I'll See You in My Dreams: An Arthur Beauchamp Novel (20 page)

Lawonda and I could make out Ira's voice over the shuffling of chairs and the chatter of departing customers. “Mark it on your calendar, folks: Thursday, end of the month, our last night. No coffee, just cheap wine, two bits a glass. We're jamming – everyone bring an instrument.”

I was in the back helping Lawonda clean up, scraping plates and bowls, steel-woolling the pans. We were both fairly tight – we'd
shared my tequila while Sonny Terry and Brownie McGhee were “laying out their cool blues,” as Lawonda put it. She was again wearing something African, brightly coloured but slinky. The kitchen alcove was so cramped that our bodies brushed in passing, breasts against ribs, hips grazing buttocks. The contact was electrifying, at least for me. She was talking all the while, candid, nonchalant.

This black Aphrodite, like Ira, was soon to be jobless, but her reaction was a gay indifference. She had Third World survival skills, had travelled the world doing jobs like this. She also had some borderline trades, as she casually confessed, including two years in London as a call girl. “I didn't come cheap.”

I was more titillated than shocked, then became flustered as she leaned over to wipe the counter and her bottom nudged my groin, the swelling there. “That why they call you Stretch?” she said.

I backed away, tight to the wall, knocking a pan from its hook. I thought she might laugh, but she frowned, studying me: a clumsy oaf with an undisciplined cock. Reject. Return to sender.

“Glad you could come” – Ira, still doing his goodbyes – “Hey, anyone got any good contacts in the music industry, leave me your card. I do all aspects of entertainment. Weddings, grad parties, bar mitzvahs, your kids' birthdays.”

Lawonda and I retreated to an equally cramped annex with a desk, a cot, a Barcalounger, a couple of easy chairs. I was still rigid with embarrassment as we sat and finished the tail end of the tequila. Meanwhile, Ira was arguing with the entertainers over their fee. “Half the take, guys, that's the deal.”

“No, brother, you take the bigger end. You in need.”

Ira nobly rejected that. After letting them out, he strolled toward us, peeling a rubber band off a packet, spilling its contents on the desk blotter: leaf bits, stems, seeds. “They wished me happy bankruptcy and made this here donation of Mexican tea to help cure my woes.”

“Mexican tea?” I observed it came with a packet of Zig-Zag papers.

“Reefer, my man. Mary Jane. Maria Juanita.”

Lawonda took over, picking out the stems, expertly shaking out the seeds. I looked on, nervous, unsure about this enterprise, yet intrigued. This was the infamous source of reefer madness that the films and tabloids had warned about. A narcotic – illegal, like heroin. I'd witnessed Judge Hume jail a college student for a year for a lesser quantity than this. I wandered off, affecting insouciance, checked to ensure front and back doors were locked.

Another drink might ease my anxiety, but a peek into the refrigerator offered no relief, not even a beer. I would watch Ira and Lawonda, see how they reacted, maybe do a little taste, no more than that.

I don't know how many sticks of Mary Jane we smoked that night, but I was having trouble seeing the point of it. I was feeling nothing. If it had any effect on me, it was merely to make me sad as I listened to Ira's woes. Where was he going to live?
How
was he going to live? Ultimately he retreated to the cot and I was glad to see him nod off – he'd been sleeping poorly.

Lawonda did the talking then. Confessions of a sinful life: nude modelling for French artists, hustling dukes and earls in England, hanging about with jazz artists in New Orleans. As much as I was dazzled by her, I was mystified by how anyone could pack so much into her thirty-plus years. She finished a story about her last, unreliable lover, a man of means who'd met her in London, escorted her to Canada, then jilted her for the wife he'd promised to divorce. She then went silent, contemplative, and there was only the sound of Ira's gentle snoring. After a while she said, “So how's
your
love life?”

An easy answer eluded me. Finally: “Non-existent.” A blurt of unbridled honesty that for some unfathomable reason triggered a cannonade; suddenly I was on a flight without a pilot. Ophelia Moore was the theme of this self-pitying discourse, and my clowning attempts to romance her. Lawonda chimed in occasionally with a question, prodding me into ever more shameful confession. Within the cloud of memory, certain words stick and stay, words like
ineptitude
and
disaster
and
armpit
. Yes, my unhinged tongue described my entry into that inviting false orifice.

And I guess that's what started her on that laughing fit. It continued until she had to leave the room so as not to wake Ira. She beckoned me to follow her, and soon we found ourselves outside the Beanery with our jackets on. She still couldn't suppress laughter. “When a lady offers you head, man, you supposed to take it, not go off in the armpit.”

“What are we doing out here?”

“For starters, you gonna walk me home, honey.”

As she took my arm, a sudden dizziness came upon me, followed by a panicky cold sweat.

From “Where the Squamish River Flows,”
A Thirst for Justice
, © W. Chance

WE MUST VIGOROUSLY DISCOUNT RUMOURS of an alleged sexual encounter between Beauchamp and the mysterious woman known as Lawonda. The author of such rumours, Ira Lavitch, the well-known impresario,
^*
sought to convince me that Beauchamp, as he vulgarly put it, “got himself royally fucked” on the night of Friday, May 25, in her illegal ground-floor suite in Kitsilano.

Beauchamp (typically) denied all. My interview notes read: “Interesting woman. From Ghana. Worked at the Beanery.”

He had no idea then, but will be aware on reading this, that “Lawonda” was a false name, that she was not from Ghana but New Orleans, and that she had never been outside North America. She had plied various illegitimate trades in her home country before jumping bail and arriving in Canada with a false passport. Her real name is Katherine Irvine. All this is revealed in a confessional blog
^†
that Irvine has maintained during her senior years. The blog is replete with erotic anecdotes but she has wisely censored the names of her multitude of lovers. There is no hint of her coming together with a lanky, big-nosed young barrister who achieved fame in later life.

Irvine did not respond to my emailed entreaties to put to rest the canard that she'd seduced Beauchamp, royally or otherwise, so this writer considers such scandal mere smoke.

At any rate, one doesn't see our awkward hero as having the romantic wherewithal to sexually engage a woman of such experience, especially given his unavailing pursuit of Ophelia Moore, for whom he continued to endure feelings that lay somewhere between puppy love and infatuation. It is interesting to note that both these women were much older than him. We have already explored his lack of normal nurturing – enough said.

Beauchamp felt sorely oppressed at having been maligned by senior partner Tom Inglis, with his near-paranoid concern about communists under the bed. In this connection I can't resist an anecdote – which comes with well-documented proof – of how that suddenly turned around, thanks to a handshake with the Prime Minister of Canada.

That occurred at the reception for Diefenbaker sponsored by Tragger, Inglis at the Hotel Vancouver's famed Panorama Roof, which the firm had booked for the afternoon of May 30. Inglis and Bullingham were escorting the Prime Minister, working the packed room, focusing on the wealthy donors. On reaching Beauchamp, Inglis began introducing him (as caught on film by a campaign worker) as “one of our able young trial lawyers.”

The Prime Minister interrupted: “Arthur Beauchamp, of course, aspiring criminal lawyer. We met in fifty-eight – the Quadra campaign office, wasn't it?”

“I'm astonished that you remember, sir.”

“Young man, I have an excellent memory for flattery. You had the audacity to claim I inspired you to enter criminal law.”

There is a photograph of this moment in the Law Society's journal
The Advocate
. Diefenbaker's right hand is glued to Beauchamp's, the other arm around his shoulders, posing with him as flashbulbs pop. Inglis's protuberant belly can be seen in profile, the rest of him lopped off …

I
've got my eye on you, young fellow,” the Chief had said. Rumours of his phenomenal memory were confirmed: he'd even pronounced my name correctly.

The episode gained me unbounded respect within our little huddle of counsel. Hubbell put on a show of bowing and scraping, begging to be allowed to touch the hem of my suit jacket. Ophelia asked for my autograph.

Pappas was in an unusually good humour as he watched Inglis waddle off with the Chief. “Did you see the look on the fat man's face? Went so white I thought he was having a stroke. Congratulations, you almost killed him.”

At the end of the evening, Inglis and Bully competed to be the first to shake my hand. I decided I might give the firm another chance.

I wasn't able to feel too cocky about myself, though, not after my unmanly exhibition of cold feet on the previous Friday night. I may as well deal with it, get it over with, and in so doing persevere in my campaign to debunk Wentworth Chance's exaggerations and innuendos. I shall admit he got me with his scoop about Lawonda's secret life, though it ought not to have surprised me – I had heard little of Ghana or London in her accent. But the gall of the man to revel in such shameful gossip on the published page, then dismiss it as smoke!

My mood on reading the advance copy of
Thirst for Justice
was not lightened when I called Ira in Toronto to complain he'd betrayed a friend of five decades. “You didn't even score a goodnight kiss? What a schmendrick. Guys were lined up around the block to get close to that dame.”

A goodnight kiss might have been the final, shattering blow. By the time I'd reached the doorstep of her flat I was ready for the psychiatric ward, alternating between hot and cold, torn between mindless desire and abject fear of this artful professional
seductress. But fear of what consequences? Exposure? Failure? Another show of virginal ineptitude? Maybe (as I later, callowly, consoled myself) of disease.

She'd invited me in. I stammered an excuse about feeling ill, which, from my manner and agonized expression, she might not have doubted. Then I bolted.

The vast majority of heterosexual men with at least a modicum of libido would not have spurned the opportunity. I accept that. I am guilty. I suffered in my youth from neurotic responses to sexual invitation. Maybe it has a name – situational erotic aversion disorder. Translation: incurable shyness.

Later, in my bed, I masturbated away my disgust at myself.

Now let us bury that and return to the Panorama Roof. Pappas and Hubbell were at the bar, refilling, so our group had dwindled to the tricky twosome of Ophelia and me. She was zipped into a smart tight, calf-length dress that showed off her Rubenesque figure, and she was getting looks. I was dying to ask her why Jordan Geraldson hadn't shown up, but we avoided tender ground, restricting ourselves to wry comments on what Ophelia called an “orgy of suckholing.”

There was an air of tension in the room. The election was only nineteen days away, and the polls predicted a close race. I felt guilty about not having time to campaign for the Chief.

Ophelia's nemesis, Harvey Frinkell, came skulking into view. The shyster was uninvited, of course, but could usually be counted on to gate-crash such functions to cadge some quality booze. “Fuck you,” Ophelia said as he came into hearing distance.

“Any time, gorgeous,” Frinkell said, carrying on to the bar, plucking a martini.

I waited as she delivered some hoarse, low, and obscene opinions of the man. Finally she shrugged it off. “Honestly, I'm not obsessed with that prick.”

We laughed, played with the prospect of summoning Frinkell to court, cross-examining him about his threatening letter, accusing him of driving Mulligan to suicide.

She had interviewed Chief Joseph and his wife the week before, in less than relaxed circumstances: in the Squamish detachment at the back of the squad room, where she had to keep the volume low so as not to be overheard. Benjamin and Anna were nervous, hesitant, but both insisted Monique had been home at all critical times. They made no bones about opposing her relationship with Gabriel. The Crown claimed to be having problems coaxing Monique back from Washington, and Ophelia suspected stalling tactics.

Ophelia had then visited Gabriel, just the day before, to brief him. I asked her how that went. I was keeping this cocktail conversation neutral, avoiding the personal, the risky.

“We've become fairly palsy since he decided I'm not a dumb blonde. Anyway, he didn't seem perturbed that the Josephs were sticking by their guns. Monique, he insisted, will have something else to say. I doubt he was much in love with her, by the way. I think he feels love is somehow irrelevant to the grand missions of his life, maybe even a hindrance.”

“And she? Monique?”

“She had a crush, he says. Whatever that is.”

I didn't offer to explain what a crush felt like. I asked how Gabriel was getting along with the supposed rat, Snyder.

“They chitchat. I told him not to, but he thinks it's a game. They do play games – chess and cribbage. It's hard to tell Gabriel to stick to himself; it gets lonely in those cells.”

“Darn him. I warned him.” But not strenuously enough. Too much talk about Fanon and Durkheim when I visited, not enough about prison safety.