As Tony went on with this at one with his inner child routine, my growing sense of rage was only mitigated by the fear that Sandy might start making nauseated sounds in the back row.
Then Maeve Doherty stepped up to the plate. She looked at him with cool detachment.
“Now then, Mr. Hobbs,” she began. “We’ve just heard your appreciation of the joys of fatherhood. Which, of course, is most commendable. Just out of interest, sir, why did you wait so long before having children?”
“My Lord,” Lucinda Fforde said, sounding truly annoyed. “I really must object to this line of questioning. What on earth does this have to do with the matter at hand?”
“Let the witness answer the question,” Traynor said.
“And I’m happy to answer it,” Tony said. “The reason I didn’t have children until I met Sally was because of the nature of my profession, and the fact that, because I was a nomadic journalist—wandering from war to war, foreign capital to foreign capital—I simply never had the chance to meet someone, settle down. But then I met Sally—and her pregnancy coincided with my return to London and the foreign editorship of the Chronicle. So this seemed like the ideal moment to make a commitment both to her and to fatherhood.”
“And before this, you simply had no experience of fatherhood?”
“No, none whatsoever.”
“You’re obviously making up for lost time.”
“Ms. Doherty . . . ,” Traynor said witheringly.
“I withdraw the comment. Now Mr. Hobbs, let’s turn to another pertinent issue here . . . your decision to leave the Chronicle. You worked for the Chronicle for over twenty years. Is that correct?”
“Yes, that’s right.”
“One of their most distinguished foreign correspondents, covering, as you mentioned, a goodly number of wars, not to mention being the Chronicle’s man in Washington, Tokyo, Frankfurt, Paris, Cairo. And then, just over a year ago, you were recalled to London to become the foreign editor. Were you pleased about this recall?”
“My Lord, I must object again,” Lucinda Fforde said. “This is deviating from the . . .”
“Do let us complete this witness’s cross-examination,” Traynor said. “Please answer the question, Mr. Hobbs.”
“It was . . . yes, I’ll admit it . . . it was rather difficult to adjust at first to office life again. But I did settle in . . .”
“Even though, some months later, you not only quit the foreign editorship, but also resigned from the paper. And during this same week, you also decided to end your marriage to Ms. Goodchild, to seek an emergency court order in order to gain custody of your son, and move in with Ms. Dexter. Quite a number of life-changing decisions in just a matter of days, wouldn’t you agree?”
“The decisions I made were all predicated on the danger I perceived my son to be in.”
“All right, let’s say you did decide it was important that you be at home with Jack for a while. Surely the Chronicle has a reasonably enlightened management, and surely, had you gone to them and said you wanted a leave of absence for personal matters, they would have been sympathetic. But to quit your job just like that, after over two decades with the paper? Why did you do that?”
“It wasn’t ‘just like that,’ it was a decision that had been building for some time.”
“Ah then, so you really didn’t readjust to life behind a desk at Wapping . . . ?”
“Not precisely. It was just time to move on . . .”
“Because?”
“Because I had discovered other ambitions.”
“Literary ambitions, perhaps?”
“That’s right. I was writing a novel.”
“Ah yes, your novel. In her witness statement—which you have undoubtedly read—Ms. Goodchild reports that after your son came home from hospital, you became increasingly preoccupied with your novel, locking yourself up in your study, sleeping up there as well, making your wife deal with the broken nights, the four AM feeds, and all the other messy bits of child care.”
Tony had anticipated this question and was completely prepared for it.
“I think that is a profoundly unfair interpretation of the situation. After Sally lost her job . . .”
“Didn’t your wife have no choice but to give up work because of a medical condition that threatened her pregnancy?”
“All right. After my wife was forced to give up work, I was the family’s only source of income. I was putting in nine- to ten-hour days at the Chronicle, a newspaper at which I was no longer happy, and I was also attempting to fulfill a long-standing ambition to write fiction. On top of that, I was also coping with my highly unstable wife who was in the throes of a major depression . . .”
“But who was still coping with all the difficult business of child care. You didn’t have a nanny at home, did you, Mr. Hobbs?”
“No—but that’s because finances were a little tight.”
“So your wife had to handle all that herself. And for someone in the throes of a major postpartum depression, she handled all that rather remarkably, wouldn’t you agree?”
“She spent nearly two months in a psychiatric ward.”
“Where your son was looked after as well. Leaving you plenty of time to develop your friendship with Ms. Dexter into something else . . .”
Traynor let out one of his exasperated sighs.
“Miss Doherty, please resist the temptation to conjecture.”
“Apologies, My Lord. Now when your wife did leave the hospital—and it should be pointed out that, recognizing that she did have a problem, she remained in that psychiatric unit of her own accord—did you not find her a calmer, more rational person?”
“From time to time, yes. But she was also prone to terrible mood swings.”
“As befitting anyone battling with clinical depression.”
“She worried me constantly.”
“Even though there wasn’t a specific incident in which you thought that the child’s life was in danger?”
“You don’t think that breast-feeding a child while on an extremely high dosage of sedatives is endangering a child?”
“Mr. Hobbs,” the judge said, “you are not asking the questions here.”
“Nevertheless I will answer it, My Lord,” Maeve said. “Though it is true that your son ended up in the hospital after this incident, it’s also very clear that a mistake had been made on the part of your wife. A mistake made when she was suffering from both depression and extreme sleep deprivation. A mistake she made while you were getting your eight hours, fast asleep on the sofa in your study.”
She paused for emphasis. Then her voice lost its steely chill and she became dangerously pleasant again.
“A very simple question, sir: did Ms. Goodchild do anything after her return from hospital to make you fear that the child’s life was in danger?”
“As I said before, she suffered from severe mood swings which made me fear that she might lash out.”
“But she didn’t lash out, did she?”
“No, but . . .”
“And on the subject of her earlier outbursts, let me ask you this: have you never said something foolish in anger? An anger fueled by postoperative shock and clinical depression?”
“I’ve never suffered from either of those conditions.”
“That is fortunate. But you’ve never said something in anger?”
“Of course I have. But I’ve never threatened a child’s life . . .”
“Returning to your book . . .”
This sudden veering away from the subject immediately worried me. It showed that Maeve had conceded a point to him and was trying to cover her tracks by moving on as quickly as possible.
“Now, I gather you have received an advance for your novel?”
Tony looked surprised that she knew this information.
“Yes, I’ve recently signed a contract with a publisher.”
“Recently—as in four months ago?”
“That’s right.”
/> “So, up until that point, what did you do for income?”
“I had very little income.”
“But you did have Ms. Dexter . . .”
“When she knew that Jack was in danger, Ms. Dexter . . . Diane . . . did offer to take us in. Then when I decided to look after Jack full-time, she offered to take care of our day-to-day running expenses.”
“Now you say you’re looking after Jack ‘full-time.’ But isn’t it true that Ms. Dexter has hired a full-time nanny to look after Jack?”
“Well, I do need time to work on my book.”
“But you said the nanny is full-time. So how many hours a day do you write?”
“Four to five.”
“And what does the nanny do the rest of the time?”
“All the other duties associated with child care.”
“And so, after the four to five hours of writing time, you’re with your son.”
“That’s right.”
“So you really didn’t leave the Chronicle to look after your son full-time. You left the Chronicle to write your novel. And Ms. Dexter was there to conveniently subsidize that endeavor. Now, Mr. Hobbs, your advance for this novel of yours. It was twenty thousand pounds, if I’m not mistaken?”
Again, Tony looked thrown by the fact that she knew this sum.
“That’s right,” he said.
“Not a vast sum—but about average for a first novel. And if I’m not mistaken, Ms. Dexter hired Jack’s nanny from a firm called Annie’s Nannies, just down the road from you in Battersea.”
“I think that was the name of the firm, yes.”
“You think? Surely a committed father like yourself would have been in on this nannying decision from the start. Now I checked with Annie’s Nannies—and it seems that the average cost of a full-time nanny is, before tax, around twenty thousand pounds per annum. Which means your advance just about covers the cost of your son’s child care, but nothing else. Ms. Dexter does all that, doesn’t she?”
Tony looked at Lucinda Fforde for guidance. She indicated that he had to answer.
“Well . . . I suppose Diane does cover the bulk of the costs.”
“But you yourself bought your wife’s air ticket to the States when she had to rush back after her brother-in-law’s death.”
“Ex-brother-in-law,” Tony said.
“Indeed. But your wife rushed back to comfort her sister, is that not right?”
“Yes, that’s true.”
“Did you encourage her to return to the States?”
“I thought her sister needed her, yes.”
“Did you encourage her. Mr. Hobbs?”
“Like I said, it was a family emergency, so I thought that Sally should be there.”
“Even though she was very worried about being away from her son for several days?”
“We had child care . . . our housekeeper.”
“Answer the question, please. Was she concerned about being away from her son for several days?”
Another nervous glance toward Lucinda Fforde.
“Yes, she was.”
“But you encouraged her to go. You bought her ticket. And while she was out of the country, you went to court and obtained the ex parte court order that temporarily granted you custody of your son. Is that the correct sequence of events, Mr. Hobbs?”
Tony looked deeply uncomfortable.
“Please answer the question,” Traynor said.
“Yes,” Tony said, in a low voice, “that’s the correct sequence of events.”
“One final question. Did you buy your wife an economy class ticket to Boston?”
“I don’t remember.”
“Really? Because I have the ticket here, and it’s a higher-priced business class ticket. You don’t remember buying her this more comfortable class of travel?”
“I let my travel agent handle the details.”
“But surely you instructed him about which class she should travel in? I mean, the difference between an economy and a business class ticket is over three hundred pounds.”
“He might have offered me the business class ticket as an option, and—”
“Because you wanted her to be comfortable on her flight to and from Boston, you approved the extra expenditure?”
“Yes, I suppose so.”
“And having flown her business class to the States, you then went to court to obtain the order effectively barring her from seeing her son . . . ?”
Lucinda Fforde was on her feet. But before she could say anything, Maeve cut her off.
“No further questions,” she said.
Tony did not look happy. Though he’d managed to deflect a few of her attacks, he was also someone who hated to be wrong-footed. And I thought she’d done a rather good job of that.
“Reexamination?” Traynor asked in that slightly bored voice of his.
“Yes, My Lord,” Lucinda Fforde said. “And it is just one question, Mr. Hobbs. Please remind us again why you felt it necessary to seek an emergency order, taking custody of your son.”
“Because I feared that she might fall into one of her dangerous moods again and, this time, actually carry out her threat to kill him.”
I gripped my hands tightly together, trying to force myself to stay silent. I had to admire Lucinda Fforde’s supremely clever tactical logic: after all the palaver of a cross-examination, return to just one central point and undermine all the other points scored earlier against her client by one reiteration of an absolute fucking lie.
When Tony was told he could step down, he returned to his seat next to the Dexter woman. She gave him a little hug and whispered something into his ear. Then her name was called to enter the witness box.
She looked very impressive, standing up there. Poised, assured, just a little regal. I could understand what Tony saw in her. She possessed a certain glamour quotient that I knew he always craved. Just as I also knew that he probably took one look at her property portfolio—and her taste in interior decor—and realized that she was a great catch. Just as she—a woman who had recently edged into fifty—would have admired his professional accomplishments, his worldliness, his sardonic wit, and his need to flee the entrapments of home and office. And then there was the little fact that he came accompanied by a child . . .
But as Lucinda Fforde took her through a review of her witness statement, it was clear how she was playing this game: the great friend who found herself falling in love with her great friend, but knew she couldn’t break up his marriage (especially right after he-and-his had just had a baby). But then, his wife had her “mental crisis,” Tony was desperately worried about little Jack’s safety, she offered a room in her house, one thing led to another, and . . .
“I must emphasize,” she said, “that this wasn’t a coup de foudre. I think I can speak for Tony when I say that we both had these feelings for each other for quite a number of years. Only we never had the opportunity for involvement before now.”
Then Lucinda Fforde took her through these newfound maternal feelings: how she felt completely committed to Jack, how she only wanted the best for him, and how she was taking a considerable amount of time off work to be with him.
“This is possibly the central reason I decided to relocate to Sydney for several years. My company is opening a new office there. I could have farmed out the job of getting it up and running to one of several colleagues. But I felt that it would be good to take myself out of the London rat race for a few years, and also give Jack the opportunity of being raised in Sydney.”
She would also be working her schedule to make sure that she would have ample time with him. And she went on to describe the house she had rented in Point Piper—right on the water and near excellent schools (when that time came). As she went on in this real estate agent vein, I found myself clutching my hands together again in an attempt to keep myself under control. Because I wanted to tell her just what a lying bitch I thought she was.
But then, finally, she came around to t
he subject of me.
“I’ve never met Sally Goodchild. I certainly hold nothing against her. On the contrary, I feel so desperately sorry for her, and can only imagine what the horror of the past few months must have been like. I’m certain that she regrets her actions. And God knows, I do believe in rehabilitation and forgiveness. Which is why I would never bar her from Jack, and would welcome an open visiting arrangement in the future.”
As soon as she said that, I had a picture of myself, jet-lagged out of my brains after a twenty-six-hour flight to the bottom of the world, staying in some fleabag motel, then taking a bus out to her palatial harborside house, to be greeted by a little boy with a thick Aussie accent, turning to the Dexter woman and saying, “But, Mum, I don’t want to go off with her for the day.”
Diane Dexter finished off her testimony for Lucinda Fforde with the statement: “I do hope that Ms. Goodchild will make a full recovery—and that, one day in the future, perhaps we can be friends.”
Absolutely. In fact I’ll tell you exactly when we can be friends. On the twelfth of never.
Maeve Doherty stood up and smiled evenly at the woman in the witness stand.
“You’ve been married twice in the past, haven’t you, Ms. Dexter?”
She didn’t like that question and it showed.
“Yes, that’s right,” she said.
“And did you try to have children during these marriages?”
“Yes, of course I tried to have children during these marriages.”
“And you did have a miscarriage around 1990?”
“Yes—I did. And I know what your next question will be and I’d like to answer it . . .”
The Douglas Kennedy Collection #1 Page 105
