I leaned across and mouthed, ‘Thank you,’ and her look back seemed to say ‘What the hell are you doing?’
‘My name is Jack Joseph Neal Vaughan,’ I declared, with exaggerated confidence.
‘Is that Neil with an “i” or with an “a”?’ interjected the overweight clerk.
‘It’s with an “a”!’ I declared confidently.
‘It’s with an “i”,’ came the voice from the other side of the court.
‘With an “i”, sorry. Of course, Neil with an “i”.’
The officially un-wigged judge stared at me silently for a moment; he seemed to be lamenting the long-lost power of the judiciary to impose the death penalty at will. I pictured him with a black cap on his head. At least it might have covered up the toupee.
The next section was manageable if a little uncomfortable. Before I swore an oath I was asked my religion. I took a calculated guess that I was probably not a Hindu or a Zoroastrian and so swore an oath on the Holy Bible that everything I would say would be the truth. I learned that I was the petitioner (amazingly to my mind, I was the one who had initiated divorce proceedings) and I confirmed my date of birth as the one I had seen printed on the forms. ‘So what does that make me?’ I thought as I considered this seemingly randomly allocated birthdate. ‘What star sign is May – that’s Taurus, isn’t it? Mind you, it’s a load of rubbish anyway …’
‘And your occupation?’
‘Teacher!’ I snapped back, like a smug contestant in a TV quiz show. At last – I had got a couple of questions right. That must have stood me in good stead, I thought.
Above us a large, angry fly was trapped inside the light casing. To my heightened senses, its manic buzzing and spinning was as loud as the monotone voices of the two lawyers talking a language I barely understood. Maddy poured herself some water and then I did likewise. My lawyer nodded to me as if to suggest that something had just gone according to plan, though I had no idea what that might possibly be. Eventually the judge instructed the counsel for the respondent to begin their case, and after his opening statement we came to the moment I had hoped would never happen: the part of the proceedings when I was to be cross-examined by my wife’s lawyer.
‘Mr Vaughan, I want you to cast your mind back to 1998.’
‘Erm, okay … I’ll do my best …’
‘You and your wife first employed the service of a financial adviser in that year, did you not?’
The lawyer looked at me, almost miming my expected agreement.
‘Quite possibly.’
‘I’m afraid we need to be clearer than that, Mr Vaughan. Did you and your wife employ the services of a financial adviser in February 1998?’
I looked across at my estranged wife, who was staring directly ahead.
‘I have no reason to disbelieve Madeleine if she says that we did.’
‘And did you not make a decision at that meeting on the seventeenth of February 1998 that, in addition to your teacher’s pension, to which we will come later, you would also make freestanding additional voluntary contributions in your name only, because you, Mr Vaughan, as the only taxpayer at that point, could then benefit from more tax relief than if they had been in Madeleine’s name?’
I would have struggled to follow these financial details even with my brain in normal working order.
‘Erm, I don’t know.’
The judge leaned forward. ‘Think hard, Mr Vaughan. It’s important that you try to recall the key points.’
‘Er, well, it sounds quite possible. If there is a record of the payments being made after that date, then obviously I did take out an additional pension in my name.’
‘The existence of this pension plan is not the issue, Mr Vaughan. The point is that you verbally assured your wife that this personal pension was intended for your joint benefit, but that it was only taken out in your name to save tax. Is this not the case? Is this not what you told your wife in 1998?’
I was perspiring in places that I hadn’t known had sweat glands. I thought of lying and just obligingly going along with the plausible picture being presented to me, but I felt a higher duty to be as honest as it was possible to be in this uncomfortably dishonest situation.
‘I have to say, in all truth, that I really can’t remember,’ I declared with a sigh. Maddy’s lawyer looked completely stumped. As if I had craftily outmanoeuvred him.
‘Brilliant!’ whispered my own counsel.
‘You can’t remember?’ scorned the opposing barrister. ‘How convenient for you …’
‘No, I really can’t. I mean, I might have said that to her. But I might not have. It was a long time ago, and I just can’t recall.’
The judge intervened: ‘Would it not have been possible to get a statement from this, er, “financial adviser”, if he was present at this meeting?’
‘We did attempt to, your honour. But he left the country after he was declared bankrupt.’
‘Oh, this is getting us nowhere … Can we move on?’
‘You don’t remember any subsequent assurances to your wife, do you, Mr Vaughan?’ improvised her lawyer, now sounding a little desperate.
‘Er, no. No, I don’t.’
Maddy shook her head in contempt and disappointment. ‘It’s not enough that you have all the money,’ she spat. ‘You have to come and take the hedge trimmer away as well! You don’t even have a garden any more!’
‘Quiet, please,’ said the judge.
‘I don’t want the hedge trimmer. You can have it back …’
‘Quiet, PLEASE!’ insisted the judge, and as her lawyer moved on to the next matter, I tried to catch Maddy’s eye, to mouth to her that the trimmer was hers – I’d buy her a new one if she wanted. She couldn’t even bear to look at me.
The memory test now moved on to the next stage: the years of our marriage and how they reflected the respective investment made by both parties.
‘Mr Vaughan, while you were at work, would you attempt to claim you were also doing fifty per cent of the childcare?’
‘Er, I doubt it. It sounds like I was always still at work when they came home from school for a start.’
‘Quite,’ he commented meaningfully. ‘Would you even attempt to put a figure on the proportion of the childcare you did?’ He theatrically pretended to imagine the sort of tasks this might involve. ‘Picking them up from school? Helping with homework? Cooking their tea? Running them to clubs and swimming lessons? Did you do forty per cent of this, thirty per cent, or indeed virtually none of this type of work?’
‘Well, it’s very hard to say exactly,’ I said truthfully. ‘Much less than Madeleine, I’m sure.’ I glanced nervously to my lawyer, whose indignant frown suggested that he’d personally witnessed his client doing years of baths and bedtime stories.
‘Would it be fair to say that if Madeleine had not done so much of the domestic work involved in raising a family, then you would not have been able to work the very long hours that both parties accept you put into your career?’
‘I guess you’re right …’
I noticed Maddy look up.
‘So would you not agree that seventy:thirty represents an unfair reflection of the paid and unpaid work done by the two of you during this period?’
‘Yes, it is unfair. I think a fifty:fifty split would be fairer.’ And I stared directly at my wife. She looked completely astonished.
There was a moment of slightly confused silence, punctuated only by the mad spinning of the fly trapped in the light. I was rather disappointed this was not some huge courtroom with press and witnesses and a packed public gallery; for it was at this point that it would have burst into an excited hubbub, forcing the judge to bang his gavel and shout, ‘Silence in court!’ Instead, Maddy’s lawyer seemed utterly bewildered. It was as if he was only programmed to disagree and contradict; he tried to reach for words but none would come. Now my own representative felt compelled to respond to what had just happened. He stood up.
‘Your honour
, the respondent’s counsel is putting words into my client’s mouth. Surely it is for the court to make a ruling after we have put our own case for a seventy:thirty split.’ And he urgently gestured for me to shut up.
‘It appears, Mr Cottington, that you and your client have come to court without agreeing in advance on the apportionment you are seeking.’
‘Mr Cottington,’ I thought. ‘So that’s my lawyer’s name.’
I had feared that the judge might be irritated, but in fact he seemed to be suppressing a certain degree of excitement that something slightly out of the ordinary had finally happened. He made a self-consciously formal pronouncement reminding both counsel of the importance of preparation, and resolved to put this issue to one side for the moment as there were a number of other matters to be settled. He entered into a whispered exchange with the alarmingly overweight clerk while I was left standing there. Although I felt certain I had done the right thing, I could feel my legs shaking underneath me.
Then, in the middle of the most stressful situation I could recall, I suddenly got my first negative memory. Maddy was angrily berating me and I was shouting back. I even felt a twinge of resentment rise up in me as I recalled how over the top she had been about a little thing like a battery in a smoke alarm. This memory was hazier, but the argument had arisen because I had apparently ‘endangered the family’ by taking the battery out of the smoke alarm to put in my bike light.
‘Why the hell didn’t you replace the battery?’ she is shouting.
‘I forgot, okay? Don’t you ever forget things?’
‘Not where the safety of our children is concerned.’
‘Well, this was for the safety of your husband – so that he was visible on the dark, busy roads! Isn’t that important too?’
‘No, actually – it’s not as important. Though you could have bought a replacement battery anyway – you just forgot all about it. You just forgot about us but remembered you.’
Looking at Madeleine standing there in the court, I couldn’t believe that there was such an irrational and aggressive side to her; that she was capable of so much anger about something as trivial as one AA battery.
The court had come to consider the key point in the settlement, the decision on the Property Adjustment Order. With no agreement on the house, it would have to be sold, but negotiations had completely broken down over a fair split of the money, the furnishings and who was going to have to talk to the estate agent. I had been allowed to stand down, but the more I listened to the arguments from both sides, the clearer it became that neither Maddy nor I would be able to afford a house in the same area that would accommodate two children and an excitable golden retriever. It would mean moving the kids far away from their school, maybe either parent having to sleep on a sofa bed in the living room when the kids were with them; it would mean no garden and the children having tiny bedrooms and no space for friends to come and stay. Maybe they should keep the house, I thought, and we could take turns to borrow that collapsing tent we’d had in Ireland.
One blindingly obvious solution to all this was not being suggested by anyone in the courtroom and I felt a duty to point it out.
‘Excuse me, your honour – is it possible to … change my mind?’
‘I beg your pardon?’
‘Can I change my mind? Or is too late?’
‘You want to go for a different arrangement regarding the property assets as well?’
‘No, no – about the whole divorce thing,’ I heard myself say. ‘I mean, looking at it afresh, as it were, I wonder if we really ought to try and give the marriage another go?’
‘Vaughan, stop it!’ said Maddy. ‘This is not a game.’
‘Vaughan, what are you doing?’ pleaded my lawyer.
‘If I’m the petitioner – can’t I, like, withdraw the petition?’
It seemed like a reasonable question. I hadn’t actually seen any petition, let alone asked any members of the public to sign it. But the judge’s patience had now been exhausted and he seemed at a complete loss over what to say. Even the fly in the light fitting went silent. Deep down I had been hoping for the judge to declare ‘This is most irregular, but, given the circumstances, this court instructs Vaughan and Madeleine to jet off to the Caribbean for a second honeymoon, to share a beach hammock in the moonlight and for Mrs Vaughan to fall in love with her husband all over again.’
Instead, he reprimanded my lawyer for not having checked whether his client actually wanted a divorce and declared that this case was ‘a disaster’. Looking at the time, he said he was faced with no alternative but an adjournment. We would return at a later date when, he said pointedly, he hoped we would be a little clearer on what it was we actually wanted the court to decide. Inside I felt a rush of elation, which lasted for just a split second as I watched Maddy burst into tears and then dash outside. She didn’t even look at me, but was followed by her lawyer who was trying to tell her how well it had actually gone.
Mr Cottington, on the other hand, looked utterly shell-shocked. He chose to say nothing at all to me; instead he gathered up his papers into his briefcase and just left, followed by his trainees and accomplices. The judge had already departed so I sat there in silence for a moment, trying to take in what it was I’d just done.
‘Well, I’ve been in this job over twenty years and I’ve never seen anything like that before,’ said the clerk.
I attempted a brave smile. ‘I just think we should be really sure,’ I ventured. ‘You know, before we finally cut the knot.’
‘Right.’ The clerk was straightening the chairs. ‘As I say, people are usually pretty sure by the time they get here.’
I felt embarrassed and a little bit foolish. Part of me had wanted to rush after Maddy, but I didn’t want to experience the angry side of her that I had just remembered. I sat staring straight ahead, wondering where I could possibly go from here.
The clerk had finished gathering her things. ‘That was the last case before lunch, but I’m afraid I can’t leave you in here on your own.’
‘No, of course,’ I said. ‘Only – would you mind if I unclipped this light fitting? There’s a big fly trapped inside, and he’s been going mad.’
‘Oh. Well, there is a maintenance officer … but, yes, all right. I think it just unclips on the side there.’
‘Yes, I can see it.’
And so I climbed up on a chair and released the light cover, and stood back to watch the grateful insect fly free. Instead it fell straight to the floor and spun around buzzing on its back.
‘Urgh, he’s enormous, isn’t he?’ said the clerk. And she stepped over towards where it was struggling, and the spinning and buzzing gave way to a final crunch as her big fat foot came squelching down on it.
‘There!’ she said, with a smile. ‘Good luck sorting out your marriage – or we’ll see you back here in a couple of months …’
Chapter 8
MADDY AND I are on a train. It is before people have mobile phones, because no one is shouting, ‘I’m on a train!’ We have not been out of university that long and approach the prospect of a long rail journey with a different mindset from the sensible reading opportunity that we’d settle for later. Basically, we don’t view this space as a train so much as a moving pub. I find the perfect double seat facing one another in the smoking compartment, which only adds to the bar-room atmosphere.
As soon as we are settled, I go and buy enough drinks for the whole journey; an hour or so later Maddy goes off to the buffet car to buy the food I neglected to get. But she is taking much longer than I had, and I find myself glancing down the aisle looking to see what has happened to her. There is still no sign of her when a message comes over the tannoy.
‘This is a passenger announcement …’ (Back then we are only ‘passengers’; it is before we are re-graded as ‘customers’ so that we can be that much more indignant when we don’t get what we have paid for.) For a split second I think, ‘A female train guard – you don’t hear that
very often.’
‘British Rail would like to apologize for the fact that the man serving in the buffet car is such a sexist wanker. British Rail now accept that none of the female passengers on this train wish to be asked if they have a boyfriend, nor be asked for their phone number by a middle-aged man wearing a wedding ring and a name badge saying Jeff.’ Maddy has the dull monotone delivery to perfection. Other people in the seats around me are suddenly looking at each other with widening grins, while my heartbeat has just got faster than the train. ‘They would also appreciate it if Jeff could attempt to maintain eye contact while serving the All Day Breakfast Bap instead of staring so obviously at the breasts of the female on the other side of the counter. Our next station-stop is Didcot Parkway, where Jeff really ought to consider alighting from the train and lying on the track in front of it. Thank you.’
There is a spontaneous round of applause from all the women customers in our carriage. A couple of them even cheer. Only the old lady sitting nearby carefully listens to the whole thing with concerned concentration, as if it were just another official announcement.
I can’t wait for Maddy to come back. I am so fantastically proud of her; she is funny and brave and has made total strangers on a train start laughing and talking to one another. The hubbub is still going as she saunters through the door with a completely straight face as if nothing has happened. ‘There’s our rogue announcer!’ I boast loudly, demonstratively clearing the table so that the star of the moment can put down my beer cans and the now famous All Day Breakfast Bap. It is probably a mistake to tell the whole carriage like that. But we don’t particularly mind being turfed off the train at Didcot Parkway. I mean, it’s not as if there is absolutely nothing to do in Didcot on a Tuesday evening.
The defining characteristic of this memory was the powerful sensations of love and pride it conjured up. Her entrance into our carriage felt like one of the funniest moments in the history of the world. Just the insouciance with which she calmly sat herself down and began eating the bap; it was a deadpan comedy triumph.
And yet it was deeply frustrating to have so little else of our past lives in which to place it. It was as if I was living in one tiny cell, my head bumping against the ceiling as I paced back and forth re-examining every familiar brick and floor tile. My life-map was incredibly detailed on everything that had happened since 22 October and then there were just a few aerial snapshots of the uncharted continent beyond.
The Man Who Forgot His Wife Page 8