by Jo Kessel
The Judge put on his spectacles and perused the documents whilst a heavy, respectful silence descended on the room. Tissues were taken out of pockets. Noses were blown. The journalists were making notes in pads, or perhaps they were just doodling. Jonah looked at her and gave her a slight but encouraging smile, squeezing her hand once again for the briefest of moments, the tiniest of gestures which somehow made the air easier to breathe. Once the Judge had finished, he laid down his glasses and nodded towards Benedict.
“You may continue, thank you.”
Benedict readjusted his wig as he took to his feet again.
“Thank you, Your Honour,” he began. “It is also pertinent to point out at this stage that not only does the Applicant have a job lined up in the United States which commences in three week’s time, but so, too, does the Applicant’s fiancé, who has recently signed a full-time contract with the television network NBC which will tie him to San Diego, California, which is where they propose to reside……
Once again, Claire could sense Anthony’s frame tense and this time he released a more audible sigh. She never liked confrontation at the best of times and right here, right now, felt like the most hideous confrontation imaginable. What’s more, she knew there was worse on the agenda. The way Benedict was building the picture made it clear to her what was coming next.
“Indeed,” said Benedict, “there are other compelling reasons why it might be preferable for the Applicant to take hers and the Respondent’s daughter out of the country…………..”
Benedict had told her to dig up some dirt on Anthony, to remember something which could help throw his character into disrepute. Most of the time he was a competent father, but it hadn’t taken long for her to recall a couple of incidents which Benedict reassured her were perfect.
“Your Honour, it’s been brought to my attention by the Applicant that the Respondent has a tendency to be forgetful. Two years ago, there was an incident where he went grocery shopping with his daughter. When he returned home he had a car full of groceries but he’d left one key thing behind in the supermarket.”
Benedict paused for dramatic effect and then added very loudly and clearly: “His daughter.”
There was a snigger from the press box. This time, Anthony didn’t flinch. If anything, Claire felt she could detect a slight smirk, as if he were laughing along with the journalists and saw the funny side.
“Six months later,” Benedict continued, “he showed a more violent side to his character, one I’m sure he would prefer not to recall. The Applicant was so traumatised by this incident that it still makes her shudder to think of it. Both the Applicant and Respondent were at home with their daughter at the time. The Respondent had many piles of work papers laid out on the dining room table. His daughter was walking around brandishing a plastic mug of orange juice. Her father repeatedly warned her to not get too close and that the papers were important, but you know how it is with children. His daughter was only seven years old and wasn’t taking him seriously, to her peril as it turned out. When the inevitable happened and the contents of the cup upended over the Respondent’s papers, his reaction was violent and totally out of proportion to the misdeed. He grabbed his daughter by the arm and flung her across the room with such force that she was thrown, stomach down, onto the hard wooden floor.”
Claire half-expected another audible sigh to come from Anthony’s direction. She certainly felt like sighing. She felt regretful and dirty at having to portray a perfectly decent father in such an imperfect light. Anthony’s expression, however, remained impassive. If anything Claire felt that his slight smirk was getting broader. There was something sinister about his expression which made the air feel as if it was laced with arsenic that stung her throat with every breath she took. Her palms were becoming stickier by the minute. Beads of sweat were breaking out on her brow. Glasses of water were set on the table in front of them. She leaned forward to take one and took gentle, calming sips as Benedict started to sum up.
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After a short recess for an early lunch, it was David Sherwood QC’s turn in the limelight. Claire wondered if it was hard for her ex-husband to sit back and let someone else do the job he was normally paid to do. It didn’t look as if he was finding it awkward. If anything, he now looked more at ease than before, as if he’d been invigorated by the break. If Jonah was in the commentary box, she imagined he’d liken Anthony’s demeanour to that of a tennis player who’d been losing before rain stalled play but who returns to court once the sun’s come out, sharper than before, ready to turn things around. Claire turned towards Jonah. She wished she could ask him if that really was what he was thinking but his expression was unreadable.
“Your Honour,” David Sherwood commenced, “the Respondent appreciates the Applicant’s change in circumstances but has instructed me to state for the record that he thoroughly rejects the application and doesn’t believe it’s in his daughter’s best interests. At the moment the Respondent has contact with his daughter every other weekend and one night during the week, which already doesn’t feel adequate to him and he would like to push for more. I’m sure you will appreciate that San Diego, California, is six thousand miles away and, with return air fares costing an average of £900.00, it would be unrealistic to expect him to be able to maintain that same level of contact. Furthermore, he would like to challenge the fitness of the Applicant and her fiancé to co-parent his daughter. It has come to his attention that recently in the UK the Applicant suffered from a moth infestation in the house in which she resides with their daughter. The fact the infestation was so bad…..
Claire was heating up from the inside out. Christ! Miriam must have told Anthony about the moths. She didn’t blame her. One couldn’t expect an eight year old to be a reliable keeper of secrets. She wished that she had a fan to cool herself down. She was starting to feel nauseous. There was a flutter in her stomach and a slight lurching sensation. Was that the babies or nerves? David Sherwood wouldn’t leave the damn moths alone. He was claiming that she’d been too distracted with her new television career to notice that there was a problem and by the time she had realised, harmful chemicals which could have been damaging to their daughter’s health needed to be used to clear the pestilence.
Claire longed to stand up and defend herself. It wasn’t like that. The moths were before I even had my first screen test and it’s bloody hard to work out there’s a problem until it’s already out of control. The pest removal man said as much himself. Instead she was forced to remain impassive and just listen. She feared there was worse to come and she was right. David Sherwood was clearly only at the beginning of carrying out the most extraordinarily unfair character annihilation of her.
“Recently the Respondent learned from his daughter that, little over a month ago when she was staying with the Applicant and her fiancé in San Diego, they visited the San Diego Zoo Safari Park. The Applicant’s fiancé has an eight year old daughter and all four of them went to the safari park where the two little girls, age nine and eight respectively, were allowed to go zip-lining. May I state for the record, Your Honour, that the rules and regulations of the park clearly stipulate that children must be a minimum of ten years old to go zip-lining. The fact that their children were underage and the two adults still allowed them to take part in this activity shows both reckless disregard for rules as well as reckless disregard for safety and surely points to the fact that the Applicant and her fiancé are irresponsible parents………
Claire’s stomach started churning. She tried to take deep, long, calming breaths, but the deeper she breathed, the sicker she felt. Her eyes began to dart manically, wondering if there was a bowl nearby or whether she might dare make a dash for the bathroom. The more David Sherwood spoke, the worse she felt. Thankfully he’d stopped speaking and was instead quietly addressing the court usher, who duly nodded and then walked to the nearest wall to dim the lights. Her ex-husband’s barrister went to a table next to the press box and turne
d on a machine which looked a bit like a photocopier. He stood tall, flamboyantly swishing his black gown before recommencing:
“Furthermore Your Honour, the Respondent had the good fortune to witness firsthand the type of absent parenting we can expect from the Applicant and her fiancé. If you look at this picture here….
David Sherwood pressed a button and a magnified image of Miriam and Martha swimming in the pool outside Lily Beach came up on a projector screen to the right. The girls’ faces had been blurred to protect their anonymity and the picture was a wide shot which included the entire poolside area, complete with the surrounding sun beds.
“You can see clearly that the two girls age nine and eight, were left swimming in the pool unsupervised. As the photo shows, there is not an adult in sight. In fact, there is nobody else at all in sight.”
Claire’s vision was deteriorating. She held her tongue, but she wanted to explain, to stand up and point with a rod to the gym in the photo. Jonah was in that gym, watching the girls with an eagle eye. We are not foolish parents. He was as close to them as if he’d been on one of those sun beds. Plus I was watching the girls through the kitchen window. Stars were forming to the side of her sightline, right and left, and everything in front of her was turning into a fuggy blur. She was gulping frantically for air, like a fish caught in a net. She leaned forward to fetch her glass of water, spilling a little as she wobbled it towards her lips. She was feeling ever so slightly better when David Sherwood clicked a button and replaced the picture of the girls swimming with another image. It was of Jonah swinging back a tennis racket. Claire looked towards Jonah worriedly. It was one thing for Anthony to attack her. It was another to attack her fiancé. Jonah didn’t deserve any of this. He’d been nothing short of wonderful to Miriam. Jonah was raising an eyebrow, a spark in his eye as he slightly nodded, as if understanding something more clearly. What was it that now made more sense to him?
“I’m going to show you a series of photos,” David Sherwood QC clarified, “which will show you the most shocking of incidents where the Applicant’s fiancé is deliberately harming the Applicant’s daughter.”
He clicked through the photos fast, showing a story rather like a flip book, where pages are turned so rapidly that the pictures appear animated. Jonah holding back his racket; Jonah swinging it forward; the strings on the racket meeting a tennis ball; the ball whacking Miriam in the arm; Miriam’s blurred face crying out in pain, her cheeks pinched in a wince, her mouth so wide you could practically see her tonsils. Damn Anthony, damn him, damn him, damn him. Poor Jonah, this just wasn’t fair. He was turning to her, taking her hand in his, a look of concern on his face. She really couldn’t breathe now. The more she tried, the more starved of oxygen she became. Her eyes felt like two round pebbles popping out of their sockets. She was going to throw up. No, not here, not in front of everybody, please. Can someone get me a bowl and quick? More and more stars began to dance psychedelically in front of her and then they started to spin and spin and spin. “Duchess, are you ok?” she thought she heard Jonah ask. And then her world turned black.
CHAPTER TWENTY-EIGHT
CLAIRE
What’s this tube in my nose? Claire’s fingers toyed with the stringy-like plastic glued to the inside of her nostril, lightly at first and then more urgently when it wouldn’t come out. She tried to take in her surrounds, eyelashes flickering feebly, but a fog of fatigue made it impossible to lift her lids. Instead she allowed her fingers to trail south. There was something tightly wrapped round her stomach, too tight, it was suffocating. It was a thick rough belt with ridges in the material. It felt almost like canvas. Where am I? She tried to speak, but her lips wouldn’t cooperate and the words remained lodged at the back of her throat.
“She’s exhausted. Why don’t you go and grab yourself a cup of tea and perhaps she’ll come round in an hour or so.”
The voice was female. Who the hell was she? Where the hell was she?
“I think I’ll stay here if that’s alright with you.”
The voice was male, accent American. It was Jonah. She tried to say his name. She mouthed the word, aching for her diaphragm to do the job it was designed to do. No sound came out. What is wrong with me? A hand took hers. For a strong grip the touch was surprisingly gentle. A thumb lightly caressed her knuckles.
“Shall I hold her other hand?”
It was a little girl’s voice. Miriam. Oh darling, yes, please hold my hand.
“I’m sure your Mom would love that.”
A chair scraped along the floor and then something heavy landed next to where Claire was lying, brushing her leg. Afterwards a delicate little palm found its mother’s counterpart, fingers wriggling to interlock with hers.
“Will she be ok?” asked Miriam, worry tingeing her voice.
“Of course she will, honey. Your Mom’s just very tired.”
“Are the babies ok?”
The babies – is that thing round my waist hurting my babies? Someone’s got to save my babies. Her body felt weak, nothing was working as it should, but a mother’s job is to be strong. She had to be strong. Instead of trying to open her eyes she screwed them even tighter shut, summoning every ounce of strength in her body towards her vocal chords. Come on, you can do this.
“Are the babies ok?”
The voice she heard didn’t sound like hers at all. It was thin and raspy, a waft of nothingness in the air. A lump landed heavily on the other side of her body and then she felt somebody lean over her and kiss her forehead, stroking her hair.
“Shush baby,” said Jonah. “You’re fine. Everything’s fine. You’re in hospital and the babies are doing great.”
Phew, thank goodness for that. Tears of relief started to build behind her closed eyes, the moisture acting as a catalyst for the lids to blink and open. Jonah and Miriam blurred into vision, sitting on the bed, one on each side of her. Why was she here? She didn’t understand.
“What happened?”
Her voice was diminutive and frail. Had there been an accident? Was she involved in a car crash? Jonah grinned. Good, if he was smiling things couldn’t be that bad.
“You passed out in court. It was very dramatic. An ambulance brought you here.”
The court case, oh God, now she remembered.
“How long have I been here for?”
“Twenty-four hours.”
Twenty-four hours? How could a whole day pass by with her not knowing about it? And if that much could happen with her being unawares, what else could have happened?
“Did we win?”
Perhaps the case had been adjourned. Perhaps when she was fit to leave hospital the whole horror of it would recommence.
Jonah’s smile disappeared.
“No honey, we didn’t win.”
Claire turned her attention to Miriam, who was looking at her with such love and concern that she decided to let the subject of the court case go. She didn’t want Miriam to become worried about any of this when what really mattered was that all her children were well.
“What’s this?” she asked, tugging at the tube in her nose.
“The doctors put you on oxygen for a while just to play it safe.”
“And this?” she asked, pointing at the belt around her waist.
“That is to monitor the babies’ heartbeats, just to check that all is well.”
“But all is well?” there was panic in her voice.
“All is well,” he reassured, stroking her hair. “Don’t let anything get to you. It’s not worth it.”
How could she not let this get to her? They didn’t win, which now meant that she would have to go to the States to start her new job without Miriam. Goddamn it, she wasn’t going to leave Miriam with Anthony when she went. No sir. Miriam could stay with her grandma instead. Or maybe she’d just have to give up on that job altogether. Perhaps it wasn’t meant to be.
“I’m going to the toilet,” Miriam announced.
Miriam hopped onto her feet and s
wished through the blue curtains pulled around her mother’s bed. She was clearly familiar with the surrounds, as if she’d been to the restroom several times here in the last twenty-four hours and now knew exactly where to go.
“I knew it,” said Jonah quietly, once Miriam had gone. “I knew something was up. I never told you at the time because I didn’t want to scare you, but I swear, the day that that lovely ex-husband of yours took all those photos of me playing tennis with Miriam and the girls swimming in the pool, I’d known that someone was spying on us. I’d felt it. I just hadn’t realised who it was. I should have put two and two together.”
Claire gasped, clapping a hand over her mouth, remembering those photos in court and how Anthony had tried to make it look like Jonah was some kind of hideous child- abuser.
“I’m so sorry,” she apologised, shaking her head. “I feel so bad.”
“Shush,” said Jonah. “Don’t worry about it. I’m made of sterner stuff than that.”
He dug into his trouser pocket and pulled out an envelope. It looked very official, with the name of a law firm on the front: Slaughter & Jay.