“Don’t be too impressed. They didn’t get going until they saw the plane come in.”
I frown. “Not much progress.”
“Too much dope.”
Their belongings are scattered about. They have moved into my garage like squatters. Where’s my old pickup? I remember: I’d left it in the care of Nelson Forbish.
Stoney clambers down. “What do you think of it so far? An architectural classic. Hey, man, you’re a sight for sore eyes. Listen, do you think me and Dog can get a little draw?”
“How is the Rolls?”
Stoney is evasive. “Oh, well, yeah, it’s coming. Had to send out to the factory for a new steering wheel.”
That might take a few years. “No sign of Constable Pound, I take it?”
“Naw. He knows I’m under your protection.”
After I grease his palm, Margaret takes me by the hand and leads me to her house. “I’ll make a sandwich.” She turns to appraise me. “You look like a stranger in that suit.”
After a handful of days she can barely remember what I look like. Why does she seem so cautious and formal with me? But surely that has to do with the pall that enshrouds us.
The Garibaldi graveyard is behind the community church in a vale bordered by the looping tresses of cedar trees. Several dozen locals have gathered here, many of whom barely knew the deceased. But death is an event of moment on a small island, and even Kurt Zoller is here, looking overly solemn in a shiny new life jacket. Near a station wagon that doubles as a hearse, a young woman is playing an Irish harp, another blowing softly on a flute.
Nelson Forbish waddles up to me, playing nervously with the rim of his porkpie hat. “About your truck, Mr. Beauchamp — I’m afraid it kinda broke down. I had to have it towed off the ferry.”
“It’s unimportant, Nelson.” A minor death.
He seems relieved. “Hey, I heard all about your trial on the news. What do you think your client’s gonna get?”
Without responding, I desert him for the graveside. My comrades from AA are all here: They have built a simple casket and reserved a spot for me as pallbearer. We lift George from the back of the station wagon and carry him to his recently deeded land, and we lay his ravaged soul to rest there.
Everyone is looking at me, waiting. To call upon Proverbs or Revelations would be discourteous to George. I choose Lucretius: “O miserable minds of men. O blind hearts. In what darkness of life, in what dangers you spend this little span of years.” And I cannot continue. I am weeping.
Afterwards, Emily Lemay invites us all down to The Brig for the wake, where those who are able toast George with rum and those who are not raise their sodas high. As Margaret drives us back to Potter’s Road, we are quiet, in our separate, sad worlds.
We stroll about her farm, joined by her dog, her cat, and a strutting goose. She leads me to a sturdy new gate in our fence. “I kind of fancied it up.”
And such a lovely gate it is, entwined with willow wands, a simple lockless latch, hinges oiled to swing easily open. It seems an invitation, a shortcut to her house and heart. .
She vaults onto the split-cedar fence and takes my hand. “All right, tell me about the trial.”
I relate the devastating evidence of Mrs. McIntosh. She nods in sympathy, then says, “Well, you have one thing going for you.”
“What’s that?”
“Kimberley didn’t remember anything about being slapped or any threats or pleading with him.”
“Or Satan or the wicked, wicked girl.” Of course. So preoccupied with my angst, I have missed the obvious. This apparent black hole in Kimberley’s memory had been action-filled, bustling. Either that, or Mrs. McIntosh was reliving one of her bodice-ripping novels.
“Getting slapped would sure wake me up. Even if I’d passed out.”
“How on God’s green earth did I let that slip by me? Why doesn’t Kimberley remember? I could kiss you.”
“Well. .”
I stare at her numbly, feeling myself being slowly drawn into the deep silver cups of her eyes. I raise myself to her perch, and she bends to my lips and caresses my face with her fingertips. Her animals are staring at us, curious, expectant.
“I love you, Margaret.”
“I know. It feels a little scary, Arthur. I’m a little. .”
“You don’t have to say anything.” No, I don’t want her to finish that thought; leave me some hope and dignity.
“I’m just a little afraid of fooling myself, I think. Or maybe of losing control. I have to. . let it settle in.”
Love is not an impetuous matter for the widow of Christopher Blake. It is not given freely, but hoarded, conserved like her precious rain forests. I am content that she keeps an open mind, and I will continue assiduously to follow my mentor’s advice: She demands to be wooed and pursued. How cocky and confident was George Rimbold about my prospects. Too confident? Did the gay priest understand women so well?
But I must return to my plane before dark. At my wharf, she holds me tight, her breasts and hips pressing warm against me, and I feel prickles, a flutter in my loins, a want.
“Will I see you on Saturday?” she asks.
“I don’t know right now.”
“Try to come. Even for a little while.”
What do I read in those mercury eyes? Affection? Or the self-reproach of one who cannot return the clumsy love I lavish upon her? It feels a little scary. . I am pushing too hard, an amateur at love.
Before evening falls, I have time-travelled to the brawny, busy city and am back in my lonely hotel suite, communing with my gar-goyles. The vicissitudes of the day have sapped my strength and spirit. I do not look forward to the morrow. But the practice of advocacy is a demanding mistress, and I must bow to her whip. I call Augustina to ask how she fared this afternoon.
“Pretty well. Didn’t step on any land mines. Wally could barely stay awake — he looked ghastlier as the day wore on — so we adjourned Dr. Sanchez until tomorrow morning. Sergeant Chekoff was fine. We have a nice little picture of Jonathan out there raking his leaves, looking puzzled by his visit.”
“And the jury?”
“I don’t know, Arthur. They want something from us. Only two people really know what went on in that bedroom. . ”
“And since Kimberley doesn’t seem to remember, they are waiting for Jonathan to fill the void.”
“Something like that.”
But why doesn’t Kimberley remember?
Mrs. McIntosh’s apocalyptic revelations have panicked a jury I had been confident would acquit. Shall I be forced to put Jonathan on the stand after all? I would need the entire weekend to prepare him. Patricia will probably pick away at him for two days: She is an effective cross-examiner and he will be exposed to ferocious attack. Then we will doubtless hear Dominique Lander speak of Jonathan’s proclivity to paint bound bodies before coitus. Then come the counsel addresses, and finally the judge’s charge to the jury — we’ll be another week.
But Rimbold is with me again, gazing down at me from wherever his heaven may be, with his sad, cynical smile, his wisdom. Your dreams are what you fear; they are not what you are.
Couldn’t you at least have stuck around until the end of the trial, George? Until I got back, until I could talk reason to you before you refunded to your absent God His one most bounteous gift? Ah, George, thank you for the fishing gear. Thank you for the pot.
I roll a joint to his memory and smoke it, then in a tossing sleep descend to Hades, in a chariot drawn by Pluto’s coal-black steeds, and there I see George being taken by the current of the Lethe, the river of oblivion.
A buffet breakfast is offered daily in a salon down the hall from my room, and that is where I have arranged to meet Dr. Jane Dix. This encounter, which earlier I considered a waste of valuable time, now seems cruciaclass="underline" Ground has shifted; we are no longer on terra firma.