Brutal Legacy

by Tracy Going

  So it was never going to be the one or the other. It would always be both.

  But, of course, the irony is that it is probably he who would have benefitted the most by offering an apology. It would have been an opportunity for him to take cognisance of his conduct and take responsibility for his actions. It would have been a powerful deterrent for his future behaviour. But instead he would deny, lie, protest and defend and soon after he would go out and, unbelievably, beat up another woman.

  God forbid.

  Why?

  But then of course I also had to look inward and ask myself why.

  Why had I fallen for a man who was inherently violent and self-destructive?

  What did that say about me?

  I should have believed him when he first showed his true self, right in the early days, when I listened as he screamed at his ex-girlfriend on the phone.

  “Leave me alone, you fucking bitch!” he’d shouted, each word matching a stride as he marched up and down my passage.

  I remembered how he had stormed into the kitchen, his eyes still flashing in fury, his lips thin and tight, and how I’d exhaled slowly and only then commented, enunciating each word crisply and clearly, my message very clear.

  “You wouldn’t speak to me like that, would you?”

  I recalled how he’d shrugged and, as the tension drained from his body, the words had tripped so casually from his tongue.

  “I’d never do that to you,” he’d said. “You’d never deserve it.”

  Then he smiled boyishly.

  And I had believed him.

  I knew I would never deserve it.

  Those were the heady days when we were in love. It was the early phase of what I was convinced was a preordained relationship. He’d shared with me that his ex-girlfriend was unstable and irrational, and the one-sided conversation I’d overheard was proof enough. I knew I wasn’t like her. I was sane and rational. And I knew I would never give him reason to be displeased; why would I? It was not in my nature to be so obtuse.

  And, listening to his reassuring answer, it was obvious to me that I was ‘the special one’. I was the right one for him.

  Perhaps it was in that moment that I silenced my inner voice.

  Maybe it was then, as I stood in my kitchen, accepting his abusive onslaught against another woman, that I made a near-deadly contract with my abuser.

  It was possibly at that moment that I sealed my fate.

  And him?

  Was it then, as I stood quiet, and accepted his explanation, that he already knew I was next?

  Was it when he uttered those chilling words, “You’d never deserve it,” and transferred the responsibility of his future actions onto another, onto me, that he thought I’d be compliant?

  Was it then, at that precise moment, that he knew that one day I would? That one day I would deserve it?

  And if I didn’t, he’d make absolutely, damned, bloody sure I did.

  Twenty-four

  “Does he have a new girlfriend?” I ask, taken aback.

  “Who?” says Sandra, shuffling through her paperwork.

  “Him,” I say, raising my eyebrows, indicating across the courtroom.

  We both turn and look.

  He is standing at the defence table in his navy blazer, his white shirt, his chinos, and I can’t see his shoes but I’d be surprised if he wasn’t wearing his brown suede shoes. He is laughing loudly. I watch as he throws back his head and then brings his chin down to gaze into her eyes. He runs his hands through his hair.

  She is right next to him, close to his side. I can only see her profile. She is also laughing, but it’s more of a giggle. It is a coquettish, girly laugh. She leans toward him, almost touching him as she listens to what he has to say. Her hair is black-brown, thick and unruly as it sits loosely on her shoulders. Her face is unadorned. She is dressed in blue jeans and a casual shirt. It is a nondescript, comfortable outfit.

  She is not what I considered his type. I am astonished, too, that he already has someone new in his life and, even more so, that she’s accompanied him to court, especially given the circumstances, the accusation, the trial. I am quite incredulous of his brazenness.

  I look at Sandra and shake my head.

  She looks at me quizzically – then her words stop me.

  “That’s not his girlfriend. That’s your new investigating officer.”

  “My new investigating officer?” I splutter.

  “Yes,” she chuckles.

  “Since when do I have a new investigating officer?” I ask, my voice still squeaking.

  “I don’t know. But that’s her. She introduced herself to me earlier.”

  She is still chuckling when she turns back to her papers.

  And then I laugh. I laugh that Sandra is chuckling next to me, that she is able to chortle at my outrage. We both know it is a ridiculous outrage given the outrageousness of the outrageous matter we are battling. But it is very funny. It is also good to see her laugh. She is generous and kind and she’s working hard to win this case, but I already know she doesn’t stand a chance. In the beginning, I assumed the magistrate would factor in her youthful inexperience, but I have long ago come to the conclusion that he will not, that he will concede nothing, or very little, to her or to me.

  When my laugh dies down I chuckle too.

  I chuckle incredulously that he is flirting with my new investigating officer, that he feels the need to be irresistible and charming to her. It is unbelievable that he is so conniving and manipulative.

  I chuckle at the irony that I have a new investigating officer, Investigating Officer No. 3, that she is a woman and she doesn’t even introduce herself to me.

  I can’t believe it.

  I’m still chuckling when I take my seat beside Sandra. It is the same maroon, fabric-covered chair I sit on every time. It is even dirtier.

  Sometimes one can only laugh and chuckle. It is 08:55 and I am holding on to my spontaneity, that small joy, because it will come to an end the moment the magistrate slips through the door.

  It is Tuesday, 9 June. Three days before my birthday. Almost a year since he escorted me to my birthday party, where I officially introduced him to all my family and friends. I had been so proud to present him to everyone then. But today there will be no pride. Today I will again be shamed and I will wear that shame like a punishment for having allowed him into my life as I am ridiculed and derided for being a woman who fell in love with a man who did not exist.

  My investigating officer takes her place on the hard, wooden benches.

  I turn to look at the defence team. They are huddling together like a pack of laughing hyenas, set to cunningly catch their prey with their teeth, not their claws. The accused and his attorney are standing eye to eye. They both hunch their shoulders as they peer down at the defence advocate. Physically, he is not their predatory equal. He is considerably shorter and smaller, like the runt of the pack. Between their darkness, he is fair-haired. It is like the interplay between varying intensities of light; I know they are equally skilful as hunters and scavengers. I watch as they posture, plot and signal. They are readying themselves for the attack and, just like hyenas, there is nothing cowardly about them – they are bold and dangerous.

  It is the third day straight that I will be their rotting flesh.

  It is my last day on the stand, but I don’t know that yet. As I sit next to Sandra, I have no idea how the day will unfold. But it will be my final day. Tomorrow Sandra will call on the district surgeon, then my sister, some friends and a journalist to whom the accused had warned: “If it wasn’t for her child I would have gone ballistic on her” and “I have put a hit out on her”.

  Before she finally rests our case, Sandra will also call my neighbour.

  My neighbour is not a man who likes to be exposed. He is an attorney himself but he is reticent by nature. He is slightly aggrieved that he has been called as a witness and it is clear that he’d rather be elsewhere than testifying i
n court. He will bear witness to my account of the attack. He will testify how his son heard me screaming and called to him, and how they both rushed to our shared wall to assist. As he recalls his version, sombre and expressionless, I will remember being on the ground as I was kicked. I will recall rocking in resistance, rolling backwards and forwards, recoiling into each scoring strike as I tried to keep myself safe when I heard their loud, alarmed voices.

  “Leave her alone!” they had shouted.

  “Come,” they had called to me. “We’ll pull you over the wall.”

  But I couldn’t get to them. I was trapped in the revolutions of his charge. I was caught up in his feet. I couldn’t get away as he kicked me.

  He kicked me.

  It is a terrible thing to be kicked.

  It is dehumanising and debasing.

  I was kicked like a piece of dead meat.

  I was a nothing.

  But I will quieten my thoughts. I don’t want to think about being kicked; instead I will listen as my neighbour testifies how he and his son rushed to my property to break the door down in their attempt to get me out. He will state the accused smelt of alcohol, that he was terribly abusive as he swore at my neighbour and his son.

  The defence advocate will then take the stand to cross-examine him and will vehemently deny that the accused has ever seen him.

  When Sandra wraps up her matter tomorrow I will feel lighter. I will leave the court and go home to my child, less burdened knowing that we are closer to the end.

  But first there is today.

  The magistrate enters and, as his eyes shift over the courtroom, he takes his place.

  He reminds me that I’m still under oath.

  The defence advocate stands; he takes his position and looks ahead, always past me, as though I am not just a few metres from his side.

  He picks up where we left off three months earlier. The phone records. There are fifty-eight phone calls to be analysed, considered, discussed, questioned and re-questioned, harassed about, pressed on and pestered over.

  It takes hours.

  I respond, contend, explain, espouse and defend evenly through all these hours. I have no other choice.

  I listen carefully as he intones nasally. I know I cannot let my guard down. I need to listen and watch all the time.

  And that is when I see it.

  The defence attorney, who is sitting at the table as the advocate harangues me, leans forward, his black jacket scrunching untidily around his shoulders. I am sure it is an extremely expensive jacket because his services come at a prohibitive premium, but it looks cheap, crumpled and dangling sloppily over his shoulders. It looks as though he has taken it from the floor and dragged it over him in a rush. He is unkempt and his hair is again slicked back into a ponytail, although it looks better than when it hangs loose. He presses on his elbows, resting his arms on the table as though he wants to flatten out my voice. His fleshy lips fold into a grimace over his big teeth. Then he looks to the magistrate.

  He lifts his eyebrows and rolls his black eyes. He reels them upward as though nothing could be duller or less interesting, more boring, than my answers and my public destruction.

  I throw my eyes to the magistrate.

  I am quick enough.

  I see it.

  I see the magistrate nod. His matte-brown head bobs up and down in the very briefest of acknowledgements. It is a fleeting flash but I have seen it. I want to stop the case. I want to stand up and protest. I want to shout them down and call them out for what they have just done.

  But I can’t.

  I am in the magistrate’s domain.

  I cannot object.

  I look from one to the other disbelievingly.

  I look around and realise that no one else has seen it. No one else is able to see it. It is only me who has this vantage point.

  I look from the magistrate to the defence attorney, to the defence advocate and then to the accused. They are joined in their maleness. They are on that side of the divide. All of them.

  This side of the courtroom are Sandra and me, and to my left sit my mother, Sheryl, Karen, Estie, Sue, Robyn and Katherine.

  It is Them against Us.

  It is patriarchy at its finest and I am defenceless against it.

  I have no one to turn to.

  I draw myself in.

  I am shivering. It is chilly outside, but in here I am even colder. I have not dressed warmly. I am wearing a grey dress with a tailored jacket. It is another of my newsreader suits, but it is too light, the fabric too delicate to keep me warm. I lift my head to where the sunlight sneaks in. The window is high above me. It is small, the glass frosted. The sky hangs low, the sun weak as it filters through into a faded cone. I see the dust particles bumping around in the feeble light.

  There is a bird perched on the sill outside, a grey pigeon distorted behind the glass. It beats its wings. It flaps around and ruffles its tail. I think it is going to take flight but it doesn’t. It settles down as though it has resigned itself to its circumstances. It is a bird on a ledge.

  And further away, beyond the confines of the courtroom, I hear the steady drip of water. It is the outlet pipe of an air conditioner. On the other side of the courtyard. I listen as each drop falls to the concrete, each one alone in its loss.

  Twenty-five

  My mother is with me. She has once again arrived in Johannesburg far earlier than is necessary and has been waiting for a while by the time I step out of the Radio Park reception. I have no understanding of what lies beneath her surface but it is all it has become, as though the past was her burden alone, as if my court case is an isolated event, that it is not preceded by a lifetime of violence. So we will not talk of anything meaningful as we forsake the leafiness of Auckland Park for the gridlock that is Empire Road. I know not to discuss or question, to interfere, because she will concede nothing. She suppresses and denies. It is her way.

  We quieten as we cross the Braamfontein bridge, suspended ever so briefly above the mesh of railway lines and sidings that interlace the steel terrain below, before we enter the heart of the city centre. Simmonds Street is already bustling with pavement entrepreneurs hurriedly hustling for business as they rearrange their stalls in the hope of a new day and new season. Spring has sprung, and has brought with it an avowal of renewal.

  In the far distance the mine dumps glow with the promise of prosperity.

  The morning is breathless with the expectation of new beginnings.

  But I am not a part of this reawakening.

  As I negotiate the traffic, I am unable to let go of the past and embrace the new. Today I do not feel optimistic. I do not have a favourable view of my immediate future.

  I left the last court session three months earlier, buoyed with the finality of the prosecution having rested its case. It was an enormous relief to no longer be sitting alone, fending off the defence team. I had arrived home to hold my son close and, as I cradled his head to my chest, I had assured him.

  “It’ll soon be over. I promise.”

  But one month later Sheryl received a letter from the defence notifying her that they were withdrawing and would no longer be representing the accused. There is no further explanation.

  So as I turn into Fox Street I am fraught with anxiety.

  The court case cannot continue if he has no representation – and what if we have to start all over, from the beginning? It is a harrowing and crippling thought.

  Then there are the rumours that he is no longer around, that he may have left the country – but I have no evidence of that being true.

  My mother and I once again meet with Sheryl on the steps of the courthouse. We make our way to the courtrooms below and join my familiar court supporters. We nest together like twittering fledglings and warble and trill at the possibility that the accused might have flown the coop. It is a defeating possibility. But it is not only us; Sandra is also aware of the defence team withdrawing and she hasn’t received any notificat
ion of new counsel being appointed either.

  I have yet to see her and I suspect she might be conferring with the magistrate.

  We wait.

  It is 09:20.

  It is not long after that there is a rush of activity. A furious flurry. Sandra appears with the magistrate close behind. Their capes are billowing, their sleeves flapping in the air like the wings of black birds. Sandra stalks toward the court, toward me. She is like one of two ravens bringing ill omen between the shadows of ghosts, interceding between life and death, ominous and portentous. If they are raven, then they are collectively known as an ‘unkindness’ or a ‘conspiracy’. And it looks as though they are. An unkind conspiracy, conspiring to close in on me.

  Sandra shakes her head as she nears us. Her forehead is furrowed in frustration and her message is clear.

  He is not here.

  The magistrate takes his position behind his bench and then confirms that the accused is not present and the court case is postponed. There is no hint of outrage or disbelief to his announcement. He dismisses the court and exits. He leaves no vacuity behind. He has neither a rousing presence nor a provocative absence. He is simply no longer in the room.

  My mother returns to Brits and I go home.

  Once I am alone I pick up the phone and contact the police station. I need to speak to my investigating officer. I want to know what I can expect and her next course of action.

  “Hello, officer,” I say, my voice soft and defeated. “It’s me, Tracy Going. I’m just phoning to find out what happens next.”

  The response from Investigating Officer No. 3 is a screeching squall that pitches right through me.

  “I dunno!” she shouts. “I didn’t ask him to run away!”

  I am silent.

  She is a police officer, and my presiding investigator. I am flabbergasted.