This Was the Old Chief's Country

  Rémy Rostand, or Andrew Stead, was a Texan, with sandy hair, freckles, and pale blue eyes which had too many wrinkles around them for his age, probably forty. He had just come from making a film about the old gauchos, shot on the high plateaux of north-west Argentina. He walked like a horseman, stood like a film gunman, and had shortly to become Rémy, with all the diffidence and hard-to-achieve self-respect of a youngest son. Had Henry known what he was doing when he cast this bandit for the role? In the early days of every production, this unvoiced query is in the air. An unemphatically good-looking, ordinary young man, George White, was going to be Paul’s comrade-in-arms in Martinique, then Rémy’s older brother, not to mention Philippe’s assistant in the printing shop.

  On the first day, Sarah and Stephen were more prominent than they had planned, because of the absence of Henry, but luckily Mary Ford had ordered a photo session, and the six actors and two authors were photographed, separately and in couples and in groups, endlessly photographed, the actors at least posing with practised good nature, obedient to the god Publicity. And Mary’s face was solemn, concentrated, for she was utterly given up to her devotions as she took the pictures. Photographers are always in search of that perfect, that paradigmatic, but just out of reach summit of revelation. The next one – yes! – that will be it…do you mind turning your head just half an inch…that’s it, but no, don’t smile…yes, this time smile…this one will be…just one more…one more…and now…yes, I think I got it that time…but I’ll just use up this roll…All over the world these pictures are stacked up in piles, in files and folders, in drawers, on shelves, on walls, the visible record of that race of transcendence-seekers, the photographers’ compulsive quest.

  And while Mary sat chatting with them all, her camera was held between alert fingers, ready to swoop it up into place to catch that unique and utterly unrepeatable pose or look which would transform a summary biography – twenty lines on the programme – into irresistible truth.

  During that first day a good deal was said about how wonderful a thing Julie Vairon was, how altogether unique. This was because the actors were all taking a chance, much more than is usual with that hazard the theatre. The piece was a sport: not a play, not an opera. They had not heard the music that would fit the words. All of them confessed to having been attracted to Julie Vairon, but they did not know why, for all they had been sent – all they could have been sent – was an assemblage of scenes so lightly sketched that sometimes only a phrase or a sentence indicated passionate love, or renunciation. They were reassuring themselves.

  First Molly came to Sarah, who invited her to sit down between her and Stephen, to say she had been told by those who had been at Queen’s Gift how wonderful the music was, and the songs, and she simply couldn’t wait to hear it all. Stephen only allowed himself a glance at this dangerous girl and then stared off at the others, while Sarah talked for him. Molly went, and then Bill, who had been watching for an opportunity, appeared by them, murmuring congratulations on the script and the lyrics. It was a shock to hear the word lyric used to describe those bitterly sad, some said abrasive, songs of the ‘first period’, and the broken lines of the ‘second period’, when there might be no more than a phrase repeated many times, or a word chosen for its sound.

  ‘I seem to hear it all already,’ claimed Bill, sliding into the seat between Sarah and Stephen, but smiling at Sarah. Then, having established his right to intimacy with Sarah – she could see this was his style, or his need – he glanced at Stephen. But Stephen was not going to succumb, for there was a sharp, not to say critical, look to him, as he examined the young man. Bill quietly got up and walked away, not, however, without the quick flash of a smile at her.

  Walking to the tube with Sarah, Stephen remarked, ‘Molly doesn’t look remotely like Julie.’

  ‘She’ll convince you when the time comes.’

  ‘And Andrew might as well be a cowboy.’

  ‘Rémy must surely have spent a lot of time on horseback?’

  ‘And as for that young…Julie would never fall for that pretty face.’

  ‘But Julie did fall for a pretty face. Paul has to be a romantic young lieutenant, and not much more, don’t you see? For the sake of dramatic contrast.’

  ‘Good God.’

  ‘Nothing she wrote indicated he was more than a good-looking boy.’

  They stood together on the pavement. She was thinking that this querulous note in him was new. More, that in the first weeks of their friendship she would have thought him incapable of it. She was relieved to see that now he seemed to be fighting to preserve an obstinate self-respect, while his eyes were full of misery.

  Unexpectedly he said, ‘Sarah…I’m out of my depth…’ He grimaced, then made this a smile, walked away to the Underground entrance, turned to give her a small apologetic wave – and vanished.

  It was the first read-through of the first act. They were nearly all present now, but there did not seem many people scattered about in the large hall. Henry had announced that he would be putting them all into position right from the start, because how people stood, or were, in relation to each other changed their voices, their movements – everything about them. The actors exchanged those smiles – what else? – meaning that from him they expected no less. Their smiles were already affectionate, as they stood about like dancers waiting for lift-off, and for him to command them. He had arrived that morning by plane from New Orleans, but he was already almost dancing his instructions, falling for seconds at a time into the characters they were going to play. He had been an actor, surely? Yes, and a dancer too, but that was before he had become an old man, and he had worked in a circus too: and here he became a clown, staggering over his own inept feet, miraculously recovering himself, and jumping back into his own self with a clap of the hands that summoned them into their positions. He must be of Italian descent, with those dark and dramatic eyes. Often, in southern Europe, you see a man, a woman, leaning against a wall, standing behind a market stall, all loud exclamatory sound and gesticulation, in the moment before they suddenly go quiet, black eyes staring in sombre fatalism: too much sun, too much bloody history, too much bloody everything, and a bred-in expectation of more of the same. And here was Henry Bisley, from the northern United States, standing limp, switched off, his eyes sombre and abstracted, southern eyes, eyes from the Mediterranean, but even as he leaned briefly against a wall, he seemed already on his way somewhere else. And the idea of movement was emphasized by his shoes, for they would have been useful for a marathon. For that matter, all their shoes seemed designed for a hundred-yard sprint.

  Stephen and Sarah sat side by side at a table which was a continuation of Henry’s – the director’s. At the table beyond that was Roy Strether, watching everything and making notes. Mary Ford was photographing at the theatre.

  The read-through began with the scenes in Julie’s mother’s house in Martinique, and the evening party where the handsome lieutenant Paul, brought by his comrade Jean, was introduced to Julie.

  Since the musicians were not there, it was a question of going through the scenes while the words of the songs were spoken, so that everyone would get an idea of what would happen. Roy read, in a voice as flat as the recorded telephone announcement ‘Your number has not been recognized’.

  This first scene had Julie standing attractively by her harp, shoulder outlined in white muslin (in fact Molly wore jeans and a purple T-shirt), a dress bought by papa on his last visit to distant Paris, on mother Sylvie’s insistence. Julie was singing (today she only spoke) a conventional ballad from sheet music (a piece of typing paper) brought by the father from Paris with the dress. For while the reputation of this house and the two beautiful women was exactly what might be expected among the young officers who were unwillingly on service in this attractive but boring island, Julie and her mother disappointed expectations by behaving with the propriety used by the mothers and sisters of these young men, and even more so. Nor had they expected to find
Parisian fashions.

  It was only when the officers had gone that the women became themselves and spoke their minds, in words recorded by Julie.

  To start with, beauty was not so much in the eye of this beholder, for that first evening all I thought was, That’s a pretty hero! No, it was Maman who was dissolved by Paul. I said to her, He’s too much, he’s like a present in pretty paper, and you don’t want to unwrap it because it would spoil the parcel. Maman said, ‘My God, if I were even ten years younger.’ Maman was forty then. She said, ‘I swear, if he kissed me, it would be my first time ever.’

  The two women were to sing a duet, ‘If he kissed me it would be my first time ever,’ using the first-period music, like a blues.

  This was hardly likely to be the first time for Julie, not with all those young officers about. Sarah passed a note to Henry that unless they were careful, this song would get the wrong kind of laughter. He tilted a page towards her to show he had already marked the danger point with an underlined Laughs!

  ‘But I wouldn’t mind a smile,’ he said, and smiled at her to show the kind of smile.

  This cast did laugh a lot. Laughter kept breaking out during the duet, which of course was being spoken, not sung. Henry asked them to cool it, and at once they sobered, the impassioned words being exchanged without emotion, producing an effect of hopeless despair. So sudden was the change that there was a sigh, the long slowly released breath that means surprise, even shock.

  ‘Right,’ said Henry. ‘That’s it. We’ll have to wait for the music.’

  They were already a group, a family, partly because of their real interest in this piece, partly because of the infectious energies of Henry. Already they were inside the feeling of conspiracy, faint but unmistakable, the we-against-the-world born out of the vulnerability of actors in the face of criticism so often arbitrary, or lazy, or ignorant, or spiteful – against the world outside, which was them and not we, the world which they would conquer. They already believed they would conquer. It was because of Julie Vairon’s special atmosphere.

  How easily, how recklessly we join this group or that, religious, political, theatrical, intellectual – any kind of group: that most potent of witches’ brews, charged with the possibilities for harm and for good, but most often for illusion. Sarah was not exactly a stranger to the fumy atmospheres the theatre creates, but usually she was in and out of rehearsals, doing this job and that, and she had not before written a whole play, based on journals and music she had soaked herself in for months, then been in on the casting, then committed herself to what would be two months, more, of day-by-day involvement with rehearsals. She would not this time be flitting off to other productions, other rehearsals. She would be part of Julie Vairon, day and night, indefinitely.

  Meanwhile minor annoyances were being absorbed into a general effervescence, which was surely pretty unusual so early in a production. Having to wait for the music was testing them all. This was not the most comfortable of rehearsal places. It was too big, and their voices echoed in it: there was no way of judging how they should be pitched and used. Even with the sun blazing down outside, the old hall was dismal, and a shaft of light striking down from a high window showed up the dust in the air, like a column of water full of algae, or like bits of mica.

  ‘Solid enough to climb up,’ said Henry, actually making a pantomime of climbing up, defusing possible complaints with a laugh. And they all laughed again at the unexpected effect when the column of light, moving as the earth turned, reached the actors at exactly that moment when Paul and Julie stole away from Maman’s house on a dark night, though she was not deceived, and knew they were going, while the bright column pointed at them like the finger of God.

  After the read-through Sarah and Stephen were going off to lunch with Henry Bisley, for they had to know one another better, but as they stood at the exit into the outside world, Paul the handsome lieutenant, or rather Bill Collins, was there with them, though he had not been invited. They climbed the stairs together, and when they went to the little local restaurant, Bill was the fourth. In the restaurant, the rest of the cast sat at one table, but Bill was at theirs. Sarah did not take much notice of him, because of getting to know Henry. This was going to be a satisfactory director, she was thinking, and could feel Stephen thinking too. He was sharp, competent, knew the material inside out, and, as a bonus, was very funny. Anywhere near him, people laughed. Sarah was laughing, and Stephen too, though when he did, it sounded as if he was surprised at himself for doing it. Halfway through the meal, Stephen left them. Elizabeth was preparing another recital of Tudor music, but this time with dancing, modern dancing, athletic and vigorous. Apparently it ‘worked’, though one could tell he did not much care for the combination. He said to Sarah, ‘You see, it’s my part of the bargain. She would never say anything if I was not there, but if I didn’t turn up, she’d feel let down. And rightly.’ He did not want to go. She did not want him to go. She was surprised at the strength of the pang she felt. Henry was called over to the other table: Andrew Stead wanted advice. That left her and Bill. He was eating heartily – Henry had eaten a little salad; Stephen had left most of his food. She thought that this is how a very young man ate, even a schoolboy – or a young wolf. Well, he was very young. Twenty-six, and she guessed much younger than that in himself. All those winning smiles and sympathetic glances – he kept them up although, clearly, he was famished and that was his first consideration. Behind her she heard laughter at the other table, and turned her head to listen. Bill at once saw this and said, ‘I simply have to tell you, Sarah, what it means to me, getting this part – I mean, a real part. I’m afraid I’ve had to take quite a few parts that – well, we have to eat, don’t we?’

  Laughter again. Mary was telling a tale which concerned Sonia, and it ended: ‘Two knives, on his seat.’ ‘Knives?’ said Richard. ‘Surgical knives,’ said Mary. The laughter was now loud, and nervous, and Richard said, ‘You can’t expect a man to laugh at that,’ and laughed. ‘All the same…serves the little creep right.’

  ‘Sarah,’ said Bill, leaning forward to claim her, his beautiful eyes on her eyes. ‘I do feel so at home with you. I felt that so much, at the casting session, but now…’ She smiled at him and said, ‘But I have to go.’ He was genuinely disconcerted, rejected. Like a small boy. Sarah went past the other table, smiling generally and said to Mary, who was about to return to the theatre, ‘Ring me tonight?’

  Bill was already settling himself beside Mary. Sarah paid her bill and looked back. Bill sat straight up, head slightly back. He looked like an arrogantly sulky adolescent, touch me not at war with oh yes, please. Henry was reaching out with a pencil in his hand to mark a passage in Richard’s script. He was looking over it at her, eyes sombre.

  That evening she sat thinking about brother Hal, because of her feelings about Stephen. There were no new thoughts in her head. Hal had been her mother’s favourite, she had always known and accepted that. Or at least she could not remember ever having not accepted it. He was the much wanted and loved boy, and she had taken second place from the moment he was born. Well, unfair preferences are hardly unusual in families. She had never liked Hal, let alone loved him. And now, for the first time, she was understanding how much she had missed in her life. Instead of something like a black hole – all right, then, a grey hole – there would have been all her life…what? A warmth, a sweetness. Instead of always having to brace herself when she had to meet Hal, she could have smiled, as she did when thinking of Stephen. She knew she did, for she had caught the smile on her face.

  Late that night Mary rang. First she said her mother was in a bad patch, with a leg that was paralysed, perhaps temporarily. One had to expect this kind of thing with multiple sclerosis. She was going to have to pay someone to come in twice a day when she, Mary, was working so intensively. She did not say this was going to be financially difficult. Sarah did not say that extra money would be found. All their salaries were due to go up: the four had always
accepted less than they could have claimed. But now, with Julie Vairon, there was suddenly much more money…if none of this was said, it was understood.

  Then Mary told Sarah about Sonia and the knives.

  From time to time, in London, some young man desiring to attract attention announces that Shakespeare had no talent. This guarantees a few weeks of indignation. (Usually it is the perpetrator who has no talent – but Bernard Shaw, who had, made this particular way of shocking the bourgeoisie permissible.) Shakespeare had been announced as having no talent quite recently, and a new ploy was needed. What better than to say, in a country with a genius for the theatre, that theatre itself is stupid and unnecessary? A certain young man who had created for himself and his cronies a style of sneering attack on nearly everything not themselves, had become editor of a well-known periodical. A schoolfriend, Roger Stent, meeting his suddenly well-known chum, asked if there was a job for him on New Talents. ‘Do you like theatre?’ ‘I don’t know anything about it.’ ‘Perfect,’ cried this editor. ‘Just what I want. I want someone who is not part of that old gang.’ (Newcomers to a literary scene always imagine cabals, gangs, and cliques.) Roger Stent went on his first visit to the theatre, the National, and in fact rather enjoyed himself. His review would have been favourable, but he put in some criticisms. The editor said he was disappointed. ‘Really my ideal theatre critic would be someone who loathed the theatre.’ ‘Let me have another try,’ said Roger Stent. His reviews became notorious for their vindictiveness – but this was the style of this new addition, the Young Turks, to the literary scene in the early eighties. He perfected a sneering, almost lazy contempt for everything he reviewed.