.’

Peacock muttered.

‘I ought to be able to control a situation like that. After all, it’s all part of my job …’ He considered. ‘You’ve more experience of these things than I … Should I resign?’

‘Don’t be a fool,’ said Adam warmly. ‘Of course not.’

‘Naturally, I realize’ – Peacock spoke with difficulty – ‘the line it’s desirable to take. Genial but firm … The trouble is, my nerves won’t let me do it. I suppose really I’m unfitted for this kind of work.’ He looked so haggard that Adam was shocked. ‘But I’ve simply got to make a success of it. One way or another, it’s going to affect the whole of my future career.’

There was a silence. ‘What about the rehearsal?’ Adam asked.

‘Tell them it’s over, will you? I can’t face people at present.’

‘It would be better if you—’

‘For God’s sake tell them it’s over!’

Peacock checked himself abruptly, and a spasm of shame passed over his face. ‘I’m sorry. I didn’t mean to shout.’

‘I’ll tell them,’ said Adam, and hesitated.

‘For the love of heaven don’t do anything rash,’ he added, and returned to the stage.

There he made his brief announcement. Shorthouse, he observed, was not present to hear it.