Part 12 (1/2)

Some time in the night she woke me to give me a chocolate bar. She touched my hair, tenderly. I was very hungry, but I knew that eating chocolate would somehow weaken my hold on the tower. I picked up the Stanislavsky and left the chocolate, unopened, on the coverlet.

The next thing it was six-thirty a.m. The Stanislavsky was sitting on my maman's desk. She was talking to Vincent on the telephone. She was bright, alert, positive, but her bed had not been slept in and she was still wearing the same long grey dress with the white collar. While she talked I tried to find the chocolate bar but could not see it anywhere.

At half past nine we left the theatre, walking past the pigeons which were piled up in the gloomy foyer in their wicker cages. Vincent tried to persuade me to fondle one but I drew my fingers back into a fist and wrinkled up my nose. Then he took us for breakfast in a booth at the Patisserie Jean Claude where I ate two plates of scrambled eggs and bacon and drank three hot chocolates. By half past ten I had a stomach ache and we were touring property in Vincent's Corniche. These were not the properties advertised in the papers, but properties owned by Vincent and his brother.

I had no intention of leaving Gazette Street, I told my mother. She listened to me carefully, nodding her head and seeming to give weight to my objections, but I knew she thought she could bring anyone round to her point of view.

Each new property made her more animated, talkative, 'girlish', and Vincent spent the day with his neck glowing pink above his collar, a sure sign of what was happening below his belt. Yet when we returned to Gazette Street she did not, incredibly, ask him in.

She kissed him on the street, in public, and carried me inside.

The minute we were inside the Feu Follet, everybody wanted Felicity Smith they set upon her in such a hungry way that I barely had s.p.a.ce to notice the pigeons were gone from the foyer but we stopped for none of the supplicants. We went up to the tower, shut the door, and locked it.

There my mother walked up and down, loudly noticing how small the tower was, talking about the big house we had seen on c.o.c.kaigne Place, the two bathrooms on h.e.l.lot Road, but mostly about the little house Vincent had had Belinda Burastin build for him in the bushland fifteen miles away. She said I would be more cheerful when I was not constricted by 'this wretched place'.

'What ... wretched ... place?'

'Oh darling, you'll see there's so much more to life than theatre.'

My mother smiled and kissed me.

In defence, I picked up the Stanislavsky. I opened the musty pages. This is what I read: There are those who think that nature often works poorly. To some aesthetically minded people, taste is of greater consequence than truth. But in the instant that a crowd of thousands is being moved, when they are all swept by a feeling of enthusiasm, no matter what the physical shortcomings of the actors who cause this emotional storm. At such times, even a deformed person becomes beautiful.

I did not tell her. I did not take the chance that she would say something sarcastic which would weaken it. Instead I took the book and quietly wrapped it in a pillowslip.

Soon, I was pleased to see, she changed her clothes and announced she was having 'supper' with Vincent at the Chemin Rouge Ritz. She made me eat some vitamin pills and wrote her hotel room number on a slip of paper and pinned it to the door.

She kissed me. I kissed her back.

The minute she was gone before Wally came looking for me I stole the Stanislavsky. I dragged it downstairs thump, thump, thump thinking I would hide it under the bricks in the stables where I had rehea.r.s.ed for The Sad Sack Sirkus The Sad Sack Sirkus tour. tour.

The pigeons, however, had got there first. They whispered and fluttered in their wicker baskets in the very corner where I had planned to hide my (now slightly damaged) Stanislavsky. It was only then I realized I might really lose my tower.

I stood in front of their baskets, staring at them with my white quartz eyes. If I were Napoleon, I would have killed them. Even a lesser spirit, like Jango, would have opened the door and let them fly away. In the histories I had read there was always the defining moment when the hero had to act wilfully, selfishly. The man of destiny would have grasped the thistle, bitten the bullet. But I was only a kid. I was afraid of Wally.

I retreated into the dark s.p.a.ce under the raked theatre seats.

Here, in my oldest hide-out, it was dark and safe, but also melancholy and rather damp. I thought of heroes HOLED UP in mountains. Above my head I heard the actors' footsteps and imagined GUARDS. I thought of ROBERT BRUCE and the SPIDER. But there were no spiders, only scuttling c.o.c.kroaches which I attacked with a wooden block until it was covered with their black slimy insides.

I already had a blanket here, also a flashlight, and a clasp knife I had stolen from Chen. I had a tartan blanket my mother used in Hedda Gabler Hedda Gabler and a whole series of crowns, bowler hats and helmets which had since been replaced in Wardrobe. and a whole series of crowns, bowler hats and helmets which had since been replaced in Wardrobe.

Also, as soon as the next show opened, more stuff would fall from overhead sweets and coins particularly, but not exclusively and I knew that I could find, after almost every performance, something edible or valuable. Once I had found a ten-dollar note, once a condom in a plastic packet, once a phial of what I now realize was heroin but which I kept for years imagining it was a medicine I could cure my mother with if she were going to die.

Now, I unwrapped the Stanislavsky from its pillowslip. I laid the pillowslip on the dusty floor and placed the Master's text on top of it. I placed my left hand on its cover and my right hand on my heart. And there I vowed that I would never desert the theatre.

30.

The collective had already begun its normal 'development' stage for their new show a deconstruction of Uncle Vanya. They Uncle Vanya. They were preoccupied and hardly noticed me as I made the many trips around the circular stage, bringing the items I would need for my siege. were preoccupied and hardly noticed me as I made the many trips around the circular stage, bringing the items I would need for my siege.

This was a reputedly physical company, with actors always at the osteopath because they had pushed their body the wrong way. I was an actor with a shape that was already already interesting. I pa.s.sed them TWELVE TIMES, walking on my knees, but they did not seem to see me. interesting. I pa.s.sed them TWELVE TIMES, walking on my knees, but they did not seem to see me.

I was in my hiding place an hour before one of them came to speak to me Sparrowgra.s.s Glashan, he who could make himself a 'Human Wheel' and recite a comic version of 'Tomorrow and Tomorrow and Tomorrow' while spinning round the stage and grinning. This Sparrowgra.s.s Glashan, six foot five inches tall, with big comic bug eyes and his skeleton showing through his skin, was squatting outside the tiny triangular hole through which I had egress to my lair.

'What's cooking, mo-frere?' he called, squatting at my doorway, his bright white bony knees level with my eyes.

I held up the Stanislavsky.

'Wally's looking for you,' he said.

'I'm ... reading ... Stanislavsky.'

'You know he bought those pigeons for you, son.'

'I ... didn't ... ask ... him ... to.'

Sparrowgra.s.s did not argue with me. 'You're a good kid, Tristan,' he said. 'You know what's right.'

'He ... bought ... them ... for ... me,' I admitted.

'That's the boy. You know what's right.'

'I ... didn't ... know ... he ... would ... keep ... them ... in ... the ... tower.'

Not unusually, Sparrow did not understand me.

'You know what's right,' he said. 'It's all the money he has.'

'In ... the ... TOWER ... my ... home.'

'What?'

'Pigeons ... in ... the ... tower.'

'T-o-w-e-r?'

's.h.i.+TTY ... BIRDS.'

Sparrow didn't tell me not to swear. He didn't say anything for a moment.

'In the tower? Felicity won't let him do that, son. Don't fret.'

'Her ... idea,' I said.

He looked into my hole and grimaced and screwed up his eyes.