The Stalking of Louise Copperfield

by Robert W Fisk

  At the second Custody Hearing it all went wrong for Louise. The proceedings occurred in a small room, quite unlike a Court Room. The judge made it clear that this was not a Court of Criminal Law, but a Family Court that had the duty of placing children into the best possible situation following an irreconcilable breakdown in a family relationship.

  Her Honour Judge Daniels made it clear that lawyers could speak when necessary, and could advise, but the hearing was essentially for the mother and father of the child.

  Louise spoke first. She said that Frank abused her verbally and threw violent rages. He had not hurt her but had knocked Kezia down. Louise did not mention that now that she had her share of the money, she could live independently. She simply said that she found she was happier and better off on her own. Neither Brett Shaw nor Louise realised that the Court assumed her to be saying that she would use the State Welfare system and support from Frank to survive.

  Frank said that Louise was so anxious and depressed that he could not live with her. Her constant hen pecking and over-control of Frank and the two children had a particularly detrimental effect on Alexander, who at seven was an impressionable little boy. The manner in which he was treated at his age would have a major effect on the way he would be as an adult. He had met another lady, who was excellent with Alexander. He could see no way to reconcile their marriage.

  Frank’s lawyer, Sadie Nielson from Wellington, was a small sharp woman who was aggressive and demanding. When Louise sat down, Ms Nielson spoke.

  “Mrs Copperfield, have you ever been unfaithful?” Ms Nielson asked.

  “You don’t have to answer that,” said the judge.

  “I don’t mind. No I haven’t,” Louise replied.

  “I have an affidavit from a Martin Rothman of Rothman Investigation to say that at a party on January the fifth this year, a man who was not your husband had sex with you,” said Ms Nielson, who was called Shady Nielson behind her back. “Furthermore, you made an exhibition of yourself with dancing and singing and were obviously under the influence of drugs or alcohol or both. Do you deny that?”

  “Yes,” said Louise. “I had no idea who it was because I was drugged.”

  “You were drugged?” asked Ms Nielson. “And you don’t deny you had sex with an unknown man? And you are so casual about telling us?

  Brett Shaw got to his feet.

  “If I may, Ma’am,” he said to Judge Daniels. “Mrs Copperfield has registered a complaint with the police that at Mr Larcombe’s party she was secretly drugged then raped while stupefied.”

  “Where is your evidence?” spat Ms Nielson.

  “It is on record,” said Brett Shaw.

  “The rules of the Family Court require all evidence to be presented on the day.” Sadie Nielson was crowing now. “Mrs Copperfield, have you ever needed counselling?”

  Brett Shaw asked the Judge whether she would allow this line of questioning.

  “Mr Copperfield has already indicated that a major reason for his leaving was the effect of Mrs Copperfield’s manner with the children and with her husband. I consider questions regarding counselling to be relevant,” Judge Daniels stated.

  “Is it true that you sought help from Anxiety Counselling, a clinic dealing among other matters with suicide prevention.”

  “Yes,” said Louise. “After Frank left and took Alexander away and refused to let me see him.”

  “Please do not beg the question,” said Ms Nielson. “Did the counselling concern suicide prevention?”

  “You don’t have to answer that,” said the magistrate, so Louise remained silent.

  “I’ll take that as a yes,” said Ms Nielson.

  ‘”Your Honour!”” said Brett Shaw. “I really do not think Mrs Copperfield has ever contemplated suicide. This is a smear campaign.”

  “Ms Nielson has not suggested Mrs Copperfield contemplated suicide, merely that the level of counselling included that possibility.,” said Judge Daniels.

  It was all moving too fast for Louise. She had not expected this.

  “Mrs Copperfield, is it true that you became so disturbed that your employer, the Wahanui Hospital Board, removed you from a position of trust, following which you resigned?”

  “Yes,” said Louise, close to tears.

  “Speak clearly for the Court, please,” said Mrs Nielson.

  Ms Nielson paused dramatically, waiting for Louise to mutter “Yes” in a loud voice before sitting down.

  Frank asked to speak.

  “Louise was always high maintenance,” he said. “As my building business became successful I could spend less and less time with her. She became suicidal but would not seek help. Sadly, it was not enough and she became bitter and withdrawn. The marriage became very unpleasant, not helped by the stirring of Louise’s daughter, Kezia, who is seventeen and now living unmarried with an Arab boy.

  “I have been told by a person I trust that my then wife Louise slept with a Mr Nigel Jones, a colleague of mine. That news soured me and I found solace with another woman.”

  “Mr Copperfield, you are under oath,” said Judge Daniels. “You cannot bring hearsay into this Court. Is the informant in the Court today?”

  “Yes, Charlotte Hoar, my new partner. She was with Mr Jones when he slept with Louise.”

  “Miss Hoar, step up please, and take the oath,” said Judge Daniels.”

  Charlotte had not expected to be able to wound Louise but seized the opportunity when the opportunity fell into her lap. She was delighted. This was better than Pindone, better than Facebook. ‘Ultor. Vengeance,’ she thought.

  Outwardly, Charlotte put on a modest demeanour and quietly answered all of the preliminary questions asked by the Judge. As she answered the obvious questions about Nigel and herself, and Louise and Nigel, she cried a little and said how ashamed she was to be saying things about a person she had always called a friend, and who she still saw even though Nigel’s act of unfaithfulness had caused Charlotte’s partnership of some years to dissolve.

  In her summation, Her Honour Judge Daniels said that she found aspects of Louise Copperfield’s character to be dubious and ruled that full custody would be given to Frank Copperfield and his partner, Charlotte Hoar. Alexander could be with Louise for two weeks a year and for one weekend a month.

  Charlotte had won her final victory over Louise. She had destroyed her character, and taken away both her child and husband. Louise left Court in the depths of despair.

  CHAPTER 50.

  Charlotte was over the moon about the Court’s verdict. This was the best payback ever for Louise stealing her schoolgirl lover and more recently her partner Nigel Jones. She had been getting revenge by stalking Louise but this topped the lot.

  Frank was also very pleased. He had engaged a top lawyer in the field of matrimonial disputes. He had been told to not agree to anything, not to participate in any negotiation but to wait for the time when the Court would be forced to decide for the couple the fate of their children. His lawyer had made a convincing case that Louise would be a bad influence for Alexander. Against the odds, he had won exactly what he wanted, custody of Alexander under terms that he could circumvent to suit his wishes.

  He was not so pleased about the ethics of his lawyer. Frank believed that Larcombe had drugged Louise in order to sleep with her to win a stupid bet on a technicality that Frank would not accept: Larcombe had not drugged Louise but had taken advantage of her when somebody else did. He was surprised that Nigel Jones had been the one, according to Nigel’s partner Charlotte. It never occurred to him that Charlotte came to him initially out of revenge.

  As for Louise, she had never felt so abandoned and desperate. She hit rock bottom. She felt wretched and ashamed. Family Court issues are not normally made public, which was a small consolation, but there was nothing to stop participants talking about what had happened.

  Although Judge Daniels had told the people involved not to talk about the events within the Court, to mention only the outcomes -
that Frank had been given custody of Alexander while Kezia remained in her mother’s care - Louise felt that everybody knew her troubles and was avoiding her. Her response was to stay inside the house as much as possible because she simply could not face people, except for Jayne, Father Raymond Larkin and surprisingly, when he called around, Nigel Jones.

  Louise missed Kezia very much and worried about her. Although Louise was at an all-time low she hid her feelings from Kezia, telling her instead how happy she was and how busy but in reality she insisted on staying in the house with all the doors locked. She did nothing except sit staring into space and occasionally crying or playing endless games on her iPad. But she did have support, and some of it from unlikely quarters.

  She cried a lot. When she woke in the morning her pillow was always wet. She took shelter in the arms of her iPad, playing endless games and looking at posts and photos from others on Facebook. She never responded or commented, just looked at the posts.

  “Come on, girl,” said Jayne, who treated Louise as a friend. “Every day above ground is a good day.”

  “I don’t want to be above ground,” said Louise but her upbringing stopped her from saying she would rather be dead.

  “I think you should appeal against the Family Court’s decision,” said Jayne. “You went in naïve and ill-prepared and Frank wiped the floor with you. You need to engage a private investigator to do some research on Frank and also Charlotte, you need a good law firm, and you need an advisor on public relations.”

  “Waste of time and money,” said Louise, but Jayne’s comments were in the back of her mind, the seed of an idea eventually sprouting and soon to bear fruit. When the time was ripe the seed began to grow, began to form as a way forward for Louise, and eventually for other women facing overwhelming odds.

  “Come on, if you look awful, you’ll feel awful,” said Jayne. “Hair, nails, new clothes, retail therapy, that’s what you need. I’ll take you to town tomorrow afternoon, when I knock off.”

  The next day Louise pleaded a headache. Jayne sat with her, encouraging her to make the hair appointment at least, but Louise did not respond so Jayne rang and postponed it for a week.

  Mrs Hohepa brought Louise chicken soup and some Maori kai that Louise could not identify.

  “This stew’s got some rakau rongoa in it,” said Mrs Hohepa. “The old time Maoris, they knew about these things, eh? They used herbs and leaves to make you feel better.”

  But Louise did not feel better. Mrs Hohepa offered Maori massage for depression but Louise said no thank you. Instead, Mrs Hohepa would sit with Louise and talk about her family.

  “Uncle Hori, he had a good dog, eh? Dog was trained to bring back a ball or a stick. He trained the dog to bring back anything that Uncle Hori shot. You’re not allowed to eat native pigeons, eh.”

  Louise nodded. Pigeons were once a staple diet of the Maori but the birds had to be conserved for future generations to enjoy and so were a protected species.

  “One day Uncle Hori shot a kereru, a wood pigeon. It sat on a branch and asked to be kai, eh? So Uncle Hori shot it and carried it home. On the way he met the pakeha ranger. Thinking quickly, Uncle Hori threw the dead bird into the bushes and walked towards the ranger and shook his hand.

  “ ‘Nice to see you too, Hori,’ said the ranger. ‘You’re not poaching wood pigeons, are you?’

  “ ‘Oh, no Sir, I wouldn’t do that!’ said Uncle Hori as the dog came running out of the bushes with the dead wood pigeon in his mouth.

  “ ‘What’s that, then, eh?’ asked the ranger.

  “Eh, wah. Poor Uncle Hori,” laughed Mrs Hohepa. “He had to pay a hundred and fifty dollar fine. And the ranger kept the pigeon!”

  Louise laughed at the story. Mrs Hohepa seemed to have an unending supply of such stories. Louise wondered what she could do for Mrs Hohepa, who had a lot more pride than wealth so it was no use offering her money. Louise knew the lady would not accept a gift, except for something personal and of little value. Rewarding Mrs Hohepa was another seed that implanted itself in Louise’s mind and began to grow in spite of the darkness in that space.

  Father Raymond Larkin knew depression when he saw it. Many of his parishioners suffered from it, and at times he had suffered also. Prayer helped some, ritual helped others, but the most effective of all was a simple visit and a cup of tea. It took its toll on the priest, who always seemed to give out his mental energies for little return.

  “Louise, I need your help,” he said one day. “Can you come with me please?”

  Louise pulled on street clothes. They looked rumpled and uncared for but that mirrored how she felt so she did not care. The priest drove Louise to a house that looked like a small box.

  “We start here,” Father Larkin said. “I have to get this lady out of bed and moving but it’s a hard job for a man.”

  The lady concerned was a sparrow, with matchstick bones and no flesh. She lay in her bed, which smelled and needed to be changed.

  “Can you just sit on that chair for me, please?” asked Louise. She helped the woman out of bed. The woman did as she was told, as if Louise owned the house not her. Louise found a linen cupboard and changed the sheets. She thought she would turn the mattress which had hollowed with constant use but when she got the double mattress on its edge, it flopped and Louise lost her grip.

  The woman went to the side of the bed and used her sparrow arms so that Louise and she could lift the mattress and roll it over.

  “Been going to do that for a long time,” said the woman. Louise was surprised that the woman had spoken. She looked at her closely.

  The woman was in her early fifties, perhaps late forties. Her body was very thin, her arms and legs were very thin, her face was thin. Even her hair was thin.

  “I’ll take these sheets home and bring them back tomorrow,” said Louise.

  “It’s the cancer,” said the woman by way of explanation. Neither woman mentioned cancer again.

  Louise asked, “When was your last meal?”

  The woman replied, “Living on Weetbix and water.”

  “That’s why you’re so thin and so weak,” said Louise. “What medication are you on?”

  The woman answered, “Don’t bother with the pills.”

  “But you should. You could die if you don’t.”

  The woman looked at Louise. “So what? Who’s going to miss me?”

  “Father Larkin for one. Now I’ve met you, I’ll probably miss you too.”

  The woman mumbled, “There’s no-one else.”

  Father Larkin knocked on the bedroom door. “Ah. There you both are,” he said brightly, as if he had had no idea. “Mrs Brough, could I ask you to make some muffins before this afternoon? I have a sales table in Wahanui and I need things like muffins. It’s for children who don’t have any lunch. The teachers buy the food and I pay the bills. But to raise money we need baking for the sales table.”

  Mrs Brough said, “Oh Father Larkin. I don’t think I have the energy. Can you ask someone else?”

  Louise understood Father Larkin’s tactics when she heard him say, “Mrs Brough, I have great sympathy for you, but no matter how badly you feel, there is always someone worse off than you.”

  “I’ll help you, Mrs Brough. We can bake together,” said Louise.

  “Would you?” asked Mrs Brough. “Let me check what I need.”

  Mrs Brough went through to her kitchen, still in her pyjamas.

  Father Larkin muttered to Louise, “She is clinically depressed, certain that she has cancer. Doctors have lost patience with her. She really needs to be in a special ward in Christchurch but there’s no way she’s going to leave Wahanui.”

  Louise lost sight of her own problems for a while as she helped Mrs Brough make muffins. Father Larkin returned after lunch. He brought fresh milk and a loaf of bread.

  “Oh, well done, ladies,” he said. “A first class job. Thank you Mrs Brough. Can you bake me a sponge cake for tomorrow? I have a man living on his ow
n and tomorrow is his birthday.”

  “I’ll see what I can do,” said Mrs Brough. She looked a new woman, wearing a print dress with her hair combed after her long overdue shower.

  The priest and Louise left Mrs Brough. Father Larkin drove into to the centre of Wahanui, to where some trestle tables had been set up on the pavement. People were crowded around trying to get served.

  “Oh, Louise. This group needs some leadership,” said Father Larkin. “Can I put you in charge? They just need a little direction.”

  There were three women, the baking they were selling was mixed; bags were at one end and a cash box at the other end of the three trestle tables that sat end on end. The women accepted Louise into their ranks as soon as Father Larkin said, “I’ve brought Louise along to tell you what to do.”

  Then he left.

  Louise looked at their name tags pinned on their fronts.

  “Mrs Johnson, can you move the sponges and light cakes to the far end and look after them please? Mrs Dennison, please bring the pikelets and scones and the like to this end. Can you manage that area on your own? Mrs Thorn and I will look after the middle section, won’t we Mrs Thorn.”

  The crowd of buyers separated into distinct groups and order was restored. Louise made a label for herself. She put Louise Moore on it without realising that she was leaving Mrs Copperfield behind as she began to clear out the clutter in her head.

  Father Larkin drove her home. She was so tired she went to bed early and had a good night’s sleep, the first in a long time. Her pillow was dry in the morning. She hoped Father Larkin could make use of her again some time.

  THE TIDE TURNS

  where things get better.

  CHAPTER 51.

  Louise was in a bad way, staying in the house now she had no job to go to, crying at times, and filling her time with her iPad and puzzles. Although she tried to avoid Facebook she was driven to check what was being said about her after which she would spend hours reading posts. Friends were worried.