Arthur reaches into his wallet, fans out some twenties.
“If you’re going to take the old girl out for a spin, man, you may want to gas up.” Stoney sets to work, the backhoe chuffing into life.
Lotis returns, in black tights, distracting Stoney, who misdirects the machine into a thicket of salal.
“You are watching the birth of a pool.”
“Will it have a swim-up bar?”
“It will be shared by frogs and salamanders.”
“Glad I didn’t bring my suit.” She pulls out a cigarette.
“I thought you were quitting.”
“After my carton runs out.” Brushes the hair from her almond eyes.
Their first stop is the three-pump gas station-the gauge was hovering below empty-the second is Hopeless Bay. Not Now Nelson Forbish is leaving the store, eating Cheezies. He’s doing the rounds, delivering this week’s Bleat on his ATV.
He extends a cheese-and-salt-coated hand to Lotis. “I don’t think I’ve had the pleasure of the movie star.”
“I’d recall it if you had.”
Nelson brings out pencil and pad. “I heard you may be auditioning for Arthur’s movie.”
Lotis looks perplexed. “Duh…what?”
“Not now, Nelson. We have a busy schedule.”
“A picture.”
Lotis hugs Arthur around the middle, and he starts like a nervous horse. Such embraces are natural to her-she’s a performer, expansive, American-but foreign to him, rarely enjoyed even as a child. He’s not sure what his reaction should be, and stands like a scarecrow, arms akimbo. Nelson says, “Another.” The feel of her supple body brings blood rushing, Eros rising from the ashes of disuse. Accompanied, of course, by shame.
Hattie Weekes, the island’s most fearsome gossip, is on the deck, squinting, capturing this. Arthur decides he may as well wrest advantage from the situation-word will go like the wind to the Holy Tree. He holds the door for Lotis. Hattie is already at the coin phone, stirring her wallet for a quarter. A word once sent abroad, said the great Horace, flies irrevocably.
A pile of Bleats sits on the counter. “HERE COMES HOLLYWOOD!” shouts the front page. Nelson has relegated the Battle of the Gap to the inside. “An uneasy truce holds at the protest site, while lawyers rush off to court, the results of which aren’t known at press time.”
Arthur tells Makepeace, “Ms. Rudnicki may charge anything to my account but cigarettes.”
The postmaster hands him a small sack. “If you’re going by the Gap, this is for the preacher. Fifties and or hundreds, here and there, mostly cheques. This here’s a generous one.” Makepeace holds an envelope to the light. “Two thousand on a bank in Chicago.”
“Someone said they seen her barenaked in a movie called Bodice Ripper.” This is Joe Rosekeeper, lascivious retiree, who’s staring at Lotis through the plate window.
“Not Arthur’s type,” Emily Lemay says. “No meat on her. Come over some evening, handsome, I’ll serve you up some steak and potatoes.” She chortles, enjoys seeing him turn red. She’s been flirting more boldly since breaking up with Handyman Sam.
Emily has just ferried from the city and brought today’s paper: “DAY SEVEN!” Santorini’s irate outburst has earned front page. A sidebar describes Arthur and Santorini as “former courtroom foes.” Arthur’s streak of notable wins against the former chief Crown is mentioned, along with their imbroglio in court many years ago. Here is the horse’s ass quote, the full text returning to him now, a reference to “kitchen cockroach ethics.”
Arthur imagines Santorini reading the paper over breakfast, his rage. He may go off the deep end when the hearing resumes tomorrow; Arthur must be alert for grounds of appeal.
Hattie Weekes is still on the phone, presumably describing the sordid scene of lust between the deserted husband and the brassy young snip. Let Margaret speculate. Let Nelson publish his photo: an aging Don Juan whose magnetic appeal lures the young and desirable.
At Stump Town there are more tents, more volunteers-about a dozen young pilgrims arrived this morning. Kurt Zoller is passing out business cards, and presses one into Arthur’s palm. His water taxi service-“it’s literally been running me into the ground”-now has prospects, but his compulsive wearing of life jackets inspires little consumer trust.
“Garibaldi isn’t just a blob on the map now,” he tells Arthur. “More crowds are trickling in every day.” He has taken the measure of new political winds: “I’ve gone three hundred and sixty degrees on this one.”
“But that means you’re back where you started, Kurt.” He leaves Zoller to redo his calculations.
Lotis has already gone up the Gap trail. He’s relieved to be away from her high energy-she exhausts him. He joins Reverend Al, who is on a walkie-talkie with his spouse, Zoe, one of the watchers on the uplands.
“Still just the one bird, honey,” she says.
“Cheese and rice.” Jesus Christ. Reverend Al has an unhappy penchant for euphemism.
Arthur hands him the donations. “It’s starting to roll in.”
“The judge wants eggs. We’re running out of time.”
The deadline is tomorrow. Santorini’s clerk has notified all parties that the hearing must move to Vancouver, where the judge is stuck with a multicount corporate fraud. The ferry involves a three-hour ordeal, so Arthur and Lotis will risk Syd-Air, “Serving Our Islands” with an aging Beaver. Arthur will carry on to Bamfield. Lotis will gather clothes and essentials from her last city hideout before returning to Garibaldi.
When Arthur arrives at the Holy Tree he sees Margaret filling a bird feeder and Cud grunting as he ties a “Save Gwendolyn” banner to a branch. Lotis is below them, bending to Slappy, who licks her face. “And who is this cute little Woofer?” she says, then looks up, rewards the cameras of Flim Flam Films with a wink and a smile.
Margaret isn’t smiling. He calls up, jocular: “Has Lotis told you she’s taken a position at Bungle Bay?”
“I hope she’ll work out.” A definite chill in her voice.
“She had a splendid start.”
“Yeah, I nearly ripped my crotch open on barbed wire.” Lotis gives Slappy a neck rub.
“Oh, dear.” Coated with ice.
“Darling, I’m sorry, but duty calls. I’ll be off-island for the next few days.”
“I see. Well, you know where I’ll be.”
“The Faloon matter will take a fair bite of my time.”
“And what about Garlinc versus Gwendolyn? Will you be spending any time on that?”
“I’ll be in court for you, of course.”
“Not just for me, I hope. For all of us, for Gwendolyn.”
It strikes him that it’s not Lotis that she resents, it’s his rinky-dink role in the injunction. This has the makings of a marital row.
Cud returns from his bough, scuttles out of view, fearing to be entangled in this. Lotis drifts away. Husband and wife are one on one. He wants to shout, Damn it, I love you, can’t you see that? Instead, he sulks. Reverend Al is on the scene now, making a slicing motion across a finger: cut this short.
Chickadees flit about the bird feeder. One lands on Margaret’s outstretched hand. She waits until it flies off, then calls, “I heard the judge was pissed off at me.”
“The judge wants-well, you know what he wants.” He isn’t about to make a public plea for Margaret to relent-what kind of message would it send? Santorini has made the situation worse with his brusque demand.
“I don’t know how he can properly decide anything without coming here to see for himself.”
“The courts don’t work that way, my dear.”
“Well, they bloody should.”
She’s right. Damn it, he must stop apologizing for the system of laws and rules that he blindly cherishes.
Down comes a bag of laundry, which he dodges as it plops at his feet. “You might send up some fresh sheets and towels.”
She’s steaming behind a stoic mask-the last time Arthur saw this face was when the decaying victim of a forgotten mouse trap stank up the pantry. This is not the time to admit he has no idea how to operate the washer and dryer.