Dunster by John Mortimer Read Free Book Online Page A

the rose petals – and the change in my life, such as it was, took place mid-way between the gold-tapped bidet and the end of the bath.
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    â€˜So oft it chances in particular men
    That – for some vicious mole of nature in them,
    As in their birth, wherein they are not guilty,
    Since nature cannot choose his origin –’
    It was quite early in the play but, in spite of Nan Thorogood’s dire warnings and strict injunctions, the poetry showed through and I felt there was nothing much I could do about it. I heard my voice, nowhere near as incisive as Olivier’s and much less melodic than Gielgud’s, untrained, amateurish but still doing the same job. The rhythm of the words took me over and for those hours in St Joseph’s gardens I forgot myself. Playing a character full of doubt, I was strangely certain; pretending to be a man beset with anxiety, I had forgotten my worries.
    The day had started with unusual sunshine and we preened ourselves on our luck. Summer had begun at last, and especially for us. As we dressed, we were trying to cheer each other up, like a party of criminals waiting to come up for sentence. I felt short of breath and went to the loo frequently, unaccompanied. The play opened in low, evening sunshine with a cool wind flustering the trees. I saw my mother and father sitting together in the front row. They had brought a rug and I was grateful that my mother wouldn’t have to put on the plastic pixie hood that I always found embarrassing. So the ghost, a pallid figure in a khaki greatcoat, walked in the daylight while we crowded in the JCR, the girls chattered and I stood in a corner trying to retch as quietly as possible. Then I came on with the court but sat alone, like Dunster, I thought, in sullen isolation. ‘A little more than kin, and less than kind’: I heard my first line with surprise, as though it were spoken by someone a long way off. In due course I rejected Ophelia with ruthless determination, firmly believing that I had, according to tradition, slept with her but intended to give it up. As the daylight died and a colder wind stirred the branches, the pointed arches of the college were lit with the amber lights we’d hired at enormous expense and I welcomed the Players with what I thought was true princely condescension. And then, when I announced that the play was the thing wherein to catch the conscience of the King, I felt a heavy drop of water on my hand and the rain began to fall like muted applause.
    The second half seemed timeless, like a dream. The rain stopped for a while and then set in heavily when Benson did his gravedigger jokes. The amber beams were full of water and the audience began to thin out. During ‘Alas, poor Yorick’ I saw my mother in her pixie hood. I took off my glasses when I put on the fencing mask and Laertes became an active blur as we fought, sliding on the wet grass. I didn’t drop on the King like an avenging angel from a great height in the Olivier manner. I skidded towards him, full of purpose, and then let the venom do its work. When I died in the arms of Horatio, and as the four captains were bearing me to the stage, and the soldiers were ordered to shoot, I felt all my anxieties had been set at rest. The rattle of clapping from the wet survivors on the benches, although only just satisfactory by any theatrical standard, did nothing to diminish my confidence. I wasn’t even worried about the party to come. It didn’t occur to me that Beth would wander among the cast, laying a gentle hand on every arm, kissing most of them and treating us all as equals. I was still Prince Hamlet, although deceased, and Ophelia and I would go as a couple.
    â€˜It’s stopped raining.’ Laertes was looking up at the scudding clouds.
    â€˜To the boats!’ Benson shouted in his gravedigger’s voice. ‘Women and children last!’
    So off we set towards Magdalen Bridge, carrying macs and