William Deverell - April Fool

“Three weeks, did you say, Margaret?” Though shouted over the increasing ambient noise, it sounds of snivelling.

“That’s the plan, we’re doing shifts. Will you remember to put out the bird food? The vet’s bill has to be paid, and you’ll have to get in some feed.”

“What about the kids, the goats?”

“Edna Sproule will help with the birthing. I want you to eat at the Woofer house. Kim Lee is a knowledgeable cook, and you ought to be on a vegetarian diet anyway.”

The hidden text: He’s helpless. He will be spoonfed lentil soup and tofu. Margaret looks proud and beautiful, Rapunzel in her tower. Removed, remote, unreachable.

Everyone is listening breathlessly to these disclosures of Arthur’s helplessness and dietary needs. He will seem a worrywart to boot if he broadcasts his fears for Margaret’s safety. Not to mention her mental health, after three weeks living with this pair.

Cudworth Brown is a former ironworker, runs the recycling depot. Most call him Cud, which is reflective of the slow, chewing motions of the ruminant creator that he is. He’s been writing poetry for the last dozen of his forty-two years, and has finally been published: Liquor Balls , a thin volume of lusty verse. The local literary celebrity has attracted, in Felicity Jones, his first groupie, an eighteen-year-old naif repeating her final year at Saltspring High.

“I can’t conceive of how you got up there, Margaret. How will you ever get down?”

Reverend Al Noggins finally brings this neck-wrenching tete-a-tete to a close, moving Arthur away. “Have to keep the banter brief, Arthur.” The reverend, everyone calls him, or Reverend Al, a short, bearded, energetic Welshman, twenty years of preaching the gospel at the local Anglican church. “We have a nesting eagle pair over there.” He points to a Douglas fir thirty feet away. “We had an engineer design the platform, old boy, it’s built to specs. For emergencies they have a rope ladder with a safety line.”

Todd Clearihue comes striding up, but before he can speak, Reverend Al says, “Todd, we’re not moving until you send away the logging crew. In addition to humans, there’s another species up there we propose to protect. Bald eagles. There’s a nest.” A sonorous voice, well suited to the pulpit.

“Aw, come on, Al, don’t try to pull that off on us. How would you know?” The air is thick with friction, but Clearihue maintains his smile.

“Take a hike up the bluffs, old fellow. You can see the nest, it must weigh half a ton.”

Clearihue turns to Arthur, sensing he’s more malleable. “I can’t believe this is happening in my community.” Though his family remains in Vancouver, he has bought waterfront property and joined several community groups, but retains the pasty look of one unused to rambling down wooded paths. “This is going to cost us at least twenty thousand a day.”

Garlinc didn’t have to borrow to buy the land, so Arthur suspects it has the resources to hold out. A private corporation with several partners, though Clearihue is reputed to be the majority shareholder, old money from precious minerals. “I’d sure like to figure a way to avoid going to court,” he says.

Arthur is thinking about court, about the eagle’s nest. He saw the mating eagles yesterday, above the Gap. He’s not sure if they’re on the protected list. He’s not sure if there is a protected list.

Trustee Zoller descends. “What’s the law here, Arthur? Couldn’t they go to jail for squatting?” He operates the water taxi service and in the last election squeaked in by two votes, cashing in on his popularity as an accordion player. An odd fellow with his twitches and flinches and hints of paranoia. “I hope you’re not part of this underground operation.”

“Of course he’s not,” says Clearihue. “This must really be embarrassing for him. Any ideas, Arthur?”

“I suggest we wait for Corporal Ivanchuk.” Who’s absent because it’s Tai Chi Thursday at the hall.

Arthur thinks about the Confederation Club, his old chums carrying on about how he married a 1960s back-to-the-lander, now she’s become an eco-terrorist.

Corporal Al Ivanchuk finally trudges up, Corporal Al, as he is known so as not to be confused with Reverend Al. He’s an easygoing giant who instructs Tai Chi and is the local Cub and Scoutmaster.

“What have we here?” he says.

“A blind man could see what we have,” says Zoller, snappish. “There has been unseen activity going on under your very nose while you’re dancing the Tai Chi.” Arthur tries to work his way through this abstraction. He thinks of three weeks of vegetarian dinners.

“That’s a pretty good piece of work,” says Corporal Al, gazing up at the tree fort.

“How are you going to handle this, corporal?” Clearihue asks. “I’d hate to see them criminally charged, they’re friends, but this is costing us big time.”

“Money is only something printed on paper-seems to me our first concern should be for people’s safety.” He calls, “You folks okay up there? Last thing we want is an accident.”

Cud Brown answers: “Boom-shaka-laka, we’re living large, man, but I can’t get cell reception. Can you call Felicity’s old lady? I don’t think she knows.”

“Not good. She’s going to be very upset.”

“Capiche, there were only supposed to be two of us.”

“Tell her I’m fine,” Felicity yells. “I was just going to visit, but I’m staying. It’s super up here.”

“I’ll break it to her. You guys need anything else?”

“Thanks, Corporal Al, we’re great,” Margaret says. Gleeful. Arthur doesn’t like the way she was hugging Cud, he’s thankful Felicity is there to share his cot or whatever they’ll sleep on. A hairy-armed brute with tattoos. A nose broken in a storied fight at the old Brig Tavern. His satiric nickname: Cuddles.

“What I see going on here,” says Zoller, working his way into one of his convolutions, “is that conspirators are being turned a blind eye to because one of them is the wife of a prominent lawyer.”

“Civil matter, out of my jurisdiction,” Corporal Al says. He is on his radio, trying to get a message through to Felicity’s mother, obviously not relishing the task. Tabatha Jones is displeased that her daughter is seeing a man twenty-two years older who is said to have deflowered many local maidens.

Arthur looks up at his smiling reckless wife, her arms defiantly folded. She is enjoying this far too much. She asked the recluse for legal help, and has cleverly compelled him to give it. He feels manipulated, a sensation seared into memory from his years with Annabelle.

The girl in the Rise Up top is looking knives at Clearihue, who’s making an effort not to see her. “This is ridiculous, Arthur,” he says. “We’re going to have reporters-do we really want that here?”

He’s counting on Arthur being embarrassed by Margaret’s direct action: he is well known from his years in the courtroom. A book has been written about him, his important trials. And yes, he feels embarrassment, but it pales against a fear for his wife, for her safety.

“When the reporters come, Todd, I can only hope we offer our island’s traditional hospitality.”

The media might find novelty here, a reprieve from the catastrophe-laden six o’clock newscast. Next up, we’ll meet some feisty tree-sitting Gulf Islanders. But comedy will spiral into tragedy when the defendants are enjoined to stop trespassing or face damages, costs, and possibly jail.

Noggins beckons him. “Someone I want you to meet, Arthur.”

“I’ll be there presently, Reverend Al.” His given name is Aloysius, but no one can pronounce it. He is ruddy, fifty-five, and was a lifelong bachelor until the island’s most careless carpenter winged his way to heaven after falling off the church roof. Bequeathing to the pastor not just guilt but his widow, Zoe.