Whipped: An Arthur Beauchamp Novel(41)
“Did you do anything, Oscar?” A woman’s voice. “Like spill beer on it when you got plastered the other night?”
“I got three years out of it. Planned obsolescence, that’s how them computer companies earn their billions.”
Lou looked over his shoulder at the back of the bald head of a man in a rumpled suit. Across from him, staring at an open laptop, a Dell Inspiron, was a guy in a John Deere cap who had to be Oscar, and his cherub-faced wife.
“Let me have a look at it.” Lou went into his bag and brought out his repair kit.
§
In the half hour it took to run tests, open up the guts of the laptop, and fiddle away with tiny tweezers and a small soldering iron, Lou had gathered a crowd. Oscar and his wife and his bald friend — who turned out to be the mayor — leaned over him in frowning fascination. A dozen others milled about the counter space that had been cleared for him near an outlet for the soldering iron.
He checked the screen to ensure all colours were true before closing up, saying, “I think that’s done it.” There was a cheer.
“I got a desktop where the monitor keeps going blank,” someone said.
“I can’t get mine to boot up half the time,” said another.
§
“It’s taken us to Arizona a couple of times,” said Oscar. “I’ll hook up the power and water.”
“I’d want to give everything a good dusting, Mr. O’Brien,” said Dolores, his wife. They owned an eight-hundred-acre spread down Porcupine Creek, along with a big house, barn, chickens, horses, and this fully equipped house trailer.
“Please don’t go to a lot of trouble,” Lou said. He looked gratefully about. “Looks like a palace to me.”
“The kids use it when they come,” Dolores said, “but they pretty well flew the nest. We got two empty bedrooms as well, if you prefer.”
“This is just grand.”
“Dinner will be ready in an hour. Give you a chance to settle in. Oscar, throw some steaks on the barbie.”
“You like to start with a brew?” Oscar said. “I’ll put some cold Pils in the cooler.”
After they left, Lou unpacked, then stepped outside to take a deep breath of air perfumed by wolf willow and watch the lowering sun paint the hills golden.
NO ONE NEEDS TO KNOW
“I sentence you to life!” cried the judge. A Greek chorus in the jury box called out, “And a hundred lashes!”
Arthur started awake as the rising sun cleared the trees and glared at him through his bedroom window. In the dream that aroused him so rudely from his troubled sleep, he’d been found guilty of adultery in the first degree, adultery planned and deliberate, aggravated by the sin of pride in having achieved chest-thumping virility. The verdict was fair because he was guilty. His punishment was the lash of self-flagellation.
He shrugged off the dream and let his mind spin back to the rutting, mindless glory of yesterday’s tryst with Taba Jones. Fuelled by too much Milton, Taba had been more the seducer than the seduced. But Arthur had been the eager pushover, aroused, abandoning reserve. Forget the Fargo. Forget Margaret.
He’d done the inconceivable, but with what he suspected, in the mind-clearing brightness of a new day, was a disgraceful motive. Had getting even with Margaret been as much a driving force as lust? A response to the repulsive images he’d endured of Lloyd Chalmers entering her. How sad was that?
He could barely remember the aftermath, its embarrassment and awkwardness, averting his eyes from naked Taba as they fumbled for their clothes, their hurried descent from East Point Ridge. The Fargo was waiting for him; Stoney wasn’t. He drove Taba home.
“It was a one-off,” she’d said, kissing him goodnight at her doorstep. “No one needs to know.”
Arthur had had the good grace to thank her for being so warm and generous and desirable. Both knew why there would be no sequels. Both knew where Arthur’s deepest affections lay.
No one needs to know. Certainly not Margaret. Ever.
He should have showered last night; his body smelled of the day’s excesses. He hadn’t eaten dinner either. His stomach was empty and his bladder full. Before bed, still quivering, he’d made a strong herbal tea to settle his nerves.
He looked out the window and wondered why Niko and Yoki weren’t tossing feed to the chickens and stealing their eggs. They were nowhere to be seen. Could they still be at Starkers Cove? He ran downstairs to the phone to check his messages.
Niko: “We having sleepover. No problem.” Then Yoki: “Very happy, working hard. Baba Sri Rameesh, he really cool.”
Al Noggins would be putting his final touches on his Sunday sermon right about now. St. Mary’s would be Arthur’s first stop. Al would be enlisted as the deprogrammer.
Arthur showered then gathered up his clothes from yesterday, ruefully observing the semen dribbles on his Stanfields, and was on his way to the washer when the phone rang. He grabbed the hallway portable and carried on.
“Hi,” said Margaret. “Finally.”
Arthur cleared his clogged throat. “Did you call earlier?”
“Yeah. Where were you yesterday?”
Arthur gulped back the impulse to blurt the truth. His free hand was having trouble releasing his underwear into the top-loader, a kind of paralysis.