‘So even if you think he is a shit now, he did at one time in his life do something good, maybe?’ Alex was grasping to find some redemption for Liam and her relationship with him.
‘Maybe,’ Louise replied, forcing kindness into her voice. ‘So, will you please come over and we can talk more about it when you get here?’
‘No, Lou, but thank you, I’ll stay here.’
‘Well then, tomorrow?’ They had already made a tentative plan earlier that day at brunch, but Louise wanted to make sure that she would come.
‘We’ll see.’ Alex answered and before she had a chance to say anything else she heard Liam’s key in the lock. ‘I think that’s Liam there now,’ she said.
‘Right,’ Louise answered, ‘you know where I am if you need me, anytime day or night, okay?
‘I know,’ Alex answered and stretched her shoulders anxiously, waiting to see Liam walk through the door. Maybe she was being unrealistic to expect him to put her needs first but she needed to tell him how she felt. ‘Thanks Lou, I’ll talk to you tomorrow, love you.’ She ended the call as she heard Liam’s footsteps in the hallway outside the room.
‘Alex, love?’ Quietly, he walked towards her not wanting to startle her. ‘I wasn’t sure if you heard me or not, I didn’t want you to get a fright,’ he added.
‘I heard you come in.’ She reached for the navy-coloured bath towel that had been carefully folded on the shelf to wrap it around her and then, after she had sprayed leave-in conditioner into her long hair, she began to brush it through. ‘Is Abbie okay?’
‘Yeah, yeah she’s fine, just one of those things,’ he couldn’t think of a word to use that didn’t belittle his daughter or what she was going through; false alarm made her sound too dramatic.
‘And Josh, is he home?
‘No, he’s not home yet but while I was there, he texted Abbie to say that he was at a friend’s house and that she wasn’t to worry and that he’d see her in the morning for the “big move”.’
‘That’s good.’
‘Yeah, I think he was just blowing off steam and Abbie took the brunt of it, got worried and blew it out of proportion in her mind, which is why she rang me.’ He smiled. ‘Little did she know that her mum had been listening in on her phone call and knew what was going on the whole time.’ He shook his head. ‘My daughter, the ultimate worrier.’
‘You spoke to Jenny?’ Alex asked. It had stung a bit to hear him refer to ex-wife so casually.
‘Yes.’
‘Oh, I’m glad they’re both okay… Josh and Abbie,’ Alex added to clarify. She didn’t want him to think that the both she was referring to was Abbie and her mum. She wiped the steam from the mirror that she was standing in front of and when she caught him looking at her in the reflection, she offered him a weak smile.
‘About earlier?’ Liam said. ‘About what you said.’ Her words had played on a loop in his head ever since he had left. Had she meant it when she had said that she wished she had never have fallen for him?
‘Yeah, let me get dressed and we can talk about it some more.’ There was no going back now. What she had said before he left might have been harsh, but that was how she had felt and while she was trying to be positive about the move back to Oakley Drive and all its consequences, there were still practicalities that they needed to sort out.
‘Sure.’ He said. Only when she heard his footsteps fade towards the kitchen did she allow herself to exhale as she hunched over the sink drawing in three successive deep breaths to balance herself. She looked back at her reflection. The shower had gone some way to masking her puffy, red eyes, and the gentle breeze that floated in through the open patio door, down the passageway through her bedroom and into the en-suite had soothed the blotchiness of her skin. She scooped some scented moisturiser from the open jar and dabbed dollops on each cheek before she smoothed them in, making sure to sweep down her neck to her décolletage area. Then she ran her brush through her long hair, slicking it back from her face before she spritzed her neck and her wrists with a touch of Burberry perfume. It was still warm despite the summer drizzle that had been falling for the past hour, so she swapped the full-length pyjamas that she had already laid out for a cotton nightshirt instead. She took a slow deep breath, tilted her head to the side before she opened their bedroom door and walked barefoot over the plush carpet to where Liam was sitting on the sofa.
‘Thought you could do with this,’ Liam pushed himself up from where he had been sitting and handed her a glass of white wine as soon as she came in. The glass he had been drinking from was already empty and sitting on a coaster on the coffee table in front of him.
‘You okay?’ he asked, moving aside so she would take her usual spot beside him.
‘Yes.’ She defied the emotion that had started to bubble inside her head and painted a steely smile on her face instead. ‘Just needed to wash away my woes, put things in perspective.’
‘Good.’ he said nervously. ‘And are they… in perspective?’
‘Look, I know that I probably shouldn’t have blurted out what I did.’ Her heart thumped loudly inside her chest and she inhaled deeply trying to settle it. She had meant what she had said, but probably hadn’t delivered it as temperedly as she would have in other circumstances. ‘But it just all got on top of me. You leaving like you did just felt a little raw. A sign of things to come, if you know what I mean.’
‘I think I do.’ He said dipping his eyes. He reached for his glass and replaced it on the table when he remembered it was already empty.
‘Well,’ she unfolded her legs, grabbed the whiskey bottle from the kitchen island and poured a measure over the remaining ice cubes in his glass as she spoke. She took the chair opposite him when she sat back down so that she could look at him directly in the eye while they talked. They had a lot of ground to cover if she wanted to get the situation resolved before he moved out in the morning. ‘This time tomorrow I’ll be sitting here on my own in this apartment, just like I was tonight.’ She reached for her wine and sipped a mouthful, allowing her eyes to roam from one end of the room to the other. ‘And you’ll be exactly where you were tonight, over in your family home with your family and it just doesn’t feel right.’ She raised her hand to stop him, pre-empting what he was about to say. ‘And I know why you’re doing it. I understand that as a dad that you have to, I’m just telling you the way I feel.’ She took another sip of wine while Liam swigged a mouthful of whiskey. ‘And the reason why I haven’t said anything up until now is because I do fully understand the why. But I think it’s time we talk about what this actually means… for both of us.’
‘Okay.’ Liam drew in a breath letting his chest expand slowly as he did. ‘For what it’s worth, I hated that I had to leave you while you were so upset and I got back as soon as I could.’ He sat forward on the edge of the sofa. ‘I love you Alex, I really do, but this is something I have to do for the kids, please tell me you get that, please.’
‘I love you too,’ Alex said, ‘but this time tomorrow you’ll be sleeping in your old bed, the bed that you once shared with your wife and I can’t help but feel the way I do.’
‘It’s not like that Alex. She’ll be downstairs on her medical bed,’ he interjected, ‘with the kids in their bedrooms beside me. It’s only about the kids, Alex, I promise.’
‘Is it? Because sometimes it feels like I don’t even exist.’
‘Jesus, Alex, you do exist, you exist so much, please don’t say that. I just need to do this. I need to make up for all the hurt I’ve caused by having the affair, I need to be a proper dad to Abbie and Josh, I need them to be okay, I need them to forgive me for leaving their mum.’
‘Is that all I am… the affair?’
‘No, I didn’t mean it like that.’
‘No wonder Josh hates me if that’s all I am.’
‘That’s not what I meant and Josh doesn’t hate you, it’s me he hates and this – me moving back in is to show him how much I care – it’s my way of mak
ing up for some of the hurt I caused them. Alex, I need you to work with me on this, it won’t be forever.’
‘And then what? When will that be?’
‘It won’t be too long, Alex love, please, you’ve got to trust me.’
14.
Trial Day 6
Liam Buckley
It’s my turn today. I’m going on the stand. Prosecuting counsel have finished presenting their case, so today the defence begins. Our chance to put the story straight, walk the jury through our version of events so that at least they can see that the story has two sides. I could have chosen not to, I could have decided that I didn’t want to give evidence and there would have been nothing that the prosecution would have been able to do to compel me. But William’s strategy involves establishing reasonable doubt and he thinks that if I don’t make myself available for the prosecution, he won’t be able to question me and he reckons that if he can’t question me it will affect our chances.
Reasonable doubt is our best chance, he says, as though proving my innocence is too far out of reach. If he establishes two possible explanations for Jenny’s death then he will have established reasonable doubt, and if he establishes reasonable doubt, well, then the jury will have no choice but to acquit me.
I follow the usher through the room, take my position on the stand, place my hand on the court’s Bible and tell them I’ll tell the truth. My hands shake as the clerk takes the Bible away and I sit waiting on the red fabric chair, waiting for William to begin. In synchronised familiarity William is already standing.
‘Mr Buckley, can you please tell the court why you were at number 26 Oakley Drive on the night in question.’
‘Jenny had asked me to move back in to be with the children.’
‘Thank you, and can you tell the court why Jenny had asked you to move back in to be with the children?’
I glance at Abbie and Josh. Abbie’s face is wet with tears. It’s too much for her, sitting here, listening to strangers bandy about her mother’s name. ‘Jenny asked me to move back in because she wanted the comfort of knowing that when she—’ my voice breaks and I swallow back the lump at the back of my throat. It’s the look on Abbie’s face that’s making me cry.
‘Take your time,’ William says and throws a glance at Lucinda, no doubt as a type of touché for her dramatics with Sarah when she was on the stand yesterday. I reach for my glass again and this time empty it. The clerk removes the empty glass and replaces it with another full one.
‘Sorry,’ I say before I continue. ‘She, Jenny, wanted me to be more of a constant in the children’s lives, she wanted to know that when she was gone that I would be there for them as their primary parent, as the parent who they would live with when she died.’
‘So it was Jenny who asked you to move back in?’
‘Yes. She suggested it.’
‘So that she would have peace of mind that you would be with the children when the end of her life came?’
‘Yes.’
‘And when was the idea first suggested?’
‘Last March… in 2018.’
‘And why was it suggested? Can you give an outline of how it came to be?’
‘It was when we had Storm Emma, last March?’ My team had advised me to set to scene, not in a descriptive way but in the way that people understood the timeframe clearly. He had told me to use reference points that most Irish people would recognise.
‘Yes, the weather phenomenon that saw Siberian winds from the south collide with Storm Emma from the west.’ William adds. ‘Please continue.’
‘Well, Dublin was under eight feet of snow in some places and Abbie…’ I pause and look up at her and her eyes lock onto mine. ‘My daughter rang me upset because her mum’s carer had phoned to say that she couldn’t travel through the snow and she was worried about her and she didn’t know what to do. Her mum hadn’t realised at the time that she was ringing me for help. She also said that she was due to collect medication for her mum, but that their local pharmacy was closed because of the snow and that there was another emergency pharmacy open in town but that she had no way of getting to it.’
‘I see.’ William urges me with his eyebrows to continue.
‘So I left the apartment, and made my way over to the house, collecting the prescription and Jenny’s carer on the way. The weather worsened while I was at Oakley Drive which meant that I and the carer had to stay overnight and it was only then that it became clear to me how difficult the situation had actually become for the kids, and for Jenny. That night, Jenny and I spoke about it and it was she who suggested that, for the children’s sake, I should move back in.’
‘And why June 2018, why that particular date?’
‘Jenny was conscious of the time she had left. She spoke often about the 1000-day disease, and by her calculations she had already lived over 900 of those days so she just wanted to be prepared, she wanted to know that I was already in place back at the family home before,’ I stall and shake my head, ‘before anything happened.’
‘Thank you Mr Buckley,’ William looks to Mr Justice O’Brien, ‘no further questions.’
‘Mr Buckley,’ Lucinda takes to her feet. She has a command about her and everyone sits straighter when she speaks. ‘Were you aware of Ms Jennifer Buckley’s wishes in relation to the end of her life, when the time came?’
‘I was,’ I answer, but everyone in Ireland was too. The media frenzy began straight after her appearance on the Current Issues programme and ramped up straight after her death. Everyone knew.
‘And do you understand the law as it relates to euthanasia and or assisted suicide in Ireland?’
‘I do, it is an offence to aid, abet, counsel or procure the suicide or attempted suicide of another person.’ I recite it word for word.
‘So, you know that in practice, this criminal prohibition relates to active euthanasia where the person is helped to take their own lives.’
‘I do.’
I had kept myself informed and Jenny had too. She knew every angle and had spent the past two years preparing for her eventual end. After her appearance on the Current Issues programme, she was invited to address a palliative care medical conference in Dublin. She delivered the talk with a winning combination of intellect, humility and determination. It was a TEDx type thing that was recorded and uploaded to YouTube for everyone to see. She called it ‘Limited Edition’. Abbie replays it in her room a lot at night.
‘Mr Buckley,’ Lucinda coughs, making an Oscar-worthy demonstration of clearing her throat and stopping abruptly to correct herself. ‘Excuse me,’ she taps her right hand over her chest. ‘You claim you were alone with the deceased just before she was… killed?’ She pauses just before the word ‘killed’ and inflects her tone ever so slightly upwards to suggest that whatever answer I give, makes me completely complicit in Jenny’s death. What she’s not saying, what she doesn’t recognise, is that Jenny wasn’t some victim, she would have hated anyone thinking of her as anything but strong. She was a tough, ambitious woman who never shirked a challenge or withered in the face of adversity, who never gave in until she knew she was defeated. And while it’s horrible to think that Jenny knows what it sounds like when the world ends, there is also comfort in knowing that she got what she wanted after all. I press my shoulders down, lining up the next part of my answer. The words are just on the tip of my tongue when I hear William’s voice jump in.
‘Objection!’ William is already on his feet hawing at her in frustration again. He moves a pile of papers in front of him across the defence bench, warning me not to answer her question with a look. ‘My colleague, Ms Cassidy, is insisting on suggestively interrogating my client with this illicit assumption straight out of the tabloid sensationalism handbook. Headlines and sound bites have no place in a court of law,’ he raises his eyebrows at the prosecutor before he looks at the jury, his irritated expression deliberately delivered to complement his sarcastic tone. Mr Justice O’Brien nods, raises his eyebrows and, wi
thout instruction, Lucinda concedes and William re-takes his seat.
‘I’ll rephrase,’ Lucinda says turning her face to the judge and nodding subserviently at his silent direction, before she lifts her hand to her mouth to hide the smirk of satisfaction that has formed on her lips. She knows that the suggestion has landed exactly where she intended it to. It’s already sown the seed of doubt and painted Jenny’s death as some depraved homicide from a Hollywood blockbuster movie. ‘Mr Buckley,’ she continues, fixing her eyes on mine. ‘On the night of June 3rd were you or were you not the last person to see Jennifer Buckley alive?’ she says. My defence team had warned me previously, in the many preparation meetings we had before today’s cross-examination, that the prosecution would do everything in their power to provoke a negative reaction from me so that the jury would see me as the monster that the national media outlets have suggested I am.
‘I was,’ I splutter, my voice wobbling in discomfort, threatening to betray me. I swallow and try and compose myself a little more, push back my shoulders and reach for the glass of water in front of me.
The jury sits slightly straighter when they see me squirm, shuffling in unison as though a bolt of electricity has surged along an invisible relay plugged into their backs. They widen their eyes and elongate their necks. The sour-looking forewoman to the front inhales sharply in anticipation. I steal a look at Abbie and Josh. They’re sitting side by side up towards the left of the room, their heads bowed, but their eyes lifted to meet mine.
‘Thank you.’ Lucinda Cassidy sniffs loudly and leans her head in the direction of the jurors to my right. ‘Mr Buckley,’ she swallows and lifts her head sympathetically to glance towards Abbie and Josh before she returns her focus to me. She’s setting the scene like an actor would when directing the audience’s attention towards a prop. She looks me up and down before she continues. ‘Did you kill Jennifer Buckley?’ She stares at me without blinking.
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