“I saw him this morning,” Augustina says. “Coming out of court after a Charter argument. Looking pretty cocky until I told him about his little lapse.”
What retribution might be appropriate? I think of the punishment of Ixion, bound by writhing snakes to a revolving wheel of fire through all eternity.
“You’re comfortable about this afternoon?” I ask.
“Sure. I’m doing only three witnesses. And Wally’s in such bad straits I don’t have to worry about him bugging me. Do we need anything from the serologist?”
“No. He will merely say the sheets and clothing seized at Jonathan’s house bore no stains of semen or lipstick.” But the sheets also were freshly washed:Will the jurors smell something besides Rinso?
“Any advice on handling Sergeant Chekoff?” she asks.
“He’s liable to say anything to help us. But he’ll be piqued that Patricia, not he, obtained the housekeeper’s damning statement, so be careful. Bring out the fact Jonathan was cooperative and courteous, a man with nothing to hide. You’ve examined Rosa Sanchez before.”
Dr. Sanchez is a frequent visitor to our courts and can be depended upon to be blunt and fair, though doubtless the Crown will dwell tenderly on every minor bruise.
“The left shin, where the skin was broken, that’s the only injury of consequence.”
“How do we explain it, Arthur? How do we explain the bruises on her wrists and ankles? The ones on her breasts? They weren’t noticed by Mrs. McIntosh, so do you think Remy did it?”
“It may be the best we have to offer.” They fought — that has been established. But will the jury buy the theory these were not merely verbal fisticuffs? Why would she lie, why remain engaged to such a brute? “Is there any other option?”
“Self-inflicted? Just like her paint job? How’s this: When Kimberley realized Remy was determined to call the cops, she bruised herself against the bathtub to make her story look good.”
But is she so conniving? Though I pride myself on an intuitive talent for reading people (other than, of course, myself), I still have no firm handle on Kimberley Martin.
“I guess these are more like rope burns, though, aren’t they, Arthur? There has to be a better answer.” I sense she is disappointed in Jonathan, distrustful now, feeling victimized again by her own foolish heart.
She blows me a kiss as I board my plane. “Pass that on to Mrs. Blake for me.”
The little aircraft chugs into the harbour and throttles into the wind, lugging this sad sack back to Beauchamp Bay on Potter’s Road.
From the air, my island looks sombre under a drizzling, mournful sky; fields and forests of bereavement. We spin above my plot of land: there, that is my home, that is my garden, that is Stoney waving from a garage still unroofed. That is my life, one that I solemnly swore not to forsake. The gods are punishing me for breaking my oath, for my arrogance in having taken on this dismal trial.
And there — that is Margaret Blake standing on my dock. A simple black dress, a sad smile: She looks beautiful beyond imagining.
As I step onto my dock she comes to my arms, holding me tight. But she looks at me without offering her lips. “You okay?”
“I blame myself. I ignored the warnings. I should have been here for him.”
“Don’t do that to yourself, Arthur. What could have driven him to this?”
“He died from a loss of faith.” There’s no afterlife, only darkness, sweet, empty darkness.
I tell the pilot to wait, and we proceed towards the house.
“The death of a friend certainly puts a bad day in court into perspective.”
“I heard something on the radio. The naughty-girl bit.”
The merest hint of fall is upon Garibaldi, swatches of yellow on the big-leaf maples, colourful mushrooms poking through the earth, purple and yellow and orange. The garden is weedy and needs a sound harvesting. A lazy pock-pock of hammers, as Stoney and Dog fix shakes to the garage roof.
“Don’t be too impressed. They didn’t get going until they saw the plane come in.”
I frown. “Not much progress.”
“Too much dope.”
Their belongings are scattered about. They have moved into my garage like squatters. Where’s my old pickup? I remember: I’d left it in the care of Nelson Forbish.
Stoney clambers down. “What do you think of it so far? An architectural classic. Hey, man, you’re a sight for sore eyes. Listen, do you think me and Dog can get a little draw?”
“How is the Rolls?”
Stoney is evasive. “Oh, well, yeah, it’s coming. Had to send out to the factory for a new steering wheel.”
That might take a few years. “No sign of Constable Pound, I take it?”
“Naw. He knows I’m under your protection.”
After I grease his palm, Margaret takes me by the hand and leads me to her house. “I’ll make a sandwich.” She turns to appraise me. “You look like a stranger in that suit.”
After a handful of days she can barely remember what I look like. Why does she seem so cautious and formal with me? But surely that has to do with the pall that enshrouds us.
The Garibaldi graveyard is behind the community church in a vale bordered by the looping tresses of cedar trees. Several dozen locals have gathered here, many of whom barely knew the deceased. But death is an event of moment on a small island, and even Kurt Zoller is here, looking overly solemn in a shiny new life jacket. Near a station wagon that doubles as a hearse, a young woman is playing an Irish harp, another blowing softly on a flute.
Nelson Forbish waddles up to me, playing nervously with the rim of his porkpie hat. “About your truck, Mr. Beauchamp — I’m afraid it kinda broke down. I had to have it towed off the ferry.”
“It’s unimportant, Nelson.” A minor death.
He seems relieved. “Hey, I heard all about your trial on the news. What do you think your client’s gonna get?”
Without responding, I desert him for the graveside. My comrades from AA are all here: They have built a simple casket and reserved a spot for me as pallbearer. We lift George from the back of the station wagon and carry him to his recently deeded land, and we lay his ravaged soul to rest there.
Everyone is looking at me, waiting. To call upon Proverbs or Revelations would be discourteous to George. I choose Lucretius: “O miserable minds of men. O blind hearts. In what darkness of life, in what dangers you spend this little span of years.” And I cannot continue. I am weeping.
Afterwards, Emily Lemay invites us all down to The Brig for the wake, where those who are able toast George with rum and those who are not raise their sodas high. As Margaret drives us back to Potter’s Road, we are quiet, in our separate, sad worlds.
We stroll about her farm, joined by her dog, her cat, and a strutting goose. She leads me to a sturdy new gate in our fence. “I kind of fancied it up.”
And such a lovely gate it is, entwined with willow wands, a simple lockless latch, hinges oiled to swing easily open. It seems an invitation, a shortcut to her house and heart. . . .
She vaults onto the split-cedar fence and takes my hand. “All right, tell me about the trial.”
I relate the devastating evidence of Mrs. McIntosh. She nods in sympathy, then says, “Well, you have one thing going for you.”
“What’s that?”
“Kimberley didn’t remember anything about being slapped or any threats or pleading with him.”
“Or Satan or the wicked, wicked girl.” Of course. So preoccupied with my angst, I have missed the obvious. This apparent black hole in Kimberley’s memory had been action-filled, bustling. Either that, or Mrs. McIntosh was reliving one of her bodice-ripping novels.
“Getting slapped would sure wake me up. Even if I’d passed out.”
“How on God’s green earth did I let that slip by me? Why doesn’t Kimberley remember? I could kiss you.”
“Well . . .”
I stare at her numbly, feeling myself being slowly drawn into the d
eep silver cups of her eyes. I raise myself to her perch, and she bends to my lips and caresses my face with her fingertips. Her animals are staring at us, curious, expectant.
“I love you, Margaret.”
“I know. It feels a little scary, Arthur. I’m a little . . .”
“You don’t have to say anything.” No, I don’t want her to finish that thought; leave me some hope and dignity.
“I’m just a little afraid of fooling myself, I think. Or maybe of losing control. I have to . . . let it settle in.”
Love is not an impetuous matter for the widow of Christopher Blake. It is not given freely, but hoarded, conserved like her precious rain forests. I am content that she keeps an open mind, and I will continue assiduously to follow my mentor’s advice: She demands to be wooed and pursued. How cocky and confident was George Rimbold about my prospects. Too confident? Did the gay priest understand women so well?
But I must return to my plane before dark. At my wharf, she holds me tight, her breasts and hips pressing warm against me, and I feel prickles, a flutter in my loins, a want.
“Will I see you on Saturday?” she asks.
“I don’t know right now.”
“Try to come. Even for a little while.”
What do I read in those mercury eyes? Affection? Or the self-reproach of one who cannot return the clumsy love I lavish upon her? It feels a little scary . . . I am pushing too hard, an amateur at love.
Before evening falls, I have time-travelled to the brawny, busy city and am back in my lonely hotel suite, communing with my gar-goyles. The vicissitudes of the day have sapped my strength and spirit. I do not look forward to the morrow. But the practice of advocacy is a demanding mistress, and I must bow to her whip. I call Augustina to ask how she fared this afternoon.
“Pretty well. Didn’t step on any land mines. Wally could barely stay awake — he looked ghastlier as the day wore on — so we adjourned Dr. Sanchez until tomorrow morning. Sergeant Chekoff was fine. We have a nice little picture of Jonathan out there raking his leaves, looking puzzled by his visit.”
“And the jury?”
“I don’t know, Arthur. They want something from us. Only two people really know what went on in that bedroom. . . .”
“And since Kimberley doesn’t seem to remember, they are waiting for Jonathan to fill the void.”
“Something like that.”
But why doesn’t Kimberley remember?
Mrs. McIntosh’s apocalyptic revelations have panicked a jury I had been confident would acquit. Shall I be forced to put Jonathan on the stand after all? I would need the entire weekend to prepare him. Patricia will probably pick away at him for two days: She is an effective cross-examiner and he will be exposed to ferocious attack. Then we will doubtless hear Dominique Lander speak of Jonathan’s proclivity to paint bound bodies before coitus. Then come the counsel addresses, and finally the judge’s charge to the jury — we’ll be another week.
But Rimbold is with me again, gazing down at me from wherever his heaven may be, with his sad, cynical smile, his wisdom. Your dreams are what you fear; they are not what you are.
Couldn’t you at least have stuck around until the end of the trial, George? Until I got back, until I could talk reason to you before you refunded to your absent God His one most bounteous gift? Ah, George, thank you for the fishing gear. Thank you for the pot.
I roll a joint to his memory and smoke it, then in a tossing sleep descend to Hades, in a chariot drawn by Pluto’s coal-black steeds, and there I see George being taken by the current of the Lethe, the river of oblivion.
A buffet breakfast is offered daily in a salon down the hall from my room, and that is where I have arranged to meet Dr. Jane Dix. This encounter, which earlier I considered a waste of valuable time, now seems crucial: Ground has shifted; we are no longer on terra firma.
I find the young psychiatrist waiting for me in a secluded alcove of the salon, away from the chatter and clicking cups of a table of conventioneers.
She stands, shakes my hand briskly.
“I understand you lost a friend. I’m sorry. Tell me about him.”
She seems brusque, yet intelligent and kind. She nods in sympathy as I talk about my sardonic, wise guru, relate his history, recall our friendship. She gently prods me about Garibaldi, and I tell her briefly of my life there, but I am stiff with this lively-eyed therapist, afraid of revealing the warps in my psyche.
“You’re tired of playing lawyer?”
“This will be my last case.”
“You seem incredibly good at it.”
“Life has more to offer, Dr. Dix.”
“Jane, please. And what does life offer you?”
“Peace and poetry, and fresh potatoes.”
“Garibaldi isn’t just an escape from the courtroom? Some convenient harbour?”
This percipient woman is daring me to be open. “Indeed not. I have found life on Garibaldi amply fulfilling.”
I fetch a coffee service on a tray, with croissants and jam, and plates of fruit. “What do you have in?” I ask.
She studies me for a while, as I am poised with the cream jug. “White, no sugar. You seem very formal in your ways, Arthur. Gentlemanly.”
“Fussy and stuffy, I’m told.”
“I don’t see that for one second. Though I sense a private school in the background.”
“That’s too insightful of you.” I feel awkward about her blunt forays into my life. Is she planning to peel off my layers of protective skin in search of the repressed weakling inside? She obviously knows I’m an AA member. Jonathan has probably told her about my career as a cuckold, the recent fracturing of my marriage.
“Jonathan went to the usual snobby boarding schools, of course,” she says. “Did they use corporal punishment at yours?”
“Liberally applied to that fatty area Shakespeare calls the afternoon of the body.”
“Societally accepted S and M. Sometimes the scars stay there for life.”
In defence, I turn the mirror to her. “And what are the pertinent details of your life?”
“I’m a contrary radical feminist lesbian with a chip on my shoulder.”
This forces a smile from me. But time is fleeting. “What did you think of Mrs. McIntosh, Jane?”
“Unfulfilled fantasies of love starring the next-door neighbour. An initial refusal to believe her love object could do this. Disappointment and anger blossoming into a desire for revenge. So she decides to tell the whole story.”
“A truthful one?”
“I think so.”
I grimace.
“Cheer up,” she says, and she removes a file from her briefcase. “I’ve transcribed several of my sessions with Jonathan. He insists that you peruse them. Some interesting papers and articles here, too.” Her eyes undress me. “I take it you know something about bondage, Arthur.”
Dare I tell her about my recurring dreams? “It’s a form of theatre, I suppose.”
“Yes, much like your courtrooms. Those can be theatres of pain, too, from what I’ve observed. I want to talk about pain with you, Arthur.”
I nod glumly. She continues.
“Pain is everywhere: in life, in law, in art. The dying swan, the tortured face of the flamenco dancer, El Greco’s Christ on the cross. The bad guy getting shot off his horse, murder mysteries, cop shows — we entertain ourselves with pain. Violence and sex sell toothpaste. We love it. We can’t get enough of it. Forgive me: I’ve been doing a lot of thinking and reading in the last few days, and I’ve got a whole treatise.”
“Just carry on,” I say. It is obvious now where this is leading. All faith in Jonathan has flown: Clearly, Dominique Lander is telling more truth than I cared to believe.
Jane shuffles through some of her articles, finds a page. She talks between sips of coffee and little bites of cantaloupe.
“Havelock Ellis: Pain is an aspect of the love of life. We’re all haunted by it, all living things. We live constantly next to it
, waiting for it, fearing it, yet thrilled by it. The pain of love hurts as sharply as the pain of a wound to the body; tears of pain are indistinguishable from tears ofjoy.” She looks up from her papers. “This all leads to a theory, okay? There’s no solid answer, but there are reasons people get into B and D, bondage and discipline. Pain excites. It arouses just as sex does: increased pulse and blood pressure and muscular tension, hyperventilation. So it can be a kind of turn-on. An aphrodisiac. It may be aberrant, but we’re not dealing with psychopathy here or inordinate cruelty.”
She has much to say that is fascinating, but where do we go with it?
“Bondage is theatre, Arthur, but with a purpose. Hidden drives and desires are handled as play; demands of fantasy are met. Postponement and delay, begging, stalling, they’re all part of the game. The bondee maybe doesn’t truly enjoy the pain, but she or he is stimulated by the constraint, the sense of helplessness, the thrill of the unknown.”
“Where do these hidden drives and desires come from?”
“At a sort of basic sensory level, there’s an interesting biological explanation: Pain releases endorphins in the brain — and they’re addictive, like opiates. The long-distance runner breaks through the pain, gets a little hit of endorphin.” She reflects. “Probably why Jonathan took up running. Let me give you a sociological perspective.”
She finds another paper, glances for a moment at it, looks up. “S and M patterns are imbedded in our culture — socially, we value aggression, the dynamic of dominance and submission. Our gender relationships are set up in that framework — the male is traditionally dominant, the female reluctant and submissive.”
“Ah, but the times, I have learned, are changing.”
“Not that much. Okay, I also read one interesting theory about masochism serving as a guilt-relieving system: The punishment gives expiation for the sin of sexuality. The masochist knows that if anything sexually forbidden happens, it’s not her or his fault. Sometimes it never develops into scripted play: the prototypical case of the masochistic man and the cold, calculating woman — he satisfies his unconscious wish to be mistreated. It’s not that uncommon — the desire for domination by an authoritarian partner.”
Trial of Passion Page 35