Trial of Passion (13 page)

The
Queen of Prince George
is only an hour and a half behind schedule on this drizzling late-June Saturday, and while awaiting its arrival I
mingle with my brother and sister yokels: Nelson Forbish is here, and Janey Rosekeeper, and the allegedly insatiable Emily Lemay, and we are giving each other moral support for the task ahead — the entertaining of urban dwellers who don't know enough to take their shoes off in a country home. Also in attendance, seated in her pickup truck, is Margaret Blake. I wish to talk to her, to seek rapprochement, but she will not meet my eye.

Now the ferry is berthing, and foreign troops are landing on these shores.

Once more unto the breach, dear friends. Stiffen the sinews, summon up the blood, for today I shall be in hand-to-hand combat again. Hubbell Meyerson and Gowan Cleaver would normally have come by chartered plane, but the firm's aging godfather, Roy Bullingham, is joining in this expedition to harangue and beguile me into taking on the O'Donnell case. Phobic Bully boasts he has managed to live eighty-three undamaged years without once boarding a flying machine.

Cyclists descend like locusts and just as quickly disappear, leaving Hub and Bully and the thinly smiling Gowan Cleaver striding forward in their wake. And if I am not mistaken, bringing up the rear is Honourable Jonathan Shaun O'Donnell. These are the potential wild horses. I had rather expected them to arrive by car — it's unusual to see lawyers walking.

We gather by the rock-strewn beach at the side of the ferry slip, and I offer my farm-hardened hand to their silky city ones.

“You look like a man hiding from the law, Arthur,” says Bully. He has a high voice, tightened by the stress of his life's work: maintaining our law firm's stainless, haughty image.

“Arthur,” says Hubbell, “do you realize you have some kind of growth on your face?”

I wear a fortnight's worth of whiskers; my feet are shod in gum-boots; my T-shirt advertises The Brig as “The Place To Go.” My partners look upon me despairingly, as if at one who is lost to civilization.

“Don't think I've ever seen you outside a suit,” says Bully, and he
begins grumbling, “Couldn't get the damn car on the ferry. Meyer-son here didn't make reservations. “The senior partner is reedlike in build, in a neat, crease-free three-piece suit. But even Hubbell and Gowan wear ties: Bully enforces a strict dress code. Jonathan is more casually attired, in slacks and a short-sleeved shirt.

“Yes, I'm afraid reservations are often required on summer weekends.”

“My secretary screwed up,” says Hubbell. He looks exasperated. I can see that Bully has been badgering him.

“Ah, well, it's a complex life, gentlemen, when you have to rely on others for the simple things. I have no secretary, no servants, no wife in attendance. But now I can remember where everything is. Jonathan O'Donnell, your presence is an unexpected pleasure. You are looking well.”

“You're too kind, Arthur. I look like one of the walking dead. Sorry, but I just had to talk to you.” Jonathan seems fit, but has a tormented look about his dark and deep-set eyes. He is restive, agitated. I detect a faint odour of stale spirits on his breath.

“Well, gentlemen, I suggest we repair to the manse. We will have tea and tour the grounds.”

I spy Margaret Blake standing outside her truck in earnest conversation with Nelson Forbish. The roly-poly newshound spots me and chugs in my direction.

“Mr. Beauchamp, wonder if I can get your reaction on being sued.” He is munching a large, sticky chocolate bar.

“Not now, Nelson”

“Sued?” says Bully. He senses scandal.

“A minor altercation with a neighbour.”

“Margaret Blake says —”

“As I explained to you, Nelson, it is quite improper to discuss a matter that is before the courts”

“Yeah, but, Mr. Beauchamp, I have a duty as a journalist, it's a thing I can't cover up.”

Bully blanches. “What in heaven's name is this, Arthur? What's to be covered up?”

Forbish is relentless. “It's about him and a pig called Betsy.”

“A
pig”
says Bully. “Did you say a
pig?”

“Calm down, Bully,” I say. “Restrain impure thoughts” I am one of the few in the firm who doesn't have to measure his words with Bullingham. “A minor road accident. A pig in a poke. Two titans are about to clash in a court of law.”

I try to steer my visitors up the hill towards the parking lot, but Forbish keeps apace. “So what's up? I see you got some guests here.”

I wearily halt the procession. Civil behaviour demands introductions. Bully, ever polite, extends his hand to the reporter, then quickly withdraws it, and stares with repulsion at the chocolate that stains his palm.

“O'Donnell,” says Forbish. “You're that
professor”
He seems in awe.

Jonathan reacts oddly; the soft, resigned laugh of one who is surrounded and must surrender. “Yes, I'm that professor.”

“Please, Nelson. Not now.”

“Sure like to do an interview.”

“Nelson, not now!” Patience has flown, and Forbish scuttles off in the wake of my wrath.

Hubbell and Gowan are stifling laughter, but their smiles are replaced by looks of consternation as we arrive at my rusting, purple half-ton truck.

“God almighty,” says Hubbell. “What manner of beast is this?”

“A courtesy vehicle. Bit of a boneshaker, sorry about that”

“Arthur,” says Bully, “are you sure this machine is safe?” He looks intently inside the cab as if to satisfy himself the truck has a steering wheel and brake pedal.

“Jump in, Bully. No, this door, the other doesn't open. The others will have to ride in the back.”

“Surely that's against the law,” says Bully. He is worried now that the firm may be disgraced with a traffic ticket.

“There is no law on Garibaldi Island,” I say, “except on the second Tuesday of every month”

Gowan, Hubbell, and Jonathan climb over the tailgate and sit upon some tires I keep there for the many island hitchhikers, and we bounce off to Potter's Road. Yes, I will give this mob of city slickers a pungent taste of Garibaldi. Perhaps they will wish they'd never come — there are some who simply cannot handle the stress of country living.

“We took you back in the firm, Arthur.” Bully has to shout, a birdlike screech above the unmuffled engine roar. “When you hit the rocks, we were there. We gave you the helping hand.”

Bullingham has slid low in his seat, as if seeking refuge. Perhaps he does not wish to be seen.

“It was big of you, Bully.”

“I'd like to think we gambled a bit on you, Arthur.” He is referring to my hiatus from the firm a decade ago: two years spent on skid road, defending my fellow derelicts. The office took me back when I agreed to join
AA.

“And it paid off handsomely, I'm sure you'll agree.” I need not remind him of the considerable retainers I've since brought into the office.

Bully realizes I have a thin sense of gratitude and resets his sails for an assault on my pride.

“Staying power, that's what makes the world move forward. When I was sixty-two, I felt I was a young man. I remember thinking there was so damn much yet to accomplish. Don't believe a lawyer comes into his prime until his sixties. What a waste, Arthur, what a waste.”

Small green swallows flip and dive above roadside hedges of wild roses, and I am overcome with nature's perfumed scent. We enter the atrium of a green cathedral and proceed up the aisle beneath a steeple of giant cedars, their fronds dancing in the breeze. A deer starts, then bounds into the white-blossoming salal. Look around you, Bullingham, see the appurtenances of my wasted life.

Bully continues his whining, hortatory discourse. “We do a good
deal of business with the university, Arthur. The Faculty Association refers its members to us. We could lose them. They might go down the street to Hansworth and Company.” An appeal now to guilt, duty, and obligation. “I should tell you, while we have this moment together, that O'Donnell doesn't seem very happy with Cleaver.”

“Nonsense. Gowan is an astute counsel.” I see him in my rear-view mirror, squatting uncomfortably on a tire, a thin-featured man, a pencil moustache beneath a narrow nose, hard-eyed and slim-lipped.

“Oh, he's quick of mind,” Bully says. “Doesn't have the common touch, though. Too abrasive.”

“May I make a suggestion then, Bully. Perhaps a woman barrister . . “

“No one experienced enough. Can't take the chance.”

But whose fault is that? The firm of Tragger, Inglis, Bullingham remains for the most part a male bastion, and has not advanced its women far up the ladder.

I wave cheerily at a passing motorist and take a turn past Stoney's yard and its many wheeled hulks. Now I watch for four-footed jaywalkers as we rumble past Mrs. Blake's gate. My skewed house comes into view, my imperfect, cosy palace.

“No, Bully, I should as soon jump into a vat of boiling oil as enter a courtroom one more time.”

Ah, yes, I fear the firm's venture will end dismally. Jonathan O'Donnell has yet to look me in the eye. Nor had Annabelle when she told me she had recently “bumped” into him downtown. Was the bump pre-arranged?

I would not decline his retainer, of course, for any such base reason as jealousy. That debilitating disease no longer infects me. And thoughts of Annabelle have ceased to paralyse my mind. I hardly think of her . . . hardly ever.

Gowan, I can't rid myself of the picture: the bishop and the screaming painted nude in a ridiculous tie. “He's going to kill me” — is that what she said? Is it possible she was just having a nightmare? A good old-fashioned delirium tremens?

The tie's mine. A birthday gift from a prankster friend on faculty. I have to assume Kimberley had been poking into all my drawers — it was underneath my underwear and socks. She's an outrageous snoop. Before I forget, earlier she ordered a special drink. I had this Martell Cordon Bleu, and she wanted to mix some Benedictine with it. Apparently some people do this sort of thing. Anyway, she had quite a splash of it in a large brandy glass. A few inches.