Trial of Passion

by William Deverell

  “Yeah, but do you think he’s got a case? On what you know?” Forbish surprises me, showing hitherto unrevealed reportorial skills, a doggedness. Perhaps I have misread this clumsy stout. Does within hide a skinny streak of cleverness? “I, too, know nothing.”

  “So would you be acting for Mrs. Blake if Kurt here sued her?”

  “Nelson, the ferry is arriving.”

  “Like I hear you been, um, talking to her.”

  “Not now, Nelson.”

  “A lot. Over the fence and like that.” Kin to grotesque Silenus, half-man, half-goat, he is the peeping satyr of Garibaldi Island. “Maybe you’re doing more than talking, eh?” A bawdy wink.

  Zoller’s expression is one of confusion: The full impact of betrayal hasn’t hit home.

  “I am afraid I must flee your riveting company, Nelson — I have a friend to meet.”

  “I hear she’s thinking of running for trustee this fall.”

  This is true, though told to me in secret. But secrets never seem to survive on this island.

  As Forbish ambles off, Zoller stares at me with the expression of a soulmate betrayed. I slink away ashamed, the Quisling of Garibaldi.

  The ferry groans wearily into its slip and spews the cyclists out. Augustina then disembarks by foot, greeting me with a hug.

  “You seem pretty pleased with yourself, Arthur.”

  “Why do you say that, my dear?”

  “The funny smile. Look like you swallowed a canary.”

  “But I’m merely happy to see you.”

  We bump off in my truck towards Potter’s Road. Stoney and Dog are whaling away with hammers as we pull in. They are still showing up on weekends, demonstrating a tenaciousness to the cause of my garage that I’d not believed I’d see — though they take long cannabis breaks, wandering about the yard and into the woods. Most of the framing is up now. The Rolls is back in Stoney’s shop, and I don’t often think about it.

  Augustina and I assemble briefs, notes, and transcripts on the dining-room table.

  “I have reams of stuff from the client — I spent a whole day with him. I don’t know . . . sometimes I wonder if he isn’t a little kinky. It’s as if he’s hiding something. Anyway, let’s see, I talked to a cocaine expert, pharmacologist from the university. Too many variables, so he can’t conclude Kimberley was feigning sleep, but says coke’s a powerful stimulant, and it does cause a strange reaction in some people. But we’ve lost the element of surprise: Paula Yi met with the prosecutor.”

  “Please ensure the Crown subpoenas Miss Yi. She seems reluctant, and we can’t have her wandering off. Those bruises on Kimberley’s wrists and ankles worry me. I can’t bring myself to believe they were self-inflicted.”

  “Well . . . injuries. She was drunk, falling down. . . .”

  “It doesn’t quite wash. Can we get a peek at Kimberley’s polygraph test? One often finds unexpected blips on the graphs that the examiner has disregarded.”

  “It won’t be easy.”

  “Then we’ll seek a disclosure order from my old friend Justice Sprogue, who knows all about the perils of polygraphy. He once wrote a brief on it”

  “Okay, I’ll bring some cases. The pre-trial is this Wednesday. He wants to do it in his chambers, informal, no gowns.”

  “That’s fine by me.”

  “And I got a call from Dr. Werner Mundt at the forensic clinic — you know him, don’t you?”

  “Ah, yes, we were friends once.” Annabelle had had a rather public affair with him, and I sense Augustina now remembers this, for she seems embarrassed. “What did he want?”

  “Well, he’s offering to be an expert witness.”

  “Slavering at the thought, no doubt. He likes the limelight.”

  “Well, he just published a paper about a so-called rape fantasy, and he expostulated on it for an hour. You see, certain women have these ‘male aggression masturbation reveries.’ They enjoy the thought of being forced so they can abandon responsibility for their own sexual pleasure. As Kimberley would put it: Gag me.”

  “I think we’ll take a pass on Dr. Mundt.”

  A few years ago I might have held my nose and plunged ahead, but I suppose I have become soft. Surely one of the reasons I deserted the courthouse for Garibaldi Island was to escape the foul excesses of the law. Again I ask myself: Why did I give in to a moment of weakness and undertake this trial?

  The windows are open on this hot day, and we continue to talk strategies to the clatter of hammers and saws. At times I find my mind wandering.

  “Arthur, you have this moony stare.”

  “Oh, sorry, I guess I lost the train. . . .”

  “You feeling okay?”

  “Splendid. Finding it a little hard to get back in uniform, that’s all.”

  I soon tire of reading the voluminous treatises on law and evidence Augustina has compiled, and lead her outside, where I compel her to admire my garden; then we do a quick inspection of the building site. Stoney waves from a ladder, a cigarette and several nails clenched between his lips. The newly framed garage looks sturdy enough. I have decided once again to forgive Stoney. His eerily occult ability to cause calamities wherever he goes is surely counterbalanced by his good intentions. In token of this, I have agreed on a fair contract price with the boys and give them weekly draws: I cannot see them starve.

  A tour of my acreage — up and over the yellow-grass bluffs, down through the shade of my conifer forest — leads Augustina and me to a path I cannot recall having seen before, but it must be the shortcut Stoney takes on the many days when the master mechanic can’t get his car started. Farther along is my own well-tromped path — to the pasture where I have been clearing brush and helping with the fencing.

  “My, you’ve been doing a lot of work.”

  I absently pluck a pale blue blossom from a cornflower and twirl the stem between my fingers. I feel a vague . . . not unease, a sense of absence. Something missing here, cut out of the frame.

  “Arthur? Hello.”

  My mind is adrift; I realize Augustina has been talking to me. “I’m sorry, you were saying?”

  “It’s getting near ferry time, I should go. Are you all right?”

  “Tip-top.”

  “Why are you staring at that house?”

  “Oh, no reason.”

  “You’re acting awfully strange.”

  She is looking at me anxiously. What in the world is she going on about? Movement behind the kitchen window: Is that Margaret? Her dog runs out, evicting a flapping, clucking hen.

  “I’m fine, Augustina. I’m just . . . happy.” I begin walking her back to my truck. “I’ll see you Wednesday for the pre-trial.”

  “Did you want me to pick you up at the seaplane dock?”

  “Oh, we’ll just take a taxi.”

  Augustina continues to stare at me as if I am an alien newly landed from a spaceship.” We’ll take a taxi?”

  I hear my words coming in short, breathless sentences. “Margaret Blake is joining me. We’re taking a little break from the routines. My neighbour. She’s usually out here. She has animals to look after, so we’ll fly back that evening, of course.”

  Augustina seems to be fighting a smile now. “Of course. Otherwise you’d have to spend the night together.”

  “Oh, dear, nothing like that is happening. She’s just a good friend. All very platonic.”

  As we drive to the ferry, Augustina sits silently smiling, as if she holds a secret. Finally she says, “Do you know what, Arthur?”

  “What?”

  “I think you’re in love. I think you’re head over heels.”

  The use of the L-word startles me. I sputter, “Nonsense. What a preposterous notion.”

  “I’m the world’s foremost expert, Arthur. I’ve been there and back too many times.”

  I smile at her jest. I shake my head. “Completely out of the question.”

  “Why are you red in the face?”

  “I’m not. I’m just ruddy fr
om the exertion of our little hike.”

  “I think it’s sweet.”

  After I drop her off at the dock, I enjoy a good laugh over this.

  In love. What an idea.

  A fondness exists, yes, even a strong fancy. But love? Complete with stardust in the eyes? With the legendary pounding of the heart and the lightly skipping feet?

  Absurd.

  That evening, alone in darkening night, I practise tai chi movements on the lawn. I make tea. I walk on the beach. I study a purple starfish clinging to the rocks. I listen to the soft sounds of night. And all the while I debate within the curious verdict Augustina rendered.

  No, it is inconceivable, I am not some fuzzy-cheeked adolescent but a mature sixty-two-year-old. I am beyond such banality.

  But why do I have this sense of having been rendered into some glutinous form of paste?

  Have I been denying a truth evident to others? Surely I have not plunged into that monstrous abyss of which the poets sing. No, it is beyond the pale.

  But again my inner senses are assaulted by a picture burned into memory: Margaret on her porch, silhouetted against the sunset, the chiming carillon of her laughter. How . . . different I felt at that moment. I assumed it was Rimbold’s secondary smoke that overcame me, but was it the tuneful twang of Cupid’s mighty bow?

  No, this cannot, dare not be love. Love becomes physically complicated. Love must be consummated, but this could never be. I am a man disarmed, enfeebled, ineffectual, incapable. Gag me

  Ah, yes, if it be any manner of love it is the passion of weakness for strength, the puerile ardour of a masochist seeking a dominatrix who castrates her own pigs and mops the courtroom floor with Arthur Beauchamp; yes, indeed, that is the kind of woman Beauchamp seeks in order to satisfy his aberrant desires.

  Am I in love? I fear I am. Woe to Arthur Ramsgate Beauchamp. Weaponless, he can only want but never have.

  Abed, I dream the spell is over. I am naked in the softly falling rain, my wrists and ankles bound. A slender woman haunts the shadows. Though tied and helpless, I am overcome with desire for her. Later I awake with — is it possible? is it real? — a tumescent penis? As sleep overcomes me again, I am not sure whether this phallus erec-tus is only a chimera sent to mock me.

  Good morning, Kimberley. You look weary on this nice sunny day.

  Morning, Dr. Kropinski. Ouch. Tied one on yesterday. After the show we all went to Bridge’s. I guess we were celebrating.

  Over the success of the show, yes?

  Yeah, we’re on the front page.

  I saw that.

  What do they call themselves? Citizens for Decency, something like that.

  You do not worry the play will be closed down?

  By those morons? Bunch of dweebs with their picket signs. But we drank a lot of toasts to them — we’re getting sold-out houses. And guess who I keep seeing in the audience? Twice I spotted him trying to look small in one of the back rows as we were taking our bows. Professor Jonathan O’Donnell. Creepy, huh?

  How odd.

  Scary, kind of. Everyone else was applauding . . . but he looked … I don’t know. Depressed. What kind of stuff does he think he’s pulling anyway? Probably trying to put a hex on. Well, what did you think of the play?

  I thought you were very good.

  Thank you.

  You received the best laughs.

  A little racy, though, hey? What did your wife think?

  I am afraid Penny found it too rich for her blood. Well, she is a little conservative, yes? An old-fashioned Jewish upbringing . . .

  Oh, dear, I had one of those, too, only Catholic. All that’s left is the religious guilt, I’m afraid. Well, my significant other hasn’t seen it yet, though he read that prissy review where they called it obscene — right next to our pictures. Was he ever torqued. I’m not going back to his place until he apologizes.

  You have been staying in your apartment?

  I don’t need all the distractions. The play runs another week, and then I’ve only got four or five days to get ready for the trial, which I don’t think I’m up for — I wish it would just go away. I’m going to come out looking like . . . I don’t know.

  Why?

  Oh, Pat Blueman dropped on me that apparently I did some cocaine that night I was at O’Donnell’s house. Cocaine . . .

  I snorted some in the rec room with Egan Chornicky and that Paula woman. I must have been fairly loaded, I don’t do coke. Maybe twice in my life. I guess I just kept quiet because I didn’t dream it would come out. But Paula spilled the beans to Patricia, who gave me royal shit for not telling her, and the defence knows about it.

  Did this drug affect you?

  Not really. Well, maybe I got a little wild and crazy — it’s after that I changed into O’Donnell’s suit.

  And now this may come out in court?

  Remy — he’ll have another wig-out. And it could make it tough to get articles. Maybe I’ll become a star of stage and screen instead. There’s a chance the play will move to Toronto this fall. . . . Oh, hey, we may have the goods on O’Donnell now. Pat Blueman . . . can I tell you a secret?

  Everything you tell me is secret, yes?

  I called her, got her to come down and join us last night, at Bridge’s. She’s so lonely, you know — I try to get her out where she can meet eligibles. Well, she was in such a good mood. O’Donnell — she made me swear not to tell anyone — but the guy is right out of the Marquis de Sade. She has a witness under subpoena with whom Jonathan had this ritual, she calls it, where he tied her up and painted her before getting it on. In her own acrylics, or whatever — she’s an artist. Dominique the dominatrix.

  Oh, my. How did they find her?

  Patricia wouldn’t say. I always knew there was a sicko psyche hiding inside Jonathan. I could tell it just looking into his eyes. They were always so sad. Hiding some deep, dark, horrible secret. I mean, I’m sort of modern sexually, I like to do different things. I like a little theatre with it, maybe, but not kink— we’re talking pre-Remy here, he’s pretty traditional about sex. God, I just thought — maybe his defence is going to be that he was so drunk he thought I was Dominique.

  I think that is not likely.

  I want to see his expression when she walks into court. What’s the deal with this bondage stuff, Dr. Kropinski? Why do people do it?

  I have not seen much of the material on this. But involved I think are scripted rituals of whipping, spanking, and so on, interspersed with episodes of tenderness and loving. It is clearly so that some people — mostly men, I think — seek their sexual stimulation that way. An unhealthy compulsion either to dominate or play the slave. I have seen reports about normal persons, intelligent, well born, who have gone into therapy for this. Significant antecedents like childhood trauma will play some role, yes? But it is not always easy to trace the connection. It may have something to do with the buttock fetish: Gesässerotik, it is called. Fetishes usually come from a submerged sexual impression from early childhood, and so I think there is a similar root for bondage practices.

  It’s basically a form of play, though, right? Theatre. I mean, you see all these ads. Women who offer a service — discipline care providers. So there must be this need. I guess it’s better some bozo gets his rocks off by paddling someone’s bum than going home all repressed and knocking his wife’s teeth out. Anyway . . .

  Why are you laughing?

  Oh, I was just remembering last night. Patricia had a few, and did this hilarious imitation of Arthur Beauchamp. Snapping his suspenders and reciting from the Merchant of Venice, trying to wring tears from the jury. “Mercy falleth as the gentle rain from heaven.” Something like that. I guess we should get to work.

  All right.

  I’ve had more dreams. I just wish they’d stop.

  I would prefer to see them come out.

  I know. Healthier for me if I could just spew it out. I get this gaggy feeling, this nausea, I’m afraid that if I think about it I’ll throw
up.

  All your dreams seem to end with you cowering against a wall, then feeling . . .

  I can’t talk about it. I can’t.

  Okay. Tell me, have you thought any more about being hypnotized?

  I guess I’m afraid of losing control, getting hysterical. Do you not think you need to remember? After the play is over, you have a four-day period before the trial?

  Yes.

  And when do you take the witness stand?

  Next Wednesday, I think.

  What about this weekend? You could come for dinner on Saturday — I find evenings are better, and you will be more relaxed in a home setting.

  And I’m to get hypnotized? Do you put me to sleep?

  Actually, I may bring you awake.

  The charter flutters into Beauchamp Bay and chugs towards the little dock where I stand with Margaret, who is smiling but tense. She is smartly dressed, a fawn suit, her skirt hemmed daringly high. I am more casual, the more bohemian of the two in my denim and sandals. All my suits are at the cleaners in Vancouver, so I am accepting Wally Sprogue at his word there will be no dress code. And why not make a statement? Why not say I am no longer a slave to the conventions of the city?

  “You’re sure he can get that machine up off the water again?” says Margaret, who has admitted to a fear of flying. She has never been in a small airplane.

  I am still too unnerved to confess my feelings for her. There exists an abiding fear of rejection. And I simply do not know how to start: I do not remember how to do this. Assuming I once knew.

  And I so fear the shame of failure if I try.

  Margaret grips my wrist as the aircraft groans from the water. I thrill at the fierceness of her touch. I tell the pilot to circle Garibaldi, and I enjoy Margaret’s enjoyment, drink deeply of her experience, her eagle’s view of her farm, our rustic island, the evil Evergreen Estates. Then the inlets, other islands, the cold green waters of Georgia Strait, the approaching city spires.

  She turns from the window and blesses me with a smile that causes my inner core to melt.