Whipped: An Arthur Beauchamp Novel(16)
The weekend threatened a complication. Lloyd Chalmers would be at the conference as a WWF panellist and the Sunday breakfast speaker. “Tearing Down the Walls of Climate Change Denial,” something like that. He’d emailed her. “It would be lovely to rub elbows if your hectic weekend sked permits a free moment. Maybe a quick drink? The St. James, as usual.”
That arrived several days ago. He was clearly interested in rubbing more than elbows. Knowing he’d booked into the St. James, she ought to have switched hotels. But she wasn’t going to run from him like a scared rabbit. Margaret had deleted the message. Deleted it again, from her trash.
And of course whenever Lloyd got into her head, so did her life partner, his frowning image prompting another wretched guilt attack. Arthur would feel horribly threatened were he to find out she was registered in the same hotel as her ex-lover. Maybe he did know, because for the first time in recent memory he hadn’t made his customary Friday evening call. She should have rung him, but waited too long, and then it was midnight, and Arthur might have decided on an early night, and . . . well, it was too early on the West Coast to call him now.
Margaret opened her eyes to see Pierette removing her earbuds, staring at her. “Honey, I know you’re not sleeping. About Lou Sabatino?”
“Everything.”
The coffee cart came by. Margaret roused herself, asked for it black. Pierette waited until the server moved along, then spoke softly: “Professor Lloyd Chalmers?”
Margaret almost choked on her café noir. She wasn’t sure if Pierette knew or was just making a good guess. “Lloyd . . .” Then abruptly, defensively: “Nothing’s happening there.”
“Excuse me.” Pierette looked away, offended.
The awkward silence was broken by Jennie introducing a delegate from the Idle No More caucus, who eagerly shook hands with the Green leader then shyly retreated. Jennie perched herself across from Margaret, took a file from her briefcase, and they began divvying up the issues to be debated at their Sunday panel, a Q and A. She and Pierette would be Margaret’s wingers. The other two Green MPs would also be at the table, all of them miked.
Pierette had agreed, though with reservations, not to say anything to Jennie about Margaret’s meeting with Sabatino. A veteran land-claims negotiator, she was overly cautious, would get all hawk-eyed and legal on her. Don’t go alone, you must always bring a witness. It could be a trap, setting you up for a zillion-dollar defamation action.
Such a worrywart.
§
Margaret attended a couple of data-rich scientific panels, avoided the plenaries, and kept clear of the buffet lunch sponsored by the provincial government. This minimized the chance of rubbing elbows with Dr. Chalmers. She spotted him once, ushering well-endowed woman into a meeting room, holding the door, flashing that smile, and she hated the little shiver she felt.
But finally, at about five o’clock, there was no escape. She had popped into a little reception for a few honorary WWF patrons and was on her way to the cash bar when the scandalously attractive psychologist stepped into her path with a glass of Chablis in either hand.
“You won’t be offended if I offer you this?”
“Offended?” She stared at the glass, finally accepted it.
“I thought you might not want to encounter me,” he said.
“Oh, your email. Sorry, Lloyd, I should have responded.” She sensed people watching. Lloyd narrowed the gap, too close.
“I was sure I’d committed some terrible faux pas,” he said.
“We both did. Does this conversation have to be about us? Right now . . . in public?”
“Margaret, guilt is a futile, unnecessary, and terrible burden. You feel so much lighter when you drop it. So much freer. We made each other happy. No one suspects. Not remotely. What about later, at the hotel tonight, just to talk, to clarify our concerns and feelings? We’re both on the same floor.”
“Sorry, Lloyd. That’s not happening. It’s over.” She finished her wine, offered him her empty glass: a kind of symbolic gesture. He frowned, then accepted it.
“It all ended very suddenly, Margaret.”
She had to stop this. She wasn’t auditioning for the role of bashful maiden. Stand up, get tough, carpe diem. “I have a late meeting and you’re chairing a panel, I believe. What is it about? Climate-change denial?”
He sighed, as if in surrender. “The question I’ll be posing is whether denial is a neurosis or a form of insanity, the sickness of our times. Blinkers worn by the unmindful.”
“Nuts or not, Lloyd, they’re scary as shit and they want to kill all life on earth.”
She took a deep breath and hairpinned through the reception, a few minutes of meet-and-greet before heading off to her hotel to cool out, to steady herself for the evening. Her last view of Lloyd was of him extending a wine glass to the 34E-cup delegate he was courting, apparently as a backup.
§
By half past eight, the weather had turned ghoulish, dark clouds blotting the dying light of evening, a storm approaching. Margaret was wrapped in a hooded rain jacket as she stepped inside the bookstore and made her way into the adjoining café. Only a few customers, with their books and smartphones. Comfortable chairs. Muted lighting. The tang of fresh brew, gurgle of frothing milk.
She ordered a soy latte and looked about. Lou Sabatino was sitting at a table in the shadows, his back to the wall, and nursing what looked like a hot chocolate. He slipped off a pair of dark clip-on glasses, glanced at her, then quickly down at an open laptop.