Puccini's Ghosts (32 page)

She strokes it gently as it rests in her hands.

I pick up the newspaper cutting again. You’re not in it, I say. You made all those costumes. You came up with all those ideas, you worked off tiny sketches, put in all those hours. And you’re not in the picture. You didn’t even go.

That’s what I’m saying. A woman in my place couldn’t go to a dance in those days, anyway you preferred not to. That’s hard to believe now. I had my hair done to see you. They come on a Tuesday and a Friday.

What do you mean?

She looks at me with her receding, child’s gaze.

As long as you wore a wedding ring folk were nice enough. They let you alone whether they believed you were a widow or not. You lived quiet but it suited you to, anyway. You hadn’t the money.

What do you mean whether they believed you? Everybody knew Enid’s dad was killed in the war. He was, wasn’t he?

Aye, he was. But we were never married, and you’d never to come out with that, you’d be thought not nice. Enid would’ve had a terrible time. It’s not a nice word, bastard. You don’t want your wee one hearing that.

So Enid’s dad, was he married already or something?

This is the wrong thing to say.

She drops her hands hard into her lap. What do you think I am? You think I had a dirty wee affair with someone else’s husband? Who do you think you’re speaking to?

She lifts the Liù dress in her hand. What do you think
this
is?

I’m sorry. I don’t know.

It was to be a white wedding! All planned! Only we never got that length. I didn’t know Enid was on the way till a fortnight after he was killed.

I’m sorry. I never meant that you—

She calms down, maybe because anger is so tiring, and drinks some of her coffee. She says, Here’s where it went. See? My material.

My costume? You mean the material was for your wedding dress?

That’s what I’m telling you. Don’t know why I hung on to it. Maybe just to feel decent.

Decent?

Because I was meant to be getting married. There was only three months till the wedding. I didn’t let him you-know-what till after we got engaged.

And you used your material for
my
costume?

Ach, I was daft to keep it. I suppose I was fond of you.

My face has started to tremble again and I have no handkerchief. I wipe my nose on my sleeve.

Enid’s mum clicks her tongue and sniffs. You had your struggles. Mind you, you were a silly girl. All girls are silly.

People tried to pull the wool over my eyes.

Aye, well. Her eyes travel round the room and settle back on me. Never mind. After a while it doesn’t matter, you have to just leave things be and never mind.

Not when they’re that serious, not when something terrible happens.

Enid’s mum snorts at this. It’s forgotten now! I had my hair done to see you. They’re very good, they come on a Tuesday and a Friday, they’ll do you in your own room if you can’t get to the place downstairs.

I
haven’t forgotten. I mean, I wish I could.

Listen, dear. Here’s a thing. Nothing’s tragic forever, if you just leave things be. Folk think you can’t forget but you can.

But it was all my fault.

Well, just stop minding about it.

I can’t.

She sighs. Then you’re a silly woman. A silly girl turned into a silly woman, look at yourself. Lying there like that.

She is looking around the room again.

I had my hair done to see you, she says. They’re very good, they come on a Tuesday and a Friday, they’ll come up and do you in your room if you can’t get to the place downstairs.

22

G
eorge was standing on a podium of upturned beer crates nailed together but the extra height was not lending him the authority he was owed. He felt exposed and under inspection, like goods on approval, no obligation to purchase. He laid his baton softly across the open score on the music stand.

‘No, it would not be accurate to say that liberties are being taken,’ he said to the crowd before him. Somebody in the back of the chorus had just said in a ringing voice that they were. ‘Taking liberties is not the right way to put it at all.’

In the echoing shed his voice took on an impressive sonority; somehow the whiteness of the walls and the black of the stage backdrop added a tone of trustworthy depth to words uttered here. So it was puzzling that the company was restive. He had been rehearsing the principals, chorus and band separately for weeks now and they were quite used to the cuts and changes he was making to their parts, drastic though they were. They’d had several musical run-throughs of the whole show and nobody had objected then.

But this was the first big run-through on stage and perhaps he should have warned them that combining movement and music for the first time was bound to be difficult. The cuts might, temporarily, be making the action hard to follow; the show might even appear to be, this first time, a meaningless and cacophonous mess. He should have prepared them for the possibility that the whole thing would break down within fifteen minutes, with everybody blaming first one another and then uniting to blame him. Sandy Scott, President of the Ayrshire Amateur Operatic Association, had lately taken to wearing his President’s medal at every rehearsal and now there seemed to be a faction forming around him that was intent on picking holes in what George was trying to achieve. Now word was out that Puccini had left
Turandot
unfinished and there were ignorant rumblings about being short-changed.

‘You never telt us it wisnae finished. And who’s this Alfano character, anyway?’ came another voice. ‘Naebody’s ever heard of him.’

‘Alfano was…Look,’ George said. ‘Puccini wrote very nearly all of it. Alfano only finished the final love duet and the very last scene, after Puccini died. And of course he had to make certain judgements and decisions, based on Puccini’s sketches and outlines. Was that taking liberties? Of course not. If he hadn’t done it, we wouldn’t have
Turandot
as it is today.’

He looked round for support, taking in Raymond and some of the stage crew stationed at the sides and the Mathiesons behind him, busy with paperwork at a trestle table. He spread his arms wide and raised his voice.

‘So I, for one, am grateful that those judgements were made. And that is what I am doing, too. I am making certain necessary judgements, otherwise we would not have this production. Yes, I am making cuts. All companies do it.’

Puccini’s
Turandot
was two hours long. For a number of reasons, some of which he was keeping to himself, George’s version would run for half an hour less. With Gordon Black’s help he had cut out swathes of music that the singers were simply not up to, he had trimmed away long, static exchanges that held up the story and exposed some of the cast’s inability to act. He was speeding up most of the tempi, hoping that if he took the thing at a fair lick he could keep the audience’s attention from wandering away from the stage to the buttock-numbing properties of the Burnhead Townswomen’s Guild’s borrowed chairs.

And because Puccini’s cast called for seven male principals and George had only been able to find four, he had rolled the three parts of the courtiers Ping, Pang and Pong into one character called Pung. It was unfortunate that this new character was being sung by Sandy Scott, who was turning out to be a tedious purist. After all, the three courtiers didn’t affect the plot, and it moved matters on considerably when only one character instead of three had to have his say. They—or more accurately now, he—merely commented on what was happening or issued dread advice and morbid warnings to Prince Calaf which of course he ignored, because if, when he heard

Pazzo! Va’via! Qui si strozza! Si trivella!

Madman, go away! Here they garrote you! They impale you!

he were to pay any heed, there would be no opera.

George had also, by careful trimming of the scenes in which they appeared, made it possible for two other male parts—the Mandarin, and Turandot’s father, the Emperor Altoum—to be sung by the same person, an old man called Norman. George could not say so, but Norman’s hand tremor fitted the role of the frail old Emperor perfectly, and for his appearances as the Mandarin (in a switch of cloaks and headgear and a different beard) George had found him a sword to clutch that kept him from shaking too much.

The changes might make events on stage a little more difficult to understand, but nobody would be following the story from what was being sung, anyway. For one thing it was all in Ayrshire Italian and besides, the synopsis would be in the programme. George hoped by means of these and other tricks to get away with it. It tired him out just thinking of the time and ingenuity he had expended on these people. They had all been so thrilled and charming at the start and now some were almost sour. He could walk out right now, how would they like that? Again, as he did several times a day, he asked himself why he had allowed it all to happen. Then he caught sight of Joe, standing next to Lila.

He stood up straighter and said again, ‘All companies do these things. A production such as ours calls for certain concessions.’

‘Disnae mean you’ve to hack it to bits,’ came another voice from the chorus. ‘Disnae call for a hatchet job.’

There were murmurs, even from the Bergsma sisters who sat at the front of the orchestra with their instruments on their laps. George thought that Willy’s blind eye in its floppy socket looked wetter than usual. It shone brightly under the lights, shedding syrupy, reproachful tears that she dabbed with a tiny handkerchief.

‘I haven’t hacked it to bits,’ he said. ‘We have to make cuts so that we can manage with our reduced forces. And now,’ he picked up his baton, ‘I really think we should get on. We’ve hardly got started and it’s already after three o’clock.’

Mrs Mathieson’s voice behind him said, ‘Are you still wanting to break for tea at half past? Because if you are I’ll need to switch on the urn. It wants switching on at five past and it’s already gone that. There’s biscuits to put out as well.’

‘Oh, what kind are we getting the day?’ Jimmy Brock the coalman called out, peering round from his trombone. ‘Is there any custard creams?’

‘No, there’s shortbread,’ Mrs Mathieson told him, ‘and Bourbons.’

A hand went up from somewhere. ‘On the subject of biscuits, Mrs Mathieson, can I just put in,’ said a woman whose name George kept forgetting, ‘can I just say
re
biscuits anytime it’s ginger nuts please can an alternative also be provided as I’m sure my man’s not the only one can’t take ginger?’

‘It’s no the ginger, it’s the hardness. They’re too hard, ginger nuts,’ said a man’s voice.

‘Away you go, Alistair, you know fine you get heartburn after ginger.’

‘Thank you, Margaret,’ Mrs Mathieson called. ‘I’ve got that noted.’

George sighed. There was no point trying to get on with Act I while tea was in the offing. He spent the next half hour teaching them how to enter and exit without crowding or getting into jams, gliding noiselessly on stage and pouring off it quickly. They had to slip into the wings (which he explained were not in place yet, but would be suspended lengths of cloth held steady at the bottom by floor weights) and then the trick was to keep moving, flooding silently out through the open doors behind the backdrop and straight out onto the field. There were mutterings about the weather and the indignity. More promises were made; as soon as the scouts were back from summer camp they would be putting up two marquees just feet from the door for the chorus to use as dressing rooms.

After tea George conducted and shouted his way through Act II, now and then leaping onto the stage to pull people around bodily while still waving one arm in the direction of the orchestra and yelling at them not to stop. By twenty past four they had reached the middle of the act and Turandot’s first aria.

Fleur missed her cue.

‘Jesus, Fleur! Watch me for the beat. We’re in two,’ he said. ‘It’s a quaver rest and then you’re in.
“In questa Reggia”!
Okay?’

‘Oh, George! Oh, sorry, everyone!’ Fleur said, running down the steps at the side of the stage and turning to face them. ‘Sorry, sorry! Oh, George, it’s not about counting beats, it’s my
imposto
.’

She closed her eyes and made off down the length of the shed with her fingertips at her temples, swinging her neck from side to side and vocalising with her mouth closed to ‘mee, mee, mee, meee’. She walked around, stopped, rolled her arms in the direction of the sound, closed her eyes, walked around some more. The chorus, murmuring, sank away to the sides.

When she returned she accepted a hand from Calaf and was helped up the steps on to the stage. She smiled round again, too ready to be welcomed back, too much in need of compliments. She was emphatically made up; beads of sweat stood out on her powdered face like droplets of water on an apricot.

‘I am so sorry, I crave your indulgence!’ she cried. ‘I must place the voice or I can’t begin
“In questa Reggia”.
I daren’t take the voice there till it’s ready. Don’t look like that, George. Thanks, everyone!’

Lila, standing with Timur at the side of the stage, thought that she couldn’t have grasped
l’impostamento della voce
properly. Uncle George and her mother had tried to explain it and she had pretended to understand, but all she really did before she sang was to imagine the sound she wanted to make and the space she wanted it to fill, and then somehow she didn’t have to ‘place her voice’. Rather it was her voice that took her there. When she was practising exercises and scales she did not think about the high notes except to look forward to them and when she was being Liù she pretty much forgot about nerves and the technical things; she no more thought about Liù’s breathing and
l’impostamento della voce
than she worried about reminding Lila’s heart to beat.

The afternoon wore on. George allowed a five-minute interval between Acts II and III because he was desperate for a cigarette but he refused a request for another tea break. It was after half past six before they made it as far as Calaf’s and Turandot’s last duet in Act III. At least a dozen members of the chorus had gone outside for another smoke and disappeared altogether.

‘Calaf! Sing to Turandot!’ George shouted. His hair was hanging in wet black tails and dripping sweat onto his shoulders; with every swing of his head the first desk of the first violins and the cellos ducked.

‘Communicate! Turandot! You shouldn’t be downstage, no, go up! Up! No, turn round only when he comes towards you! Oh, stop,
stop
!’

At the heart of Fleur’s interpretation of her role was the idea that Turandot, as
Principessa,
should be free to stride or drift about the stage as she liked, her face wearing one of its two expressions, preoccupied or enraptured. Whatever she did she looked oblivious to her surroundings; Fleur’s Turandot appeared to be listening to voices that nobody else could hear.

‘Turandot! Get back! Stand where I put you!’ George yelled, still conducting Calaf who was dragging the beat, and stirring his arms as if he were clearing his way through clouds of smoke. Joe’s voice was hoarse. He had split every high note in
‘Nessun dorma’
and now he was skipping anything above an E. But the final curtain could not go down until he had removed Turandot’s veil, kissed her, taken her in his arms and melted her into submission.

George shouted, ‘Turandot! Turandot! Go back to the steps!’

Joe’s voice sank to a standstill and Fleur turned to face George with her hands on her hips. ‘I’m entering the part!’ she said. ‘A princess contemplating her destiny would walk about if she wanted to.’

‘Don’t be ridiculous!’

‘I know you told me to stay there till Calaf’s aria’s finished,’ she said, ‘but she’s the
Principessa
! If it feels right for Turandot to move when he’s singing
“Ah! Solleva quel velo”
to her, then why shouldn’t she?’

‘Because, my dear,’ George said, his voice dangerously sweet, ‘Calaf’s aria is addressed directly to you, and he needs to know where you’ll be. Plus the aria’s all about
getting
you to move, which you are refusing to do. He’s trying to get you to submit to him. To descend to earth—
“scendi giù sulla terra”.
You see? And the point is—
the whole bloody point is
—that you don’t. You don’t move, you remain icy and aloof. And that means in one place.
On the bloody steps.
’

Joe said, keeping his voice light and pleasant, ‘And don’t forget, when the aria’s finished I’m meant to rush forward and pull off your veil and I need to know where to rush to. It won’t look right if I’m chasing you all over the stage.’

‘But standing in one place all that time doesn’t feel right. I just don’t think Turandot would.’

George said tightly, ‘Just do it. Let’s go again. Calaf, from the top—
“Principessa di morte!”
’

Fleur said, ‘But what am I supposed to do all the time I’m just standing there?’

‘I don’t care,’ George said, leafing back through the score to the beginning of Calaf’s aria, ‘if you do a bloody strip-tease. Just don’t wander off.’

For a while she tried, until her presence at the top of the steps became so oppressive that nobody said anything when she turned from Calaf and strolled away again.

Although it was Joe who was most affected by Fleur’s wanderings it was impossible to tell if he was truly exasperated. For the last part of the final scene he was still using the score, and with his eyes glued to the music he couldn’t pay much attention to her. When he glanced up from time to time he seemed more puzzled than anything else, and this was good acting, Lila thought; Joe was revealing the complexity of Calaf’s feelings under all the princely bravado, for surely a person seized at first sight by a sudden passion for somebody else would, even in opera, be very taken aback. A person in that predicament might well find himself perplexed. She smiled encouragingly at him. But he was not looking at her; he was sending furious looks to George who was driving the tempo so relentlessly that he was having trouble keeping up. Angrily, he sang: