He cannot work upon his return to the United States. His diabetes has worsened. He writes sketches and gags, knowing they will never be performed. He adds to his archive, and sometimes shares with Babe what he has created. Their pictures appear on television, and bolster the bottom half of bills in theaters, but it is not enough. These are former glories, and serve only to remind him that his era has passed. It may be for the best. He is not sure what he and Babe have left to offer, beyond nostalgia, to this new, harsh age, and therefore it is fitting that they should only be remembered as they once were.
But he misses pictures, and is frustrated at being ill. As Ida bustles around him, he feels less like a husband than a patient. He looks in the mirror and beholds a fading man, an image on an overplayed print of a two-reel picture, disfigured by scratches and scars, all contrast evanescing until only blankness remains.
He is no longer at ease in his home. The surrounding walls appear oppressive to him. They have not served to keep him safe; his own body has betrayed him. The walls are also a reminder of his failings. When he looks upon them, he cannot help but recall the circumstances that led to their construction.
He cannot help but recall Vera.
Occasionally news of her reaches him from the east:
Vera, drunk, arrested in the office of a theatrical agent, refusing to leave until the agent has listened to her entire repertoire, singing even as the police drag her away.
Vera in the dock, performing—unbidden—a version of “When Irish Eyes Are Smiling” before an unimpressed judge.
Vera, predatory as a wasp, rolling drunks for money.
A reporter asks for a comment on Vera. He has none to make, or none worth the breath.
What use has he for walls if they are all he can survey?
We shouldn’t stay here, he tells Ida.
—Where do you wish to go?
I should like, he says, to be near the sea.