April Fool (8 page)

Arthur plays with the concept of laying down the law to Margaret Blake as Santorini walks him out, an arm around his shoulder. “You old fox, it's great to see you back in a courtroom. I remember when you referred to me as the backside of a horse.” He guffaws. “Hell, I know you didn't mean that.”

“Of course not, Eddie.”

Arthur gets one last friendly poke in the ribs before he returns to the courtroom. Santorini is famously unpredictable, maybe he can be worked on.

He proposes lunch to Selwyn and Lotis – these two thin lawyers might enjoy a treat at Nouveau Chez Forget, where his old friend Pierre Forget serves his matelot de sole à la campagnarde occasionally spiced with a tantrum. His offer is accepted, and they will meet there at one o'clock.

As Arthur follows them from the courtroom, he marvels at how keen Selwyn's sense of direction is – a flick and a tap with his cane on a bench, then he walks assuredly up the aisle, and easily finds the door.

Arthur feels impelled to drop in on Nick Faloon's fitness hearing, but hopes it will have ended, that he won't have to witness the charade of an insanity defence.

The Provincial Courts are located on the ground floor, and there he comes upon a radio reporter working to deadline, reciting into his cellphone. “A contrary opinion was given by Dr. Endicott Sloan…” A forensic specialist who believes what he's paid to believe, and regurgitates it credibly in court. Is the defence so desperate that Brian Pomeroy must ally himself with a charlatan?

This time, Arthur makes no loud entrance, and waits at the back. Brian is standing, arms folded, a rangy man with that
wrecked, slightly dissolute look that many women seem to find attractive. Nick Faloon is in the dock, passive and depressed, showing his age, thick of waist, thin of hair.

Dr. Sloan is still in the witness stand, a nasal voice, a litany of learned phrases. “In most cases of dissociative identity disorder, the primary identity is passive, dependent, and depressed. I found Mr. Faloon to fit those qualifications.”

The judge, a young woman–Iris Takahashi, according to the list–breaks in: “Against that, I have the written opinion of your colleague, Dr. Dare.” He is here too, Timothy Dare, sitting at the front, arms crossed, staring icily at Sloan.

She reads aloud from Dare's report: “‘Mr. Faloon presented himself in a fraudulent manner, and I have no doubt he is capable of conducting his defence. The only illness he's suffering is a severe case of malingering.'” Takahashi looks down at Dr. Sloan. “You seem to be poles apart.”

“I can't speak for Dr. Dare, I can only give my best professional opinion.”

“Summarize it for me.”

“Simply, Mr. Faloon from time to time retreats to the safety of a world that may seem fantastical, but for him is credible and real. His disorder reflects a failure to integrate various aspects of his identity, memory, and consciousness. In short, Mr. Faloon takes on the personas of the various women who inhabit his body, and thus evidences the classical personality features of the dissociative personality. It is what we may call an escape mechanism.”

The judge asks, “Exactly what was he escaping from?”

“The threat by a member of the RCMP that he would be roadkill. You'll see that mentioned in my report.”

“But not mentioned in Dr. Dare's,” says Brian. “He spent fifteen minutes with my client and produced two paragraphs, as against the seven pages from Dr. Sloan.”

Would that justice could be so easily measured. Arthur has little doubt that the astute Dr. Timothy Dare is on the mark.
The young judge is clearly unfamiliar with Sloan's shabby reputation.

“More to the point,” Brian says, “Dr. Dare was totally unaware of the childhood trauma that spawned this disorder, the murder of his father.”

Dare heaves himself to his feet with a cynical smile and walks to the door. Before leaving he winks at Arthur, as if they are witnesses to a cheap burlesque.

“Unless anyone strenuously disagrees,” says Takahashi, “I would like to order a further thirty-day psychiatric remand at VI.”

The Vancouver Island Forensic Clinic, a way station for the criminally insane. Arthur wonders if his wily former client can maintain his pretence through a month of observation. Now Faloon notices him, his expression evolving to surprise, then brightness and, to Arthur's dismay, hope. He nods to Faloon, then flees like a coward as court is recessed.

As he hurries out to his truck, he tries to blot away Faloon's last crestfallen look. Arthur's major weakness as a lawyer was that he cared for his clients, even the most blameworthy. And Faloon was among his favourite villains. He feels conscience-stricken, helpless in retirement.

His drive to Pierre's is interrupted by a brief encounter with the law, a matter involving his muffler and a warning. The restaurant is in a converted Victorian-era country home–he hasn't been there since its opening two years ago. Pierre moved his business from Vancouver after an incident with a restaurant reviewer that culminated in the dumping of asparagus en sauce chanterelle on his head.

He finds Lotis smoking outside. Selwyn is in the lineup; the wait could be twenty minutes. But Pierre has spotted him through the window and comes outside. “Ah, it is Beauchamp. For two years you do not come to my restaurant. You are not deserved to be here, a traitor to my table.”

For a moment he fixes on Lotis, not quite ogling her, studying her, then urges them past the other waiting patrons. One
of them makes a complaining noise. Pierre says, “This is Beauchamp.” He approaches a couple lingering over coffee and dessert. “Please, will you be so kind as to finish your flan at the bar. Your bill is paid.” He calls to a waiter: “Henri, c'est Beauchamp.”

Pierre refuses Arthur's request to see a menu. “For your friends, I advise the tossed spinach salad, then the curried shrimp, it is exquisite. But for Beauchamp, who likes his meat,
l'entrôcote à la Bordelaise
.” Arthur feels his taste buds quivering and reminds himself steak isn't on the diet.

“I think something lighter.”

“Not to eat what I bring is an affront.”

Lotis Rudnicki, activist in the struggle for the classless society, expresses shock at the favouritism, the jumping of the line. Arthur explains that for many years he was diner-in-residence at the old Chez Forget. He'd also got Pierre out of some legal scrapes.

Over salad, Arthur makes bold to ask about Selwyn's blindness, and learns he was sighted until fourteen, when a virus attacked his optic nerves. A dedicated man who has only the memory of beauty seen–Arthur finds much sadness in that, but more wonder.

He compliments Selwyn for his showing in court: a victory, the logging and the overflights have been put on hold. But Selwyn is gloomy, frets that the judge is pro-logging, clearly against them.

“Selwyn, you're a grouch potato,” Lotis says. “You have to stop being so irrepressibly
bleak
.” He does seem a sad fellow. In counterpoint she's cocky, a schemer, the brains behind the impasse at Gwendolyn Gap. “We have a secret weapon, Justice Santorini's extreme need for Arthur's love. If he asks this judge to drop his pants, he'll drop his pants. That gives us stalling time.”

She causes Arthur discomfort with her bawdy analogies. According to Reverend Al, she has a history of leading student demonstrations. “International stuff as well, old boy.
Anti-globalization. I suspect she's an anarchist. Doubtless an atheist.” He spoke in awe, fascinated by rebels and disbelievers. Arthur has never met an anarchist, has never wanted to.

Lotis entertains with a chilling tale of the perils of hitching on Garibaldi. She was in a hurry to get to the Save Gwendolyn meeting on Wednesday. “I passed on the local serial killer, a two-ton gorilla in a one-ton truck. Gave a thumbs-down to three rapists in an Unsustainable Logging crew cab.” She performs, sticking out a thumb, making doltish faces. A comedic actor. One would consider her well tuned to the modern world, perceptive, were she not immersed in the dog-eared politics of the Left.

“I thought I'd be safer with the baby-faced suit in the burgundy Audi V8 guzzler. This massively unhip guy turns out to be Todd Clearihue. We'd never met, he didn't know me from Mother Jones. Thought he'd impress me with his mall and marina and condos. ‘His vision,' he called it–as if it's something creative as opposed to an extension of his cock. Reminded me of my last producer blowing on about the umpteenth sequel of
Scream
.”

“That is where I saw you,” says Pierre, hovering while a waiter serves the curried shrimp and entrôcote. “That scene, where you are naked, hiding from the slasher. Magnifique.”

“I'll wait for the video,” Selwyn says, dry, unsmiling. He rarely smiles.

“
The Return of the Slasher
. Starring Todd Clear-cut, disguised as good old country boy. He dug my peace symbols. ‘Cool,' he said.
Cool?
He's a liberal, he's hip to peace and civil rights.” She fakes a male voice: “‘Taking a little shakedown cruise Saturday on the boat, think you might enjoy that?' When I drew his attention to the ring on his hand, he said his wife was in the city. I said, ‘Drop me off, I think I'm going to be sick.'”

 

As the Fargo chugs off the Garibaldi ferry ramp, Arthur is talking to himself again, reciting Shelley as a salve to his irritation. The
ferry sailed three hours late, it's half past seven, too late to lay down the law to Margaret. Anyway, he won't run panting after her. She has Slappy, she doesn't need another old dog hanging around.

He still feels his stomach complaining about the unaccustomed rich food. He ought not to have had the coeur à la crème d'Angers.

Also plaguing him is a feeling of uselessness as Nick Faloon blunders his way to a life sentence for murder. But is Arthur harbouring an illusion as to Nick's innocence? Maybe Nick is capable of acts of vast evil, was guilty of the first assault, as well. Arthur can find little sustenance in that theory.

Stoney's flatbed is still immobile at the side of Potter's Road, but the tools and wheelbarrows have disappeared. Arthur's muffler is in its death throes by the time he nears Blunder Bay, and the roar startles a goat escaping up the road. The fence will have to be mended again. Tomatoes must be repotted in the greenhouse. Bills must be paid. He has to keep on top of things.

 

7

A
fter spending the morning with Paavo, helping him shore up the fence, Arthur visits the Woofer house to find Kim Lee at a wok, stirring chop suey.

“I.” She has trouble with that vowel, points to her chest. “Make. Out-take.” Takeout. She's prepared a lunch for Margaret and Cud, to be hoisted to their tree fortress. Arthur sniffs at the wok. “I. Take. Tree house.” He doesn't relish the idea of feeding Cuddles as well.

He must drop by the gas station on the way back, ask them to replace the muffler. He doesn't trust Stoney, who still hasn't got his own truck running. Arthur can see it on Potter's Road–its hood up, the self-proclaimed best mechanic on the island fiddling with the engine.

He strolls there to find Stoney splicing ignition wires.

“Where did you put the tools, Stoney?”

“What tools?” he says, barely looking up.

“The ones used to build the tree platform.”

“Oh, them. Hey, I heard you have a muffler problem. I think I can get you a spare in good shape.”

“The tools, Stoney. You don't want them traced to you.”

Stoney emerges, grease patches on his face. “Well, the good news is they're all safe and accounted for. Dog is guarding them. Now.”

The little adverb hints that Stoney has engineered another
calamity. Arthur isn't sure if he wants to hear the bad news yet, he isn't emotionally prepared.

“Hey, Arthur, I got a crisis here with the starter. Dog and me, we got to get them tools back to their rightful owners, so could we maybe borrow your truck for the day? I'll fix the muffler, charge you only for parts, bring it right back.”

Arthur will let him have the Fargo; he'll take Margaret's diesel. As they walk back, a goose follows Stoney, hissing.

“Arthur, this low area over here screams, Dig me, man, dig me ten feet down, fill me with water. You really got to think about that swimming pond. Put in a dock, one of them rubber boats, loll around reading your Greek classics and shit.”

“Stoney, you have something to tell me.”

“Well, to tell the truth, there was this lady hanging around, eh? With a fancy camera, I figured she was one of the news photographers.”

“And she followed you into the bush where the tools were hidden. And took pictures.”

“Right. Except for one detail. They weren't in the bush.”

That detail is resolved when Arthur spies Dog sleeping under a blanket behind the garage. A glance through the window reveals climbing harnesses, saws, hammers, wheelbarrows, generator, even scale plans for the tree platform.

Arthur has visions of writs flying.
Garlinc versus Arthur Ramsgate Beauchamp
, warehouseman for the conspiracy.
Plaintiff further alleges the defendant's vehicle was used to remove the incriminating items.
He thinks about explaining to Ed Santorini how he has been victimized by the Garibaldi gremlins.

A few brisk, pointed words persuade Stoney that the tools must be hauled away within the hour, under canvas. Arthur secures the plans. Built-in table, shelves, benches. A privacy partition for the chemical toilet. Where do they shower? “One foamy here,” says a scribble. No mention of another.

What nonsense to entertain such low suspicions. Margaret and Cud? How absurd, she's never had much time for the fellow, with his unbounded lack of class. (“Want to see the peace symbol on my ass?” She looks up, bored with Tolstoy. “Why not?”) An irrational anxiety is creating seamy imaginings, an ugly habit learned during a long career as cuckold.

Early this morning, midnight for her, Deborah called from Melbourne, shocked and delighted to have seen her father on the late news, a brief clip. “The kind of item they throw in for a chuckle to soften you up for the ads,” she said. “Nicky said you looked a little pompous.” His fourteen-year-old grandson.

Deborah viewed the protest as a lark, refused to give ear to his complaints. “Dad, you're perfectly capable of making your own sandwiches…You're miffed because she's on the podium and you're second fiddle…
Do
something, get active, there's more to life than growing radishes. You were a big-time lawyer when she met you. What have you done to impress her since?”

 

At the Gap Trail, the logging trucks are gone, press vans in their place. A sign reserves a roped-off area for Garlinc employees, a table with its glossy brochures, “In Harmony with Nature.” Todd Clearihue's Audi is there. Another two dozen vehicles are strung down the road. Among the stumps, a banner, “Operation Eagle.” Tents have been erected. A Greenpeace information table. A Rainforest Alliance booth.

Corporal Al is on foot patrol and pulls Beauchamp over. “Let me take this rig off your hands, Arthur, or you'll have an uphill hike. Everyone's assembling to go to the heights to look for eagles, that's why all the cars.” He leans into the cab. “Sure smells good.” Essences of soya and garlic waft from the cartons.

“War rations.”

“Actually a lot of folks are taking turns sending up hot meals.” He takes Arthur's place in the Toyota. “Don't see you much at Tai Chi these days.”

“I've been remiss.”

A six-minute hike brings him to the Gap. Clearihue is conferring with a woman, an investigator perhaps, making notes for court, taking pictures.

The regulars of the Save Gwendolyn Society are assembling with cameras and binoculars. They want to hear about the court procoeedings. They want Arthur to be honorary patron for the fundraising drive. They talk about auctions and bake sales, garage sales. Garlinc paid $8 million for this property. The last bake sale brought in $258.

But support for the protest is growing. Selwyn gave a strong interview on national television. Donations have started to flow to the Save Gwendolyn Society.

Hammocks have been strung up on the tree platform–Margaret is gently swinging in one, reading. Cud is leaning over the railing, lowering a rope to Felicity Jones. She puts a few pages in a basket. Love verses?
I am a flower waiting to be plucked
…

Slappy tries to jump into the basket, and Felicity has to wrestle him out. Cud waits until the chop suey is added to the cargo, then pulls it up. Arthur fights off a surge of resentment that Margaret is sharing a high-rise apartment with this versifying quack.
An original voice from the bush. Bawdy and muscular.
The reviewers of
Liquor Balls
were cautious, as if in fear such a ruffianly poet might harm them if they panned the book.

One foamy here.
He feels reverberations, echoes of fears instilled through long conditioning. Annabelle, his socially energetic ex-wife, banished him to hell, to cuckoldom, alcoholism, impotence, he was writhing with jealousy. He came to Garibaldi six years ago less to retire from law than to escape the pain, the shame, the sniggers. He does not intend to go through that again.

“Arthur, you made
lunch
?” Margaret has risen and joined Cud. Comrades. Shoulder to shoulder.

“You must thank Kim Lee.”

She seems disappointed in him. “Any eggs?”

“Yes, ten this morning. The hens are beginning to lay again. No nanny goats have dropped their burdens.” Reporters have sidled up, recording these homely shouted moments for their mass audiences.

“Arthur, after I finish
War and Peace
, I think I'll need something lighter.”

“I shall bring you some mysteries, you have earned the right to forbidden tastes.” She devours such books. He'll keep her busy reading.

“I forgot to tell you, get Barney out of the lower pasture before he explodes. You need a gas mask for his farts.”

Here comes Reverend Al, intent on breaking up this talkfest.

“My dear, I have been instructed to have a deep, personal conversation with you, but I'm not quite sure how that could come about.”

“How about a conjugal visit?”

“If only I had the wings of Icarus.” A camera is in his face, capturing his foolish smile.

“No hassle, man,” Cud says, “I'll send down the elevator.”

“Do it,” says Felicity. “It's awesome up there.”

Arthur has a crick in his neck from looking up. Icarus flew too close to the sun, fell to his death. He reminds himself that Stoney and Dog were among the building crew. He is leery of the rope ladder, though Felicity managed it well enough. But he can see himself tanglefooted in the rungs, hanging upside down.

He glances at Doc Dooley, who is about to set out with the eagle-spotting party. Dooley shakes a warning finger. Avoid stress.

“Margaret, the judge will forgive all sins if you evacuate the tree.”

“Fat chance,” she says. Slappy punctuates this with an emphatic bark.

Margaret seems far too pleased with her situation, her central role in this protest. Life with Arthur has paled, she has found a richer passion. A stout tree she can hug all day. How might Arthur urge her to give another volunteer a turn? He can't just shout it–that would only stiffen her resolve.

“Write her a letter.” Reverend Al, a mind reader. Then he joins the eagle seekers as they take up packsacks and cameras.

Arthur tags along too, but is bearded by Todd Clearihue. “Hey, Arthur, can we pause for a friendly confab?” From his pocket, he produces several photographs–interiors of Arthur's garage, the tools, a close-up of the plans. “I'll be candid, Arthur, these were taken yesterday.”

“By your trespassing private investigator. Todd, I suspect we may
not
be friends when this is over. Especially if I'm forced to sue for defamation should I hear the merest hint that I was in league with the parties who hid them there.”

“Okay, let's put that aside. I can't believe you would do anything improper like that.”

The intimation of blackmail has Arthur fighting an impulse to stalk off, but that would put past to any hope of negotiation. “Todd, you cannot deny that Gwendolyn Bay is a natural park. Nor that there is a hue and cry among the public. What an admirable gesture it would be to donate these lands–a brilliant coup of public relations.”

Arthur expects no more than to soften up Garlinc for fair compensation–they will not throw away the $8 million paid for the land, will want other outlays covered. Clearihue carries on about anticipated profits, investment could be trebled, he has shareholders to answer to: a cynical mantra, the majority stock is held by his family.

“Suggest a figure,” Arthur says.

“Sixteen million on quick turnover. The property is worth that alone in timber and recreational potential.”

“That's double what you paid.”

“Everyone knows the owners undervalued it.”

“Outrageous.” Ten thousand bake sales later…

“Arthur, let me be sincere with you–I'm just one shareholder. The other guys don't give a shit about Gwendolyn.” A lowered voice. “I don't want this to get back to them. I'm with you on this deal. I live here, this is my now-and-forever home, I want to see parkland. For me, my kids.” An intense look, he hungers to be believed.

“Fine, then give me your bottom figure.”

“Fourteen and a half.” Barely a whisper. “But it has to be quick, because if Justice Santorini switches on the green light, we're driving into Gwendolyn. I don't want to, but I don't have an option.”

 

Winded, Arthur lies on the moss, watching the troops disperse as they seek vantages to photograph a nest obscured by foliage. The structure is a massive thicket of sticks; the search crew can find no high point that might reveal if a female is nesting there.

One solitary eagle is on the wing, floating on the thermals. Below Arthur lie Gwendolyn Valley and the cup-shaped bay. As the eagle floats off behind a ridge, a pair of vultures come into view, as if with glum augury: the expedition is futile and must fail. The few members of the press who joined the trek are already heading down the trail; there is no story here.

They miss stout Flora Henderson tripping over her dog and ending up with her bottom wedged in a rift between rocks. Baldy Johansson cracks his shin trying to pull her out. Arthur is glad to see Baldy here–he was one of the naysayers hanging around the General Store.

Far down the beach, a determined otter forages among the driftwood. There are cliff swallows here, returning migrants, swooping like darts–where will they go when the walls of the Gap come down? And what is this? A little clump of ghost-white leaves and flowers. It may be the Phantom Orchid that
lives off fungi, threatened in its northern range. He pictures the forest stripped to nakedness.

Arthur has always run from causes, distrustful of zealots with their hard opinions, but he's been feeling his despair turn to anger, the fuel that drives one to…social action, Lotis Rudnicki calls it. She taunted him again in the restaurant. Get on message, get on board, get involved. She remains stubbornly unwilling to tremble in his presence, enjoys defying the old crustacean and his calcified values.