I hurry up to the second floor, where Max meets me in the Solicitors’ Assembly. He apologises for leaving me to cope with the cameras, of which he had no warning. Somehow – and he has no doubts as to the source – the press has found out about the hearing. Frustrated by the reporting restrictions, several journalists are snooping around for a story. I spot one lurking in the corridor and feel an overwhelming urge to pee. I enter the loo and scrupulously avoid glancing at the other occupant. It is only when he speaks that I identify Fred Docherty, the nation’s favourite demolition man. ‘What’s a nice boy like you doing in a place like this?’ he asks archly. My head pounds. My fly is open but I am numb. I look down in shock.
‘Had a good eyeful, have you?’ he asks, shaking himself vigorously. ‘They say that the price of fame is never being able to piss in peace.’ My sudden turn is almost an admission of guilt.
‘Why are you doing this, Lewis? You can’t still be bitter about Candida.’
‘You’d never understand. You and I have very different morals.’
‘In other words, I have some.’
‘You should take care what you say: you’re in a highly vulnerable position.’ My penis feels exposed, but I dare not touch it.
‘It may not be too late to withdraw your affidavit.’
‘Are you trying to interfere with a witness?’ He savours the innuendo. ‘You wouldn’t want to intimidate me, my old son? Not that that little thing would intimidate my grandmother.’ He laughs. ‘Better go; people may talk. See you in court, as the actor said to the agent.’
See you in Hell, as the chat show host replied.
In court, I feel like an actor at the start of a new series of a popular programme … The Judges: an everyday story of sentencing folk. All last season’s favourites have returned: your parents, who are even wearing their trademark costumes; their legal advisers; my legal advisers; the Usher, a crusty character part complete with catchphrase ‘Take the Bible in your right hand and read the words on the card …’ Waiting in the wings – or the witness rooms – are this week’s guests: Vicky Ireland, Edward and Melissa, Jenny Knatchpole and, of course, Lewis, fresh from his own programme and a genuine star.
No sooner are we settled than the Judge enters with an apology. On account of an emergency application for an injunction, he will not be able to hear us until after lunch. We file out. Max warns that there is now no way that we will finish this afternoon. The delay will entail adjustments in everyone’s schedule; as the Judge himself acknowledges when, on our return, he calls ceremoniously for his diary and consults his clerk. He informs Counsel that, by judicious switches, he will be able to continue the hearing on Monday. Although Rebecca thanks him for his consideration and says that all parties will be present, I worry about my witnesses; Vicky is due in studio, while, if Edward and Melissa stay here much longer, they will be confused with the couples filing for divorce.
At long last, your parents’ Counsel stands to present his case. Now that I am more accustomed to my surroundings, I find time to observe him. Of average height and solidly plump, with bouffant silver hair, he exudes an Establishment urbanity that survives even his choice of tie. His dry tones border on detachment and, according to Rebecca, are informed by resentment at never having taken silk. To him, the law is an intellectual exercise, as formal as completing the Criterion crossword in Latin. In general, he finds family courts insufficiently gladiatorial; but, in this instance, there is compensation in her presence. He harbours an intense detestation of women barristers, which he masks with a show of old-world charm.
‘He once offered me his chair at a Middle Temple dinner,’ Rebecca recalls. ‘“Don’t worry,” I said, “I’m not pregnant.” “No matter,” he replied slickly, “a gentleman should always give up his seat to a lady; he never knows if it’s that time of the month.” I stood there, as humiliated as if blood were trickling down my leg. He’s of the breed of man who puts women at the front of the queue for lifeboats and at the back for life. As for women at the bar, I’m sure he feels that we’re contaminated by our clients, particularly someone like me who specialises in assault and abuse. After all, are these papers you would wish your wife or your servants to read?’
He finds a kindred spirit in your mother, who, as a bursar’s wife, was doubly domestic for thirty years and who, no doubt, subscribes to the traditional view that a woman’s place is in the home, a man’s is at work, and a homosexual’s is in jail.
‘I’m afraid I’m just a housewife,’ she says, as he establishes her credentials.
‘There’s no need to apologise, Mrs Mulliner.’ He beams reassurance. ‘What better model for a young girl?’
He treats her with exaggerated courtesy, more suited to a rape victim who has to relive the ordeal in court. She plays her part by never once looking at me or referring to me by name. And yet, however painful it may be for her to confront my sexuality, she makes it plain that her first duty is to Pagan. She describes her shock at hearing from both Lewis and Jenny after the Sunday Sentinel article and her sense of double betrayal that you should have entrusted your child to a homosexual rather than to your own parents … in which case, perhaps she should ask herself why. She claims that she has no objection to homosexuality in principle – or even in practice – as long as it is in private, but that on no account do we ever have the right to involve children. I object to her choice of verb, which I am quite sure is deliberate …. I suppose I should just be grateful that Pagan is not a boy.
‘And what about the health hazard? Does anyone know if Mr Young has been tested for AIDS?’ At a stroke, she blasts all pretence of tolerance. Even her Counsel looks taken aback and rapidly sits, as if to contain the damage. I wait for Rebecca to press our advantage, but she seems strangely subdued. I realise that laying into a seventy-year-old woman risks losing sympathy. Nevertheless, there is a part of me that bays for blood.
‘How many homosexuals do you know, Mrs Mulliner?’
‘None,’ comes the affronted reply.
‘Are you sure?’
‘Of course I’m sure.’
‘Then how can you make such sweeping statements about their behaviour?’
‘I have eyes.’
‘To see for yourself or to read newspapers?’
‘I’m not blind to what’s happened in the last thirty years … drugs and filth and pornography and not knowing where to look on the Brighton front.’
‘And you’d lay all that at the door of homosexuals?’ I begin to appreciate Rebecca’s approach and wonder whether the Judge has the power to certify.
‘And television; that’s to blame too.’ For the first time, she turns to me, as if to accuse me on both counts of the moral decline of the nation. It makes everything seem normal. It puts strangers into your living room like friends. And they laugh at everything you hold dear. If that man is allowed to keep our granddaughter, she’ll grow up with no respect for any of the things that decent people believe in … the Church, the Police Force, the National Trust. Look at the Royal Family.’ … I do; although whether as an example of probity or laxity is unclear.
Your father follows your mother into the witness box. He presents himself as a man of the world, proud of his pragmatism, prepared to ‘live and let live’ … just as long as we do not live with children. To his mind, homosexuality is a handicap; at any rate by inference.
‘Take my son, William. He’s confined to a wheelchair; he’ll never go mountaineering. It’s no use pretending that he will. So he has to find alternatives, like fishing or table tennis. It’s the same with Mr Young.’ I see. And what is the ping-pong equivalent of a parent? A lollipop man? The ball is in his court. ‘I’ve spent all my life in the company of men, first in the Army and then in a public school. I’ve known homosexuals, some of them first-rate soldiers and others first-rate schoolmasters – not that there’s that much difference. But there are always doubts, dangers, you can never quite trust them. Take our senior arts master, excellent chap, even redesigned
the school crest. He was with us for twenty years; everyone knew he was a bugger … excuse the vernacular. Then, one evening, he went out on a bender and paraded through Old House in the buff. Next day, he had to be dismissed.’
Poor man! Do you know what became of him?
‘Your Honour, I object to this line of questioning. The issue for the Court is whether Pagan Mulliner should remain with my client, not the behaviour of individual homosexuals.’
‘The two are linked, Ms Colestone,’ the Judge sibilantly replies, ‘whether you care for it or not.’
Your father brackets me with the sacked teacher. ‘It’s clear from Mrs Knatchpole’s affidavit that Mr Young enjoys wearing women’s clothing. I’m sure that there’s no harm in it … I remember spending several hilarious evenings at the forces’ revue, Soldiers in Skirts; but is it right for a young girl to be raised by a transveststite?’ His difficulty with the word suggests his distaste for the practice. Who would have thought that your practical joke would have repercussions fifteen years on? ‘If we don’t take care, Pagan will grow up thinking such perversions normal. She’s already far too mature for her years. I’m not saying that children should be wrapped in cotton wool; but I don’t believe that a six-year-old should be familiar with fellatio.’ What on earth …? ‘I wouldn’t want my wife to use language like that, let alone my granddaughter.’
‘I don’t wish to add to your distress,’ his Counsel prompts, ‘but would you elucidate that last remark for His Honour?’
‘Our son was taking a photograph of mother – that’s Mrs Mulliner – Pagan and me. He said “Say Primula”… that’s instead of “Cheese”, an old family joke we learnt from Candida. And Pagan said that her favourite cheese – a cream cheese, mind, a cream cheese – was “fellatio”. It was Mr Young’s favourite too. He’d clearly discussed it in front of her. It was only when William laughed – out of embarrassment, of course – that I realised what she’d said. I had to explain to my wife what it meant.’
I scribble a note for Rebecca and wonder why it is that Pagan should find it so difficult to remember the capital cities of Europe and yet recall an off-the-cuff idiocy word for word.
Your father’s tone is a perfect blend of pain and indignation, which his Counsel refuses to put to the test of further questions. Rebecca makes far less headway in his cross-examination than she did in your mother’s. She taxes him with various inconsistencies … Pagan can hardly be happy to see them when she locks herself in my car, or feel at home in Hove when she repeatedly wets the bed. But these are details. And, as the Judge unctuously adds, ‘Children do not have the benefit of your rigorous logic, Ms Colestone’. She forces a smile and draws her interrogation to a close.
After a brief re-examination, your father steps down, and his Counsel takes up the affidavits from Jenny and Lewis. The Judge seeks to discover whether either contains anything controversial and, if not, whether the witnesses need to be called. On hearing from Rebecca that they do, he looks first at his watch and then at the heavens, before directing them to proceed.
Jenny enters the box, wearing a blue cashmere suit and that air of resignation which passes for authority in upper-middle-class women. She has lined; her strawberry blonde hair has faded and her creamy complexion soured. She fumbles for words, as if unused to any but canine contact, whereupon the Judge urges her to take her time.
Your parents’ Counsel teases out the testimony of two parties: her engagement, where she was mortified by your revelations, and Eammon Lipton’s birthday, where she was traumatised by my dress. ‘Ever since, I’ve suffered terrible headaches when I watch television. I’ve written dozens of letters to the BBC to no effect …’ At last, I discover the source of all the anonymous letters naming me as a transsexual. Poor Jenny, even her vitriol falls wide of the mark.
It is clear from Rebecca’s cross-examination that Jenny is consumed with jealousy. It torments her that you should have had a child and she should not. She appears to blame you for all the problems in her marriage; which is patently absurd. It can hardly have helped to have had Heathrow immigration officers laugh at her husband’s penis at the start of her honeymoon; nevertheless, to my certain knowledge, you only ever met Guy by chance and in company after the show-down in Cadogan Square. ‘Every time we went to bed, she came between us …’ As she breaks down, the Judge inclines towards her and offers her a glass of water, which she gratefully accepts. This, at least, requires the Usher to put down the paperback novel in which he has been engrossed and do some work.
‘You are pressing the witness too hard, Ms Colestone. Not everyone is as inured to the rigours of the family court as you.’
With pointed delicacy, Rebecca asks about her experience of child-raising. The Judge looks impatient. Jenny looks frail. ‘My husband and I have not been blessed with children. But that’s of no consequence. I have my sheepdog sanctuary. I know how important it is that animals who have been neglected or ill-treated are looked after by someone who cares.’ I wonder if she would have been equally vexatious if Pagan had been a pet.
I have to explain about the dress … if only you had explained about the dress; it is the one and only time in my life that I have worn one. Unlike Robin, I have neither the inclination nor the build for drag. But you insist that it is the theme of the party and that I must humour my heterosexual friends. In the event, we arrive in Dorking to find the women in evening dress and the men in dress suits. Eammon and Lily are nonplussed. I explain that you must have misread the invitation; but one glance at your face reveals the truth. Lily alone finds our appearance droll. Disregarding my migraine, she thrusts me into the drawing room, where she introduces me as Leonora, my own twin sister. Conversation dies. You, of course, look chic in your double-breasted pinstripes, borsalino and burnt-cork moustache. I look like an out-take from La Cage aux Folles.
The dinner bell extends my ordeal, as Lily, who has become slightly hysterical, insists on amending her seating plan. I was originally placed between Jenny and Lydia, Eammon’s partner’s wife; but that would put three girls together. And yet she cannot simply swap us, as that would mean your sitting next to Jenny. The ark-like rigidity of her scheme seems to allow no resolution. Everyone waits, in mounting irritation, as she tries out different permutations. ‘Isn’t it fun?’ you say, ‘just like musical chairs … with the emphasis on the musical.’ Nobody laughs.
Finally, I am placed on Eammon’s right. ‘After all, Leonora is the guest of honour,’ Lily exclaims. Eammon addresses only three words to me during the entire meal: ‘Red or white?’ They never invite either of us again.
You revel in having stuck a pin up the backside of the Home Counties. But the backside escapes with minor bruising; it is the pin that feels the strain. We do not speak for two weeks, following a row in which you deride me as bourgeois … try telling that to Jenny Knatchpole, who has been storing up evidence of my deviance ever since. Your victories are proving to be pyrrhic. Whom would you rather credit, the Saint Clare of Little Kingshill or a transvestite exhibitionist? Don’t answer; your opinion is hardly the norm.
‘I used to believe that Candida Mulliner was evil; but, now, I think that the accused corrupted her.’
The Judge intervenes. ‘The witness should remember that this is not a criminal court. Mr Young is not on trial.’ Jenny looks disappointed.
‘No further questions, Your Honour.’ Your parents’ Counsel concludes the re-examination.
‘You may step down now, Mrs Knatchpole. Thank you for responding so graciously in such trying circumstances. I trust that we have not impeded your invaluable work.’
The Judge is unlikely to feel as benevolent towards Lewis, who saunters to the witness box with the cockiness of one more accustomed to the dock. He winks at the Usher and reels off the oath without reading the card. But, if his prolier-than-thou manner threatens to lose sympathy, his cheated-father act restores it. I have only myself to blame. I presumed that you must have told him about the abortion; but reading my affidav
it was his first hint. Now I know how a murderer feels.
‘I’m pregnant,’ you say, flinging your overnight case on the kitchen table.
‘Lewis?’ You nod.
Maternity rears its mewling head, as you describe your dilemma. ‘I don’t believe in abortion. That is, I believe in a woman’s right to choose, but not mine. Look at Imogen; she uses abortion as a means of contraception. I’m never sure if she considers it more convenient, chic or appropriately painful. But it’s a human life. If abortion had been legal thirty years ago, there’d have been no Candida. I’d have been flushed down the pan at some soulless clinic. How can I do that to my child? And yet what chance does it have with parents like me and Lewis? “Bad blood!” my mother used to say, whenever I crossed her; “blood will out.” And, for once, she was right. But this would be even worse.’
I am starting to see how your obsession with Debrett’s owes less to snobbery than to genetics … bad blood to be purged by blue.
‘Do you know if he even wants children?’
‘He wants a son.’
‘Would he be a good father?’
‘He’d be the worst.’ I picture his violence transferred from you to a child: the black eyes from bunches of keys that you mysteriously fail to catch, the bruised arms from falls on the shallow, carpeted stairs. ‘You’d make by far the best father of all the men I know, Leo.’ It is the first time that you have mentioned it. I laugh away the tremor in my loins.
He refuses to accept your departure and arrives at the house, demanding entry. I bar the door, secure in the knowledge that you are out. He pushes past and darts up the stairs. He returns to the hall, doubly humiliated, flicks open a knife and holds it to my throat, threatening to kill me if I try to come between you. I laugh – I still do not know whether it is nerves or bravado – and he slits my arm. I shout; although there is no pain. There is a trickle of blood, but there is no pain. I must be in shock, which is why there is no pain. Then he scoops up the blood and forces it onto my tongue. It tastes disconcertingly bland. ‘I’m an actor,’ he says. ‘Do you think I’d risk what I’ve got going for me by stamping out an insect like you?’ He smiles and stabs himself with the retractable blade. ‘Tell her, I’m expecting her back.’
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