Sacred Hunger by Barry Unsworth Page B

glancing to find the invisible source of the music. He found this a terribly difficult thing to get right. He rehearsed the words constantly in his mind: Where should this music be? F this’ air or this’ earth? It sounds no more… He knew the speech by heart, but that made no difference to the quality of his performance, which was lamentable. He had had time in these few days to learn that he was a hopeless actor. Apart from anything else, he felt idiotic, talking to thin air. The prospect of a reprieve cheered him, however brief. “She would hardly claim the speech for hers without good reason,” he said.
    “Thank you, Erasmus.”
    He glanced at her, suffered the usual blow at her beauty, the composed, fair-complexioned face delicately shaded by the brim of her hat. Her colour came and went with her feelings, he had noticed, but this porcelain composure never changed.
    Her lashes were pale silk and they were wide now, as she fixed on Prospero a look of serious determination.
    “After all,” she said, “it is about Miranda, is it not?”’
    “I cannot for the life of me see what you mean.”
    Bulstrode had puffed himself up in an intimidating manner. “I cannot tell what you are talking about, Miss Wolpert. The speech is about Caliban, not Miranda.”
    “Miss Wolpert is not referring to the speech,” Erasmus said with a perceptiveness sharpened by his desire to acquire merit in Sarah’s eyes. “She is talking about the laughter.”
    This time he was rewarded with a smile before she transferred her gaze back to confront the indignant wizard.
    Her next words, however, made clear how little she really needed help. “Of course I am,” she said. “It hasn’t anything to do with Prospero, so why should he be so vexed? I mean, it isn’t Prospero that…” Sarah paused and blushed, then went on with increased energy: “It isn’t him that Caliban tried to ravish.” She looked from face to face with a sudden, surprising openness of regard.
    “He was laughing about his attempt on me” she said. “Or have I not properly understood the matter?”’
    There was a short silence among the rest of the company, perhaps at this notion of ravishment, perhaps at her forthright-ness, though they knew by now what she was capable of: had she not marched up to Erasmus Kemp and enlisted him on the spot? And then, she had a way of holding herself, an unusual habit of emphasis: as she drew to the climax of what she was saying, her voice would quicken, she would raise her head and lower her lashes and a delicate shudder, slight but perceptible, would pass over her like a throb of delivery or release. It was this the men waited for, as Erasmus had jealously noted. They attended on it now, Caliban, Hippolito, Alonzo, the three mariners. Only Prospero, armoured in egotism, was immune. “It is the father that should speak for the child,” he said. “She is obedient, as befits a young girl. Besides, she is too well brought up to burst into the conversation in that manner.”
    “I verily believe,” Erasmus said coldly, “that if you could contrive it, Prospero’s would be the only speaking part in the play.”
    Bulstrode swelled even redder. “That remark is totally unwarranted. Miranda can have the speech for all I care. She can have all the others too. The father can sit dumb while the child explains how she has contrived the shipwreck.” And with this he stalked some paces off and presented an offended back.
    Set on her rights, however, Sarah was relentless.
    “As for obedient,” she said in her high, clear voice, “she contests with her father to prevent him illusing Ferdinand.”
    “Yes,” Erasmus said, with a sense of brilliant improvisation, “and at the beginning of Act Four she goes against his orders when she visits Ferdinand in his confinement.” He knew the play in every detail, having sat up half his nights studying it in the hope of improving his performance.
    “So she does.” On Sarah’s face there