Gloria finished disinfecting her sink with aplomb. With a final flourish she deftly removed the rubber gloves she always donned whether cleaning for money or in her own small but sparklingly spotless flat. Now she could let herself cite aloud the line from Macbeth that had been running through her mind all afternoon as she scrubbed: ‘Out, damned spot! Out, I say!’ As she uttered those famous words, she drew on her theatrical experience to provide them with undertones of gravitas, but also of rising hysteria. This, she felt, was the right way to perform Lady Macbeth’s ritualistic unravelling.
Fortunately, she reflected, she was not unravelling. No, she was perkier by the day; quite undefeated by the rejection she had experienced at the Bolton repertory company all those years ago. That was when the director, Frederic Newman, had told her that her melodramatic and wooden delivery was more suited to the role of witch number three, which was already taken. He had failed to realise that she would have made a perfect Lady Macbeth because her strength lay in scheming, attention to detail and utter ruthlessness. Instead, he had given the part to Marcia Grey with her willowy figure and distrait manner. No matter. She had in any case proved herself to be so much more successful than Lady M. in the real world beyond the footlights. No-one had ever discovered her modus operandi for getting close to those she most wished to destroy. Nor had she ever experienced any fits of conscience. There was no quality of mercy about her.
She had played the long game all right. Amongst the earliest of those she had dealt with had been John Lancaster. He had played Banquo in that ghastly Bolton production which she had eventually sat through at a matinee. Afterwards, she had kept an eye on his career and seamlessly edged her way into his life twenty years later. She had hung on his every word that evening when she’d contrived to get chatting to him at his customary bar. She knew that he was not inclined towards women, but that he liked to have them around to smooth his brow, prepare tasty titbits, and remind him of his dear old mother whilst they wielded an occasional feather duster or rubbed a little bit of Brasso into his collection of dramatic awards. Johny as he liked to be known, had always talked openly about his dreadful insomnia. A decade after she’d become his housekeeper, he had received terrible reviews of his Creon in an avant -garde production of Antigone. That had been quite enough to drive him to despair and who would have suspected his faithful housekeeper of having doubled, or was it tripled, his sleeping tablets without him realising? He’d even left her a few of his tasteless treasures as a token of his affection. She had sold them on discretely after a suitable time since she scarcely needed them for sentimental reasons.
Luckily, Johny had already recommended her cooking, cleaning, and companionship to so many of his old friends. These included Frank Dimari, who had been cast as the needy Bolton Macbeth alongside the feeble Marcia Grey who, astoundingly, had gone on to become a feted actress, though not quite a national treasure.
Frank’s demise had taken her quite a while to engineer. She had worked as his assistant for a decade; ten years of home cooking and putting up with the ridiculous yappy dog he’d trailed everywhere with him. In the end she’d hurried on the dog’s death by illicitly feeding him dark chocolate Then she had gradually supplemented the grief-stricken Frank’s favourite meals with small doses of a paranoia inducing substance, having conducted the necessary research in a scattered variety of libraries where she had posed as a mycologist. Grief stricken and lonely, Frank had become convinced that the other cast members in a west end revival of ‘The three musketeers’ blamed him for its poor reception. During a fight scene, he had jumped from the top of the backstage scaffolding he was not even meant to climb. Having landed on his head, he had died instantly.
Most recently, it had been Marcia’s turn. Gloria certainly had not found it so easy to worm her way into that woman’s affections. For a start she did not eat much, nor did she want flattery from another woman. Still, she did like to show off her magnanimity and did like things to run efficiently and Gloria was useful to her on both these counts. After five years of serving Marcia as her personal assistant, Gloria had been flown out to the riviera, like some kind of old retainer. Her employer boasted to all that she needed a little time off on her yacht before she reprised her Lady Macbeth once again in a fresh and innovative staging. Marcia had asked Gloria to fix up the canapes for her guests as they cruised out into the mediterranean. After a couple of glasses of champagne, she had popped in to check on progress and had stood admiring the waves yonder with her back to the galley as Gloria worked. Conveniently Marcia had lingered there by a wide doorway opening onto a still deserted deck at the very back of the yacht. All Gloria had had to do was to offer her a nudge in the right direction. A little while later, as she was still piping the final decorative touches onto her savoury bites, one of the guests had hurried in to tell her that Marcia had disappeared. For a moment Gloria had held her breath, thinking that her arch nemesis might somehow have survived to be rescued. Fortunately, Gloria’s calculations had been correct. Marcia had landed close to the rotor blades of the still running engine. Her body had been torn into so many pieces that it was only useful for fish food and no other verdict other than accidental death could be agreed on.
Her tidying done at last, Gloria took a seat at her cosy little breakfast bar, having poured herself a glass of bubbly. She allowed herself to bask in the satisfaction of a job well done. Of course she was not a fool. She knew it was too late ever to play a lead role, but that did not stop her tasting the sweetness of what she had done to those who had stood in her way all those years before. How good it was that she would not need to work again either. ‘Dear Marcia’ had provided her with a legacy that would be quite sufficient. Life was for the living, she thought. What’s more, she was in good health and quite sane. No nightmares for her, just the steady rhythm of the mop or swish of a duster in Archie’s little apartment for a few weeks more. How fortunate it was that she’d managed to get into conversation with the budding young director after they had all disembarked from Marcia’s yacht in Biarritz. Tragically, Archie Newman’s father had died of a sudden heart attack many years previously, but Archie remained determined to follow in his father’s theatrical footsteps. He was about to make his directorial début with the cutting-edge production of the Scottish play in which Marcia had been due to star. Gloria had employed just the right breathless tones, to confide in him her own life-long ambition of playing a teensy little role on the stage. And now not only was she Archie’s regular cleaner and confidante, but she was also going to be an extra in his forthcoming ‘Macbeth’. Archie had cast her as one of the moving trees of Burnham Wood, so she would only be a part of the background action, but still her name would appear in the programme.
And who knew? She might, in the end be elevated to a grander role, initially perhaps to be the prompt, given her efficiency and memory for detail. If they had any sense, she would eventually be recast as the servant woman attending on Lady Macbeth in this highly anticipated new version. No matter, her brilliance could hide in plain sight for a little longer she reckoned, just long enough for her to ensure the ruin of Archie’s family name, if she so desired. More importantly, her casting would give her the time to befriend the new lead who had taken Marcia’s place; Joanna Brewster, once the little girl who had played Fleance back in Barnsley and who had happened to giggle offputtingly throughout Gloria’s brief audition.
Gloria put down her empty glass decisively and braced herself. She moved swiftly to kneel on the floor and shifted a small rug to lift a section of the solid wood flooring at one end of the kitchen area. From underneath the treated timber, she retrieved a battered old suede bag before deftly taking from it what looked like an old-fashioned programme. She also took a vintage tourist board ‘Beautiful Barnsley’ pen from the bag and slowly began to turn through the pages of the booklet in her hands. Her eyes lingered for a moment on the names of John Lancaster, Frank Dimari and Frederic Newman, each already neatly crossed out. Next, she carefully ran a new line through the name of Marcia Grey, before briefly letting the pen hover above a child’s name under the subheading ‘Children from the Northern stage school’. For now, however, she clicked the pen shut and placed it alongside the programme back in the suede handbag, before zipping this up again. Then she returned the bag to its burial place, gently replaced the piece of wood and finally moved the rug precisely back into place. Only then did she stand up to pour herself another helping of bubbly from the fridge. She raised this second glass as if proposing a nostalgic toast to happy memories whilst the ghost of a smile still lingered on her lips.
