Trial of Passion

by William Deverell

  My, aren’t we being formal. Well, how do you do, Professor O’Donnell. Won’t you have a seat?

  Look at this.

  What?

  In the theatre section. This ad.

  “The Theatre Workshop presents Switch. A sassy comedy of manners . . .” Oh, I see: Kimberley Martin’s in it.

  Can you imagine? She’s cashing in on her fame. How can she be taken seriously? A comedy! A week before the trial . . . Jesus, I don’t understand this woman.

  Though you seem fascinated by her.

  Sure. Like a kid at the zoo staring at the man-eating python.

  Still on the wagon?

  Yep.

  Did you phone your father as I suggested?

  About the hardest thing I’ve ever done. He was great, though, couldn’t see why all this fuss over such piffle. She led you on, did she? Time you started thinking of settling down, old chap. He should talk. The old boy actually seemed a little relieved. Probably thought I was gay You’re all dressed up. Going out for dinner?

  I am, as a matter of fact.

  You look smart. Didn’t know you had such pretty ankles.

  Well, why don’t you sit over there where you don’t have to look at them?

  Sorry.

  It’s all right. I’m flattered.

  You’re not married, are you? I’m not prying; I heard that somewhere.

  I’m a lesbian.

  Oh.

  Well, don’t sit there like a nervous rabbit. I’m not dangerous.

  I feel stupid.

  For assuming I was straight? Or for wanting to screw me?

  I guess I’m incredibly transparent.

  But that’s good.

  Do you have a partner?

  Her name is Molly. She’s a computer programmer. It’s working out?

  She takes my abrasiveness quite well.

  You don’t have any trouble with relationships.

  Well, I don’t have a long record of one-night stands.

  Jane, you believe I’m innocent, don’t you?

  I don’t think I should be rendering verdicts at this stage in therapy.

  It’s important to me.

  Innocence is much too vague a term. In its sense of virtuous, you can render your own verdict. It also means naïve — you should be sent away for that.

  Jane, don’t give me a stall. I’m not asking for a treatise on the meaning of innocence.

  Okay, Jonathan. Well, oddly enough, I do believe you are innocent. You’re not in the pattern. The rapist is into a misogynistic control trip. You like women. Your weapon of choice is charm. Though many women would call seduction a form of rape.

  I know those women. They teach in our women’s studies department. They also think rape is committed whenever a dirty joke is told.

  Jonathan, I know the subject of your sexuality seems to rub at your tender spot, but I’d like to work with you on it a little more.

  I can handle it.

  Do you ever see yourself as having any . . . shall we say, performance problems?

  Boy, you’re . . . Premature ejaculation, I suppose. Sometimes I just can’t hold on.

  And then is there a problem after that?

  How do you mean?

  Getting a second erection.

  Jane, this is incredibly awkward.

  I don’t think you ought to be embarrassed.

  Yes, well, it does happen.

  A lot?

  Well, yes. Is it a big deal?

  I would imagine it’s fairly common among men. Premature ejaculation followed by a rather long period of enervation. I had a case once: a guy who always came on so strong with his wife he lost his erection. I advised a little creative role-playing. Psychodrama: Each becomes the other. It tends to stretch things out when one becomes aware of his partner’s need for pleasure.

  I’ve had enough creative role-playing.

  What do you mean?

  Nothing, I guess.

  Hmm. Jonathan, here you are in your late thirties without having even attempted a permanent relationship. Does that say anything to you?

  Says I pay the single-rate income tax.

  Says you’re insecure about marriage. Worried you can’t perform. As a means of raising your self-esteem, you develop a bit of a Don Juan complex. One-night stands. Wham, bam, thank you, ma’am, and Mr. Studley doffs his hat and limply leaves the stage. And can’t find the courage to even call her the next morning.

  The truth isn’t quite as bleak, Jane. Sometimes I maintain very well.

  And how do you do it?

  A couple of scotches and some lingering foreplay.

  You’re defending like crazy, Jonathan.

  By Friday evening George has managed to crawl from his pit of despair and is his former jesting, cynical self: His gaiety at Margaret’s dinner table does not seem forced. I suspect he is stoned on his powerful marijuana, an analgesic that blurs his inner pain.

  Our hostess — to my utter lack of surprise — is as deft in the kitchen as she is in the yard, and her roasted chicken is beyond compare. All through dinner I am like a fumbling child, unable to utter intelligible words. I can’t fathom what is wrong with me — my concern about George’s state of mind has me distracted, I suppose.

  Margaret’s busy house comes complete with her lazy cat and her slightly more energetic spaniel, Slappy, whose role is to guard the house from invading livestock. The furnishings are worn but comfortable, though hinting of a former hippieness: a few twigs-and-branches chairs, doubtless made by some artisan friend; an ornate brass hookah decorating a corner; glass crystals that slowly twist in the air behind sun-dappled windows, their reflections dancing upon the walls.

  Poster art adorns these walls: political, hortatory. Greenpeace demands we save the whales; “No Clear-cuts” insist the Friends of Clayoquot Sound. Yet another sign simply commands that we L-o-v-E. What? Who? Those four frightening letters on that weathered poster seem from another age; the 1960s, a time of boldness when people were unashamed of passion.

  An eclectic library: nature books, whodunits, leftist political tracts, a few classics — they speak of a mind untrained but curious.

  Margaret insists we take dessert and coffee on the porch so George and I can smoke. I find myself babbling, filling the evening air with a recounting of the O’Donnell case. Margaret listens transfixed, punctuating my account with gentle profanities: “Good Lord,”

  “Merciful God.” Her eyes are wide; her mouth is open, a shocked O.

  George rolls a marijuana cigarette during this. He lights it, takes a deep drag, and blows out a thunderhead of sweet-smelling smoke, then offers it to us. Margaret shakes her head. “I think I forgot how, George.” I decline as well.

  “By the way, Arthur,” he says, “I saw Kimberley Martin’s name in an ad for a play. Vancouver summer theatre. A sassy comedy, that’s what the ad said.”

  “It sounds appalling,” I say.

  “Maybe you’d like to take Margaret. Wouldn’t a sassy night in the city be a lark for both of you?”

  George is playing the matchmaker with distressing boldness, and my awkwardness manifests itself in strained, unnatural laughter. Desperately, I continue the tale of my client’s Walpurgisnacht of wanton love with Kimberley Martin, but this turns out to be doubly embarrassing: sassier than any play, and in the telling of it I sound like a decrepit roué.

  At the end of this, an agony of silence. Then Margaret says, “Good Lord.”

  Have I disgusted her? She is making a face, a grimace, a little moue. But suddenly it widens into a brilliant smile, and she tosses her head back and laughs. Her face is perfectly framed against the glowing evening sky. I feel a faint shiver run through me and I endure a light-headed sensation, a tightness of the heart. For the briefest moment I fear I have suffered another stroke. But it is something else, a most odd, unnatural feeling.

  When George makes his departure, he squeezes my arm in a comradely way, a silent gesture telling me I am not to worry about him: He’s
back on track. Margaret rejects my offer to help with the dishes, and discreetly smothers a yawn. Eleven o’clock, I realize, is a late time for a farmer who daily arises to the calling of roosters, and the gentleman in me has me on my feet, collecting the remains of the bowl of salad I humbly contributed to her feast.

  All the while I prattle lamely about how pleasant was the evening, how bountiful her table, how . . . how . . . Oh, mighty Beauchamp, show some grit.

  “And how lovely and gracious was the hostess tonight.”

  “You’re very kind.”

  She stands before me at the doorway, smiling with opened lips.

  I hesitate. I falter. I flee.

  At home I plunge into my favourite chair and sit in the dark stillness of my house. The only sounds are the complaints of the freezer and the soft scuttling of a mouse in the kitchen.

  I am trapped in a moment in time. I retain a photograph of her, laughing, silhouetted against the sky at twilight. I cannot erase this picture.

  My heart seems to be beating very hard. What shape is it in? Perhaps I should see Doc Dooley again.

  Our heat wave continues unabated into August, but my well is fed by a deep aquifer, and so my garden prospers, tended by flower-crowned Ceres, of whom Virgil justly exhorts: “In solemn lays, exalt your rural queen’s immortal praise.” Ah, yes, she causes peas to grow fat and carrots to swell. Here on the left, a row of juicy heads is forming on the lettuce; near the fence, my corn stands soldier-tall.

  My beard continues to flourish as well. I must soon have it tended or I will look like Moses. With the exception of the beard, I am still condensing in size, thanks to my daily regimen of outdoor work and a gardener’s diet that is varied only by the occasional farm-fresh egg and my hoarded but diminishing collection of Margaret’s blackcurrant tarts, ambrosial in their delicacy.

  I now realize that the strange sensation that overcame me at Margaret’s house was clearly caused by Rimbold’s secondary smoke. Garibaldi Gold: a potent physic. It seems to work for George, for his spirits have remained at least artificially high these last several days. I have yet to muster courage enough to sample one of the cigarettes he gave me — they are kept hidden in the fridge in my cookie tin.

  Margaret has been using her tractor to scoop post holes for her new fence, and since I have been clearing some brush in the area we frequently meet at our respective work sites. We help each other. I learn how to run a tractor. We take breaks from our toil for tea or lemonade. We make Zoller jokes and plot our next foray against Evergreen Estates. She teaches me about the wild things that grow: the camas bulbs that can be cooked, the salal berries that make excellent jelly, the vanilla leaves that insects spurn.

  She is candid, holds nothing in, gossips with a wicked sharpness of tongue. I enjoy her abrasiveness, her strutting contempt of whom she calls her “enemies.” She is bracing, refreshing, different. Compare her to the woman of my previous life — who hid many thoughts and feelings, and led many secret lives. But Annabelle has been receding from me; her picture is becoming hazy, and she no longer haunts my shameful dreams.

  I truly like Margaret Blake. And I think she likes me. We are in a state of like. That’s all that’s going on.

  Dear Mr. Brown,

  You will recall that I arranged to see Dr. Curtis Mallard, the philosophy teacher whom Professor O’Donnell dealt with so harshly in a recent book review. I have come away from that meeting finding myself in agreement with many of Professor O’Donnell’s adjectives, in particular “bloated” and “pompous.” I will add another: “vindictive.” Dr. Mallard does not forgive.

  He insisted on showing me several more kindly reviews and engaged in a long, confusing defence of his work, while assailing Professor O’Donnell in language that I would have expected no philosopher to use, and also expressing glee at his arch-enemy’s recent fall from fortune.

  In short, he was willing to be of what assistance he could, though mainly he offered speculation about Professor O’Donnell’s sexual excesses, much of which seemed unlikely. He did, however, lead me to the name of a former mistress of the man I investigate. Her name is Dominique Lander, a past visiting professor in the fine arts department of the university, a painter who — as I have discovered upon a visit to a gallery — is known for her dark, erotic art. It was widely rumoured, Dr. Mallard told me, that she is an avid student of sado-masochistic sexual practices. Examples of her works seem to bear this out.

  I have learned she now resides in the mountainous interior of this province — near a village called Slocan — and I will go there immediately. In the meantime, I will also spend more time in the library in an effort to master the intricacies of what is known in the trade as S and M. The concept is truly beyond me.

  It might be worth noting that Professor O’Donnell’s only break from routine last week was his attendance at a Thursday evening performance of a play called Switch at the Granville Island Theatre Workshop in which, as you are obviously aware, Miss Martin plays a role. Perhaps there was nothing so unusual about Mr. O’Donnell’s presence there — he was probably curious. While I was unable myself to buy a ticket — the theatre is small and the production popular — I did wait outside until it emptied. You will be pleased to know that the audience — excepting Professor O’Donnell and a few people with picket signs — seemed smiling and happy, and had an enjoyable time.

  I remain faithfully,

  Francisco (Frank) Sierra

  To whom it may concern,

  I am Dominique Lander. I live at Rural Route 1, Bellflower Road, Slocan. I write this in support of my friend and former lover, Hon. Jonathan Shaun O’Donnell.

  I met Jonathan two years ago at a reception for new faculty at UBC, where I was commencing a term as visiting lecturer in fine arts. I told him I wanted to fuck him, and we went to my rented studio in Kitsilano, where we did so. We fell in love and continued to meet there for the purpose of sex two or three days a week for seven months, after which I returned here to the Slocan Valley.

  As a form of play before we fucked we would often paint each other’s bodies. On frequent occasions we engaged in bondage and discipline. (This is often called sado-masochism, but that is a misleading term for what are properly seen as acts of affection. Pain is after all just another aspect of love. Death itself is erotic.)

  Although the routines varied, a common element involved Jonathan tying me up to the bed and spanking me with his hand. I therefore do not believe that if he tied Kimberley Martin to the bed it was for any other reason than to engage in a ritual he enjoyed prior to fucking. He has never harmed a person in his life. I hope this information will assist him in his case, for I know that he is innocent.

  Signed: Dominique Lander

  Witness: Francisco Sierra

  On this second Sunday of August, clouds decorate the horizon, but above Garibaldi the sky remains blue, the sun unrelentingly hot. The “spell” is what everyone is talking about at the ferry dock today. “Longest spell I can remember since ‘85.”

  “Don’t think this spell is gonna end till October.”

  Kurt Zoller is fluttering like a butterfly about the fringes of this crowd — local elections are set for this fall, and our trustee has been seeking the opinion of the grassroots, testing the waters before deciding whether he has any hope of re-election.

  He strolls towards me, fidgeting with the straps of his life jacket. “Mr. Bo-champ, good morning. We got another hot one, eh?”

  “Ah, our esteemed trustee. This drought must be keeping your little waterworks company hopping.”

  Zoller recently began a business tanking water up to his neighbours in Evergreen Estates, and he is reputed to gouge. This may have lost him a few votes, especially because he is seen as profiting from the spell.

  “It’s a service to my fellow islanders.” He drops his voice and bends to me. “But I hear rumbles. Some people can’t handle the idea of a businessman with initiative. Ford didn’t build an auto empire without taking his opportunities.
If it hadn’t been me, somebody else would of done it, an off-islander.”

  I wonder if he is not sweltering in that heavy life jacket. Margaret and I have decided it is a kind of mother’s blanket.

  “You are merely adhering to the time-honoured ethics of capitalism, Mr. Zoller.”

  “Thank you.”

  I like the way he insists on misinterpreting my sarcasm. He is still convinced I am his unswerving ally.

  “I’m meeting some bureaucrats from the city.” Zoller continues to speak in the hushed tone of an international spy. “Government hydrologists. Coming over here to check water-table levels. This is how they spend our taxes.”

  “Ah, yes. The government is always interfering in matters that don’t concern it.”

  “Can you think of some legal move to head them off, like a sort of injunction?”

  “Not offhand, Mr. Zoller.”

  From behind me comes the nasal mewl of Nelson Forbish. “Hey, Kurt, I heard the government might put a freeze on the new subdi-vision. You got any word on that?”

  Forbish wears his usual headgear, the porkpie hat. He is sucking the contents of a can of grape soda through a straw.

  “Arthur here said it better than I could. They’re always sticking their nose into other people’s private places.”

  Forbish produces his notepad. “They say there’s gonna be an investigation into, um — they call it . . . a possible malfeasance.”

  “No comment.”

  “Well, hey, I ain’t accusing you of anything, I just asked what you know.”

  “I know nothing.” Zoller’s eyes are narrowed to defensive slits. He tightens the straps of his life jacket.

  Not Now Nelson slurps up the last of his grape soda with a long, rasping gurgle. “So, are you going to sue Margaret Blake?”

  “For what?”

  “Saying you were in bed with the developers, that they paid you off. I thought you were going to sue her for slander.”

  “Well, I’m still thinking hard about it.”

  “Think he’s got any kind of case there, Mr. Beauchamp?”

  “If people ran to the courts over every word said in the heat of debate, the system would self-destruct.” I am hoping Zoller will take this as a word of advice from his confidant to abandon thoughts of suing: Margaret may have seriously misspoke. She has confided she had no ammunition for her charge.