Whipped: An Arthur Beauchamp Novel(24)

“Your brains have been sucked out, sweetie. I’m not looking at Nelson Forbish, I’m looking at a zombie.” Taba grabbed the rest of her mail and marched off.

Makepeace couldn’t reach around Forbish to get at the Blunder Bay mailbox, so Arthur leaned across the counter and snaffled his letters and magazines, thus pre-empting the postmaster’s traditional examining of Arthur’s mail. It seemed a fetish, this fondling of other people’s correspondence. Doubtless, the lonely bachelor got little mail of his own.

Makepeace began to moan about Arthur’s effrontery, his flouting of Canada Post regulations, but was cut off by a woman’s loud call from outside, the parking area: “Just do it!”

“Just do it,” another woman chirruped. Laughter.

Arthur paused on his way to the gardening section to look out the store’s big plate window. A VW van, the kind one used to see in the sixties: peace symbols, slogans in praise of love. To Arthur, the homage to summers of love seemed manufactured. The van had disgorged two women of indeterminate age: dark glasses, shaggy hair, peasant dresses.

Arthur carried on, found some netting, then picked through the racks of seed envelopes. He arrived at checkout bearing a few groceries as well and watched the two women wander about, admiring the century-old store. One was working a video camera.

“Funky!”

“It’s so retro.”

“And the locals!” Hushed but not enough.

“Hey, ask this old-timer.”

Arthur was heading for the Brig when they converged on him. Bangles, beads, possibly cosmetic surgery, a suspect plumpness of lips.

“Go back up the hill,” he said, “take the first right and the third left.”

In the parking lot, he spied Kurt Zoller’s orange Hummer parked behind the VW van. He was out of uniform, jotting down its licence number, a California plate. A few minutes later, as the retro-hippies drove off, he bounded up to the Brig’s sunny patio, where Arthur was sipping his midday tea.

“I followed those hippie ladies from the ferry.” He leaned in close, conspiratorial. “My mission: bust them.”

“The hippie ladies?”

“The Transformers. My information is very hush-hush. Say no more.” That vow was quickly abandoned. “We have reason to suspect certain salacious practices are being practised, lewd sex, hot tub orgies. A credible informant says they use a mind-altering herbal remedy called gupa. Your ears only.”

Gupa. Maybe that’s what they’d fed the editor of the Bleat. Maybe that’s what was in those oatmeal cookies. Arthur chuckled. What nonsense.

He didn’t invite Zoller to sit but felt compelled to ask how he planned to bust the Transformation Mission.

“I have my ways.”

“Yeah, you nail those creeps.” Taba Jones, behind Kurt, caused him to jump. “Don’t screw up this time.” She was holding a glass of something fizzy. Arthur rose and pulled out a chair for her.

Zoller showed annoyance. “This is top secret.”

“Yeah, you told me,” said Taba. As Zoller retreated down the staircase, she said, “Did he tell you about the gupa?”

“And the orgies.” They watched Zoller drive off. “I think he plans a surprise raid on the hot tub.”

“Felicity claims that’s bullshit, the orgies bit. There’s normal healthy sex but they call it sharing. I think I’m going to throw up.”

Felicity had reached adult age, but Taba just couldn’t give up trying to correct her wayward ways. Arthur suspected she harboured the guilt of a single mother. After Felicity’s father ran off, she’d remained uncoupled, dissatisfied with Garibaldi’s inferior selection of male suitors.

She was well put together, but her most commendable feature, at least to Arthur, was her ample bosom, a bounty not on offer from his life companion, or from his willowy ex. Arthur suspected this minor obsession of his had to do with having been poorly breastfed.

Forbish was now outside, his nose in a bag of Cheezies as he helped direct a familiar green Ford Econoline van into a tight parking spot. Morg was driving. Silverson was the first to climb out, and he slid open the side door to liberate four women: Felicity Jones and three of her baseball mates, all in “Just Do It!” T-shirts. They looked stoned, staring blankly at a heap of boxes waiting outside the store — groceries and sundries they’d presumably ordered in advance. Maybe they were waiting for a truck or delivery van to mysteriously appear.

“Zombie invasion,” said Taba. She called down to her daughter and waved, somehow managing to smile through gritted teeth.

Arthur waved too, but earned only Morg’s empty stare: unearthly, trance-like.

Forbish said something that earned him a friendly punch from Silverson and a cuddle from one of the girls. The scribe seemed a short step from joining their infatuated ranks.

Arthur worried that if he got too close to them he’d catch it too, some kind of contagion spread by touch or by gupa on the breath. He warned himself not to succumb again to feeling near-bliss. He must stay on top of himself. Maintain his healthy cynicism.

§

Hefting his heavy pack, Arthur emboldened himself for the trek home, but was met in the parking area by Taba. Heroically, he declined her offer of a ride — Blunder Bay was miles out of her way — but she stayed him, a hand on his arm. Silverson was approaching.