Jessica

by Bryce Courtenay

  Jessica has never been in a room as large or a public place as grand and she feels more than a little intimidated by the clatter of cutlery, clink of porcelain plates and the rattle of teacups, not to mention all the finely dressed folk around her.

  The table occupied by Billy’s barrister possesses only one chair. Jessica is not for one moment expecting to be asked to sit down, but there’s hardly enough room for her to stand, and she can feel the leaves of the aspidistra pressing into her back. There is certainly no place for Jimmy Jenkins, who is forced to peer through the fish fern, where his face, draped in fronds, looks like that of a monkey in a forest.

  It’s indicative of Mr Richard Runche’s severe hangover that he completely fails to recognise Jessica, even though she has appeared in the witness box, sometimes for extended periods, on six occasions over the past three days.

  He squints at her through rheumy eyes, cupping his hand to the edge of his brow to dissuade any ray of light that might think to intrude. Before he can bring himself to speak, Jimmy makes the necessary introductions from the fernery. ‘Sir, I have the honour ter introduce .. .’ He looks up at Jessica in a panic, having forgotten to ask her name.

  ‘Miss Jessica Bergman,’ she answers, smiling down at the lawYer.

  ‘Miss Jessica Bergman, may I introduce yiz to Mr Richard Runche KC, a gennelman most famous around these parts.’

  ‘Yes, yes, don’t fuss, boy. I know quite well who I am.’ Richard Runche sighs then falls silent. ‘Bergman, eh?’ he says at last.

  ‘Yes, sir,’ Jessica says, her mouth growing dry.

  ‘Bergman ... Bergman,’ he says, turning the name over in his sore, fuzzy head. Then a glint of recognition shows in his bloodshot eyes. ‘I say, isn’t there a Bergman, young gel, appearing for the prosecution?’ Before Jessica can answer he exclaims, ‘Yes, by Jove, I believe it’s you!’

  Then just as rapidly he falls into a trough of silence. His elbow rests on the table and he covers his eyes with the palm of his left hand. After a while, he looks up and mutters, shaking his head at her, ‘Quite improper, quite, quite.’

  ‘Please, sir, I have to see you,’ Jessica pleads.

  ‘I don’t see people at breakfast, my dear.’ The lawyer cups his hand to his eyes again. ‘In fact, I can barely see anything. No, no, quite impossible!’

  Richard Runche picks up his table napkin in both hands and wipes his thin, bloodless lips. It’s intended as a gesture of dismissal, yet his hands shake so badly that Jessica is now more concerned for him than she is afraid. The only things on the table are a glass of caramel-coloured milk, a half-empty bottle of brandy and a battered pork-pie hat. ‘Quite improper!’ Runche repeats weakly, glancing about nervously as if hoping someone would rescue him from this determined young woman. A tall and angular man, who appears somehow to have sharp points to his knees and elbows, he brings to Jessica’s mind an illustration she’s once seen in a children’s book by Washington Irving of a long-legged bird-like character named Ichabod Crane. But at this moment he looks rather frail and crumpled.

  Richard Runche KC is also clean-shaven. Jessica wonders why this should be, for if he wakes up with such a bad headache every morning, why would he take the trouble to shave? Exposing the chin to a razor may be all the fashion in the city, but nothing about Mr Runche suggests that he gives a fig for fashion, and with the terrible shake in his hands, shaving would be positively dangerous to attempt.

  Sure enough, Jessica now sees that he wears shaving papers stuck to several nasty cuts on his chin, which has the colour, texture and appearance of a plucked chicken’s arse.

  Nurtured by alcohol, Runche’s once-thin nose has long since blossomed and widened and in the process turned a deep rose colour. It is heavily tinctured by a network of scarlet and purple veins knitting its bulbous surface together, as if they alone keep his unnatural-looking proboscis firmly attached to his gaunt and unhappy face.

  His salt and pepper eyebrows are thick and scraggly, giving his face its only feature of authority. What remains of his hair seems to have been roughly parted by hand while still wet and lies pasted across his balding skull.

  The remainder of Richard Runche KC, is scarcely more prepossessing. He wears a crumpled black linen jacket with a grey worsted waistcoat across which loops a cheap silver fob chain. His soiled white shirt sports a grubby celluloid collar, with the head of a gold stud showing clearly above the greasy knot of a thin black necktie shiny with over-use and frayed at the edges.

  Jessica looks down at the dishevelled lawyer and feels only pity, not fear. She is here to fight for her friend and Jack’s, Billy Simple. She takes a deep breath and says, ‘Sir, if you send me away you will take my pride from me and I shall never again have respect for the law.’

  ‘Pride? Whose pride? What pride? The sort that cometh before a fall, I dare say! I sense it in you, my dear. As for the law? Respect for the law? What nonsense! The law respects only two things — property and money. It will defend both at the cost of truth and justice! Rubbish and codswallop to the law!’

  ‘But ... but you said just now, about me being quite improper, I mean with the law an’ all?’

  ‘The law? No, no, not the law, be blowed to the law. Quite improper to me, I meant, to disturb a gentleman at breakfast. Worse than waylaying him in his bedchamber!’

  This -outburst was more than Richard Runche has said in three days in court and he appears exhausted by the effort.

  Jessica can feel her temper rising. ‘Sir, I’m sorry for interrupting you, but somebody has to take Billy Simple’s side. He done wrong and I know he must be punished, that he’s gunna be hanged.’ Jessica looks appealingly at the lawyer, who, reluctantly, appears to be listening. ‘Billy done the killings, but it wasn’t like they said in court, it wasn’t in cold blood. There was other things not told. Things that only you can tell.’ Now Jessica can’t hold back her sobs. ‘And you ain’t! You bloody ain’t gunna!’ Runche covers his face with both hands. ‘Please, please, I can’t abide tears,’ he says in a pained voice.

  ‘I’m sorry, sir,’ Jessica sobs, struggling to stop her tears. ‘But it just ain’t right.’

  Runche slowly wipes his hands downwards away from his face, and stares at his open palms. ‘No, my dear, it is I who must apologise,’ he says at last, turning his bloodshot eyes to her.

  Jessica looks at him, startled. ‘What do you mean, sir?’ she stammers.

  The lawyer ignores her question and continues. ‘I must apologise, for I had forgotten that some people still want the truth for its own sake. Justice, not as vindication, or as revenge, or as material compensation, but as an idea in itself. Isn’t that what you’re saying, my dear?’

  ‘Billy’s got rights too!’ Jessica says doggedly, not sure what the lawyer’s on about but determined to keep fighting.

  ‘Justice for no other reason than that the scales may be seen to be evenly balanced.’ He reaches over for the glass of brandy and milk and, gripping it in both hands, he brings it to his lips and swallows the contents, not pausing until the glass is empty.

  The brandy and milk seems to improve his spirits remarkably, and he gestures in Jessica’s direction, indicating an invisible chair. ‘Do join me, my dear. Would you like a cup of tea? Yes, yes, of course you would. Have you partaken of breakfast?’ When he realises no second chair exists, he looks about him and his bemused gaze alights on Jimmy Jenkins, still peeping through the fernery. ‘Who the devil are you? Where did you come from? Good God, where are your manners, boy? Fetch this young lady a chair at once,’ he demands, waving the boy away with a flick of his hand.

  Jimmy brings a chair and shortly afterwards a waiter arrives with a pot of tea. With all the anxieties of the morning, Jessica feels none too well and the weak black tea seems to calm her stomach a little as she tells Richard Runche all she knows of Billy’s earlier life, the years of ridicule and humiliation he suffered at t
he hands of the three Thomas women.

  Runche listens all the while, taking regular sips from his second glass of brandy and milk. When at last she completes her story, he reaches over and pats her hand. ‘My dear, I am most grateful to you. When the court commences this morning I shall ask the judge’s permission to put you on the stand for cross-examination before I address the jury with my summing-up. His Honour is a very decent chap and I feel sure he’ll agree with my opinion, though I’ll warrant not without considerable surprise. It has been some time since I have behaved like a barrister, after all!’

  Richard Runche is as good as his word and requests the opportunity to cross-examine Miss Jessica Bergman.

  The judge is astonished. ‘It is highly irregular, Counsel, the prosecution has already completed its summation.’

  ‘Yes, Your Honour, I am aware that it is against precedent and I ask that the prosecution agrees to it on this occasion. Belated, though important, information has been given to me. My request is made in the furtherance of justice.’

  ‘I shall call a ten-minute recess and will see both counsel in my chambers,’ the judge now says.

  Jessica sits alone trembling, hoping that the prosecution will allow Richard Runche KC to let her onto the stand to help Billy Simple. She stares at her lap, avoiding the hostile gazes of those around her, including George Thomas. They agree that such a request is highly irregular, the prosecution having already made its final address to the jury.

  However, both the judge and the senior counsel for the prosecution secretly hold Runche in such low regard that they feel his attempts will come to nothing. The prosecution agrees to the request without much further ado. The judge consents with the single proviso that the counsel for the defence be as brief as possible. The honourable reason for this, which he does not of course state, is that he wishes to catch the evening train to Sydney so that he can attend the Saturday races at Randwick.

  Billy Simple’s barrister begins a little haltingly at first, but is soon enough into his stride. In the next hour he shows surprising skill at cross-examination. He is patient and always kind to Jessica without wasting time. Slowly the harsh truth about the Thomas women begins to emerge.

  At first Jessica’s knees tremble, but under the barrister’s gentle questioning she soon grows more confident. The jury hears how Billy was once a gun shearer respected as a young man for his common sense. She tells how he’d gone to her protection and how the accident with the horses had occurred during the fight with the tar boys.

  Jessica then tells of how, when Jack wasn’t around to protect him, the Thomas women would persecute Billy, making him repeat meaningless tasks, running him ragged. She explains how he was made to move a pile of rocks from one place to another endlessly, until there was no skin left on the palms of his hands and he finally dropped, exhausted, sobbing and helpless, in the dirt. How Mrs Thomas had tried to make Billy use the shotgun on the starving Aborigines, which Billy knew was wrong in the eyes of God and so had run away, to be severely punished later.

  At the end of an hour the judge has on three separate occasions been forced to silence the court as the public gallery becomes more and more excited by Billy Simple’s story which Jessica recounts. They soon sense that the truth, hidden from them until now, is being told. Richard Runche also calls the cook at Riverview to testify and, being an honest woman, she answers his questions as best she may. Her answers do nothing but corroborate Jessica’s own story.

  After the cross-examination has been completed and amid the obvious fury of the prosecutor and George Thomas beside him, the judge calls for a short recess before allowing Richard Runche to make his final address to the jury.

  In his summing-up, Runche concentrates on the prosecution’s insistence that Billy killed the women in cold blood. He points out that there is no question of Billy’s guilt — that he has already confessed to the crime. What is to be questioned is the reason for the crime in the first place, the nature of the killing method and the state of mind of the accused when it took place. Jessica gave him some important facts this morning and now, inspired by his young witness, Runche lays them before the court. ‘Let me begin with a hat,’ he announces to the members of the jury. He reaches out and picks up his hat, holding it up to their view. ‘A hat not too different from this one. Not a very prepossessing item, would you say, eh?’ The jury smiles as they look at the battered and grease-stained hat. ‘Yet I love it. Of all the items I possess, this is the one I am least likely to part with until it finally parts with me, by means of natural disintegration.’ This brings a titter from the gallery. ‘If a man does not possess the comfort of a dog in his life, as Billy Simple did not, then you may be sure his hat will become his best friend. His shelter from the sun and the rain. His decision to leave poor or bad company. His means of polite gesture to the opposite sex, his security in insecure moments.’

  All this brings laughter and admiration from the gallery. The judge scowls up at them and tentatively raises his gavel before saying, ‘Will you kindly come to the point, Mr Runche?’

  ‘Certainly, Your Honour.’ Billy’s counsel bows his head to the bench in a gesture of apology and then returns to addressing the jury.

  ‘Billy Simple had such a hat, not too different from this one. But he had more reason to wear a hat than any other man. He carries a painfully ugly and jagged scar across the breadth of his head.’ Runche gazes up at the gallery. ‘I dare say that some of you up there in the gallery will have seen this terrible deformity during this trial.’

  ‘The defence will restrict his remarks to the jury,’ the judge interrupts, increasingly annoyed that his trip to the race meeting is in jeopardy.

  Runche turns again to the judge and bows. ‘I apologise, Your Honour, for a moment I lost my head.’ The gallery titters at his pun. Holding up the hat again to the jury, he says, ‘But I did not lose my hat! You see, William Simon, known to you all as Billy Simple, lost his head on two occasions. He lost it when he killed the three Thomas ladies, and, as you have heard tell from my previous witness, lost it four years before that by having his skull crushed under the hooves of a horse!’ The barrister allows the jury to dwell on this for a moment before he continues. ‘When he returned from hospital, Billy had a jagged scar that zigzagged across his head and down to his forehead. He had, in a very real sense, lost his head. Lost his capacity to think. Lost his good sense. Lost his ability to be quick and responsive, like you and me.’ He grins. ‘Well, perhaps not like me, certainly not after luncheon!’ He allows the laughter to die down and bows in anticipation to the judge. ‘He lost the capacity to be rational and judgemental and, as a consequence, he subsequently received the regrettably apt nickname, Billy Simple.’

  Runche pauses here, pacing for a few moments. ‘But even in his saddest moments, during his most dimwitted times, he knew that he was ashamed of the scar he wore, he somehow perceived that it was to blame for his misery, his being outcast. So, I ask you to think carefully, what does he do? He does what any simpleton would do, probably what those less simple among us would do, he covers it. He wears a hat, a broken, battered hat, and covers the deeply offensive scar by pulling his hat down almost to his eyes.’ With this the barrister jams his own hat down hard almost over his eyes. At once he looks no longer like the counsel for the defence but like Billy Simple himself. The court gasps. Runche pulls the hat off his head and takes a step towards the jury box and bends slightly forward for emphasis. ‘Billy Simple was never — I repeat, never in the four whole years he spent working at Riverview Station after the accident — seen without his hat on his head. He slept with it on, he prayed with it on, he bathed with it on and he worked with it on. Billy’s hat was his best friend! Billy’s hat was a matter of life and death to him! Billy’s hat was all that was left of his pride and his dignity! You saw him in the witness box, where he is not allowed to wear a hat. Did you see how, even with his hands manacled, he tried to cover the sc
ar on his head? How he stood ashamed — not only for what he’d done, he has confessed to that and is repentant — but for the ugly, terrible scar that runs across his poor, sad, confused head. Look at him now, members of the jury, where he sits clutching his head, his shame, before you.’

  Richard Runche is still for a moment. ‘Now I ask you to consider the evidence. You’ve heard the prosecution say that Billy Simple is a cold-blooded killer. That the murders of his three victims were a result of planning and premeditation. That the mattock with its sharp chopping head was a weapon that would arouse no suspicion when in the possession of a gardener. That the cold — I think the word used by my learned colleague was “surgical” — that the surgical precision used was the work of an intransigent and cold-hearted murderer. That the murders were premeditated and executed in cold blood with surgical precision by an unfeeling and callous killer. I think those were the final words used by the prosecution, were they not?’

  Runche holds the hat aloft and swings it around. ‘What of the hat, I ask you? The hat, left next to the half-empty watering can on the pathway. The hat, which had come off Billy Simple’s head when he’d been taunted beyond any possible endurance so that he dropped the watering can he was using at his feet. He grabbed the nearest thing he could find, the mattock he had been using in the vegetable patch during the afternoon, losing his hat as he stooped to pick it up. I venture to suggest that the poor soul was so overcome by the tormenting from the three ladies that he did not even pause to retrieve his hat! The hat he always wears! Can you imagine how extreme his state of anxiety must have been for Billy Simple to forget the hat which hides his shame?

  ‘The killing, we have heard, would have taken place in a matter of a few minutes when Billy had finally lost what few senses he had at his command. If he had been the cold-blooded, callous killer he has been made out to be, would he not have returned to retrieve his hat? The one item in his life he couldn’t bear to be without?