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When Keane again resurfaced from the water, he was dragging a sailing ship behind him. It was not an enormous vessel like one would imagine in some great pirate film, nor was it a rickety old thing that could do nothing more than a lonely cork from a wine bottle. It was ship shape from stem to stern and the port and starboard side respectively. A stripe of clean, white paint shot along the sides, just as the sails cut through the morning sky. Everything about her was magnificent and dignified to be sure, but, when I said as much to the tall figure approaching on the sand, I received only a hearty chuckle.
“She’s not the Saint Gobniat, but she’ll do nicely, I think.” And indeed she would, though Keane was quite right. This ship was most certainly not the same one he had left behind in England. I glanced at the painted letters upon her hull. Mae West. Of course an American would name their ship after a film star. I had seen a few of her films myself and, though they were admittedly enjoyable, the vessel’s title was not quite so poetic as Keane’s selection. The Saint Gobniat; the female patron saint of County Cork, where he had been born and raised until the war.
The first war, I corrected silently.
There had been two now; two fatal cracks to shake the world until it trembled at the knees. If the millions of deaths and an insane dictator were not sufficient evidence to the demoralisation of this hell in which we lived, the Americans had developed an entirely new form of warfare that could kill hundreds of thousands of people within a handful of seconds. Those who survived the blast were then racked with diseases that weakened their bones and induced vomiting no human could quell. Blackened corpses lined foreign streets, limbs twisted and bent like the victims of Pompeii. In thought, there was only one difference.
One was made by men.
Keane strode up onto the shore and began drying his face with a towel I had not noticed lying limp on the beach. His sopping trousers clung to his legs, dripping little rivers of water onto his bare feet. His hair was slicked back against his skull with enough laxity to retain some semblance of style. He was not—nor, I thought, had he ever been—a man to whom his wealth meant much more than a lack of poverty. However, in the years I had known him he had most always been cat-like in the upkeep of his appearance. His tweed suits were just as common to him as my jacket was to me. They were not so much what we wore, but who we were. It was a reflection of our lives, our ambitions, our hopes, our dreams, our past, and our future. They were a story woven tightly by the threads of our beginnings, a knot tied firmly at every day to prevent the fabric of our being from unraveling at the slightest slip of change.
“What do you think, Lawrence?” I blinked.
“About what?” Keane laughed, the strong sound of a trained baritone shaking through him like thunder in a summer’s storm.
“Breakfast. I learned how to fry up a decent pan of eggs and rashers in the navy, and I did see some fresh oranges inside. After that we can go into the city and buy some proper clothes. How does that sound?” I nodded and was rewarded by another shower of sweet rain. The birds sang in glory, and all of life fell once more into the tellable joviality one must always believe to lay just around the next bend. For every pain, there is a drop of hope. For every pint of blood, a salvation. And, for every friend, a companion.
Keane swung the towel over his shoulder, put a hand on my elbow, and together we trudged back up toward the house.
––––––––
“BY GOD, LAWRENCE,” Keane chuckled as he came out of the tailor’s. “You must be the one woman on earth who can finish her shopping before a man. Either you are truly a fine example of the female sex, or that tailor took far too long with his measurements.”
“I think I rather like the first explanation.” I grinned. “At last you are admitting women can be more efficient than men.”
“I beg your pardon? I said no such thing.”
“Hm, well, you should. It would look far better to admit it now than be wrong later.” Keane’s shoulders shot back and his eyes hardened to silver.
“Me? Wrong? Really, I—”
“—Relax, Keane, I was only jesting. Your pride can be most insufferable at times.”
“Says the most stubborn, prideful, and infuriating woman I have ever had the pleasure of knowing.” I really did not know what to say then, and my companion damn well knew it. A self satisfied grin quickly swept across his face at the very instant his eyes twinkled with amusement. In a flash he had stolen the wrapped parcel from beneath my arm and held it suspiciously with a scrutinous eye. “Are you sure you bought everything you need? No truso? No trunks? No ridiculous amounts of hats and curlers bubbling up to your ears? Or are you hiding a ridiculous amount of baggage nearby?” I snatched back the wrapped bundle, shaking my head with an exasperated sigh.
“Really, Keane, you need to think more highly of yourself. After all, calling yourself baggage may be a sure sign of oncoming depression . . . or dementia.” He had not the chance to respond as a shrill voice warbled his name in such a careless way I had not thought it was his name at all.
“Mr. Keane? Mr. Keeaaannneeeee?” She came at us like a mad woman, sashaying her hips with such exaggeration I could have swore she would topple over on those high heels of hers. I needn’t have looked at Keane to know every muscle in his body had stiffened into a stance looking every bit as depressing as an old Victorian banker.
“Miss Smith,” He greeted simply, straining his face into the most excruciating of smiles. “You are looking well today.” In fact, the woman was most certainly not looking well. Rather she looked every bit as ugly as she did the day before when she had marched out of the theatre. Her dark hair was the color of sodden ash, burned by fire and soaked with styling products. (I was quite relieved Keane was not smoking at the time, else she go up in flames.) What I suspected to be a ruddy complexion was hidden behind buckets of makeup, just as her too-large lips were accentuated all the more by gaudy red lipstick. In addition to this, her nose was large and ill-shaped, her figure was rather lumpy, and her fingernails were painted such vulgar shades of blue I wished only to turn myself from her completely. A sickening knot in my stomach formed when her screeching giggles prodded at my ears with rusted needles.
“Ohhhh, you are a charmer, aren’t you Mr. Keane. Or can I call you Brendan? I think I will. It’s a real nice name. Real British-like. You are British, aren’t you? You sure sound like you are.” The woman suddenly turned to me as though I had clawed my way up from the burning earth with a third eye glued to my forehead. “And who are you?” Keane cleared his throat and shoved his hands into his pockets.
“Miss Smith, may I introduce you to Miss Joanna Lawrence.” I offered my hand but, rather than finishing the greeting, the woman pulled her painted fingers away and glared at me with something very near to hatred.
“Funny. She doesn’t look like a secretary.” I felt my fists clench at my sides. Surely America held some laxity toward pummeling women in the streets. It was, after all, for a good cause. My dignity. Keane was first to the tackle.
“I should say not. Miss Lawrence is an educated young woman who is her own person.”
“Educated isn’t the word I’d use.” The woman chirped. I ground my teeth. Of course it wouldn’t, the cow. She probably didn’t know any words longer than two syllables able to be said with any air of decorum. Keane finished the conversation—if it could be called a conversation—with a few gentlemanly words and—God save us—a cold, formal kiss to the wretched woman’s hand. I thought she would faint dead away onto the pavement.
And I would have left it to Keane to pick up the shattered pieces.
As it was, we walked another three blocks before either of us had the courage to speak up again. Keane sighed heavily, reached for his cigarette case, lit one, and blew a long puff of white haze. With one, fatal glance, he caught me.
“Out with it, Lawrence.”
“Keane, have you ever considered—may we walk through the park?” My companion’s dignified brow furrowed considerably. Rarely—if not never—had I ever suggested such a thing so utterly ridiculous and off handed. I abhorred the storybook romanticisms that even bordered leisure, and despised the likes of those who made a life within its pages. Keane; however, obliged my request and, clasping his hands nautically behind his back, chartered a new course toward Shaw’s Hell of pleasure.
The park was like most any other park I had seen. Green grasses, screaming children with sticky fingers, decrepit men on benches, and a variety of trees spotting the worn paths. In the heat of the morning, men had shed their suit jacket and women wore their lightest blouses and skirts. To my pride and misfortune, I was still wearing my leather jacket as Keane half-heartedly paraded us up and down the dirt paths. His monologue began as some effortless forms of polite conversation before trickling into the dull dribble only the most desperate could supply. I listened to him ramble on about the improvements made to help the millions of soldiers suffering from shell-shock, the benefits of physical exercise, the hot weather, the ocean, the history of sailing ships, the Flying Dutchman, Irish folklore, male fashions, theological similarities in American culture, America in general, England, Ireland, France, the division of German, the threat of a possible third war in the future, the conspiracies that another such war would include nuclear bombs fired from space by green creatures with four eyes and—
“Damn it, Keane, that’s absurd!”
“Thank God for that.” My companion exclaimed, dropping dramatically onto a nearby bench. “Really, a man can only carry on a thread of conversation for so long before truly doing himself a mischief.”
“Why do you feel it necessary to say anything at all. Haven’t you heard the phrase, If you haven’t anything nice to say—”
“—Lawrence, you demean yourself.”
“I?”
“Yes, you. Do you realise we have been walking for the better part of an hour and you have said no more than two fragmented sentences that entire time?” I folded my arms and glared down at Keane.
“And what would you prefer my reaction to be? Green creatures indeed. If you find my company that deplorable, I’ll go.”
“Oh, Lawrence.” Keane chided, wagging his head slowly and motioning for me to sit beside him. Which I did.
But at a respectable distance.
“Blast it all, Keane. What is so all-fired important about what I haven’t told you? I keep a lot of things to myself. For instance, I have a distance cousin in Dover who is married to some fifth cousin, twice removed from Eisenhower. There, do you feel better knowing that? Or would you rather me tell you about this neighbor boy when I was little who was so damn fat he once got stuck in his chair at school? Or perhaps I should provide the tale of Bobby Hensle Jack, who was such an ass I clobbered him over the head with a complete volume of Charles Dickens’ works. Or—” I did not stop out of lack of oddities speckled through my life, but something far more sinister. Keane was laughing.
The damn man was laughing.
“By God, Lawrence, you do know how to avoid a topic, don’t you. And just when I thought you had the nerve to ask me something serious.”
“Oh?” I sat a little straighter. “And what, pray tell, would that question be?”
“I expect you were going to suggest we be married.”
I slapped him.
It was nothing fancy or the blind swing of an emotional female, but a good, open-handed crack against his jaw.
I slapped him once.
Only once.
Hard.
Just as quickly as I had struck, I leapt to my feet with my fists ready to pummel the sod into the wooden bench.
“How—How dare you!” I spat venomously. Keane had not so much as flinched at my strike, though I noticed the slightest dusting of red along his left cheek. His eyes remained that steady blue and—damn the man—even his voice still sounded reasonable.
“Am I wrong? Tell me I am, and I shall apologise immediately.”
“I—”
“There, see, you can’t because it’s true. You think we should be married, though I can’t imagine why the thought occurred to you. Lawrence, I have met enough women in my time to know they hold the realms of matrimony on some idealistic throne. While it may have its social and moral advantages, and although I am by no means against such an arrangement—please sit down, Lawrence.”
“No.” I would not ‘sit down’. I would not give him the satisfaction of winning so much as a pawn on the chess board. But when my refusal hit his ears, he rose to his feet. I had stood before him a thousand times, yet it never ceased to amaze me just how much he towered over me when he took my shoulders in his hands and forced my eyes to meet his.
It was never safe to look into those watery blue eyes.
When his voice came again, it had lost some of the sharp English clip I had known for so long. Or, perhaps it had not been lost, but overshadowed by the sing-song brogue of Cork. It was just a smattering upon certain vowels—a mere brush—but it was enough to just be noticable.
“Lawrence, listen to me. I am fifty-five years old. I have long been accustomed to the freedom and seclusion of bachelor life. You would be wasting your life for something that could last only a few decades. I would not—could not—force you to endure such a fate.”
“And you believe that you have the power in the world to speak for both of us? I never said I wanted to marry you.” I tried to tear myself away, to wrench my shoulders from his grasp, but he caught my arm and tugged me back. His fingers dug into my sleeve, but my flesh was unharmed. And my soul burned.
“Think of it. No matter what, there will come a day when I will be dead, and you will have to live. What if we had wedded ourselves? What if—by some unread twist of fate—you would be my wife? When I die, you would be a young widow.” Keane’s voice, filled with an energy I feared to properly place, immediately dropped low about my ears. “And Lord knows there are far too many of those already.”
“But I never said, or even suggested—”
“God, Lawrence, do you think I care so little you must speak your mind at every given moment for me to know your heart? I may be a man. I may be—on exceptionally rare occasions—rather dim. But I am not a bumbling buffoon.”
“Nor are your words logical. Why would I want to marry you? Why? To stop some old hag who attempts to dictate morals when she knows not the binds of ethics or the sorrows of forgotten dreams?” The grip on my arm lessened, strength giving way to a heavy warmth spreading along my flesh. A sign of hope and sorrow. I had crossed a barrier too wide for my young mind to comprehend. But an inability to understand does not mean that I could not recognise the abyss over which I balanced. I had taken a step too far. A leap too long. A hope that was hopeless.
Keane’s fingers became feathers upon my sleeve; an angel’s breath of a door that should never again be open.
“Do you really imagine I would succumb to the bond of matrimony to stop busibodies—like Miss Smith—from wagging their tongues anytime we are seen together in public? Do you?” I said nothing. Anyone who has ever been in such a position has been told to do so. I said nothing. Not even my name, rank, or serial number. I just ripped myself from his hands and strode quickly away.
He did not follow.