by Bill Rowe
Such was the official record. A lawyer in the Public Prosecutions office in London told Lucy Barrett what he’d heard unofficially. Following their decision not to proceed with the charges against Balbo, the fathers of his four nieces paid a visit on Uncle Jim at home. They advised him that unless he changed his name and disappeared completely and forever from the British Isles he ought to start arranging for his own medical treatment by colleagues specializing in broken bones and brain damage.
There followed swiftly an application to change his name from Balbo to Rothesay because, the judge was told, the former was the same name as a fascist comrade of Benito Mussolini who’d served as Italy’s Marshal of the Air Force and had been heir apparent to the Italian dictator. Whereupon the newly minted Dr. (James) Heathcliff Godolphin Rothesay elected to bless Britain’s oldest overseas colony with his medical skills and charming bedside manner.
“And so,” said Rosie, relaying all this to me and Suzy, “once the court of appeal struck his conviction down, it no longer existed. All that’s left is the fact that he was charged, and Lucy Barrett says we wouldn’t be able to use that as evidence in our trial because the judge would consider unproven charges to be too prejudicial to the accused.”
I tried to keep a neutral face, but I felt at once embarrassed and provoked beyond endurance. I couldn’t speak.
“So we’re back to square one,” said Suzy.
“Well, not exactly,” said Rosie. “Lucy is considering the possibility of bringing what happened in England before the court here as similar fact evidence. It would depend on whether any of the nieces he victimized would be prepared to testify here at this stage in their lives and whether the judge would even allow their evidence in.”
“What does she think the chances of any of that happening are?” asked Suzy.
“Slim.”
“So it’s your word against his again—him a medical doctor, pillar of the community, honey-tongued enough to sell ice to Eskimos.”
I jumped in. “I’m sorry that information from England is not more use to us, but at least it does show exactly what he is. So things are certainly not the same as they were before. And something does have to be done. Imagine how you would feel, Rosie, if another victim were to be assaulted by him after we knew all this and did nothing.”
“That’s too horrible to even think about,” said Rosie.
“So everyone agrees we’ve got to do something,” I said. “How about if you tip off the media here as well as the police about what he did in England? They could do a big story on him, while you stay out of a court case altogether.”
“Lucy Barrett and I talked about the media. There’s a court ban in England against identifying him to protect the identity of the victims. Maybe with his name change and if no relationship between him and his nieces were to be shown, it could be done, but she calls it a high hurdle.”
“Jesus, can they dream up anything else,” said Suzy, “to make sure perverts can have their way with children without consequences wherever they go in the world?”
“Yeah, I know. Lucy was really mad when she was telling me what happened in England. Those men and the whole system dumped a known child rapist over here, anonymously and without warning, she said, where he could continue to prey on children behind the backs of trusting parents. We have to ask ourselves as females, she said, how we can stop him from victimizing other little girls anywhere in the world. So she’s prepared right now, she says, to advise the police to lay charges and to take it on as prosecutor, but she won’t try to talk me into it. After all is said and done, it’s entirely up to me whether we go ahead, since I’m the one who has to carry the can.”
“That’s a hell of a burden to pile on you on behalf of the whole world,” said Suzy, “just because she’s a pissed off feminist. Ask yourself what it would do to you if he got acquitted. In other words, everyone knowing that the jury didn’t believe you? That’ll feel great.”
“Lucy says there’d be a court ban on the media using any names or identification.”
“And I know how good that is in keeping your name from being the subject of constant rumour mongering and gossip among all those who know or find out through the grapevine.”
“Well, I agree with Lucy Barrett’s approach,” I said. “We’ve got to stop the bastard.”
“We all want to stop the bastard, Tom,” said Suzy. “I’d love to choke him personally with his own testicles. That’s not the problem. The problem is the iffy case we’re suddenly looking at here.”
“Jesus. All I wanted to do is finish school, go to university, leave all this behind, and get on with our lives.” Rosie took my hand. I could see from her eyes that, if she ever meant that, she didn’t mean it now. She wanted to nail him as much as I did. She was just giving me a way out if I chose to take it.
“Suzy just called it iffy,” I said. “But how iffy is it, really? Did you happen to discuss with Lucy Barrett the chances of convicting him if this went to court just with what we have now?”
“She says there’s a tendency for a jury to believe a victim unless her credibility is undermined. In this kind of case—victim’s word against abuser’s, without corroboration—we’re generally talking about a sixty-forty proposition.” Rosie stopped for a second and began to blush as she continued. “But Lucy thinks we have a better chance in this case. To quote her, she thinks I’d be a very credible witness. So she figures we’d have a seventy-thirty chance.”
“You’d be a great witness,” said Suzy. “A prosecutor’s dream. But so would he be a great witness. A charming, believable liar. Can’t you just see him on the witness stand now? And I wonder what side your mother will come down on when he gets started?”
“That’s another route Lucy is thinking of exploring. Maybe when Mother hears my story and finds out what he did in England, and thinks about Pagan more, she will remember some incidents that will allow her to corroborate my story.”
“Well, that’s a big maybe,” said Suzy. “I don’t mean to be offensive about your poor mother, Rosie, but… Also, don’t forget, he will have the best lawyer and expert witnesses money can buy. And if we get a conviction after all that? Wham, an appeal might overturn it, exactly like in England. This all iffy enough for you, Tom?”
“I understand what you’re saying,” I replied, “but here’s what I think. Lucy Barrett knows the jury will believe Rosie, and that we will win. I’d say she didn’t go higher than seventy-thirty in our favour because she has to be cautious. She has never lost a jury trial and she’s prepared to go ahead with this one right now. I’m sure she doesn’t want to ruin her record. But besides all that, going ahead is right for every reason, and not going ahead is wrong for every reason. We will know, whatever happens, that we’ve done the right thing.” I put my other hand on Rosie’s and held it between my two. “I want you to know, Rosie, that whatever the outcome, whatever the ordeal along the way, I will always be there with you through it all and you can count absolutely on my support and help and my unconditional love. And then, after it’s all over, as you just said, we can get on with our life together.”
Rosie searched my face. Then she put her other hand on Suzy’s and looked at her. I’ll be damned if Suzy didn’t have tears in her eyes after my speech. “I’ll think about it some more,” Rosie murmured. “And I’ll listen to whatever else Lucy has to say. But I know already that Tom is right.”
WHEN LUCY BARRETT TELEPHONED me and asked me to come and see her, I assumed she wanted to talk about what testimony I could offer as a witness in a trial. We’d already had one brief chat by phone. But that was not what she wanted at all.
In her office, she greeted me and sat me down without ceremony. “Rosie tells me,” she said, “that you are encouraging her to proceed with pressing charges.”
“Ah, yes, I am.”
“I get the impression that she would be more doubtful about going ahead with this without your encouragement and support. For you to take that position in these
painful circumstances is admirable.”
“Thank you. But I think Rosie is the admirable person in all this.”
Lucy Barrett gazed coolly at me before continuing. She was a very attractive woman, fit and energetic and fine-featured. Rosie had told me she worked out every day no matter how busy she was. You have to stay fit just to meet the demands of life, she’d said. Her eyes were grey and bright and penetrating. With her short, amber hair, they gave her a very alert appearance. Her voice was high and girlish, which had surprised me at first, but as she talked on now it seemed to intensify, perhaps by contrast, the authority with which she spoke. “Tom, I don’t believe Rosie has discussed in detail with you the full nature of the sexual abuse Rothesay perpetrated upon her.”
“We have discussed it in general terms, but neither of us wants to go into the details.”
“Right, and that’s the reason I wanted to see you today. The successful outcome of a trial, if it takes place, will depend to a large extent on Rosie’s continued strength and courage and morale. Right now she has lots of all three, but it would be a very difficult trial for her, putting a dreadful strain, probably a terminal one, on her relationship with her mother. They’ve already had some big blow-ups because of Rosie’s insinuations that she knew or should have known there was something unhealthy going on in Toronto between Rothesay and Pagan. But her mother is in a state of complete denial and will probably not have anything useful for us, since it would be very difficult for her at this stage to admit to herself, let alone a jury, that she ever heard or saw or suspected anything regarding Rosie or Pagan, and did nothing. So, if we do lay charges, Rosie will have to move out of the house altogether for the duration and continue to live with Suzy in fairly cramped quarters at her house.”
“I told her she could stay at our place. There’s lots of room there. I’m sure Mom and Dad would be okay with it.”
“Yes, she mentioned that and I advised against it. I think it would be better for all concerned if she stayed with Suzy till the trial is over. Getting back to the strain Rosie will be under if we go ahead, his lawyer will try to turn her into a liar or a demented person. He will try to muddy the waters with a pseudo-scientific expert witness on the fallibility of pubescent memory and the latest fads in false memory syndrome. Although no names will be made public that can identify Rosie as the complainant, the trial itself will be public and word of mouth will connect her to the news reports of the testimony, especially among people who already know her, in school for instance. My point is that she is going to need all the help and support that you and Suzy and your mother and I can provide her with to get through this. She has great love for you, Tom, and great consideration for your feelings. If she thought that anything to come out at a trial would cause intolerable hurt to you, I don’t think she would proceed with it. Similarly, if during the trial she believed that anything she had to say about what happened to her was unbearable to you, it would undermine her determination and her strength. So, I think she should divulge all the details to you before we go any further. She is frankly not eager to do that, but I have to know how strong you will be on this.”
“I am not eager to make her relive any of it, either. She has to do that at the trial, and I think that’s enough without forcing her to do it with me as well, and unnecessarily.”
“Well, I have to know that you will not collapse on us at crucial moments. I need your commitment and your promise, your guarantee, really, that no matter what you hear about Rosie, about what she did or had done to her, you will stay strong and supportive of her throughout a long nightmarish trial.”
Now it was my turn to gaze coolly at Lucy Barrett. Her presumption that I might weaken irritated me. This woman obviously had no idea of the strength of my love. “Ms. Barrett,” I asserted testily. “You need have no misgivings on that score. You have my commitment, my promise, my absolute guarantee, that I will support and solace Rosie throughout this process to its very culmination.” A cocky, clever little fifteen-year-old with a vocabulary bigger than his brain. No wonder she seemed to suppress a grin.
ENDLESS MONTHS WENT BY before the case against Rothesay finally went to trial. Rosie and I were well past our sixteenth birthdays. The preparation and the waiting disrupted everything in our lives. Someone actually beat Rosie in an indoor tennis tournament. Her coach blamed her lack of focus and her cutback on practice time. I missed a swim meet in Halifax because, I told the team, I was ill, but it was really because I knew I’d probably come third or fourth in the hundred metre owing to lack of aerobic conditioning.
Rosie and I sat together late into the night at my place, trying to study, but mostly talking or trancing or watching repeats on television. Almost every conversation would ultimately and inexorably lead to Nina. How could her mother side with Rothesay? Why didn’t she believe her own daughter, especially with the terrible illumination of Pagan’s suicide? Her mother’s abandonment—her betrayal—seemed to have frozen Rosie’s affections and desires. We hardly ever made love.
THE FIRST MORNING OF the trial, the crowd in the lobby of the Supreme Court consisted mainly of men growling their disappointment. I pushed through them towards the door marked Courtroom Number One. Rosie and Suzy followed close behind. A man near the door said to us, “No sense going in there, the seats are all gone.” I opened the door and ushered the two girls through. “Shag that!” I heard the man say. “That must’ve been her and I never got a good look.”
The spectators in the packed galleries were as quiet as worshippers in church. At a table near the front, studying papers and looking sharp in her lawyer’s duds, stood Lucy Barrett. She noticed us at once, greeted us, and led us to our reserved seats. Sitting down, before taking Rosie’s hand I wiped my palm on my thigh. I needn’t have bothered. Hers was sweatier than mine. This courtroom was one intimidating place.
All along, despite my father’s attitude upon learning Rosie was pressing charges, I’d been confident the jury would accept her story. “Having cajoled me into that debacle in London against my better judgment,” I’d heard Dad say to Mom downstairs, “I would have thought they’d do me the elementary courtesy of seeking my advice first. Surely they don’t think she can actually win. That’s the problem with this TV generation. They all believe from watching lawyer shows that goodness, justice, and love always win out in the end. They’ll find out that in real life, up against a real psychopath, it’s more likely that evil, injustice, and hate will win out in the end.” I could just see him shaking his head at the moronism rampant around him.
Then, last night I had heard a whispered bellow out of him from their bedroom. “I will not shush, Gladys. I see disaster looming here. My Jesus, Rothesay already has her own mother convinced he was framed in England. What are you and I going to come out of this looking like?” I had restrained myself from marching out and barging in and telling him to shut the Christ up and stop being such a defeatist. But this morning in Courtroom Number One I didn’t feel so powerfully certain that my father was a spineless wimp.
To keep myself from transmitting anxiety to Rosie, I studied the media table, crammed with reporters writing intently, their eyes darting from their notebooks to Rosie, Suzy, myself, and Lucy Barrett. Realizing that one woman was shamelessly gawking at my face so closely she must have been sketching it, I felt a sense of violation. Then all the eyes at the table moved to the door and the scribbling became furious. The accused had entered with his lawyer.
A murmur of “Dr. Rothesay” floated in the air, heedless of the publication ban on names. His lawyer spoke a few words into his ear and squeezed his shoulder. Rothesay replied with confidence and sat down in the prisoner’s box and remained motionless and elegant and distinguished-looking. No one here but Rosie’s team and Rothesay’s lawyer knew of the former criminal charges against him in England. Rothesay’s nieces, one in London, one in South Africa, and two in Australia, now leading settled lives, one with children of her own, had responded to Lucy Barrett’s overtures wi
th a flat no. They wanted nothing to do with any trial involving their disgusting uncle of long deleted memory. Any mention of the unproved English charges in courtroom or media, the judge here had told the lawyers after a battle royal in camera, would be so prejudicial as to result in an immediate mistrial. I put my hand to my forehead and was surprised to find a bead of sweat trickling down. I tried to capture it surreptitiously, but Rosie was attracted by the movement of my hand and looked at me. Her face was sombre.
The defence lawyer, exuding great command of his milieu, methodically arranged the contents of his briefcase on a table. Physically, he didn’t look impressive, but as soon as the media had learned that Rothesay had retained Murray Dylan, Q. C. from Toronto, they never mentioned his name without a tag: “best known criminal lawyer in Canada,” or “legendary defence lawyer,” or “celebrated criminal counsel.”
“A jury of local people, in my experience,” Lucy Barrett had said to Rosie, “is seldom dazzled by a hotshot from T. O.”
The remark had maintained my confidence high till I saw this Murray Dylan character interviewed on television in front of the courthouse the day Rothesay had pleaded not guilty to all charges. “I shall ask the jury one simple question,” he’d said to the camera, oozing sincerity and righteous anger. “Are they, as twelve intelligent and mature men and women, prepared to destroy an esteemed medical doctor’s reputation and life without a shred of objective evidence, on the mere say-so of one troubled teenager?” I had passed a sleepless night.