Trial of Passion (41 page)

“How's the trial coming?”

I talk until I am almost hoarse, reciting the entire encyclopedia of the last two days, my gaffes, my triumphs, my hopes and fears.

At the end of this, I ask her if she could find the time to visit Rimbold. “He needs cheering up.”

“You're an awfully kind man, Arthur. For a lawyer.”

“I think of you a great deal, Margaret. I'm afraid I've been drifting off in court a bit.”

“I think of you a lot, too. I do.”

I nestle the phone onto its hook and crawl under the covers with a silly smile on my face….

I am strolling with Margaret across the fairgrounds: She applauds at the sight of a blue-ribboned entry in the organic category. I have won for best zucchini.

The Commander is seated at the counsel table doodling two tiny words on a pad of paper: “I do, I do.”
I think of you a lot, too. I
do.

But my mind must wander no longer down Potter's Road. The star performer has retaken the witness box and all other main players are present,
sans
Remy, who has apparently rushed off to his Guyana gold fields. As we commence, the activist judge beams down at her, a full moon lighting her way so she doesn't trip over any roots.

Recommencing her evidence, Kimberley is pensive, brief with her answers. But intermittently a different personality seems to take over, and she brightens, and when she does so, rambles incautiously, as is her wont. She is resolute enough considering that her fiancé has abandoned her in a time of need for business others could do.

The jury, too, must be seeing stress fractures in their relationship. They are quiet, attentive, and, I sense, neutral; they are waiting to hear the other side, the unflinching denials by O'Donnell of her atrocious slanders. Hearing no rebuttal, will they conclude Jonathan's silence means assent? Will Wally Sprogue then throw the book in vigorous affirmation of his belief in class and gender equity?
As her professor, you were in a position of unique trust. I sentence you to fourteen years.

Patricia escorts Kimberley from the dance to the West End party to the scene of the crime. The witness goes there without prodding, running unleashed like a frisky dog as she describes the bantering over cognac and Benedictine, then the parlour-game production of
Saint Joan.
I am reminded of that smudge of lipstick in the rumpled paperback. Perhaps, for some obscure reason, she put the page to her face.

“And that went on for about twenty minutes, and then we took a break. Professor O'Donnell was going through his CD's, looking for some suitable music, baroque or medieval, or whatever, and I think Charles had to go to the bathroom, and . . . well, I followed Egan and Paula downstairs to a kind of billiards room.”

“And what happened there?” Patricia asks. She has clearly decided to bite the bullet, to blunt my own fire during cross-examination.

“We had some cocaine.”

I interrupt; I want the jury's full attention. “Since this junket to the rumpus room was omitted from her evidence at the preliminary, we will want to take careful notes.”

“Take your time, Ms. Martin,” Wally says.

“Who produced this cocaine?” Patricia asks.

“Egan Chornicky. He had a little envelope of it.”

“How much did you consume?”

“A line. I'm sure that's all. I guess I had just a little too much to drink, because normally, unless …” Her voice falters. “I'm not a user. I mean, I've done it a few times. It's around a fair bit, you know, among some people in the theatre crowd.”

There is an earnest pathos to this apology, and it rings true. I do not remotely see Kimberley as a drug-dependent personality — and I am all too familiar with the type.

“It's not something you do,” Wally repeats for the jury's benefit, anxious to rehabilitate her.

“No. I normally don't like drugs.”

Wally nods sagely. He is anxious to shelve this awkward incident; the innocent are prone to error. He asks Kimberley if she might enjoy a little break.

“Yes, thank you.”

After judge and jury leave, Jonathan draws me aside and introduces me to Dr. Jane Dix, who has been sitting behind him in the gallery. She is in her mid-thirties: petite and perky, deep-set blue eyes, extremely close-cropped, straw-coloured hair.

“I cancelled my patients today,” she says. “I thought this might be more gripping.”

“She's here to analyse the judge's masturbation fantasies,” Jonathan says.

“Poor Jonathan,” she says. “I think you're jealous.” She gives him a friendly poke, then turns to me. “We'll have a chance to talk?”

“Certainly.”

As court reassembles, Kimberley's handlers huddle with her at the prosecution table; they want the complainant to strut her stuff, to come out swinging. She takes a deep breath as court is called to order, then mounts the stand and sits with chin uplifted. She looks resolute now, much fortified by Wally's kindly ministering.

We now follow her from rumpus room to second-floor bedroom to ensuite washroom: “to answer nature's call” is her euphemism. While upstairs, she struck upon the “not-so-brilliant idea” of dressing in male clothing for the next scene of
Saint
Joan. Wally edges closer to the witness, hunching forward as she describes looking through Jonathan's clothes, stripping to her underwear, changing into his suit.

Her reasoning for playing this game of dress-up seems lost on some of the jurors. Kimberley's cheeks glow slightly, an innocent blush, as she recounts her impertinent impersonation of Jonathan.

The play proceeds. The fire awaits in the marketplace outside the castle of Rouen, wherein stands the heretic saint, chained at her inquisition — a trial within this trial. Just before she recants her confession, she falls asleep. Why then? Why does this boisterous actress suddenly spark out at the play's dramatic apogee? The jury must surely suspect, as I believe, there is an element of stagecraft here.

Jeanne d'Arc awakes to find on fire not herself but her law professor, in full bloom of lust, seeking to lance his trussed love slave from behind, successfully locating the generally preferred aperture, then trying in vain a less elegant route. Kimberley's account of her rude awakening is brisk if not eager, and we are subjected to no histrionics about how utterly degraded she feels to speak of such matters. This story of erotic abuse is so blunt in its telling that it jerks no tears, though Wally is frowning and has stopped taking notes. Here is the accused
in flagrante delicto.
Here is a woman cruelly abused by an agent of the patriarchy.

But do I pick up a faint aroma of skepticism wafting from some members of my jury? There is shuffling, a cough or two. Miss Jackson-Blyth is looking down at her hands and seems unhappy —
the complainant has let the side down.

O'Donnell visits the washroom, and as he fills the tub Kimberley frees herself and flees. Her testimony becomes more spirited now; the major obstacle on her course has been cleared and she is racing for the finish line. A brief stop at the neighbour's house, then her lover arrives and whisks her away.

She showered, she bathed, and — heard here for the first time — she douched. She is not defensive about any of this. “All I could think of was winning back my body from him; it felt stained — it
was
stained. The lipstick looked like blood. And I just had to clean his smell from me. “This last note is harsh, unexpected. She is returning Jonathan's stare now, bellicose. “I mean, I really felt I had something sickening done to me. By a man I'd respected.”

I should rise to complain about these
ex gratia
calumnies, but content myself with a loud grunt of displeasure.

“Is that an objection, Mr. Beauchamp?” Wally asks.

“Merely a petty critique, m'lord, of an otherwise bravura performance.”

Patricia scrambles to her feet needlessly; her witness proves able to protect herself. “I am speaking what I
know
is the truth, Mr. Beauchamp.”

“Truth is known only to God, Miss Martin.”

“I think your client needs help.”

I am taken aback by her tartness and can summon up no quick rejoinder. Wally's hearty intervention makes matters worse: “She got you right back, Mr. Beauchamp.”

Odd how such a reasonably competent lawyer can turn into such a toad of a judge. My nose has been bloodied, but I must keep my temper.

Patricia wraps up with a brief
excursus
to the production of
Switch.
Did the witness ever see the accused in the audience?

“At least four times. He kept staring at me. Like he's doing right now.”

“Your witness,” Patricia says.

A nice touch upon which to conclude. Miss Martin's combat-iveness is restored and fully functional. It is nearly twelve-thirty, lunch break. I rise.

“How are you feeling, Miss Martin?”

“Right now? A little hungry. I missed breakfast.”

“Then enjoy your lunch. This afternoon we have work to do.”

She smiles. “I'll be ready.”

I am impressed as much as troubled by her new-found confidence.

I change from my costume, then brave the day: the clouds are still answering nature's call, gently voiding rain. The spell is over; I need not worry about returning to a withered garden, though the damp weather augurs poorly for the fair.

I proceed down Pender Street to Chinatown, then to Gastown, the city's old section, its red-brick bottleneck. Some old instinct leads me into skid row, to a century-old square brick building on Cordova Street, where I observe a moment of silence. This was my storefront office during my drunken two-year hiatus from Tragger, Inglis, Bullingham. Separated then from Annabelle, I slept in the suite upstairs. The lowest point in my life.

How sorry I feel for my former self. How glad I am not he.

While court assembles, I am witness to yet one more unblinking duel between Jonathan in the dock and Kimberley Martin in the witness stand. What messages are being telegraphed here? There is a stubborn set to the accused's face and Kimberley appears no less determined: haughty and imperious. This seeming struggle for dominance ends as court is called to order. Kimberley turns to gaze upon me, direct, defiant.

I open with a blunt and dangerous question, but I carry insurance on it. “Miss Martin, will you agree you were physically attracted to Professor O'Donnell?”

Obviously she is not expecting such a bold thrust, and she hedges: “When?”

“In the weeks and days prior to the dance.”

“Was I physically attracted to him?”

“Yes, that was my question.”

There occurs one of those empty silences that are often more telling than answers. The witness is in a bind: She knows she lied to the lie detector. She opts — boldly, though too late — to be candid. “Yes, I was.”

“Physically.”

“Yes. That doesn't mean I wanted to jump in bed with him.”

“But you had reveries about that, didn't you?”

“What I dream about is personal.” But the brightness that taints her cheeks is mute proof. The jurors and I follow her eyes as she looks for help to Patricia, who knows better than to jump in, to overprotect, to prolong this. But predictably, Kimberley's self-appointed guardian rides to the rescue from the bench, six-shooters blazing.

“Surely her dreams aren't relevant here, Mr. Beauchamp.”

I give in to my irritation with this judge, speak with a sharpness that gives Wally fair warning that my fuse is short. “With respect, m'lord, you are in error. Her dreams are at the very crux of this case.”

Wally remains silent for a while, then repents. “Well, I suppose. . . . Okay, let's hear how this develops.”

“You had daydreams about Professor O'Donnell, did you not?”

“I hardly think I was the only one. Most of the women in the class thought he was interesting. There was lots of talk about him, some, you know, speculation. Single man with a brain, unusual background.”

“Son of a British viscount, Rhodes Scholar, widely published author and critic.”

“Yes, all of that.”

“Were these dreams of yours erotic?”

Again she reddens. “Yes. But I mean …” She sighs. “Yes. “A helpless shrug. “Dreams are dreams; life is different.”

She says that rather sadly. Life is different; life is Remy.

“Yet you were engaged to be married.”

“You make it sound … I was in love, Mr. Beauchamp. I
am
in love.”

She has lost some poise. She looks down at her hands, at the diamond on her finger, furtively glances at Jonathan, then me. Those shifting eyes speak to me not of love but of some smaller, second-rate passion.

“In the course of the months Professor O'Donnell was teaching you, he made no physical advances?”

“Not really”

“Not really or not at all?”

“I wasn't aware of any.”

Why do I sense she might have been disappointed by that? “No improper suggestions?”

“No.”

“His conduct was gentlemanly throughout?”

“I don't deny that. Until the end.”

This prompts a soft snigger from some coarse soul in the gallery.

“I think you once described him as a fantastic teacher.”

“He was very good.”

“And you felt he paid you extra attention, beyond the common lot of students — did you mind that?”

“No.”

“He helped you after classes with your work?”

“Yes.”

“And that's what a fantastic teacher might do.”

“Okay. Yes.”

“Yes. You were not a straight-A student.”

“No, I wasn't exactly at the top of the class.”

“And the course he taught in property law was especially difficult.”

“I was having trouble with it.”

“So you were grateful for this extra attention.”