by Bruce Barber
the words in the right order and manages not to bump into the furniture?
Yes, I say, it does matter – to people like Seamus, and Sandra... and to me; and yet, for the life of me, I’m still not quite sure why... I think it has something to do with how we use art as a tool to deal with the above-mentioned chaos and horror of everyday existence in the modern world, how music and plays and films give shape and form to our own insignificant dramas, thereby allowing us to understand ourselves just a bit more clearly. Even the primary-colour slapstick of Saturday morning cartoons sometimes has the power to make us smile and see our trials and tribulations as not quite so insurmountable, and if such trivialities as these can ever so slightly reshape the world, how much more might be accomplished by a bravura performance of one of Shakespeare’s little entertainments, charged as they are with the best and the worst in the human spirit?
It strikes me that if these notes were to be reviewed, the notice would certainly be a bad one – I sound like budget Becket. Must be death that’s put me in such a mood. Laurence Olivier had giant talent but he is dead; Alan Wales had (as far as I could tell) no talent, and he is dead, too. Death is the cruellest but most fair of all critics. One bad write-up from Death, and your career is really finished, but at least Death plays no favourites, takes no bribes, prints no retractions (not that mortal critics do, either!), and in the end, most certainly is not proud.
ACT THREE
BABBLING GOSSIP OF THE AIR
For murder, though it have no tongue, will speak
With most miraculous organ...
- Hamlet, Act II, Scene 2
(3:1) Betty’s Bed & Breakfast.
Later, at Betty’s, the conversation was of Wales’ death. While Betty Beardsley was not technically of Stratford’s theatrical community, she kept in touch with it, went to openings, attended all the parties, and was acquainted with most of the people.
“Did you know him?” Keyes asked. Betty’s face warped into an expression more suited to the contemplation of garbage, reminding Keyes of the contempt in which O’Reilly had held Wa1es, when Wales was alive.
“He lived here briefly, when I was naïve enough to think it would be nice to have actors in the house; I would have been better off to open a hostel for alcoholics and drug addicts! I may yet – there are all sorts of government grants for that sort of thing...”
“Not a model tenant, then?”
“He used my eighteenth century china saucers for ash-trays!” she said, as if that explained everything; when she saw how unimpressed Keyes was by the perfidy of this particular sin, she went on: “He had people over partying after every show, till three and four o’clock in the morning. I found ashes in the carpet and beer bottles in the umbrella stand... and once, when I returned from Toronto after an audition, I found a naked ingénue in my bed. I think he stole a couple of fairly valuable items from me, too, but I couldn’t prove it. When I threw him out, I told him he was lucky I didn’t kill him. I hate thieves, and I hate finding nude women in my bed – you never know where they’ve been! And as an actor, well – if he’s an actor, then I’m an orang-utan’s Great Aunt Elvira! Far be it from me to be vindictive, but I can’t help thinking the world is no poorer without Wales; he was a self-centred, unprincipled, scheming, lying – ”
Keyes cut her off before she really got going.
“If you didn’t like him, Betty, why not just come right out and say it without all this beating around the bush?”
“Very funny. But it wasn’t just the way he treated me. He used everybody badly, once he had charmed them into being off-guard – he was very good at that. His affair with Sandra Edel...” Betty shook her head with great and sincere sympathy.
Keyes nodded in agreement. “Sandra has always required a great deal of affection, or at least the show of affection. And she’s very stubborn about trying to keep what she has.”
“Aren’t we all,” Betty agreed.
“Some more than others,” Keyes said, rising from the table. “Maybe O’Reilly’s right and theatre is all about love. Seamus mentioned to me that a lot of people disliked this boy. I wouldn’t want to be a cop investigating this. Sounds to me like sorting out motive alone will be complicated and unpleasant. And who knows? Maybe it was just an accident, after all. I suppose it’s none of my business, anyway. I gave my statement, and I for one have no motive at all. Good night, Betty.”
Wearily, Keyes traversed the hallway to his lonely bed. He stopped for a moment to admire again his favourite original Betty Beardsley painting. He liked the enthusiastic style, the bold brush-strokes. The subject was a wedding dinner; thirteen figures, who looked Mediterranean, were positioned around the table in the poses of da Vinci’s “The Last Supper.” The bride’s expression was anything but a happy one, and it was Keyes’ private opinion that the man in the picture who occupied the Judas position was the groom.
Keyes’ thoughts held none of the cool disdain which he had displayed for Betty’s benefit. That had been an attitude, a mask to hide how much the death had disturbed him. If Wales had mistreated Sandra, he was certainly no friend of Claude Keyes, even posthumously. Had he known of any mistreatment of Sandra prior to this night, Keyes might conceivably have found himself bound by duty and old love to seek out Mr. Wales and punch him in the nose. Therefore, he did have a motive of sorts; and he was uncertain as to how he felt about this stranger’s demise. What he wanted to feel was nothing. To forget about the event and be at peace.
He was denied this by his dreams.
Three creatures populated a dreamscape of stark simplicity; a plain of stunted and warped trees stretched far off into the distance, a place of darkness broken only by the occasional flash of what might have been light. The beings, while very different, were all Claude Keyes.
One was very young, perhaps ten years old, a boy with woman’s breasts who stood weeping over an indistinct pile which suddenly became the corpse of a dog, a cat, a fish, a turtle...
Nearby was Keyes again, but a grown Keyes of cold metal, an automaton of gears and switches, performing an incomprehensible set of actions over and over again, but each time executing one manoeuvre or other with some small alteration, as if attempting to find the correct method amid an infinity of choices...
And the last, seated like Zeus on a marble throne, cold and dispassionate, analyzing and judging all events and persons (and especially his other selves), and somewhat titillated – as gods are – by the majestic sweeping presence of death in its icy glory...
It was a very long and unpleasant night.
(3:2) A bookshop
Keyes woke very late the next morning to the pit-pat of more rain on the roof, and thought of the pub, but unthought it very quickly; O’Reilly would surely be there, not having any shows today, and, as close as they were, Keyes simply wasn’t up to him. There would be uproar and confusion everywhere else in the insular world of the Stratford theatre community, and he wished to put off involvement with the aftermath of the death as long as possible. A bookshop, that’s what was needed, an hour’s browsing, maybe even a purchase or two to cure the dismal blues with which he had awakened. Stratford boasted several good booksellers, including the Festival bookshop itself, and New Land Books, which prided itself on carrying an eclectic range of literature, non-fiction, and Canadian publications. There was also a new one which Keyes hadn’t yet had the opportunity to investigate.
The Book Bin turned out to be a clean and bright store on Ontario Street, with a wide selection of offbeat titles, as well as several bins of comic books, pop paraphernalia, and collector’s bric-à-brac.
Keyes spent forty minutes or so thumbing through books on the history of the theatre and biographies of theatrical heavyweights, then felt someone watching him. He glanced around, and saw that he was indeed being stared at by a young woman also browsing, in the costume section. He felt that he should know her from somewhere. She was very pale and slim, and wispy around the edges. Undistinguished russet hair was caught up in an unravel
ling bun, and she had the big, unblinking eyes of a marmoset or some such abominably cute mammal. Keyes thought that her own costuming could use an upgrade: she wore a rough ochre cotton tunic over pink and blue striped leggings, which were tucked poorly into workboots, and a bulky vest woven in colours Keyes was not even sure he had ever seen before. Sliding off one side of her head was a bright yellow beret. For some reason, her apparel seemed familiar to him, then he realized that it was a poor copy of outfits which he had seen Sandra Edel wear when she was being glamorously outré. The woman did not shrink under his scrutiny, merely intensified her own.
“Can I help you, miss?” he said at last, as if he were a clerk.
“You’re Mr. Keyes, aren’t you? Claude Keyes... Sandra’s friend? We met last night briefly?”
Then he remembered, this was the young woman who had come searching for Hobart Porliss on the patio.
“Of course,” he replied, bowing slightly from the waist, in keeping with her somewhat askew formality.
“My name is Grace Lockhardt...”
“Oh, yes, Sandra’s mentioned you. She says you’re indispensable.”
She flushed faintly, and seemed at a loss for words, but not for long.
“Mr. Keyes, Sandra needs us, all of her friends... now that he’s gone; he treated her so badly and