by Tim Parks
Your honour . . .
Mr Sedley, you must allow the witness the time to reply, you cannot go on building up this web of implication without us having a clear response from the witness.
Of course, your honour. I apologise.
Did Mr Grier show an interest in Miss Singleton?
Yes, the girl said at once.
Were you all aware of this?
You could have seen a mile off.
Did . . .
If you want to know, the witness announced, Jamie was the really nutty one not Dave.
Immediately the girl volunteered this piece of information, Daniel noted the movement among the defendants. From glazed boredom they went to a flutter of concern. Glances were exchanged. Janet Crawley had skipped bail, then surrendered herself to the police only shortly before it was time for her own evidence. Was this planned? The jury were staring. In the end they would have to decide what had happened that night on the bridge.
By Jamie, you mean Mr Grier.
That’s right.
In what way was he, nutty?
He’d do anything, Jamie would.
Was he seeing Miss Singleton away from the group?
The girl looked at Sedley and a sudden shrewdness passed over her features. Yes, she said. Then Judge Savage guessed that spite had overcome fear at last. Or perhaps she had always planned to play it this way? People can be so cunning. In any event the next morning’s paper would summarise the girl’s evidence thus: Grier had long been seeing Sasha Singleton away from the group but was unable to detach her from it, or from her relationship with David Sayle who had become a respectable fixture in the girl’s more than respectable family and to whom she had long been engaged. Indeed, the Sayles and the Singletons had clubbed together and promised to buy a flat for the couple when they married. On at least three previous occasions, while the Crawley girls necked with Davidson and Simmons in the cars in a quiet parking space among trees beyond the bridge, and Sayle and Singleton went down in the lay-by to talk to prostitutes, Grier with Ryan Riley and Stuart Bateson had thrown stones from the bridge, Miss Crawley claimed, onto the carriageway near where the others were talking to the black girls. This had caused David Sayle to rush up on the bridge to stop them. On the night of March 22nd, Janet Crawley claimed she had distinctly heard Grier say: I’m going to keep throwing stones till Sasha owns up how much she likes sucking my dick. Miss Crawley had further claimed that she and Simmons had been walking back across the bridge to say that they were leaving. I looked up, the girl was reported as saying, and saw Dave (Sayle) had a big stone in his hands, like, a really big one, and was going to smash it down on Jamie, who’s much smaller. Sasha is screaming, Don’t, and Dave turns in a fury and chucks the stone way over the bridge. Then we heard a bang and brakes screeching. Miss Crawley’s evidence, said the paper, led to such an uproar in the courtroom among the defendants and their relatives in the public gallery that Judge Savage was obliged to interrupt the hearing and adjourn. The paper was not in a position to remark that immediately afterwards, as if high on the emotional charge generated by this court drama, the judge drove out into the country to confront the newly widowed Mrs Shields.
TWENTY-SIX
IT WAS ALWAYS a relief to leave the rigid grid of the centre for the softer, more seductive topography of the countryside. A grid promises simplicity, Judge Savage had often reflected, and yet simplicity was exactly what was denied you in the city, whether as a driver or a lover. I will get the truth out of Christine, he told himself, however tortuous.
Don’t think you can cross-examine me, she said to him. He found the house standing beautifully picturesque in an autumn twilight. The Shields family residence is purest England, Hilary used to laugh, the best and the worst. How often I see things through Hilary’s eyes, he thought. A generous red brick pile rose a little lopsided in pools of green lawn beside the slow deep turbulence of the river. No one responded when Judge Savage rang the bell. Don’t think of Hilary, he thought. He rang again. It was about that time when you might expect a light to be turned on, a curtain to be drawn. Judge Savage knew the house was sometimes left open at the back. He walked round and pushed the handle of a long unvarnished door. Locked. He put his face against the window pane and focused his one useful eye. Then he understood that the house was empty. This place wasn’t lived in any more.
But the determination to have it out, now, to get the truth out of her didn’t leave him. Even though he knew he had promised himself he wouldn’t do this. He had promised himself he wouldn’t look for truths, except in court. Yet it was precisely in court that the young girl’s evidence had put him in a sort of fever for revelation and resolution. If the right questions were asked, a secret spring might be released. It had always excited Judge Savage how there came a moment in a trial, or in some trials, when everything could be understood in a quite different way, and somehow this new understanding always seemed superior to the old. If nothing else, Daniel thought, Janet Crawley had told an excellent story. The jury might be convinced. But Christine was defensive. You can’t force me to tell you anything, she protested, can you? She smiled. Despite the freshness of her bereavement, her voice had recovered all its old verve and teasing silkiness. I’m not under oath you know, Dan. Apparently, Daniel thought, this is something every barrister’s wife or daughter says.
Even driving rapidly, by the time he had crossed the ring road, then followed the town grid to Carlton Street, it was eight-thirty. Yes, I’ve moved, she laughed, wasn’t I quick! She greeted him in her dressing gown. Her hair was freshly washed and hennaed. How often she must wash, he thought. I’m never going back to St Gwen’s, she told him. Thank God we bought this place. She had been in a bathrobe the evening he drove round with Max. Perhaps she was obsessive about cleanliness. Have you eaten? she asked. He said, Christine, I want to know why you told Sarah what you did.
He invited her out to dinner. She hesitated, then went to change. Already their old flat had been re-furnished, albeit provisionally. There were a few old pieces of furniture from the country house. I couldn’t stay out there, she said lightly. She picked up her handbag and he caught a wave of perfume. I’m a city person really, she told him. It was a mistake to live out there. The perfume was a strong, sweet polite-society thing. Well, this is jolly, she remarked, climbing into the car. How lovely to go out to dinner, she said. Oh how nice of you, Dan! I do want to know, Christine, he repeated. She had pulled down the sunshade above her head to study herself in the mirror. I’m worried my mole may be getting bigger, she said loudly. Christine . . . You can’t browbeat me, Daniel, she said sweetly. I’m not under oath, am I? After a little silence, she asked: By the way, where are you living?
He started to tell her about Frank. Rediscovering his brother, he told her, had been the only good thing that had come out of all this. It seems I had to be disgraced before we could get on. I know what you mean! Christine almost giggled. So now you’re sleeping on the sofa in a terraced slum? I don’t mind, he said evenly. Anyway, it’s not a slum. I could easily go to a hotel if I wanted. Then when he told her Frank was dealing in antiques she was immediately interested. Really? Do you think he could clear out St Gwen’s for me? Some of the furniture will be worth quite a lot. He’d be delighted, Daniel said. If you could trust him. Well, could I? Is he trustworthy, you mean? Daniel hesitated. She said: Martin never liked Frank, you know. He thought he was one of those people who always live off others and never take life seriously. Immediately, this seemed unfair. Daniel said, As much as you can trust anyone. Martin always had harsh opinions of everyone, she said. Daniel couldn’t tell if she was remembering with emotion or merely reflecting. You should have heard the things he said about you. Oh yes? He thought you were weak and vacillating, she said. He thought you lacked self-esteem. She spoke lightly offhand, leaning her head to one side and shaking out her hair. Why, Judge Savage asked, very calmly, did you tell Hilary I’d been kissing you? Oh, did she mention that? Christine smiled. That wasn’t
important. She frowned a little and pouted. I also told her she should go back to you, she said. Did she mention that? Actually, I hardly thought another fact or two would make much difference at the point you were at. I wanted her to see it was just something you did, I mean a sort of natural physical thing, and that these affairs weren’t important to you. I told her if she left you she would be full of regret, you know? I mean, I know I did the right thing not leaving Martin. At least I’ve nothing to regret. Almost in a daze, she added: I stayed to the end.
They ate in a Chinese place that Christine had known of old. Let’s see if it’s still there, she proposed. She seemed pleased. He barely noticed what he was eating with all the plans that kept forming and dissolving in his mind. Frank called on the mobile. Okay, squire? he asked. Dinner only went cold an hour ago. I thought you might have got yourself knocked about again. Oh, but how sweet of him! Christine exclaimed. How brotherly! She clapped her hands. I will get him to clear the house. You must give me his number. She fussed with her notebook and shaking her head, she added, I never thought Martin was a good judge of character. Calling you weak was just silly. She had chosen her food with care. Her husband might have been dead for years, Daniel thought. Dabbing her lips, she asked brightly: Do you really want to go back to Hilary? At the same moment Judge Savage said, Tell me about your plans.
Christine said as soon as she had recovered she wanted to find work with some charitable organisation that would put her in contact with reality and people. She must be with people, she felt like a hot-house flower. Then once she’d sold St Gwen’s there would be really no need for her to have a salary. She thought she could go back to Save the Children. She had done fund-raising for them in the past. For a moment she looked solemn. I need to be near poor Mumsie. She hasn’t been well you know. The good thing about volunteer work is that I can always be free to help Mumsie or take a holiday or whatever. She added: I need to enjoy myself.
They fussed over their food. Daniel felt feverish. He found himself saying: The funeral the other day started me thinking about church and Christianity. Hmm, oh yes? She covered a yawn. I’m exhausted, Dan, sorry. I mean, when it’s over and the emotion suddenly leaves you, you feel totally, totally exhausted. But he was close to deciding he would stop at nothing. You and Martin, he said, used to be very Christian, didn’t you? Having bent to concentrate on her chopsticks, she raised her eyes, face sideways to the table. The smile seemed to be mocking. And of course Sarah went through that very Christian period, you remember, right after Hilary and I got back together.
Ye-es, she said.
And now in this trial I’m involved in, it turns out the main defendant, a very odd character, is the most stalwart of churchgoers. Hmm, and so? she enquired. Again she batted her large eyelashes. Daniel tried to get a grip on whatever it was he meant to say. In each case, he hazarded, there seems to have been something ominous about it. It preceded a catastrophe, if you get me. As though the engagement with religion was an alternative that failed, you know, an attempt to escape something else that they had foreseen and feared. They tried to be Christian in the hope they could avoid something else, but in the end they couldn’t. Martin falls into that depression, Sarah writes obscenities over her exam papers. Quite probably this defendant did in fact hurl a rock on the road. Though I shouldn’t talk to you about this of course.
Well, Christine sighed, it doesn’t make much sense to me. She popped a small spring roll in her mouth, closed her eyes and swallowed, then spoke patting the corner of her mouth. She seemed to have so many facial expressions, at once sophisticated and brittle. Don’t you think you’re reading a bit too much into it? The restaurant was quiet and the waitress bent over them ceremoniously, bringing more dishes. After all, I never felt Christianity let me down, she smiled. I still like my polished pew and the Ancient & Modern. I think it’s good to go to church, though I don’t suppose anybody really believes they’re going to heaven any more, do they? For the third or fourth time she came out with a shrill little giggle.
Talking about religion, he insisted, you are Sarah’s godmother, aren’t you? Of course, Christine agreed, but that’s all just a lovely formality, isn’t it? Hilary always made it clear she didn’t even want her baptised anyway, that she was only doing it because of your slavery to convention. So I could hardly feel I had a serious duty to undertake. Hilary’s always been very anti-Christian, hasn’t she?
Daniel had forgotten this. Hilary had indeed been annoyed, he remembered now, that he had wanted to go through with a ceremony neither of them actually believed in. Tom wasn’t baptised at all, Christine asked, was he? Daniel said no. He had forgotten this part of their lives. At our age there’s so much that isn’t present to the mind. Hilary had been right, he thought. If you don’t go to church, she would say, except when there’s an organ recital, what’s the point in baptising your kids. Be consistent, Dan, his wife insisted. Confused now, Judge Savage said: Anyway, the thing is, after the service, the funeral, old Judge Carter asked me if I really didn’t know why Martin had stopped practising. Did he indeed? Christine didn’t look up. And I said no. But I thought he was suggesting something, that there was something I might have known, but didn’t. Now her face did lift and she was smiling brightly. I do like Chinese food, she told him. These spicy aromas. I think they’re truly marvellous, Dan, and it’s so awful, isn’t it, that this lovely place is almost empty while all the stalwart Brits are at the Angus Steak House or some kitsch bistro. Don’t you think?
Would you like me to stay the night, he asked. He had parked the car on Carlton Street. His voice was low and steady. While he waited for her reply, he said, by the way, you can always rely on this spot being free at night, because there’s a frozen food van here till about eleven or quarter past, then it drives off for some reason and you can park right by your front door. You extraordinary man! she squealed. You’re terrible! She might have been a little girl being propositioned for the first time by a brutish stranger. You extraordinary Savage! You can’t ask to stay the night. It’s disgraceful! Yet ten minutes before, Daniel remembered, as the waitress was pouring the sake into thimble glasses, Christine had let her hair brush his ear to whisper, Watch how the bottom of your glass changes when she fills it up. The prim Chinese girl, all formal smiles, tipped the bottle; the glass was filled to the brim, and at once, in some trick of refraction, the transparent alcohol turned what had been just thick colourless glass down at the base into a tiny image of, what? Putting his good eye right down by the glass he saw through the liquid that it was a woman stretching her hand between her thighs. Jolly, isn’t it, Christine chuckled a very male chuckle. Her voice could move very suddenly from a shriek to a rumble. What’s yours, he asked. She giggled and put a hand on her breast. Oh, a rather large bottom, by the looks! The orientals love this stuff, she laughed. Isn’t it charming. Sex at the bottom of a glass. But then you would know all about that, I suppose! She giggled again. Bottoms up and the bottom’s gone, she said, she downed her drink. Daniel looked. The glass was no more than glass again, the image hidden in the thickness of the base. Isn’t it fun? Christine cried. Now, twenty minutes later, sitting together in the parked car, she protested: The man complains I’ve ruined his marriage, I’ve made it impossible for him to go back to his wife, and now he wants to go to bed with me, when my husband’s hardly dead a week! Do you want me to stay or not? he asked. She reflected: Couldn’t we just have a kiss and cuddle? She turned to him. He kissed her very determinedly. He was quite quite determined and when she gasped, Oh Dan, in a way that, again, was patently false, he asked, What’s to stop us? Trembling, she began to fuss with her hair. You can come up for a bit of a chat, she told him.
On the sofa they kissed again. He couldn’t tell whether he was excited because he had his hands on her breasts or because he was sure he would get the truth out of her any moment now. But she broke off. Drink? She stood up. There was the ancient gesture of smoothing down the skirt. Whisky, please. No, tea, she said. But . . . T
ea! she cried. He came to stand behind her while she put the kettle on. He brushed his lips on the nape of her neck. She turned to detach herself, then found a pack of cigarettes. Have you made arrangements for seeing the children? No. Why not? He shrugged. Inhaling the smoke, she asked: You want me to tell you why? I suspect I’m going to hear. Judge Savage said. You haven’t made those arrangements because you still haven’t accepted that it’s over. Could be, he said. And you only want to know things from me, dear Daniel, because deep down you hope that they will reopen things with Hilary, you’ll find something else, someone else you can lay all the blame on, and you can start again. She cocked her face to one side, puffed out smoke and returning to her most high pitched little-girl voice demanded, Am I right? Could be, he repeated. She put her cigarette down, took his hands and stood to face him. The kettle was boiling. Hmm, she said. Then, breaking off, she stood back and slapped his cheek very hard. It was unexpected and completely clinical. She was laughing. Oh you should see your face! She turned to snap the kettle off, then turned again and began to kiss him feverishly. She was biting his neck. She wants to leave signs, he told himself. How many times had Daniel Savage convinced himself that he had seduced a woman only to realise then that it was he who was the prey. But he had never minded this. She pulled him to the bedroom and rapidly undressed. She sat on the bed to kick off her shoes, but then kept on her underwear. This is my old friend Christine, he told himself, Martin’s wife. He lay down beside her. In the midst of kisses, she broke off again. Again she found a packet of cigarettes, she pulled herself seated, back against the bare wall in a room yellow with streetlight. There’s nothing to tell you, she said abruptly, blowing out smoke. You’re a silly schoolboy. He reached out to touch her. Leave me alone! She wore lacy cami-knickers, a shiny bra, robustly ribbed. She giggled, you must think you’re fucking your wife here, in this room again. Anyway, there’s nothing to tell. Nothing, no secrets, no reason why Martin stopped work. She began to shout: He just went like that! I don’t know what it was. He got ill.