Trial of Passion

by William Deverell

  I remember our first encounter, on the ferry: Margaret thrusting a petition at me, expecting a rebuff. I don’t suppose you’d care to sign this. I recall the scorn on her face as she sized me up for precisely what I was — a rube from the city, still reeking of it, a transgressor upon the fair soil of Garibaldi Island. I found her somewhat attractive — lissome and lean, peppy, intense of eye — but she has been transformed in my mesmerized mind into a person of measureless beauty: handsomely wrinkled by the sun, dirt often under the fingernails, hands toughened by honest work, no false eyelashes, no painted toes, no false heart — earthy and elegant, and real.

  A tragic dilemma arises from my state of rapture; one of its prongs is of course my own peculiar fear of flying — performance anxiety is how George Rimbold put it. The other problem is that Margaret is also in love. To her honour and my chagrin, she remains bound to the memory of her husband, a man about whom she incessantly speaks. I am playing second fiddle to a ghost.

  So, sadly — but perhaps for the better — it appears obvious that Margaret does not return my feelings. I expect she sees me as an avuncular figure, an older friendly adviser with whom she can freely talk of past love and flush her system of pent-up sorrow.

  My mind awash with these thoughts, I suddenly realize we are enshrouded within the city’s walls. We dip between two container ships, plough across the turbid waters of Burrard Inlet, and taxi to the dock.

  I extend a hand to help Margaret from the plane, and again at her touch feel a wilting sensation. Our eyes meet: Can she read the horrible truth in my adoring puppy eyes? Or does she just regard me as that friendly old fellow Arthur Beauchamp, her pal, her neighbour, her sharer of fences and secrets?

  How do I win her from her husband?

  Our taxi takes us first to the downtown shopping complexes, where Margaret alights — she will spend the morning buying household goods. I remind her that we are to meet for lunch at Chez Forget before attending the matinée performance of Switch.

  “I’ll be there.” She takes a deep breath, blows me a kiss, and melts into the crowds.

  Switch. How crass of me to invite her to a bawdy farce. But George Rimbold eventually teased me into asking her. “You wouldn’t be interested, would you?” I said. “Well, I might be,” she replied.

  My taxi drops me off at the Nelson Street entrance of the law courts. Here in this building — more greenhouse than courthouse, a vast atrium with potted trees and a roof of glass — will unfold the final chapter of the Queen versus Jonathan Shaun O’Donnell. Only two weeks to the start of the trial: How well prepared am I? My powers of concentration seem decimated. I must focus on this trial or, befuddled by my emotions, I may end up sacrificing a client. I must will myself to keep my thoughts from the woman who lives next door.

  In the lobby, court staff stare at me in puzzlement, as persons might who aren’t quite sure they know this old fellow, this rumpled, bearded beatnik. Friends wave from a distance, but avoid coming closer, perhaps fearful I will ask for spare change.

  In the barristers’ lounge, Augustina Sage is having coffee with Patricia Blueman, who looks me over as I sit beside her.

  “You here for the farmers’ convention, Arthur?”

  “My suits are at the cleaners. Wally won’t mind, I’m sure”

  “Patricia has some new witnesses,” says Augustina, looking a little dour. She passes me a photocopied statement.

  Patricia explains, “Dominique Lander is a former UBC art instructor who had an affair with your client. She’s a bondage freak. It’s evidence of previous consistent behaviour. Proves he has a history of tying up his partners.”

  I quickly glance through the brief handwritten statement of this Dominique Lander. I try to hide both my surprise and my dismay. A line draws my attention: Pain is after all just another aspect of love. I recall the dream of a few nights ago, the bound wrists, the risen phallus.

  “And when did Dominique Lander crawl from the woodwork?”

  But then I notice the signature of the witness to her statement: Francisco Sierra, a person known to me, a private detective with a reputation for artfulness.

  “Who hired Mr. Sierra?”

  “We didn’t.”

  “Who, then?”

  “Mr. Sierra refuses to say.”

  The possibilities do not seem limitless. I catch Augustina’s eye and can tell she shares my thought: One senses the heavy hand of the wealthy fiancé at work. Would he stoop to buying a witness?

  “We will want to interview Miss Lander, of course.”

  “Yes, I’ll set it up.”

  “And what are the other late additions to the cast?”

  “Paula Yi. Whom you’ve talked to, so you don’t need her statement.”

  “You’ll be calling her, I presume, to say Kimberley was severely intoxicated on cocaine?”

  “I’ll be ready for it.” There is a firm edge to her voice. “And we also have Dr. Hawthorne’s housekeeper — the police really did a raggedy-ass job, they didn’t interview everyone they should have. Mrs. McIntosh called to tell me she heard screams from the adjoining house.”

  Augustina glances at me, and I can tell she shares my vexation: these important items of disclosure are being sprung at us very late. “Anything else forthcoming at this eleventh hour?”

  “We’re adding counts of confinement and kidnapping.”

  “Oh, come on,” says Augustina.

  “Ah, yes, the scatter-gun approach. Throw enough excrement in the hope that some of it will stick.” I am furious and rise abruptly. “Let us see Mr. Justice Sprogue.”

  En route to his chambers, Augustina gives me a playful nudge. “That nice Mrs. Blake — is she getting you all fired up?”

  Walter Sprogue is a young fifty, a gentleman of both robust girth and temperament, with a vanity to match. But he is jolly and expansive. He peeks for a moment at Augustina’s ankles as we sink into overstuffed chairs in his chambers.

  “Jeans and sandals, Beauchamp? Ah, the retired life. You poor bugger, I hear they pulled you from your life of ease for this.”

  “Not at all, Wally. I jumped at the chance. Desperately wanted to see your first criminal trial.”

  “You wanted to see if I would gum it up. Very likely I will. The first thing they teach you is to stay out of the arena and above the fray. Very hard when you’re an old hand at the counsel table.”

  “Ah, yes, they’re sending the new judges to school, aren’t they?”

  “Six weeks of my summer. Sensitivity training is a big part of it. We had some intense sessions. Worked with two counsellors, very bright young ladies . . . ah, women. Not ashamed to admit I had my consciousness raised a bit. You don’t know what garbage is sitting around inside you when you start out. Rigid, traditionalist notions.”

  Wally has an oddly placid look about him, as of one recently brainwashed. But he has probably benefited from his gender-sensitivity training. Though married, he has a reputation as a rascal with women, and I recall him once being roundly slapped at a cocktail party.

  “Anyway, to matters at hand, let us have some time estimates.”

  “Roughly four or five days for the Crown’s case,” says Patricia Blueman. “Depending on how long Mr. Beauchamp takes with my witnesses. I don’t know anything about the defence case. I presume Mr. O’Donnell will be on the stand for some time.”

  I do not bite. “The case opens on Monday, August thirty-first. The Labour Day weekend follows. Two weeks seem about right.”

  “Well, I intend to move things along. You’ll find I don’t waste time. Issues of law, Patricia?”

  “A voir dire on an oral statement by the accused to an officer. And an issue of previous consistent behaviour.”

  “My learned friend will have a fight on her hands over that,” I say.

  Augustina says, “And we’d like to see the polygraph test results.”

  “Any objection?”

  “Yes,” says Patricia. “I don’t get to see anything from the
defence, of course, but that’s our wonderful system of justice.”

  “Well, let’s set aside a couple of days at the beginning so you can slug it out between you,” Wally says. “I don’t suppose there’s any chance we will not be going ahead?”

  “Not a whisper of a chance,” Patricia says.

  “Unless Miss Martin repents,” I say.

  Wally looks at me reproachfully. “Ms. Martin,” he says.

  As anxious as a teenager on a first date, I arrive at Chez Forget well before the appointed hour. Pierre whisks me to my usual table. “Even without the suit I still recognize you. So with you and Madame Beauchamp it is splitsville, eh? Yes, d’accord, I know about this. Madame was in here with her boyfriend, not much of a trade for you, maybe you have the better deal. Who is it, Monsieur Beauchamp, that you dine with today? A beautiful woman, eh?”

  I respond with a non-committal smile. Two perfect roses sit in a vase. Déjà vu: During my final sad sharing of that table with Annabelle, she fiddled with roses while our marriage burned.

  I am on edge as I wait for Margaret, sipping a wineless spritzer. A fear bedevils me that escorting her to the matinée of Switch might turn out to be a social error of tragic magnitude. Does one woo a proper lady by exposing her to bawdiness on a stage? But Margaret was keen to see the complainant in person: She is hooked on the trial.

  I ask Pierre to bring the phone, and I call Augustina, who was to have tracked down Jon O’Donnell.

  “Yes, Arthur, I reached him by phone. He says he has something important on this afternoon, so he can’t meet me right away.”

  “What about the screams the housekeeper heard?”

  “He says she must be imagining them.”

  “What did he say about Dominique Lander?”

  “He didn’t want to talk on the phone. He sounded pretty stressed out.”

  “I can well appreciate that.” Jonathan’s reticence makes me very uneasy about this business with the S and M artist. “Call me after you’ve talked more fully with Jonathan. Tonight?”

  “Can’t — I’m off to the Slocan Valley to see this Dominique person.”

  “When you can.”

  I will leave this issue with my competent junior; I seem unable to focus upon it. Where is Margaret? What if she is wandering lost in the bowels of one of those underground downtown malls? Confused by the city, has she blundered into the seamier side of town? Or perhaps she has hired a taxi driver newly arrived from Uttar Pradesh and they are lost in the suburbs.

  But lo, here she arrives, bearing many shopping bags. Pierre winks at me, then darts to her side, taking her bags, from one of which she retrieves a package.

  I rise, and she leans and kisses me on the cheek. Uncle Arthur.

  “I am Pierre Forget, your charming host. And you are the beautiful young lady Monsieur Beauchamp cannot stop talking about.” He settles her into a chair. “Monsieur Beauchamp will have the lamb, and for the lady I recommend the salmon. It is exquisite. I will bring aperitifs.” He bustles off.

  Margaret opens her package and presents me with an illustrated T-shirt. “End the Rape,” it shouts. A giant chain-cut fir is toppling.

  “I had to buy it for you.”

  How lovely of her. “End the rape. I shall have to wear it in court.”

  “How did it go?”

  “I was extremely put out. They threw some last-minute witnesses at us. We can’t demand an adjournment or we’d risk losing a good judge.”

  “And are these new witnesses a big problem?”

  “I’m not quite sure. My assistant will be interviewing one this week.” I tell her of Dominique Lander’s reputed role as O’Donnell’s former partner, her expertise in “bondage and discipline,” as she prefers to call it.

  Margaret’s eyes grow wide. “Tell me everything over the lamb and salmon.”

  But I am again remembering the dream in which I was tied and gagged, and ravenous with desire. What might Dr. Freud make of it? Do I repress secret, sordid inclinations? Or is this trial too much with me? Pain is but an aspect of love.

  Margaret studies the menu with seeming alarm. “These prices. Well, you’re paying. I’m glad I’m old-fashioned about that.”

  “Would you like wine? You can always rely on the house Chardonnay.”

  “I’m not much of a drinker.” She looks about this small, fussily decorated bistro. “We could never afford restaurants like this. Chris and me.”

  Even from our sixth-row orchestra seats I have difficulty concentrating upon the action of Switch, a plotless, pointless endeavour in which a few young people run about the set stumbling into each other as they answer phones and door chimes while talking in a kind of ribald sexual code I cannot decipher. For no reason I can fathom, people keep coming to the door, a Jehovah’s Witness, a political canvasser, a Girl Guide with cookies.

  But the brickbats I toss come from a minority of one. Even Margaret is joining in the laughter.

  The Theatre Workshop is housed in one of those corrugated metal buildings on Granville Island — a style of architecture inspired perhaps by fish-processing plants — and the air-conditioning isn’t working. We are at oven temperature on a broiling August afternoon. My problems of concentration arise not just from the heat but because Margaret has placed the palm of her right hand on the back of my left one, a moist, warm touching that makes me giddy and hints she is not offended by my company. My arm is hotly frozen; I cannot, dare not move that hand.

  But can hers be more than a sisterly caring? Her husband was comfortably seated at our table at Chez Forget. She talked about him through the entrée and dessert. He wasn’t perfect, but he was the best man I’d ever known. Hell, he was the only one.

  How do I challenge a phantom to a duel over the heart of Margaret Blake?

  The performers on stage have been waiting not for Godot but for Kimberley Martin, who makes a late, loud entrance, all long legs and high boots, taking charge, impish, and imperious. She lacks the polish of experience, but despite being trapped within this crude vehicle is charmingly deft and owns an instinctive sense of timing.

  A backdrop rises, revealing a large hot tub on a platform. The actors begin languidly disrobing, and the curtain falls on the first act.

  “I can’t help laughing — it’s really off the wall,” Margaret says, and she removes her hand from mine.

  As we rise to make our way out, I catch sight, near the back of the theatre, of Jonathan O’Donnell, slouching in his seat, looking glum. If he sees me, he pretends not to notice. This was his important afternoon engagement? Upon being confronted with the spectre of Dominique Lander, he attends the theatre? I am put out. His presence here might be taken to imply a morbid interest in his accuser. I will have a word with him when occasion allows.

  Outside, we are encountered by the baleful scowls of picketers with their angrily scrawled reviews.

  Margaret shakes her head. “There are so many important causes.” I can’t get over the fact that Jonathan is here. What if Kimberley Martin notices him and informs Crown and jury? Will they conjure an image of a stalker and his victim? But thoughts of O’Donnell atomize into nothingness: Margaret takes my arm and urges me to stroll with her.

  “I can’t make head or tail of this play, Margaret. What theatrical purpose is served by all those characters coming to the door?”

  “I think we’re being asked to compare the moral corruption going on inside with the innocent world outside.”

  “Ah, yes, I see.” Obviously there are levels of subtlety here that are beyond the simple workings of my mind.

  Margaret studies one of the protesters, a stout woman in checked slacks whose face is aflame with makeup. “Do I look as silly as that when I’m off on one of my campaigns?”

  Hardly. In fact, she looks incredibly beautiful at this moment. The sun is in her hair. Her lines have softened; there is something erotic about her stance, her hand on her hip, one leg thrust sideways.

  “Your Kimberley is pretty sexy.�
��

  “She gets quite well into her role.”

  “Chris was into amateur theatre, did you know that?”

  I light my pipe.

  The last act is even more banal than the first, relieved only by the sight of Kimberley Martin in the full flower of her twenty-three years jumping naked from the hot tub, grabbing a towel, and running to answer yet another chiming of the door. This time it’s the nosy neighbour.

  Near the end, some suggestive moments occur in the hot tub that cause a matronly lady in the seat next to us to wriggle with what I assume is discomfort.

  Our charter whisks us quickly back to Garibaldi, and I have Margaret at her doorstep at six p.m., as the shadows of evening are growing long. From behind her house come the squawk and baying of hungry animals. “I have to feed them. Would you like to come in and wait? We could have a coffee . . . or are you exhausted?”

  I would like to come in and wait. But she is hinting I ought not to. She has many duties. She is giving Uncle Arthur an out. I must tell her I’m exhausted.

  “It’s been a full day.”

  “Oh. Well . . . I enjoyed myself a lot.”

  “As did I.”

  “Please come for dinner this weekend.”

  “I’d be most delighted.”

  I tell my feet that it is time to go. She smiles. I smile. She hugs me. We kiss clumsily, lips slightly misaligned, hers partly imbedded in my beard, but I taste the softness, the moistness of them, and suddenly I am overcome by unreasoning fear.

  I run from her like a frantic cat.

  In the morning, George Rimbold comes unannounced. He has observed I am pale, gaunt, distracted. It is time to go fishing. It is time to talk: There is a soul to be saved.

  After we anchor out, I tell him the story of my swollen, captive heart. I tell him I am suffering a severe case of amor proximi: love of one’s neighbour.

  He smokes a joint. He keeps a straight face until I finish my soggy confessions.

  “Please help me understand. You escorted the divine St. Margaret to a play so raunchy the authorities talk of closing it down. Clearly she was sexually stimulated by this play. Indeed, you poor man, she was dropping hints like they were going out of style. She invited you in to share her hearth and later — I have no doubt — her bed.”