Whipped: An Arthur Beauchamp Novel(22)
She had checked out of the James, reserved a room near the airport. She would catch an early morning flight to Ottawa, in time for the day’s sitting.
Jennie had quickly been brought into their confidence in a few whispered words at the end of their Q and A: “Farquist. It’s explosive.” Margaret had withheld the details until they were safely in the privacy of the great outdoors. Even their hotel rooms felt unsafe — Margaret worried they may have been bugged. She was growing more paranoid by the minute, ever since doing that near backflip when she noticed the glowing green light.
The session had gone well enough, Margaret summoning the strength for a ten-minute opening and a five-minute closing, leaving Jennie and the other MPs to slug it out. Tar sands, wetlands, the Coast Mountains Pipeline, dying fisheries — so many issues, so little time, no cheap fixes. They were corralled for a long while afterwards, people seeking answers, hope. Margaret straining so hard to smile she thought her face might crack.
The Lebanese restaurant was by a waterfront park and looked over the island city’s great river, the St. Lawrence, high with runoff swirling under the Concorde Bridge. A tug was maneuvering a freighter upriver, toward the industrial docks, where corruption had flourished. Waterfrontgate.
Jennie had a mild cigarette habit, but chain-smoked while listening to Margaret’s account of her encounter with Lou Sabatino and his purloined video. She had been appropriately shocked, at one point coughing out smoke.
Good old Pierette — she’d tried to cop a plea to the flopola with the hot mike, but Margaret insisted on owning the blame. She had expected a few chilly comments from Jennie, but her response was reasonably forgiving, though regretful. “We’ll know from the morning press.” Working up a bright smile. It could not have been lost on Jennie that Margaret’s gaffe could mean her leadership was in peril, maybe her seat.
Pierette had learned, to their great relief, that the sessions were not being taped. But they were concerned that Christie Montieth may not have run off to pee or for a cigarette when she so suddenly left with her phone. Was it to call her editor? Had she recorded Margaret’s words? Was that possible, from headphones? Yes, with a phone wedged between ear and earpiece.
Author of the blog View from the Hill, the five-foot-tall Goldilocks also wrote a weekly column in the Ottawa Sun, a daily tabloid that viewed the Greens as anti-growth ideologues. The paper would not hesitate to publish a scoop like this.
Jennie lectured them about defences to defamation suits. Only one offered victory: the truth — clear proof that the plaintiff was indeed a bad, bad boy. The only other recourse would be a quick apology that might mitigate damages.
Margaret was shocked. “Apologize? I would jump off a bridge first.”
“Then get that fucking tape.”
Don’t call me, I’ll call you. But when would that be? Margaret had Lou’s cell number, for emergencies. This was an emergency, and she found herself probing in her bag for her BlackBerry.
“Can’t we hang fire until the morning?” Pierette said. “If the story doesn’t break, then it was just a close call.” Sounding too brave. “Did anyone see Christie with headphones on? No. Did anyone see her madly scribbling?”
Jennie said, “I was too busy being chatted up by Lloyd Chalmers.” Margaret wondered if she had guessed about the fling. Probably. Pierette certainly knew.
Lloyd had embarrassed Margaret by vigorously applauding all the points she’d scored. He’d lobbed a couple of easy questions to Jennie about the role of First Nations in preserving habitat. After the session broke up, he gave her his card. Margaret got ignored. Good.
Their decision was to do nothing before tomorrow. When Lou Sabatino learned that the Farquist bomb had ignited, surely he would immediately contact Margaret. There could be no question that he would make the tape available. He respected Margaret, the honest politician, the straight shooter. He would not want to see her sued for millions.
Meantime, Pierette would seek confirmation that Farquist owned a log chalet somewhere in the mountains and make discreet inquiries about Svetlana Glinka.
They huddled over espressos, sharing conjectures about the secret life of Emil Farquist. No, not that, Mother, I beg you! Clearly, he’d been emotionally damaged by his mother’s suicide. She was twenty-two when she gave birth to her only child. Quite pretty, in the old photos they had seen. A grade-school teacher in Calgary.
Jennie lit another cigarette. “Betty and Kavindar — should they be in the know?” The other two Green MPs.
“Betty . . .” Margaret hesitated. “I don’t want to be unkind, but . . .”
“She has a big mouth.” Jennie smiled. “Right. Let’s keep it to the tightest possible circle for now.” She grasped Margaret’s hand. “What’s done is done. Stop obsessing about it.”
Margaret proposed they tell one other person: her husband, that rock of support. Jennie had no problem with that; she adored Arthur.
But Margaret, it turned out, couldn’t do it. When she phoned Arthur that evening, she didn’t mention the live microphone, or how Montieth had scrammed out of there. She was afraid it would upset him. His wife, being reckless again.
BANGLES AND BEADS
It was Arthur’s recurring dream: being immobile, bound — often with rope, tonight with thongs — helplessly watching his faithless former wife rutting with some faceless, nameless lover. But on this Monday morning, on awakening, he remembered a twist at the end: Annabelle had been wielding a strap, the kind once used by the private school headmaster on dreamers like Arthur, and he was the receiver, not the observer. “Hurt me, please,” he’d said. So polite.