The
stage was so poorly lit it was impossible to see into the corners. The fire
curtain had been lowered in an attempt to keep the worst of the dust from the
auditorium. A solitary mas sat astride a paint bespattered bench sawing a
length of wood. When he shoved his arm the shadow of his saw raced ahead and
broke off like a blade. Geoffrey and Stella spoke in whispers, as though in
church,
“It’s deeper than I expected,’
Geoffrey said.
‘And muckier,’ said Stella who,
left to
herself, might have conjurded a blasted heath
out of the darkness, an air craft hangar, an operatic, book-furnished study in
which Faustud could sell his soul to the Devil. She was distracted by Geoffrey
who was trying to tug a lock of his hair down over his forehead. It was one of
his mannerisms. His hair, being course and crinkly, sprang back at the moment
he let go. Almost at once Stella tiptoed to the back of the stage and returned
through the sliding door to the prop room. Geoffrey was a thorn in the flesh.
She had thought when she was
summoned
to work in the theatre that she was one of a
chosen few. Finding Geoffrey included in the roll-call of honour shook her
illusions. He was nineteen. Three years older than herself.Anephew of
Rushworth, chairman of the governing board, he had recently left a military
academy after firing a gun at someone he wasn’t supposed to.
Geoffrey and Stella were both
called students. George, the property master, said they were really assistant
stage managers, but this way meant the thatre didn’t have to pay them. Geoffrey
wore a paisley cravat and walked with his heands nbbgfr4.
Geoffrey and Stella were both
called students. George, the property master, said they were really assistant
stage managers, but this way meant the thatre didn’t have to pay them. Geoffrey
wore a paisley cravat and walked with his hands clenched into fists as though
he still strutted a parade ground. He kept throwing up words whose meaning
Stella more or less understood but would never have had the nerve to thread
into a conversation. She was shaky on pronunciation.
For instance, button-holing Bunny
whose eyelids quivered with boredom, Geoffrey said that in his opinion T.S.
Eliot was a poet manqué. He went as far as to recite several obscure lines:
Declines. On the Rialto once.
The rats are underneath the
piles.
The Jew is underneath the lot
Money in furs. The boatman
smiles
It was a rum quotaion. Of course
Sella knew he wasn’t referring to the Rialto cinema on Upper Parliament Street,
but she couldn’t help smiling. Uncle Vernon had piles.
On behalf of a Bank
was incapable, a priori, of speaking with authority. Stella wondered whether
Geoffrey was ant-Semitic. No one but a bigot, after what happened, would lump rats
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