“As do you.” I had given guest lectures to his classes. We had shared the odd martini. Annabelle knows him from a few dinner parties we attended — once at his house. I have nothing against him, although I remember being mildly put out by Annabelle’s tendency to act the coquette when he was about. And he seemed to be heeding her siren’s song. .
Nonsense. My years with Annabelle have filled me with suspicious imaginings. He is an engaging fellow, not without wit, though gallingly sardonic when in his cups. I suspect he drinks too much: I see something darkly hidden in haunted eyes that tells me he is a prospective member of my tribe.
“Arthur, you know he couldn’t do a thing like that.”
“Do I, indeed?”
“Well, I know. .”
She hesitates, and now I am suffering a vague unease.
“I mean — you know him as well as I do: tying a girl up, raping her — those allegations will always be a terrible slander to his reputation. He. . called the house a couple of times, asking for you. I didn’t give him your number, because I promised you. Well, actually, I bumped into him. Downtown. We had coffee.”
“I see.” I clear a throat that is suddenly tight. “Did he ask you to speak to me on his behalf?”
“He … asked about you. Well, Hubbell is very insistent. He really wants you to do this one more case.”
“Do you, as well?”
“I. . think you should do it.”
Oh, for a tall glass of something cold and powerful. The juniper taste of gin is strong and needy in my nostrils. I watch below as a squadron of Mrs. Blake’s sheep trudge their weary way across the fields. They are on their way, of course, to seek breaches in my garden fence.
I have developed an unreasoning distaste for the O’Donnell case. Wild horses.
My friends in the next cabin said they saw a bear yesterday. I mean, Patricia, here we are looking straight down on one of the busiest port cities in the world, and we have friendly neighbourhood bears. They come out of their dens this time of year, grumpy and hungry, and head for the nearest McDonald’s. I had an awful nightmare, a big bear coming into the cabin and jumping on me in bed. Awoke screaming. That will give my shrink something to keep his mind occupied.
Study in restful surroundings, says Dr. Kropinski, and I’m not to think about The Incident. But every time I pick up Proctor’s Real Transactions, there he is, Professor O’Donnell, my law lecher, staring up at me from the pages.
Remy is supposed to come up for a day or two, but he’s not sure when he’ll make it. We had a bit of a skirmish after you left us, I’m afraid. Nothing heavy, just a polite exchange of words, but he thought I got a little too — loud, he called it — at dinner. Hints I can’t quite hold my booze.
But I’ll forgive him anything. Remy’s been right there for me, one hundred per cent, through the whole trauma. He loves me to bits.
How’s your love life? Did you do what I suggested? Give the hunk a call. Ask him out. It’s the ‘90s. Be bold. And stop calling yourself plain. You’re gorgeous. Think gorgeous. I sound like Ann Landers.
Patricia, when I get back down the hill, let’s go out for dinner again. I won’t invite Remy and his cellphone this time, it’s like having a whole boardroom of executives join you. I’ll give you these tapes, but let’s just have a good time and not talk about the trial. And you can do another imitation of that sexist judge. . funny name. Judge Pickles. He’s going to preside over the preliminary? Egad. Sounds like a real modern, aware, illuminated man. The pigs still run the farm.
Back to business. All right, a bunch of us leave the dance together and I get talked into going to this afterparty. I was going to jump in a taxi, but Jonathan practically pulled me into the back seat of his Jag. I don’t mean like I was in danger or anything, Charles Stubb was driving, and he’s suitably straight and safe, and totally L7, and there was a whole mob of people packed in there with us. But you know, there’s like his arm around my shoulders and all this hot professorial breath on my neck.
He called me Kim. I hate that.
We went off to where these students rent a ground floor in the West End, and we sort of joked around and had a good time there. I don’t think I had much to drink, maybe one. I had rehearsals that weekend. Saint Joan. “ Who is for God and his maid? Who is for Orleans with me?” Great stuff, huh? Anyway, I didn’t want to be hung-over, and all I had was a little rye and something. .
Why do I have to justify myself? Why do I have to explain I was all so sober and childlike in my innocence? Like, you know, I was wearing something very chi-chi and short. So I must have led him on. Top two buttons weren’t done up, can you forgive a man yielding to his natural urges?
And I suppose Mr. Cleaver is going to ask why I agreed to go up to Professor O’Donnell’s for a nightcap. I don’t know. Maybe I was curious, wanted to see his place. Like, you know, why does a bachelor son of a British lord choose to live alone in a big house? Sort of odd. I suppose that’s going to make it sound like I was interested in him. .
God, I’m going to be a mess up there on the witness stand. Cleaver will sense blood, my dear, and tear me to shreds before your very eyes.
Anyway, I figured what the hell, why not. And he’d promised everyone a free taxi home, and his place was on my way, and I figured Remy was really going to be late getting back from his trip
Why am I explaining myself? What is it, women have been conditioned since the Pleistocene Era to feel guilty about not wanting to get laid by every grunting mouth-breather who wanders into the cave? I was having a good time. That’s it. Period. Wanted to party. I don’t know, Patricia, it’s. . life with Remy doesn’t actually swing sometimes, and we were enjoying a little time apart. . Apart together, I can remember us laughing. … Never mind, that’s not important.
So it’s the dead of night as we pull up in front of this Bauhaus fascist-looking structure. Dark. Neighbours have all turned off their old Katharine Hepburn movies.
And we go in, and. . let me describe the place, because I wandered around a bit in it. It’s not huge huge. Sort of rectangular and Mondrianish, if you know what I mean. Split-level. Bedroom and some kind of guest room on top. A sprawling living room, and a sort of library-cum-parlour — that’s where he took us — with literally walls of books and a big fireplace and a big chesterfield and some padded chairs, and lots of little lamps. All sort of stuffy, actually — not, you know, somebody’s pad. Musty — you could smell the bachelor dust. No family heirlooms, no big, florid portraits of his father, the aristocrat — that’s what I was expecting.
Okay, I sit on an armchair, stage left, facing Charles and Paula on the chesterfield. Jonathan draws the drapes and puts on some music — something soft and electronic — and he starts a cosy fire and brings out some five-star cognac, and some Benedictine, which I like to mix it with. I told him just a light one. He gave me this massive brandy glass with a teeny bit of liquid in the bottom.
Egan Chornicky was wandering around — I don’t know how, he could barely stand. This doesn’t have to get out, I hope, but he was taking lots of trips to the bathroom, and I don’t think to pee, and coming back rubbing his nose. Charles and Paula were being all very twittery in the presence of the Honourable Jonathan O’Donnell. Laughing at his jokes until they could die.
And O’Donnell was pretty loaded. Not to the extent he could ever deny he knew what he was doing, but he was being very loud and comical, and right wing. He’s really a political dinosaur, Pat. Also thinks he’s quite an intellect with his humungous library. I was sort of poking around in it, being a spy. Always felt you could tell a man through his books. He had all the correct stuff, though, even some feminist writers. De Beauvoir. Friedan. Paglia, of course, right on his wavelength. Lots of plays, all of Shaw, two copies of Saint Joan.