Rosie O'Dell

by Bill Rowe

  I stood and steadied myself with one hand on the bedside table, assaulted by the same dizziness and nausea that arose whenever I got up to go to the bathroom. I reached for the glass of water and the anti-nausea pill Mom had left, swallowed, and sat back on the bed for a few minutes. Then I had a shower, dressed, poured a glass of juice, managed a sip, and sat down with my cheek heavily on my palm to call a taxi.

  Judge Ledrew was holding forth to the jury. She stopped speaking at the sound of the door opening and glared over in irritation. Seeing me entering, she smiled and nodded at me. Lucy Barrett’s eyes were on me, glowing happily. Murray Dylan was scowling. The room stirred and murmured. I walked towards Rosie. Her face was alight with surprise and gladness. Behind her the spectators beamed. Where the hell was my seat next to Rosie? There was someone in it. I stopped, perplexed. Rosie was speaking to the man next to her, who then turned a grinning face of acknowledgement to me and rose immediately. It was Brent. He walked past me with a slap of bonhomie to my arm and out of the courtroom. I sat down. Brent’s body heat in the chair made a spasm of nausea go through me. Rosie took my hand, whispering, “You are very bad, you know that? You shouldn’t be out of bed.” She was right. I fervently wished I were back in my bed, until I looked at the jury. They were watching me closely, more than a few smiling.

  I struggled to stay conscious while the judge talked the rest of the afternoon away: Dangerous to convict on the uncorroborated testimony of a complainant, blah, blah… but often only the complainant’s evidence was available upon which to base a conviction, blah, blah… and if the jury conscientiously believed the complainant that the accused perpetrated upon her the acts she described, then no reasonable doubt existed and a conviction should be brought in, blah, blah… but if the jury didn’t believe her, or genuinely and conscientiously could not decide whom to believe, then reasonable doubt existed and…

  At four-thirty that afternoon the jury retired to consider their verdict, and I went home to bed.

  NEXT MORNING I WAS back with Rosie. Hanging around the courthouse during the interminable wait each day, expecting the verdict any minute, our textbooks, and the notes taken by friends covering classes we’d missed, open before us, we tried to study. Lucy Barrett left word with court officials on the second day to notify her the moment a verdict seemed imminent and went to her office to deal with pressing matters, but she kept coming back to the courthouse. “Two minutes at my desk,” she said, “and I’m antsy again.”

  “The jury reached their verdict in the first ten minutes,” I said on day three, “but with all that fancy grub in the Newfoundland Hotel dining room, they decided to stay out for another week.” Lucy gave me a stern look and I regretted my flippancy, but then Rosie looked at her and me and laughed, and it became our stock joke as the hours crawled by: “Wonder what the jury is tucking into now.”

  On the morning of day four, the jury sent a note to the judge. They were having serious difficulty reaching a unanimous verdict. Judge Ledrew assembled them in the courtroom, commiserated with them, and reminded them of the emotional upheaval and expense of perpetrating another trial. “You have to try again,” she beseeched. “Go back and try harder.”

  I squeezed Rosie’s hand and she smiled at me, but often that day when she thought no one was looking at her, she closed her eyes and, like a cloud, a shadow of anguish passed over her face. Before suppertime the announcement came that the jury was filing back into the courtroom. Looking at them, I said nothing to Rosie, but my hopes went up. It seemed as if all the jurors glanced at Rothesay in disgust. Except maybe two of them, a man and a woman who didn’t rest their eyes anywhere, as if they didn’t know where to look. Maybe they were just eager to get back to home-cooked grub again. But the forewoman stated in a voice quavering with what sounded like anger that they could not reach a unanimous verdict. And there was no point in trying further. Four or five jurors glared at Rothesay in utter contempt. Four or five more regarded Rosie with eyes melting with compassion. Two stupid morons stared straight ahead. Lucy Barrett would tell Rosie later that according to her mysterious sources, ten jurors voted for a guilty verdict and there were two holdouts for not guilty. “Those arseholes must be pedophiles themselves,” growled Suzy.

  When I got home from the court, Dad and Mom were sitting at the kitchen table talking. Dad stood and said, “I want to apologize for my stupid outburst last week, Tom. The trial was awful for everyone, including me, but that was no excuse. I am extremely sorry for my childish disrespect.”

  “I’m sorry for anything stupid I might have said too.”

  Dad came forward and awkwardly embraced me. “Well, now everyone can get back to normal, you and Rosie especially, go forward with your regular lives for a while. Is she at her friend’s house? I’d like to give her a call and wish her well.”

  I gave him the number, telling him that she might not be there yet because she was probably still meeting with Lucy Barrett. I went upstairs and threw myself onto my bed. Go forward with your regular lives. Like Christ! First there was the question of another trial, and after that, guilty or innocent, probably an appeal by the losing side, and God knew what else. Perhaps, as hinted by Lucy Barrett, a civil suit by Rosie? And everything about the case had been and always would be an unending uncertainty.

  “Tom,” Mom called up from downstairs. “Rosie is on the phone.” I rolled over on my bed and picked up the receiver.

  “Hi. Back already?”

  “Hi, love. It didn’t take as long as I thought. I’d just got in when your father called. He was very nice, especially after all that’s happened.”

  “What did Lucy Barrett say?”

  “We discussed the options. Number one, a new trial. If we lose that, we could take it all the way up to the Supreme Court of Canada, and if we win, he can do the same, and either way it would only mean another new trial, and so on ad nauseam till the end of time.”

  “That’s a can of worms for sure.”

  “Umm. Number two, I give up on the criminal charges and take civil action against him. Lucy thinks his lawyer would advise him to settle confidentially out of court for a handsome sum rather than risk ruining his reputation and his medical practice.”

  “That sounds more promising. A few bucks in the bank wouldn’t go astray while you finish school and get ready for university.”

  “In other words, ‘Here’s some money to stop you from pestering this innocent man, you delusional bitch. Now sign here promising to go away and say nothing and stop blackmailing him.’ If it was money I wanted, I could have had it out of him all along, without having to be bought off.”

  “Well… what are the other options?”

  “Do nothing at all, and you and I get on with our life together.”

  “Just drop everything and walk away.”

  “Right,” said Rosie. “So, what do you think?”

  “Sleep on it for a while. The thought of a new trial may feel better in a few days. Or the civil action. Or both. I’ll help you think it through. But whatever you decide, no matter what, I’ll be with you all the way.”

  “Oh God, Tom, hearing you say that gives me the best feeling in the world. Well, I’ve already decided. I’ve done what I can. I did my best and now I want to get back to spending good time at long last with you, with all this behind us, with nothing intruding, loving you every day. You and I are going to concentrate on getting on with our lives. So that’s the end of it.”

  The idea of leaving this disgusting, gut-wrenching, heartbreaking affair behind delighted me, but the thought that Rothesay would get away with his crimes yet again conquered my delight. “Well, there’s lots of time. We can proceed on that basis for now, tentatively, and leave a window open for second thoughts over the next couple of weeks.”

  “No, that is it. I’ve made up my mind, my love. I’m finished with it completely. I know it’s hard to think about him, just… but if I don’t end it now, it’ll never end. Could you tell your mother and father for me?
They were asking what my plans are, and I said I wanted to talk to you first. I’m going to tell Suzy and her mother and phone Lucy with it. And then I’ve got to see where I am in school. Those exams are coming up.”

  “Don’t I know it? I’ll call you before I go to bed.”

  Walking downstairs to give my parents the news, I had to stop on the steps. Into my head came Rothesay’s dignified, elegant exterior, which so perfectly covered the corrupt brain and the rotten heart. My first impulse was to go back to my room and contemplate all this some more, but immediately that was replaced by the feeling I knew I’d have of wallowing again in a foul ditch of self-pity and vengeance. I went on down.

  On hearing Rosie’s decision, Mom made a face and then smiled grimly. But Dad’s phizog was the sun emerging from behind a cloud. “She’s doing absolutely the right thing,” he beamed. “Here.” He whipped his wallet out of his pocket and removed a bill. “You and Rosie have dinner at a good restaurant on us.” He reached for my hand and slapped the fifty on my palm. This was a man who knew the value of a buck, and this was one happy man.

  Lying in bed that night, I mused on the nature of the love between myself and Rosie. We still loved each other with an intense soulful conviction. But physically, as the trial approached, we had expressed our love only in holding each other in our arms and kissing each other gently. We stopped touching each other intimately. As if by tacit agreement, everything was on hold until this gruesome ordeal was behind us. Not that my sex drive had been demanding action. The constant striving, not entirely successful, to keep out of my brain visions of what might have taken place between Rothesay and Rosie had reduced my sex drive to a shrunken, hardened, dry pea, barely alive, its powers deeply dormant. Awake, I’d had no sexual urges at all. Asleep, any sexual impulses that came were mixed with hideously hallucinatory dreams, like that nightmare involving Pagan.

  But the torment was over and done with now, and I could devote myself to reviving the passionate physical side of our love. I frankly wondered if I could ever go back to where I’d been before the revelations about her and Rothesay. Alone in bed, I meditated on what it would be like to have Rosie there with me right now, her loving face looking up at me, her beautiful body naked in my arms, and I stirred with pleasure. The regeneration had begun.

  The next morning, in front of my locker in school, avoiding the eyes of passersby, I waited back-on to the corridor for my class to start so that I could walk in and not have to talk to anyone. I felt breasts pressing for a moment against my back and a tongue darting into my left ear. I started guiltily—that was something Miss Christmas Princess would do when she and I had been an item briefly a couple of years before. When I turned, it was Rosie.

  “Hey, that was nice,” I said. “How come you’re here? You’re going to be late.”

  “Nope. I’ve still got thirty seconds. I was thinking.” She bent closer to whisper. “After our dinner tonight, we can go back to Suzy’s and have some time to ourselves. Her mother is on the four to midnight shift.” I nodded immediately and she broke into the widest grin I’d seen on her face for a long time, and strode off to class with an animated wave back at me.

  WHEN I STOPPED BY the living room to say good night to my parents, Dad asked, “Where are you going to dinner?”

  “Three Oh One.”

  “Here, you’ll need this. And take a taxi.” He pulled another fifty from his wallet. That he was covering my extravagance at the most expensive restaurant in town and a taxi without having won the lottery was a measure of the man’s joy, his sadly short-lived joy.

  In the taxi Rosie and I agreed we would not mention the trial that evening, not one solitary word about it. “What a great game of tennis I had this afternoon,” she said. “It felt so good to be back at it. How was your swim?”

  “Good. Really great.” I looked out the window, racking my brains. But what more could you say about a swim in an indoor pool? Mention the colour of the tiles? The wetness of the water?

  The restaurant was crowded for the middle of the week. “Ah,” Rosie sighed, sitting at our table, “nice, cozy atmosphere.”

  “Yes, really nice,” I replied, “and cozy.” We lapsed into a silence until the waiter came to take our drinks order. We ordered Cokes.

  “Good,” he said. “I don’t have to card you.” Then we looked around the room till the waiter came back to take our meal order. People at nearby tables were stealing glances our way. I didn’t know if we were being recognized from the trial, even though there’d been no pictures or identification, or if it was just that we were the youngest couple there and looked cute. Waiting for our food, we gazed out over the harbour lights of St. John’s, and squeezed each other’s hands.

  “You realize how comfortable you are with a person,” said Rosie, “when you don’t feel you have to make conversation and you just enjoy being in their company.”

  “Absolutely,” I responded. But she was speaking for herself. I didn’t feel all that comfortable, in fact. Before the Rothesay revelations, our conversations had flowed effortlessly from one interesting point to the next. Even when we were studying together, we’d had a problem shutting up and sticking to the books. But now, having talked obsessively and exclusively for months about the court case, that cancer had cut off the blood supply to outside, healthy thoughts. Tonight, every idea that came to me seemed connected to the trial. I was curious, for example, about how Rosie would approach her mother in the future, what their relationship, if any, would be. But that was clearly out of bounds tonight. The same thing with any reference to Pagan. Nothing about her that might occur to me could be discussed tonight. Anything at all would be painful enough to spoil the entire evening. What a fucking monster that Rothesay was, utterly destroying that little family! The chill of the thought of the hung jury went through my body again as if I’d been immersed in ice water. I could kill that bastard with a knife or a gun or a sledgehammer and laugh in his contorted, dying mug.

  Our appetizer plates had just been taken away and the main courses set down when a question went through my head. Why had the police not been able to turn up any evidence implicating Rothesay with anyone else after Rosie? Or after Pagan? He must have done something with some other child afterwards. A study I had read before the trial inferred that the pedophile’s compulsion to prey on children was never cured and never stopped. Months had passed since Pagan had died, and not a hint of anything with anyone else had arisen. Could he have controlled himself so completely after that? His compulsion was probably evidenced by his application to practise in British Columbia, and he’d been stymied in that.

  “Better eat your lamb chops before they get cold.”

  I looked at Rosie. A second went by before I figured out what she was talking about. “Oh yeah, thanks,” I said. “How’s the salmon?”

  “Excellent. Like the whole evening. This is very soothing. No anxiety about anything. No legal meetings tomorrow, no challenges or problems to be dealt with in the morning. This is great. I can hardly wait for later.”

  In bed with Rosie at Suzy’s, our naked bodies pressed together, our mouths glued to each other’s, I abruptly drew my face away under the shock of an idea that had just occurred to me, and looked at her with eyes wide and mouth hanging open.

  Rosie stared back at me. “My God, Tom, what’s wrong?”

  “What difference does it make if he got to Pagan or not, or to anyone else after? I mean—”

  “Pagan? What are you…?” She half sat up and leaned against the headboard. “Love, I thought we weren’t going to talk about any of that stuff tonight.”

  “I’m not. I’m talking about the future—what we should—”

  “How can we talk about Pagan without…?” She turned her head away. I could see tears appearing from under her closed eyelids. “Jesus,” she muttered to herself, bringing the back of her hand up to her eyes. “Silly girl.”

  I grabbed tissues and gave them to her. “My fault. Let’s stop this right now. I�
�m shagging up our night.”

  She sat up. “We’ve had a lot of shagged-up nights. If one more is going to kill us, we might as well know it now. You’ve got something on your mind about Pagan. You were saying, ‘What difference…?’”

  “… does it make if he abused Pagan or not or any other child after you? I don’t mean that like it sounded. I mean, we already know precisely what he is from England and here. We don’t need more—Pagan or anyone else—to know what we should do to him. If you find a rattlesnake in your backyard, you don’t ask, ‘Oh my, I wonder if it has bitten my little sister or some other child?’ before you decide whether or not to kill it. You know from its very nature that it will, in fact, bite someone, so you would simply kill it then and there to prevent it from biting anyone in the future. Maybe we can’t actually kill the Rothesay rattlesnake, as good as that would be, but we can do the next best thing.” I hopped off the bed and stood gazing down at her.

  “What?”

  “We’ve got to…” I started to walk around in a circle on the short, narrow floor.

  “Tom, what?” She threw her feet off the bed and caught me by the hand.

  “We’ve got to expose the sicko. We’ve got to go public with all this, with everything.”

  “We just finished a public trial in a public courtroom.”

  “I mean go really public, expose the pervert by name for everything he did to you and Pagan and his nieces.”

  “By his name? Lift the ban on names? That would mean my name coming out too, and yours and everyone else’s.”

  “Yes, yes, his name, your name, my name, and whoever elses’ names are necessary for everything to come out here, and everything the media can dig up in England, because we’re going to point them there too. Nothing held back, no punches pulled, everything out in the open. It’s got to be done. How can we not do it? It’s impossible for us not to do it. If we don’t do it, then we’re as bad as that gang in England who were only too delighted to get rid of him by dumping him on an unsuspecting public over here so that he could have free rein with other victims. We’d be the same as everyone who suspected him over here with you but were intimidated, as Miss Pretty said, into dropping it, which allowed him to go after someone else—Pagan, and maybe even others. If we do nothing now, God only knows how many other victims there will be in the future. You’ve just decided not to go to a new criminal trial or even to sue him because we’ve got to get on with our lives, and now he is absolutely free once more to move on to BC or somewhere and do to other vulnerable little girls what he did before. We have to expose him by name to the whole world for what he has done and for what he is and for what he will do if he is not exposed and stopped. We’ve got to kill the snake in the only way open to us.”