Trial of Passion

by William Deverell

  Bullshit. Don’t give me your amateur psychobabble, you were conning me. I feel like a failure.

  No, no, not at all. You’ve challenged me. I’ve got a better sense of myself, I . . . that’s one of the reasons I was drinking, I was afraid to face up to the truth, and now . . . look, I’m sorry, I thought since I was lying to my lawyer, I also had to lie to you, I just … I was . . . afraid of losing everything, my career, my name. That sounds so fucking self-serving it makes me sick.

  Okay. Okay.

  Sorry. Self-pity is such a boring indulgence.

  Your pain gives me hope for you, that’s all I can say.

  Hope. I don’t need hope, I need a miracle. She was bloody brilliant on the stand last week. Stanislavsky Method — she became her role. Maybe she’s become convinced by her own lies. Refused to admit she was coming on to me.

  Is the pot calling the kettle black?

  Okay, okay. We both indulged in some flirting. But safe-sex flirting. She was engaged. . . .

  And you were her professor.

  Yes, but I wasn’t acting the slut.

  Slut is a word that says more about the teller than his tale.

  Sorry, but . . . Look, I regard myself as a modern person, I’m not some stuffy crock who’d prefer we all live in the eighteenth century. Equality of the sexes? Let me at the ramparts. I’m a director of the Civil Liberties Association, I’m pro-choice, persons of colour are my brothers and sisters. I was raised as a child in a very conservative home — old Tory aristocracy where sexism and prejudice came with breakfast, dinner, and tea. I’ve conquered that as best I could. There are remnants I haven’t got rid of, inappropriate words like slut. Okay?

  Why are you so defensive?

  Sorry. That was an ugly thing to say. I don’t suppose she’s really . . . that kind of woman. It’s a word that came out in anger. Do I hate her? I don’t know. I’m confused by her.

  Okay, tell me about that night. I want to know how you felt about it.

  We, ah, okay, after the others left, I told you Kimberley was curled up asleep on a chair, right? I didn’t know what proper protocol was. I brought a sheet to cover her, and then I just stood and stared at her. She was . . . well, never mind. It’s hard to express.

  Please do your best.

  She was so hauntingly lovely with her Mona Lisa smile .. . and looked so absurd at the same time, in that suit and tie. Her skin in my clothes. The whole thing was kind of . .. well, I felt prickles all over. It was all too damned erotic. Soft music. The fire flickering. I can’t really describe how I felt — I just felt overwhelmed; it still seems like a mystical moment. I wanted so much to touch her, but I was afraid that would make her dis-appear, vanish like the Cheshire cat, fade from my life like a puff of smoke. You’re drunk, I told myself. Your mental functioning is impaired. You must not do this. You are her trustee, she is your guest, your student, she is in love, engaged. But I did it.

  What, Jonathan?

  I kissed her.

  That’s all?

  A stolen kiss, the slightest touch of lip on lip, that was my crime. But it must have awakened her, Jane, because she smiled, even though her eyes were still closed. And then she put her arms around me, and her eyes blinked open. And I was blinded by these huge green traffic lights. They said, “Go.” And we . . . The rest isn’t going to be easy.

  Why?

  Well, ultimately we sort of did the whole gamut, so to speak.

  Did you tie her up?

  Christ, no. What for?

  What do you mean by the whole gamut?

  The whole Kama Sutra. I see.

  Anal coitus, no. I definitely didn’t penetrate her, um . . . There was no act of pedication, as she claims. You don’t want all this stuff. I mean, do you need it for my personality profile, or what? Basically, I’d rather talk about sibling rivalry or something.

  Just tell me what happened and stop putting up your barricades.

  I’m sorry.

  And stop being sorry. Be real.

  Suddenly the word is out that I am to be disjoined in marriage. I have leaked the news to no one but George Rimbold, but the leak has become a river at flood, and my friends have begun soft-shoeing around me, offering looks of sympathy, dropping by with gifts of cakes and jellies while making jocular conversation meant to keep my spirits high. The news has become distorted in the retelling: my once-a-week housekeepers, Janey Rosekeeper and Ginger Jones, asked me if Annabelle had really run off to Germany with an aging rock star. Another acquaintance was led to believe she’s marrying a train conductor.

  And worse is not only yet to come — it is on its way: advancing, waving, towards my dock. On a hot late afternoon, as I squat there, baiting a few crab pots — an art learned from George Rimbold — I see Emily Lemay, the lusty manager of The Brig, waving to me from her cabin cruiser. There is no escape, and I hopelessly await her arrival. She aims her craft in the general direction of the dock, and thuds into it with minimal damage. She tosses me a line, and then is upon me, clasping me to her ursine bosom. I am astonished, speechless. She is more than a little tipsy.

  “You poor man. You must be sick at heart.” She is wearing blue-jean cutoffs and a shirt a size too small through which the vastness of her bosom strains. “I heard she’s run away to Beirut with some rich Arab.” Again I am overcome with the scent of peaches, overripe, fermented. As she unclenches me, I stagger and backpedal nearly into the water.

  “I brought a picnic lunch and I’m going to take you out on a romantic cruise, just you and me.”

  “Ah, yes, well, I was about to set these traps.” Within them the glassy eyes of fish heads warn me: There is danger on the high seas with this alcohol-impaired woman of forbidding reputation.

  “Hey, well, you just let me help.” She starts hauling the traps to her boat. There are life vests in it: if she attacks me, I will simply have to resist manfully — as it were — and swim for home.

  Somehow we manage to transfer the cargo without either of us going overboard, and we then embark. As we putt into the bay, Emily Lemay chatters away cheerily about the emotional bruises she herself has suffered at the hands of untold faithless men: She knows exactly how I feel; she’s an expert mender of broken hearts.

  From time to time she swigs from a bottle of the peach brandy that she keeps in the cooler, along with sandwiches, pickles, and hard-boiled eggs. I munch nervously on those as we sit together on the bench seat. I try to inch away, but she pursues, squeezing my arm, my knee, my thigh, as if checking to see whether I am ripe.

  Now I become nervous as her route takes us near the shore of Margaret Blake’s farm. What if she sees us out here — what will she think? It’s that two-faced eco-enemy Arthur Beauchamp, a wanton roué, he’s cuddled up to a vocal supporter of Evergreen Estates.

  Horror of horrors, there is Mrs. Blake indeed, feeding her ducks. She looks up, places a hand over her eyes to shield them from the late-afternoon sun. I try to shrivel, to disappear. But Emily rises and waves energetically.

  A curt wave back from Margaret Blake, and she returns to her tasks. I am mortified.

  “There’s a quiet little bay around the corner. We could just anchor out and . . . you know, enjoy ourselves.”

  I am incapable of resistance, woozy in the alcoholic heat that emanates from her as we slowly motor beyond the Blake farm, past a rocky outcropping and into a tiny cove.

  Emily helps herself to another big swallow of her brandy, then turns a pair of large, wet eyes to me and announces, “Arthur, I am a woman.”

  “I should think that’s obvious,” I say with a strained, almost strangled, chuckle.

  “A woman. A rea
l woman. With feelings. With needs.”

  “Ah, yes . . .” In my panic, I look towards the shore as if for help — and I see another boat in the bay, two men in it fishing. One of them is looking at us and frowning.

  “Emily, I —”

  Too late, she is pulling her shirt over her head, and I am confronted with the massive orbs of her breasts, and as she lunges at me I fall backwards, onto the deck, she on top.

  “There are some people out there!” I shout. She lifts herself from me and peeks over the gunwales.

  “Oh, God,” she says. “It’s Sam.”

  She crawls over me, finds her shirt, hurriedly dons it. “Damn.”

  I sit up. “Who is Sam?” This hefty, slope-shouldered man is staring at me with an expression of absolute enmity. I have seen him around, as well as his friend, who is looking on with a malicious grin.

  Emily is at the wheel, accelerating away from the cove. “I’ve been sort of seeing him. Aw, heck.”

  As we head back to my dock, she says, “Don’t want you to worry any, Arthur. His bark is worse than his bite.” Though innocent in deed and mind, Arthur Ramsgate Beauchamp has quickly become the latest victim of this island’s major industry, the gossip mill. The version I hear from Stoney has me not only disrobing Emily Lemay but thereafter being in the throes of naked connection aboard her boat.

  “Sam was carrying on at the bar last night,” he says. “But don’t worry. It’s all bullshit talk.”

  If I blot out all thoughts of the man called Sam, my satyric notoriety might permit a sense of self-esteem. At a neighbourhood potluck dinner the night after my fabled sexual conquest, men wink and women flirt. Margaret Blake shows up, avoids me for an hour, gets into an argument with someone, then vanishes in a cloud of petulance without partaking of dinner.

  I drive home early, too, before dark, seeing Sam lying in wait around every bend.

  To amplify my apprehensive mood, roiling black clouds shoulder over Vancouver Island from the ocean, a rare summer storm with pelting rain and gusts of wind that cause my house to shiver. Then the bolts of Jupiter begin to carve the sky above the ocean, and the guttural rumble of his thunderous voice is everywhere.

  The power goes out, of course, as it tends to do whenever there’s any kind of weather. I find my way to the kerosene lamp and light it, and sit in my club chair and read the works of dead German poets while Götterdämmerung continues unabated.

  My reading is abruptly suspended when a great rending sound occurs outside. I rise to investigate. Starkly lit by the flashes from the sky is the gnarled old alder tree that grows just beyond my kitchen window. It has split vertically along the trunk, and half of it hangs menacingly over my roof.

  I anxiously await the passing of the storm, and when finally the wind abates, I feel more relaxed — the tree is holding. Skilled lumberjacks will be on the scene tomorrow. There is naught to do but to say a little prayer and go to bed.

  Dear Mr. Brown,

  Though I have been watching Professor O’Donnell daily, I have gained little information of use. To summarize, he follows regular routines. In the morning, he runs. In the afternoon, he works at the law school. He returns home in the evening and doesn’t go out after that. He does not seem to be drinking — except for tomato juice.

  In talking to his fellow staff and teachers, I have learned he is held in high repute — almost no one thinks he is capable of this crime. (As cover for my visits at the university I have enrolled in an adult-education course in oriental religions. Very interesting.)

  My search for someone who might tell tales out of class about Professor O’Donnell has occupied most of my time. Long hours at the university library have, however, finally produced a small nugget. It is in the form of Professor O’Donnell’s harsh review in a learned magazine of a book written by one Dr. Curtis Mallard, a professor in the UBC philosophy department. He is the author of A Dearth of Justice, a book accusing our court system of being unable to change with the times. Professor O’Donnell called it “pompous,”

  “beyond infantile,” and “laden with musty Marxist dogma.”

  I called Dr. Curtis Mallard. He told me he would enjoy talking about Professor O’Donnell. I will report to you after I have seen him.

  By the way, I hope you will excuse me, but in your last note you suggested I pose as a policeman and “shake down” some of the people you believe are protecting him. I think this is not a good idea because I could be charged with impersonating a policeman.

  Yours faithfully,

  Francisco (Frank) Sierra

  A brisk breeze, the dregs of last night’s storm, is shredding the clouds, but is also causing the split alder to sway dangerously near my roof, so low that its branches caress the shingles. I have brought in the dangerous tree removal team.

  “Piece of cake,” says Stoney. Dog nods his agreement. He is holding a chainsaw that is almost as long as he is tall.

  “You fellows are absolutely sure you know what you’re doing?” But Stoney, after all, did rescue the Phantom v from the ravages of mice, and returned it in speckless condition. I have tended to underestimate him.

  “Dog here’s an ace,” Stoney says. “Half-human, half-chainsaw.” He drops two coils of thick rope at the base of the stricken tree. “It’s all a matter of levering it away. Question of simple geometry. Or physics, or whatever.”

  I must assume that neither of these gentlemen carry liability insurance. What option is there but to trust my wobbly house to their overconfident hands? And if the house be damaged — why then I have ample excuse to build anew and defy the preservationists. At all events, I have turned off the power and water, and removed all combustibles from the house.

  “How long will this take? I intend to be present, but I want to run up to the general store before it closes.” I am expecting word from an astute young lawyer by the name of Augustina Sage: I have asked her to junior me for the O’Donnell trial.

  “We got at least an hour’s prep,” says Stoney. “I think we should tie a line to that beam on the garage, Dog.” His taciturn companion nods again. “Another line about a third the way up that cedar tree. Should go down smack in the middle of the driveway.”

  He pauses to roll a cigarette from his packet of Player’s tobacco, then looks sideways at me.

  “Now for this we gotta charge skilled-labour rates. But I been thinking, Mr. Beauchamp, remember that old pot case I was telling you about? I got busted last summer for a few plants? It’s coming up next week, and I figured maybe in return for this job, you could sorta defend me on legal aid.”

  “I’m afraid I’m not doing pot cases any more, Stoney.”

  “Gee, I thought we could do a little barter.”

  “I will pay the going rate.”

  I cannot watch. I leave them as they start uncoiling their ropes, and head off in my pickup to the general store for my mail. “Looks like your grandson caught a little bug over there in Venice,” says Mr. Makepeace, handing me a postcard from Deborah. “Feeling better now.”

  Here is also a four-day-old letter from Augustina Sage (the mail service here is less than prompt), accepting my offer to assist in the O’Donnell defence — and advising she is arriving on a ferry that should have landed an hour ago. Accompanying her will be the students Charles Stubb and Paula Yi, who Augustina informs me have new and helpful information.

  The Queen of Prince George cannot always be depended upon to be late, but thankfully she has lost one of her engines today — so I am informed by Nelson Forbish after I park behind him at the drop-off-and-pick-up line.

  “I hear you and Emily Lemay are an item.” A lecherous grin.

  “She’s hot stuff, eh?”


  I am about to instruct this master of the misquote as to the laws of libel, but he quickly says, “Don’t worry, Mr. Beauchamp, my paper doesn’t handle sex. Otherwise, I’d have to go ten extra pages with what goes on around this island. You should see the stories that don’t make the light of day.” A wink. “I have my sources. Don’t worry about Sam, Mr. Beauchamp. I explained you were a lawyer with Mafia connections. Anyway, he’s a chickenshit. So what’s up? What’s the hot scoop on that professor’s case?”

  I sigh. “Well, Nelson, you’ll just have to come to court to satisfy this prurient interest of yours.”

  “Wish I had the time.”

  He returns to his car, and I watch as the Queen of Prince George, tilting to port, shudders into reverse. The boat banks hard against a rubber-tired buttress and crunches against a piling, sending its resting gulls aloft, fuming and wailing.

  After the vessel finally comes to a full stop, Augustina Sage marches eagerly onto the dock, waving at me. I have borrowed her from the esteemed small firm of Pomeroy, Macarthur, Brovak and Sage, practitioners of criminal law. She is in her mid-thirties, a darkly attractive Métis woman, bright, energetic, single, though with, as I recall, a sorry history of romantic misadventures.

  She drops her briefcase and reaches up to kiss me. “Arthur, you look like God in that beard.”

  “I am often mistaken for Him. So good of you to find the time for this. Were you able to adjourn your other cases?”

  “I’d have adjourned the rest of my life to do the O’Donnell trial with you.”

  “You’ve read all the files?”

  “Yes, I picked them up from your office.”

  “Excellent.”

  A young couple are standing by the ferry waiting room, the male bright-cheeked, bespectacled, with elephantine ears, the woman petite and sloe-eyed, subdued and pensive. Obviously Charles Stubb, the future prime minister, and his girlfriend, Paula Yi. Augustina makes the introductions.