Two young women had stationed themselves out of earshot, but close enough to observe us, turning occasionally to glance and giggle in our direction. I knew that the face out of which I looked was of no fascination to them.
He leaned towards me. ‘It’s time I explained myself. Let’s say … once there was a young man, not the first, who felt like Hamlet. As baffled, as mad and mentally chaotic, and as ruined by his parents. Still, he pulled himself together and became successful, by which I mean he made money doing something necessary but stupid. Manufacturing toilet rolls, say, or a new kind of tinned soup. He married, and brought up his children.
‘In his middle age, as sometimes happens, he felt able to fall in love at last. In his case it was with the theatre. He bought a flat in the West End so he could walk to the theatre every night. He did this for years, but though he loved the gilt, the plush seats, the ice-creams, the post-show discussions in expensive restaurants, it didn’t satisfy him. He had begun to realise that he wanted to be an actor, to stand electrified before a large crowd every night. How could anything else fulfil him?
‘But he was too old. He couldn’t possibly go to drama school, without feeling ridiculous. He was destined to be one of those unlucky people who realise too late what they want to do. A vocation is, after all, the backbone of a life.
‘At the same time,’ he went on, ‘something terrible was happening. His wife, with whom he had been in love, suffered from a degenerative illness that destroyed her body but left her mind unharmed. She was, as she described it, a healthy driver in a car that wouldn’t respond, that was deteriorating and would crash, killing her. She said that all she needed was a new body. They tried many treatments in several countries, but in the end she was begging for death. In fact, she asked her husband to take her life. He did not do this, but was considering it when she saved him the trouble.’
‘I’m sorry,’ I said.
‘These days, dying can be a nightmare. People hang on for years, long after they’ve got anything to talk about.’
He went on, ‘The man, who had been looking after his wife for ten years, retired and went on a trip to recuperate. However, he didn’t feel that he had long to live. He was exhausted, old and impotent. He was preparing for death too.
‘One day, in South America, where he knew other wealthy but somewhat dreary people, he heard a fantastic story from a young man he trusted, a doctor who, like him, was interested in the theatre, in culture. Together — can you imagine? — they put on an amateur production of Endgame. This doctor was moved by the old man’s wish for something unattainable. He confided in him, saying that an amazing thing was taking place. Certain old, rich men and women were having their living brains removed and transplanted into the bodies of the young dead.’
Ralph became quiet here, as if he needed to know my reaction before he could continue.
I said, ‘It seems logical that technology and medical capability only need to catch up with the human imagination or will. I know nothing about science, but isn’t this usually the way?’
Ralph went on, ‘These people might not exactly live for ever, but they would become young again. They could be twenty-year-olds if they wanted. They could live the lives they believed they’d missed out on. They could do what everybody dreams of, have a second chance.’
I murmured, ‘After a bit you realise there’s only one invaluable commodity. Not gold or love, but time.’
‘Who hasn’t asked: why can’t I be someone else? Who, really, wouldn’t want to live again, given the chance?’
‘I’m not convinced of that,’ I said. ‘Please continue. Were there people you met who had done this?’
‘Yes.’
‘What were they like?’
‘Make up your own mind.’ I turned to him again. ‘Go on,’ he said. ‘Have a good stare.’ He leaned into the light in order to let me see him. ‘Touch me if you want.’
‘It’s all right,’ I said, prissily, after stroking his cheek, which felt like the flesh of any other young man. ‘Go on.’
‘I have followed your life from the beginning, in parallel to my own. I’ve spotted you in restaurants, even asked for your autograph. You have spoken my thoughts. My audition speech at drama school was a piece by you. Adam, I am older than you.’
‘This conversation is difficult to believe,’ I said. ‘Still, I always enjoyed fairy stories.’
He continued, ‘As I told you, I had made money but my time was running out. You know better than me, an actor walks into a room and immediately you see — it’s all you see — he’s too old for the part. Yet one’s store of desire doesn’t diminish with age, with many it increases; the means to fulfil it become weakened. I didn’t want a trim stomach, woven hair or less baggy eyes, or any of those… trivial repairs.’ Here he laughed. It was the first time he hadn’t seemed earnest. ‘What I wanted was another twenty years, at least, of health and youth. I had the operation.’
‘You had your brain removed… to become a younger man?’
‘What I am saying sounds deranged. It is unbelievable.’
‘Let us pretend, for the sake of this enjoyable fantasy, that it really is true. How does it work?’
He said the procedure was terrifying, but physically not as awful as open-heart surgery, which we’d both had. When you come round from the anaesthetic in this case, you feel fit and optimistic. ‘Ready to jump and run’, as he put it. The operation wasn’t exactly common yet. There were only a handful of surgeons who could do it. The procedure had been done hundreds of times, perhaps a thousand, he didn’t know the exact figure, in the last five years. But it was still, as far as he knew, a secret. Now was the time to have it, at the beginning, before there was a rush; when it was still in everyone’s interest to keep the secret.
He went on to say that there were certain people whom he believed needed more time on earth, for whom the benefit to mankind could be immense. To this, I replied that although I didn’t know him, it was his mildness that struck me. He didn’t seem the type to lead some kind of master-race. He wasn’t Stalin, Pol Pot or even Mother Teresa returning for another fifty years.
‘That’s right,’ he said. ‘Needless to say, I don’t include myself in this. I had children and I worked hard. I needed another life in order to catch up on my sleep. If I’m back, it’s for the crack!’
I asked, ‘If you really were one of these women or men, what would you want to do with your new time?’
‘For years, all I’ve wanted is to play Hamlet. Not as a seventy-year-old but as a kid. That is what I’m going to do,’ he said. ‘At drama school, first. It’s already been cast and I’ve got the part. I’ve known the lines for years. In my various factories, I’d walk about, speaking the verse, to keep sane.’
‘I hope you don’t mind me pointing this out, but what’s wrong with Lear or Prospero?’
‘I will approach those pinnacles eventually. Adam, I can do anything now, anything!’
I said, ‘Is that what you are intending to do after you’ve played Hamlet?’
‘I will continue as an actor, which I love. Adam, I have money, experience, health and some intelligence. I’ve got the friends I want. The young people at the school, they’re full of enthusiasm and ardour. Something you wrote influenced me. You said that unlike films, plays don’t take place in the past. The fear, anxiety and skill of the actors is happening now, in front of you. If performing is risky, we identify with the possibility of grandeur and disaster. I want that. I can tell you that what has happened to me is an innovation in the history of humankind. How about joining me?’