The Douglas Kennedy Collection #1

by Douglas Kennedy

  “Though Ms. Goodchild has never denied that—while in the throes of a clinical depression—she once expressed lack of concern about the child’s survival, and once uttered a threat against her son, she never carried out this threat or committed any violent action against him. She also openly admits that, while suffering from sleep deprivation and her ongoing postpartum depression, she did accidentally breast-feed her son while taking sedatives—an incident for which she still feels ongoing remorse.

  “But those three incidents I’ve just outlined are the entire sum total of the ‘crimes and misdemeanors’ that my client has been accused of committing by the applicant. And out of these three incidents, the applicant manipulated the facts to initially obtain an emergency ex parte order against Ms. Goodchild—a hearing that conveniently took place while she was out of the country at a family funeral. The applicant has since further exploited these incidents to win the interim order, granting him custody of the child, essentially condemning Ms. Goodchild as an unfit mother, and, with the exception of one pitiful hour a week, separating my client from her infant son for the past six months. I say that the applicant has acted in a ruthless, opportunistic fashion against his wife—and all for his own gain.”

  She sat down. There was a moment’s pause. Then Lucinda Fforde stood up and called her first witness: Mr. Thomas Hughes.

  In he marched, dressed in an excellent suit, his demeanor every bit the arrogant Harley Street specialist. He stepped into the witness box, took the oath, and then nodded with a certain old-boy politeness to Mr. Justice Traynor. It was at that moment that I noticed they were wearing the same school tie.

  “Mr. Hughes, you are considered, are you not, one of the leading obstetrics specialists in the country,” Ms. Fforde began, and then reminded the court that his witness statement had been submitted earlier. But just to verify the details of this statement, was it his opinion that Ms. Goodchild’s behavior was abnormally extreme while under his care at the Mattingly Hospital?

  He launched into this subject with reasoned relish, explaining how, in all his years as a consultant, I was one of the most aggressive and extreme patients he had encountered. He then went on to explain how, shortly after the birth of my son, the nurses on the ward had reported to him about my dangerously “capricious and volatile behavior.”

  “Desperate stretches of crying,” he said, “followed by immoderate bouts of anger, and an absolute lack of interest in the welfare of her child—who, at that moment, was resident in the pediatric intensive care unit.”

  “Now, in your witness statement,” Lucinda Fforde said, “you emphasize this latter point, noting how one of the nurses reported to you that Ms. Goodchild said—and this is a direct quote: ‘He is dying—and I don’t care. You get that? I don’t care.’ ”

  “I’m afraid that is correct. After her son was recovering from jaundice, she became extremely unsettled in front of the entire maternity ward, to the point where I had to verbally calm her down and inform her that her behavior was most unacceptable.”

  “Now it has been clinically argued that Ms. Goodchild was in the throes of a postpartum depression during this time. Surely, you have dealt before with other patients suffering from this sort of condition?”

  “Of course. It is certainly not an atypical condition. However, I have yet to deal with a patient who reacted in such a profoundly aggressive and dangerous manner—to the point where, when I heard that her husband had sought a court order to remove the child from her, I was not at all surprised.”

  “Thank you very much, Mr. Hughes. No further questions at this juncture.”

  Maeve Doherty now stood. Her voice was cool, level.

  “Mr. Hughes . . . I’d like to ask you when you had Ms. Goodchild bound to her hospital bed.”

  He looked startled. “I never ordered that at all,” he said, his tone indignant.

  “And when did you have her heavily tranquilized?”

  “She was never heavily tranquilized. She was on a modest antidepressant to deal with the postoperative shock she suffered from her emergency caesarean . . .”

  “And when you had her committed to the psychiatric wing of the Mattingly . . .”

  “She was never committed, she was never heavily tranquilized, she was never bound to her bed.”

  Maeve Doherty looked at him and smiled.

  “Well sir, having stated that, how can you then say that she was a dangerous patient? Surely if she had been a dangerous patient, you would have ordered her to be bound . . .”

  “It is true that she did not commit acts of physical violence, but her verbal behavior . . .”

  “But, as you just said, she was suffering from postoperative shock, not to mention trying to cope with the fact that her son was in intensive care. And there was an initial worry about whether the child had suffered brain damage during the delivery. Now, surely, under such circumstances, one might expect the patient to be rather agitated.”

  “There is a large difference between agitation and . . .”

  “Rudeness?”

  Traynor came in here.

  “Please refrain from putting words in the witness’s mouth.”

  “Apologies, My Lord,” Maeve Doherty said, then turned back to Hughes.

  “Let me put it to you this way: if we have agreed that Ms. Goodchild wasn’t violent or so extreme in her behavior, then how can you justify your claim that she was one of the most extreme patients you have ever dealt with?”

  “Because, as I was trying to say earlier, before you interrupted me, her verbal abusiveness was so immoderate.”

  “In what way immoderate?”

  “She was thoroughly rude and disrespectful . . .”

  “Ah,” Maeve said loudly. “She was disrespectful. Toward you, I presume?”

  “Toward me and other members of the staff, yes.”

  “But specifically, toward you, yes?”

  “She did act in an angry manner toward me.”

  “Did she use obscene language, did she hurl insults at you, or call you names . . . ?”

  “No, not exactly . . . But she did challenge my medical judgment.”

  “And that is extreme verbal abuse, in your book?”

  Hughes glanced at Lucinda Fforde, like an actor asking for a prompt.

  “Please answer my question,” Maeve Doherty said.

  “My patients usually don’t question me like that,” he said.

  “But this American one did—and you didn’t like it, did you?”

  But before he could reply, she said, “No further questions, My Lord.”

  The judge turned to Lucinda Fforde and asked if she’d like to reexamine.

  “Please, My Lord,” she said, standing up. “Mr. Hughes, please repeat for me the comment which one of your nurses reported as being said by Ms. Goodchild when told about her son.”

  Hughes’s lips twitched into a relaxed smile. Then he wiped that off his face and stared at me with cold ire.

  “She informed me that Ms. Goodchild said: ‘He is dying—and I don’t care. You get that? I don’t care.’”

  “Thank you, Mr. Hughes. No further questions.”

  He looked to the judge, who informed him that he could step down. Then, glowering at Maeve Doherty, he left the court.

  Next up was Sheila McGuire—the ward nurse who had reported me to Hughes about the breast-feeding incident. She seemed desperately nervous and ill at ease on the stand, and had a handkerchief between her hands, which she continued to knead. Maeve knew she was going to be the second witness, and told me that a useful passive-aggressive tactic against someone who would be testifying against me was to catch her eye, and simply stare at her throughout her testimony. I did just that—and it did have the desired effect, as her discomfort level increased proportionately. But she still managed to recount the entire story about how I yanked Jack off my breast in anger while feeding him, and had to be restrained from throwing him across the room.

  During cross-examination, Maev
e Doherty cornered her on her use of the word “yanking.”

  “Now, explain this to me clearly,” Maeve said. “Ms. Goodchild just suddenly yanked the child off her breast in fury at having been bitten . . .”

  “Well, it wasn’t exactly a yank.”

  “By which you mean what?”

  “Well, she yanked, but she didn’t intentionally yank . . .”

  “I’m sorry, I don’t follow.”

  “Well . . . Ms. Goodchild had been suffering from acute mastitis . . .”

  “Otherwise known as inflammation of the breast which can calcify the milk flow, yes?”

  “It doesn’t always calcify, but it can cause a terrible blockage which can be deeply painful.”

  “So her breasts were profoundly swollen and painful, and then her son clamped down on her swollen nipple, and she reacted the way anyone would react if suddenly subjected to sudden pain.”

  “Do please desist from leading the witness,” Traynor said.

  “Apologies, My Lord. I will rephrase. Nurse McGuire, would you say that Ms. Goodchild jumped in pain after her son bit down on her nipple, yes?”

  “Yes, that’s true.”

  “So the yank you speak about—it wasn’t a deliberate, premeditated movement, was it? It was, in fact, nothing more than a shocked reaction?”

  “That’s right.”

  “So if we agree that she had a shocked, instinctive reaction to pull her son off her breast, then can we also agree that, for a moment, it seemed like she was about to hurl the child.”

  “Absolutely.”

  “But she stopped herself, didn’t she?”

  “Well, we were there to . . .”

  “Did you make a grab for the baby?”

  “Uh . . . no.”

  “So Ms. Goodchild stopped herself. No further questions.”

  There was a short ten-minute adjournment after McGuire stepped down, during which Sandy came hurrying up to where I was conferring with Nigel and Maeve.

  “I’m so sorry,” she said, sounding deeply contrite. “It’s just, when that woman started painting that bastard as some sort of noble knight . . .”

  I put my hand on her arm, signaling her to stop. Then, turning back to Nigel and Maeve, I said, “I’d like you to meet my sister, Sandy, in London on a surprise visit from Boston.”

  Nigel stood up and gave her his usual dead mullet handshake. Maeve smiled tightly and said, “I can understand why you reacted the way you did. But if you want to help your sister, please take heed what the judge said, and don’t do that again.”

  The second half of the morning was taken up with testimony from two other nurses from the Mattingly, both of whom confirmed Mr. Hughes’s opinion that I had been trouble incarnate while on the ward. Maeve managed to puncture some of their criticisms—but the point was still made that, in the eyes of the hospital nurses and my consultant, I had been seriously bad news.

  Then, just before lunchtime, came my great friend, Jessica Law, author of the CAFCASS report which essentially let it be known that, though I was on the road to recovery, Tony Hobbs and Diane Dexter had provided an exemplary environment for Jack.

  “I have no doubt in my mind,” she said under questioning from Lucinda Fforde, “that Sally Goodchild is conscious of the fact that she went through a desperately traumatic period, which made her do and say things that she regretted saying. I also have no doubt that when she recovers fully from her condition, she will be a most conscientious and caring mother. The reports I have received from Clarice Chambers—who has supervised all of her visits with her son—have been nothing short of exemplary. Ms. Goodchild has also managed to find work as a freelance proofreader, and is beginning to find her way in this new endeavor. In short, I am most impressed by the courage and the tenacity she has shown under exceptionally difficult circumstances.”

  But then she began to wax lyrical about Chez Dexter. How the Divine Ms. D. stepped into the breach and “magnificently” provided for Jack’s needs. How Mr. Hobbs appeared to her as a most caring and devoted father who was also clearly most happy in his relationship with Ms. Dexter, and had put his career on hold to care for his son on a full-time basis. How there was also a full-time nanny to supplement Mr. Hobbs’s child care. How she could not find fault with this arrangement, and how she was certain that Jack was—and this was the killer comment—“in the best place he could be right now.”

  I expected Maeve Doherty to take her apart, to make her reiterate her positive assessment of my condition, and then question her about the real workings of the Hobbs-Dexter household.

  But instead, she just posed one question.

  “Ms. Law, in your considered opinion, doesn’t Jack Hobbs deserve to be raised by both his parents?”

  “Of course he does. But . . .”

  “No further questions.”

  I was stunned by the brevity of this cross-examination, and by the way Maeve didn’t look at me on the way back to her place. Then Lucinda Fforde rose to reexamine.

  “And I too just have one question for you, Ms. Law. Would you mind confirming that the last sentence you spoke during my examination-in-chief was: ‘I am certain Jack is in the best place he could be right now.’ ”

  “Yes, that is what I said.”

  “No further questions, My Lord.”

  And we broke for lunch.

  Once Mr. Justice Traynor was out of the room and Tony and Co. swept out, looking most pleased with themselves, I turned to Maeve and said, “May I ask you why—?”

  She cut me off.

  “Why I didn’t try to pull Jessica Law apart? Because Traynor immediately gets his back up if anyone attacks a CAFCASS report or the author behind it. Though he may be an Old Tory, he does have a strong respect for professional opinion. And yes, what she said just now was harmful to us. But it would have been more harmful if I began to question her judgment, or insinuate that she had been entranced by the other side . . . which is obviously the case. Trust me here—Traynor would have turned against us on the spot.”

  “But what about the damage she’s done?” I asked.

  “Let’s see what this afternoon brings,” she said. Then she said that she and Nigel needed to go over a few things during lunch.

  So Sandy and I retreated to a nearby Starbucks.

  “Just like home,” she said, looking around. “Except for the prices. Jeez, how do you afford it?”

  “I don’t,” I said wearily.

  “Please don’t tell me how heavy I look,” she said, wolfing a fudge brownie, washed down with sips of a mocha latte with whipped cream. “I know how heavy I am—and I am going to be addressing that issue just as soon as the summer is over.”

  “That’s good, Sandy,” I said, staring into my paper espresso cup.

  “You should eat something,” she said.

  “I’m not hungry.”

  “You know, I think your barrister did a great job with that awful doctor and that Irish idiot of a nurse. But I still don’t understand why she just let that social worker woman off with just—”

  “Sandy, please . . .”

  She looked at me with a mixture of jet lag, confusion, and hurt.

  “I shouldn’t have come, should I?”

  “I’m not saying that.”

  “No, you’re right. I’m just shooting my fat old mouth off . . .”

  “Stop that,” I said, taking her by the hand. “I am very pleased you’re here.”

  “You’re just saying that.”

  “No, really. Because you could not have been a better sister to me during this entire horrible business. Without you, I would have gone under. But . . .”

  “I know, I know. The tension’s unbearable now.”

  I nodded.

  “That’s why I decided I had to come over here,” she said. “Because I would have found it absolutely unbearable to be sitting in Boston, wondering how the hell this was going.”

  “Not good, is what I’m thinking right now.”

  “A
ll right, maybe she didn’t score with the social worker, but look how she dismembered Mr. Big Shot Consultant . . .”

  “The ‘social worker,’ as you call her, counts for everything in this case. Her report is like the alpha and the omega to the court—because it is court commissioned. You heard what Maeve said—the judge takes her word more seriously than anyone else’s. Which is why this is looking so bad. Not that I didn’t know that from the moment I read the CAFCASS report. But I really thought Maeve would stick it to her.”

  “Especially since, I bet you anything, Ms. Social Worker walked around Ms. Rich Bitch’s designer house, saw the photos of her with Tony and the Missus at Downing Street, was probably flattered to death to be taken so seriously by such a player, that she turned all starfucky . . . excuse my American.”

  “You’re excused,” I said. “And I think you’re right.”

  “Who’s up next this afternoon?”

  “My wonderful husband.”

  “I can’t wait.”

  I had to hand it to Tony, his testimony was masterful—a true performance, of the convincing sort I used to see him trot out in front of some heavyweight Arab foreign minister, from whom he wanted something. Tony in the witness box became Anthony Hobbs of the Chronicle: erudite, serious, a man of gravitas, yet also one of great compassion, especially when it came to dealing with his tragically wayward wife. Encouraged to wax humanitarian by Lucinda Fforde, he took her through the entire story of my breakdown, how he tried so hard to help me through it, how I rejected his support, and how he still stuck by me even after I threatened the life of our son.

  Then he went into his “friendship” with Diane Dexter—that, yes, it had always been a flirtatious friendship, but it had never been anything other than that until his marriage began to disintegrate and he began to fear for the safety of his son. And then he made an impassioned “new man” spiel about how fatherhood had been the best thing that had ever happened to him, how he had never really understood the remarkable joy and pleasure that having a child could bring to your life, just as he could not ask for a more remarkable (yes, he used that word twice) partner than Diane Dexter (and he looked directly at her as he sang her praises), and he was desperately, desperately distressed by the fact that he had no choice but to take Jack away from my “self-destructive rampage,” but he did hope that—once I found my equilibrium again—I could perhaps play a role in his life. For the moment, however, he was fully committed to being Jack’s “principal carer,” which is why he had decided to give up his job on the Chronicle, and how—when they moved to Australia next month—he would also not be seeking full-time employment for at least another year or so, in order “to be there for Jack.”