Still, he needs a sounding board, and en route to Chez Forget-his boat doesn’t leave until three-fifteen-he shares with Lotis the burdens of wifelessness on the farm, being forced to eat tofu, Woofers leaving, kid goats coming.
“Sounds ghastly.”
Denied sympathy, he turns the topic to her, admits a curiosity about her acting career.
“My total pitiful output was three teeners, three screamers, two soaps, a comedy series that never made the cut, and numerous acts of prostitution.”
“Acts of…I’m sorry, what?”
“Commercials, dah-ling. How I got through law school.”
Arthur doesn’t prompt her, but she’s unreserved in talking about her Hollywood career, its collapse. A bad love affair, a stop at an abortion clinic, a breakdown. She decided to start fresh, immigrate to her favourite city-she’d done film work in Vancouver-and arm herself with a law degree. To her, a weapon in the struggle.
Again, Chez Forget is crowded, but Pierre sits them at an outside table in the warming April sun. “It is intolerable. This is not the Burger King, here you need reservations. I will start you with the foie gras.” With a bow, he places before Lotis a small vase with a single red rose. “For you, mademoiselle, who is so beautiful.”
She blows him a kiss. “Oo-la-la.”
Lotis refuses the foie gras with the proletarian disdain Arthur has come to expect from her, and Arthur is made to feel badly not just about the homeless and hungry but about geese and their ill treatment. Still, he’s finding this relationship less prickly, as if a form of accommodation has been reached. He was expecting more vanity from an actress. Actor.
Pierre presents Arthur with a telephone. “Normally, I would say go to hell, Beauchamp is dining. But it is Pomeroy, returning your call.”
Brian is in his car. “Sorry I missed you, I was having a few nervous moments with Angella. She wanted a ride to Vancouver, I made a lame excuse about having to visit my uncle in jail. I won’t be ready for her until I’m wearing a body pack.”
“When will that likely be?”
“We’re on for Thursday night. Adeline asked if I like paella, so it’s back to El Torro, where Nick made his error in judgment. She still lives nearby in the same apartment. Maybe she wants to re-enact the event, slip me some Rohypnol, stuff underpants down my throat. Won’t Caroline be sorry then.”
“Did she ask about your sudden exit from the case?”
“I said it was an ethical problem. ‘I make it a rule never to represent the guilty.’ That actually came out with a straight face. She asked, ‘How do you know he’s guilty?’ I said, ‘Solicitor-client privilege.’ She nodded, impressed with my formidable grasp of ethics.”
Arthur stands fast against dessert, orders coffee, while Lotis, who ate like a bird, plays with a fallen petal from the rose Pierre gave her. It’s so pleasant, the sun beating down, robins singing, that he’s sorry they must soon leave. He’s enjoying a healthy venting about his murder case. Lotis seems easily entertained, wide-eyed, attentive-she doesn’t treat Winters’s death as a casual act of brutality dwarfed by the evils of our rapacious economic structures. She’s curious about the case, a diligent if skeptical listener, though seems to regard it as a badly plotted screenplay.
She’s unafraid to criticize Arthur’s defence of ten years ago, his effort to persuade a jury that Angella seduced a felon, then cried rape. “Could anyone be that desperate to get published?”
“She tried to impress Faloon with her poor catalogue of clippings. It may not be desperation but obsession. Mental disease could be at play.”
Arthur’s magazines are replete with ads for writing schools and vanity presses. He suspects that being published is, for some, the central fantasy of their lives, in the extreme case, neurotic, all-consuming. (Cud Brown once told him he would kill to get published. Though that was several years ago, and he was drunk.)
“When was that rape trial?”
“Ten years ago. The appeal process went on for several years.” Dead-ending at the Supreme Court of Canada: Our job isn’t to second-guess the jury, Mr. Beauchamp.
Lotis finds it incredible that Angella would save Faloon’s semen. “On the off chance she might want to incriminate Nick again? Sorry, the theory leaves me underwhelmed, it’s beyond unlikely.”
Arthur is wounded by her casual rejection of the theory. He had hoped it at least skimmed the surface of plausibility. “My dear, murder itself is unlikely, especially when planned, a rare event. The motives that propel it are just as unusual.” He’s lecturing, as if to a student, a donnish habit from his days of giving tutorials.
Lotis relents. “Okay, she’s a borderline personality, she’s twilight zone, she has a weird reason for deep-freezing the semen. Was she on birth control?”
“Nick was wearing a condom.”
“Arthur, the ugly truth about condoms…”
She pauses, looking at him bright-eyed, as if expecting him to understand the obvious.
“They break. Take it from me. That’s how I ended up in my friendly neighbourhood pregnancy termination clinic-a dried-out safe my partner found in his trinket drawer. Ex-partner.”
“Actually, Faloon said the condom slipped off…”
“During intercourse?”
“As he was…yes.” Arthur reddens. “It was too large for him.”
“You are so…I don’t know, Arthurian. Victorian. You’re actually blushing. Whoa. Stop.” Her lynx eyes widen, her mouth forms a perfect oval. “I just had a flash how this could’ve played out. On close personal inspection, Angella finds that Nick has deposited more in her than in the safe. She starts freaking about disease and pregnancy. She flies off the hinges, calls the cops.”
Arthur finds it helpful to reassemble the facts in that light. Angella finding the recreant condom, hiding it in panic, calling 911. The idea of a tell-all magazine article comes later, as a bonus. It is a logical scenario, and one he should have urged on the jury.
Arthur orders the poires au chocolat. Relax, he tells himself, there’s another ferry sailing at six, and Lotis is offering useful insight into eccentric Adeline Angella.
“She’s some kind of polyester queen?”
“A fair depiction, I think.”
“Was she in a relationship at the time?”
“No. She has lived alone for her adult life.”
“Religious?”
“Catholic.”
“Anti-abortion?”
“She wrote newsletters for a pro-life organization.”
“Well, there you are.”
She’s on the mark. Fear of pregnancy, the massive dilemma it posed-add religious guilt to this toxic mix, and Faloon becomes the luckless victim of an ill-fitting Trojan.
Lotis brushes hair from her face, leans forward to sniff the rose, in its slender vase. A picture deserving of a camera. Behind this portrait of nose and rose and wayward hair, an agile and (dare he say) youthful mind is at work. Compensating for the cocky, in-your-face demeanour, for her naive notions of building a classless society.
“Another problem dogs me. Should I dare you to come up with one last brilliance?” That’s taunting, maybe even mocking. “I’m sorry, I’ll shut up about the case.” A flock of starlings is raucously announcing the coming of evening. He gestures for the cheque.
“You’ve got me utterly fucking engrossed in this case, let’s talk on the way to Garibaldi.”
“You’re not going to Vancouver?”
“No. I’m going to be your new Woofer.”
She’s a kidder. “You’re crashing at Reverend Al’s cottage?” He knows the lingo, he’s cool, he does Tai Chi.
“I’m broke, I’m earning peanuts. I’m ready to woof. Save on rent and food, help with the chores, sounds cool. In my free time I prep for my bar exams and help steer Operation Eagle.”