Trial of Passion (24 page)

“The animal that struck my car was not a free-range chicken.”

“Betsy must have tunnelled out from her pen. I don't know what speed you were going, though I suppose you will say you were under the limit —”

“Quite so. I was.”

Here Judge Wilkie interrupts, in a fashion I consider unkindly. “Was there any indication the defendant had been drinking?”

“He was quite sober. He had all his senses. He should have seen my pig at the side of the road, and he didn't. Or couldn't.”

“I could see perfectly well, Mrs. Blake. Had the pig been in front of me, I would have braked. I assume the animal darted from the side of the road.”

“From your right-hand side.”

“Yes.”

“You knew my animals sometimes strayed.”

“All too well.”

“Did you know you were nearing my house?”

“I saw your house. Your yardlights were out, making it all the darker.”

“Well, if you were looking at my house you weren't looking at the road.”

Touché.
I am stunned. I glance at Stoney, who seems to have lost
some of his respect for his hero. I attempt to compose myself with a display of forensics. “Madam, I am supposed to be cross-examining you, not the other way around.”

“Okay, ask me what you want.”

Suddenly, as I stare into her dark, pulling, confident eyes, I find myself at a loss. I can think of not a single question. She has quite confounded me.

“Fine. I have no questions.”

“Do you have any other witnesses, Mrs. Blake?” the judge says.

“I'd like to call Mr. Stonewell.”

My mind roils in confusion. Stoney? What could he add to her story?

As he is being sworn in, he looks at me and shrugs.

“Stoney, I heard you did some repairs on Mr. Beauchamp's Rolls-Royce afterwards.”

“There was a dent in the fender I straightened, yeah. And some other things.”

“One of which was the right headlamp.” It comes back in a rush. I had totally forgotten. My headlight was out. “It wasn't working at all, was it?”

“Yeah, well, yeah. I'd have to say that. The right headlight had been kinda burned out.”

“And it was the right bumper that was dented?”

“Yes. I admit that.” Stoney looks at me guiltily.

It is a rout. I, the indomitable Beauchamp, am being chewed alive in this courtroom. I sag into my folding chair like a whipped dog.

“Your honour,” says Mrs. Blake, “you have heard Mr. Beauchamp say he could see perfectly well. But he was driving blind in one eye.”

“Mr. Beauchamp, do you have some evidence you want to call?”

“No, your honour. I surrender.”

I am seized by a barely controlled urge to burst into laughter. I must struggle to maintain control.

“Well, Mr. Beauchamp, I think you're in some trouble here.”

“I agree, your honour.” A small sound escapes from my voice box: a self-disparaging chuckle.

“You could be fined a hundred dollars for that front light, and I'm going to add it as punitive damages on to the hundred dollars you owe Mrs. Blake. That may be a little steep for a pig, but that's what she says and I haven't heard anything to the contrary.”

He is smiling, too. He is enjoying the humiliation of the city-slicker lawyer. “Plus costs,” he adds. “I'm afraid I have to make an example of you, Mr. Beauchamp.”

Stoney, looking very serious and awkward, squats beside me. “Gee, sorry about that. Should I have lied?”

I find myself trembling, enduring an agony of stifled laughter. It breaks free, at first in little rumbling chuckles, then in a rich thunder.

My laughter is astonishingly infectious, and clerk and judge give in, then Stoney, and those in the gallery, even Nelson Forbish. And even, ultimately, Margaret Blake, a musical laughter, like bells.

I cannot remember when I have enjoyed myself more than on this last Monday ofJuly.

The court finally adjourns, and I find myself outside, packing tobacco into the bowl of my pipe while still suffering the aftershock of my mirth attack. Margaret Blake is standing by the open door of her truck — she is smiling, too.

She slings her bag into the cab and walks briskly over to me.

“Congratulations,” I say. I shake her hand — I am used to the soft hands of city women; hers is firm, callused but warm. No dirt underneath the fingernails today.

“I'll probably spend most of it on fencing.”

“If you ever decide to take up law, Mrs. Blake, I shall be glad I retired.”

“Law? God, no. I see you've traded in your cigarettes for a pipe.”

“Am I to be sued for that?”

“No, it's better. I like the smell of it. More organic. They put saltpetre in cigarettes to keep them burning, did you know that? It's an
ingredient of gunpowder, so you can imagine what it does to your insides. Don't call me Mrs. Blake. It makes me feel old.”

I want to say how youthful and attractive she looks, but again she has me tongue-tied.

“I liked what you did for Stoney, Arthur. That was decent.”

She proffers her hand and we shake again, and she returns to her truck, then cocks her head and casts me a sideways look. Have I aroused in her at least some mild curiosity? Or is that smile a secret one, inspired by images of me and Emily Lemay in gross combination?

Nelson Forbish hones in on me as I make for my own vehicle.

“Mr. Beauchamp —”

“Not now, Nelson.” I escape.

She is in front of me all the way down Breadloaf Hill, along Centre Road, up Potter's Road. I can see the nape of her slender neck. I can see her smile in her rearview mirror.

Good morning, Kimberley.

Morning, Dr. Kropinski. Well, it's over. I wrote my second paper yesterday. Con law. Gee, that sounds like a course on how to be crooked. Constitutional law.

How did you do?

I think a B-minus at least.

This accounts for your good spirits, yes?

Now I can spend the rest of the summer trying not to think about my trial. God, it's just a month away.

You will not be able to stop
thinking
about it. Do not let it consume you.

No. I'm just going to go in there and tell the truth. And I
am
telling the truth. I got straight A's on their lie detector. So I'm not going to carry the trial around with me like some kind of monster on my back. Anyway, I've
got Cynthia to keep my mind busy. She's the new me. She's the character I play in
Switch?

Oh, your play. How are the rehearsals coming?

I'm pretty good, I'm surprising everybody. We open in a week. . . . It's just a little tin can of a theatre. Just four main players and several bit parts. Oh, here's some tickets for you and your wife. Opening night.

You are most kind.

Don't be offended — there's some tart language. I will steel myself.

I had a fight with the playwright — he thinks he's such an intellectual with his satirical, jaded outlook and all. Some of his stuff is witty, but he just can't write for women. I'm going to refuse to do the Marilyn Monroe routine, the blonde with tits for brains. Let's reinforce that stereotype, guys, the cutout cardboard doll. So I'm helping him rewrite the lines — we've come up with a couple of zingers. I'm now sort of sexy but clever, with a kind of flower-child edge. There's a little nudity, but it's necessary to the script. The play's about two swinging couples. It's coming together, there's a nice undercurrent ofjealousy:The men get possessive as the women bond.

It sounds intriguing.

Remy and I had this humungous battle over it the other night, just after my last exam. I was feeling very up, happy as heck, and I was regaling him about the play, and suddenly he screamed at me: “You mean you're going to be half naked on a public stage?” He used the word obscene, ranted about how he was going to be disgraced in front of all his friends. Sometimes Remy really gets centred on himself.
His
friends,
his
fiancée,
his
fucking career. He thinks a public revealing of a breast or two will be used to embarrass me at the trial. I'm not going to
censor myself because a man attacked me. Remy doesn't want me on the stage at all. Doesn't want me to
have
a career. Wants babies. I don't intend to be locked away in some goddamn nursery for the next ten years. I have a life. Well, we didn't sleep together
that
night. Is this what you call ventilation? God, I can't stop, I'm on a roll.

I … I am sorry, you make me laugh.

I'll settle down. I'm kind of hyper today.

There is nothing wrong with that.

So, what else? I woke up with the sweats a few nights ago after a dream. I couldn't retrieve all of it. It starred Jonathan O'Donnell, but it wasn't one of my run-of-the-mill nightmares. He seemed sad and lonely, and he was trying to talk to me, but I couldn't understand him; I couldn't hear his voice. But I wasn't scared of him like I am in my nightmares. I'm angry. I want to hit him, but I can't reach him. It's as if we can't communicate. And my mother showed up, warning me to stay away from him. You're making notes. Am I revealing something significant?

It is of interest. Has Professor O'Donnell been in other dreams?

Yes, he comes to me . . . I mean, he shows up in the oddest dreams sometimes. But not as someone menacing … I don't know how to explain.

These are not like your nightmares about being attacked. Have you had any recently?

Bad one last week.

They have been more severe since this business with Professor O'Donnell, yes?

They were for a while.

But he does not appear in them?

Not in those dreams. But, you know, I've had them since I was a kid.

Have you ever been hypnotized?

Uh-huh. Once. Do you think there's something back there, hiding? Is it like some terrible little alien monster is inside me, trying to come out?

I would not put it so vividly. I do not know, Kimberley. There may be, yes, pushed deep down. The usual signs of post-traumatic stress disorder, these you do not exhibit, but there may be some amnesia — this is what we call a dissociated memory. If so, there is nothing to be afraid of to try to recover it, yes?

I'm not sure about being hypnotized. When I was fifteen, I went to this show. Some charlatan, I guess he was, made me into a chicken, and I was clucking and flapping all over the stage. Apparently I tried to lay an egg. Utterly mortifying.

I work in a different way, yes? No chicken, no egg.

I have finished my tai chi (the Repulse Monkey: cross hands, roll back, transfer weight onto right foot) and am now sitting on a divan on my front porch, leafing through a pile of old
Echoes.
I am bathed by a sun still hot but falling to the horizon, its light burning upon the softly rolling inner sea and painting the clouds pink beneath a cerulean sky. Only the pained cries of nails being wrenched free from boards mar this perfect evening. Behind the house, Stoney and Dog are working late disassembling the remains of my garage. It is the day after Margaret Blake and I shook hands in agreement to war no more. Tomorrow I will visit her with the cheque.

Ah, here we are, in the
Echo,
an edition from September three years ago: “We all console the tragic departing of Christopher Blake, aged 49, a resident of our island for thirty years leaving behind his wife, Margaret, 43, and no children. Chris had a heart attack while
he was chasing a dog off his farm that was going after the sheep. The doctor said he was dead on the spot and it was one of those things that happens to the healthiest of us.”

I picture Not Now Nelson Forbish munching his way through a bag of Fritos as he writes this bleak obituary.

“Chris used to be one of our trustees and was a favourite at parties with his ever-present violin. He and Margaret came here in 1968 with the old Earthseed Commune and stayed on after it disbanded. Margaret says she's going to run their 101-acre farm by herself. The funeral was at the community church, which everyone agreed was beautiful.”

Elsewhere in this journal: a photograph of the Blakes together, obviously taken some years earlier. He is tall and rugged, she in a flowing flowered dress, smiling up at him. It is a poignant photograph. There was love here.

Lost in thought, I am hardly aware that Stoney and Dog are rattling off in a truck loaded with scrap wood. They wave at me as they head out the driveway. A stillness descends, and a veil of loneliness. I fold the
Echo
closed, unable to look again at the love in Margaret's eyes for her husband. I watch the sun hiss into the distant ocean, spraying the sky with colour, and now a songbird trills at evensong.

The setting sun, and music at the close, as the last taste of sweets, is sweetest last.
… How does the line end? Remembered more …
than things long past.
I close my eyes and begin to recite the Bard aloud, in full-throated vanity, resonant and sonorous. Then the Romantics, remembered from childhood, Shelley, Keats: “The murmurous haunt of flies on summer eves . . .”

I reopen my eyes in mid-stanza to see, before me, holding a carton of eggs and a tray of steaming tarts: Mrs. Margaret Blake. “Excuse me. Am I interrupting?”

I quickly stand, my face turning the colour of the western sky. “How embarrassing. I was reciting some poetry. It is a bad habit of mine.”

“It sounded lovely.”

“Otherwise, as you can see, I am engaged in that indolent but agreeable condition of doing nothing.”

“It sounds like fun. I'll have to try it.” She smiles. She is in an excellent mood, no doubt still flushed with her victory. “I brought over some peace offerings.” She extends the eggs and tarts. “My blackcurrants are ripe.”

“I am overwhelmed. Will you join me for some tea? I have herbal, if you prefer. Mint.”

“I'd love some.”