The Allegations

by Mark Lawson

  ‘Pissed!’ the ringleader hissed. ‘Pissed again!’

  Ellis, Sweetman and Oscar laughed, then started up the chant, as loud as they dare go: ‘Ray Pissed! Ray Pissed! Ray Pissed! Ray Pissed!’

  Ellis silenced them, making them wait for the last part of the game.

  ‘Who does Ray know who’s a ray pissed?’ he asked.

  Although he could not really see through his tears and the sting in his eyes that came with the sick, Toby knew that all three boys would be pointing at him. He felt Ellis grabbing his chin.

  ‘Ray? Ray? Who do you know who’s a Ray Pissed?’

  His voice – high, sore, breaking – didn’t sound like his own as he gave the only answer that would bring a stop until next time.

  ‘Daddy,’ Toby whisper-sobbed.

  ‘Who, Ray? Who?’

  ‘Daddy.’

  What Minds Do (3)

  She found him in the spare bedroom. There had been no answer to her shouts from the hall and on the stairs. When the bed was empty, she checked the bathroom, even though the door was open.

  Her next hope was that, unable to sleep, he had tried Mindfulness. Sometimes, she would get home late – on press day or after book group – and find him in his Tutankhamun cocoon, snoring, with one headphone dislodged, spilling out the soothing tones of the guy who told you not to worry about your mind wandering.

  Nudging the dimmer switch to its lowest setting in case of waking him suddenly, she smiled at the image she had anticipated, but then registered the differences, noting the absence of sound at the same time as spotting the froth around his mouth.

  With the unthinking instinct of an emergency stop – even though this was a move she had never learned or rehearsed – Helen dialled 999 on her mobile and answered the questions: no, yes, I think so, yes, not sure.

  Can you wake him? Is he breathing? If I tell you what to do, would you be able to move him? Is there any sign of what he might have taken? Can you tell how many?

  The antidepressants were in blister packs, like when she was on the pill, printed with the initial letters of the days: S,S,M,T,W,T,F. All except the last three days of the pack were punctured, which, as today was Friday, meant either that he had stopped taking his medication or that he had swallowed up to three and a half weeks of tablets.

  Tom’s wrist, where she was sure she could see a weak pulse, felt warm to the touch. Curled beside him, she saw the white envelope neatly lined up next to where the pills had been. In the feeble light, desperate for her reading glasses but helpless to locate them, she managed to make out the typed sentence upside down: A Letter To My Family And Friends.

  Non-Identical

  People would often tell her that they had once read a really interesting book about identical twins, or seen an article in a newspaper reporting the latest research on them. It was wellmeaning, an attempt to show sensitivity and interest, in much the way that her black friends and colleagues in England had endured months of being congratulated on the election of President Obama, but with the same objection that it reduced you to a single visual aspect.

  Phee, anyway, tended to avoid the literature on her condition because she already knew as much as she wanted to about being permanently impersonated. Writers on the subject, she suspected, concentrated on the alleged psychological difficulties (eating disorders, relationship issues, the inevitable identity crises of adolescence horrifically multiplied) and the weird responses of others: the men who became obsessed with shagging the two of you alternately, or ideally simultaneously, in order to find out, in a joke they always thought they were the first to make, whether everything’s identical.

  Without reading the research, she guessed that matching sisters were more affected than doubled brothers. Although your bodies were genetic copies, you might expose them to different levels of stress, chocolate, alcohol or contraception. Self-conscious about gained weight or a zit erupting on your cheek, you came down to breakfast to face a trimmer, clearskinned version of yourself, a bitchy Doreen Gray who hangs around the kitchen getting prettier. When a boy finds you unattractive, another guy – worse, sometimes, the same one – is drooling over your duplicate. It was a wonder that single-egg sisters didn’t all turn out to be serial killers.

  Except that the Marriott twins would be a perfect study for anyone seeking to disprove that personality and destiny were genetically determined. Since early in childhood, they had been uncut, cracked mirror images of each other. Dee, Phee assumed, had, unlike her, read every word ever published on the topic of identical twins. And her sister believed their father was a sex criminal.

  At his funeral – their parents were in an age-range where you could not avoid imagining such an event – a joint eulogy would be expected from the sisters, a solemn version of their verse tribute at his sixtieth. Now, however, she imagined that they would follow each other to the altar – the speaking order decided, obviously, by Dee – and scowl through the other’s account.

  Legal Advice (3)

  Was there some mystical link between writing and the night? Bed was the place where most people read and, from Claire’s experience of writers both as friends and clients, the majority of books seemed to be written in spare bedrooms.

  It would be impossible to sleep now in Tom’s impromptu study, unless you were able somehow, snake-like, to coil yourself around the literature. Shelves filled every wall, the volumes squeezed so tightly that the spines distorted, blurring titles and writers. Trembling towers of hardbacks and paperbacks rose from the desk and the floor around it. In this wall of words was a hollowed-out space where Tom wrote and, on the books closest to him, two surnames recurred: Days of Fire: Bush and Cheney in the White House, Hilary Clinton: Her Way, 41: A Portrait of My Father by George W. Bush.

  She was reading sideways the subtitle of a book about Bill Clinton when Tom entered. Letting Claire in, Helen had said that he was resting. The usual effects of shock and hospitalization – paleness and thinness – showed in his frame and face. She noticed the coldness of the hand he offered to be shaken.

  The better of the two chairs was at the desk and he offered it to her but she feared death by published landslide. Tom wriggled himself into the gap as precisely as a racing driver fitting into the cockpit.

  He lifted a finger gently towards the closest skyscraper of biographies. ‘You can probably guess the book I’m not writing.’

  ‘Not writing?’

  ‘My concentration’s shot. Halfway through every sentence, I start arguing with Special or Savlon or the Vice Chancellor. And I always thought the word nap was up there with jodhpurs among words I’d never need. But now I have one every afternoon. And it doesn’t help that I keep imagining every presidential historian is already writing my book. Some bugger has to – I mean, to kick out George III and then use the Bushes and Clintons as two rotating Royal families.’

  ‘Then that sort of answers the question about how you are. Tom, if we take them on, there are going to be a ton of meetings and a lot of bollocks.’

  ‘And what’s the point if I’m going to top myself and leave you to claw your fees from my estate?’ She took his surviving bluntness as evidence of his recovery. ‘Don’t worry, I’m in it until the bill. You know my view on clichés. So can I be 110 per cent clear that this was not – I hate even to say it – a cry for help? It was that other, odder one – I did it to show them what they’d done to me. Which assumes the existence of an afterlife with viewing facilities, in which I don’t actually believe. When I came round, all I thought was what a stupid selfish fucker I’d been, which seems to be the answer the head doctors want.’

  ‘And Ned’s … outcome – that isn’t difficult for you?’

  ‘Finland. If Nod had fallen off his horse, I’d come back for him. And vice versa. Although we’re probably not supposed to mention that particular Australian pop hit any more.’

  Pedantry (2)

  Your correspondent [March 5] complains that the planned BBC historical series Who Was Who sh
ould correctly be titled Who Was Whom. He is wrong. As a useful rule, who is used when the word he/she could be substituted: i.e., ‘it was Helen who found me.’ (She found me.) However, whom is preferable if the alternative wording would be him/her: i.e., ‘Helen is my wife, whom I have loved for 34 years.’ (I have loved her.)

  Following this formula, a possible other name for the retrospective documentaries would be Who Was He? / Who Was She? rather than Who Was Him? / Who Was Her? Therefore, Who Was Who is appropriate.

  The luminaries included are likely to include more hes than shes, if the bias of history is followed; more shes than hes, if the selectors bow to current ideological pressures.

  The series’ name, however, is syntactically exact – an occurrence that may very well be historic. And not, incidentally, historical.

  Dr Tom Pimm

  Winslow, Bucks

  The Network (2)

  ‘Prof, you’re looking very well. Percy’s sorted your coffee. Good, good. If you move those scripts, you can sit there. So, settled out of court, which must be better for everyone in the end.’

  ‘Er, well, hang on, Dom. If it works out this way, the innocent pay all the costs. Which you may bear in mind when Emma negotiates the next fees.’

  ‘Whoah! Times is hard, Professor. And Emma’s fine is she – you and Emma?’

  ‘Yes. But can I just … Settled out of court implies some kind of deal. In this case, the CPS rejected the claims.’

  ‘Decided not to bring them to court, yes. Look, Ned, I’ve had a meeting with the network.’

  ‘Good. Since the verdict, I’ve had this burst of energy. I’ve brought you an episode breakdown on The Bonfire of the Sanities and I saw in the papers about the hundred hours …’

  ‘Indeedy.’

  ‘… on historic, historical – historic and historical, I suppose – figures … is that happening?’

  ‘We’re still dotting the zeroes but it’s happening …’

  ‘Obviously, these days, it wouldn’t be appropriate to have one voice – the Civilisation model is too monocultural – but I’d certainly like to make a pitch for some of the dead white males and even females …’

  ‘Whoah!’

  ‘No, I realize it’s early days on that one.’

  ‘Ned, I’m not going to hide behind my grandmother’s skirts. As you know, the network has slightly reconfigured the pyramid recently, lines of responsibility and reporting have been redrawn. And I sense an energy to refresh the schedules, rest some established formats …’

  ‘Dom, as you would say, whoah. I hope this isn’t going where …’

  ‘Ned, I can’t lie to you on this one …’

  ‘Oh, so you do on most other occasions, then?’

  ‘What? The roundabout will turn. It will turn again. But, at the moment, there’s a feeling from the network that, while the dust settles, it’s a good opportunity to bring on some new blood.’

  Bullying is Like Beauty

  Because Workplace Harmony had ruled that Tom should not be forced to walk through History – a rare university stipulation with which he seemed happy to comply – the hearing had been arranged for a borrowed meeting room in Engineering, presumably on the basis that the traditional divide between the artistic and the scientific would avoid any risk of recognition.

  All lawyers with a few years on the clock have dealt with suicidal clients. Discreetly watching Tom as he flicked distractedly through a metallurgy magazine in the waiting area, Claire wondered if she would have guessed, if unaware of it, his recent attempt at death. He was slightly less keen to see everything as a feed for a punchline but looked otherwise unchanged, which, she felt, might be misleading: he was the sort of person who hid his true feelings behind an armour of attitude. Even if you had met him in the minute before he tried to kill himself, you might not have guessed.

  ‘Dr Pimm? Ms Ellen?’

  They looked up and nodded.

  ‘David Wellington.’

  The disconcerting moment of a name and voice becoming flesh, like seeing a radio broadcaster on TV. Tom’s parody of the Friday suicide calls had been cruelly acute. Tall and deeply tanned, with thick dark hair containing a suggestion of gel, Wellington had the professional appearance more of PR than HR. They followed him along corridors to the institutional soundtrack of a necklaced lanyard rattling against his jacket buttons. Intermittently, he used the plastic card to green-light them through security doors. On almost every noticeboard were posters showing bright red telephones and a number to phone to report a colleague for an offence of some kind. The only alternative decoration advocated the banning of various speakers, allegedly pro-Zionist or trans-phobic, from campus.

  With another swipe of his ID, Wellington admitted them to a steel and glass box with a label reading: Ferdinand de Lesseps.

  ‘Suez Canal?’ wondered Claire.

  Wellington smiled, a frequent reflex: ‘I’m pretty sure you’re right.’

  In a strip by the door, a shimmer of digital letters revealed that the room was reserved for two hours. The usual choices of bottled water and silver vacuum flasks stood on the table. Claire sometimes felt she spent her life checking her reflection in hotdrink pots. Tom volunteered to pour, but she took over when she saw his shaking hands making a mess of the peppermint tea.

  ‘So,’ Wellington began. ‘This is a hearing, quite literally so. My role is mainly to listen. You have communicated your concerns about the process you underwent. I will listen to what you have to say and consider any next steps, going forward. This meeting will not be verbatimed’ – Tom shuddered, at, she guessed, the irregular word – ‘but I will make written notes, as may you. So – the time is yours.’

  ‘Thank you, Mr Wellington,’ Claire said.

  ‘I’d hope I might be David.’

  ‘You’re not a Dave? Like our Prime Minister,’ Tom asked.

  ‘You know what? I actually don’t think I am.’

  The smile again, but as mechanical as a timer-light in an empty house.

  Claire said, by prior agreement with Tom: ‘I’d like to begin by setting on the record that Dr Pimm has recently been ill with a potentially life-threatening condition.’

  Claire had formulated this phrase while representing a noxious entrepreneur who had launched defamation proceedings over claims of mistreating an ex-lover, but had tried to take his life after finding out how much dirt the prosecution had on him. For some reason, life-threatening condition always made people think cancer or cardiac, gilding the defendant as strong and brave, rather than suicidal depression, from which some judges and juries seemed to infer weakness and even guilt.

  ‘I’m very sorry to hear that,’ said Wellington, and, a credit to either his personality or profession, genuinely sounded so, although a corporate reflex added: ‘The university regularly checked in with Dr Pimm during his suspension. He never mentioned illness.’

  ‘Does that surprise you?’ Tom asked.

  ‘I can see why you would say that.’

  ‘My first point,’ Claire continued, ‘is that the dismissal of Dr Pimm is the most serious abuse of legal process that I have seen outside of a developing world dictatorship.’

  Wellington fiddled with his wrists, revealing cuff links, which he shuffled for a while like dice.

  ‘So. On that,’ he began. ‘It can’t be an abuse of legal process because we have never pretended that it was a legal process.’

  Tom’s laugh triggered the WH director’s grin. Claire, contrastingly, frowned. ‘Just run that by me again. It can’t have been illegal because you were ignoring the law?’

  ‘I don’t think that’s quite what I’m saying. It was an internal disciplinary process. Clearly the burden of proof is lower than in the judicial system.’

  She had asked Tom to speak as little as possible, but her doubts about being obeyed were now confirmed.

  ‘So, let me get this straight,’ her client said. ‘Suppose one of my students – one of my former students – were consistentl
y late with essays or failed to attend class and, instead of talking to them or putting them on report, I placed them on trial in front of their classmates, they were found guilty and we executed them. You would say that their parents had no cause to complain because the university had never pretended it was a court of law?’

  A passer-by catching sight of Wellington through the glass would have thought that he was struggling to dissolve an obdurate gobstopper. Having weighed the consequences of various responses, he said: ‘So. On that. No, the difference is that, in that scenario, you would not have followed the correct disciplinary procedures of the university. Whereas, in your case, they were obeyed. I have personally checked that there were no faults in the process.’

  From even her limited experience of pleading in court, Claire had to resist the temptation to stand up in objection. ‘But – which is why we are here – we find the process full of faults from beginning to end …’

  ‘So. On that,’ Wellington interrupted, ‘we are speaking at cross-purposes. What I am saying is that the agreed process was correctly carried out to the letter.’

  Claire, as she wouldn’t dare in court, laughed. ‘But if a process is incompetent or inappropriate, then it’s irrelevant if it was correctly carried out.’

  A few more attempts to swallow the sweet. ‘I can see why you might say that.’

  ‘What I find most incomprehensible from a legal perspective is that, at a time when colleagues were being invited to make secret anonymous accusations against Dr Pimm, no one was ever invited to give evidence in defence of him.’

  ‘So. On that, no evidence entered into his defence would have been relevant.’

  Claire again had physically to resist the temptation to rise, turning the energy into a twist towards Tom, who trumped her own exaggerated double-take. Facing Wellington again, she asked: ‘And a defence would be irrelevant because the process wasn’t legal?’