Whipped: An Arthur Beauchamp Novel(10)
There were howls of delight from his cheering squad, and laughter even from Margaret’s side of the house.
§
The Commons Foyer, a lofty arcade of elaborately moulded arches and columns, was where the press routinely jostled, moiled, and grubbed as they corralled the newsmakers exiting the chamber. They were waiting for Margaret, like a wolf pack, and she was quickly engulfed in a cluster of cameras and sound-bite-ready microphones. She was still seething, praying she could control her temper. She had been bettered in that sharp exchange, a wounded bird knocked out of the sky.
Was she shocked, they demanded to know, to learn Farquist was a birder?
“Annual Easter bird count? Come on, you guys, he’s a master of the staged photo-op. He wouldn’t know a bird from a bat without some flunky whispering in his ear. I’ll give you a list of bird species that Emil Farquist isn’t able to count because they’re endangered, like the burrowing owl and mountain plover, or extirpated, like the greater sage grouse. Species that have survived hundreds of thousands of years are now on their way to being as dead as the dodo, which is the deserved fate of this government, and will be if the Liberals show some balls this week.”
Margaret became aware only then that Farquist was within earshot, several feet away, awaiting his turn with a big, boyish, patronizing smile. She took a deep breath, carried on, firing more ammunition, excoriating him for defiling prime farmland by giving tax breaks to a massive program of natural-gas fracking. She lost it a bit at the end, her voice breaking.
Cameras quickly swung toward Farquist, who was already mocking her “hysterical” tone, her ignorance of the relatively benign effect of fracking on the environment.
Margaret walked off, but then turned back. “Frack you!” She couldn’t help it.
§
She isolated herself in her private office at the Green Party headquarters, numbly munching Chinese takeout until the six p.m. television news finished. She just couldn’t watch it and dreaded hearing the reviews from her staff. She fought an urge to call Arthur for consolation. It was too early; he would be doing afternoon chores.
Eventually she went back to the war room, where the big wall TV was flickering. Her indispensable aide, Pierette Litvak, a petite, perky, multi-tasking dynamo, clicked it off with a remote. Jennie Withers was on the couch beside her. A lawyer, a land-claims negotiator, an honorary chief of the entire Cree Nation, Jennie was the Green’s deputy leader and a catch for the party. She’d won a close four-way race in Ontario’s far north. Not yet forty, slim as a runway model, and bronze of skin, she was striking in her long black braids.
“Such a pompous ass,” she said, referring, Margaret hoped, to Farquist.
“You were brilliant,” Pierette said.
“I was awful.”
“I thought you got your point across,” said Jennie.
Faint praise. “Did they run the bit about the Liberals not daring to show their balls?”
Pierette nodded. “Chantal Hébert said she couldn’t imagine anyone wanting to see them.”
“I suppose they caught my voice breaking. Hysterical female. That’s how they’re going to come after me.”
“Well, Margaret,” Jennie said, then hesitated. “Telling him to frack himself comes kind of close to the line. He was on the tube, blaring away at you, calling you a slanderous loose cannon.”
“Oh, come on, Jennie. It was just a sound bite.”
Jennie looked at her sharply, though her tone was soft. “Margaret, maybe you should try a new approach.”
“Like what?”
“Cooler.”
Pierette came to the rescue, bounding to her feet. “It’s seven o’clock, sweetie. You have the thing at the National Gallery tonight.”
Jennie got up to leave, and Margaret offered her a hug, warmly reciprocated, then fled into her office with her BlackBerry and speed-dialled Blunder Bay. She tended to call Arthur not when she was up but down — it must depress him. It rang three times, four times.
Maybe this wasn’t a good time to call. She was still feeling the discomfort of having encountered Lloyd Chalmers last night. She must not mention that. Her fling hadn’t been discussed since her teary confession. Arthur hadn’t wanted to hear more.
Seven rings, and Arthur picked up, out of breath, but full of good cheer. He’d raced in from his planting and weeding, guessing it was she. The potatoes were in, a bed of lettuce begun. A glorious sunny day. No mink visits. The two new baby goats were over their wobbles and already bounding like a pair of jumping jacks.
“Please don’t ask how my day was.”
He didn’t, and she told him anyway, a long dirge met with clucking, tut-tutting and other soothing sounds, a jest or two, and flattery twinned with a dig at the flatulent and overbearing toad who’d brought her to such despair. He narrated, with a Scottish burr, Tommy Douglas’s favourite quote from Burns: “I will lay me down and bleed awhile, and then I’ll rise and fight again.” The medicine worked well. She laughed at herself.
Mischievously, she asked. “Seen any more of Jason Silverson?”
“Yes, indeed. Daily I sit at the master’s feet, ingesting his pearls of wisdom.”
“You bullshitter. You’re about the most non-spiritual person I know. What are you afraid of — that you’re going to be liberated from your false values?”