So Much Blood Read Free Page A

crossword minds clicked, and allusion and anecdote circled round each other. It was the sort of mild intellectual exercise that Charles had not indulged in since his undergraduate days. Very pleasant, floating on a cloud of malt whisky above everyday life. The book-lined room promised to be a welcome sanctuary from the earnest denim below.
    Eventually Charles looked at his watch. Nearly one o’clock. ‘I must go down to the bear-pit.’
    â€˜Don’t bother. I’ll make up the sofa for you here.’
    â€˜No, no. Downstairs is the bed I have chosen, and I must lie on it.’
    The bed he had chosen had been left vacant for good reason. At half-past three he woke to discover it had come adrift in the middle and was trying to fold him up like a book. He wrestled with it in the sweaty breathing dorm and then tottered along to the lavatory.
    It was locked and a strange sound came from inside. As Charles took advantage of the washbasin in the adjacent bathroom, he identified the noise through a haze of malt. It was a man crying.

CHAPTER TWO
    The very sky turns pale above;
    The earth grows dark beneath;
    The human Terror thrills with cold,
    And draws a shorter breath—
    An universal panic owns
    The dread approach of DEATH!
    THE ELM TREE
    THE EDINBURGH FREEMASONS’ revenue must shoot up during the Festival, because they seem to own practically every strange little hail in the city. Each year the gilded columns of these painted rooms witness the latest excesses of Fringe drama, and the gold-leaf names of Grand Masters gaze unmoved at satire, light-shows, nudity or God-rock, according to theatrical fashion.
    On the Monday morning the Temple of the Masonic Hall, Lauriston Place, was undergoing A Midsummer Night’s Dream, Shakespeare’s Immortal Comedy Revisualised by Stella Galpin-Lord. As Charles Paris slipped in, it was clear that the process of revisualisation had hit a snag. The snag was that Stella Galpin-Lord was having a directorial tantrum.
    â€˜Where are those bloody fairies? Didn’t you hear your bloody cue? For Christ’s sake, concentrate! Bottom, get up off your backside . . .’
    As she fulminated, it was clear to Charles that Stella Galpin-Lord was not a student. Far from it. The over-dramatic name fitted the over-dramatic figure. She was wearing rehearsal black, a polo-necked pullover tight over her presentable bosom, and clinging flared trousers less kind to her less presentable bottom. Honey-blonded hair was scraped back into a broad knotted scarf. The efforts of make-up—skilful pancake, elaborate eyes and a hard line of lipstick—drew attention to what they aimed to disguise. The slack skin of her face gave the impression of a badly erected tent, here and there pulled tight by misplaced guy-ropes. The tantrum and her twitchy manner with a cigarette spelt trouble to Charles. Neurotic middle-aged actresses are a hazard of the profession.
    â€˜Well, don’t just amble on. You’re meant to be fairies, not navvies. For God’s sake! Amateurs! This show opens in less than a week and we don’t get in the hall again till Thursday. Good God, if you don’t know the lines now . . . Where is the prompter? Where is the bloody prompter!’
    Charles, who had only come down to check the details of staging in the hall, decided it could wait and sidled out.
    Back in Coates Gardens he looked for somewhere to work. In the men’s dormitory a youth was strumming a guitar with all the versatility of a metronome. Sounds from upstairs indicated a revue rehearsal in the girls’ room. Charles felt tempted to seek sanctuary with James Milne again, but decided it might be an imposition. He went down to the dining-room. Mercifully it was empty.
    With a tattered script of So Much Comic, So Much Blood open on the table, he started thumbing through an ancient copy of Jerrold’s edition of Hood, looking for The Dundee Guide , an early poem which might add a