Trial of Passion (23 page)

Thank you. You look much better yourself these days. Jonathan . . . look, let me say something at the outset: I was upset last time you were here. I wasn't in very good form. I'd like to blame it on
PMS
or something facile like that, but I was just bloody taken aback when you admitted you had lied to me. I have to get that out of the way.

I deserved it.

Okay. So I want to ask you: Are there any other secrets?

Um, no, Jane, there aren't.

Jonathan, how many relationships
have
you had? With women?

Do you have affairs with men?

Of course not. We're not counting women I've merely dated.

We are not counting one-night stands.

I'm not very good at keeping relationships going, Jane, can't seem to find the right woman.

Well, that puts the blame squarely where it lies, doesn't it? It's their fault.

I've never lived with anyone. I'm not very good at love affairs. My longest relationship? About seven months.

Who was that?

Part-time lecturer in the fine arts department. That was a couple of years ago. A sort of bohemian painter. Exotic woman. I think I like exotic women. Actually, there's something of that quality about you. That's not a come-on.

Really?

Yes.

It was just a compliment?

I suppose you think I'm a bit of a womanizer.

I'm more interested in
your
self-analysis, Jonathan.

Is there something horribly dysfunctional about being attracted to women? I'm single. Married rules don't apply.

Sure. But you're not a very successful womanizer, are you? You're attractive enough. You're bright, you're engaging when you want to be, you have this world-weary sense of anomie that appeals to many women. But it only adds up to a bunch of occasional dates and seven months with a bohemian artist. Isn't that about it?

I guess a phobia about marriage runs in the family. My brother never married. And you know about my father. He's on his fifth try.

The sins of your father are not hereditary.

Maybe I'm afraid I'll be like him, promiscuous in marriage, chasing after younger and younger women, thinking I'm thirty when I'm seventy. Or taking a fling at marriage, and failing miserably and hurting a good woman — someone like Mom. The old warhorse never found a woman he ever loved. And neither, I'm afraid, will I.

You don't think you're capable of love?

What's the diagnosis? I'm emotionally castrated, aren't I? Obviously unable to relate to women on any committed basis. I consider them mere objects and playthings, don't I?

Stop making up false images of yourself. I'm not saying that. I think you're perfectly capable of love. I think you also may be afraid of it. I'd like to know why.

Fucked-up childhood.

That's often such an easy excuse, Jonathan.

We had such a strict moral code, except when it applied to my father. I suppose the seminal event in our loving relationship was when I walked into the bedroom and caught him and Mother in the act.

How old were you?

Six. He spanked me raw. I was seven when I was graduated to the whip. Sign of manhood. If it was good enough for Viscount Caraway, it was good enough for his sons. He got whipped as his forefathers got whipped. I can hear him carrying on: “Trouble with Charles and Diana and that lot, no one's ever applied a nice bit of leather to them.”

Did he abuse your mother?

He never raised a finger. It was his whoring around that tore up the marriage.

Yet you sound ambivalent towards your father. I used to be angry at him. Because of his strictness?

No. For ignoring me. Christmas cards and the odd letter, that was all. For almost twenty years. But there was a kind of rapprochement — after Mother died. He tracked me down when I was in London, asked me up to his club. Turns out he's been following my career, had
both my books. I remember, we were laughing about the most recent cabinet sex scandal. Little did we both realize . . . He couldn't figure out why I turned out so well while brother Bob became a lazy playboy. Bob's one of those hilarious Brit snots. You have to like him.

Have you heard from your father since this business with Kimberley?

No. I hate to imagine what he thinks. They'll be talking at the club. “I say, old boy, sounds like something out of the sodding House of Commons.”

Do you think your father ever loved you?

I don't know.

Did he ever say so?

Of course not. Wasn't done, you know.

How do you feel about that?

I don't have any feelings about it.

Bullshit.

On this last Monday of July, the day when justice pays its bimonthly visit to Garibaldi Island, the weather continues uncommonly hot. The grassy spaces outside the community hall — our jury-rigged courthouse — have been toasted sere by unrelenting Apollo, who rides naked and high in the heavens. Though I arrive late, I see no sign of plaintiff Margaret Blake.

What must she think of me now? That ugly episode with Emily Lemay is all about the island, magnified, twisted into many farcically obscene versions. I disgust Mrs. Blake. I am the lecher who lives down the road. My hopes for comity with the woman — and I expect nothing more — have been dashed.

Inside the hall, profusely sweating, fuelling himself with sugared doughnuts, Not Now Nelson Forbish of the
Echo
sits at a small table.
About twenty folding chairs — several of them occupied — are set haphazardly about. Near the front is that miscreant Bob Stonewell, alias Stoney, toppler of trees and garages. I'd forgotten: He faces trial today as an accused cannabis gardener. His case has just begun, and on the witness stand is his arresting officer, Constable Horace Pound, the lawman who controls crime on Garibaldi every second Tuesday of the month. He is a serious young man with a permanent frown.

The circuit judge for these islands is his honour Timothy Wilkie, judge of the provincial court, a former small-town Lions Clubber whom I recall as lazy and slow of thought. He recognizes me and nods, but almost surreptitiously, as if embarrassed to see me as a common defendant in his court. He is in his shirt sleeves — the metal roof of the building radiates heat like a convection oven. But Constable Pound is bravely uniformed.

“Upon arriving at the premises, which I have visited on several previous occasions, I observed numerous scrap vehicles as well as a workshed and a partly built house with only one room closed in. I ascertained that no one was present in the woodshed, though I noted the presence within it of a hoe and some garden tools, and fertilizer. I then proceeded to the house.”

Why do so many officers tend to talk in this stilted foreign tongue? What fussy master of the particular and the correct trains them in their speech? I can picture the
ROMP
instructor who is charged with the teaching of strangled English: stern, incorruptible, and humourless.

“Did you have a search warrant?” the prosecutor asks. She seems too young to have had much experience.

“I was in possession of same based on information received. On proceeding to the front door, I knocked, and upon obtaining no response, I walked around to the side of the house, where I observed a garden hose attached to an outdoor faucet on the wall. I followed this hose to where water was running through it into a shallow ditch in which twenty-three items were growing which I recognized as being marijuana.”

Stoney's plaintive voice: “How does he know, your honour? They coulda been tomato plants — is he an expert?”

“I tender as exhibits twenty-three certificates of analysis from the botanical laboratory,” says the prosecutor.

From my chair at the side of the hall, I can see Stoney in profile. He has a hangdog look. He is confused by the courtroom, lost in a sea of forensic mystery. Now he turns to look at me, reproachfully: I have refused to help him in his time of need.

I am retired, why cannot anyone understand this? True, I have been manipulated into making one exception: but Jonathan O'Donnell didn't fall an alder tree on my Rolls-Royce. I shall remain unbending.

The gallery of half a dozen locals becomes restless during the interminable marking of exhibits. Turning, I see Margaret Blake take a seat at the back. How smartly dressed is this feisty woman: her best city clothes and — can it be? Are those slender firm legs wrapped in hose? How elegant she looks, willowy, and svelte. To my surprise she smiles at me. I am too flustered to smile back, and turn away to hide my blushing face.

She is laughing at me. She is evoking visions of Emily Lemay's body entangled with mine in sweaty embrace.

“Okay, constable, continue,” says the prosecutor.

“I subsequently encountered Mr. Stonewell hiding beneath one of the vehicles — “

“I was installing a rebuilt transmission,” Stoney says.

“Mr. Stonewell,” says Judge Wilkie, “you will give evidence later.”

“I didn't observe him to have any oil or grease on his clothes. I subsequently in his presence proceeded to seize the evidence, and as I was pulling out the plants, he said, if I can quote from my notes, ‘That was going to get me through the winter, man.' “

“No more questions,” says the prosecutor.

“Mr. Stonewell, now you can ask the officer anything you want.” Judge Wilkie seems distracted, unaware that prosecutorial blunders have been committed here.

“Naw, I don't have any questions.”

“Well, do you want to give evidence?”

“Not much point. I'm dead.”

“Do you have any submissions?”

“Well, except only half those plants was female; the others I woulda just turfed out.”

“Okay, well, unfortunately for you . . .”

Can it be Wilkie is about to convict? On this paltry evidence? I find myself propelled to my feet as if by an external force. “If I may be so bold, your honour . . .”

“Yes, Mr. Beauchamp?”

“May I speak as
amicus curiae
?”

“
Amicus?
. . .”

“As a friend of the court.”

“Well, okay, go ahead.”

“I'll be short. There is absolutely no evidence connecting this accused to the plants that were seized. He was simply under a car. Not a scrap of testimony that he owned that car. Or that property. Or that he even lived there. And the statement made to the officer is clearly inadmissible as not having being proved voluntary.”

The judge calls upon the prosecutor for help.

“He was hiding under a car, that's evidence of a guilty mind.”

“I can't see how that's enough. Not enough for me, anyway. I think I have to dismiss this one.” He looks at me with an expression that says he does not forgive my disruption of the flow of justice in his court. “I would have done that anyway, but thank you.”

Somewhat red of face, Constable Pound gives me close inspection as he walks from the courtroom. He may be one of those many prideful members of the force who tend to take their losses as personal humiliations.

Stoney just sits in his chair wearing a big smile as the morning carries on: an agenda of the typical detritus of a country court — setting dates, adjournments, a couple of guilty pleas to driving offences.

“I'm really thirsty,” says Judge Wilkie. “Why isn't there any water in this place? I want to take a break, and I'd like someone to get me some water. We'll do the small claims cases after.”

I wander out with Stoney for a smoke. He is in a merry mood. “This year my grow ain't on the property. They'll never find it. For this, a whole new paint job on the Rolls and I'm gonna build you a garage that's like a palace. I wanna stay and watch you in action. Hey, man, if there's any way I can help you in this thing with Mrs. Blake's pig, you tell me, eh?”

Like all readers of the
Island Echo,
Stoney is familiar with the pertinent details of the case. The betting on the island is that I will win hands down. Though Margaret Blake is popular — despite her occasional bite — her wandering animals are not. Friends have parted with her on this issue. So the pressure is on me to win this test case, to make a stand against the Garibaldi Island obstacle course.

I puff my pipe and ponder my dilemma. By winning, I will do terminal damage to any hopes of closing the rift with Mrs. Blake. But no, I will not play dead for her. My current win streak stands at fourteen: it shall not be broken in Garibaldi Small Claims Court.

But I see I am facing no unworthy foe. Mrs. Blake is truckling to the judge, pouring him ice water from a Thermos. She can't be faulted — it is a clever act of generosity, but now I must work from a slight disadvantage. To boot, I am in poor mental condition. I still have
l'affaire Lemay
on my mind: It is not concentrated.

But that will change. When the case is called I shall become another person. I will doff the garb ofWalter Mitty and don the cape and tights of the man of steel.

Judge Wilkie wipes his lips and effusively expresses his thanks to Mrs. Blake, and we follow him back into the building.

“Blake versus Beauchamp,” the clerk announces.

I hear Margaret Blake coming forward, her heels tapping on the wooden floor. I cannot meet her eyes. I feel oafish, clumsy.

Mrs. Blake is forceful in her description of that fateful night when
the defendant came to her door to confess. She speaks caringly of Betsy, and attempts to justify her outrageous claim for a hundred dollars on every basis but the relevant one: current market value of a pig.

“Do you have any questions, Mr. Beauchamp?”

I rise, pulling on my braces then snapping them, a habit of mine when commencing cross-examination. “Mrs. Blake, I shall go right to the point. You have received dozens of complaints about your animals being loose and wandering onto the road.”

She speaks without a tremor. “I have free-range chickens, Mr. Beauchamp. I can't pen them up. I run a farm. I have animals on this farm. People have to be careful. Most people
know
they have to be careful.”