The Cry

by Helen FitzGerald

  ‘So how did she behave, then, the morning she came to see you?’ the defence lawyer asks.

  ‘She was articulate. She made sense.’

  Joanna’s smile is as big as the prosecutor’s. Unnerving. If the defence lawyer asked me how I think she’s coming over now, I would say she’s definitely mad. But she wasn’t, not that morning.

  ‘So Joanna Lindsay visited you at around 10 a.m. and said she did not want her husband to take Chloe away and that she wanted to help you. Did she mention anything about her relationship with Alistair Robertson?’

  I wrack my brain. What did she say again? ‘Well, she said something about ringing her counsellor in Glasgow the night before and coming over a bit crazy . . . I think she was understandably stressed.’

  I’ve said what the private-school wanker wants me to say. ‘I’d like to refer to a statement given by the counsellor in question, Mrs Anne Docherty from Rutherglen in South Lanarkshire,’ he says, reading from a sheet he’s lifted from the table, ‘who reports that Ms Lindsay called her the night before the alleged murder and sounded – and I quote‚ “bizarre and incoherent”.’

  ‘Well she wasn’t like that when I saw her,’ I say.

  ‘No, Mrs Robertson, but you’re unlikely to say she was mad, aren’t you? You’re unlikely to want my client to be deemed mentally ill when she stole your husband from you and then killed him, leaving your beloved daughter fatherless. You’ll be wanting the full force of the law. You’ll be wanting her to be convicted of murder, not manslaughter.’

  ‘Objection!’ I’m not sure who just yelled this. I’m sweating, shaking. I want to go home. Joanna looks like I do now: annoyed, upset. I can tell from her body language that she hates her lawyer as much as I do. Before the judge can respond to the objection, Joanna’s lawyer has taken his seat, victorious, and closed his folder with a ‘No further questions’.

  *

  The courtroom is deadly silent when I walk from the stand and take a seat at the back. To my surprise, Joanna’s friend Kirsty gives me an understanding smile as I pass. There’s a pause. Everyone is waiting for the clerk to speak. He does, eventually.

  ‘The court calls Joanna Lindsay to the stand.’

  Joanna fidgets with her dress before standing.

  ‘Ms Lindsay, can you please make your way to the stand?’ The judge’s tone is kind because she obviously believes she’s dealing with a mad woman. That’s what this whole event has been about – her insanity – and I can’t deny she has been coming across as completely bonkers.

  ‘Of course,’ Joanna says. The artist at the front begins scratching away at her sketch pad. Joanna is wearing Antichrist clothes. It’s almost as if she wants everyone to hate her. Yesterday she wore a black miniskirt and tight white sleeveless top. Today it’s a short, shoulderless red dress with a slit at the side and a small rip. The artist laps up this murderous woman in her adulterous dress. Joanna stands and turns to smile for the artist. Then she looks at the judge and says: ‘I can do anything I set my mind to.’

  Journalists are tweeting openly and onlookers are doing it secretly. I’m curious and sneak a quick look at the #joannalindsay thread as she walks slowly to the stand and takes her oath.

  Fiona Mack @Fionamack

  Diminished responsibility my arse #joannalindsay

  Harry Dean @hdean

  The woman’s a fucking nutcase. #joannalindsay

  Bobblypops @bobblypops

  She’s smiling. #joannalindsay #joannalindsayisevil

  Bobblypops @bobblypops

  She looks like the devil #joannalindsay #joannalindsayisevil

  ABC News @ABCNews

  Follow us for updates of case against #joannalindsay

  Bobblypops @bobblypops

  Don’t know why the woman from the plane yesterday was trying to be nice to her. She shook the baby. #joannalindsay

  Jennifer Weston @jenniferwritesbooks

  @bobblypops and killed her husband #joannalindsay

  Bobblypops @bobblypops

  @jenniferwritesbooks Shouldn’t reduce the punishment just cos she confessed. #joannalindsay

  Fiona Mack @Fionamack

  @jenniferwritesbooks @bobblypops and shouldn’t reduce if she’s mad either. #joannalindsay

  Bobblypops @bobblypops

  @fionamack Bad, not mad. Bad. #joannalindsay

  #joannalindsayisevil

  Jonathon Mitchell @johnnyonthepress

  I was on the plane with her. She was OUT OF CONTROL! #joannalindsay

  Jane McDonald @janexmacker

  She was in my breastfeeding group in Edinburgh.

  #joannalindsay

  Bobblypops @bobblypops

  @janexmacker Really? What was she like? #joannalindsay

  Jane McDonald @janexmacker

  @bobblypops Best word – loopy. #joannalindsay

  Bobblypops @bobblypops

  I heard she ripped down one of the missing posters in Geelong. Why would you do that? #joannalindsay

  Jonathon Mitchell @johnnyonthepress

  @bobblypops Cos you’re a nutjob #joannalindsay

  Taniadoeshair @taniadoeshair

  Still think she killed baby Noah.

  Shame www.lonniebabytheevidence.com has been taken down. #joannalindsay

  Jonathon Mitchell @johnnyonthepress

  She defo killed the baby as well, guilty as f**k #joannalindsay

  NonnaAngela @nonnaangela

  She killed baby Noah. Kidnapping my arse. Guilty as f**k #joannalindsay

  Miketheteacher @MikeWilkes

  Oh come on people. Leave her alone. She lost her son.#joannalindsay

  Bertiebeans @bertiebeans

  RT @nonnaangela She killed baby Noah. Kidnapping my arse. Guilty as f**k #joannalindsay

  Jim Groves @JimmyChews

  What’s the difference between Noah Robertson and Noah Robertson jokes? The jokes will get old. #joannalindsay

  Bertiebeans @bertiebeans

  @JimmyChews Ba-boom. I didn’t know there were dingoes on the Bellarine Peninsula. #joannalindsay

  Bobblypops @bobblypops

  OMG! Have you seen what she’s wearing!! Scarlet black widow. #joannalindsay #joannalindsayisevil

  Bobblypops @bobblypops

  You see that? She smirked when she took the oath. Smirked. #joannalindsay #joannalindsayisevil

  The tweets revolt me. I put my phone away just as the prosecutor asks Joanna if she understands why she’s here. She’s skeletal, eight stone at most. Her hair’s tied back severely. She has too much make-up on, including thick black eyeliner. She’s wearing the sluttiest dress I’ve ever seen. She’s smiling, or, yeah, smirking. She’s read the manual on how to look and behave in court and is doing everything wrong, everything. Yep, definitely a smirk.

  She’s sitting down.

  ‘Ms Lindsay, you have already confessed to the murder of Alistair Robertson,’ the prosecutor states.

  Joanna’s young male lawyer gets to his feet. ‘Objection! Ms Lindsay admits to the manslaughter of Alistair Robertson on the grounds of diminished responsibility. As evidenced in the psychiatric reports submitted to court yesterday, she was not and is not of sound mind.’

  Judge: ‘Sustained. Rephrase, please, Ms Maddock.’

  ‘Very well, Your Honour. Ms Lindsay, as Mr Marks has just informed us, your defence is that you are not of sound mind, and cannot therefore take full responsibility. How do you feel about telling the world you are mad?’

  Matthew Marks is on his feet again, but Joanna shakes her head.

  ‘I know what my lawyer says and what the psychiatrists argue – that I was suffering from post-traumatic stress disorder following . . . after Noah . . . after what happened to Noah. They say I was severely depressed, had flashbacks, that I was hallucinating, behaving oddly. Okay, so maybe, but that’s all irrelevant. I didn’t kill Alistair because of post-traumatic stress disorder. I killed him because I wanted to. Am I hallucinating now? No. I want to take full responsibility for this. I wa
nt to be punished,’ she says. ‘Convict me of murder because that’s what I did. Sentence me to life imprisonment because that’s what I deserve. It’s my fault and my fault alone. It’s not Noah’s fault because he wouldn’t stop crying, or the Emirates staff because they didn’t help me and it was not the fault of airport security.’

  ‘Airport security?’ the prosecutor says. ‘What do you mean?’

  ‘I mean I want to take responsibility. Why is it so hard for everyone to understand that? Don’t listen to my clever young lawyer. Don’t listen to anyone but me. I killed him. Take me away. Put me away.’ She’s shaking now. ‘God, please!’

  There’s a shuffling in the court. She’s making everyone very uneasy and I don’t think it’s because she’s completely bonkers, which she clearly is, I think it’s because her desire to take the blame leaves these venomous onlookers with nowhere to place their poison.

  Joanna’s lawyer is smiling in his front-row seat. Hallelujah! His client is coming across as a total nutjob, just as he hoped.

  ‘You’re saying you knew what you were doing when you killed him?’

  ‘Yes!’ Fury takes her tears away. ‘Why do I have to say it so many times? How can it be so hard to be convicted of this? I knew he didn’t have his seatbelt on. I knew we were going at a hundred and forty kilometres an hour. I wanted to kill us both. I took hold of the steering wheel. I swerved the car into a road sign.’

  ‘But you had your seatbelt on?’

  ‘That’s where my cross ended up and I have to bear it. I forgot to take my seatbelt off. I’m forgetful. I’m an idiot.’

  People shuffle uncomfortably at her answers.

  ‘And you confessed to the police that you murdered your partner?’ the prosecutor says.

  ‘Jesus. Am I speaking Swahili or something? Yes! I’ve confessed to everyone.’

  There’s a fresh flurry of texting and tweeting. The artist turns the page and starts a new sketch.

  ‘Why, Joanna? Why did you kill him?’ the prosecutor asks.

  She hesitates, thinking hard before answering carefully. ‘I killed him because I couldn’t stand to be with him for another second.’

  ‘I’d like to ask for a short adjournment, Your Honour.’ Joanna’s lawyer has taken to his feet and donned a look of concern. I don’t think he’s asking for a break because his client is suffering up there, but because asking for a break adds to his whole mental-case case. ‘My client is clearly distressed and in need of a break.’

  ‘One thing I’m definitely not is too distressed to talk!’ Joanna yells.

  The judge takes a long moment to examine Joanna – and seems to agree that she’s not very well: ‘The court is adjourned until 2 p.m.’

  *

  I can’t wait around till the afternoon. Chloe needs me. Anyway, it’s not doing me or anyone any good being here. It’s time for me to let go.

  Joanna hasn’t been taken away from the courtroom yet. The old lady who spoke yesterday, Ms Amery, has walked up to the front and is talking to her, holding her hand. Joanna has a pleading look in her eye as she says something. I lip read – Joanna says thank you. She then hugs the old lady, who walks past me purposefully.

  I have to get out of here. I have to move on. I want to see Chloe and Mum and Dad and Phil.

  I want to stop feeling what I’ve started feeling: sorry for her.

  I want to start enjoying what I’ve stopped feeling: rage.

  I’ve just made it out into the real world when a female voice yells my name.

  When she catches up with me she’s out of breath. ‘Alexandra,’ she says again, ‘I’m Kirsty McNicol, Joanna’s friend. I don’t blame you if you don’t want to talk to me, but I wondered if you might have time for a coffee?’

  I look at my wrist to delay the making of a decision, remember I haven’t worn a watch for years, and say, ‘Sure.’

  We sit in a booth in an old-fashioned Burke Street cafe, coffees before us. ‘Joanna asked me to give you something,’ she says, taking a package out of her bag. ‘I don’t know what it is but I said I would.’

  I take it and stop myself from tearing it open. What on earth would she want to give me?

  ‘You have more reasons than anyone to hate her,’ Kirsty says, ‘but . . .’ She starts crying, grabs a napkin from the holder and carefully wipes leaking mascara from under her eyes. ‘Oh, nothing. You should hate her. She was an idiot.’

  ‘What were you going to say?’

  ‘She was so good before him!’ Her mascara can’t be fixed this time. It’s dripping from the thick eyelashes of this loyal friend. ‘I’ve known her since we were at nursery together. Such a smiler! We’ve been inseparable since then, except when she was sneaking around with him. And her mum – she was just the same. A kind soul. I know it’s hard to believe but she’s not who everyone thinks she is. She’s not evil. That fucking man . . . Just like her father. I’m sorry.’

  ‘No, no, it’s okay.’ I hand her another napkin. She really needs it.

  ‘I’m not just saying she was good, she really was. Before him, I don’t think she’d told a single lie. She was fun. Happy. I loved her so much.’ She smiles, wipes her eyes. ‘I’ll let you get home, eh. I really don’t know what’s in that package, but if you ever want to talk to me, here’s my card.’ As she withdraws her hand from the table, she knocks over a glass.

  ‘That’s me: bull in china, bur in linen,’ she says, putting the glass upright again.

  ‘Sorry?’

  ‘Oh nothing; it’s from a poem I like.’

  That’s right, the one Phil’s always quoting. His ‘Ode to Al’. ‘That one about the klutz,’ I say.

  ‘No, no. It’s a poem about love. He adores her.’

  She hands me the card, places a ten-dollar note on the table for the coffees, and holds her hand out to shake mine. Once she’s out of sight, I look at her card: Kirsty McNicol, Events Manager, and an address in Islington. I leave it on the table and head to the tram stop, her last words making me smile as I imagine Phil.

  It’s a poem about love. He adores her.

  *

  Of course, I can’t wait till I get home to look in the package. I get a seat to myself on the Number 19 and I open it as the tram rattles through the city and into Carlton. Inside is a Bananas in Pyjamas teddy bear, a handwritten note and a printed letter.

  The note reads:

  Alexandra,

  This package was in Alistair’s briefcase. I thought Chloe should have it.

  I wish I could find better words, but I am so sorry, for everything,

  Joanna.

  The letter has been printed onto a single A4 sheet. I tell myself it’s absolutely necessary to read it before giving it to Chloe, just in case he’s said something that might upset her.

  My darling Chloe,

  You are the most important person in the world to me. That will never change. I am your father, for ever, and you are my beloved daughter.

  You shine, Chloe. Wherever you are, people gravitate towards you. It’s not because you’re the most beautiful person in the world (which you are), or because you’re the cleverest person in the world (which you are), it’s because you are the most important person in my life. I want to watch you and listen to you all day, for the rest of my life.

  I have been so upset these last days, after what happened to your baby brother. I don’t want you to see me this way. But I will come and see you soon, my darling girl. I will come and see you and I will be the best father I can be, the father I want to be, the father you need.

  I want you to do something for me, Chloe. Can you try not to be consumed by what happened to Noah, by not knowing what happened? Instead of being angry and lost, I want you to try and connect with him, feel him – when you’re in the garden, or playing with your animals, or holding his favourite Bananas in Pyjamas teddy bear? It’s not forgetting. It’s not giving up. It’s loving. It’s living, again, just as the charred grass and the trees will. It’s what Noah would want you
to do.

  I love you, for ever,

  Daddy xxx

  The letter oozes Alistair – the turn of phrase, the composition, the beautiful bullshit that used to make me fly with happiness. Even the fact that it’s typed – edited and re-edited till it’s perfect. But there’s something about it that doesn’t feel right. I can’t put my finger on what it is, but I’m uneasy.

  I’m reading it again when Chloe arrives home from school.

  ‘How was the court?’ she asks. She’s been crying. She looks so sad. She is consumed and angry and lost. All I can think about is how Alistair’s letters made me feel in the early days: jubilant, wonderful. I wish I never found out that they were bullshit.

  ‘Honey,’ I say, ‘I have something for you. From your daddy.’

  26

  JOANNA

  Two years later

  It was time to listen to Noah.

  Joanna didn’t realise she’d recorded him until she arrived back in Glasgow. ‘Arrived’ is a pretty word for it – she was deported and placed in a facility for mad folk. That was her arrival. During her first week in the hospital she listened to Noah all day, every day. Listening was torture in the hospital, and they took Alistair’s phone away.

  The counsellor wasn’t a total idiot, but Joanna didn’t think she needed to see her any more. She went because she had to go. She had to see her and she had to see a criminal justice social worker and she had to see a quack and she had to take the antidepressants.

  Last visit, the counsellor announced that Joanna was ready to have the phone back. ‘But don’t listen to the recording,’ she said. ‘You shouldn’t be encouraging anguish. Or, if you must, limit how often. Dedicate a half an hour a day to private mourning and maybe listen just once then, but not all the time, not over and over like you did at Leverndale.’