I started down the aisle towards the orchestra pit, although I had no idea how I was going to get to the stage. A few of the audience had stood up and were craning their necks to see what was going on. I reached the edge of the pit and glanced down to see that the musicians were still poised over their instruments. I was close enough to touch a lead violinist. He was trembling and his eyes were glazed. The conductor tapped his baton on his music stand and the musicians started playing again. I recognised the music as the first tune sung by Mr Punch in the Piccini script, it was Malbrough s’en va-t-en guerre, an old French folk song, but in the English speaking world it was For He’s a Jolly Good Fellow.
The tenor playing the captain picked up the refrain first:
Mr Punch is a jolly good fellow,
His dress is all scarlet and yellow.
The bass and baritone joined in in quick succession, followed by the company, singing as if they had the song sheet before them.
And if now and then he gets mellow,
It’s only among good friends.
The singers stamped their feet to the beat of the music. The audience seemed stuck in their seats; I couldn’t tell if they were confused, mesmerised or just too appalled to move. Then the front row of the stalls took up the beat with hands and feet. I could feel the compulsion myself, a wash of beer and skittles and pork pies and dancing and not caring a fig for the opinions of others.
With the girls he’s a rogue and rover;
He lives, while he can, upon clover;
The clapping and stamping spread back, row by row, from the front of the stalls. In the good acoustics of the Opera House the stamping was louder than a Highbury crowd, and just as contagious. I had to lock my knees to stop my feet from moving.
When he dies it’s only all over:
And there Punch’s comedy ends.
Lesley stepped onto the stage and, bold as brass, walked up the steps that took her to the exaggerated poop deck and turned to face the audience. I saw then that in her left hand she carried a silver-topped cane. I recognised it – the bastard had stolen it from Nightingale. A spotlight stabbed out of the darkness and bathed her in harsh white light. The music and the singing stopped and the stamping trailed away.
‘Ladies and gentlemen,’ called Lesley, ‘boys and girls. I present to you today the most tragical comedy and comical tragedy of Mr Punch, as related to that great talent and impresario Mr Henry Pyke.’ She waited for applause, and when it didn’t come she muttered under her breath and made a curt gesture with the cane. I felt the compulsion roll over me, while behind me the audience broke into applause.
Lesley bowed graciously. ‘Lovely to be here,’ she said. ‘My, but this theatre is much enlarged since my day. Is anyone else here from the 1790s?’
A solitary whoop floated down from the gods, just to prove that there’s always one in every crowd.
‘Not that I don’t believe you, sir, but you’re a bloody liar,’ said Lesley. ‘The old ham will be here by and by.’ She looked out past the lights into the stalls, searching for something. ‘I know you’re out there, you black Irish dog.’
She shook her head. ‘I’d just like to say, it’s good to be here in the twenty-first century,’ she said suddenly. ‘Lots of things to be grateful for: indoor plumbing, horseless carriages – a decent life expectancy.’
There was no obvious way to get from the stalls to the stage. The orchestra pit was two metres deep, and the lip of the stage opposite was higher than a man could reach.
‘Tonight, ladies and gentlemen, boys and girls, for your entertainment, I give you my rendition of that lamentable scene from the story of Mr Punch,’ said Lesley. ‘I refer of course to his incarceration and, alas, impending execution.’
‘No,’ I yelled. I’d read the script. I knew what was coming next.
Lesley looked straight at me and smiled. ‘But of course,’ she said. ‘The play’s the thing.’ There was a crack of breaking bone, and her face changed. As her nose became a hooked blade, her voice rose to a piercing, warbling shriek.
‘That’s the way to do it!’ she screeched.
I was too late, but I threw myself into the orchestra pit just the same. The Royal Opera House doesn’t mess about with a quartet with a drum machine – you get a full-on orchestra seventy musicians strong, and the pit is built to match. I landed amid the horn section, who were not so dazed by the compulsion Henry Pyke had them under that they didn’t protest. I pushed my way through the violinists, but it was no good, even with a standing jump I couldn’t get my hands on the stage. One of the violinists asked me what the fuck I thought I was doing and, backed up by a bassist, threatened to kick my head in. They both had that same Friday-night, mean drunk look in their eyes that I was beginning to associate with Henry Pyke. I’d just grabbed a music stand to hold them at bay when the orchestra started up again. As soon as it did the two homicidal musicians ignored me, took up their instruments, took their places and, with a great deal of decorum, considering they were having a psychotic episode, started playing. I could hear the thing wearing Lesley’s body singing in its awful high-pitched voice: