by Winnie M. Li
All her friends ask her this. They all despise him in equal measure, this unknown smudge of a person whose name they don’t even know. To them, he may as well be a comic-book villain.
But she knows his name now. A few months after the arrest, Detective Morrison had sent her a letter in the mail, with a few sentences printed out on the PSNI letterhead. Her alleged perpetrator is now in remand, but his name must remain confidential due to his young age. His name is John Michael Sweeney.
The name itself means nothing to her, as non-descript as any other male Irish name. But she distinctly remembers it was not the name he told her, neither before the assault, nor after, when she was sitting by the trail.
“Is he in jail now?” another friend asks.
Sentiment comes in various forms: I hope he rots in there for the rest of his life. I hope he’s been raped ten times over in jail. Although the latter tends to come from her male friends.
She shrugs. She’s almost indifferent to his fate. On one hand, her pervading sense of justice demands that he get his just rewards. On the other hand, it’s not worth the energy to feel so much outrage against the boy. Energy is still at a premium for her. Anger is too destructive, too exhausting.
So she lets her friends bear that outrage, lets the justice system run its course.
“But will he stay in jail until the trial?” they ask.
The word ‘trial’ sets off another wave of nausea. “It depends,” she answers. “He may keep on reapplying for bail, but the police don’t think that’ll be granted.”
“And when will the trial be?”
She shrugs again. She doesn’t even want to think about it. “Sometime early next year. That’s all they know right now.”
She has no idea how she’s going to make it through until then. All that nothingness, between now and that inevitable date.
But this is her life now. The only thing she has to look forward to is the one thing she dreads the most.
*
“One other thing, Johnny. Ms Tan did have quite a lot of bruises and scrapes on her body. Do you know anything about this?”
“Oh yeah.” Grin here, like you’re remembering. “Yeah, well, like I says, she liked it rough. It was, uh, it was not really gentle sex or anything like that.”
“So you’re saying all her bruises came from the intercourse?”
“Yeah, yeah. Like I said, it was right on the ground, stones and all, and she wanted all these different positions.”
Look the peeler in the eye, like you mean it. Your story’s just as good as hers.
“Can you remember any specific things you might have done which would have resulted in a bruise on her body?”
“I can’t… I can’t remember any one thing, like. It was all very wild.”
Morrison clears his throat again.
“Right then, Johnny. I think we’re finished here for now.”
*
She is in Brighton, the morning of her 30th birthday that October. She’d been invited to spend the weekend with Jen and her fiancé, Daniel, and the night before, they’d had curry and a few bottles of wine. On occasion, she can still play the part of the old Vivian, get tipsy with friends and pretend to enjoy it. But the charade is draining, and leaves her exhausted for days afterward.
This morning, Jen and Daniel are at work. So she has decided to wander through Brighton on her own, before catching the train back to London.
After meandering through empty streets, under the lonesome calls of drifting seagulls, she finds herself at the Esplanade, where families and couples stroll, enjoying the view of the glittering sea. The huge structure of Brighton Pier stretches boldly into the ocean.
She finds herself in awe of its fearless straight lines, promising amusement rides far out above the water.
She steps onto the pier and cautiously treads the wooden planks, glimpsing the cold water crashing far below. On a Monday afternoon, in the off-season, there are still enough people on the pier for it to shudder with their footsteps. Children squeal and chase each other and she catches the aroma of cotton candy and popcorn sold nearby. Suddenly, she is reminded of a summer when she was eight, and her family took a rare vacation to Wildwood in South Jersey. In the evenings they’d walked onto the five piers that jutted from the boardwalk, each with their own rides. A carousel and bumper cars. A giant towering Ferris wheel. A rollercoaster that shook the pier every time it raced past with its screaming cargo. And she was amazed at the great, massive construction of the piers, which allowed rollercoasters and Ferris wheels to churn away on top, while under those wooden planks, the ocean still moved. Tides moving in and out.
Now, on Brighton Pier, all she can feel is the fear and the anxiety, as she stares at the frigid green sea snapping and seething at the foot of the pier, where fishing nets have snagged on rusted bars of ancient metal.
Around her, families take in the bright sunlight, oblivious to the rough surge of cold water below. She suppresses the familiar urge to vomit. This far out, the ocean must be deep and deadly, and yet, only a slim wooden board separates her from those angry waters.
All she needs to do is slip through the railing and let go. She’d go numb within seconds of hitting the water. And then all this misery and loneliness would be gone forever.
Cold water. Then nothing.
She grips the railing to steady herself. Not today, not on her birthday. Her breath shortens with panic, and she knows for her own safety, she needs to get back to land as soon as possible. What are all these people doing out here, laughing, when any moment the pier could collapse? What is she doing out here, with these kinds of thoughts haunting her mind?
Slowly, she works her way back to shore, clutching the railing the entire time. Once she steps back onto land, she is able to breathe easier. She is no longer eight years old and innocent, staring up at the flash of colors in awe and wonderment. We get older, we turn 30. We understand fear.
Hours later, she is on a London-bound train, and fields stretch away in the darkening light. For a few minutes, she watches in awe as the setting sun bursts fiery and red through the evening clouds. But the late autumn sky hangs low, promising more cold and snow in the coming months.
It starts to rain. The downpour pelts against the window as the sky quickly turns grey, then dark with nighttime. She is tired, she just wants to get to her own flat, turn on the heater. Then she notices a missed call on her phone.
On voicemail, Detective Morrison is mumbling something about her availability in the coming months. He mentions the first week of March. Does that mean the trial will be then? Until now, it has been an abstract concept, but now, to fix a date marks it as something concrete. Suddenly, the anxiety and the helplessness flood her again, and there on that train shuddering through the evening rain, she starts to cry.
She hides it from the other passengers, puts her face in her hands and sobs quietly. None of this is fair – this loneliness, this constant dread, the cold and the impending trial. She wants, just once, to escape the pain and isolation. To feel some sense of hope.
The train hurtles on towards Gatwick, then East Croydon, then Clapham Junction. She tells herself, soon enough she will be home. A couch to fall asleep on, a duvet to hide under. And she looks out the window into the rainy night.
PART
FOUR
Belfast smells like shit from the moment you step off the plane, she thinks. She is atop the staircase at Belfast International Airport, looking at low green fields, and the sharp stench of cow manure hits her nostrils.
Behind her, Jen touches her on the elbow.
“Are you okay?”
She nods and closes her eyes for a brief second. Early March and she’s back. To where she never wanted to return.
She breathes in the smell of shit, accepting it for what it is. Then opens her eyes, picks up her hand luggage, and starts down the stairs.
*
“Mr John Michael Sweeney, please rise to hear the charges laid against you.”
Fucking cold inside this courtroom, but then again, every court he’s been in is like this. All glass panels, sitting on hard plastic, people staring away at you like it’s their business.
He stands. He’s used to standing before judges now. All these months, being paraded inside this dock and then that dock for another hearing. Applied for bail, was told he was too ‘dangerous’. McLuhan calls this ‘part of the process’. Get handcuffed, marched down a hall, put behind another glass panel. At first, he couldn’t hardly get what these judges were saying, but now he’s catching on. Like another language, really. The judge and the solicitors – the ones with the wigs – speak like this, and everyone else has to listen to their rubbish.
All them other times, there haven’t been many other people. But now, this morning, the room is packed, every row is full. Who the fuck are these people? Some people got notebooks and pens, some older couples, even some girls.
It’s been ages since he’s seen a proper beour. Earlier, he was eyeing them young girls, the backs of their heads, the long hair flowing down. Almost felt himself go hard, but not in this fucking courtroom.
McLuhan warned him there might be a fair few people at court today. Journalists, that kind of thing. But this packed? He’s practically famous.
He sees Da hunched over. Michael’s next to him. Gerry’s vanished since the day he got arrested, but Uncle Rory’s there, Kevo, and fuck that, Donal, too, the big tall lunk. Not too bad a showing, eh?
So now the clerk is asking him to stand.
“John Michael Sweeney, you are hereby charged with three counts.”
McLuhan explained it this morning. “You see, the complainant, the woman you met, she did show up this morning.”
McLuhan had been saying for weeks that there was a chance she wouldn’t. Too scared or too much trouble for her to fly all this way back to Belfast.
So if she don’t show, well then, the case collapses. No complainant, no rape case. And happy days for him. He can practically walk straight out of the box a free man.
“Do you think she’s the kind to show?” Da asked the other day. Hoped she’d stay at home in her nice posh house, in London or America or wherever.
But deep down, he sorta knew she wasn’t the kind to balk. Not that crafty bitch, with her fucking lies. That bitch was out for his blood.
“On the count of vaginal rape, how do you plead?”
He looks ahead, straight into the air.
“Not guilty.”
In his mind, McLuhan’s preaching again: “So Johnny,
I must remind you that pleading guilty now will earn you a much lighter sentence than if you move ahead with the trial and are found guilty at the end. Do you understand?”
Yeah yeah. You think I’m guilty, old man. Me and all us other Travellers.
“On the count of anal rape, how do you plead?”
“Not guilty.”
He remembers shouting: ‘I wanna fuck you up the ass!’ She wanted it, too.
“On the count of battery, how do you plead?”
This one’s easy.
“Not guilty.”
You didn’t have to lamp her, ’cause she wanted it all along. Them bruises, came from just plain, rough sex is all.
“The defendant may sit down.”
Sit down, look down. Don’t make no eye contact with no one. He knows all them eyes in the courtroom are looking at him. Judging him and hating him. That gypo bastard. Lock him away forever.
Only one pair of eyes he’s scared of, though he don’t want to admit it.
Them eyes ain’t here right now.
*
She sits uncomfortably, drawn into herself, in the room reserved for the complainant. That’s what she’s officially labeled at the trial: the complainant. Not the victim. The one who complains. It’s been a long time since she’s worn business clothes like these: grey pencil skirt, deep purple blouse, black patent leather heels. Everything seems to bite into her: the waist of the skirt, the leather edge of the shoes.
Her bra feels tighter than usual, making it difficult to breathe.
In this windowless room, she looks down at the copy of The Guardian, which she brought with her. But there’s no point in trying to concentrate. Her mind keeps wandering off, drifting inevitably to whatever is happening just down the hallway, behind another indistinguishable door.
“Are you all right, sweetie? Is there anything I can get you?” Jen asks her this, sitting quietly next to her.
“I’m all right,” she says, shaking her head. Jen doesn’t turn away yet, keeps looking at her. “Okay, I’ll have some green tea.” Erika sits across from her and she can see the sideways glances, checking up on her every now and then. Jen gets up and crosses over to the kettle.
Last night, before the shops closed, they found a Tesco in the city center and bought a few necessities for the week: soy milk, box of green tea, painkillers. Melissa has sent a lavender-scented candle in a jar, which she has brought to soften this dull, characterless room.
“Also, are there any matches? I might want to light that candle.”
Jen nods, and goes to speak to the Victim Support volunteer, a gentle, balding middle-aged man named Peter.
She turns back, looks down at the Lifestyle section of the Guardian.
12 Top Tips for Smooth Skin! Equal Pay: Is It Still Years Away?
She grimaces and flips the newspaper over.
That hard rock of anxiety, which she has been carrying deep inside herself these months, has now expanded. It weighs down her every movement.
She thinks of geological processes. Minerals slowly petrifying wood over centuries. Sap speckled with dying insects, hardening into amber. This is what has become of her. The anxiety has pickled her.
Deep down, her heart still beats. She wonders how long a fly continues to live after it’s been caught in sap. How long before life expires, before its heart beats its final beat.
She feels an affinity with that fly, about to breathe its last.
She can hardly move, and yet, all she wants to do is break free. Run down the halls, out of the building into the fresh, biting air. Say fuck you to the whole criminal justice system, to the barristers in their robes, to the little shit of a boy who started all this.
Be done with it all. Move onto the next phase of her life.
But she knows the only way she can really say fuck you to the boy, is to stay here and testify.
So sit and wait, let the anxiety smother you, render you lifeless. That appears to be the only way out.
*
Sitting inside this box is killing him, and it’s hardly been an hour, according to that clock with the big numbers. He’s wearing a buttoned white shirt that Da got him, the fancy grey trousers. Waiting and waiting.
But now lookee here… something is happening. The jury is shuffling in from a door in the corner, settling down in two rows.
They all shoot shifty looks at him. He sketches each of them, one by one. Twelve of them, all buffers, of course. They’ll never get no Travellers coming to jury.
There’s seven women, five men. Two youngish women, one sorta pretty. Two grannies, three somewhere in the middle. The grannies are gray, hunched over, one wearing specs, both miserable. The young women look scared, every time they glance over this way. One man is young, wearing a tracksuit and chains around his neck. He’ll understand the score. Another man’s bald and looks meek, and two men with gray hair. One skinny in a fancy shirt, the other one tough-looking in a jumper. Then there’s a Paki. Can’t tell how he’ll vote.
So there’s the jury, gonna decide what’ll happen to me.
Can’t say he’s feeling rays of love streaming from this lot.
McLuhan said this might go over a week. He don’t think he can last that long. Almost would rather be back inside, where everyone minds their own business. Here, it’s like they can’t wait to pin this crime on the knacker boy. Make an example of him.
Well, he’ll show them. He’s not going down withou
t a fight. Not this Sweeney.
*
“Vivian,” Detective Morrison says to her. “The prosecutors just wanted to have a word with you.”
She looks up, from where she’d been staring into space, and sees the barristers billow in. William O’Leary is tall, silver-haired and imposing, while Geraldine Simmons has her brunette hair in a bob and seems a bit more approachable, warmer.
“Good morning, good morning.” They smile to the room, like minor celebrities.
“Good morning, Vivian,” they announce, all gleaming confidence and positivity, their Northern Irish accents polished by education and elocution. “How are you feeling today?”
They shake hands. This is the first time she’s met them in person. Two weeks ago, after months of asking Detective Morrison, she was finally set up on a video conference call with the prosecutors, where they answered the questions that had been building up inside her for months. Yes, it would be open to the press. Yes, it was possible for her to testify behind a screen, but they advised against it.
“These are my friends, who came with me from London.” Vivian introduces Jen and Erika. The prosecutors smile their hellos.
Small talk about finding the courthouse, the flight, the hotel. She can’t imagine they actually care.
They start explaining what’s happening.
“The defendant has pleaded not guilty to all three charges: that’s vaginal rape, anal rape and battery.”
The words fall out of their mouths so matter-of-fact, as if recalling the daily specials. How surreal to hear it spoken about in such emotionless terms.
“We were hoping he would might plead guilty at the last moment, because you have actually shown up.”
She nods. She had been shocked to consider that some rape victims wouldn’t show up to the trial. But this morning, she is starting to understand why.
“But obviously,” O’Leary says, “he continues to plead not guilty, so he doesn’t want to play that game.”
Simmons explains the jury is being sworn in, and then O’Leary will do the opening speech. And after lunch, she, Vivian, will be brought in to give evidence, as the chief witness for the prosecution.