Trial of Passion (12 page)

Discovering that Betsy wreaked substantial vengeance upon me for her death — a large bruise on the right front fender of the Phantom
V
, a pig-shaped indentation of metal that presses against the tire — I
seek consultation with Stoney and Dog as they apply stain to my new veranda.

“I can straighten that fender, eh?” Stoney says. “Just enough so you can take it into a garage in town. But, what the hey, let me bang it back in shape. Save you a ton of money. It's my number-one specialty. Bodywork.”

I remember the last time minor repairs had to be done to my Rolls. The bill from that pertinent Cockney thief came perilously close to five figures. But I have lost some naïveté and no longer live under the fanciful apprehension that Stoney is the artisan-of-all-trades that he claims to be.

“Ah, yes, straighten the fender a little, Stoney. Don't do anything else. I shall get an estimate before I decide.” And perhaps countersue Mrs. Blake for the damages. Though I admit to a grudging respect for that woman — does she think she can take on Arthur Beauchamp in his own arena?

Stoney uses a pry bar to bend the fender away from the tire and we motor off to his shop. I give him permission to drive, but sit beside him like a stern chaperone. I have a great attachment to this vehicle.

As we arrive at his charnel house of dead cars, he gestures with pride at the various rusting hulks. “Look at all these beauties. Yeah, I'm thinking of installing a big outdoors screen and speakers in all the cars, eh, a kind of used-car drive-in theatre.”

I observe he does have a shop, however greasy and unkempt. Welding equipment, an engine up on pulleys.

“We'll just move her inside here after I make some space. This is yours to use for the time being, eh?”

He slaps the hood of an elderly Dodge pickup that sits beside his workshop.

“It's gotta new engine. Well, sorta reconditioned.”

The beast is painted purple where the rust doesn't show through. The passenger door is held closed by a rope. The windshield is decorated with a large spiderweb crack. It is a fine traditional vehicle of
Garibaldi Island. I will not be ashamed to drive it.

The engine starts with a throaty, mufferless growl, and I take to the road, riding high and proud upon the truck's springy seat, and I wind down the country roads to the general store.

“Postcard here from a lady friend of yours working at the opera in Seattle,” says Mr. Makepeace, the postmaster. A photograph of Mount Rainier. A scrawled sentence or two from Annabelle, telling me she is swamped by her work, but enjoying herself. “Warmly yours, Annabelle.” Warmly yours. How passionate, how wanton. Was it too difficult to telephone?

“And Margaret Blake dropped off this double-registered for you. Summons from Small Claims Court. Over that pig you hit.”

George Rimbold arrives at my house at five a.m. and is surprised to see I am ready — a Thermos of coffee at hand, armed with pole and line, ready to do battle with the cunning codfish. “That's the spirit, old son,” he says. “You've got to get them when they're hungry. Are you joining the club?”

“The club?”

“You look to be growing a beard.” Rimbold strokes his own beard, grey and stringy beneath his thin face.

I ponder this. “I'm not sure . . . well, yes, I think I am.” Do I not recall artistic Annabelle giving her blessings to this hair-raising project? I, Beauchamp, who have never spent two continuous days without shaving, now wear an itchy symbol of my new-found freedom. “I see you are healing, George.”

He is no longer encumbered with an arm sling, and his head bandages have been removed.

“To be sure, I have felt the touch of Jesus, and cast away my dressings.”

At the dock, he looks at his former boat with such melancholy that I am racked with guilt. But he insists that I pilot the craft and directs
me out to the middle of the bay. There are reefs below us here, he says, good fishing grounds.

The engine is stilled and we drift, and Rimbold teaches me the simple tasks of jigging for cod. The air is cool, but our bodies are warmed by cigarettes and coffee, and by the first rays of a sun approaching the solstice.

I am curious about the history of my companion, but too polite to broach the subject. A former priest: a plunging leap from grace?

After a while, Rimbold pulls a plastic bag from his pocket.

“Would you be liking a little puff of this?” he says, crumbling a small dried portion of green plant material into a cigarette paper.

“George, I am shocked beyond words.”

“Last summer's crop, lost some potency, I'm afraid. It's grown all over the island, Arthur. Biggest industry here, actually.”

I turn down his offer, but watch fascinated as he expands his lungs with smoke and holds it in for at least half a minute, then coughs a little.

“Garibaldi Gold, they call this. Hard on the lungs, but easy on the soul. Or what remains of my soul. Still, I've read nothing in the scriptures about pot.” He becomes garrulous. “Not on the list. 'Thou shalt not covet thy neighbour's wife, nor his manservant, nor his maidservant, nor his ox, nor his ass.' I coveted my neighbour's ass — that was my sin.”

He does not elaborate. One must assume he refers to an episode with one of his female parishioners. He is thoughtful for a moment, rhythmically bobbing his fishing rod.

“What matter, I was losing my faith anyway. It is far easier not to believe. And I am one for the easy road. Ah, there's nothing better to be doing than to laze about with a little pot and a fishing line. It's what I do best now.”

Under the apparently benign influence of Garibaldi Gold, Rimbold seems unable to still his tongue, and rambles on about his former life, his current doubts, his many alcoholic lapses. Until he washed up on
Garibaldi's shores several years ago, he had served in an inner-city parish in Montreal. Born in Dublin, studied for the priesthood there.

The discursive Rimbold continues to bounce from topic to topic, but is finally silenced by a tug on his line. He pulls in a fair-sized rock cod. I am envious, and fear I shall prove to be luckless at this sport.

But it is a pleasant time. Mists caress the water. A pair of cormorants sweep by. The surface of the Gulf of Georgia is a shimmering pane of glass.

Now as we drift, Margaret Blake's farm comes into view, and I am inspired to describe to Rimbold my run-in with the pig and subsequently with her. He emits a deep rumble of laughter.

“Well, Margaret has no love for lawyers. Always taking the island despoilers to court, or the local government, then running into a brick wall of lawyers. She was sued for slander once, I believe, and had to take out a mortgage to pay the legal bills. And with her husband's death .. . They were childless. We should be charitable to her.”

“Did you know her husband?”

“A fine man. Used to be our trustee, before Zoller. Played a hell of a fiddle, entertained a lot at parties. They came out here in the 1960s, hippies hoping to live off the land. The Blakes were among the few who succeeded at it. But poor Margaret has to do the work of two to manage things — I suspect she's finding it quite a chore.”

George has portrayed a brave woman. I feel badly now. I will work something out with her to avoid embarrassing her in court.

A seal pokes its head above the water, then disappears. The competition. The mists swirl and rise and melt in the rising sun. A gull swoops down and analyses us, and is gone.

I am jolted from the reveries that these sweet moments induce by a tug on my line. A bite!

“Good on you,” says Rimbold. “Easy does it now.”

The creature surrenders after a brave struggle and soon I haul it aboard, a ling cod weighing at least five pounds. Well, perhaps I overstate. But exaggeration is a part of the fishing business, is it not?

Rimbold rolls up another marijuana cigarette and offers it, and in my elation I toss care to the wind, and take a tiny puff. But the marijuana — which I must say is vastly overrated — neither clouds senses nor encourages that talkative state of euphoria I have observed in Rimbold.

As we motor back to the dock I am seized with an unaccountable panic about the state of my Phantom
V.

When I arrive at Stoney's garage, I observe that parts of my beloved car are scattered to all corners of his work space. Even the seats are out. I stare at my car's remains as one might an old comrade lying in a casket. I indulge in a few quiet moments of meditation.

Finally, Stoney breaches the silence. “Found mice in it.”

I am not sure if I have heard him correctly. My mind seems fuzzy.

“Quite a few, actually. Coupla families.”

“Mice.”

“Well, now, Mr. Beauchamp, that old garage of yours — and you wanna maybe think of replacing it soon — is probably overrun with them and they must've got in the car and started nests.”

“But, Stoney, why is it in a thousand pieces?”

“Well, here's the thing, they got into the wiring. Why they didn't go for all the leather in here, I dunno, but they chewed up the wiring. You see, that's probably why one of your headlights wasn't working, and, uh, there was a nest behind the back seat, and you maybe been driving without tail lights, too.”

He continues with a long, baffling speech about electrical systems. I sense he is nervous, in fear of me.

“Can you put it together, Stoney? Do you know where everything goes?”

“No problem. It's all in a map in my head. And I'll redo the wiring, eh? It don't take a genius to rewire a car, whether you're
doin' a vw bug or some kinda luxomobile. I can do it, Mr. Beauchamp. You gotta believe in me. I know you think I'm full of talk, but one thing I do know is electrical systems.”

My mind forms a picture of myself describing this woeful scene to my mechanic in Vancouver. His look of confusion gives way to barely concealed mirth, and the sinister gleam of avarice shines from his eyes. But I must call him today, and be prepared to pay an arm and a leg.

How to explain to Stoney that I shall be sending my trade elsewhere? I commence with a lie. “Stoney, it's not that I don't have confidence in you . . .”

But suddenly I stay my tongue. Oddly, it is as if an angel of peace descends upon my weary shoulders, and I find myself relaxing. It is a mere possession, a material thing, a chattel.

“Let's see if you can get it on the road again.”

“And I'll do the bodywork on the fender.”

Incredibly, I find myself smiling. I clap Stoney on the back, offer him some reassuring words, then return to my 1969 Dodge pickup with the passenger door that won't shut.