Whipped: An Arthur Beauchamp Novel(5)
Arthur Ramsgate Beauchamp, QC, however, was in suit and tie, hair neatly combed, a new, well-tended moustache that he hoped in full flower would distract viewers from his overly robust nose. He believed in appropriate appearance for such lofty occasions — let them call him stuffy, but there were social rules, proprieties. Tucked in a breast pocket, adding a touch of flair, were his ribbons: two yellows, two reds, one first-place blue. That for his freesias.
Doc Dooley had won overall, as usual, but lost best arrangement to Ida Shewfelt’s little elves cavorting through petals and sniffing at pollen sacs. She was standing at the winners’ table, blushingly accepting raves from the event’s honorary judge, Margaret Blake: certified agronomist, local Member of Parliament, Green Party leader, national icon. Also Arthur’s wife — or, as she preferred, in the ponderous new language, his life companion.
“My goodness, Ida, this must have taken you a week. All these little elfin creatures. Can I take a picture of you with your lovely garland?”
Unstoppable Margaret Blake, forever campaigning. She was nearly two decades younger than Arthur, fit, slim, a feisty daughter of the counter-culture, and relatively, compared to Arthur, unsquare. With each passing year, she was blessed with a few more wrinkles and grey streaks in her hair, which made her all the more attractive, at least in Arthur’s view, coloured by his helpless, abiding love.
On their first encounter, fifteen years ago, when he’d first put up stakes on Garibaldi, he’d wilted under the power of her silvery-grey eyes, their show of confidence and wit, and soon thereafter she accepted his fumbling proposal. She was widowed; he was recovering from a long, failed marriage. But several years later, Margaret won a federal byelection, and since then there’d been long separations, and they’d had to endure the clash of different worlds: laid-back Garibaldi versus the whirl of politics.
And finally — woe! — Margaret succumbed to a brief affair last year. Though she had ruefully confessed to it, Arthur’s wounds had yet to scab over. He still bore the scars from his first, faithless marriage to Annabelle; from her uncounted lovers and his own forlorn, masochistic attachment to her.
Ida smiled blushingly for the camera. Click. “Did you really come all the way from Ottawa for this?”
“Gosh, I wouldn’t miss it for the world.” Gosh. Goodness. Margaret didn’t talk like that at home, but Ida Shewfelt was a Pentecostal, a hard vote to win. The Conservatives, whose government was almost on the rims, would target the MP for Cowichan and the Islands, a bur in their sides, at a general election that might soon be called. She would be returning to Ottawa tomorrow to push for a non-confidence vote to precipitate it.
Arthur didn’t enjoy campaigns. He found politics banal, reeking of pomposity and hypocrisy. Which was not to demean Margaret, who shone brightly among the lesser lights of Parliament. She could play the game (gosh, goodness), but on the national stage she was fearlessly outspoken, loved by many, unpopular with climate-change deniers, Tory cabinet ministers, and other victims of her caustic tongue. As much as Arthur doted on her, he dreaded the prospect of being her mainstreeting, flesh-pressing sidekick.
He was healthy enough to survive the ordeal: a tall, lanky man, unstooped by age, still with a full head of hair, and fit from his daily walks and farming chores. His mind was still sharp, if increasingly forgetful. He was shy and awkward in the political milieu — though not so in the rough-and-tumble of criminal practice: a star defence lawyer does not wear kid gloves to a trial for murder.
Margaret broke away from Ida Shewfelt and her pollen-snorting elves to join Arthur. “Who’s the blond bombshell?” she asked.
Arthur didn’t pick up on her wordplay until he realized she was squinting at an attractive, fair-haired man who had just got out of a small green van. The van continued on to the parking area, while the bombshell paused, taking in the scene. Posed was more like it. But that was snide. Arthur had increasingly found himself yielding to the curmudgeon within. Something to do with aging. Or anguish.
“Jason Silverson, dear. I’m surprised you haven’t met him.” That came off badly, a jab about her many absences. He bemoaned the subtle chafing that had snuck into their relationship since her extramarital liaison.
Silverson was shaking hands, breezily engaging with the locals, filming them with a video camera. Arthur had met him a few times at the general store and taken a profound dislike to him, though he wasn’t sure why. There was something about Silverson’s penetrating blue eyes, the perfect white dentals of his flashy smile. In his mid-forties, he was clean-shaven, thin-waisted, graceful, almost balletic. “He’s the reigning guru at Starkers Cove. Has them all in his pocket.”
Thirty brainwashed disciples, if Reverend Al Noggins was right. Garibaldi’s Anglican minister had been to their communal farm at Starkers Cove: a zoo of various species of edible animals, an extensive fenced garden, an aura of faux holiness pervading all. An adults-only alleged experiment in human relations — the Personal Transformation Mission, they called it, as if it was some kind of therapeutic religious order. Locals called them the Transformers.
Jason Silverson, the Transformers’ unfairly and undeservingly attractive guru, headed to the winners’ table, sharing his charms with several women mooning around him, inspecting their tulips, smelling their roses, as they posed for his camera. According to Reverend Al, several islanders had been transformed and were spending their free hours at Starkers Cove.