Ghostfinders 03 -Ghost of a Dream

came.
    “Must bring back memories, eh?” Old Tom said cheerfully to Benjamin and Elizabeth. “All the plays you appeared in, all the characters you played; must feel like coming home. I suppose.”
    Benjamin and Elizabeth walked to the very front of the stage, as though drawn there. They stood arm in arm, looking out into the Past, smiling reflectively.
    “This was our kingdom, once upon a time,” said Benjamin. “Where we were Kings and Queens, angry young men and femmes fatales…We played Shakespeare and Marlowe, Becket and Brecht, Oscar Wilde and George Bernard Shaw, bless his declamatory speeches…Hell, we did it all, didn’t we girl, one time or another. For everything from standing ovations to sullen silences. Because you can’t please all the people all of the time, the ungrateful bastards…”
    “I sometimes think we had more fun backstage,” said Elizabeth. “Applause is what it’s all about, of course; but there’s more to theatre than the smell of the crowds andthe roar of the grease-paint. For happy times and camaraderie, give me a theatre bar any day. Do you remember the one time we did the Scottish play.”
    “Ah, the Caledonian Tragedy,” said Benjamin.
    “Do you by any chance mean
Macbeth
?” JC said innocently.
    Everyone except the Ghost Finders winced.
    “Please,” said Benjamin, with all the dignity he could muster. “Don’t do that. It’s unlucky.”
    “And I really don’t think we’re in any position to push our luck at the moment,” said Elizabeth.
    “Anyway,” said Benjamin, “you remember young Dicky Moran, dear; playing Seyton, MacB’s second in command? He was lumbered with one of the most familiar lines from Shakespeare:
The Queen, my lord, is dead.
Well, what can you do with that that hasn’t been done a hundred times before? Particularly if you’re young and ambitious and keen to be noticed, like Dicky? We got all the way to the technical rehearsal, before Dicky came up with his Big Idea and presented it proudly to the director. He wanted to walk on stage with the Queen lying limp in his arms, present her to the King, then say the line! Would have been very effective. You were up for it, weren’t you, darling?”
    “It would certainly have made a big impression,” said Elizabeth, which JC couldn’t help noticing wasn’t exactly the same as agreeing, “But the director wouldn’t wear it. Complete sense-of-humour failure…Which is probably why Dicky did what he did the next evening, at the dress rehearsal…You remember, darling; it was right at the end, with half the cast on stage celebrating MacB’s death,and the rest of us watching from the stalls. Hoping it would all end soon, so we could get a drink in. Someone has to bring on a fake severed head and say it’s MacB’s, then the big names go into soliloquy mode. Well, Dicky noticed that the actor holding the head was surreptitiously turning it back and forth so that it seemed to be looking at whoever was speaking. Well, once Dicky saw that, he couldn’t help himself. He started going
Gottle of Gear
from the front row, and other ventriloquist classics, like
Get back in the box! I don’t want to get back in the box!
And, of course, the moment he pointed it out, everyone else could see it, too! We rocked with laughter, all of us! We fell about, we leaned on each other, we laughed till we cried. Completely ruined the atmosphere…”
    “The director blew his top,” said Benjamin, nodding happily. “Wanted to fire young Dicky, right there on the spot. But I put my foot down.”
    “Indeed you did, darling,” said Elizabeth, “and quite right, too. Though the first night we had to go on without a severed head because no-one could look at it with a straight face any more. And might I point out, darling, you could be just as bad yourself. I’ve never been able to forget what happened with
Cider with Rosie
…”
    “Oh God, yes,” said Benjamin, grinning broadly and not looking in any way ashamed of himself. “It was the technical again, when evenings grow long, and nerves grow short. We’d been running the play for hours, and we were all exhausted. We wanted to go home, or to bed, or both. Anyway, we’d finally made it to the last scene, where young Laurie Lee is in the hay-cart with young Rosie, and she’s about to give him a glass of cider andshow him what life is all about…Except, neither of the two youngsters could get their lines right! They kept stopping, or jumping, or getting