‘Then it’s no wonder she never accused him. How could she when he was there?’
‘He was in another room. They had no contact.’
‘But she would still have sensed his presence. She’s terrified of him, and with good reason. Time and again, I’ve said “Just tell the truth and you’ll be free”; and, every time, she’s been sent back.’
‘Both Marcia Dixon and I are highly trained in interview techniques and well able to assess the child.’
The video lasts for about an hour, during which they repeatedly fast-forward, promising that I will be able to rerun anything later, but I have seen more than enough. It is a shock to discover Pagan, her face haggard, her short hair forced into ribbons, and her hands … one in plaster from the fractured wrist, the other in bandages from the burns. At first, she relaxes with Marcia and the Inspector, who ask if she wants to watch herself in a film and point out the image on the monitor. ‘Like Leo,’ she says, ‘yes, yes.’ Marcia then plays truth games with pens and asks if she knows what ‘safe’ is. ‘Yes,’ she says; ‘it’s like when Leo pushes me on the swing and I won’t fall off.’ Instead of welcoming the assurance, she immediately asks if I pushed her hard. ‘Oh yes,’ she says laughing; ‘he pushed me so hard, I could kick the sky.’
‘That part,’ the Inspector informs us, ‘was basic rapport-building.’ But, as soon as they try to build further, the flimsiness of the foundations is exposed. Using words like cuddly toys, they ask whether anyone has ever hurt or done ‘naughty things’ to her; she refuses to be drawn. So they adopt a more pictorial approach. The Inspector presses a box of felt shapes into her hands, while Marcia picks out circles and squares and figures and demonstrates how to stick them on a board. She ignores them in favour of the monitor. Faced with such intransigence, their words become blades.
‘Has Leo ever touched your bottom?’ Marcia asks.
‘Leading question,’ Max mutters under his breath, but loud enough for the Inspector to scowl.
‘Course.’
‘Was that your front bottom or your back bottom?’
‘Yes.’
‘Did Leo touch your front bottom or your back bottom?’
‘Yes.’
‘Has Leo ever touched in your bottom? Has Leo ever put anything in your bottom?’
‘Yes.’ I start. What? When? Only a thermometer when she was a baby, and there is no way that she could have registered that.
‘When was that?’ She shakes her head.
‘Don’t you remember?’ She shakes her head.
‘Were you at home?’
‘No.’
‘Were you on holiday?’
‘No.’
‘Were you in somebody else’s house?’
She nods. ‘He said we were friends and then he hurt me. He made me lie on a bed and it was sore.’ I sense Max tensing.
‘Don’t worry. You mustn’t be scared. If you want to say naughty things … if you want to say nasty things … no one will be cross.’
‘It was the consultant,’ I shout out. The Inspector stops the video. ‘The paediatrician I took her to see.’
‘If you have any comments, write them down and we’ll go over them at the end.’
‘But it’s important.’
‘That’s why I gave you the paper.’
‘What’s the point? You won’t listen. You hear only what you want to hear.’
I push the pad away. The Inspector restarts the film, while her screen image resumes the questions. What I find most disturbing is the level of Pagan’s replies. It may be that the subject makes her shy or the setting nervous, but she seems to have regressed by two or three years.
‘Have you ever slept in Leo’s bed?’ Marcia asks.
‘Lots.’ She gives another one-word, four-year-old answer.
‘In the morning or the evening?’
‘Yes.’
They ask her to demonstrate, in felt, how my bed fits into the room and how she and I fitted into it. She slaps the pieces on the board with considerable accuracy … apart from making me black. They then press her to show them how we slept when we ran away. She ponders for a while before saying that she can’t because she can’t make a church. The ecclesiastical reference surprises them (I feel sure that they suspect satanism); but she refuses to elaborate. Sticking with Crierley, they want to know why she was dressed as a boy. I will her to reveal our escape-plan, but she keeps faith and stays silent. When they ask if she liked what I did to her as a boy, her only reply is ‘I fell downstairs’.
They then give her dolls, whose pronounced genitalia come as a double shock after the rigid sexlessness of Barbie and Ken. ‘It’s naughty,’ she says, ‘it’s like Leo’s bottom.’
Was she to grow up in a house of locked doors? Was she to grow up in a world of lowered glances?
‘Is it like anyone else’s bottom?’ She shakes her head. ‘Is it like Grandpa’s bottom?’ Her eyes gape. She shakes her head violently and throws the doll onto the floor. The Inspector picks it up and yet does not – or will not – pick up on the clue. ‘So it’s not like Grandpa’s bottom?’
‘No.’ She shakes her head.
‘If this doll were Leo and this doll were Pagan, what would they do together?’
She takes the male doll, purged of its grandpaternal threat, and the female doll, freed of its fear, and holds them together in a full-faced kiss.
‘Are you saying they’d kiss one another?’ She nods and then gives the Leo doll a big kiss in person. Do you find that sinister or touching …? They, of course, found the opposite.
‘When will I go home and see Leo and Trouble?’
‘Don’t worry, there won’t be any trouble. Leo will never put you in any trouble again.’
I sink my head in my hands. Their obduracy fills me with despair. I am a single man … a gay man, ergo I must be an abuser, whereas that kindly old cove, her grandfather, with his marital and military records, is above suspicion. Very well then, let them take me to court. Let them try me. Let them build their case on the name of a cat!
The Inspector freezes the frame and waits for me to look up. She asks if I am ready to continue. I signal my indifference. She moves on to a point where she is questioning Pagan with, at least, a display of detachment.
‘Has anyone else ever hurt you? Has anyone ever made your bottom sore?’
‘Whose bottom? Leo’s?’ She picks up the doll.
‘No, has anyone else ever made Pagan’s bottom sore?’ She shakes her head. ‘Not Grandpa? Has Grandpa ever made Pagan’s bottom sore?’
‘No! He has never hurt Pagan’s bottom! He has never hurt Pagan’s bottom!’ Her vehemence disturbs me even more than it does them. Why is she lying? On the screen, Marcia is comforting her.
‘No, of course not. Grandpa is a good man, who loves you.’ She has changed her stance considerably since her appearance in the witness box. ‘That’s the end of the nasty questions. You’re a very clever girl; we’re all very pleased with you. Shall we play with some of the toys? Afterwards, the police lady has promised to take you to see the station; would you like that?’
‘I’d like to see the trains.’
The interview is over, the television switched off. Looking at the officers, it is clear that we have been watching different films. Whereas I am convinced that every frame exonerates me (the mystery is why she should have protected your father), they view it differently: my bed, my bottom, my hand on her bottom, my cutting her hair … What I see as pain at the memory of her grandfather hurting her, they see as horror at the very idea. The Inspector asks whether, considering the evidence, I still have no comment. ‘I have only one,’ I reply. Max looks nervous. ‘Take care if you ever ask your parents to babysit for you.’
‘You think you’re very clever,’ she says, with such scorn that I fear the effect on the child in her womb. ‘People like you, you think you live in a different world from the rest of us; you think you’re above the law. Well, I’m here to show you you’re not.
I believe that you repeatedly assaulted that little girl, and, believe me, I’m going to throw the book at you.’ She calls the Custody Officer. ‘Sergeant, you can take him back to the cells.’
At half-past eight, I return to the charge room, where the Custody Officer, Inspector and Constable are all waiting, along with Max, who looks grave. Losing no time, the Custody Officer declares himself satisfied that there is sufficient evidence to charge me on a count that I did ‘between 1st November 1991 and 31st July 1993, at a place within the jurisdiction of the Central Criminal Court, commit buggery on Pagan Mulliner’.
I interrupt while he is cautioning me. ‘Why buggery? It was indecent assault this morning. What’s prompted the change? Is it that you feel more confident of gaining a conviction? Do my sexual tastes mean I’m halfway there already? Or is it that, to your mind, the anus is more inviolable than the vagina?’ He ignores me and repeats the caution, after which I am led into an adjoining room, where another officer photographs and fingerprints me, before taking down a physical description.
‘Hair red. Eyes green. Freckles …’
‘I flatter myself that I am quite well known.’ If they pull rank, then I shall pull reputation. ‘Five million people watch me twice a week.’
‘Watched,’ he says and continues with the form, after which he accompanies me to the cloakroom, where I am unable to wash the ink off my hands. Max joins us and tells me that he has spoken to the Inspector who has no objections to bail, which makes the shock all the greater when, five minutes later, the Custody Officer refuses it. He claims that, in view of the gravity of the offence and my recent absconding with Pagan, he has good reason to suspect that I will jump bail. So I am to be kept at the station overnight and appear before the magistrates in the morning. I take a dazed leave of Max and am returned to the cells.
The Duty Officer asks if I want an evening meal; and, for the first time, I feel hungry. He hands me a tray of pie and chips and cold banana custard, along with a sardonic apology that he is sure that it is not what I am used to. ‘Not so far,’ I say, ‘but who knows?’ One look at the thick-crusted pie and the mound of chips makes it clear why Bridges is running to fat. I tentatively pick at the food, but the plastic fork fails to establish a grip. The chips slide in their own grease and the crust collapses on its gristle. When I press on the knife, it snaps. Despair gives way to fury. I grab the pie in my hands and stuff it into my mouth. At which moment, a face appears at the wicket and laughs.
Sleep is an impossibility. The light in the cell burns my eyes; the bench is hard and I dare not trust to the pillow. The clatter in the corridor grows louder; to the slamming of doors and the clanking of keys is now added the murder – no, betrayal – of ‘Land of Our Fathers’ by two Welsh drunks. And yet even that is preferable to the constant visits of the Duty Officer, who rattles my wicket as though it were the bars of a cage. His attitude has changed with the charge, which, by removing any ambiguity from my status, has removed all checks on his resentment. I am numbed by the transition from deference to derision and disgust.
At four in the morning, my resistance flags. The drunks are stuporous, and the only sound is the murmur of muffled violence from a distant cell. I ache with cold, but there is no warmth in the blanket. I cheer myself with the prospect of every guest from the last eight years of shows (I cannot begin to guess at the number) petitioning the Queen for my release … my fantasy makes a mockery of my hopes. I start to blame you. You should have warned me about your father; not just for Pagan’s sake but for mine. I should have been given the chance to protect myself. I would have put a padlock on the bathroom door, consulted a female doctor, and renamed Trouble Joy.
What I find most baffling is her refusal to tell the truth. When Marcia called the red pen green, she saw that she was lying. I suppose that she might be colour-blind … now I am being perverse. And yet why should she name him, when it has only made things worse for her so far? … Or might there be another reason? One that I cannot – that I have to – consider. Is it possible that I did do it … no, not me: some separate, dark part of me, connected to me not by mind, but merely by muscle and tissue? The idea is unthinkable; and yet others have thought of it; they have endorsed it. Might they be right? Have I committed the crime and suppressed the evidence? Have I buried the memory as deep as the taboo?
Whenever I despaired of my sexuality in the past, my comfort was that at least I was not a pederast. Whenever I heard of some unfrocked clergyman caught with an unbuttoned choirboy, my response would be ‘There, but for the grace of God, go I …’ But now that I no longer believe in either grace or God, the consolation is as empty as the phrase.
At seven o’clock, the Custody Officer slides back the wicket. A minute later, he is bashing open the bolts on the door.
‘What the fuck have you done to your face?’ I am startled. He examines me. ‘It’s ink, for Christ’s sake!’ He laughs. ‘Out there, it looked like blood.’
He leads me to the basins at the end of the corridors. The soap is more lather than substance and the bowl encrusted with hairs. The ink appears to be indelible; I have dark grey lines on my cheeks to match the bags under my eyes … I look like a French film. After breakfast – that is, after the offer – I am handcuffed, in a parody of intimacy, to a constable and driven to court … I am grateful for the warmth of his leg. There are six prisoners in the van, five men and one woman. Two of the men recognise me and start to hurl insults. They are slapped to silence. As we leave the van, one of them lurches away from his shadow and lunges at me, hitting me hard in the side.
‘Are you hurt?’
‘It’s too early to say.’
I am bundled into court and down to the basement where I am locked in another cell. Shortly after ten o’clock, I am taken in front of the magistrates. The clerk reads out the charge and the prosecuting solicitor requests that I be remanded in custody. Max replies that I am a highly responsible citizen who, far from planning to abscond, is eager for the opportunity to clear his name. The magistrates agree to grant bail. My relief on hearing the chairman’s ‘I feel that nothing will be gained by locking up Mr Young’ dissolves with the qualifying ‘at this point’. Liberty comes within limits: I have to surrender my passport, remain at home, and report to the local police station twice a week. I must also undertake not to contact Pagan, your parents, or anyone connected with the case.
Max drives me back to London, generously attributing his silence to indigestion and his open windows to the heat. I arrive home, longing for a bath and then a day, if not a lifetime, in bed … But, first, I have to tidy a mess far worse than any burglary. And, as I delve through the debris, I discover that the police have treated me even more callously than in the cells. As if they cannot trust me with so much as an image, they have removed all my photographs. There is not one picture of Pagan left in the house.
5
Fear shakes hands with envy and shakes its fist at difference as I make my way to the Court. I find the faces of my studio audience transposed to an outside broadcast and hear their voices raised above the City din. ‘Bastard … pig … pervert’: the insults are interchangeable but the intentions are clear. A man in a clerical collar brandishes a spidery sign claiming that ‘The Maastricht Treaty Demands Legalised Sodomy On British Children’, and I feel like a cross between Jacques Delors and Gilles de Rais. My sole support comes from three young men in the red wigs and overemphatic freckles of the Leo Young fan club who hold up placards inscribed with the letters LEO, in a dangerous gesture of defiance.
I have my reply ready for the BBC reporter who asks how I feel. ‘Fighting fit,’ I insist. ‘The six months since I was charged have been bleak. As you know, I’ve had my show – my livelihood – taken away from me. I’ve been subjected to a campaign of harassment, while remaining under suspicion of a horrendous crime. And, worst of all, I’ve been kept away from the little girl in question: the girl whom I’ve loved as a daughter for the past seven years. Today, at last, I shall be able
to clear my name.’
I push my way to the door and turn in response to a photographer. I flash him my most determined smile. As I do, I spot my three supporters involved in an altercation. One of them has his wig knocked off and another has his pushed over his eyes. Nevertheless, when they see me, they lift their letters aloft. My name, which has been scrambled in the scuffle, now reads EOL.
Max escorts me through the vestibule. As I step through the metal detector, I recall David’s story of a friend whose pierced nipples set off the alarm at Amsterdam airport. I laugh out loud, to the fury of the functionary, who frisks me roughly. We take the lift to the first floor and into the Grand Hall. The wealth of colour, marble, columns and carvings comes as a relief after the brutal monochrome of Brighton. This is a cathedral of the law not a nonconformist chapel, and Max identifies the statues of its secular saints: Thomas Gresham, Charles I and II, Elizabeth Fry. I stare up at the lunettes, filled with allegorical figures of national life and justice. I admire King Alfred, Emperor Constantine and Magna Carta, and scowl at Moses with his tablets of stone.
We proceed to number three court, where we are greeted by Rebecca and Anthony, her junior. I am heartened by their assurance, which seems so much greater than before. Rebecca has no qualms, in spite of its being only her third case to involve video evidence; for, having had the chance to study Pagan’s interview, re-running every statement and freezing every frame, she is convinced that we are way ahead of the prosecution. I have answered all ambiguities; my vindication will be complete.
I enter the courtroom, as confident and controlled as if it were the stage of the Greenwood Theatre. Glancing at the gallery, dotted with latter-day Mesdames Desfarges, I feel that the police should have searched for knitting needles rather than guns. Scattered among them are my supporters. I recognise almost as many faces as on my This Is Your Life, or rather Lives, for it is the mark of my fragmented existence that they all remain separate … I swear that, as soon as the trial is over, I shall endeavour to make myself whole. My mother sits at the front, wearing her funeral coat and funereal expression, next to her sister Violet. She allows herself a pained nod on catching my eye; Aunt Violet waves. In the row behind are David and his boyfriend Griffin, sporting T-shirts which, I am sure, must constitute contempt of court. More soberly dressed are Edward, who intends to discuss the case in his column, Melissa, who will no doubt disguise it in her next-but-one novel, and Sweeney, who is working it into his Sociology GCSE. Vicky Ireland, Beth Lowden and Ginny Lawson have come from the Beeb, together with Imogen, Laura, Tristan, old Uncle Duncan Mossop and all.
Pagan and her parents Page 38