William Deverell - April Fool

But where is his counsellor? There he is, and the Owl is ashamed for thinking he was running off like a coward. He’s framed in the sunlight pouring through the big window at the back. He and his lady have their arms around each other. Tight. Real tight.

When Arthur shows up for his mail, he finds Nelson Forbish stuffing the latest Bleat into the boxes. Makepeace comes grumbling from the far reaches of the store, shooed away by Winnie Gillicuddy. “Just leave me alone to look,” she calls.

There’s no room for the postmaster behind the counter, the local news anchor fills every inch of space. Arthur forks over a dollar for a Bleat , and Nelson leans to his ear. “I have it from a reliable source that Todd Clearihue has a fetish for diapers. Wears them to bed.”

“Who might this source be?”

“Not just some gullible person. A hotshot columnist from the mainstream media.”

“Nelson, it’s a joke.”

“Oh.”

Arthur takes his Bleat to the lounge, draws a coffee. Here’s a picture of the town tonsil, walking from the ferry arm in arm with the mistress of Blunder Bay. In exuberant typeface: “Welcome back, Mr. Beauchamp! He may be a famous lawyer to some, but he’s just a goat farmer to us.”

A goat farmer with the dazed look of a war refugee being led to a resettlement area. Margaret maintains a tight grip on his arm, but has her face to the sun, soaking it in-Arthur was shocked at how pale was the revenant wife after two and a half months of unremitting shade.

The picture was snapped the morning after a.32-calibre bullet ended a life and a trial for murder. Not truly a trial but an elaborate sham, a nightmarish construction, brilliantly conceived-except for the flaw: an unforeseen DNA profile in Exhibit 52. In the end, Flynn was heroic or suicidal or both. Wilbur Kroop, in the face of mutterings he was provocateur to this violent scene, has taken sick leave.

Arthur left it up to Brian to sweep up the debris from the aborted trial, and he was in top form, working Kroop like a horse broken to saddle and bridle, prevailing on him to bring the jury back the next day for a directed verdict of not guilty. Forewoman Sueda was overheard to mutter, “I should hope so.” The burglary charges are to be stayed. As a small gesture toward saving Her Majesty’s face, Faloon will plead guilty to escape in return for three months of imprisonment, less time spent in custody.

It is Desiree Flynn who is forced to feed the media’s untiring appetite for this story of same-sex seduction and the homicidal vengeance of a cuckolded cop. Her two sons are under intense emotional pressure, and she has taken them to Montreal to stay with her sister until the uproar exhausts itself. Arthur finally saw her image on the news, she and her boys being escorted by her glum fiance into the airport. Slender, strawberry blond, wide startled eyes. Not a hint of trailer trashiness.

The lounge hosts only a few idlers today, one of them Cudworth Brown, buying drinks, celebrating an arts grant. “Twelve thousand clams, Arthur. This keeps rolling in, I can afford to get off this fucking rock. You getting it on okay with your old lady?”

“I’m flattered to know my love life is of such interest, Cud.”

“Hey, man, just curious. She was pissed you weren’t there for her big exit.”

If the truth be told-and it won’t be told here, in a bootlegger’s bar-the doornail didn’t need the Viagra. Somehow all the unruly emotions of the day got the blood flowing, and though the two lovers might not have matched, in acrobatic skill, the nuptial display of eagles, they were well fuelled by pent-up desire. Five stars.

They talked through the night. (“I’m supposed to throw leaflets from a hot-air balloon? Of course I love you.”) They laughed, relived their time apart, the oddball things that happened. He has decided she probably does care for him deeply. But he senses demands, subtle and unspoken. He knows he has to perform. Not physically, thank God. Politically. In court. Her hero saved Faloon, now he must save Gwendolyn.

Nelson finally gives way to Makepeace, who weeds out the offers and fliers, and deals the legitimate mail like playing cards. “Invitation from Flim Flam Films to a screening.”

Cud Brown from the lounge: “I put them in touch with the Sundance Film Festival. I told them to use my name.”

“Postcard from Melbourne, your grandson’s coming to visit. This here letter with the political sticker is from your friend Lotis. ‘Be Tribal, Buy Local, No Logo.’ What’s that mean?”

Arthur doesn’t know. How does one be tribal? He doesn’t open Lotis’s letter, he doesn’t want to. Inexplicably, he fears it. Why would she write him? She has a phone.

As he strolls up Potter’s Road, his own phone rings, with the sound of chimes-he is no longer anyone’s sunshine. It’s Brian, asking if he cares to hear the latest insight from Lila Chow-Thomas.

“Not really.” Brian frightened Arthur with his marriage tribulations, inflamed his condition, the Annabelle Syndrome. He was too ashamed to mention his jealous imaginings to Margaret, she would have been insulted. My God, Arthur, did you think you married a whore?

“She says we’ve got to stop one-upping each other, we enjoy the drama of conflict too much, the theatre of marriage. We’ve begun dating, by the way. I’m feeling great, off the booze forever this time, plus I found out who pulled the panties prank. A secretary with whom, regrettably, I’d shared a weak moment. News from another front: I’m now formally retained by Gilbert Gilbert.”

“How did that happen?”

“I gave my card to him as they were taking him away, before some other shyster could get his mitts on him. He’s impregnable. No jury will convict him.”

“Your confidence is admirable.”

“Jasper didn’t strike him, didn’t try to knock the gun askew. He walked into the bullet. Ergo, it’s a suicide not a murder.”

If you’ve destroyed my marriage, Flynn, I hope you roast in hell! Well he may, but Arthur refuses to allow that to sit on his conscience. One person’s death can never atone for another’s. Suicide can never atone for grisly murder. Flynn knew he would never earn parole after so deliberate a slaying. He escaped a living hell, took his chance that a last brave act might rescue his reputation if not his soul.

“Add to that, Jasper jostled him so hard the gun went off. Accident. Lack of intent. Insanity. Self-defence. Necessity. I’ve got a cornucopia of defences. Got to go. Good luck in Ottawa.” Where Arthur is to argue next week before the nation’s court of final appeal. The Supreme Court has agreed to hear the welter of injunctions and cross-injunctions, Garlinc versus Gwendolyn, Gwendolyn versus Garlinc .

The arguments are complex: misrepresentation, equitable estoppel, breach of contract, unjust enrichment. But the event Arthur is gambling on is a simple handshake, witnessed, admitted by the defaulter. Ancient law demands that land deals be in writing. But if placing one’s initials on a scrap of paper binds the parties, why shouldn’t a vigorous handshake?

Undressed, stripped of verbiage, the issue is really about saving one of the few clumps of beauty left in the world, a microscopic green dot on a global map…And how do you express that to a high court panel?

Arthur clumps past his gate to be greeted by a now familiar, unlovely sight. Six feet of water, a lumpy hill of clay, and a backhoe wanted by the law-these make up the abandoned engineering works of Island Landscraping. It’s been noted that Stoney is a little soft on Kim Lee, and crafty Margaret intends to use that as a lever to get him to finish the job. Maybe he’ll even let Arthur have the Fargo back for a while.