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When Keane had said he was famished, I had taken it as nothing more than a polite excuse for me to leave the two men for whatever memories may take them. It had not crossed my mind that my companion—professor and war hero—was actually hungry.
Keane ate with gusto, downing entire cups of coffee between sentences and large helpings of eggs in the brief bits of respite between nostalgic tales. What dent Mr. Harrison and I made into the various dishes, Keane doubled easily. When had we last eaten? Dinner? No, we were in the plane and then . . . was it really lunch yesterday? I supposed that did explain the gnawing storms in my stomach, not to mention Keane’s ravenous appetite. In battle the bacon was no match, nor the toast quickly slathered in butter. As the dishes ran down the conversation began to turn. Where there were the brighter, more amusing stories of war (Remember old Johnny Crackers? That boy was a walking lunatic. No danger in him though.), there were also old wounds which began to open and fester. Names of lost comrades fell heavily to the floor like stale vomit. Days best left buried overturned and wrenched their spindly hands toward the surface. All that ought to have remained unsaid was said, and yet there was so much still hidden behind their stolid expressions. The wheel again rocked the ship into dangerous harbors as Keane proceeded to fill Harrison in with all the details of our night’s escapade, ending abruptly with the ear-shattering screech of a fork on an empty plate. The American thespian leaned back in his chair and wagged his head incredulously.
“You’re joking. That’s the whole reason I called you down here. We just lost our leading man to an accident too. Hm? Oh, no, he’ll be alright, but he is laid up with a broken leg. Some damn stagehand wasn’t watching what he was doing and opened a trap door beneath Earl Bennet just as he made his entrance. Have you heard of Earl Bennet? No? It’s just as well. The only thing he’s ever on time for is a bottle of booze.”
“That doesn’t explain why we’re here.” I started flatly. The band in my head had gradually progressed from a waltz to something far more rampant that buzzed through my ears like lightning.
Harrison leaned forward on the table with his forearms entrapping his half-finished plate in a triangle.
“Brendan, how would you feel about going into the theatre again?” Keane’s coffee cup hit the table with a mind wincing clatter.
“You can’t be serious. I haven’t been near the stage for years. More than a decade.”
“And?”
“And I must say I am far too old to be playing Hamlet and leaping about in a pair of damn tights.” I clasped a hand over my mouth as the tickles of laughter tempted my lips. Keane? In tights? Never had I considered such things to be uttered in the same conversation, let alone the same sentence. The image of such a thing—the sheer lunacy of it all—was far too much for any person to comprehend. Keane? In tights? Never.
And yet . . .
“Oh, you don’t need to worry about that.” The director quickly assured my companion. “We aren’t doing Shakespeare. This season’s production is Shaw’s Pygmalion. You liked that, if I remember right.”
“It is a well-written play centered around a rather intriguing idea. To think, a man crafting a common flower girl into the image of grace and beauty. If such acts were to become commonplace, the whole of society’s natural class system would come crashing down more effectively than those daft ideas of Socialism.” Keane smiled and shook his head. “An intriguing idea.”
Part of me wished to remind my companion that it was not necessarily the infamous Professor Henry Higgins who instilled the seeds of ideal femininity and fierceness into Eliza Doolittle. Rather they had been there all along, had he opened his eyes to accept it when first she walked into his study. George Bernard Shaw was one of the first ties discovered between Keane and myself, and, as time passed, the reasons became all the more obvious.
James Harrison leaned back in his chair.
“What about it, Brendan? Think you’re up to it?”
“You still have not explained what exactly it is I would be agreeing to. I may be able to pull a few strings—call in some old favours—to find you another leading man. There are a few amature theatrical groups I know that may have a few young men up for the job.”
“What about you?” Keane’s eyebrows arched high on his lined forehead.
“Me? I think I’m a few years too late for such a role.”
“Hogwash. You’d be perfect for the part. After all, Leslie Howard wasn’t a spring chicken when he did it in the films.” My companion chuckled and tugged gently at his left ear.
“James, I think there is a few year’s difference between forty-five and fifty-four.” Harrison pushed himself back from the table and grabbed his hat.
“Don’t give me an answer right now. Think about it for a while. Talk with Jo here. If you want to go back to England, fine, but the part’s yours if you’ll take it. You both can even stay in my beach house just a few miles from the theatre. I like to live in the city for convenience, so you’d have it all to yourselves. There’s plenty of space—two bedrooms and such—and a beach if you want to swim. Even if you don’t take the part, you could still stay a while. Who knows, you might find us Americans aren’t so ‘positively dreadful’ as you’d like to think.” Harrison scraped himself from the chair and moved toward the door. “Give me a call when you make up your mind.”
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I WAS AWOKEN LATE INTO the night—or perhaps early in the morning—by the light scents of cigarette smoke sifting through the crack beneath the door. Having known Keane for so near to a decade, I had long since learned to read the various forms of the white and spindly whispers of tobacco. Often it would merely be a simple trail pulled and released in gentle puffs, the sake of smoking for the sheer habit of the thing, but there were those instances when cigarette after cigarette would be fiercely burnt down to the butt before being stabbed mightily into an unsuspecting ashtray.
This, I could tell, was neither.
The smoke came white and mistlike with quiet traces of vanilla carried along with the tobacco. The fog-like fibers wove together into a blanket of familiarity that wrapped its arms silently around my shoulders. There was warmth in it—a beckoning—I could not ignore for fear it would disappear all together. It was an invitation engraved at his own hand and finished with a seal of burning wax.
I slipped out from beneath the covers, dressed silently, and gently pushed open the door into the main portion of the hotel room. Keane sat on one end of the sofa, the ill-sized suit coat folded neatly beside him and the collar of his shirt left open with the necktie hanging loose and limp around his neck. If he heard my approach, he made no announcement of it, but instead taped the burning end of his cigarette against the ashtray at his elbow. I pushed the jacket away and sat beside him.
“May I?” Keane handed me the packet of cigarettes, already half gone. When he had lit mine, he started another for himself and leaned back into the cushioned backing with a long puff of white haze.
“I haven’t been on stage in years, Lawrence. Nearly twenty years.” There was no nervousness or regret about him, no fear that his age might somehow hinder his performance. It was simply a fact. A cold, hard, selfless fact that he felt necessary to bring to light. He shifted subtly on the settee. “I think I shall do it. I have no other pressing matters to date. It would only be two or three months. Besides, it would be rather nice to do something theatrical again.” Suddenly Keane’s attention fell entirely upon me. “Of course, you must go back to England. It would be selfish of me to ask you to stay when you have work of your own. I will arrange transportation as soon as possible. That aeroplane—” I laughed.
“Really, Keane, you’ve forgotten something. You canceled all my appointments with my editor, not to mention the publisher. I am liberated from work and worry for the next several months.” My companion chuckled lightly, his brow creasing ever so slightly through the grey haze.
“Yes, I suppose that was rather poor foresight on my part. Even so, you can travel anywhere you wish. Spend a few months in France, perhaps?”
“And see a world racked with the fever of a passing war?” I shook my head. “I think I would rather stay here. If there is one thing to be said about this country, it is that you never hear of a wise old American, only a young and foolish one. This is the country of progress, forgetfulness, and absolute idiocracy.” Keane nodded.
“It reminds me of Shaw’s picture of Hell, a place of eternal pleasure. What could be more tedious?”
“A good many things, I suppose; the repetitiveness of day to day life until all time merges together and you are looking back wondering why you didn’t accomplish something else when you could.”
“You’re much too young for that yet.”
“Not true. Take our last little adventure, for instance. If I had known Michael would become so . . . infatuated with me, I might have been able to stop him before he had us both wandering about in a blizzard.”
“But had that been avoided, we wouldn’t have found Bridget. See, Lawrence, there are a great many things we could find in our pasts and wish that it had happened differently—that we could have changed it somehow—but doing so would alter the present result. Regret is one of the most useless of emotions. Guilt, when truly honorable and honest, is far better.” I nodded slowly, Keane’s sage words creeping gradually into my consciousness.
Regret may be useless, but it had a bite more cold and deadly than an onslaught of bullets.