Be Near Me

by Andrew O'Hagan

  The next morning, we heard evidence from the young people via a live television link, and, in this way, the Procurator Fiscal extracted their version of the damage done to them and the liberties taken. Lisa exhibited all the fear and excitement one might have expected: she seemed very pleased to be on television at last, and she told lies, though none that mattered a great deal by that stage. My advocate stood up to speak and my heart lurched, something in his method making him more objectionable than anyone.

  'In the year prior to meeting Father David, would you say you were a good pupil, Miss Nolan?'

  'No' bad.'

  'Not bad,' he said. 'Yet not very good, either. It appears you had a truancy problem. It also appears you had been excluded from St Andrew's on two separate occasions for unacceptable behaviour. I put it to you, Miss Nolan, that you were in fact the very opposite of a good pupil, and that, far from Father David exploiting you and your friend, Father David was in fact very kind to you both. He took trouble with you that few other individuals would have taken, and you rewarded him by drawing him into circumstances you knew would be difficult for him. Is that not right?'

  'Naw,' she said. 'It was him that wanted to go to places. It was him that rang us or texted us and wanted to go out. He never even acted like a priest. He acted like he wanted to be our pal or something.'

  'You may say that, Miss Nolan, but the evidence suggests that you in fact turned up several times at the chapel-house uninvited. You pursued Father David at his place of work many times, did you not?'

  'You're twisting everything.'

  'On the contrary, Miss Nolan. I believe I am stating the facts as they occurred over the course of the spring and early summer of this year. Mark McNulty was your boyfriend, was he not? And you were having some difficulty with one another, were you not? And you in fact became jealous of the help that Father David was giving Mark and of the innocent friendship that had grown between them. Is that not right, Miss Nolan?'

  'That's rubbish,' she said. 'He fancied Mark. Everybody knew that.'

  'Did they, Miss Nolan? The record suggests that you could not maintain a relationship with any of your teachers. Your father was often unhappy with you. There is a suggestion here that you have been involved in several bouts of under-age drinking. But now, Miss Nolan, we are to accept you as an excellent judge of character?'

  'You don't know him,' she said.

  'Oh, but you do, Miss Nolan. You know him very well. This man who has been a devoted parish priest for nearly thirty years. This man who played a part in people's lives long before you were born. This civilised man whose reputation you now play with—you know him, do you?'

  'I know he was wrong,' she said. 'He didnae behave right.'

  'Thank you for your lessons in good behaviour, Miss Nolan. We shall be sure to bear them in mind. No more questions.'

  I had asked Hamilton not to berate the witnesses. I wanted the evidence to say what it said and then for him to let me take the stand. He ignored these hopes, thinking me crazy and out of touch with the modes of legal reality, and the trial became a scrap between my world and theirs. I only wanted to answer for my sins, for the exhaustion of my wisdom, to say something true and then go. 'You'll lose if you go on like that,' Hamilton said. 'Think of your mother.'

  'We have lost so much,' I said.

  Mark appeared on the screen looking older. He was wearing a jacket and tie and his hair was combed with a side parting. I saw he had changed in small ways over the summer: he looked that day like a young man about to take on the world, using his hands to articulate the steps of his molestation as if explaining the rules of modern economics. Measures of pride and reason had embedded themselves in Mark's speech; he knew who he wanted to be and his charisma had quietened into a display of refreshing plausibility. In some rather even way, I was proud of him. That was my feeling. He didn't hate anybody and his evidence, if anything, was a show of love, a good and timely gift of loyalty to his broken father. I watched the screen without hearing many of his actual words: it was just his face, the face of the boy with brown eyes who shouted at passing trains. With every little thing he said I knew that my case was done for.

  'Would you say you led this gentleman on?' said Hamilton.

  'I wasn't in the best nick at the time,' said Mark.

  'You what?' said the Sheriff.

  'I'm sorry. I wasn't in the best of health at that time,' said Mark. 'I was drinking and ... it was drugs. He took them with me.'

  'Right,' said Hamilton. 'But, in your mind, there is no sense in which you took advantage of his generosity? You didn't abuse his weakness? It didn't occur to you that the accused might be lonely?'

  'Aye,' said Mark. 'I felt sorry for him.'

  'And you took him to one of your drinking dens, did you, because you felt sorry for him? You brought drugs into his house because you felt sorry for him? You danced in his sitting room for the same reason? And you lay down on the sofa with him that night because you felt sorry for him? Is that what you would like the court to believe, Mr McNulty?'

  'He was my friend,' said Mark.

  'And you were excited to have a friend like that, were you not? A priest with a powerful position in the parish?'

  'It was just somewhere to go,' said Mark.

  'And after your work at the service station, you thought it wise to go looking for your friend, to wake him up, and it never occurred to you that this would present a difficulty for my client?'

  'He could have said no. He could have told me to go away. He was supposed to be the adult, wasn't he?'

  There was a mumble from the gallery. Somebody raised their voice. 'Ya dirty English bastard!' it said. 'Paedophile!'

  Sheriff Wilson spoke loudly into the microphone and waved his hand at the court officers. 'Remove that man,' he said. 'I demand order in this court. Order!'

  One could hear the shouts fade to nothing in the hall outside the courtroom. Mark was looking from right to left on the TV monitor. It must have been confusing not to know what was happening. At that point, with Hamilton walking forward with a flash of steel in his eyes, I decided the business had to end. The knot was so carefully folded in Mark's tie and his lips were red and his eyes open to the future as if the world of possibility was bright and new every day. His face was young and he could not see me as I got to my feet.

  'Please stop,' I said, and Hamilton turned.

  'What is it now?' said the Sheriff. 'This is your defence counsel, Mr Anderton. Do you wish to speak with him in private?'

  'Will you just stop?' I said. 'It was my fault.'

  'Please sit down,' said the Sheriff.

  'It was my fault,' I said. 'Never mind about the words.'

  'Silence! Would you please both approach the bench.'

  Shaking his head, Hamilton joined the Fiscal and the Sheriff leaned down to speak with both of them. The Sheriff then said there would be an adjournment of fifteen minutes.

  I waited downstairs with my eyes fixed on the concrete floor while Hamilton told me I was ruining my chances of acquittal. 'You mustn't lose your footing,' he said. 'We are in a stronger position than you think.'

  'You might be,' I said. 'But I am not.'

  'They will ask you to take the stand.'

  'I'm ready for that,' I said. 'It is all I wanted.'

  On the stand, I wasn't really listening to Hamilton's questions. I fear he didn't understand my position and was trying to wiggle me into blaming everybody other than myself. 'Father David,' he said, 'could this situation with the young people in Dalgarnock be described as having been a sort of culture clash?'

  'Not really,' I said. 'Not in the terms you mean. When it comes down to it, I am more childish than they are. And, in relation to the things that matter to them, the young people were more pious than me.'

  I see.

  Hamilton hesitated, then he blushed, and he looked through me as if trying to find one final way of turning the proceedings to my advantage. He stroked his silk tie and waited for another m
oment, then he gathered up his gown and sat back at the table. 'No more questions.'

  Sheriff Wilson probed under his wig with the blunt end of a pencil. The Fiscal had already cross-examined me, but the Sheriff seemed unhappy on a number of counts. He kept saying he wished to clarify things in order to assist the jury. He put down the pencil, propped his right elbow on the bench and cupped his face.

  'David Anderton. Let me be sure of something. Have you shown contempt for this court?'

  'No, Your Lordship,' I said, 'not for the court, only for me inside it.'

  'Well, I'll take that on trust. This has been a most vexing few days. If I suspect you have been wasting my time I will come down very hard. Do you understand?'

  'Yes, sir.'

  'You came to this place and pled not guilty to a charge of assaulting this young man, Mark McNulty. Do you wish now to change your plea?'

  'I hated the wording of the charge, sir. I cannot conceive of myself as having assaulted him or attacked him.'

  'What precisely did you do?'

  'I kissed him.'

  'Well, Mr Anderton. He was a fifteen-year-old boy. I'm not at all sure what country you come from, but under the laws of Scotland, in the alleged circumstances, we may call that assault. We may choose to call it other things as well, but in this case you are accused of assault.'

  'My crime, Your Lordship, if I may say so, was a crime of mis-recognition. For a short time, I allowed myself to be in thrall to an unsuitable person. But I did not assault him and could not go along with myself if I perceived that I did.'

  'Then perhaps you might have to alter your perception, Mr Anderton. I am bound to tell you, sir, that your attitude in this court is annoying. Your remarks are obtuse. From your behaviour, sir, I dare say you imagine your case is soon to be taken down in the book of martyrs, but please allow me to tell you that it will not. You stand accused of assaulting a young man. A young man over whom you had influence and authority. Do you understand?'

  'All too well, Your Lordship.'

  'I take it you are not preparing for the role of Hamlet, Mr Anderton?'

  'No, sir, I am not.'

  'You might have destroyed that young man's innocence.' Something in his crimson-coloured face made me realise there was nothing to fight for and nothing to lose.

  'I rather doubt it,' I said. 'The young man has no innocence. I say that not in my own defence but in his.'

  'That is a horrible thing to say. And to hear it from a member of the clergy—the Catholic clergy—is shocking.'

  'I don't mean to shock anyone,' I said, only to give a precise account of the circumstances.'

  'I believe the chapel-house at Dalgarnock has been burned down,' he said. 'And you have left the parish, is that correct?'

  'Yes, indeed, Your Lordship.'

  'And you still have a job?'

  'No, sir,' I said. 'My job is to tell the truth in this court.'

  'I am glad to hear it. But you do not seem overly attached to your vocation, Mr Anderton. Is that right?'

  'I could not have been more attached, Your Lordship. My job was to know God and to serve Him.'

  'And you tried to do this in the parish of Dalgarnock?'

  'My job was to help people to establish the kingdom of God in their own souls.'

  'And you decided to go about this, did you, by staying up all night drinking with a difficult youth?'

  I was silent at first. 'I made many mistakes,' I said.

  'And perhaps none so costly,' said the Sheriff. 'Your selfish behaviour may have blighted this young man's youth, Mr Anderton. And you may have put a pall on the religious feelings of the people of that town.'

  'I hope not,' I said. 'And may God forgive me if I did. But I believe the people will forget me before I forget them.'

  'That is not for you to judge, sir,' he said. 'I must say, Mr Anderton, you are a stranger in this court, but one gets the impression from what you have said here today that you are as much a stranger to yourself. I share the young man's instinct to pity you.'

  I turned to look at him and his eyes were rheumy.

  'Perhaps your own parishioners,' I said, 'the ones you look over each day in these courts, will have more need of your pity than I do.'

  Even I, a stranger, as he said, to the Scottish courts, knew that this conversation was irregular. My advocate stood to one side, smoothing the top of one hand with the other, too respectful by half, while the Fiscal, in a move that one could only imagine was bred of some great familiarity with His Lordship's methods, rolled his eyes and stacked his papers.

  'I'm not particularly interested in your character, sir. Based on my experience of it in this court, it is not to my mind an especially admirable one. But it is not your vanity which is on trial. We will stick to the facts. After carousing on the housing estate with him, did you then invite this young man into your house?'

  'Yes.'

  'At what time?'

  'It was rather late.'

  'The middle of the night.'

  'Yes, I'd say so.'

  'And did you ply him with drink?'

  'No, My Lord. He went in search of something to drink, and I allowed him to do that. I also allowed him to drink what he found. But I'd say he had fairly plied himself with drink before we met that night.'

  'Yet you drank alongside him?'

  'I did.'

  'And you took drugs together?'

  'Yes.'

  'A quantity of Ecstasy tablets, we gather?'

  'So I believe.'

  'And you sat down with him on the sofa?'

  'I did.'

  'And you tried to kiss him there.'

  'Yes.'

  'And he refused.'

  'That's right.'

  'And at that point Mrs Poole entered the house?'

  'Yes, indeed.'

  'And let me ask you one more thing, Mr Anderton. If the young man had not refused, would you have gone further?'

  I looked to the back of the court and saw the people. Their faces were almost brittle with hatred. They shook their heads in their winter jackets and swore to a communion with their own kind.

  'Yes,' I said.

  One or two jurors sighed into their folded arms. The day then floated into legalese, adjournments and delays. I thought the trial might afford my pride one last, intense hurrah, that some sense of dignity might contradict the filth of the accusation. But that did not happen in Court Number One, where larger, more traditional proprieties worked in their way to mock my idle romances. Due process murdered my conceit. Even my mother's face, when I saw it, was a mask of embarrassment.

  'This man, for whatever reason, fooled a community into trusting him. He fooled them with his talk and with his faith. He fooled them with his background and the height of his ideals. We are not here to try his faith, yet the prosecution may have proved, as he himself may have proved by his own words, that his journey towards this young person was a journey of self-interest. But even that does not matter if he did not, in the event, assault this young man. The law in this case does not allow for equivocation when it comes to the naming of crimes: if he did what he says he did, then you are obliged to find him guilty of the charge.'

  My mind wandered. There was a morning in the Bor-ghese Gardens, when I laughed at the freshness of the pines, sure as I walked that life was a long and beautiful and private matter. Inside the gallery the day was silent. I must have spent two hours in the company of Bernini's David. You never saw limbs so clean and strong in all the corners of eternity. His arms showed the strain of pulling back his sling to smite the enemy: his head was alive with curls and his neck appeared to have a pulse, Bernini's addition to God's excellence. Standing in the room with the light pouring through the window, I looked at the eyes and the chest and the broad, spread toes of the perfect man, knowing his beauty spelled out for me the grandeur of life and creation. The room was empty. I reached over and inhaled the old marble before leaning in further, kissing its cool surface with my own lips of flesh and b
lood.

  'Mr Anderton,' said the Sheriff, 'you have been found guilty by the jury.'

  There was another cheer from the rows of spectators.

  Wilson looked down at them and paused. 'I have to tell you that the nature of this crime, coupled with your sinister justifications in this court, could persuade me that a custodial sentence might be imposed. However, I am mindful of the fact that this is a first offence. Let it be the last. I can assure you that any future appearances you might make will result in your going to prison. Do you understand?'

  'Yes, My Lord.'

  'This is a sad day for you, Father Anderton. You have come a long way down in the world to be answering a charge of this sort. However, the law is the law, and you now have a conviction against you. I order that you commit to 120 hours of community service.' He then explained what that would mean and asked for my consent.

  The people came to their feet.

  'No Pope of Rome!'

  'You should've gone doon, ya English bastard!'

  'Corruption.'

  'Away tae fuck. Yous aw jeest stick thegither.'

  'Paedophile!'

  The police weren't obliged to escort me, but they did. My mother and I came down the steps of the courthouse to a waiting taxi. People were jeering around us and at one point a camera hit me on the head. 'Get back, yoose,' said the policeman. 'I mean it. Stay back.'

  The taxi drove away and the shops of Kilmarnock seemed to blur into each other as we passed the lights and the streets grew empty of people. The driver kept looking into his mirror and the journey seemed unending. After a minute or two, my mother twined her fingers into mine on the seat between us and tears came down my face.

  'Don't hate me,' I said.