Light Thickens Read Online Free PDF Page B

wouldn’t drink it down then and there. So Rangi did. There was a round of applause.
    “Show us, Rangi. Show us what you did. Don’t
say
anything, just show.”
    “E-e-e-
ah
!” he shouted suddenly. He slapped his knees and stamped. He grimaced, his eyes glittered, and his tongue whipped in and out. He held his umbrella before him like a spear and it was not funny.
    It lasted only a few seconds.
    They applauded and asked him what it meant and was he “weaving a spell.” He said no, nothing like that. His eyes were glazed. “I’ve had a little too much to drink,” he said. “I’ll go now. Good-night, all of you.”
    They objected. Some of them hung on to him but they did it halfheartedly. He brushed them off. “Sorry,” he said, “I shouldn’t have taken that drink. I’m no good with drinking.” He pulled some notes out of his pocket and shoved them across the bar. “My round,” he said. “Good-night, all.”
    He walked quickly to the swing doors, lost his balance, and regained it.
    “You all right?” Angus asked.
    “No,” he answered. “Far from it.”
    He walked into the doors. They swung out and he went with them. They saw him pull up, look stiffly to right and left, raise his umbrella in a magnificent gesture, get into the taxi that responded, and disappear.
    “He’s all right,” said one of the lairds. “He’s got a room round here.”
    “Nice chap.”
    “Very nice.”
    “I’ve heard, I don’t know who told me, mark you,” said Angus, “that drink has a funny effect on Maori people. Goes straight to their heads and they revert to their savage condition.”
    “Rangi hasn’t,” said Ross. “He’s gone grand.”
    “He did when he performed that dance or whatever it was,” said the actor who played Menteith.
    “You know what I think?” said Ross. “I think he was upset when you quoted.”
    “It’s all a load of old bullshit, anyway,” said a profound voice in the background.
    This provoked a confused expostulation that came to its climax when the Menteith roared out: “Thass all very fine but I bet you wouldn’t call the play by its right name. Would you do that?”
    Silence.
    “There you are!”
    “Only because it’d upset the rest of you.”
    “Yah!” they all said.
    The Ross, an older man who was sober, said: “I think it’s silly to talk about it. We feel as we do in different ways. Why not just accept that and stop nattering?”
    “Somebody ought to write a book about it,” said Wendy.
    “There is a chapter about it in a book called
Supernatural on Stage
, by Richard Huggett.”
    They finished their drinks. The party had gone flat.
    “Call it a day, chaps?” asked Ross.
    “That’s about the strength of it,” Menteith agreed.
    The nameless and lineless thanes noisily concurred and gradually they drifted out.
    Ross said to the Angus, “Come on, old boy, I’ll see you home.”
    “I’m afraid I’ve overstepped the mark. Sorry.
We were carousing till the second cock
. Oh, dear, there I go again.”
    “Come on, old boy.”
    “All right.” He made a shaky attempt to cross himself. “I’m okay,” he said.
    “Of course you are.”
    “Right you are, then. Good-night, Porter,” he said to the barman.
    “Good-night, sir.”
    They went out.
    “Actors,” said one of the guests.
    “That’s right, sir,” the barman agreed, collecting their glasses.
    “What was that they were saying about some superstition? I couldn’t make head or tail of it.”
    “They make out it’s unlucky to quote from this play. They don’t use the title either.”
    “Silly sods,” remarked another.
    “They take it for gospel.”
    “Probably some publicity stunt by the author.”
    The barman grunted.
    “What is the name of the play, then?”
    “
Macbeth
.”
     
    Rehearsals for the duel had begun and were persisted in remorselessly. At 9:30 every morning Dougal Macdougal and Simon Morten, armed with weighted wooden claymores, slashed and banged away at each other in a