William Deverell - Trial of Passion

But my attention is diverted to an energetic woman doing the rounds with what appears to be a petition. Circling me warily like a hawk, she catches my eye and finally descends. “You’re the new owner of the Ashcroft place.” A brisk, matter-of-fact voice, though not wanting in music. “I’m Margaret Blake. I live up the road from you”

Though she looks older than the current version of Annabelle, she is probably much younger; she does not appear to have had a facelift. Obviously she spends much time outdoors, as her skin is biscuit brown from the sun. Although stern of aspect she is rather comely, lithe, and lean with close-cropped nut-brown hair and wide-set, piercing eyes, the colour of smooth-rubbed silver. She is attired in country clothes, denim jacket, jeans, sturdy boots.

She gestures below to a half-ton truck laden with bales of hay. “I have a working farm.” Do I hear a note of defiance in her voice, a challenge of some kind?

“Arthur Beauchamp.” I extend my hand. Hers is dry and strong and sinewy, crescents of grime beneath the fingernails.

She extends the petition. “I don’t suppose you’d care to sign this.”

“A pessimist makes a poor salesman. And why would I not sign it?” I observe it calls for a moratorium on a housing development known as Evergreen Estates.

“We don’t want to be like the city,” Mrs. Blake says. “We’re getting so many weekenders now. Look at those boxes.” She points to a patchy area of A-frames and trailers on a rise above the bay, which, I take it, is Evergreen Estates. “I’m sorry, I suppose you’re one of them. All for what they call progress.”

I mildly resent the assumption that I am of that lowly class referred to, the city weekender. “I am now a permanent resident, madam.”

“I see. Well, you don’t. . look permanent.”

Mrs. Blake studies me intently with her fierce grey eyes: she sees an outlander, a slicker, overgroomed, overdressed. She withdraws her petition from my soft, unsullied city hands — though I might have signed it had I received a courteous explication of the issues.

“Mr. Beauchamp, I do hope you’re not planning to tear down that old house. That’s what a lot of them do. Put up all that ugly plastic siding.”

Ah, yes, the taste police. They are everywhere.

She waves at the smoke wafting from my cigarette, wrinkling her noise in silent disapprobation. To boot, she is a clean-air fanatic. I fear she will be a forbidding neighbour.

As the ferry’s horn bleats, the blunt Mrs. Blake says a brisk adieu and continues her campaign elsewhere.

Before reaching the stairs to the car deck I am again accosted — this time by a small, twitching gentleman with a miniature, well-tended moustache. For some reason he is wearing a life jacket.

“I know who you are.” This is said in a tone of conspiracy, as if he has come upon my photograph on a police bulletin board. “Mr. Beauchamp. You defended that doctor who killed two people.”

“Allegedly. “A trial of some notoriety in which the media eagerly wallowed this winter.

“Be careful of that Margaret Blake, Mr. Beauchamp.”

“Careful?”

“Troublemaker.” He whispers, “Drawbridge mentality.” It sounds like some rare disease of the mind.

“Ah, yes, she’s against progress.”

“I seen you didn’t sign her petition. She don’t want change. We can’t stand still, right? We can’t stand still.”

The man indeed seems to have difficulty doing so, feet, arms, and eyes shifting constantly in the manner of a witness on the stand who has been overly bold with the truth.

“I’m Kurt Zoller. I guess I’m sort of like the elected mayor here, only on these islands they call it a trustee. You got any problems, I’m the last name in the phone book. I live in that converted trailer up in Evergreen Estates — you can see it from here. We don’t get many famous lawyers here, Mr. Beauchamp.”

He continues to mispronounce my name: Bo-champ. “Beecham, really, that’s how it’s said.”

“That busybody Margaret Blake. . “Again his voice takes on a conspiratorial tone. “She’s an eco-freak.”

“She sounds dangerous indeed, Mr. Zoller.”

I see her standing some distance away, alone, cleaning her fingernails. She glances at us, and as our eyes meet she abruptly pockets the nail file.

I escape to the car deck, where one of the tractor-capped young men who’d been puffing cannabis is standing by my faithful steed, the Phantom V, contemplating it as if it were some newly landed spaceship. The clothes he is wearing, torn and grease-stained, can best be described as third-hand.

“You goin’ up Potter’s Road, eh?”

“Yes, I believe I am.”

“Think I can hitch a ride?”

“My pleasure. Move some of those books to the back.”

“You want, I could sit back there.”

He is looking at my club chair, roped to the trunk.

I smile. “I’m afraid it has no seat belt.”

“Nobody never uses a seat belt around here except when the cop comes every second Tuesday. This is a ‘60, ain’t it, before they changed the grille. Love to look inside the hood one of these days, man.” He clambers in beside me. “Yeah, thanks. I’m in the spare-parts business. Mechanic, do some body work. I’m like an entrepreneur. Bob Stonewell, but they call me Stoney. That’s ‘cause one of my other businesses is stonework, chimneys and fireplaces, stuff like that. I do everything. You’re the guy bought the Ashcroft place, eh? Heard you was a lawyer, a pretty good one, defended that Dr. What’s-his-face, it was all over the TV, shot his wife and her boyfriend in cold blood. Wouldn’t mind talking to you — just, you know, if you get a minute — about a weed case I got comin’ up. How much do you charge?”

Dr. What’s-his-face, a cuckold, too, but perhaps more impetuous than I, paid a fee of a size I am embarrassed to mention. Stoney does not await a response, and is still talking as I pull out onto the ramp, my wheels finally making contact with the good earth of Garibaldi Island.

Immediately I am rerouted into the driveway of the marina — Stoney, phoneless, must pick up his messages, which are kept for him in a weathered grey building that is the local bar, known officially as The Brig. He runs inside and emerges a few minutes later with another young man, who, after introductions, climbs into my vehicle, crawling over the boxes of books.

“We’ll help you unpack your stuff,” Stoney says.

This beneficium shall be gratefully accepted. We bear off towards Potter’s Road, Stoney assuming the role of tour guide. “Now, the general store is down that road past the community hall, and it’s also the post office. That’s the gas station, don’t never get any work done there. You’re talking to the best mechanic on the island. Coming up, that’s my place on the right. House ain’t finished, but I’m working on it.”

The house is a seemingly uninhabitable shell of plywood and studs, the yard a battlefield after the invading force has left — abandoned relics everywhere. I think of the taste enforcer Mrs. Blake, who must endure this stressful sight daily.

The passenger in the back, a hairy creature who apparently is known by the sobriquet of “Dog,” has brought along a six-pack, and I can hear the pop and hiss of the cans, can smell the rich, addicting perfume of fermented hops.

“Like a brew?” he says, extending me a can.

My hands remain clenched upon the steering wheel. “Very kind of you, but no.”

We turn onto Potter’s Road, on the sunny south end of the island, where my new home — eighteen waterfront acres and an ancient house — no doubt is eagerly awaiting the arrival of its new squire.

“That’s your neighbour Mrs. Blake’s place,” says Stoney. “It’s sort of like the local zoo, chickens, pigs, ducks, sheep, and they crap all over. You need any fence work done, don’t hesitate.”