Like a Charm

by Karin Slaughter

  All in all, it was a disappointing affair, one-sided and sloppy in the extreme. I spent the entire time on the edge of my seat biting my tongue. On several occasions I almost spoke out, but knew they would only expel me from the courtroom if I did so. I could only pray for Cornelius now, and I wasn't much of a believer in prayer.

  After a short recess for lunch, which I spent smoking and trying, unsuccessfully, to gain access to Cornelius's lawyer, there was little else to be done. Dr Harris gave evidence about Evelyn's condition after the attack, not forgetting to mention that the small piece of skin found under one of her fingernails was black.

  In the end, it was an easy decision. Lieutenant Cornelius Jubb admitted to being in Brimley Park on the night in question, around the exact time the attack occurred. It was a particularly brutal attack, and Cornelius and Evelyn, while they might have recognized one another in passing, had no earlier acquaintance, which might have earned the court's leniency. A charm from a bracelet the accused was known to wear habitually was found at the scene. He had a scratch on his face and she had black skin under her fingernail. His defence – that he had seen a woman in trouble and come to her rescue – was too little, too late. They might as well have added that he was coloured, but they didn't go that far.

  But when the verdict finally came, it took the breath out of me: Lieutenant Cornelius Jubb was found guilty of rape and was sentenced to be hanged by the neck until dead.

  That was the one little detail I had forgotten, and I cursed myself for it: under US Article of War 92, rape is a crime punishable by life imprisonment or death, which is not the case under British law. They wanted to make an example of Cornelius, so they went for the death penalty, and there wasn't a damn thing I could do about it. In a way, I had got him into this, through my bloody devotion to my job, to duty. I could have hidden the tiger charm. I knew Cornelius wasn't a rapist, no matter what happened in Brimley Park that night. But no, I had to do the right thing. And the right thing was going to get Cornelius Jubb hanged.

  They let me see Cornelius the night before his execution. He seemed comfortable enough in his tiny cell, and he assured me that he had been well treated. In the dim light of a grille-covered bulb, the small windows obscured by blackout curtains, we smoked Luckies and talked for the last time.

  'What really happened that night, Cornelius?' I asked him. 'You didn't touch that girl, did you?'

  He said nothing for a moment, just sucked in some smoke and blew it out in a long plume.

  'I know you didn't,' I went on. 'Tell me.'

  Finally, he looked at me, the whites of his eyes big and round. 'It was a good night,' he said. 'One of the best. I enjoyed our talk, the whisky. I always enjoyed our talks. You treated me like a human being.'

  I said nothing, could think of nothing to say.

  'It was a fine night outside. Hot and humid. It reminded me a bit of home, of Louisiana, and I was walking along thinking about all those years ago when I was a kid fishing off the levee, hooking the bracelet. When I got to the park I heard some sounds, stifled, as if someone was being gagged. It was dark, but I could make out two figures struggling, one on top of the other. I'm not a fool. I knew what was happening. When I got closer I could see that he was . . . you know, thrusting himself in her and beating her face. I grabbed him and tried to drag him off but it took all my strength. The girl was nearly unconscious by then, but she managed to lash out and give me that scratch. Finally I pulled him loose and he ran off into the night.' Cornelius shrugged. 'Then I went back to the base.'

  'Did you recognize him?' I asked.

  For a moment, he didn't answer, just carried on smoking, that faraway look in his eyes.

  'Yes,' he said finally. 'I recognized him.'

  'Then why the hell didn't you say so?'

  'What would have been the point?'

  'The truth, Cornelius, the truth.'

  Cornelius smiled. 'Richard, Richard, my friend.' He always called me Richard though everyone else called me Dick. 'You have the white man's trust in the truth. It's not quite the same for me.'

  'But surely they would have investigated your claim?'

  'Perhaps. But the man who did it is a really bad man. People are scared of him. The morning after it happened, even before you came to see me, he made it clear that he wasn't going to take the blame, that if I tried to accuse him everyone in his hut would swear he was back on base when the attack took place.'

  'What about the guards on the gate?'

  'They can't tell us apart. Besides, they don't even pay attention. They just sit in their gatehouse playing cards.'

  'So he's just going to let you die instead of him?'

  Cornelius shrugged. 'Well, I don't imagine he's too keen on dying himself. Would you be? It doesn't matter anyway. What happens to him. That's between him and God.'

  'Or the Devil.'

  Cornelius looked at me, a hint of the old smile in the turn of his lips. 'Or the Devil. But even if he hadn't managed to get it all fixed, they wouldn't have believed me anyway. They'd have simply thought it was another trick, another desperate lie. They had all the evidence they needed, then I came up with some crazy story about trying to save the girl. What would you think?'

  'I know you wouldn't do what they accused you of.'

  'But they don't know me. To them I'm just another no-good nigger. It's the sort of thing we do. If I'd given his name, it would have been just one more nigger trying to lie his way out of his just deserts by pointing the finger at another.' Cornelius shook his head. 'No, my friend, there's no way out for me.'

  He lifted up his sleeve. 'At least I got my bracelet fixed and they let me have it back,' he said. 'No longer evidence, I guess.' Then he unfastened the clasp and handed it to me. 'I want you to have it,' he said. 'I know I said it was going to be for my girl, but I never did find her. Now I'd like my friend to take it.'

  I looked at the bracelet resting in his palm. I didn't really want it, not after everything that had happened, but I couldn't refuse. I picked it up, feeling an odd sort of tingle in my fingers as I did so, and thanked him for it.

  That was the last time I saw Cornelius Jubb. The morning they hanged him I walked and walked the length and breadth of the city, feeling as if I was the one living in a foreign country, and when I came to the biggest bomb site in the city centre I took out Cornelius's charm bracelet and threw it as far as I could into the rubble.

  DOWN AND DIRTY

  Fidelis Morgan

  My mummy always tells me to keep out of trouble, and when I go on a train I know I must be very careful. I should always go into a crowded compartment, she says, and if there aren't any then I must pick one with a lady in it, especially after dark. I must never go in a train carriage on my own with a man.

  This is because men sometimes hurt people on trains, and stuff their bodies under the seats behind the heater, although I have looked down under the seats sometimes and do not think there is enough room there for a dead body. Ladies do not murder people, especially on trains. Ladies only poison their husbands sometimes, and that was usually in the old days when ladies wore long skirts. As strangers, ladies make safer travelling companions, my mummy says.

  But not all ladies are nice. I will not tell her about the lady I met on the train yesterday, because she was not very nice at all, and said some horrible things about both Mummy and Daddy.

  My daddy is a war hero. He flew planes during the war at a special airbase for the Airborne Forces Experimental Establishment at Sherburn-in-Elmet in Yorkshire. He is a test pilot now, a wing commander, at Boscombe Down. The planes he flies are not for passengers, but for battles. It is the most dangerous job a pilot can have, because no one knows whether the plane he flies will stay in the air, and sometimes they go very fast and explode in the sky. He has been testing a plane called the TSR2, which was in the newspapers, so I suppose he is quite famous compared to most people's fathers.

  Mummy is a housewife. This means she organizes the staff (a cook, a cleaner
and Daddy's secretary) and has her hair done a lot. Sometimes she has migraines and has to go to bed in the daytime. On those days I have to be quiet and not play the gramophone. But I prefer playing with my trains to listening to pop music anyhow.

  I like trains very much. At home in my bedroom I have a train set. It's a Hornby, 'O' gauge. Most boys have 'OO' electric trains, but the 'O' trains are bigger, and you have to wind them up with a key. I don't like electric trains. I like steam.

  Every week I go on the train. Wednesday is my mummy's day for beauty treatment, so I use my pocket money on that day, buy a ticket and go somewhere on my own.

  I like to go to Eastleigh to see the engine shed. I sometimes go up to London. I know the London trip well because whenever my mummy goes shopping I go up to town with her. She goes first class and always eats breakfast in the restaurant car on the train, where she has coffee poured from a silver pot with a neck like a swan by a waiter called Ginger who wears a red short jacket, and in London she likes to go to Harrods and buy things. When I go with her we go in a black taxi where two of the seats face backwards and pop down out of the wall. I like taxis. We do not have taxis like that in Salisbury.

  Once I made Mummy laugh in the taxi. We came over a bridge across the River Thames and passed a big black building with a tower and a clock. Mummy says everything in London is black because of the Germans. They dropped a lot of bombs and the smoke from the bombs made everything in London black, just like the inside of the chimney. But that was almost twenty years ago now, so I wonder why the rain has not washed all the soot away?

  I recognized the building with the clock because there is a picture of it on the HP sauce bottles, so I asked Mummy if it was the sauce factory.

  She thought this was very funny. It is really a place called the Houses of Parliament and some people call it Big Ben, though I think that is pretty funny. Whoever thought of calling a house by someone's name?

  When I said that thing about the sauce factory Mummy ran her hand through my hair and smiled at me. Her smile sometimes looks quite sad when she looks at me, and sometimes she even has tears. But anyway I think she shouldn't do that thing with my hair anymore, because I am not a child.

  The lady on the train touched my hair too. But I don't like to think about it.

  When I have been to London I have seen some very famous trains. I have seen The Golden Arrow which goes to France, and The Royal Scot. I wish I could see Mallard. Its number is 4468. It is blue and it broke the record for the fastest train at 126 miles per hour. In America the trains are huge, and I would like to see them. I am saving my pocket money because if I went to America I would go to Disneyland. Perhaps when I was there I would also see Superman or Batman. I like the Justice League of America very much. The Americans are lucky. I wish we had superheroes in England too. It's funny though, because they did not come and save President Kennedy, even though he saved the world from the atom bomb and the Communists. I think Dan Dare is probably better than Superman, even though he has to use a plane to fly.

  In Swindon, which is very famous for railways, I saw Hereward the Wake and Shooting Star. These are sister trains. They are 7P6F 4-6-2 class with the numbers 70037 and 70029. I collect train numbers and write them down in a little black book. Mummy gave me the book. It has a leather cover with a gold line round it. When I get home I take my ABC books out and underline all the trains I have seen. I also write down the names of special trains, like the Winston Churchill, Tintagel and Boadicea, and also Pullman carriages. Pullmans are special passenger cars for very rich and posh people. They have a brown and cream livery and little fancy lights on the tables. I would like to go on a Pullman but I think I will never have enough money for that. The Pullmans are divided into kitchen cars, brake cars and parlour cars. I have seen Agatha, Evadne, Lucille, Philomel, Ursula and Sheila. One day I would like to go on The Brighton Belle or the boat train to Southampton, but when I got to Southampton I would not go on the boat because I am frightened of the sea.

  The lady on the train was called Rosemary, which is also the name of a Pullman parlour car. She was wearing a bracelet, and that was what started the trouble. I do not believe what she told me about that bracelet. Mummy says that because people think I am simple they sometimes make things up and I do not have to believe everything a person says even if they are grown-ups, because grown-ups do not always tell the truth. And also she says that sometimes grownups do nasty things to people like me. Like that Rosemary in the train. But I don't want to think about her. She is a nasty piece of work.

  As long as I remember my manners and am polite Mummy says I will always be all right, because I am quite handsome. I am tall and have dark hair. It is cut in the usual way for a man. I would like to have long hair like The Beatles, but I go to the barber with my daddy and the barber always uses the electric razor up the back of my neck. Daddy says The Beatles are like pansies.

  I wish Daddy liked me a bit more, and I could play cricket with him or even football. Daddy does not like me to call him Daddy. I tried one day calling him Dad instead but he says there is no need to call him anything in front of people. Most people call him Bill, which is short for William. No one I have asked knows why Bill is short for William, but you would think Bill was short for Billiam, which would be a stupid name.

  I don't know why Daddy doesn't like me very much. He is usually very friendly with men. He goes to the Red Lion with them and plays darts and drinks beer. But he never takes me with him. Even though I am over eighteen.

  I can remember when I was still practically a child and he'd come to my bedroom in the night and read me stories by the nightlight, which was a red and white mushroom. When he thought I was asleep he would talk to me, saying horrid things in a hissing voice. One day he spat on my bed. But I didn't tell Mummy about that, even though I was frightened that she might think it was me who spat on the quilted counterpane. I am more scared of Daddy than Mummy. He has got very strong hands. Daddy whispered in my ear one night that I was not his son, and one day he told a lady in a shop that I was bitten by a monkey when I was a baby, but I cannot believe that this is true because whoever heard of monkeys living in Salisbury except when the circus comes? I am not saying that I think my daddy is a liar, though perhaps he was confused because he might have had a drink in the pub at lunchtime or something. I don't like being alone with him very much, and I told Mummy this but she says I must always remember how brave Daddy is, and how he risks his life every day to put the food on our table, although I have never seen him do this. Cook usually puts the food on the table. Daddy's work sometimes means he has to go away for a few days and sometimes he stays out till very late at night and comes in shouting because he is drunk. Sometimes this makes Mummy very sad, and while we are sitting watching the television I can see that she is crying, even though we might be watching something funny like Steptoe and Son or Benny Hill, or the comedy bits in the Black and White Minstrel Show.

  Rosemary, the lady I met on the train, was like the girls in the Black and White Minstrel Show. They all wear sparkly dresses and twinkling top hats and smile all the time. They are called the Television Toppers and I think they are all six foot tall, the same height as me. But this lady was much smaller than that, although she was very pretty with that kind of yellow hair, all fluffed up, like Marilyn Monroe before she killed herself.

  Her jumper was very tight for a lady. It was pink. She also wore a tight skirt and had a shiny patent leather handbag. She was in a compartment without any men, which was why I went and sat with her, although I wish I had not. After the guard took our tickets I saw that we were both going to Salisbury. I had been up to Vauxhall, which is a good station for trainspotting as all the trains coming out of Waterloo go through it. I saw quite a few Q1s. The Q1 locomotive weighs 51 tons and 5 cwt and its driving wheel is 5 foot 1 inch in diameter. But mainly I saw diesels and electrics, which are not much fun. Electrics don't even look as though there is a locomotive, just a row of boring passenger cars. Soon I be
lieve there will be no more steam trains and that will be the beginning of the end for the railways. And a man called Doctor Beeching is planning to give many stations and branch lines the axe. In my opinion doctors should stick to looking after people, and not waste their time fiddling about with our trains.

  After Basingstoke (shed number 70D, Southern Region) nearly everyone got off the train. We were travelling on 80031, a standard 2-6-4, 88 ton 10 cwt locomotive with a 5 foot 8 inch driving wheel. When I boarded the train at Waterloo I went to the buffet and treated myself to a sandwich and a cup of tea. I like the tea on trains, but most people do not.

  When I was finished I moved along and sat in a crowded second class slide-door compartment. But at Woking all the ladies in the compartment got out, and I was left on my own with two men in bowler hats, so I moved along and found one near the back of the train with only two women in it.

  Rosemary, in the pink pullover, was reading a magazine about pop music. Every time she turned the page her gold bracelet jangled. I couldn't take my eyes off the bracelet because it was all gold charms, and one of them was a wonderful train. It was a very early locomotive, maybe even a model of Stephenson's Rocket. There were other charms on the bracelet but I wanted to look closely at Rocket. One day I will go to the Science Museum in London and see Rocket, maybe even touch it if there is not a fence in the way.

  The woman Rosemary sighed when she saw me watching her and pulled at her jumper, so I looked down at my lap. I had bought myself a copy of The Eagle at Waterloo, and read that, trying to sneak glimpses at the charm over the top of the comic. Dan Dare, pilot of the future, was as usual in a good adventure, fighting the Mekon.