I do not bite. “The case opens on Monday, August thirty-first. The Labour Day weekend follows. Two weeks seem about right.”
“Well, I intend to move things along. You’ll find I don’t waste time. Issues of law, Patricia?”
“A voir dire on an oral statement by the accused to an officer. And an issue of previous consistent behaviour.”
“My learned friend will have a fight on her hands over that,” I say.
Augustina says, “And we’d like to see the polygraph test results.”
“Any objection?”
“Yes,” says Patricia. “I don’t get to see anything from the defence, of course, but that’s our wonderful system of justice.”
“Well, let’s set aside a couple of days at the beginning so you can slug it out between you,” Wally says. “I don’t suppose there’s any chance we will not be going ahead?”
“Not a whisper of a chance,” Patricia says.
“Unless Miss Martin repents,” I say.
Wally looks at me reproachfully. “Ms. Martin,” he says.
As anxious as a teenager on a first date, I arrive at Chez Forget well before the appointed hour. Pierre whisks me to my usual table. “Even without the suit I still recognize you. So with you and Madame Beauchamp it is splitsville, eh? Yes, d’accord, I know about this. Madame was in here with her boyfriend, not much of a trade for you, maybe you have the better deal. Who is it, Monsieur Beauchamp, that you dine with today? A beautiful woman, eh?”
I respond with a non-committal smile. Two perfect roses sit in a vase. Deja vu: During my final sad sharing of that table with Annabelle, she fiddled with roses while our marriage burned.
I am on edge as I wait for Margaret, sipping a wineless spritzer. A fear bedevils me that escorting her to the matinee of Switch might turn out to be a social error of tragic magnitude. Does one woo a proper lady by exposing her to bawdiness on a stage? But Margaret was keen to see the complainant in person: She is hooked on the trial.
I ask Pierre to bring the phone, and I call Augustina, who was to have tracked down Jon O’Donnell.
“Yes, Arthur, I reached him by phone. He says he has something important on this afternoon, so he can’t meet me right away.”
“What about the screams the housekeeper heard?”
“He says she must be imagining them.”
“What did he say about Dominique Lander?”
“He didn’t want to talk on the phone. He sounded pretty stressed out.”
“I can well appreciate that.” Jonathan’s reticence makes me very uneasy about this business with the S and M artist. “Call me after you’ve talked more fully with Jonathan. Tonight?”
“Can’t — I’m off to the Slocan Valley to see this Dominique person.”
“When you can.”
I will leave this issue with my competent junior; I seem unable to focus upon it. Where is Margaret? What if she is wandering lost in the bowels of one of those underground downtown malls? Confused by the city, has she blundered into the seamier side of town? Or perhaps she has hired a taxi driver newly arrived from Uttar Pradesh and they are lost in the suburbs.
But lo, here she arrives, bearing many shopping bags. Pierre winks at me, then darts to her side, taking her bags, from one of which she retrieves a package.
I rise, and she leans and kisses me on the cheek. Uncle Arthur.
“I am Pierre Forget, your charming host. And you are the beautiful young lady Monsieur Beauchamp cannot stop talking about.” He settles her into a chair. “Monsieur Beauchamp will have the lamb, and for the lady I recommend the salmon. It is exquisite. I will bring aperitifs.” He bustles off.
Margaret opens her package and presents me with an illustrated T-shirt. “End the Rape,” it shouts. A giant chain-cut fir is toppling.
“I had to buy it for you.”
How lovely of her. “End the rape. I shall have to wear it in court.”
“How did it go?”
“I was extremely put out. They threw some last-minute witnesses at us. We can’t demand an adjournment or we’d risk losing a good judge.”
“And are these new witnesses a big problem?”
“I’m not quite sure. My assistant will be interviewing one this week.” I tell her of Dominique Lander’s reputed role as O’Donnell’s former partner, her expertise in “bondage and discipline,” as she prefers to call it.
Margaret’s eyes grow wide. “Tell me everything over the lamb and salmon.”
But I am again remembering the dream in which I was tied and gagged, and ravenous with desire. What might Dr. Freud make of it? Do I repress secret, sordid inclinations? Or is this trial too much with me? Pain is but an aspect of love.
Margaret studies the menu with seeming alarm. “These prices. Well, you’re paying. I’m glad I’m old-fashioned about that.”
“Would you like wine? You can always rely on the house Chardonnay.”
“I’m not much of a drinker.” She looks about this small, fussily decorated bistro. “We could never afford restaurants like this. Chris and me.”
Even from our sixth-row orchestra seats I have difficulty concentrating upon the action of Switch, a plotless, pointless endeavour in which a few young people run about the set stumbling into each other as they answer phones and door chimes while talking in a kind of ribald sexual code I cannot decipher. For no reason I can fathom, people keep coming to the door, a Jehovah’s Witness, a political canvasser, a Girl Guide with cookies.
But the brickbats I toss come from a minority of one. Even Margaret is joining in the laughter.
The Theatre Workshop is housed in one of those corrugated metal buildings on Granville Island — a style of architecture inspired perhaps by fish-processing plants — and the air-conditioning isn’t working. We are at oven temperature on a broiling August afternoon. My problems of concentration arise not just from the heat but because Margaret has placed the palm of her right hand on the back of my left one, a moist, warm touching that makes me giddy and hints she is not offended by my company. My arm is hotly frozen; I cannot, dare not move that hand.
But can hers be more than a sisterly caring? Her husband was comfortably seated at our table at Chez Forget. She talked about him through the entree and dessert. He wasn’t perfect, but he was the best man I’d ever known. Hell, he was the only one.
How do I challenge a phantom to a duel over the heart of Margaret Blake?
The performers on stage have been waiting not for Godot but for Kimberley Martin, who makes a late, loud entrance, all long legs and high boots, taking charge, impish, and imperious. She lacks the polish of experience, but despite being trapped within this crude vehicle is charmingly deft and owns an instinctive sense of timing.
A backdrop rises, revealing a large hot tub on a platform. The actors begin languidly disrobing, and the curtain falls on the first act.
“I can’t help laughing — it’s really off the wall,” Margaret says, and she removes her hand from mine.
As we rise to make our way out, I catch sight, near the back of the theatre, of Jonathan O’Donnell, slouching in his seat, looking glum. If he sees me, he pretends not to notice. This was his important afternoon engagement? Upon being confronted with the spectre of Dominique Lander, he attends the theatre? I am put out. His presence here might be taken to imply a morbid interest in his accuser. I will have a word with him when occasion allows.
Outside, we are encountered by the baleful scowls of picketers with their angrily scrawled reviews.
Margaret shakes her head. “There are so many important causes.” I can’t get over the fact that Jonathan is here. What if Kimberley Martin notices him and informs Crown and jury? Will they conjure an image of a stalker and his victim? But thoughts of O’Donnell atomize into nothingness: Margaret takes my arm and urges me to stroll with her.