Sing a Worried Song

by William Deverell

  “Wash your hands, my sweet, and do my fingernails.”

  When Arthur returned, showered, shaved, pulling up his braces, Deborah was still bent over those nails, painting them ruby-red. They were talking about Tristan and Isolde, the legend.

  “But why does she die?”

  “She wills herself to die, to be with Tristan in heaven. Don’t smear!”

  “I can do it, Mom.”

  Arthur finally won a struggle with his bow tie. “An Arthurian legend, I’m proud to say.”

  “You look so splendid in black tie,” Annabelle said. “Poor Per. His costume weighs a ton and he’s supposed to lift Bettina in the second act, and he twisted his back in rehearsal. She must weigh in about one-eighty. But we needed her big voice, anyone else would be diminished by Per.”

  She blew on her fingernails as Deborah helped her into an off-the-shoulder gown, also ruby-red. She looked luminous.

  WEDNESDAY NIGHT

  By the third act, Arthur was bored. He was no great admirer of Wagner, all the pomp, the breastplates, the thundering orchestral themes. And he didn’t like it that Per Gustavson was taking so long to die. Poor Per. I really had hoped to go backstage. Was she hinting that he might wish to go to Chez Forget alone, while she dallied at the opera after-party?

  She was definitely in party mood. Two glasses of red at each intermission. Gay and witty with their friends, flirting with the husbands while Arthur stood by smiling like an idiot. It bothered him that Annabelle was so eager to be seen and admired. And so successful at it. He’d never understood vanity; it wasn’t part of his character.

  Tristan was dying, and only Isolde’s magic touch could save him. Surely it was the longest death in opera history, the entire third act, with Gustavson limping around with what turned out to be more than a slightly wrenched back. He hadn’t even tried to lift Bettina in the second act. Still, Gustavson, a vibrant, dramatic tenor, was saving this production. The sets were brilliant, of course: stately structures and colourful tents by the Irish Sea. Arthur had praised Annabelle lavishly during the breaks.

  But he had trouble focussing on the stage — the tension of the trial had not abated, and he could not forget that look of sheer hatred from Skyler during his cross. Vultus est index animi. The face is the index of the soul. Arthur’s insinuations about Skyler’s limited and morbid form of impotence, about his many failures with women, had enraged the young man, whose strutting machismo was enhanced by a vanity that dwarfed Annabelle’s.

  The jury could be out for days, for a week, then return in deadlock. Skyler would surely be home free if he got another hung jury. The Attorney-General’s office wouldn’t have the tenacity to try him a third time, because they’d thrown everything into this one, including Arthur, who had buggered up a sure win.

  Someone would have to lock him in a room and bar the windows if Skyler walked. After he lost Turk McGrew’s revenge shooting a decade ago, he went on a bender that ended with him penniless on a beach in Mexico, calling Bullingham collect to beg for air fare and forgiveness.

  He remembered that the next day, Thursday, would be an historic marker. If he could make it through the next thirty hours, he would equal his personal best — though he’d been laid up in hospital for many of those twenty-six days in 1983. This time, he’d been fighting a taxing, touch-and-go murder trial.

  Twenty-six days. The goal was in reach, tantalizing. He could make it.

  Win or lose, he ought to take Annabelle to an ancient, romantic place this summer. Florence and Venice would be overrun. Maybe Greece, his other spiritual motherland. A cozy hilltop hotel on the Peloponnese, overlooking the Aegean Sea. Or the islands so loved by Byron. The isles of Greece, the isles of Greece! Where burning Sappho loved and sung …

  His reputation, even his career, would be damaged if he lost. All the more reason to take a holiday. A long one.

  “Die Leuchte, ha!” Gustavson bellowed, dying. “Die Leuchte verlischt!” The torch goes out!

  It was as Isolde rushed in, too late to save her beloved, that the summons came, an usher with a dimmed flashlight crouching at the end of the aisle, a hoarse whisper: “You’re needed, sir.”

  Annabelle, loudly: “Damn it, Arthur.”

  A muttered, “Sorry, darling,” then a grunt of pain as Arthur stepped on a toe, and another “Sorry.” People were half-rising, craning to see. Gustavson went majestically off-key, a strident high note as he died at last in Bettina’s bounteous arms.

  The phantom of the opera, his mischief performed, crouched his way to the nearest exit in a frenzied state of embarrassment.

  §

  Arthur raced from taxi to courthouse, coatless, in his tux. A verdict had been arrived at. No time to gown up.

  In Room 53, everyone but the judge and jury was waiting for him, and the clerk was petulant over the delay as he went to fetch Horowitz. Boynton fidgeted anxiously, but had the good grace not to natter as Arthur joined him. Mandy and Pomeroy were tense, and Skyler more so, coiled tighter than a sailor’s knot, his face clenched in a rictal smile.

  Horowitz looked Arthur over in his formal wear, but managed to maintain a straight face. “Bring in the jury.”

  Even before they were seated, Arthur read the verdict from their expressions and body language. A few jurors boldly smiled at him. These were the ones who’d prevailed on the others to pass up a sleepover at the Hyatt. They all seemed at peace, unanimously content.

  Pomeroy read the obvious portents too and sagged a little. Not too much, because he held no affection for his client. Boynton, however, was eating a pencil.

  The anti-climactic verdict was delivered calmly by the forewoman: “Guilty as charged, My Lord.”

  Skyler went white, rose like a launched missile, calling out loudly and raggedly: “This is wrong! I am not guilty.” Then, turning on Arthur: “I’ll see you hell!”

  The sheriffs were about to jump into action, but Pomeroy was already at Skyler’s side, cooling him out, doubtless offering assurances about their substantial grounds of appeal.

  Horowitz ignored the outburst, though he gave Arthur a sympathetic look. He appeared relieved by the verdict — he’d probably been concerned that the Crown would appeal his decision to bar its prime and final witness.

  He wasted no time in sentencing. “Mr. Skyler, you have been convicted of a murder committed in a most brutal and sadistic way. The Criminal Code requires that you be sentenced to life imprisonment with no eligibility for parole for twenty-five years. I so order. Take the prisoner away.”

  §

  Arthur was too distracted to relish victory. He was in a fever to join Annabelle at the after-party at the Queen E, so after freeing himself from Boynton’s jubilant bear hug and accepting Pomeroy’s perfunctory handshake, he barrelled through the press scrum outside the court, offering only a cliché about being a mere toiler for justice, the demands of which had clearly been answered. Skyler’s threat to see him in hell was a mindless outburst best ignored. He left them to ponder Horace’s enduring wisdom, Culpam poena premit comes. Punishment follows closely on crime’s heels.

  Jurors are forbidden by law from disclosing the whys and hows of their decisions, so Arthur was concerned, outside the Law Courts, when Number Eight, a construction foreman, approached and shook his hand with the grip of an ironmonger. But all he said was, “Good job. Good riddance.”

  §

  It was nearing midnight when Arthur’s cab dropped him back at the theatre. The doors were locked, but some lights were on, maybe for the cleaners. Or for the after-partiers, somewhere backstage. He wasn’t able to get anyone’s attention, and finally hurried off to retrieve his Rolls from the parkade and get on his way to Chez Forget — Annabelle could be waiting for him there.

  The garage had almost emptied out, with only a few vehicles left in the staff area. But one of them was the Phantom V, backed into a dark corner, just
as he’d left it. Approaching, he heard a moan as if someone were in pain or distress. Then a cry, resonant, familiar.

  He peered through the windshield, but could see nothing. Then a car came by toward the exit, and its passing headlights briefly illuminated undulating shapes in the Phantom’s back seat, and a bare, ruby-toenailed foot braced against the frame. Again, Arthur heard that rich tenor cry, rising to an octave above middle C, in key, a perfect high note.

  §

  Pierre shrugged off Arthur’s apology. “Chez Forget is never closed for Monsieur Beauchamp.” He held the door for his doleful guest. “We are waiting for madam?”

  “Madam is not coming.” In black tie, no overcoat, he had walked directly from the parkade, down the rough part of Granville, ignoring the fawning attention of the many panhandlers. Chez Forget had only ten tables but a kitchen large enough to accommodate the temperamental chef’s ego. His waiter and sous-chef had left.

  “I will not inquire. It is not my business.” Pierre led Arthur to his usual table in a nook near the kitchen door, past two couples dawdling over cognacs and liqueurs. Tony d’Anglio and a compagno with their tipsy, young compagne di gioco. D’Anglio barely acknowledged his sometime lawyer, who had recently prevailed for him — twice: an illegal sports book; bribery of a bylaw officer.

  “You will have the escargots to start, and un petit morceau de paté Forget, then the poulet paprika, hearty for to cheer you up. Something liquid, I leave that problem up to you.”

  “A martini, Pierre.”

  The chef hovered uncertainly, then bent, his voice lowered. “I promised not to tell you, but now I tell you. Not because you are un client merveilleux who understands the arts of tipping, but because of loyalty to my fellow man. She was in here with him three, four nights ago.”

  “Thank you, Pierre. A martini. The usual. Two pearl onions.”

  “Maybe this is not wise, if … How long are you sober now, Monsieur Beauchamp?”

  “It’s Day Twenty-Five. It’s time.”

  “Just one, maybe, yes?”

  “Just one.”

  After that just one, it would be too late to call Bill Webb. At any event, it wouldn’t be right to rouse him from his bed. He wasn’t going to get drunk. Just one martini to lighten the mood.

  The first teasing drops rolled across his tongue and caused an agreeable jolt of recognition: the taste of juniper and dry vermouth and freedom from care. Welcome back, old friend. Another sip, and he could feel the desolation and bleakness start to fade.

  Tony d’Anglio tossed a wad of bills on the table, and his party rose to leave. He paused at Arthur’s nook as he slid into the sleeves of his coat. “Gonna miss using your services, Mr. Beauchamp.”

  “Why so, Tony?”

  “Now that you’re working for the heat.”

  Emboldened by gin, Arthur defended himself with the famous last words of the Moor of Venice. “‘I have done the state some service, and they know’t. No more of that.’” But d’Anglio had already turned his back and walked away.

  Arthur held out his tongue to catch the last drops of his martini, then, holding to his pledge to have just one, ordered a glass of Pouilly-Fumé instead, to go with his escargots, and it tasted so fine that he had another. When the poulet paprika arrived he switched to a robust Tuscan red. With Pierre standing by, he was about to take a sip when his wrist was grasped by one hand and the glass removed by another. He was too startled to resist.

  “That’s all for you, Mr. B.,” said Mandy, setting the glass on a table behind her, then gripping his two reaching hands. Pierre fled to the kitchen. “Did she jilt you again?”

  “Who, my dear?”

  “Mandy Pearl may look like a dumb broad to you, but it happens that she, along with the entire BC Bar Association, knows that you’re in a long-term abusive relationship, and you’re the abusee. I have come to free you from her, Arthur.”

  “How?”

  She let go his wrists. “There are other possibilities. Than her. Than this.” Gesturing at the Chianti beyond his reach. She hollered: “Pierre, please get me the bill and a doggy bag.”

  He erupted from the kitchen. “A doggy bag? What is this doggy bag? Chez Forget does not have doggy bags. This is not the Burger King.”

  “And two double espressos. This man has just won the trial of the decade, and I’m going to take him home and fuck him.” She was high; Arthur caught scents of beer and pot.

  “Another glass of the same, Pierre,” he said. “You may as well bring the bottle.”

  “Sorry, Arthur, the jig is up. I’m with the Alcoholics Anonymous Enforcement Unit, empowered by law to arrest you.” She frowned at Pierre: “I’m charging you with aiding and abetting.”

  Pierre grumpily set the espressos in front of them and wrapped the poulet paprika in silver foil, plate and all. Arthur kept wanting to reach for that glass of wine, but Mandy hovered over him, passing him the demitasse, forcing him to sip his caffeine, straightening his tie, signing Pierre’s chit.

  Although past the tipping point and in thrall to a powerful thirst, Arthur found himself unable to resist her, but didn’t know why. He even allowed himself to be led out to her car as she cradled his plate of food. He wondered if he’d been half-hoping someone would come along to save him. And why shouldn’t it be this busty, lovely young woman who had shown him so much teasing affection?

  Be careful. She likes the married ones. They’re more challenging.

  Yet he was titillated by the prospect of giving in to her advances. Dare he do so? Tit for tat, my darling. That flat-nosed tenor with his out-of-whack back. Arthur hoped that he’d wrenched it so badly tupping Annabelle in the Rolls that he’d be out of commission for the rest of the run.

  He found himself in a late-model Buick, with the top up, into which she strapped him as one would a child, and kissed his cheek. “Relax, I’m not going to eat you.” She took the Granville Bridge to Fairview, talking gaily about the trial. “Brian honestly thought he might pull this sucker out — the underdog beats superdog. Might have had a chance if that narcissistic shit hadn’t changed course on us. They’d be coming back late tomorrow, you said, but the jury saw right through him.”

  “I underestimated their wisdom.”

  “Please, take credit. You were fucking brilliant. ‘A liar needs a good memory.’ And that speech — who wrote it, Shakespeare? She mimicked: ‘I come not, friends, to steal away your hearts.’”

  Arthur surprised himself by laughing. “‘I am no orator, as Brutus is, but as you know me all, a plain, blunt man.’”

  “Let’s hope poor Randy doesn’t get gang-raped in the BC Pen, because he’d probably enjoy it. Enough shop talk. What happened with your wife?”

  Although he was already worrying about where his next drink was coming from, Arthur was feeling well lit, and found himself letting go, describing, with full-throated indignation, the parkade, the Rolls, the ruby toenails, the climactic cry of the heldentenor with the bad back. He stalled, confused by Mandy’s laughter, then realized he’d been depicting the scene as farce, and he had to smile.

  She took over then, telling him about her own bad marriage to a man who ran off with “a brainless, late-blooming flower child.” She was carrying on about that betrayal even as she led him by the hand into her modern townhouse on the Fairview Slopes, depositing him on a sofa and relieving him of his tuxedo jacket. “All men are pricks, Arthur. Except you, for some reason. You’re just a teddy bear.”

  She went behind him, flicked off his suspenders, and began massaging his shoulders and spine muscles. Strong, expert fingers. “Man, you’re stiff.”

  She finally left him for the kitchen, and he looked about, the wall art, the coffee-table books, a few scholastic and athletic trophies. No liquor cabinet. A coffee grinder started up. He stood up, trying to still his anxiety, went to the kitchen and took in the fearful sight
of a bottle of vodka upturned in the sink, as if newly emptied. Two washed and rinsed wine bottles lay nearby.

  He studied the scene with great wistfulness. “You’ve done this before.”

  She set the coffee maker going. “Sometimes I go to meetings. Sometimes I just drink. My dad was AA too. So was my mom. How about something else instead? A heightened experience?” She produced a joint.

  “I did that only once, when I was twenty-five. It was not a night to remember.”

  She shrugged, moved close to him. “Something different then. Something to get you through the night. You’re a lovely man, Arthur. You’re going to waste.”

  Her kiss was gentle at first, and he responded nervously. He didn’t know where to put his hands, but she solved that by placing them under her blouse and pulling up her bra. They were beautiful breasts, but he wanted a drink very badly.

  “Let’s take our coffee upstairs,” she said.

  She tugged him. He stayed rooted. She kissed him again, open-mouthed, and her hands went between his legs. He was shy, not used to this, its brazen suddenness, and was overcome with performance anxiety and with his gnawing other need. She couldn’t tease up much of an erection, and he blushed with embarrassment.

  PART TWO

  WORRYWART

  THRILL KILLER EARNS PAROLE

  By Canadian Press

  Randolph Skyler, convicted in 1987 of the apparent thrill killing of a popular Vancouver busker, will be allowed to spend the remainder of his life sentence out of prison.

  The Canadian Parole Service confirmed on Thursday that Mr. Skyler, 48, has been released from Collins Bay Institution in Kingston, Ont., where he has been completing an MBA degree by correspondence. The Service provided no other details, citing privacy rules.

  The young Toronto student was visiting Expo 86 in Vancouver when he was charged with the apparently motiveless stabbing death of Joyal Chumpy, known as Chumpy the Clown, in his small downtown flat.