Keats and Chapman had just returned from the Abbey Theatre where they had enjoyed 'The Quare Fellow' an innovative piece by a young playwright called Brendan Behan. Keats slumped down at the kitchen table while Chapman retrieved from the dresser a bottle of Bushmills whose contents he felt would supplement nicely the Guinness imbibed at the play's interval.
'What wonderful acting!', declared Keats.
'And that song, what was it? The Auld Triangle... ', Chapman looked to the ceiling in search of the words, but Keats beat him to it and sang emphatically, 'And the auld triangle went jingle-jangle, all along the banks of the Royal Canal'. He belted out a few more lines in approximate order, all the while keeping time by striking the worn oilcloth of the table with the flat of his hand.
Chapman waited for the thumping to cease before setting the charged glasses down. As he stood poised he noticed that the vibrations were causing the large soup bowl that had long sat at one end of the table to be displaced. This vessel had rarely, if ever, contained soup, it owed its presence to a vague similarity with a fruit bowl and as such contained old keys and empty cigarette packets. Chapman contemplated the unfaded circle that was being slowly revealed by the bowl's jouncing.
Keats asked Chapman why he was standing there like a tree as he, Keats, was dying of the thirst.
Chapman nodded at the table, 'Look at the colours that have been preserved all these years under that soup bowl, the azures... the cobalts... they remind me of my childhood and the idyllic house we had that overlooked Bantry Bay... '
'The sub-tureen-ean homesick blues', suggested Keats.
'Sounds like a good name for a song!', added Chapman snapping out of his reverie, and they both laughed heartily at the unlikelihood of such a title.
