The Book of Ordinary People

by Claire Varley

  ‘You told me I would be able to see my children that day,’ she growled. ‘It’s been two weeks and nothing has changed.’

  DB folded his hands one on top of the other, his demeanour now calm and professional, the swagger all but gone.

  ‘That was based on the assumption that what you’d told us was the truth. That you weren’t omitting information, for instance, or lying.’

  Madeline pushed her bag from the chair and sank heavily into it. The bag landed with a dull thud against the carpet, spilling its contents. She ignored this. How different she looked today, Nell thought, her eyes rimmed red and weary despite her careful makeup. Madeline crossed her arms and stared at DB sullenly.

  ‘Did you not think it would be pertinent to mention the time the police were called to your children’s primary school because you were drunk and/or high? And that this in turn resulted in a notification to Child Protection who paid your home a welfare visit? And that your husband spoke of your drinking but assured them it was under control? Did you not think your husband would include this in his application?’

  Madeline shook her head with disgust.

  ‘That’s not how it happened.’

  ‘Isn’t it?’ DB challenged her, fishing for the application from the file in front of him.

  ‘Yes, but not like that.’

  ‘Like how then?’

  Madeline fell silent. She uncrossed her arms, pulling them to her lap and tightening them in her peculiar vice-like grip. She closed her eyes, her breath audible as she inhaled slowly, exhaled slowly, forcing herself to calmness. DB watched, unblinking. Nell, awkwardly aware of herself, reached out to fill their water glasses.

  ‘So what happens now?’ Madeline asked, her register lower.

  ‘As both you and your ex are contesting the respective intervention orders raised against you, the magistrate has listed the case for directions in a few weeks. It’s really just a procedural thing, five, ten minutes tops.’

  ‘Like the last one, then,’ Madeline scoffed. ‘Getting my justice five minutes at a time.’

  DB continued.

  ‘Basically, it’s pretty much a repeat of the first hearing and we get another chance to negotiate conditions. But if we can’t get an agreement they’ll give us a date for the contested hearing. That’s the big one. For that we need to put together further and better particulars; things like witness lists, evidence, and of course your affidavit.’

  ‘Like what I’ve already done?’

  ‘More than that. It needs to contain all the relevant information, not just for this incident, but for the history of your relationship. How you met, when the violence first started, if it progressed, as well as specific information about the altercation and anything that happened up and until the point of the hearing. We need details for this. We need you to be honest.’

  Madeline looked at her hands, her mouth drawn.

  ‘So you need my story. Fine.’

  ‘For the contested hearing, yes. Presuming neither of you change your mind before directions, which I think we can safely assume isn’t going to happen.’

  DB hesitated. His voice, when he spoke next, was delicate.

  ‘Not only is he contesting the cross-application, but he is claiming a history of abuse perpetrated by you against him. Additionally, his lawyers are threatening to include costs as well, which means that in the event you are not successful, you would have to cover his legal fees. This means that he will be doing the same thing in preparation for the contested hearing: pulling together his affidavit, compiling witnesses. He’ll be putting into writing all the same things: history of the relationship, past abuse and the like. Anything that provides evidence to his claims.’

  ‘I see,’ Madeline replied, her eyes downcast. ‘And my children?’

  DB’s voice was gentler still.

  ‘The interim order is still in place at this point, and until you either start mediation or get a parenting order, there’s nothing much we can do.’

  ‘So we start mediation?’

  ‘You can start that process, but that’s not something we can do here. You have to go to the Family Relationship Centre for that, and if he doesn’t attend, you have to go through the Family Court to get the parenting order in place, and unfortunately all that takes time.’

  ‘What kind of time?’

  DB’s face softened. ‘Time. Months, perhaps. Unfortunately there are a lot of other people in a similar position to you.’

  Nell noticed Madeline’s hands trembling in their tangle. Madeline steadied them.

  ‘I understand. So you need me to write you an affidavit?’

  DB nodded.

  ‘Yes. Well, not the actual affidavit, but the story. We can review it together in the next week or so then we will pull it into the proper format. Give ourselves time to make sure it’s ready. And as you’re going through, think of any witnesses who might be able to corroborate what you say. Any evidence. Things that will help the magistrate see that your story is the valid one. Unless of course you think you’ll change your mind before the directions hearing?’

  He ended the statement on a raised hopeful note. Madeline glared at him and DB rose to his feet hastily.

  ‘I have a template somewhere with prompts for what to include. I’ll just be a moment.’

  He hurried out of the consulting room, leaving Nell and Madeline alone. Madeline looked over to her as if noticing her for the first time. Her brow creased.

  ‘So what do you do?’

  Nell considered this. Madeline’s question was not unkind but the asking had made Nell realise that she didn’t really know the answer.

  ‘Support, mostly. Research, preparing documents, arranging our meetings. Once you’ve written your affidavit I’ll be the one typing it up.’

  Madeline surveyed her.

  ‘Good for you,’ she replied. ‘Did you get all the way through that law degree just to be someone’s secretary?’

  It stung, and Nell could barely contain her reaction. She coughed, pulling herself taller.

  ‘Ben is the senior lawyer. He has more experience. My role is to assist him and find him information or offer my opinion if he asks.’

  Madeline looked amused though nothing amusing had been said. She leant forward, her body filling the space between them.

  ‘And what opinion have you got on all this? Now that Ben isn’t here?’

  Nell felt her warm breath, sharp and close. She shifted back slightly. ‘I would remind you that we can’t take any instructions from you if you’ve been drinking. You need to be of sound mind. I’m saying that to help you, because we do want to help you, really we do.’

  Madeline stared at her for a long moment, one hand hovering in front of her mouth.

  ‘Fuck you,’ she replied, placing her hands firmly in her lap.

  *

  That night Nell arrived home to find Seymour sprawled on the couch, though the mess consuming the kitchen counter suggested he had at some point been engaged in some form of productivity. The television was on but he seemed more preoccupied with his mobile, hitting the home button repeatedly so that the screen lit up.

  ‘Terrarium,’ he said, not looking up. ‘Stupid idea. ’S’in the bin now.’

  Nell surveyed the wreckage of foliage, dirt and pebbles. ‘Couldn’t be bothered cleaning up?’

  Seymour pulled his eyes from his mobile, wounded. ‘Bad day?’

  Nell ignored him, sweeping her arm across the counter to shepherd the mess into the sink. It was meant to be dramatic and decisive, but instead sent pebbles and soil dancing into the air and skittering about the floor.

  ‘What’s up your arse?’ Seymour turned down the volume of the television.

  ‘I don’t want to talk about it,’ Nell said. She pulled a carafe of cold water from the fridge and poured herself a glass. She down
ed it aggressively, water sloshing out the sides of her mouth. She could sense Seymour watching her and brought her sleeve to her chin to mop up the spillage. Then she stood planted on the tiles, her arms rooted by her side, glaring tetchily at nothing in particular. Seymour waited, muting the television.

  ‘I don’t know what you’re doing. If you want to talk about something, please just talk. I don’t have the emotional insight to work out what is happening or why you are standing in the kitchen like an angry garden gnome.’

  Nell took a breath. They were not, as a family, genetically predisposed to talk of their weaknesses. It was not something that came naturally to them, as if Darwinian theory had bled them of any ability to seek emotional solace or support.

  ‘Am I affable?’

  Seymour looked at her as if she’d asked him to perform some spontaneous, off-the-cuff calculus.

  ‘You’re not un-affable,’ he said kindly.

  ‘Do people like me?’

  He shifted uncomfortably.

  ‘They don’t not like you.’

  He pulled himself upright, swivelling his feet onto the carpet.

  ‘Is there someone who . . . you want . . . to like you?’

  His discomfort was obvious in the way it always became when the siblings were forced to discuss their romantic lives with one another.

  ‘No.’ Nell rolled her eyes. ‘It’s a client at work. I don’t think she likes me.’

  Seymour looked confused. ‘Is she meant to?’

  Nell shrugged offhandedly.

  ‘Maybe she’s put off by the desperate need to help everyone that you emit?’

  Nell frowned. ‘What do you mean?’

  Seymour considered his words. ‘Well, it’s just sometimes you seem so keen to help people that it becomes more about your needs then theirs. And it’s not about you, is it? Like the way you’re always telling me to go out because you think it will help me forget about Patrick.’

  His voice sounded funny at the end, as if he’d caught himself saying something illicit.

  ‘It would help us all,’ Nell muttered, and Seymour raised his eyebrows to demonstrate his point.

  She stood there a moment longer, unable to articulate the tension running up and down her nervous system, pulsing through her veins in a way that unsettled and unbalanced her. She turned on her heels and marched out of the room.

  ‘I am too fucking affable,’ she mumbled.

  That night she slept poorly, the flailing dervish sleep of the discontented people pleaser.

  *

  They met with Madeline again the following week. She arrived clutching a single piece of paper secured inside a plastic pocket. She nodded a greeting to DB then withdrew the page carefully and handed it to him.

  I met Eric during my first year at university. We became engaged just after graduation and married twelve months after he finished his Articles. We underwent a short separation a year later after an incident in which we fought and he broke something precious to me. He apologised and soon after I became pregnant with our first child. Josh was born in 2006 and Leo in 2008. I became pregnant again in 2012 but lost the baby after an incident during which I was injured while locked out of the house. In retrospect, the abuse has been there throughout our entire relationship. It has caused me stress and anxiety and my drinking has been a result of this. The most recent incident, during which Eric called the police, occurred following a fight where Eric accused me of being an alcoholic. We fought and then the police turned up and Eric lied to them as usual. I just want this all to be over and for my kids and myself to be safe.

  Nell read the page over DB’s shoulder then awaited his reaction. He read through it a couple of times, turning the page over in case there was more, then placed it on the table. Nell knew what DB would say; that it was too brief, there were no details and, most importantly, that as a document it failed to incriminate anyone, really, except perhaps Madeline herself. She knew what DB would say but she waited now to see how DB would say it. He stared at Madeline’s paper for a while then steepled his fingers. He searched the air as if he might find more information there, then, failing, settled his eyes on Madeline. The swagger was gone, so too the anger, and instead in their place was something close to deflation.

  ‘Is there any more?’

  Madeline crossed her arms. She reminded Nell of a child dragged before the school principal and asked to explain herself.

  ‘Okay then,’ DB said, clicking his tongue against his teeth. ‘Look, to be blunt, there’s just not enough here. I mean, for one thing, for the most part it reads like a normal relationship. You mention incidents, but what are they? You say there was violence, but where is it? There’s just not enough meat in this to be useful for you.’

  Madeline pursed her lips, her brows raised in an unimpressed scowl.

  ‘It’s not sexy enough?’

  ‘It’s not anything enough,’ DB sighed. ‘You need to be . . . sympathetic. Imagine I’m the magistrate. I want to see the damage this has done to you. I want to see the impact on you. I mean, you’re the victim, right? As humans we’re full of all this pride and our immediate reaction is to hide our scars, but the court needs to see them. You need to show them your wounds.’

  Madeline shifted in the chair, recrossing her legs and pulling her hands into their usual tight little nest.

  ‘I don’t remember all those things. Who would want to?’

  ‘You need to be reliable,’ DB pressed. ‘The drinking . . . it doesn’t suggest that. What about witnesses? Who did you come up with?’

  Madeline threw her arms into the air in wordless frustration.

  ‘No one?’

  ‘I didn’t tell anyone,’ she cried out, thumping her hands back down to her thighs. ‘Who would I ask?’

  Nell leant forward and pushed the tissue box towards Madeline, who batted it away like a softball player. The three of them watched it rocket off the table and crumple against the white wall.

  ‘He has witnesses,’ DB explained. ‘The police, the school principal. People in positions of authority and credibility who can vouch for his story.’

  ‘Of course he does.’ Madeline laughed bitterly. ‘He’ll have it all sorted. That’s what he does. Dots the i’s, crosses the t’s. He’s got a big house and impressive career to show for it.’

  She paused for a moment then reached for her bag.

  ‘I have something.’

  She fished about within it, pulling out her mobile phone. She fiddled with it for a moment, then held it up for them. An audio recording began, first crackly and incomprehensible before becoming clearer. A man was shouting, his voice distant and tinny as if coming through an intercom.

  – What the fuck are you doing here?

  ‘That’s Eric,’ Madeline interrupted, her own voice coming in over the top.

  – I just want to see the boys.

  – You know you can’t. I’ve a bloody intervention order, you moron. And here you are lurking about the front of the house like a fucking stalker.

  – I just want to see them. This is unfair. You know it is. This is all bullshit. I just want to see them. If this is about the house or the money, you can have it all. I just want to see my babies.

  There was a pause and then the man began to laugh, cold and robotic through the intercom.

  – You’re pathetic, Madeline. Is that all the fight you’ve got in you? You’re making this very easy for me. That’s not the woman I married. You used to be such a good fighter. And now look at you. You’re useless. A drunken wreck. You’re an embarrassment. Lucky for you I’m always up for a fight.

  There was a sob, so primal and raw it hurtled down Nell’s throat and shattered the hesitancy of her doubting gut. She avoided Madeline’s gaze, but here in this room her eyes were fiery, her face determined.

  – Please Eric. Please just stop
all of this. Stop your lies.

  – But you’re getting your day in court, darling. Isn’t that what you wanted? It’s only fair, after all. Isn’t that what you said? Or have you forgotten all about that law degree you’ve got gathering dust? It’ll be fun, won’t it? Just like university all over again. Let’s see who gets the better of the other this time.

  There was some more crackling then footsteps then the recording ended with the sound of someone fumbling to press pause. Madeline’s whimpers were the last thing they heard. She looked up now, triumphant, the mobile raised before them like a trophy.

  ‘Where did you get that?’ DB asked softly.

  ‘On the weekend. Played right into it, didn’t he? He thought he was so clever installing that security system at the front gate.’

  She stowed the mobile safely in her handbag. ‘Don’t worry, I’ve made copies.’

  Nell’s stomach dropped. She glanced at DB.

  ‘That means you breached your intervention order,’ DB said gently. ‘We can’t use it. It’s inadmissible. Plus, you can’t record someone without their consent. We can’t use evidence that has been obtained in an illegal manner.’

  Triumph fled from Madeline’s face. ‘But it shows that this is all a game for him. That he’s making it all up.’

  ‘You’ve breached your order. That’s a criminal offence. He could report you for it and that’s the last thing you need right now. You’re lucky client privilege exists or we’d have to tell the police.’

  Madeline’s mouth tightened. ‘So I can’t use it?’

  Nell felt the muscles tightening in her chest.

  ‘We could,’ she spoke up. ‘There is a precedent. It’s up to the magistrate, ultimately, but sometimes they grant an exemption and allow the evidence. It’s happened before. But equally, Davidson might not. Ben’s right. You may end up charged for the breach. It’s a risk you have to make a call on.’

  Nell watched as the momentary fight in Madeline seemed to shrivel away. She withered back into her chair, eyes dull, refusing to look at either of them. DB looked torn, unable to decide what to do next, his right hand tapping his biro repeatedly onto the notepad before him. He sprang to his feet abruptly.