by Bruce Barber
in a voice he had borrowed from Seamus O’Reilly, a voice O’Reilly used only when the old actor was cast as a lord, a gentleman, or an attendant. Keyes realized of course that he wasn’t really circumnavigating, but the word was too attractive not to use.
His energy was high, which rather puzzled him, as he had not slept well the night before; it also did not seem proper that funeral-going should give him such a lift. Wherever the vigour came from, it put a spring in his step. Probably it was just the weather.
He passed the island where the dead swan had been found, then the bench where he had come across the star sequins. They continued to trouble him, those sequins did. They made him suspect possibilities that he wished he could believe were impossible.
Then he passed the theatre. One of its flags was flying at half-mast. Based on what Keyes had learned so far, it was more than Alan Wales deserved.
He continued on to the Gallery Stratford, and to the golf course, although by then he had left lake Victoria behind. Some jovial golfers were on their way from the clubhouse to the links.
“Links,” he murmured aloud. “There must be links somewhere.”
If there were, he didn’t have them. He watched the golfers almost enviously, something he had never done before, then turned back toward the lake, the theatre, and Dead Swan Isle, as he had come to think of Tom Patterson Island.
“You’re losing it, Keyes,” he said. “I should have had a cup of Betty’s high-test tea after all.”
Now he quickened his pace slightly, realizing that his route along the banks of the Avon had taken him onto what was, for the most part, private property; he was crossing the back yards of expensive riverfront real estate, but, perhaps because of the ever-present roving bands of tourists, security was not so tight in Stratford as it might be in other communities.
He arrived at the dam below the lake. It was one of his favourite places in town; he wasn’t sure why. Perhaps it was the sound of water rushing through the floodgates, or perhaps the sense he had of the power of water pent up.
The funeral came into his mind again, and then the succession of sinister events that led up to it. All this was pent up in his mind, this lakeful of detail, waiting for some internal floodgate to be opened.
For a while Keyes studied the rushing water, then he sighed and turned away. Facing him was York Lane, a short gauntlet of small but upscale shops. It occurred to him that he might do some shopping after all, or some browsing, if only to save himself from having lied to Betty.
In First Folio Books, it amused him to see a clerk packing away a dozen of the iron Shakespeare busts such as the one which seemed to have been guiding Alan Wales on his journey to Hades. Noticing his interest, the exuberant young man grinned widely and raised one of them, as if he were Hamlet with Yorick’s skull.
“Gruesome, isn’t it? Bad buy – we’re returning them all!” His tone of voice indicated to Keyes that banishing the small monstrosities was the high point of the clerk’s summer.
Keyes came away from the Señor Coffee store next door with the gratification that a cup of good espresso can provide.
He glanced over baby clothes, the dresses in the fashion boutique, the yarn in the knit shop, and the chocolate truffles in a mysterious little place called Tid-Bits, and managed to resist the wares offered by all of them.
He was not so fortunate when he came to a shop called Smoke and Mirrors. This emporium seemed to deal in old stage properties. It was hung with papier mâché masks, posters, random bits of drapery. All its furnishings were painted, often in faux-marbre. There were boxes and bins of portfolios. Not since his visit to Sandra’s apartment had he seen so much stagy stuff. Despite the glory of the sunshine, Keyes opened the door and went in.
It took his eyes a moment to adjust to the gloom of the shop’s interior, and still another moment for them to tell him that he was the only customer there. He could see nothing as ordinary as a counter, but two women turned their heads in his direction as he approached. They were seated in arm-chairs, chatting quietly, and in a fashion that seemed to him entirely unbusinesslike, which warmed him to them immediately, taking them to be the staff of Smoke and Mirrors. Both women were tall and dark and beautiful. They were also graceful when they stood up and gracious when they spoke, which they did in a curious kind of alternation.
Like Tweedledee and Tweedledum, Keyes thought, no matter how little the women of Smoke and Mirrors resembled Carroll’s twins.
“Can we help you?” said Smoke – as he now came to think of her – with brisk and efficient courtesy.
“Just browsing,” Keyes replied, thinking as he said it that it might be very pleasant to be helped one way or another by just such a lady.
“Let us know if there’s something we can show you,” said Mirrors, more vaguely than her partner, but in a manner that was equally as friendly.
“Thank you,” Keyes said. Perhaps I might see just one more centimetre of exquisitely tanned flesh?
Immediately after this he thought, I really am losing it. I’m getting to be as crazy as everybody else in this outrageous town.
He poked about in a corner where some stage weapons had been stacked, long-handled polearms such as halberds and partisans. The women settled in their chairs and resumed their quiet conversation, which was about Alan Wales.
“He was in here only the day before,” Smoke said. “Didn’t buy anything of course.”
“He never did... buy anything, I mean,” Mirrors said.
“He asked me what time I finished work.”
“You, too?”
“Oh, yes. The old ‘what’s-a-good-looking-girl-like-you-doing-in-a-joint-like-this’ routine. Very tacky.”
“Rather beautiful though,” Mirrors murmured dreamily.
“More than that... excessively beautiful. But tacky. Very, very tacky.”
Keyes moved further away, far enough to be kept from hearing the substance of what the two women were saying. He found some portfolios filled with drawings made by costume designers and began to rummage through them. A fine Desmond Heeley caught and held his attention, then an exquisite Sam Kirkpatrick. With great pleasure he went through one portfolio and opened another. The first drawing in it was by George Brocken.
Had Brocken been at the funeral? Keyes asked himself.
He couldn’t be sure, but he didn’t remember seeing him. The more he thought about it, the more certain he became. Almost everyone else had been there... but not Brocken.
He looked again at the drawing. It was one of the designs for Macbeth, a reject certainly, one of the many the designer might have prepared before finding just the right combination of colours and textures. It was labelled Jerzy Cole as Fleance.
The next drawing was of Alan Wales in his Act I, Scene 2 appearance –Wales as the bleeding sergeant.
A small, many-footed shudder crept up Keyes’ spine. It was very unsettling to be holding in his hands a drawing of the corpse he had found only a few days before. Except for the lighting, Brocken’s design captured the scene exactly. The legs were spread in the same way; the hands and arms gestured with the same dramatic emphasis. It might have been an artist’s sketch of “the scene of the crime” from the pre-photography era, or a heightened version of the police chalk outlines which mark where a corpse has lain. All the sketch lacked was the bust of Shakespeare and the blood.
Keyes put the drawing back and closed the portfolio. Slowly the eeriness of his discovery passed away. He had had enough of Smoke and Mirrors, however. He wanted to be back outside again, out in the bright autumn sunshine.
The two dark women watched him as he made his exit, which was precipitous, almost as if he were bolting, as a horse bolts when it is suddenly frightened.
“He was a weird one,” Smoke said to Mirrors.
“Aye,” Mirrors said to Smoke. “That he were.”
(4:2) The Festival Theatre, a rehearsal hall
The date of the funeral fell on the same day as the Ricardo Benefit Cabaret, an annual event
now in its third year. Ticket and liquor sale proceeds went to the Guthrie Award fund, in memory of a young actor who had died of AIDS four years earlier, after a long and brave struggle. Ricardo had been well-liked and respected by all who knew him, both as artist and human being. Entertainment, music, and dancing were scheduled, as Ricardo himself had loved these things; and he had requested, a few days before his death, that if he were to be remembered it should be in such a fashion.
It was decided to go ahead with the cabaret as planned, and word had come from Ziemski-Trapp that Wales was to be mentioned and made part of the event, for this year at least, and that a suitable gravity was to be adopted. O’Reilly saw the cabaret in the great Irish tradition of the wake, and scoffed at the concept of “suitable gravity” on the grounds that some of the best times, biggest hangovers, and most memorable romantic dalliances of his life had been the direct result of wakes. O’Reilly even volunteered to act as bartender for the night (performers and staff donated their time and talents), but no one trusted him in charge of the booze, although he was not told this directly. The organization committee – which consisted mainly of Grace Lockhardt – politely declined the offer of his services on the grounds that only union bartenders from the Festival staff were allowed to serve at such functions. It did not escape O’Reilly’s notice that Bruno from The Bells popped up behind the bar from time to time, helping out when