by Chris Else
The case for the defence would have started today. Had Larry put Polly Drafton on the stand yet? It would depend on how long the medical evidence took, the experts talking about her state of mind, her bruises and her broken bones.
‘Rape is the only crime you can’t justify,’ Josie said, the words sloshing round the chew of apple.
‘What?’
‘It’s true. You can justify murder, under certain circumstances. You can justify torture, maybe.’
‘How can you justify torture?’ James asked.
‘What say that someone had information that could save the whole world and they absolutely refused to tell you?’
James didn’t answer.
‘You can’t justify rape, though,’ Josie went on. ‘On the other hand, it’s the only crime that has direct reproductive consequences.’
‘Rape isn’t about sex. It’s about violence and control,’ Sylvia said. She scraped the chopped onions into a bowl, got a last whiff of fumes that squeezed her eyes shut, made her flinch.
‘It might be about sex, too. People get pregnant. Especially in the old days. In the Pleistocene. It might be a gene that got selected.’
‘It wouldn’t make you very popular with the rest of the tribe, though, would it?’
‘What about other tribes? You know, like there’s a lot of tribes in the same area and they’re always fighting each other. It would make sense then.’
‘It’s just wrong!’ It was almost a shout.
‘That’s what I said. You can never justify it.’ Josie looked at her, calm and reasonable. Then she took another bite of the apple, white teeth crunching through the cream flesh.
Sylvia sighed. It astonished her sometimes that she had this alien, intellectual being for a daughter, someone who took such an objective view of the most disturbing subjects. She remembered how delighted Josie had been to get her first period because she could get to examine the blood for intrauterine cells.
‘Scraoul!’ The cat, down by her ankles, rubbing itself against her leg.
‘Get away!’ Josie stepping back, peering at it. ‘I haven’t forgiven you yet.’
Have you forgiven me, though? Sylvia wondered.
‘Feed him, please. Someone,’ she told them.
James turned, moved to the pantry, swung open the tall wooden doors. Head tilted back as his gaze lifted to the higher shelves.
‘He should starve,’ Josie said. ‘Make the punishment fit the crime.’
‘He didn’t eat it,’ James told her. ‘He just sort of chewed it.’
‘He killed it. Destroyed it.’
‘But it wasn’t a total waste. You said so.’ A whirr from the can opener as the blade engaged the metal.
‘What did you do with it?’ Sylvia asked, bending to the cupboard under the sink, reaching for the frying pan.
‘I dissected the head and thorax,’ Josie said. ‘The mandibles looked really cool under the microscope. They’re not like mammal jaws, you know. They’re two sets, jaws inside jaws.’
‘Like in Alien,’ James said.
She grabbed the olive oil from the bench and poured some into the pan, twirled it so that the thick liquid rolled in a spreading loop over the black Teflon.
The cat was smooching James’s leg, back and forth, as he hunkered over its bowl, spoon in one hand, can in the other. A thin child, dark-haired. The sinews of his neck stretching up from the curve of his collar. Vulnerable. Heart-wrenching. It reminded her, suddenly, of the phone conversation she’d had with Maddy earlier.
‘Josie,’ she said. ‘Is there much bullying at school?’
A pause. Josie looked at her. A serious look. ‘A bit. Yes. I guess so.’ Interesting that she took the question so seriously.
‘Is it older kids on younger kids? Or what?’
‘It just happens, you know? It kind of comes and goes.’
‘Is it happening now?’
‘Right now? I’m not sure. Why?’
Sylvia turned to the stove, took the frying pan off the heat. Something about Josie’s attitude made her feel … what? She wasn’t sure. Alarmed? Not quite.
‘Maddy called. Donny came home from school today. Before lunch. He was a bit knocked around.’
‘Really? What happened?’
‘He wouldn’t say. Except that he got picked on.’
A pause. ‘That’s Donny, though, eh?’ Josie said.
‘What do you mean?’
‘Well, he’s got a sort of victim mentality.’
‘That doesn’t make it right.’ Sylvia felt a nip of anger, hurt, in Donny’s defence.
‘No, no. Of course not.’ Josie looking at her, blue eyes wary.
‘And it shouldn’t be allowed to happen. Something should be done about it.’
They were both watching her. Two pairs of eyes, round and worried. Yet she wasn’t that angry. She hadn’t snapped at them. Maybe they were reacting to the subject. Maybe bullying played a bigger, more serious part in their lives than she had realised.
‘Does it happen at your school?’ she asked James.
He shrugged. ‘A bit.’ As if he were embarrassed.
‘Has it happened to you?’
‘No.’ Quick flash of his eyes.
She believed him, yet that made his awkwardness more puzzling. Was it shameful to be the victim? Was it embarrassing to have people think that other people bullied you? Like rape, she thought. The victim’s fault.
‘It’s just a few kids,’ Josie said. ‘You know, a few sickoes. Most people are just fine.’
‘Pretending it doesn’t happen.’ She regretted the sarcasm in her voice as soon as she’d spoken.
‘No!’ Josie said, offended. ‘Some people are really down on it, you know. They really try hard to stop it.’ She looked at Sylvia, pleading. That hurt look of a child who wants to be thought well of but doubts she deserves the affirmation she needs. Sylvia felt her anger melting but then Josie said, ‘Like Carla.’
‘Carla?’
‘Yes. Carla used to get seriously mad about it. She’d just blast out anybody who picked on other kids. Especially little kids. And she’d protect people. You know, look after them.’
‘Really?’ It was a side of Carla she had never guessed at.
‘Yes. That was what she was doing by the river that day. There was this year nine kid she was taking care of, someone who was getting a seriously hard time, and there was some talk that they were going to take her down to the river.’
‘What for?’
‘I don’t know. They were just being stupid, probably. They didn’t go.’
‘But Carla did?’
‘Yes. I think so. I think that’s why she was there.’ A stricken look on Josie’s face, the feeling they all got thinking about Carla.
‘Do the police know about this?’
‘Maybe. I don’t know.’
‘Why didn’t you mention it before?’
‘I didn’t know it before. I only found out about a month ago. Some kids were talking.’
‘You should have mentioned it.’
‘Why? It won’t bring Carla back, will it?’ Suddenly her expression was twisting up, the tears threatening.
‘Oh, darling.’ Sylvia reached out, hugging her daughter in reassurance, even though her hands were smeared with fish and onion. Arms about the thin shoulders, wrists pressed on to the bony spine.
Josie pulled away, sniffed loudly, took a deep inward breath, her face stretched downwards, mouth open in a gasp. Then she gave a little sigh. Conquering her emotion. Seeing her do it, watching her fight back the tears she did not approve of, was almost as heart-rending as the tears themselves.
‘I guess I should have told you,’ she said.
‘Well, you know. People need information like that. Especially Tom. It’s really hard for him not knowing what happened.’
‘Yes, I guess.’
‘So who was it? Who was involved?’
‘Merry Gibbitson, that was the little kid. I don’t know the oth
ers. The usual suspects probably.’
‘Who are they?’
‘Margot Riley and Tina Greene.’
‘Only girls?’
‘Yes, of course. Girls pick on girls and boys pick on boys.’ A look of scorn, as if everybody knew that, didn’t they?
Nice to have her bounce back so quickly, Sylvia thought, with only a little irony. She glanced at James but he was over at the refrigerator, peering into it, as if it held the answer to an abiding question.
Section 169 of the Crimes Act 1961 defines provocation.
Any thing said or done (a) that in the circumstances of the case was sufficient to deprive a person having the power of self-control of an ordinary person, but otherwise having the characteristics of the offender, of the power of self-control — and — (b) that did in fact deprive the offender of the power of self-control and thereby induced him to commit the act of homicide.
Larry could have a lot of fun with this one. How on earth can we know what the power of self-control of an ordinary person might be in the circumstances of the case? Does it even make sense to ask how you or I would have reacted if we had been in Polly Drafton’s shoes? How could an ordinary person be in those shoes and at the same time still be ordinary? How, moreover, do we assess the self-control of a woman who stabs her husband through the chest with a kitchen knife? The issue is a minefield, a can of worms, a Gordian knot (to triple-mix the metaphor), and it is made more complicated by the fact that deciding if the circumstances are sufficient to deprive that ordinary person of self-control is a matter of law (something which can be ruled on by a judge) whereas deciding if the accused was so deprived is a matter of fact (something for the jury to determine).
The case comes down to this, then. Larry must satisfy the court that anyone in Polly Drafton’s situation might have lost their self-control. The prosecution must prove that, even if the court is so satisfied, Polly did not in fact lose her self-control on this occasion. Larry must cast enough doubt on the prosecution’s argument to persuade the jury that it did not constitute an adequate proof. There is not much logic in any of this. There are few rules and precious little procedure. The only thing to work on is emotion, subtly, instinctively. Larry knows about such things.
And, of course, he must put Polly on the stand. The pastor has dozens of people to testify to his good character. Polly has no one but herself. She will tell her story clearly, humbly. Her whole demeanour will breathe remorse and truthfulness, a simple sense of the horror of what has happened. She won’t break down, though. She’ll shed no tears. She’ll show no overt signs of being deeply moved. Larry might be tempted to push her, but he would not dare. Unless his own behaviour stays within the bounds of sympathy and careful consideration for the feelings of his client, he might give the impression that the two of them are playing parts; that the manner of her testimony is a put-up job. This is the balancing act between competing judgements: sympathy versus principle, feeling versus thinking, our sense of natural justice against the requirements of the law.
14.
LISA, MY GIRL, YOU have to watch yourself. You have to watch your temper. Shit! Because you have no right to be annoyed. No reason but your animosity. She looked at Tom, sitting in his chair with the calm, the stillness, that she sometimes found infuriating. Take a deep breath. Get the voice right.
‘And you said yes?’
‘Yes,’ he said.
‘Why?’
‘Because it’s money and it’s a challenge. I haven’t done anything like that, a project, for a long time.’
She might have pointed out to him that the reason he got out of the computer business was because he was sick of projects: the hassles, the deadlines, the way people stuffed him around. He thought Laura Kerrington wouldn’t stuff him around?
‘You have an objection?’ he asked, looking at her.
‘I don’t like her.’
‘You know her?’ He sounded surprised.
‘I talked to her on the phone this morning.’ That voice. A telephone voice. Of course. She’s a jumped-up receptionist. Batted her eyelids at the boss and married him. ‘She gives me the creeps. She’s not human.’
He didn’t answer and she wondered, for a moment, what Laura Kerrington looked like, especially through a man’s eyes. Peroxide and botox, was she? Tom wouldn’t fall for that. He would have more sense, she hoped. He would be too much of a realist. Or perhaps not.
‘What will you do at Greenwise?’ she asked.
He shrugged. ‘Billy’s there. And Annie and the others. We can get some part-time help if we need it. I’m not exactly rushed off my feet.’
‘You know we might be on opposite sides of a story?’
‘Wouldn’t be the first time.’ He gave her a grin that was meant to be disarming. It almost worked. When she didn’t reply, he asked, ‘What story?’
‘You know someone called Max Hosche?’
‘Sure. I’ve bought stuff off him occasionally. Natives.’
‘He and the Kerringtons are having a boundary dispute. They’re trying to keep him off what is probably public land.’
‘And you’re defending the little bloke against the evil rich folks?’
His tone pricked her. She had started having doubts about Old Max. The Peeping Tom. Did she believe that story? No. But then her dislike of Laura Kerrington might be her only reason for rejecting it. She had no facts either way.
‘I don’t know,’ she said. ‘I might be.’
He didn’t respond. Not directly. ‘I just think I should do something new,’ he said. “Expand the business. Like the consultancy side. Or growing. Or I could even open another outlet somewhere.’
‘Where?’
He shrugged.
She felt confused. Her instinctive reaction to any plan was to tear it apart. This time, though, she was scared to criticise. It felt so strange to have him talking about the future again.
‘Kaimohu?’ she suggested.
‘You think so?’
No, she didn’t think so. Kaimohu was too small, surely. But she had to say something, to encourage him. For the moment at least.
‘You’d need a loan,’ she said.
‘Yes. Especially if it was a new outlet. I wonder if growing isn’t a better option.’
‘Why don’t you talk to Ward?’
‘Yes.’
His attitude seemed strange. She sensed a lack of enthusiasm. All the speculation was just words, something to say to pass the time. Sitting there, leaning back in his chair, looking at her, although not quite looking at her. Looking nowhere really. Hello? Can you see me? Can you see anything at all? Are we real here? Are we alive?
She stood up, moved over to him, bent down and took his hand, pulled at him.
‘Please.’
Looking up at her. He gave a little rueful smile.
‘Please,’ she said, pulling again.
He got to his feet and she put her arms around him, hugged him close, felt his touch on her back, but it was tentative, provisional.
‘I’m sorry,’ she said.
His hands stiffened for a moment. ‘What for?’
‘I’m not nice to you.’
‘Yes, you are.’
No, don’t say that! Fight me. Fight and laugh like we used to do.
‘I’m a catty bitch,’ she said.
‘Contradiction in terms.’
That’s better! She leaned back, away from him, and began to unbutton his shirt.
‘What’s that for?’ he asked, a little bit of mocking now.
‘I’m going to demonstrate. Do you want it where everyone will see?’ Peeling the cloth back from his shoulder. Mouth on the smooth skin, warm muscle, licked him, tasted faint tang of salty sweat, the man-smell. Opened her jaws then, and bit him. Hard.
He grunted. And then he was alive, arm around her, squeezing her close against him, hand in her hair and pulling her head back. She laughed but his mouth came at her and shut her up, his lips hard, bristle of the beard. Suddenly the nee
d opened in her, a hot, melting hunger that made her shudder. Twisting her head away.
‘Come to bed,’ she said.
‘Where’s Imogen?’
‘In her room. Come to bed. I want to eat you seriously.’
Betrayal. In the dark now, the physical bit of it done with, lying there, skin to skin, in spoon fashion. Arm about her, hand on the smoothness of her belly. A betrayal. And the more they wanted each other, the more intense the pleasure, the more their bodies strove to get at one another, the greater a betrayal it was.
He understood that, felt it, and at this moment he was sure the other thing, the cheating, would not go on. Lisa was his life. Astra was an aberration, an unreal episode. She seemed as distant now as a creature in a fairy castle. She had never been real. Or, at least, it was not her reality that mattered. It was not that person in the house by the river, with the two small boys and the rusting seesaw in the yard. It was the idea of her. But not that either. It was the feeling when he touched her, the coming alive, like a rampant chemical charging through the brain. But it was finished with.
He needed Lisa. He couldn’t live without her. When he made love to her it was all there, everything. Not just the lust of the moment, but their whole life together: all their loving from the past, the nights when the wanting wouldn’t let them sleep, the fights they had, their plans, the kids and all their problems too, the future. And that was hard, of course. Real life. But somehow he had to go on with it. He had to sleep and wake and eat and drink and go to work and get and spend and talk and love and care and do his duty. Even if he had no claim to any of it. Even if he felt that going about his business as if nothing had happened was another kind of betrayal. Which it was, wasn’t it? Because if you pretend that nothing has happened, it’s like your little girl is still alive or she never existed. Well, she’s not alive and she did exist.
The toss of her head to keep that designer flop of hair from her eyes, the lipstick so dark it was almost black.
— Crankshaft? They’re just a band.
— What kind of band?