The Crimson Shaw Read online

  “James will be here soon, Lawrence, and it would be prudent if you washed that filth from last night out of your hair. Don’t bother with trying to salvage those clothes. Take everything out of the pockets and put them in your jacket. I must say it puzzles me why you brought that heavy garment with you. It isn’t as though we traveled to the North Pole.”

  “It’s my trademark.” I muttered, suddenly aware of a dry grating in my throat. “Besides, it’s durable and practical; two things of which you have always approved.”

  “Indeed.” Keane peeled the leather RAF jacket from the floor and promptly held it away at arm's length. “It may take some effort to get the stench of petrol out of it, but effort does not mean impossibility. I already started the hot water. Ten minutes, Lawrence.”

  WHILE THE RING MASTER did not cancel the performance on the account of a flooding of senses, the hot water and steam worked miracles on my aching muscles. Much of the dirt and grime fell easily from my battered flesh, and what did not dissipate immediately was quickly persuaded by the bar of lavender soap lying idle on the porcelain edge. As the water gradually cooled, I slowly became reacquainted with myself. Long, jagged scrapes wrenched their way up my arms, and my legs were no better. What skin was not torn or cut was infinitely sore. Even my hair was slicked with bits of oil and dust. There was not an inch left untouched.

  Not even my mind.

  It was well past ten minutes when I emerged from the now tepid water and began drying my cleansed flesh, the dripping ends of my hair dropping long rivers of water along my shoulders. A fresh shirt and trousers had been hung on the back of the door. They were not an ideal fit—I had to roll the trouser legs up a bit and the shirtsleeves were an infinite battle—but it was far better than that with which I was naturally born. Swaddled in my new, ridiculous wardrobe, I reentered the main portion of the hotel room to find Keane in a rather amusing conversation with another man. He was about the same height and build as my companion, though perhaps a tad bit smaller in both areas of consideration. Where Keane’s hair was a greying blonde, this man’s was entirely white without so much as a speck of any former colour. His features were rounded and centered with an upturned nose that had been broken at some point in its existence. The lines on his face were partially masked by a dark tan that approached his shirt collar with no signs of stopping. But, beneath the sun’s marks, he appeared pale and nervous; twitching erratically at times or touching the tail end of a scar that ran along his cheekbone. Had the man’s fingers not held such a fascination with the deformity, I might not have noticed the thin etching at all.

  He stood as I entered the room, prompting a bewildered Keane to do likewise. It was always startling to remember the one eternal difference between the revered professor and myself.

  I was a woman and he was a man.

  I shook James Harrison’s hand, nodded to Keane, and sat down on a rather extravagant settee. Apparently money did more than merely talk. It breathed. The red, almost gaudy, upholstery was heavenly to a weary traveler and I understood why Keane had decided to spend the night there, rather than the bed as I suggested. There was no doubt in his gentlemanly nature, just as there was no questioning his stubbornness, or the fiery streak within him that flamed a temperament which could topple the strongest of men and the most prominent government officials.

  He also looked uncomfortable.

  “Keane, isn’t that suit jacket a bit—er—snug?” My companion self-consciously tugged at the sleeves of the offending article. Perhaps snug wasn’t the right word. Short was more accurate. The suit—well-tailored and reasonably expensive—appeared something Keane might have owned at some point in his life. Just, not now.

  “As soon as you called saying something about lost bags, I bought it from one of the finest taylors I know.” Harrison explained. “I went off of measurements from last I saw you. When was that?” Keane chuckled.

  “Almost thirty years ago. Orthello, I believe it was.”

  “Was it really that long? We were young then.” The director grinned roguishly. “And you, Brendan, were the ladies man, as I remember.”

  “Yes, well . . . ” Keane tugged fiercely at his left ear, his blue eyes sparkling in nostalgic wonder. I had always thought these two reflections of embarrassment far more endearing than the reddening of one’s face, and, as with everything, my companion retained the utmost dignity.

  Dignity. Always dignity.

  “You weren’t completely faultless yourself. Started drinking at eight in the morning and carried on the entire day.” The director smiled ruefully and pressed a hand firmly into his abdomen.

  “I’m afraid those days are behind me. Have you ever had an ulcer, Brendan? Well, hope to sweet Jesus you never do. Hurts like shit.”

  What a pleasant American saying.

  Keane grimaced and turned to me, face completely bereft of anything more than an anatomically correct facade.

  “Lawrence, I’m positively famished. Could you go down and order something? It doesn’t matter what it is so long as it is hot and edible. Don’t bother with the tea, though.” My companion glanced at Harrison. “Tea always seems to be a weak point in this country.”

  CHAPTER THREE

  Spring 1916—H.M.S. Greylag

  “WHAT THE DEVIL IS THIS swill?” The young seaman cursed, gulping down the tepid liquid before glaring into the glass as though bearer of the most fatal of poisons. A morning’s stubble grew red over his long jaw, a stark contrast to the blonde, wavy hair and sharp, blue eyes. His uniform fit nicely over his masculine frame that began at a pair of strong shoulders and slimmed into a form well-toned by years at sea. The man standing over him was much the same, save a head of dark sticks for hair and a face that was more round than oblong.

  “It’s tea.” The brown-haired man stated firmly, as if to convince himself of the cup’s supposed contents. A dark pool of liquid still swirled about in its metal confines, but it was nothing like tea. Water and twice-used tea leaves did not make a proper cup of tea. It couldn’t even pass as the watered-down coffee they were forced to drink every now and again.

  “What’s your name, man?”

  “Seaman Second Class, James Harrison. You?”

  “Brendan Keane. Seaman First Class.” The younger man swung his arm into a salute and nearly knocked him upside the head. “What the devil do you think you’re doing, Harrison? If we spent all our time bickering over ranks and nationalities we might as well let the blasted Germans have a parade through Piccadilly. Now—sit down, man—let me make one thing infernally clear. I am not an Englishman.”

  “You damn well sound like it, ‘cept for that funny singing sound.” Brendan’s brow furrowed slightly, creating lines otherwise nonexistent on his face.

  “That ‘singing sound’ is the last remnant of my brogue—my Irish brogue—and if you have something to say about it, you had best say it now while there’s no one to watch you embarrass yourself.”

  “Ireland? But isn’t that a part of England? Oh, right, that whole Easter thing.” Harrison pushed himself back ever so slightly from the other seaman. “You aren’t one of those rebels, are you?”

  “No.”

  Not yet.

  The Irishman took a long draw from the watery tea and allowed his brows to furrow together. One war was enough—more than enough—for any man. No mortal could live long beneath the shroud of death without fully considering its benefits.

  Suddenly the ship gave a mighty heave and forced his body to sway in unison, an occurrence that happened constantly and, while not unpleasant, could cause untold havok if a man bore not the sea legs necessary. Brendan sighed.

  In death there was no rain of led, no fires from above, no final screams as one sunk into a darkened abyss. There was not but silence—a cool, blissful quiet—to lay one’s soul at rest and allowed them to sleep soundly in eternal arms.

  Sleep. The young man scratched the red starts of a beard. Yes, that was something he needed—they all needed. How lon
g had they been at it now? It seemed a string of several years, yet it had hardly been a day; one, dreadfully draining twenty-four hours.

  Harrison took out a package of cigarettes—American by brand—and offered one to Keane. The Irishman smoked every now and then back home, but now it had become a constant; something to do with his hands while his mind wandered to safer waters. The bitter taste of tobacco had become pleasant to his palate as a pretty girl who smiles at you when she saunters past. That was another problem.

  There was no female companionship. A man could not delve into the depths of his soul, for, to do show on a warship was a weakness. To do so to someone who listened and did their best to comfort, that was divine.

  That was Natasha.

  Harrison finished his cigarette first and debated whether or not to have another before deciding the better of it and instead shoved his hands into his coat pockets.

  “Tell me, Brendan, when did you last have a good, hearty meal?”

  CHAPTER FOUR

  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.”

  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, La
wrence. 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.”