No London this time, no Palladium, no Coliseum.
They play provincial theaters.
They play Dublin.
They play Belfast.
A year later, they are back, and the cathedral bells at Cobh sound a song of greeting for them, but the Audience is sparser now, and no television cameras record their presence in blighted towns. A summer season in Blackpool fails to materialize. The tour is to be cut short.
Even here, he thinks, we are not as we once were. Even here, we are being forgotten.
We are witnesses to our own evanescence.
Babe is slower. Babe sleeps. Babe struggles for breath. Babe is short-tempered. On stage, Babe labors.
Ben Shipman joins them in England. Together, they watch Babe scale the hotel stairs, helped by Lucille.
And Ben Shipman says:
—Maybe it’s good that Blackpool didn’t work out.