The Kindest Thing

by Cath Staincliffe

  ‘. . . is there any evidence other than her own version of events to suggest Ms Shelley was suffering from abnormality of mind when she administered a fatal overdose to Neil Draper?’

  ‘None at all.’ Complete confidence.

  No shred of doubt. I’m holding my breath. The tension burns in my neck.

  ‘With your extensive experience, did you find any evidence that Deborah Shelley had impaired mental responsibility when she used a plastic bag to hasten her husband’s death?’

  I don’t like to think of this. It makes me nauseous. Sophie bows her head and Adam sets his jaw. I force myself to keep looking ahead, then up to catch his eyes. I may regret what I have done but I will not be shamed. At last his gaze flicks my way and my pain softens a touch. He gives a wobbly grimace, trying for a smile.

  Professor Cabril is answering: ‘Not at all. Her actions were those of a mentally responsible person.’

  ‘Professor Cabril.’ Miss Webber pauses, lowers her voice a touch, drawing us in. Her words are measured, solemn, laden with gravity. ‘When Deborah Shelley killed Neil Draper, was the balance of her mind disturbed?’

  ‘No. She was fine, healthy, responsible.’

  It’s a neat last line. Succinct, deadly. The room is still, silent. The implication of her opinion hanging there, shrouding us all. Murder. My eyes are hot, my mouth dry. There’s a fizzy sensation at the back of my skull as if I might faint.

  Quietly, with a reverential nod and a whispered, ‘Thank you’, Briony Webber leaves the floor.

  It is Mr Latimer’s turn and he is on treacherous ground. He must attempt to discredit Professor Cabril’s opinion without compromising the jury’s view of the profession – for it won’t be long till his own expert shrink is trundled out for more of the same.

  ‘Pr-Pr-Professor Cabril. Your testimony here today is an opinion, is it fair to say, not a fact?’

  ‘Yes, an opinion based on facts.’

  ‘But an opinion all the same?’

  ‘Yes.’ She gives a tight smile.

  ‘And opinions, particularly opinions about human behaviour, may vary?’

  ‘Yes.’

  ‘So the jury here will have to try to decide which expert opinion best fits the rest of the evidence?’

  I think of the trail of lies, stitched to my widow’s weeds, and shudder inside.

  ‘Please can you tell the court how Ms Shelley herself described her state of mind immediately before her husband’s death.’

  Professor Cabril appears to fish for recollection. Mr Latimer is quick to prompt. ‘In your report, paragraph four on the first page. Please can you read that for us?’

  ‘‘‘Deborah Shelley reports feeling under great pressure. She states that she felt trapped into agreeing to help Neil but was very anxious about that agreement. She also reported panic attacks and insomnia.’’’

  ‘Panic attacks, anxiety, insomnia? Are these indicators of a healthy mental state?’ Mr Latimer could be scathing but he’s careful not to ridicule the witness.

  ‘No, but they should be taken in context.’ She takes a breath to expand, but Mr Latimer cuts her off.

  ‘I am keen that the jury should understand this apparent contradiction.’

  The Cook smiles and glances at the Artist. He’s enjoying the jousting.

  Professor Cabril lowers her shoulders, clasps her hands together, an unconscious attempt to regain equilibrium. ‘Deborah Shelley reported these symptoms but my opinion rests on her behaviour. Her actions were those of a coherent and fully responsible individual.’

  And we all know actions speak louder . . .

  ‘That is your interpretation?’

  ‘Yes. I am not saying there were no stresses whatsoever. She was faced with a difficult situation but her actions – the research she carried out in preparation for the event, the careful planning, the collected way she behaved afterwards. This is hard to square with her own description of her state of mind at the time.’

  I am a liar. Mr Latimer must navigate carefully. Here be monsters.

  ‘But another person,’ Mr Latimer says reasonably, ‘knowing how trapped Deborah Shelley felt, hearing of her panic attacks, her lack of sleep, her anxiety might formulate a different interpretation?’

  ‘They might,’ she allows.

  ‘They might deduce that Ms Shelley was driven to the brink by the appalling situation she found herself in. That, racked by anxiety and paralysed by panic attacks, she lost the ability to distinguish right from wrong. That she became disturbed to the point where she bowed to the pressure of her husband’s pleas. The husband she loved. A man she had been with for more than thirty years. Her husband of twenty-four years. They may well deduce that?’

  ‘They may,’ Professor Cabril says drily. The subtext: they’d be a fool if they did. ‘In my experience,’ she goes on, her dark eyes glinting, ‘people who commit acts of this nature while the balance of their mind is disturbed find it impossible to sustain normal behaviour for very long. Like a pressure cooker, the cracks are there—’

  ‘Professor Cabril.’ Mr Latimer tries to shut her up.

  ‘Let the witness finish,’ insists the judge.

  ‘Your Honour, my client’s liberty, her reputation, her freedom are at stake here,’ Mr Latimer says forcefully.

  ‘Let the witness finish,’ the judge repeats, frowning.

  ‘Your Honour—’

  ‘Mr Latimer!’ The judge slaps him down. I sense the gathering clouds, the swell of disaster dark on the horizon.

  Dolores Cabril inclines her head by way of appreciation, ‘If Deborah Shelley had been as vulnerable as she reported then it is my opinion that she would have swiftly broken down after the event. She would not have had the resilience to stand any scrutiny of her behaviour, to maintain her composure, and certainly would not withstand the police questioning she underwent. The need to confess, the relief she would seek from her situation, would have been paramount.’

  ‘In your opinion,’ Mr Latimer repeats. It is the best he can do and it is nowhere near good enough. I feel cheated, stuck in sinking sand with the waters rising. He walks back to his table and sits as Briony Webber leaps up for a last bite of the cherry. Mr Latimer has tried to introduce the spectre of doubt and she is keen to repair any damage.

  ‘Professor Cabril, if Deborah Shelley actually did suffer from some anxiety and insomnia, if . . .’

  Each ‘if is dripping with scepticism.

  ‘. . . she had some panic attacks as she reported, would these symptoms constitute severe abnormality of mind sufficient to substantially impair her mental responsibility?’

  ‘No, they would fall a long way short.’

  ‘Thank you.’

  So, even if I was having the odd wobble, I wasn’t mad enough, according to Professor Cabril, to be guilty of the lesser charge of manslaughter. For that I’d need to be completely deranged. If I’m just a bit freaked out, it’s murder. A bit of a conundrum, really.

  ‘Your Honour,’ Miss Webber addresses the judge, ‘that is the case for the prosecution.’

  Chapter Eighteen

  Although I am hungry, when I try to eat my lunch my mouth floods with saliva and I feel sick. Mr Latimer will open the defence case when we resume and I will be the first witness. He is limiting the defence witnesses to the bare minimum. ‘Less is more,’ he pronounced, when he explained it to me. ‘The jury wants the essential facts, not to be alienated or, worse, bored by an endless procession of faces all chipping in their two-penn’worth.’ After I’ve given my evidence, he will call my neighbour, Pauline Corby, and then Don Petty, our shrink. We will all be saying variations of the same thing – that I was out of my mind when I agreed to Neil’s request and off my rocker when I went ahead.

  Earlier on I had thought about asking Jane to testify. She’d have had no qualms and she probably knows better than anyone how I had struggled through the first half of last year. But if Jane had been a witness she would not have been able to attend much of the tr
ial and Adam would have been on his own if he chose to come. It was better for Adam and better for me if Jane was there to support him.

  I have rehearsed my testimony with Mr Latimer, and he and Ms Gleason have drummed into me the pitfalls to avoid when I take the stand, especially during cross-examination. No losing my temper, no backhand remarks or trite put-downs, no evasion. I must keep my tone level where I can but not appear cold. My demeanour, my character, will have more impact on the jury’s verdict than any other aspect. I must make them like me, or at the very least not dislike me. For someone who has never sought much approval from people, never wanted to be popular, rarely worried about what others thought, this is a tall order.

  ‘We want them to step into your shoes,’ Mr Latimer said, ‘to think that in your situation they may well have responded in the same way.’

  Cast reason to the wind and lined up the drugs. Lost their marbles and prepared a last drink.

  Throughout the whole of the trial we must quash any debate around the notion of mercy killing (or assisted suicide or whatever label we use), any whisper that this might be a rational, humane, tenable course of action. The trial is not about Neil’s right to die, it is not about my right to help him, it is solely about one question: was I responsible for my actions? My role is to play the madwoman – now recovered and remorseful.

  The third time that Neil asked me was in April 2009. We were at home. He had stopped teaching: he no longer had sufficient strength or mobility. He was occasionally breathless. Trips downstairs were quite an effort and I was wondering whether we should convert the dining room into a bedroom. That way he would remain part of the household without being stuck upstairs like some benign Mrs Rochester. We never used the dining room for eating: the computer table was in there, lots of books and a second TV, which Adam used to play games on. But the computer and TV could easily go in the lounge for the duration. Not for ever, I thought, and the notion seemed awful and funny and poignant all at the same time. Neil would still need to get upstairs if he wanted to shower or bathe; we only had a loo on the ground floor. He was finding it harder to get in and out of the bath. His arms were worse than his legs, and the weakness was debilitating. We had to remember simple things, like giving him smaller, lighter mugs so he could lift them, and using tops and T-shirts that had a front opening so he didn’t have to raise his arms above his head, which he could barely do.

  The day before, Neil had seen the neurologist. The consultant recommended a wheelchair and suggested talking to the GP about medication if the pain in his shoulders got any worse. I say it was the third time but the question had hung between us ever since Barcelona. It was there in Neil’s glances and silences, between our phrases as we discussed his symptoms and how we managed them, in each kiss. A briny tide lapping at my ankles, eroding the honesty between us. I knew he wouldn’t give up on the idea but, like a child, I hoped that if I ignored the issue it would go away.

  We were in the kitchen after breakfast. Sophie had gone into school and Adam was still asleep after a late night working at the airport bar. Neil was still eating – everything was taking longer – and I was loading the dishwasher.

  ‘I was thinking about moving our bed,’ I said, ‘bringing it downstairs.’

  Neil went to pick up his coffee and stalled, his arm shook and he lowered it to the table.

  ‘Tired?’ I asked.

  ‘Deborah.’

  I could hear it in his voice, hear it coming and taste it in the air between us. Like the ominous drop in pressure before a storm. I tried to escape. ‘I need to leave soon – my meeting’s at eleven.’

  ‘Please,’ he said, ‘sit down.’

  I made him wait. Stood, sullen and scared, like a teenager, for a few beats then slid on to a chair, sat with ill grace.

  ‘I’ll get weaker. I won’t be able to walk. I might not be able to swallow.’

  ‘I’ll look after you.’

  ‘That’s not what I want.’

  ‘If this is about pride . . .’

  ‘No.’ He stopped me.

  ‘I don’t want you to die, Neil. How can you ask me—’

  ‘I am dying. One way or another.’

  ‘Wait.’ I felt jittery, buffeted by his arguments. I pushed myself away from the table, shaking with emotion, mainly anger. Cross that he was asking again. Furious that he wanted to leave me. I snatched the book I wanted from the dining room, thumbing through to the page I remembered on my way back to the kitchen. I read it through clenched teeth. ‘‘‘Medical advances mean many of the symptoms of MND can now be treated and with planning and support patients can enjoy a good quality of life and a peaceful death.’’’ I looked across at him, said fiercely, ‘You’re not going to lose your mind, you’re not going to become incontinent, you’re still going to be you . . .’

  ‘So I’m lucky? Please, Deborah, this isn’t a whim. I know it’s a lot to ask.’

  ‘You want to leave us . . . me, the kids.’

  ‘Just a bit sooner. I could have another year, maybe two, with my world shrinking, getting frightened, depressed, helpless. I don’t want to go on to the bitter end.’

  ‘It might not be bitter,’ I insisted. My throat ached, ringed with grief.

  ‘I’m happy now, still. I love you, I love Adam and Sophie.’

  ‘You don’t want to be a burden?’

  ‘It’s not that. I want to go while it’s still good.’

  Like leaving a party before the end.

  I shook my head, pressed my palm to my mouth, unable to answer. I looked across at him, my eyes blurring. Thought of the boy I’d seen at uni, making his friends laugh, his long legs and mischievous eyes, of the man who had led me round the Acropolis spinning stories, who had wept at the birth of his children, who had never belittled me or neglected me, who had encouraged me in every venture, who had never cheated on me but had had the generosity of heart to forgive my transgression. The man who could still set my pulse singing with a certain look, whose touch was balm and spice. My man.

  ‘See a counsellor,’ I said.

  ‘What?’

  ‘Talk to a counsellor, one of the people the consultant told us about, or someone at the MND Association. Talk to them.’

  ‘I won’t change my mind.’

  ‘But you will talk to someone?’

  He dipped his head. ‘And?’

  ‘Then if you still feel the same . . .’ I couldn’t continue. Dread stole into my heart, the shriek of fear chittered in my ears, claws of panic scrabbled at my scalp. I felt my nose swell and tears start. He slid his hand across the table. I held it. His grasp was weak but it was there. I wiped my face and moved around to hug him.

  And then, after a while, I washed and dressed and went to discuss floor tiles with a ceramics company in Cheshire, having just agreed to kill my husband.

  Depression swallowed me in the months after my mother’s death. Martin made most of the arrangements and I recall very little of the funeral, other than it was a suitably bleak affair. The March wind nipped at our wrists and ankles and a squall of hail greeted us at the hillside grave. My great-aunt nodded with approval towards the valley. ‘She’s got a grand view.’ My mother was joining my father in the same plot. Twenty-four years he had waited for her. Twenty-four years she had slept in their marriage bed alone. I stood dry-eyed throughout, my back aching with pregnancy and the chill.

  A few weeks later Martin and I met up at her house to sort out her things. He had already made a start, boxing up crockery and linen, emptying the fridge. There was a pile in the lounge of any items we might want to keep: paintings, ornaments, clocks and mirrors. All I was interested in were the photographs, the two heavy albums and the box of loose prints. I gestured to them. ‘We could share them out?’

  ‘You take them for now,’ Martin said. ‘I’ve a couple at home as it is. We don’t need to do that yet. But I thought – her clothes?’ He tilted his head in the direction of the stairs. ‘Anything decent can go to the charity shop. I don�
��t know if there’s anything you’d wear.’

  Not bloody likely. I smiled, nodded, immensely grateful that Martin was here to do this with me.

  ‘I’ll have a look.’ I wriggled out of the chair. Six months pregnant with Sophie, I felt enormous.

  Reaching my mother’s bedroom door, I was assailed by a lurch of fear, sulphur in my nostrils, tendrils on my neck. A trick of grief. Taking a deep breath, I opened the door. No corpse, no zombie, no chattering whispers. Just the still-life of her room: the rose-coloured duvet cover, the small chintz bedside lamp and old mahogany wardrobe. On her dressing-table was her brush, grey hairs still tangled there, her makeup, jewellery box, the Yardley perfume she wore on special occasions, her hand cream. A school photograph of Martin and me. We must have been five and six. Daddy would still have been alive. Was she happy then? Did she laugh and make jokes? Did she play with us? Games and make-believe? Tickling, hide and seek? Fishing for memories, all I came up with was the well-worn one of her singing while my father played the piano. A number from a musical, ‘Baubles, Bangles and Beads’. She had been happy then, I thought, with him, but when he had gone we weren’t enough.

  ‘It’s not fair.’ I spoke aloud, frustration tight in my throat. ‘It’s not bloody fair.’

  I yanked open the drawers and began to sling her things into the bin-bags Martin had provided. Underwear for the tip, scarves and jumpers for charity, throwing them in any-old-how, trying to convince myself that I was simply being efficient. I flung open the wardrobe doors and stared at the contents. Her woollen camel coat, a polyester jacket, dresses in navy and cream and burgundy, blouses, the faint floral smell of her hand cream and perfume.

  Once my father’s things would have hung at one side of the space. How long had she waited to do this with them, packing away all trace of him? She’d kept nothing. Why not? Hadn’t she wanted reminders of the shape and smell of him? Was it anger, at losing him, at being cheated of a future together that had made her erase him as she had? The same anger that chilled her heart and smothered her love of life?