Arthur called, “Come and join me in the barn, Nick, we’re going to set a couple of crab traps while we go off in pursuit of the wily salmon.” Why must he sound so pompous in front of the kid? Nick must see him as beyond square. Cuboid. Totally unhip.
He led Nick past the flatbed, past Stoney’s prostrate form. Still life as object lesson: This, young man, is where the loose life leads. But who was Arthur to talk? He’d been no stellar example in his youth and worse in his prime. Arthur Ramsgate Beauchamp had descended to dizzying depths, a fool when drunk, bellowing threats at prosecutors, refuelling from a water pitcher spiked with Beefeaters. He ought to tell Nick about how he once lost his balance beside the jury box and fell into their laps. Or how he spouted the Rubáiyát at the top of his lungs in a crowded restaurant. The time he fell through a skylight while spying on faithless Annabelle. His years on skid road, defending street people for free out of a hole in the wall.
Seventeenth anniversary coming up next month. He and his fellow stalwarts of the Garibaldi AA will celebrate that. In their way.
“I gather you talked to your father.” Arthur didn’t want to open the wounds, but this had to be discussed. “How did that go?”
“Okay. I guess he felt pretty bad.”
“He’s still taking you to Hawaii for New Year’s?”
“Naw, I told him I don’t want to go. Mom phoned too.”
It would be just like Deborah to fly in suddenly, scoop the boy back to Australia. Arthur would feel hollow saying goodbye, knowing he’d utterly failed to connect with his only male descendant.
“I told her I want to stay on here for another month. If it’s okay with you.”
That had Arthur blinking with surprise. Was Nick finally acclimatizing to Blunder Bay? Or was Lavinia holding him here? In any event, he was taking some control over his life.
“I’m delighted, Nick. By the way, did Margaret say where she was going?”
“I didn’t ask. She wasn’t in a good mood.”
Arthur groaned. “What a debacle.”
“Yeah, it was a ripper.” Suddenly, Nick grinned. Arthur had provided some welcome comic relief. “You keep scoring own goals, Grandpa.” He touched Arthur’s shoulder. Contact. A gesture of commiseration.
The crab traps were hanging on hooks in the barn, but Arthur was more interested in Icarus, whose swaying, winged form was suspended from the rafters by ropes. Bronze eyes staring earthward, a look of agony as he fleetingly contemplated impending death. The creator of this noble work was asleep under a blanket of empty feed sacks.
He sent Nick to the Blunderer with the traps while he detoured to the house to get the fish heads. He was hoping to avoid the gossipy girls from Mop’n’Chop, not wanting to add to their store of anecdotes. He particularly didn’t want to deal with Felicity Jones, the twenty-year-old, ever-forgiving sometime lover of Cuddles Brown and only child of Tabatha, a weaver, who fumed at the mere mention of Cud’s name.
“Mr. Beauchamp, can I talk to you?”
Trapped at the open freezer door. “Yes, Felicity?”
“He cried last night.” She was a poet herself, of sweet, runny verse that occasionally found its sticky way into the Island Bleat. Cud refused to stoop that low. I don’t throw pearls at swine, man.
“You were with him.”
“I was there for him. It was Christmas Day, and he was so alone…and he wrote a poem for me as a present. In return I had no gift to give but my love.” Felicity had an uncommon speech defect: she talked like a greeting card. “We shared the night. I couldn’t bear–and didn’t dare–leave him alone.”
“The matter must be very stressful for him.”
“I’m not sure if you understand, Mr. Beauchamp, he’s truly despondent, he talked about wanting to ‘depart this vale of tears.’ That’s the expression he used, it’s not mine.”
“Yes, he does tend to romanticize his situation. Felicity, let me repeat, and I’ve told you dozens of times, Cudworth is competently represented. I have nothing but the highest esteem for Mr. Pomeroy.”
“Cudworth can’t find him. He’s like, hiding from Cud, and his case is coming up in a month and a half!” Emotional now, tears building. “My Cuddlybear.”
“I’ll get in touch with Mr. Pomeroy later today. Now you go back to Cud and tell him to stop using expressions like vale of tears.” He was about to race off with his fish heads but stalled. “Do you know where Margaret went?”
“I think she made an appointment with Reverend Al.”
That was not what he wanted to hear. You’re his friend, Al, you’ll have to break the news. I can’t even look at him.
He joined Nick on the Blunderer with a hearty, ill-felt, “Let’s go fishing!”
A few hours later, their shiny offerings unanimously rejected by the wily salmon, their two undersized crabs returned to freedom, Arthur and Nick pulled into Hopeless Bay, to the general store, in search of more accessible prey. A frozen pizza must suffice for dinner tonight–but no, Arthur decided, pizza is poor contrition; he will offer Margaret the amends of a winter garden salad and his famous hearty pepper pot.
Nick helped Arthur tie up but stayed aboard with some electronic gizmo he’d brought. He hadn’t talked much while fishing but listened politely to Arthur’s grumblings about the disastrous Christmas of 2008. “You’re letting things get to you, Grandpa,” he’d said.
A hush as Arthur passed by the coffee lounge. Then a snort. A giggle. Emily LeMay’s coo of sympathy: “There’s always a spare bed at my place, you poor thing.” Arthur decided not to invite further ridicule by asking if anyone had seen Margaret today.
“Heard things didn’t go too smooth for Christmas up your way.” Makepeace, the lugubrious storekeeper.
“A little bump in the flow chart of life.” Maybe Arthur ought to move back to the city, where one’s life is not a glaringly open book.
He found himself gazing down on a jar stuffed with small bills and labelled Cud Brown Defence Fund. Makepeace said, “I hear he’s got a cheap legal aid lawyer you wouldn’t hire for a parking ticket.”
Even Makepeace was in on the conspiracy. The island was united in an unseemly campaign to shame Arthur into representing a duly certified permanent local, a title conferred on those who have survived Garibaldi for at least a decade.
Winnie Gillicuddy, Garibaldi’s pugnacious centenarian, called from among shelves. “I’ll ask again. Where’s the goddamn oatmeal?”
“Winnie, set yourself down over a cup of tea, and I’ll find what you need.”
“Abraham Makepeace, you stop patronizing me. I’m not blind, just tell me…What is this poison? Honey-coated corn puffs. You should be ashamed of yourself.” A whack of her stick, a sound of cascading boxes. Unfazed, she stepped over the spillage, kicking boxes from her path, triumphantly clutching her oatmeal. “And you, Arthur Beauchamp, you should be ashamed of yourself too.”
Arthur let Nick be skipper on the long, smooth stretch by Clamshell Beach. “A little farther out, please, Nick.” There were no reefs nearby, but Arthur didn’t want to venture too close to the grassy knoll above the tideline where Cudworth Brown’s beach shack stood. But the fates had it in for Arthur–there he was, Cud himself, on his porch, staring forlornly out at sea.
Arthur felt he had to wave. Cud didn’t lift a hand, didn’t deign to acknowledge him.
The Mop’n’Chop girls had gone, and the kitchen was gleaming clean, so Arthur set to work on his salad and stew and, carefully following the instruction booklet, mixed up a batch for the new bread machine. Four o’clock and she still hadn’t come home. No answer at Reverend Al’s.
Nor was there a response when he called Brian Pomeroy’s cell number, just the machinelike civility of his answering service. He didn’t expect anyone to be in his law office on Boxing Day but called anyway and was answered by a cordial, lightly accented female voice. “Good afternoon, law office.”
“Hello, I’m trying to reach Brian Pomeroy.”
“I have not
seen him today, Mr. Beauchamp.”
That gave Arthur a little turn. “Do I know you?”
It turned out she was Pomeroy’s secretary, April Fan Wu, and her phone was equipped with caller ID, to Arthur’s mind one of the more obnoxious novelties of modern times. By some manner of telepathy, she also knew he was inquiring as to why Pomeroy wasn’t returning Cudworth’s calls.
“Mr. Pomeroy has already had a long session with Mr. Brown. He is a client very demanding of a lawyer’s time.”
Arthur couldn’t argue with that. He remembered how he, too, had gone into hiding, usually in his phoneless library, when preparing for a critical case. He wanted to ask about Pomeroy’s emotional health, but it seemed indiscreet. Anyway, a good secretary will defend her boss, as Arthur’s had, covering up for him, his debauches.
He dictated a memo about the alleged shady dealings between Whynet-Moir and the justice minister. She will draw it to Mr. Pomeroy’s attention. She will tell him Arthur would like to speak to him.
“You are to be commended, Ms. Wu, for working on a holiday.”
“It isn’t easy to adapt to Mr. Pomeroy’s style of practice.”
With that ambiguous answer, their conversation ended. Arthur went to the garden to pick some of the season’s late leavings and returned to a house silent but for the simmering stew and occasional indecipherable clunk from the bread machine. Five o’clock. Where was she?
Another call to Reverend Al’s home finally brought his wife, Zoë, breathlessly to the phone.
“Were you calling earlier?” she asked.
“Earlier and often.”
“Oh, you poor thing. They’re in the hot tub.”
“Who?”
“Margaret and Al.”
“Together?”
“Why you old prude. If it makes you feel any better, I’ve been keeping them company and am now standing in the kitchen dripping wet.”
Arthur mumbled an apology. He’d never been able to overcome his inhibitions about the Noggins’ hot tub, their no-bathing-suit rule. As far as Arthur was concerned, being unclothed, in puris naturalibus, wasn’t natural to the human species.
“And what, pray, prompted Margaret’s visit?”
“I think she had to let off some steam.”
She was home within the hour, entering the kitchen so quietly that Arthur, who was setting the table, started on noticing her. She looked at the oversized loaf billowing from the bread machine like some gigantic fungus. Hands on hips, she stared at Arthur, a comically helpless figure in an apron.
“What am I going to do with you?”
And suddenly she was smiling, laughing. She tossed her jacket onto a chair and came to him, and as they embraced he felt giddy, helpless, thick-headed.
THE WHISPERED ANSWER
So, okay, Whynet-Moir fetches me inside, makes a production of having prevailed on me to favour them with a few gems from my oeuvre, he called it. I give them something dense that I’m not sure even I understand; I was hammered when I wrote it. They pretend to like it, they applaud.
Then I let go with “Up Your Little Red Rosie, Rose,” a bawdy ballad that had the desired effect of clearing the house. As guests made for the door, they gushed thanks for the “delightful” evening, it was so “interesting.”
The judge and his wife were seeing people to their cars while the caterers bustled about, cleaning up. I topped up my cognac and went outside so I could savour my Romeo y Jiulieta while admiring their piss-elegant pool. It’s down the staircase, tunnelled into the natural rock. Farther back is a three-stall garage.
This should feel like paradise, man. I have a five-star cognac in one hand, a fifty-dollar cigar in the other, and a pending hot date with a gorgeous, affluential fan. We’re going to do a steam and a swim. Then she’s going to show me to my room.
But it’s paradise with a hitch. After I send Rafael to bed. Raffy, his pals call him, not Rafe, like a regular guy, but Raffy, and he’d been eyeing us slit-eyed across the table. He’s going to sleep like a baby, suspecting nothing?
Maybe it’s like they entered into an accommodation–she can’t get no satisfaction, so she’s got an unwritten licence to boff the occasional horny poet. Or maybe it’s something else. We’ll just have to find some way to get rid of him…
Raffy finally joins me on the deck, smiling, masking his irritation. I’d done what he asked, I read some gems from my oeuvre. He hadn’t read the reviews? I write “muscular, bawdy verse.”
“I’ve had your pack and your outerwear sent over to your room. Not too long a hike. Down to the pool level, then up those stairs beside the garage. The maid normally sleeps there, but she’s off tonight.”
This upper-class twit was banishing me to the servant’s quarters. A garret over the garage. You stuffed shirt, I was thinking, I’m really going to enjoy your wife.
“Well, no rush, enjoy your cigar.” Then calling: “Florenza, I think we should consider retiring.”
She was at the door taking care of the caterers, handing them envelopes with tips. “On my way, Rafael.”
He said to me, “It’s been a long day for us, and no doubt for you as well. I truly want to thank you for coming.”
“Hey, man, no problem.” I asked a few irrelevant questions, like when is breakfast normally served. I figured he’ll hang around longer if he worries I’ll burn the house down, so I tapped a long ash over the railing and dinched the cigar out.
After he toodles off, I go back in and grab the Hennessy bottle, still half full. I’ve got time to check out my quarters while she puts Raffy to bed. Maybe she’ll slip a sleeping pill into his glass of warm milk.
I investigated the pool, oval with a spring board at the deep end, vapour coming off it in the cold night air. Built into the rockface, like a cave, is what turned out to be the steam room, because when I fired up the timer by the glass door, I heard it burp and hiss.
My digs were neat as a pin but girlish, with fluffy animals. A firm mattress for which I was thankful–my back was aching–and an adjoining john, where I sat a long time, relieving my head more than anything else; it was spinning. I was pretty much in the bag by now, and I told myself to slow down, but I kept a grip on that cognac bottle.
I didn’t want to under-perform for Flo. However, and I’m not bragging, alcohol has never deprived me of the power of love, except when I pass out. Or because of penis exhaustion. I’m human.
I’m starting not to remember everything, but after I left I must’ve looked inside the garage, the side door wasn’t locked. I saw an Aston Martin and a Land Rover. Pause here, because about a hundred witnesses are going to say I took that Aston Martin into a tree. I haven’t the faintest fucking memory of being in that car, but I’m being honest here, I did see keys hanging on the garage wall.
Anyway, I returned to poolside, and in the dim light I could make out Flo skinning out of her little black thing. I’m almost choking on testosterone ogling her toned-up, drop-dead body, though, frankly, by now I’d have screwed a five-legged frog.
I sat on a bench, fumbling with my boot strings, and I can’t remember the words, but I casually asked about Raffy. She said he’s probably in bed. Probably.
She opened the steam-room door, and I watched her little apple-cheek fanny disappear into the mist. I smelled of lust and rancid butter, so I went under the outdoor shower before following her into that dark, hot cave. There was only a dim glow through the glass door. Everywhere, steam was hissing and belching. I expected Satan to emerge from the gloom.
“How hot do you like it?” came her voice.
I told her again I was more interested in knowing if this was cool. I wanted to ask if this went on a lot, her old man going to bed early while she fucks a stranger. I am reckless by nature, and tonight I was drunk, but her partner was a judge. You don’t shag a judge’s wife without dire consequences.
She goes, “Chill out.” Rafael wasn’t feeling well, she said, he doesn’t hold his wine too good. I thought, if he’s not well,
he’s probably awake. I remember her next line clear: “I gave him something to help him sleep.”
I remember that because I had this premonition I’d be busted with a vial in my backpack that’ll analyze for arsenic.
It’s called paranoia, Cud. You’re being portrayed by the master; no one knows paranoia like Brian Pomeroy. It gets worse when you’re out of white lady, the paranoia lingers like a perpetual hangover. It’s been a week since supplies ran out. Seven days, and the itches and tics and twinges continue, like rats biting. But he could feel it peaking, he might just be able to rout the devils, get clean. Good thing he wasn’t addicted, the struggle would be hopeless.
The Need won’t cuff him any more product, that’s the snag. Brian’s bank account was empty, his credit cards maxed, and his draw from the office wasn’t due till mid-January, five days hence. He might have to rob a bank. He imagined himself in the clink, a family visit, Caroline and the kids crying.
Words reshaped themselves like crawling insects as he stared at his screen, page up, page up, finally locating Flo’s opener. “You changed my life…” This stank of implausibility. A more alluring plot: she was conniving to suck a yokel into her orbit, to serve as a stooge in a homicide set-up. “We’ll just have to find some way to get rid of him.” Would his protagonist actually have got so drunk as to have done her bidding? Just to get laid?
Or would she have done the dirty herself? How? And with what motive? This was a brainbuster in his weakened state. Toss it about, Widgeon demands. Okay, he tossed it about. For public consumption, Whynet-Moir and the heiress pose as the happy couple, but Florenza can’t get no satisfaction. She wants to dump her erotically challenged partner. (This collides with reality, of course, because in the confusing realm of non-fiction, Whynet-Moir had clearly shown himself a letch, making eyes at Caroline in court. And she looking boldly back.)
Kill All the Judges Page 11
