Whipped

by William Deverell

  Again, that welling of despair. This lawsuit had become more difficult than the toughest of his murders, cases in which he wasn’t literally wed to his client. But Margaret hadn’t wanted “any goddamn best specialist.” She had wanted her life companion.

  Guilt had triggered his response: “Yes! Of course! No problem!”

  He paused to stretch his creaky back, thought of Baba Sri Rameesh again. “Let what comes come; let what goes go. Find out what remains.”

  But it was hard to let what goes go. What remains? An awkward, messy trial of Sisyphean difficulty.

  He emptied his wheelbarrow of the last of the straw, decided to clear his head with a brisk hike to pick up his mail and a few sundries at the general store.

  He did not get far before Reverend Al came by in his Honda Civic and insisted he get in beside him. “I was just on my way to see you. There are things to talk about, old boy. I’ll have something to say at service tomorrow about the Transformers. I’d like you to be there — we’re forming an action committee. There’s no time to waste. They are truly about to own this island. They’re not just colonizing minds, they’re taking over the Trust.”

  The two-member Islands Trust was Garibaldi’s governing body, serving under a government mandate to preserve the unique environment of the islands of the Salish Sea. Arthur hadn’t been paying much heed to local politics, but had read in the Bleat that Garibaldi’s two quarrelsome incumbents had quit in a huff, and two of Silver Tongue’s favourites were running in a special election called for December. Ida Shewfelt, a Pentecostal Christian converted to the teachings of Baba Sri Rameesh. And, horribile dictu, Kurt Zoller.

  “Kurt has gone completely under,” Al said. “Hypnotized, hears Silverson’s voice coming from the trees. Silver Tongue is about to become the dictator of all Garibaldi through his two anointed proxies. No one else is running, and nominations close Monday. Christ, the bishop’s edict be damned, I may have to run myself. Ida Shewfelt! The queen of kitsch.” Winner of best arrangement at the annual flower show, with her little elves dancing among the blooms.

  They were descending now from the brow of what locals called Shewfelts’ Hill, their framed, brightly painted two-storey down there, guarded by a fleet of garden gnomes on its neatly trimmed lawn. Forty days before Christmas and they already had their decorations up, Rudolph on the roof.

  Al kept going on about the Transformers. “I still can’t figure out their angle. Old Barry Peale wanted to make his will out to them, and they declined. Something corrupt has to be going on there. Porno movies? They’ve always got their cameras going. They just brought in a big van. No idea what’s in it. Maybe a lab for crystal meth.”

  Arthur, however, was no longer persuaded that anything illegal was going on. Silverson was a trained hypnotherapist; he was surely motivated not by money but by ego. Exerting power over others’ minds. It almost seemed an experiment.

  Al continued to vent even as he dropped Arthur off at the store. “They’re selling what’s left of their livestock, by the way, in case you’re interested in an emu or two. They’re going vegetarian. What Silverson calls achieving another plane. Wish they’d leave on one. I guess you’ve got enough on your mind. How’s Margaret?”

  “I thought she might come by this weekend, but Parliament opens in nine days. Lots of things going on.”

  “That’s right, Lloyd Chalmers, the judicial recount. Margaret will be fairly keyed up over that. Good friend of hers, isn’t he? Brilliant chap, I recorded his TED Talk.”

  §

  Arthur picked up a few things in the store and lined up at the mail counter behind Joanne and Henry, the Transformers featured in the Bleat who’d cycled all the way from L.A. to meet the Baba.

  Abraham Makepeace was scanning a postcard intended for Joanne. “This here is from a talent agency wishing you happy Thanksgiving. You an actress?”

  “I’m a nutritionist,” Joanne said, rolling her eyes at her partner.

  “I wouldn’t have thought a nutritionist needed an agent. Maybe in L.A.”

  “He’s a friend.” Joanne gently pried the postcard and a couple of letters from Makepeace’s grip while Henry filmed the exchange. Arthur couldn’t figure out why, but the Transformers were constantly chronicling the nosy postmaster.

  Joanne and Henry bowed to Arthur, each voicing a “Namaste.” Unsure of protocol, Arthur bowed back. “Same to you.”

  They left him to deal with Makepeace, who was massaging a special delivery envelope. “Cardboard backing on both sides. Return address is a box number in Montreal. My best guess is it’s about that libel charge against Margaret.”

  §

  On his way back home, Arthur came upon Kurt Zoller on the side of the road, pounding in a stake bearing the stencilled sign: Trust Zoller. Just do it.

  Arthur could see a pile of such signs in the back seat of the orange Hummer. The thought of the island’s infamous obsessor becoming Island Trustee under Silverson’s thumb was truly alarming. Reverend Al was right, the Transformers had to be stopped. But how? This was a democracy. Even the hypnotized had a right to vote.

  Zoller watched him approach. He too now had glazed eyes, a distant stare. How quickly he’d fallen under Silverson’s sway. He had them believing he was omnipresent, speaking to his subjects from the sky and the forest.

  Zoller greeted him in a slow, mechanical way, then held him up for a while with a confusing ramble about his program for governing Garibaldi. As far as Arthur could make out, he wanted to prepare his subjects for the enlightenment that flowed through all life and was based on a universal energy. Arthur thanked him for that, and carried on home, clutching his envelope from Francisco Sierra.

  §

  After setting a fire, and with a mug of tea at hand, he settled into his favourite club chair and unfolded a notarized copy of Lou Sabatino’s handwritten letter to his family. Clipped to it was a note from Frank, expressing the hope this got safely to him.

  A copy of Lou’s envelope was included, postmarked November 12 in Calgary. It bore no return address, nor did the letter, which was on lined pages torn from a steno notepad. His message to his family was pensive and thoughtfully expressed, wishing wife and children happy lives, promising to respect Celeste’s wish that they remain apart.

  The letter offered up some odd, tender touches. Poetic phrasing about a love kindled by absence and memories. A snippet from Hamlet’s note to Ophelia: Doubt thou the stars are fire, doubt truth to be a liar, but never doubt I love. Lou had prepared a list: “Eight great ways to say I love you.” Nothing here to suggest a death wish. Yet suicide was a worry. Lou’s father-in-law had mentioned something about Lou making an attempt at it, jumping into a lake.

  Particularly touching was Lou’s recall of his shy, fumbling pursuit of Celeste years ago, how he’d first set eyes on her, at a Christmas party, how he’d been struck dumb by her grace and beauty, how he’d spent an hour rehearsing an opening line, then flubbed it, something banal about how her lovely dress reflected the colours of autumn, then being reminded it was winter.

  There were other light anecdotal remembrances of Celeste and the kids. Regrets over his failures as husband, as father, as a human being. A thank-you to Celeste for protecting Lisa and Logan from the child-stalker haunting their city. Assurances that he was safe and well, “building a new life.” He added: “Despite all, I am happier than I deserve to be.”

  But there was little more about himself or his whereabouts. Parsing the letter for clues, Arthur took note of two references. A comment about a Chinook wind. That suggested the western prairies, which were occasionally embraced by that warming wind from over the Rockies.

  “I am beginning to realize that the city made me feel small,” he wrote. That was the other clue — he had likely found some rural refuge.

  LET WHAT COMES COME; LET WHAT GOES GO.

  Driving home from St. Mary’s church in his pickup, Arthur
instinctively ducked at a roar from overhead, then looked up to see one of Syd-Air’s float planes descend toward the coast. A charter, not one of its regular runs. Maybe for the Baba, whose term, Arthur had heard, was up.

  The day was crisp but sunny, warm for the third Sunday of November. He couldn’t wait to get out of suit and tie into something casual for this do-nothing day. He’d dutifully attended Reverend Al’s service, patiently listened to his depressing sermon, a call to arms against “phony spirituality exported from La-La Land.” The tirade merely seemed to frighten the diminished congregation of the aging faithful.

  Al had boldly announced his candidacy to run for Islands Trust, but no one answered his call to join him on the anti-Transformers ticket. Arthur expected Al would be beating the bushes all day to find someone, anyone, to team up with him before tomorrow’s deadline. Arthur had hurried off after the service, fearing Al would approach him to run. A distasteful three-year commitment that no sane person would undertake, but Al was prepared to martyr himself.

  On turning in to his driveway, Arthur was startled to see the float plane at his dock, Margaret alighting, smiling, waving. He almost drove into the snake fence as he swerved into the farmyard.

  He bounded out, and they met on the grassy ridge above the beach and hugged wordlessly until the plane lifted off. “What a beautiful surprise,” he said.

  “Escaping from the zoo for a couple of days. I was missing the island, the farm. Missing you.”

  “And I you.” Arthur was too flustered to say more. He was dazed, delighted, and puzzled. Why wasn’t she in Halifax? Wasn’t Lloyd Chalmers’s recount tomorrow? She hadn’t flown six hours here on a whim. He wanted to believe she was declaring her commitment to him, to their marriage.

  But their time would be limited. “I hope you remembered that I’m due in Calgary tomorrow evening,” he said.

  “I know. We’ll have a day and a night together.”

  He found himself nervous about the night, his carnal role as husband, as adulterer.

  §

  Arthur tidied up the house as best he could while Margaret showered and changed into outdoor wear. She needed to be outside, she’d said, “to breathe the clean Garibaldi air.” A walkabout on a crisp fall day would help put cold, wet, gloomy Ottawa out of mind.

  So after sitting down to chicken sandwiches and goat cheese as guests of Niko and Yoki, they went on a tour of the farm: the animal pens, the garden, the beach, Blunder Point, and her favourite spreading arbutus.

  Arthur talked all the while, keeping to safe subjects, the local news: the Transformers’ livestock sale, their political ambitions, and their cutout candidates. Silverson’s power-tripping bothered Margaret, who had welcomed his political support but was now finding him and his cohorts “a little too creepy for comfort.”

  She had read Lou’s letter over lunch, but had little to say about it. She did not share Arthur’s dilemma about the proposed six-month adjournment, was keen to get the trial on and over with.

  She ordered him to bury the slander suit for the one day they had together and suggested a trek to the Brig for a drink — “I really need one.” En route, she remained mostly silent, watching for sheep poop, holding his hand as he led her up the north pasture trail, the shortcut to Centre Road.

  So far she’d made no mention of Chalmers or the recount, and Arthur felt she was holding back to avoid reopening wounds. But he too was being skittish about it, and felt silly, and finally said, “I expected you to have gone to Halifax.”

  She pulled him to a stop and looked squarely at him. “I thought about it. It didn’t feel right. That’s when I realized I wanted to be with you.”

  “Thank you, and I love you all the more for that. And I want you to believe that your . . .” A struggle for the right word. “That your episode with Lloyd Chalmers is forgiven and forgotten. One can’t be haunted by sorrow and guilt.”

  He beat back an impulse to blurt out his own sin. “I know, Margaret, that tomorrow’s recount is important to you, and I wish Dr. Chalmers well.”

  “It is a very big deal, Arthur. The Liberals will be begging at the door. They might be able to count on the NDP to support the wishy-washy stuff, but they’re bruised and angry. So Yates will have to suck it up and go green to keep us onside. Goodbye Coast Mountains Pipeline. Never mind, enough of that.”

  Then, as they climbed the knoll above Hopeless Bay, she said: “I’m actually thinking of getting out, Arthur.” She was gazing at the valley below, a nest of small farms, a soft mist rolling through the pastures toward the sun-sparkled bay with its funky dock and store and bar.

  They remained there a while, Margaret confessing to her growing distaste for the political life — the nastiness, games, and energy-sapping tension. She had paid her political dues, had a worthy successor in Jennie Withers, and she longed for a return to her placid island.

  Arthur encouraged her, of course, but both knew that a decision had to await the outcome of the defamation action. A loss, and the issue would become moot. Margaret’s political career would be in the gutter.

  §

  Outside the bar and general store, the local guru’s Mercedes convertible sat regally among a dozen beaters, one of them Reverend Al’s old Civic — he would be enjoying his traditional post-service tot of rum, and maybe campaigning, pressing flesh. Parked across the road, causing Arthur a spasm of distress, was Taba’s GM pickup.

  Arthur stalled for time — he hoped Taba was just picking up some items from the store, a quick in-and-out. “Shall we wander down to the dock? Oh, there’s Gomer’s crab boat — maybe we can buy a couple of fat ones for dinner.”

  “Let’s go up for a drink first. Al and Zoë are here.”

  He saw them at a window seat in the Brig — talking with . . . yes, the island’s bold-breasted potter. Margaret forged ahead up the ramp to the patio, and Arthur hurried to catch up, proposing instead an outside table, in the fresh air.

  “It’s a bit nippy, dear. Come on, they’ll be offended if we ignore them.” Waving to the threesome by the window. “Oh, and there’s Taba. I missed seeing her last summer.”

  “They seem to be in deep discussion, so maybe you’d like —”

  “A drink.”

  She pulled him inside, past the three Pasadena hipsters, who were knocking back shooters while enjoying the ribald rhymes of the louche poet, Cudworth Brown, looking cool in a beret, on his enduring quest to make out. Xantha had been filming him, but swivelled to Arthur and Margaret, capturing his stiff smile and her wide one, practised, camera-ready.

  Al and Zoë greeted Margaret with hugs as Arthur and Taba studiously avoided eye contact. Margaret took the one empty chair while Al dragged another over, depositing Arthur beside his seducer, too close to her. Their knees touched, and Arthur quickly withdrew his.

  Al gestured at the starlets’ table. “Cud is giving the Transformettes one more chance. He’s determined to believe they’re not lesbians.”

  “This is their farewell,” Zoë added. “They’re driving that pricey gas guzzler back to Hollywood.”

  Arthur found that odd. They’d brought it up for Silverson, who’d rarely driven it. Maybe he felt it reflected poorly on his image as a back-to-the-land conservationist.

  “God has answered my prayers,” Al said. “Taba is taking one for the team. She’s agreed to run for Trust. We’re filing our papers tomorrow.”

  “Good on you, Taba,” said Margaret.

  “I need to have my sanity tested,” Taba said. “I already have nightmares of being strangled in red tape.”

  Al beamed. “We’re hoping you’ll both lend your names to our campaign.”

  Margaret clapped her hands. “We’d be honoured.”

  Al called to Emily LeMay at the bar: “Pop a cork, old girl, and a coffee for Arthur.” Turning to him, he said, “I know you’re busy fighting the good fight for your loving
client, but if you could spare a little time to be Taba’s Official Agent . . .”

  “Well, I, um . . . I’m not sure.”

  “No work involved. Just help her through a few technicalities, sign her papers, merely a matter of holding her hand.”

  Words failed Arthur. He flushed.

  “It’s the least you can do, darling,” said Margaret.

  “It’s done, then,” Al said, then pulled the nomination papers from a satchel. “Sign here, old boy.”

  §

  Arthur was in bed, reading then rereading the first few pages of a historical novel, retaining nothing, starting anew, distracted by his old enemy, performance anxiety. He and Margaret had been apart for three months; she had come all this way to be with him and deserved better than going to bed with a lifeless lump.

  She was still downstairs on the phone, strategizing with Pierette: the recount in Halifax, the new Parliament about to go into session, a new cabinet, new challenges. The never-ending toils of a party leader. Maybe she would be too exhausted . . . But that deep and tender kiss before he went up to shower said otherwise. He sought peace, mindlessness. Let what comes come; let what goes go.

  But the tension-laden afternoon in the Brig was still with him — they’d stayed for a painful two hours, Arthur somehow maintaining a pretence of normality and, after Taba slipped away, making an effort at bonhomie.

  Abandoned early by the Hollywood sprites, Cud Brown had remained stuck to his chair, descending into a state of muttering intoxication by the time Arthur and Margaret left. There sat the hairy goat, alone, abandoned to his masturbatory fantasies, and here was Arthur, wimpily waiting in the connubial bed for the woman he loved.

  What was the matter with him? It was ridiculous to feel so torn up by a careless, impulsive moment of desire. Margaret need never know. Get over it. Vincit qui se vincit. He conquers who conquers himself.