But it’s unravelling further still.
‘No, it’s not that. It’s Gabriella,’ I tell Eric. ‘I got a call from the school earlier. They said she’d been picked up by the police earlier and they wanted me to go in.’
‘The police? Where? Why? That’s not like Gabs? What was she doing?’
‘I’m not quite sure, Eric,’ I say to him. ‘I spoke to her head of year, Mr Collins. He didn’t sound very concerned; he just asked me to be there at the end of school so we could have a talk.’
‘And he didn’t say why? He didn’t tell you any more?’
‘He said he’d rather discuss it in person, with Gabriella present,’ I tell him. ‘He told me not to worry. But, of course, I am.’
I don’t have any reserves left to deal with this, not after everything else.
‘I’ll try and get back a bit early tonight,’ Eric says, and despite the reason I feel a huge relief. ‘I’ve got a few things that I have to do, but I should be able to get away.’
‘Thank you,’ I say. ‘I’m just coming up to the school now, Eric. I’d better go.’
‘OK,’ Eric says. ‘And Bel…’
‘Yes.’
‘Try not to worry too much, love.’
Ben, Friday afternoon
‘Why do you have to go in?’ Maggie asks. ‘Can’t they just tell you whatever it is over the phone?’
‘Hedda said she needed to discuss something with me – us,’ I correct myself. ‘In person?’
‘You see, this is just the reason…’ Maggie stops, but I know she is angry.
She’s had a difficult day, she’s already told me, at length, as soon as I got in from school. Iris has been fractious and upset for much of it. She took a tumble when Maggie took her to the park before lunch, tried to stand on some sort of roundabout thing and fell off – not far, just far enough to cause a slight bruise to her cheek, and far enough for her to howl all the way home.
Then she slept, but too long for Maggie to relax. She was worried she was not just sleeping off the shock but maybe had some sort of concussion. And of course Maggie worries more about the effects of things on Iris than she used to.
Iris is sitting in her high chair now, with a plate of chicken, potatoes and vegetables in front of her. She’s flicking most of it on the floor, not actually eating it. She still doesn’t look happy and Maggie has clearly had enough.
‘Just the reason for what?’ I ask.
‘Why I never wanted you to go ahead with this bloody legal action,’ Maggie snaps angrily, picking up a piece of chicken and putting it back on Iris’s plate. The two-second rule applies. This is one of the rules I’ve learned as a parent. If food hits the floor, ground – anywhere vaguely dirty, basically – as long as it doesn’t stay there longer than two seconds, it’s OK to pick it up and hand it back to your child to eat.
I don’t imagine Isobel ever applied that rule to her precious children. But there’s sense in the rule, if not much logic. Why waste perfectly good food just because children are particularly inept at the business of moving it a few inches from their plate to their mouth?
‘But we discussed this.’ I don’t feel good about going again, but Hedda said it was urgent.
‘When you say discussion you mean monologue,’ Maggie snaps.
‘That’s not fair. I know you weren’t keen to begin with, but we talked about it.’
Iris is looking increasingly agitated. She can’t hear that our voices are raised, obviously, but some other sense kicks in and she begins shifting around in her high chair looking from her mother to me.
‘I’m really sorry, Maggie. She said it was important.’
‘What’s important is that Iris needs more attention than a normal baby. What’s important is that I sometimes need more help than I otherwise might because of that. What’s important is that we need to sit down and talk properly about cochlear implants, or the implications for her future if she doesn’t have them.’
‘I know that’s important too, but…’
‘But what?’
‘But if the legal action is successful – ’
‘If!’ Maggie screams. ‘It’s a big “if”, Ben, and you know that. Meantime, you spending every five minutes on the phone to that solicitor or going to see her isn’t helping.’
‘I’m only talking to her because she’s trying to help us!’
‘Is she? Is she trying to help us, or is she trying to further her career with an interesting case?’
‘Maggie…’ I’m not sure what I’m going to say next. There’s no point telling her we’ve discussed this and she agreed with me. I know we’ll end up having a ‘nonversation’, one in which we both stick to our points of view at that particular moment and get nowhere.
I know, or at least I think I do, that Maggie is only saying all this now because she’s had a bad day and doesn’t want me to go out again. And, while I try to think of something there would be a point in saying, Iris throws her plate of food on to the floor and begins screaming.
‘Now look what you’ve done.’ Maggie leaves the food and goes to lift Iris out of her high chair. ‘Leave that,’ she says to me, as I move to clear up the food-splattered floor. ‘Just go.’
‘Maggie.’
‘Just go, Ben. I don’t want to talk about it now. The sooner you go, the sooner you’ll be back.’
In Hedda’s office I am given a cup of tea, in a lime-green cup, with a plate of biscuits – a grey plate of biscuits. I can’t quite take it seriously, this colour co-ordination. But Hedda seems to know what she’s doing.
‘So,’ I begin. ‘You said there’d been a development. Has there been a response from Isobel’s solicitors?’
‘Not exactly,’ Hedda replies.
I wait for further clarification, thinking they either have responded or they haven’t. But I suppose that’s what solicitors do – ask each other questions, seek further clarification, go round the houses playing legal games with each other for as long as possible.
There’s a brief tap on the door and a man who looks about my age sticks his head around it. ‘Is this Mr Deakin?’ he asks.
Hedda nods and he walks in, a striking man with a very full head of very dark hair and very dark eyes to match.
‘Angus McDonald,’ he introduces himself, and I presume he is the McDonald in the practice name – the senior partner, probably. I wonder what he’s doing here.
‘Pleased to meet you.’
He pulls up another chair and sits down.
Hedda looks suddenly nervous. She’s shuffling stuff around on her desk for no apparent reason. Her Nordic composure is ruffled.
‘I don’t know if Hedda has filled you in – ’ Angus McDonald starts to say.
‘Mr Deakin has only just arrived,’ she cuts in.
‘Right.’ He looks from me to her and I sense a problem.
‘Do you want a tea or anything, Angus?’ Hedda asks him.
‘No, thank you,’ he says, looking at his watch,
It’s five forty-five. Probably too late for tea for Angus McDonald, more like whisky time. I wouldn’t be surprised if he has a bottle of scotch in his office, ready to offer some of his clients, the ones that come later in the day, or perhaps the more distraught ones – or the richer ones.
‘The thing is,’ Angus McDonald says to me, ‘I wasn’t aware, until we had a meeting yesterday, that we had taken this case on.’
‘Right.’ I don’t know if this is normal or not, and therefore whether or not it is a problem. I sense the latter.
‘Your position is very unusual,’ he says. ‘Not to say very difficult for you and your wife and child. I’m very sorry for what’s happened to your daughter.’
‘That’s OK.’
It’s hard to know what the appropriate response is, when people say they are sorry. It’s not their fault. The only person who could say she was fucking sorry hasn’t. That’s why we are here.
‘I’ll get to the point,’ he continues. ‘It’s a ver
y unusual position that you find yourselves in and it’s very interesting from a legal point of view. There are no comparable cases in the UK, although there are examples of people successfully suing others for knowingly infecting them with AIDS.’
‘Yes, Hedda mentioned those.’ I look at her, but she is surprisingly quiet. Silent, in fact.
‘As I said,’ he repeats himself, ‘I wasn’t aware until recently that this case had been taken on and, now that I am, we’ve discussed it in some detail and I have to tell you, I think there is very little chance of it succeeding.’
‘But Hedda was very optimistic about its chances of success.’ I look at her now for explanation.
‘I am sorry, Ben,’ she says, and her accent is suddenly stronger, as if nerves or being on the back foot make it more pronounced. ‘I thought we had a good case.’
‘But?’
‘Hedda is a very competent solicitor and I have the utmost faith in her ability to handle the law,’ Angus McDonald continues. ‘And with a little bit more proof and evidence this could be a very prominent, groundbreaking case. I can see why she was attracted to it.’
‘You make it sound like some sort of dating choice!’ I try to sound breezy, to mask my growing concern, but I don’t think I pull it off.
‘The point I am trying to make is that with a little bit more body of proof the case could be exceedingly high-profile and possibly set a precedent. And, because of that, I recognise the reasons for Hedda deciding to take it on.’
‘But she shouldn’t have?’ I try to get to the point on his behalf.
‘What we have to decide is where we go from here,’ he says, avoiding my direct question. ‘And whether you wish to proceed with the case or not.’
‘That’s why I’m here,’ I state the obvious.
‘Yes,’ he says. ‘But we also have the right to terminate our agreement to act on your behalf if we don’t think the case is likely to succeed.’
‘And you don’t?’
‘No, to be honest. I don’t. I think you have strong reason for directing the blame for your daughter’s condition towards Ms Blake. But I think that laying that blame definitively at her feet will prove very difficult.’
‘I thought you said we could.’ I look at Hedda again.
‘I am sorry,’ she says, for the first time. ‘It seems I may have been too optimistic.’
I feel angry with Hedda but I can tell she’s had her knuckles rapped, in private, prior to my being called in to talk. And, as it begins to dawn on me that they are about to tell me they won’t take the case after all, I think back to my argument with Maggie, before I left.
Things are getting more difficult now with Iris. If we could win this case then of course it would make a difference, but if we have to spend time fighting it and it all comes to nothing, then perhaps the difference I could have made by being around more instead of fighting it would be the important one.
‘There are two areas of concern,’ Angus McDonald continues. ‘Unless Ms Blake actually admits that she was one hundred per cent certain that her daughter had measles when she left your daughter with her for the day, it is very difficult to prove that there was any deliberate intention to harm, on her part.’
‘She must’ve known,’ I say.
‘Must have is not going to stand up in a court of law, I’m afraid.’
‘But she knew Gabriella was ill. She knew that her boyfriend had measles and that she’d been in close contact with him before the holiday. And she knew she had not been vaccinated.’
‘But I’m afraid, Mr Deakin, that, until the doctor confirmed that…’ he looks at his notes ‘…that Gabriella had measles, she did not actually know.’
‘She knew,’ I repeated.
‘A judge won’t see it that way, I’m afraid.’
‘But what if they settle out of court?’ I look at Hedda again. ‘You said that was a possibility. No, you said it was likely they would do everything possible to avoid the additional costs that taking the case to court would incur.’
‘That is my other area of concern,’ Angus McDonald takes over again. ‘From what the Jordans’ solicitor has told us, and from what Hedda has told me about your discussion with her, the Jordans actually have very little means of paying damages. I believe they have three children, that Ms Blake is not in employment and that the salary Mr Jordan earns is not sufficient to pay damages at the level we would be seeking.’
‘Couldn’t we ask for less?’ I clutch at straws.
‘It would then not be worth our while taking on the case on the basis my colleague agreed to,’ he says. ‘If you wanted to pursue it further there would be costs to yourself involved, costs which I would advise you against incurring as I really don’t believe you have a realistic chance of recovery at any stage in the future.’
‘So you’re saying we should drop the case?’
They both nod. ‘I am very sorry, Ben,’ Hedda says again.
‘What were you thinking?’ I’m furious with her now. ‘This is my life, our lives, we were talking about. This is about our daughter being deaf. You told me you could do something to help her.’
‘I thought I could. I really, genuinely thought we had a chance of making this case work.’
‘Did you?’ I ask. ‘Or did you think you had a chance of making a name for yourself. Of getting yourself talked about a bit and sod what happened to us?’
‘No, I thought…’ She looks to Angus McDonald for support.
‘I’m sure my colleague had your best interests at heart when she took on the case – ’ he begins.
‘But when you decided there wasn’t enough money in it…’ I cut in.
‘Yes,’ he says, bluntly. ‘That is what it comes down to. Money, for you and for us. That is what you wanted, isn’t it?’
‘Yes, but…’ I begin.
‘But?’
‘It doesn’t matter,’ I say.
I could make a speech about how it’s more about the principle, about making Isobel take responsibility for the thing which caused Iris’s deafness, about alerting others to the consequences of not having their kids immunised. But that wouldn’t really be true.
It isn’t about the money, not really, nor the principle. It’s about me getting back at Isobel for this and for other things too, for somehow always making me feel belittled and unimportant. Just as Hedda has.
‘Maybe next time you tell someone you can help them you should think about them first and the effect it will have on them, if actually you can’t,’ I say to her.
‘I am sorry,’ Hedda says, but she doesn’t look sorry at all. She just looks as if she wants me out of the office. All that chat and sympathy before… I don’t think any of it was genuine. Well, fuck her. Fuck the lot of them.
‘So what happens now?’ I address my question to Angus McDonald. I am not going to give Hedda the satisfaction of any further explanations.
‘We will write to Ms Blake’s solicitor and tell him that we’ve taken instructions from you and you have decided not to go ahead with the case.’
‘You’ll tell them I’ve given up. Great.’
‘I can discuss the phrasing of the letter with you, if you wish,’ he says.
I shrug. I want to leave now. I’m fed up with this. I suppose there may be a way of phrasing the letter so that I still retain the moral high ground. I suppose they could make it look as if I was being magnanimous and maybe that would make Isobel feel bad, which is what I want, mostly. Maybe in fact she will feel even worse if we let her off the hook.
‘I’ll draft it on Monday and send you a copy for approval before I send it out?’
‘OK,’ I say, and I nod to them both as I leave the office.
I feel deflated and mightily pissed off, and I’m going to have to go home to Maggie and tell her she was right after all and I should have been concentrating on Iris all along and not wasting my energies on some wild goose chase.
And, however they phrase their fucking letter, I feel furious tha
t ultimately Isobel will get off scot-free. I wanted her to suffer the consequences. She should be made to – somehow.
Isobel, Friday evening
It ought to be nice that Eric is home early. It should be lovely that the two of us are alone, seated at our kitchen table with a bottle of white open, knowing we have at least half an hour before Harvey and Vincent get back from the chippy with dinner. It would be, if the reason for all of this weren’t what happened with Gabs today. She’s in her room, keeping a low profile, not wanting to talk – not to me anyway.
Wouldn’t it be nice, I think, if Eric were just home early so that he could help me prepare for Vincent’s party, and had given Harvey the money to go and buy fish and chips just so that we could have a bit of time to ourselves? How rare that we have half an hour in which we can just sit with a drink and talk. But the scene is not set for enjoyment. It’s set for explanations and, I fear, recriminations too. They have been the backdrop to my life these past few weeks.
‘So is she OK?’ Eric asks. ‘Is she upset?’
‘I don’t know. She’s barely said anything since I picked her up. She went straight up to her room, and I took her up a cup of tea, but she just took it and closed the door again.’
‘Maybe she’s embarrassed,’ Eric says. ‘There’s no reason she should be, but you know how she likes to toe the line. She doesn’t do trouble, does she?’
‘No.’ I nod in agreement. Gabs has always been one, almost pathologically, to abide by the rules. She used to panic, as soon as she could read, if I parked without paying five minutes before free parking kicked in, or used food that was fine but past its sell-by date. When she first started cooking, she’d burn biscuits rather than take them out of the oven before the time stated in the recipe was up, even if she could smell the smoke.
And when she was at junior school, throughout her entire seven years, she only lost Golden Time once, and that was for carrying on working when she was supposed to be tidying up!
She’s never transgressed at secondary school until now, either – never been reprimanded for a lapse in uniform, never had a detention, never handed in homework late. The only time I’ve had cause to be angry with her was when she went up to London with a friend, without telling me the friend’s parents were not going with them too. And, even then, the purpose of their trip was to visit the Royal Academy.
Living With It Page 26
