This brings applause from the Gwendolers. Arthur is a little amazed by what he has just said, but the words came naturally, unforced, unrehearsed. He hopes the press won’t assume he’s a spokesman for the protesters.
Nelson Forbish is at his ear, tugging his arm. “Save some for me, Mr. Beauchamp.”
“In your next headline, Nelson, you might call it the Battle of the Gap.”
Nelson jots that down. A reporter asks, “Mr. Beauchamp, how do you feel about your wife being up there?”
“I love her deeply, naturally I have a concern for her well-being. Of significant, though lesser concern is my stomach. Margaret is a cook of unparalleled artistry.” He gets his laugh. He’s playing to the jury, it’s an ingrained habit.
The microphones swing away, seeking an alternative point of view. Zoller puts a comb to his hair. He has positioned himself well, but is being ignored in favour of Corporal Al.
“Officer, what do you see as your role?”
“Well, I see my job as keeping a low energy level.” Todd Clearihue is on the move, but Corporal Al spots him. “Todd, I understand there’s dynamite in one of those trucks by the road, and I’d like it parked at the quarry until you can drive it off the island.”
“Let’s see what the courts have to say about that.” His ire is starting to show.
“Todd, I’m taking responsibility for lives here, you ought to be too.”
“Sure, you’re right, I’ll look after it.”
And Clearihue strides off, past Reverend Al, past the pixie, who taunts him: “Speaking of lives, Clearihue, get one.” That provokes no response, and she hollers after him, “Thanks for the ride, sorry I couldn’t fulfill your fantasies.”
The media avoid her, sensing, like Arthur, that danger lurks here, a left-wing crank, a loose and libellous tongue. A reporter asks Corporal Al, “Will you be calling for reinforcements?”
“No, that’s just going to raise the energy level. No need to, as long as everyone acts responsibly.”
Reverend Al engages the press, a tutorial on saving green spaces, a list of species harboured in Gwendolyn, the Garry Oak, the Phantom Orchid. He ends with a touch of rhetoric about the eagles: “the national symbol of our friends and neighbours in the United States of America.”
A land not far. Arthur can see the San Juan Islands of Washington from his farm, the white pinnacles of the Olympics. This story could wedge its way into the news there, human interest to stir the patriotic heart. In design, in timing, this has been a well-orchestrated media event that somehow seems beyond the production skills of his fellow Garibaldians. There was outside help.
Felicity Jones calls from above. “I would now like to read a poem I wrote.” She shoves Cud playfully. “Without any help from you. It’s called ‘I Am a Tree.’” The imagery is priapic, the tree as penis, stately, wedded to the earth, sap rising from its roots. Arthur endures-the poem is too simple to be banal.
As the recital ends, Felicity’s mother strides into the clearing, looks about, and whacks Nelson’s camera away when he attempts to catch her grim expression.
“Felicity Jones, I want you down from there right now. You are not repeating another year of school.”
Tabatha is a weaver, a single mother, fiercely protective. Her daughter is in equally fierce rebellion. Arthur has a sense that the Save Gwendolers are about to suffer a minor publicity setback.
Tabatha waves a finger at Cud, yelling, “You are out of her life. Last weekend she came home at two o’clock smelling of, of…I don’t know what.”
“Tequila, my love. Maybe some pot.”
Reverend Al moves to dampen this embarrassing debacle, puts an arm around Tabatha, murmuring, “A quiet moment of reflection.”
A rope ladder flutters from the platform. Felicity clips onto a safety line and morosely begins her descent. Watching her causes Arthur’s stomach to tumble, and he allows Reverend Al to pull him away. “Hard to believe, but I’ve been missing your croaky voice at hymns.”
Arthur apologizes: the weather was too pleasant last Sunday. He casts a look up: Felicity halfway down, Margaret bent over the railing, Cud Brown positioned behind her buttocks. This repellent scene is blocked by foliage as Arthur is led to the priest’s young guest, perched on a windfall cedar, fusshing with a cellphone. “Name is Lotis Rudnicki,” says Reverend Al. “Member of your tribe, old fellow.”
What tribe? A Polish surname, but one makes out brushstrokes of Africa and Asia. The international woman maybe, her genes fed from many streams. Under the spike hair, energetic oval eyes that betray the arrogance of youth. Rose-petal lips, marred by the lip ring. As the current argot has it, she is in your face, with Che Guevara and her revolutionary slogan. She snaps her phone shut, flashes Arthur a practised smile.
“Lotis is our mouthpiece,” Reverend Al says. “She’s with Sierra Legal Defence.”
“You’re a lawyer…?” Arthur can’t hide a hint of incredulity.
“Almost.” A large confident voice from this small package.
“How does one be almost a lawyer?”
“I wilt under cross-examination, I get called to the bar in May.” A mocking drawl, an indifferent shrug.
“I trust I won’t be premature in offering congratulations.” Why has Arthur taken on this formal tone? He is almost icy. It’s not the T-shirt, not the lip ring (but why would she want to mar those plump smiling lips?). It’s the youth. That is what’s in his face, the whole bag of youth and hope and naivete and boldness and ill-understood idealism wrapped up in this cheeky little woman.
“She’s been staying in our cottage,” says Reverend Al. “Giving us advice.”
“Ah, yes, tutorials in direct action.”
“Eco-guerrilla warfare,” Rudnicki says. “Fought with sound bites and close-ups.” She cranks the handle of an imaginary antique camera. “Angle on Felicity Jones as she blows her hero a kiss, then follows her mother out of the frame.”
“In my day, Ms. Rudnicki, lawyers became involved after the fact, not at the planning stage of a tort.” He says this with an intimidating smile, challenging her. This snip has been devising scenarios to get her environmental law group in the news. Arthur understands now why he’s so displeased with her-she is the agent of a broken home at Blunder Bay.
Her look is more scornful than hurt, and she fires back. “What do you think Garlinc’s lawyers were doing, playing with their dinks? They were at the planning stage of a fucking crime. The rape of a virgin forest, isn’t that how you put it, Mr. Arthur Ramsgate Beauchamp?”
She stands, defiant, hands on hips. Rise Up! her bosom cries. An abrasively theatrical young woman, American accent, Californian in manner. Reverend Al shifts nervously, not daring to come between them.
“Have you done some scripting on the next scene as well, Ms. Rudnicki? It plays out in a courtroom.” He wants to know what she’s made of, this mouthpiece for the Save Gwendolyn Society who is young enough to be his granddaughter. But not as young as he first thought. Late twenties.
“We’ve thought about it.”
“Who’s we?”
“We are me and Selwyn Loo. Lead counsel for Sierra Legal.” Seeing his blank expression, she adds, “He turned down a Rhodes to work with Sierra. He’s a ranked chess player. He can take on half a dozen tables in a blindfold match.”
“This is not a game, Ms. Rudnicki. We are not contending for a trophy.”
She gives him a tired look. “I’m going to light a hump, anyone mind?”
Arthur isn’t sure if he minds. Then he realizes she means a Camel’s cigarette-she brings out a pack. The smoking environmentalist.
She takes a long pull, exhales. “Okay, I’m now ready to say something to you, Arthur Beauchamp. I don’t mind the hostility, I shed it like a duck sheds rain. But maybe you should get with the program. There’s your partner, a tough, beautiful, fantastic lady, putting herself on the line, holding off the barbarians at the Gap, while you, this great icon of the courtroom, are displaying a totally shallow attitude, complaining about losing a good cook. What is she, your employee?”