April Fool

by William Deverell

  Todd Clearihue is in the corridor, speaking to a reporter, promoting Garlinc’s case but seeming anxious to return to court. He beats Arthur to the door, cracks it open. “They got started twenty minutes ago.” A friendly punch on the arm. “Hey, Arthur, I know we’ll be toking the peace pipe when this is all over. Listen, help me. Who’s the looker working your side? Damn, she’s familiar.”

  “Lotis Rudnicki. The young lady you picked up hitchhiking.” Sorry I couldn’t fulfill your fantasies.

  Clearihue blanches.

  The room is crowded–mostly environmentalists, Arthur supposes. Counsel for Garlinc is Paul Prudhomme, a silver-haired patrician, old money, privately schooled, unambitious. He is fielding questions from the judge.

  “Why can’t you go around that tree?”

  Prudhomme is about to answer but is distracted by Arthur striding up the aisle–the grand entrance is an old habit, a show of control and confidence. He exchanges nods with Prudhomme, with Santorini, and eases his creaking back onto a chair behind lynx-eyed Lotis Morningstar Rudnicki. She looks almost unrecognizable in a chic pantsuit, with her hair brushed. No wonder Clearihue had trouble placing her. Beside her is an angular young man in a long ponytail, obviously Selwyn Loo. Arthur is confounded to see a white cane at his table. Dark glasses. The blindfold chess champion.

  Selwyn turns to him, as if aware of his nearness through highly tuned senses. Arthur leans forward, but before he can introduce himself, Selwyn says, “Good morning, Mr. Beauchamp.”

  “How did you know?”

  “I’ve heard you smoke a pipe.”

  Arthur’s suit must smell of it, the pipe in his pocket. He earns a brisk handshake, then cannot retreat as Selwyn tugs him into a chair at counsel table, whispering, “I need all the help I can get–the judge is a nincompoop.”

  Prudhomme struggles to pick up where he left off. “As I was saying…”

  “Before you say what you were saying, what if the eagles raise a family in that tree? That’s their only argument that I can see.” Santorini is cranky. “You can’t do in their nest.”

  “Milord, we’ve done helicopter searches, dozens of passes over two days, and no eagle has been seen in that tree. There’s an old nest, but it has been without tenants for years. I think you’ll find the relevant material in affidavit J.”

  Selwyn stands. “Surely, the nest is protected under section 34 even if it has been abandoned for a decade…”

  “Mr. Loo, we already had that argument, and I’m against you. It’s absurd to think a valuable timber tree can’t be harvested because there’s an old, falling-apart nest in it. No, I’ll need some proof it’s a viable nest. Eggs, Mr. Loo, I need to see eggs.”

  “The eggs might come along a lot sooner, milord, if we put a stop to these so-called aerial searches, which seem intended to scare the eagles away. Has your Lordship had a chance to look at the counter-petition filed this morning?”

  Santorini is not on top of things, and shuffles through his file. “Counter…Yes, let’s see, you want to restrain these flights–why? They’re just bird-watching, in a manner of speaking.”

  “Because it’s not a search, it’s deliberate harassment of eagles to prevent them from nesting.”

  Santorini frowns over the Wildlife Act, then turns again to Prudhomme. “Why is this tree such a bother? Can’t they go in some other way? Over the hill?”

  “If your Lordship will look at the topographical map, appended to Exhibit M, you will see what an imposing task that is. According to the engineer’s report, it’s hugely expensive and would be environmentally destructive.”

  “And we wouldn’t want that.” Selwyn’s barbed tone. Arthur wonders how long he’s been without sight–has he ever seen nature in her glory? He tries to imagine absorbing beauty through other, enhanced senses, the chatter of wrens, the smell of the humid forest, the feel of a fern leaf.

  “What about going in by barge from the ocean,” Santorini says. “At least until after nesting season. Or have you thought of helicopter logging? I know something about this, I worked on a few logging crews in my time, summer jobs–I didn’t get my degree handed on a silver platter.”

  Prudhomme explains politely how each of these helpful hints, in turn, are prohibitively dear.

  “What about this business with all the air traffic around the nest, they say you’re trying to scare the eagles.” He abruptly focuses on Arthur. “What’s your position, Mr. Beauchamp?”

  “I would be delighted to state my position were I counsel, milord. However–happily for the defendants–I’m not.” But he cannot resist: “The rule, as your Lordship is abundantly aware, is that the applicant must come to court with clean hands.”

  “Are you asking me to assume they’re trying to forcibly evict a bird?”

  “A pair of them. I can attest to having seen them, in fact. As my affidavit indicates, they were showing the typical indicia of being in love.”

  “Didn’t know you were such an expert, Arthur.”

  “In birds or love?”

  Poorly smothered laughter from Lotis Rudnicki. Maybe she thinks it’s absurd that this old gaffer might be an expert on love. Proving she’s capable of the sin of compromise, at least in a courtroom, there’s no lip ring, no gel in the hair.

  Santorini is chuckling too. “Well, the real question is whether those eagles are nesting there or not. I’m going to adjourn this for a couple of days. I want a sighting–not just an eagle, a nesting eagle, eggs–and I’d like photographs.”

  After adjournment, Santorini’s clerk corrals the lawyers. “The judge wants to see counsel. Especially you, Mr. Beauchamp.” She leans to his ear. “Even in those shoes.”

  Arthur reluctantly parades behind the others, finds Ed Santorini at his desk in shirtsleeves, his feet up, a benign smile that hides an intention to talk hard business.

  “You’re looking in great shape, Arthur. Ten years younger than when I last saw you, if you want the truth. Must be the country air. Goddamn, come here, you old son of a bitch.” He stands, and Arthur moves toward him with hand extended, but is met by the full Italian embrace. “Best fucking lawyer on these Pacific shores. Bruised me up a few times.”

  “You’re looking remarkably ageless yourself, Ed.”

  “I don’t want any jokes about bald eagles.”

  “Nonsense, you look good without your feathers.”

  Santorini laughs again. “You reprobate. Hey, as we were carrying on in there, I started wondering, How do those birds mate on the wing? Must be something to see.” Selwyn Loo smiles pleasantly as a heavy silence sets in.

  Santorini resumes his seat, procoeeds briskly. “Okay, I’m not going to detain anyone, I just want this thing settled as painlessly as possible. Arthur, you’ve got your wife up that tree. Good-looking woman, from the pictures I’ve seen, and I’ll bet she’s a hell of a great gal. I don’t want her arrested–I don’t want anyone arrested here–and I don’t want anyone thrown in jail or fined. I just want those people off that tree, eagles or not, and I’m going to insist there be no logging until we straighten that out.”

  “What about the air surveillance, sir?” says Selwyn.

  “Okay, I want to be fair, let’s hold off on that for a while. Any problems with that, Paul?”

  Prudhomme agrees to advise his clients to comply.

  “And in that spirit, let’s see if the defendants can bend a little too, climb down from their perch. Will you talk to them, Arthur?”

  “What do you suggest I say?” He wants to tell Santorini that Margaret Blake doesn’t climb down from anything easily.

  “Christ, Arthur, use your famous velvet tongue, explain to your good wife I’m letting her off the hook–the other guy as well. I’ll protect their interests as long as they cooperate with me.”

  To Arthur, that sounds of disguised bullying. “Communications are not simple. One shouts.”

  “Heard you do it many times.”

  Twenty years ago, for instance, in open court�
�Arthur can’t remember all the words he used in describing Santorini. Only the expression horse’s ass lingers.

  “Eddie, I do not intend to counsel persons, whether they be clients, friends, or wives, by shouting into half the nation’s microphones.”

  “Then go up the tree on that…what have they got, a rope ladder?” Santorini’s bonhomie has faded under Arthur’s gently scornful gaze, and he is flustered now, aware he is making demands that are patently unreasonable.

  “Perhaps I could swing like Tarzan through the boughs.”

  Lotis Rudnicki snorts with laughter. Santorini forces a stiff smile, studies her for a moment. “You’re sure we haven’t met, Miss Rudnicki?”

  “Not in the flesh, milord.”

  The comment demands elaboration, but Santorini opts not to seek it. “Arthur, I take it you’re not involved in this…this escapade. The plaintiff alleges a conspiracy, I’d hate to see you named in a writ. Along with whoever built that platform.”

  He stands. “Okay, we’ll use the weekend as a cooling-off time and meet again on Monday. No, I have a judges’seminar. Tuesday. I want a response to my offer of clemency. I don’t care how you lay down the law to your wife, Arthur, but I don’t want to see her with a criminal record.”

  Arthur plays with the concept of laying down the law to Margaret Blake as Santorini walks him out, an arm around his shoulder. “You old fox, it’s great to see you back in a courtroom. I remember when you referred to me as the backside of a horse.” He guffaws. “Hell, I know you didn’t mean that.”

  “Of course not, Eddie.”

  Arthur gets one last friendly poke in the ribs before he returns to the courtroom. Santorini is famously unpredictable, maybe he can be worked on.

  He proposes lunch to Selwyn and Lotis – these two thin lawyers might enjoy a treat at Nouveau Chez Forget, where his old friend Pierre Forget serves his matelot de sole à la campagnarde occasionally spiced with a tantrum. His offer is accepted, and they will meet there at one o’clock.

  As Arthur follows them from the courtroom, he marvels at how keen Selwyn’s sense of direction is – a flick and a tap with his cane on a bench, then he walks assuredly up the aisle, and easily finds the door.

  Arthur feels impelled to drop in on Nick Faloon’s fitness hearing, but hopes it will have ended, that he won’t have to witness the charade of an insanity defence.

  The Provincial Courts are located on the ground floor, and there he comes upon a radio reporter working to deadline, reciting into his cellphone. “A contrary opinion was given by Dr. Endicott Sloan…” A forensic specialist who believes what he’s paid to believe, and regurgitates it credibly in court. Is the defence so desperate that Brian Pomeroy must ally himself with a charlatan?

  This time, Arthur makes no loud entrance, and waits at the back. Brian is standing, arms folded, a rangy man with that wrecked, slightly dissolute look that many women seem to find attractive. Nick Faloon is in the dock, passive and depressed, showing his age, thick of waist, thin of hair.

  Dr. Sloan is still in the witness stand, a nasal voice, a litany of learned phrases. “In most cases of dissociative identity disorder, the primary identity is passive, dependent, and depressed. I found Mr. Faloon to fit those qualifications.”

  The judge, a young woman–Iris Takahashi, according to the list–breaks in: “Against that, I have the written opinion of your colleague, Dr. Dare.” He is here too, Timothy Dare, sitting at the front, arms crossed, staring icily at Sloan.

  She reads aloud from Dare’s report: “‘Mr. Faloon presented himself in a fraudulent manner, and I have no doubt he is capable of conducting his defence. The only illness he’s suffering is a severe case of malingering.’” Takahashi looks down at Dr. Sloan. “You seem to be poles apart.”

  “I can’t speak for Dr. Dare, I can only give my best professional opinion.”

  “Summarize it for me.”

  “Simply, Mr. Faloon from time to time retreats to the safety of a world that may seem fantastical, but for him is credible and real. His disorder reflects a failure to integrate various aspects of his identity, memory, and consciousness. In short, Mr. Faloon takes on the personas of the various women who inhabit his body, and thus evidences the classical personality features of the dissociative personality. It is what we may call an escape mechanism.”

  The judge asks, “Exactly what was he escaping from?”

  “The threat by a member of the RCMP that he would be roadkill. You’ll see that mentioned in my report.”

  “But not mentioned in Dr. Dare’s,” says Brian. “He spent fifteen minutes with my client and produced two paragraphs, as against the seven pages from Dr. Sloan.”

  Would that justice could be so easily measured. Arthur has little doubt that the astute Dr. Timothy Dare is on the mark. The young judge is clearly unfamiliar with Sloan’s shabby reputation.

  “More to the point,” Brian says, “Dr. Dare was totally unaware of the childhood trauma that spawned this disorder, the murder of his father.”

  Dare heaves himself to his feet with a cynical smile and walks to the door. Before leaving he winks at Arthur, as if they are witnesses to a cheap burlesque.

  “Unless anyone strenuously disagrees,” says Takahashi, “I would like to order a further thirty-day psychiatric remand at VI.”

  The Vancouver Island Forensic Clinic, a way station for the criminally insane. Arthur wonders if his wily former client can maintain his pretence through a month of observation. Now Faloon notices him, his expression evolving to surprise, then brightness and, to Arthur’s dismay, hope. He nods to Faloon, then flees like a coward as court is recessed.

  As he hurries out to his truck, he tries to blot away Faloon’s last crestfallen look. Arthur’s major weakness as a lawyer was that he cared for his clients, even the most blameworthy. And Faloon was among his favourite villains. He feels conscience-stricken, helpless in retirement.

  His drive to Pierre’s is interrupted by a brief encounter with the law, a matter involving his muffler and a warning. The restaurant is in a converted Victorian-era country home–he hasn’t been there since its opening two years ago. Pierre moved his business from Vancouver after an incident with a restaurant reviewer that culminated in the dumping of asparagus en sauce chanterelle on his head.

  He finds Lotis smoking outside. Selwyn is in the lineup; the wait could be twenty minutes. But Pierre has spotted him through the window and comes outside. “Ah, it is Beauchamp. For two years you do not come to my restaurant. You are not deserved to be here, a traitor to my table.”

  For a moment he fixes on Lotis, not quite ogling her, studying her, then urges them past the other waiting patrons. One of them makes a complaining noise. Pierre says, “This is Beauchamp.” He approaches a couple lingering over coffee and dessert. “Please, will you be so kind as to finish your flan at the bar. Your bill is paid.” He calls to a waiter: “Henri, c’est Beauchamp.”

  Pierre refuses Arthur’s request to see a menu. “For your friends, I advise the tossed spinach salad, then the curried shrimp, it is exquisite. But for Beauchamp, who likes his meat, l’entrôcote à la Bordelaise.” Arthur feels his taste buds quivering and reminds himself steak isn’t on the diet.

  “I think something lighter.”

  “Not to eat what I bring is an affront.”

  Lotis Rudnicki, activist in the struggle for the classless society, expresses shock at the favouritism, the jumping of the line. Arthur explains that for many years he was diner-in-residence at the old Chez Forget. He’d also got Pierre out of some legal scrapes.

  Over salad, Arthur makes bold to ask about Selwyn’s blindness, and learns he was sighted until fourteen, when a virus attacked his optic nerves. A dedicated man who has only the memory of beauty seen–Arthur finds much sadness in that, but more wonder.

  He compliments Selwyn for his showing in court: a victory, the logging and the overflights have been put on hold. But Selwyn is gloomy, frets that the judge is pro-logging, clearly agains
t them.

  “Selwyn, you’re a grouch potato,” Lotis says. “You have to stop being so irrepressibly bleak.” He does seem a sad fellow. In counterpoint she’s cocky, a schemer, the brains behind the impasse at Gwendolyn Gap. “We have a secret weapon, Justice Santorini’s extreme need for Arthur’s love. If he asks this judge to drop his pants, he’ll drop his pants. That gives us stalling time.”

  She causes Arthur discomfort with her bawdy analogies. According to Reverend Al, she has a history of leading student demonstrations. “International stuff as well, old boy. Anti-globalization. I suspect she’s an anarchist. Doubtless an atheist.” He spoke in awe, fascinated by rebels and disbelievers. Arthur has never met an anarchist, has never wanted to.

  Lotis entertains with a chilling tale of the perils of hitching on Garibaldi. She was in a hurry to get to the Save Gwendolyn meeting on Wednesday. “I passed on the local serial killer, a two-ton gorilla in a one-ton truck. Gave a thumbs-down to three rapists in an Unsustainable Logging crew cab.” She performs, sticking out a thumb, making doltish faces. A comedic actor. One would consider her well tuned to the modern world, perceptive, were she not immersed in the dog-eared politics of the Left.

  “I thought I’d be safer with the baby-faced suit in the burgundy Audi V8 guzzler. This massively unhip guy turns out to be Todd Clearihue. We’d never met, he didn’t know me from Mother Jones. Thought he’d impress me with his mall and marina and condos. ‘His vision,’ he called it–as if it’s something creative as opposed to an extension of his cock. Reminded me of my last producer blowing on about the umpteenth sequel of Scream.”

  “That is where I saw you,” says Pierre, hovering while a waiter serves the curried shrimp and entrôcote. “That scene, where you are naked, hiding from the slasher. Magnifique.”