Anusia Battersby

She stumbles, but does not fall, the ghost's rough, intangible fingers slipping through hers like sandpaper.

And God, the director thinks, it works beautifully, her gaining a voice then, just at the moment of blackout.

Why didn't he think of that?

But then he has no choice but to think of something else, because startled Lady Macbeth has become uprooted, and the scream that rips from her throat isn't the rehearsed turmoil of a tragic heroine falling to her madness.

It is the terror of shock, the terror of anticipation, and then, oh god, the prolonged terror of falling.

It undercuts the slap of heaviness on the ground, though the sandbag remains high.

And sandbags don't crack.

The audience has coalesced into a single, straight-spined entity.

It cannot see what has happened, and remains ensnared in the rabbit trap of Violet's gasp.

Applause begins, and Violet makes her second sound of the performance to tell them no!

To the ghost who is not there anymore, she repeats, No!

She climbs down from the battlements, even more ignored than usual, slipping, shivering, shaking through frantic crowds that swarm and dart and crackle their voices down walkie-talkies.

She passes Banquo, drenched in cornstarch blood, ragged cotton ballooning from his skinny wrists, matted hair clinging to his cheeks, half a broken crown threaded through the tresses.

A false ghost, with a slight stammer that made his living scenes tight and taut with the weight of self-discipline, but gave his dead scenes the gift of a spitting rawness, his every grief-stricken indexical jab punctuated with venom and vulnerability.

Thou mayest revenge.

Violet recalls seeing him and Lady Macbeth giggling over toasted sandwiches, cross-legged on the floor.

What happened?

He's asking over and over again to nobody.

What happened?

The room with Carrie Grant.