Maybe the Horse Will Talk

by Elliot Perlman

  That early evening at drinks Jessica had made a point of approaching her and they had talked about food, cafes in the area, restaurants, and the best places to buy fresh produce for cooking at home. Monika had dark shoulder-length, wavy, almost curly hair and a ready smile. Jessica remembered she was warm and easy to talk to. But when one of the executives from Mining, her department, called Monika over to a group of other Mining people, Jessica had taken the opportunity to slip out of the boardroom and go home.

  Now, on reading the affidavit, she remembered Monika privately raising her eyebrows to her when called over as if to say, ‘Sorry, I have to go.’ That had been the last contact she had ever had with Monika. And while it made perfect sense, Jessica was shocked to deduce from Monika’s affidavit that this was the very night she was assaulted by Jim Duffy, one of the executives from Mining.

  From Monika’s affidavit Jessica learned Duffy had made suggestive comments before that night, many times, about her body, about her chest, and had even brushed up against her several times, pretending each time it had been an accident. So should she have seen this coming? That’s what Jessica could imagine being put to her in court should Monika ever find herself giving evidence of Jim Duffy’s assault on her that night. It would be put in a hostile tone as though it was Monika who had done something wrong and now she was trying to ruin the career and even the marriage of a good, hard-working man.

  Jessica read on. Fuelled, emboldened, by alcohol, he had followed her out of the boardroom as she was leaving to go home. Walking two flights down via the fireproof stairwell, back to her desk in order to pick up her things before going home, where she lived with her parents, younger brother and sister, she hadn’t even realised he was behind her in the stairwell. It certainly hadn’t ever occurred to her that it would be unsafe for her to take the stairs in her own place of work. But it was unsafe.

  Jessica read that Jim Duffy had come up behind her in the stairwell and pushed her against the concrete wall of the otherwise empty stairwell. The back of her head banged against the wall. She was in shock. He tried to kiss her, to invade her mouth with his, but failed and then started tearing at her blouse. She screamed but there was no one there to hear her. It seemed like ten minutes as she struggled to break his grip with her heart beating like a bell inside a fire alarm but was probably no more than two minutes before she managed to break away and run out of the stairwell at the next floor. Her shirt was torn and she had a scratch along one side of her chest from Duffy’s fingernails.

  Monika Galea no longer worked at Torrent Industries. Jim Duffy was still there, a highly regarded member of the Mining team.

  By the time Jessica had finished reading the last of the affidavits, she had tears in her eyes. Was anything ever going to change?

  She texted Maserov to say she had just finished reading the last of the affidavits, Carla’s, knowing he had read them all. It had sickened her, she told him. She asked how negotiations with Carla and Betga had gone. It was eleven o’clock. She waited for a response and when nothing came back she suddenly worried that she had made a mistake by texting him so late.

  Maserov was awake, alone in his bed, when the text came in. How should he tell Jessica what had happened at Carla’s house? To his and Betga’s surprise, Carla had said she wasn’t interested in talking about settlement.

  ‘This isn’t about money!’ Carla had said. ‘This was a fucking crime. Ron said it’s criminal assault, maybe even attempted rape. I want Mercer punished. I want him to go to jail. Then we can talk about money.’ Maserov and Betga had looked at each other.

  ‘It’s complicated. Do you mind if I tell you tomorrow?’ Maserov texted Jessica from his darkened bedroom.

  ‘No, not at all. Sorry if I woke you.’

  ‘No, you didn’t at all.’

  The leafy streets of Elwood and St Kilda were hushed as Maserov and Jessica lay in their beds, alone in their respective apartments, reading and re-reading their last messages to each other.

  ‘Sleep well.’

  ‘You too, sleep well.’

  ‘Good night.’

  ‘Good night.’

  ‘See you tomorrow.’

  ‘See you in the morning.’

  part six

  I

  ‘Carla wants revenge. Of course she does. I understand that completely,’ said Jessica, sipping a craft beer at a table under the soft light of the semi-private cocktail bar in the Grosvenor Hotel. On one side of her was Maserov. On the other was Betga.

  ‘Yeah, I understand that too,’ said Betga. ‘But we’re not in the revenge game. We’re not assassins. Sadly. We’re only lawyers.’

  ‘You’re her lawyer,’ she said, looking at Betga. ‘And you’re her tormentor’s lawyer,’ she said, pointing at Maserov. ‘And yet you’re sitting opposite each other having not the first of a number of drinks together.’

  ‘Yes, and for not the first time,’ Betga clarified.

  ‘Strictly speaking, I’m not her tormentor’s lawyer. I’m the lawyer for her tormentor’s employer.’

  ‘But, if you don’t mind my asking —’

  ‘Jessica, you should feel free to ask me anything,’ Betga volunteered in a manner that had served him well previously. ‘Maserov too, probably. Ask him anything, about his marriage, for example. He’s very forthcoming, even about his shortcomings,’ he added.

  ‘But aren’t you bound by lawyer–client privilege, confidentiality, or something . . . to Carla?’

  ‘Oh yeah, I’m bound by that,’ said Betga, taking a sip.

  ‘And you’re not just Carla’s lawyer, you’re also her . . . estranged husband?’

  ‘No, I’m not her husband,’ he spat out flatly and immediately.

  ‘But he’d like to be,’ Maserov interjected. ‘Their relationship hit a snag when she discovered he was a philanderer.’

  ‘I’m not a philanderer.’

  ‘He was unfaithful with a legal recruitment consultant.’

  ‘It’s a tight job market. A lot of people don’t know that. And it was just once. The recruiter misinterpreted the terms of our arrangement. Wilfully too, in my opinion. I told her I had a daughter, or that I was almost certain I did.’

  ‘How was that relevant to the recruiter?’ Maserov asked.

  ‘It suggested I need the job more than a person without dependants does and it also served to make me less desirable as a partner. It was meant to.’

  ‘Yes, any reasonable woman would have deduced that you were an unreliable philanderer.’

  ‘I was, the operative word being was.’

  ‘He’s reformed now,’ Maserov explained to Jessica with the conviction of a lettuce leaf, not one from the core, an exterior one.

  ‘I’m recovering. I’m in recovery.’

  ‘Still,’ said Jessica, ‘You’re on opposing sides, the two of you. Is it common for lawyers on opposing sides to be drinking together?’

  ‘Alcohol is the first and oldest tool in the armoury of alternative dispute resolution, dear Jessica,’ Betga proffered. ‘It’s the great conciliator.’

  ‘Really? I thought it provokes,’ she said.

  ‘What did Shakespeare say, “it provokes and it unprovokes”? Right Maserov?’

  ‘So it also provokes?’ added Jessica rhetorically.

  ‘Yep, has been known to.’

  ‘Shakespeare was talking about lechery, not conciliation,’ Maserov corrected.

  ‘He was right about that too,’ said Betga.

  ‘Something you’d know about,’ added Maserov.

  ‘I do know my Shakespeare,’ Betga replied.

  ‘Didn’t he also say “kill all the lawyers”?’ Jessica asked.

  ‘Yes, he borrowed the line from Maserov’s wife.’

  ‘Listen, there’s got to be some advantage to you two being the lawyers negotiating all of this,’ Jessica persisted.

  ‘Well, not if Carla won’t settle,’ said Maserov. ‘It’s like you said, she wants revenge.’

  ‘And
you can’t somehow structure that into the settlement agreement?’

  ‘Revenge?’ asked Maserov.

  ‘What, like an exchange of money and fifty lashes?’ Betga suggested.

  ‘Torrent Industries can’t be seen to be punishing Mike Mercer lest it be seen as an admission,’ Maserov explained. ‘Part of the value in a settlement is that it goes away without the company having to deal with allegations that it has a toxic sexist culture.’

  ‘Of the kind it has,’ Jessica interposed.

  ‘Apparently, yes. You’re better placed to comment on that than me.’

  ‘Well, take it as a comment.’

  ‘Duly taken.’

  ‘What if Mercer is punished, sanctioned in some way but it’s not publicised?’

  ‘How do you mean?’ Betga asked.

  ‘I don’t know; what if in addition to a payout, he was fined, or better yet, fired, but in confidence?’

  ‘I don’t know that I can get that. Malcolm Torrent won’t fire one of his employees as a condition of a private settlement just to satisfy a plaintiff.’

  ‘What about a few plaintiffs?’

  ‘It would need to be more than three or four. It would need to be a class action, and even then . . .’

  ‘So Mercer hasn’t harassed or molested quite enough women?’

  ‘Not for that. And anyway, he’s too productive an employee. He’s done too well for the company.’

  ‘So between the two of you, there’s nothing you can do to satisfy her need for some kind of revenge on this arsehole.’

  ‘No, I don’t think so.’

  ‘Where’s the justice in this?’

  ‘What we’re trying to achieve is a legal settlement. It’s a negotiation between parties. Only after it’s concluded do we even think of using words like “justice” and even then only to make the ripped-off party feel better.’

  ‘But I don’t want her to be ripped off. I don’t want any of these women to be ripped off!’ protested Jessica.

  ‘Neither do we,’ said Maserov.

  ‘Then you’ve come to the right place,’ said Betga. ‘The first thing we have to do is get Carla to agree to settle.’

  ‘Why, because it’s in both your interests for her to settle?’

  ‘It is,’ said Maserov. ‘But it’s also in her interest to settle.’

  ‘Yeah, while Maserov is still the lawyer on the other side of this thing.’

  Jessica turned to Maserov and suddenly imagined a time when Maserov wasn’t at Torrent Industries anymore. It was a thought she’d not yet entertained and its effect on her surprised her. She felt bereft. A strange feeling took hold of her, a cocktail of emotions akin to those felt when a much-loved friend, the only one who understands you, leaves to go to a new school in another state or when your parents announce that they’re separating or when a pet dies. It was a visceral sensation that came to her pre-rationally. ‘What are you going to do when —’

  ‘When I’m forced to walk the plank?’

  ‘Yes.’

  ‘I’m supposed to be figuring that out while I work on these cases.’

  ‘That’s what I keep telling him,’ Betga chimed in.

  ‘My initial plan, to the extent that I had one after I buttonholed Malcolm Torrent, was simply to buy time before my execution. But now I want to do more than that. Although I’ve spent much of my life watching civil society going to hell in a handbasket I’m ashamed to say I’ve never given much thought to what women had to put up with till I saw what had been done to these women. So before I’m axed I want to get some justice for them.’

  ‘But Stephen,’ Jessica said, momentarily placing her hand lightly on his wrist before realising it and taking it away again with slight embarrassment, ‘there can’t be any justice, not of the kind she’s looking for, if guys like Mike Mercer get away with it scot-free.’

  ‘Jessica, I must be one of the least powerful people you know. I can’t get any kind of sanction against Mike Mercer. I’m still not used to Malcolm Torrent remembering who I am.’

  ‘You undersell yourself, Stephen,’ she said quietly without looking at him directly.

  ‘No, I think he’s got it about right,’ said Betga. ‘Which is, you know, healthy, extremely healthy.’

  ‘I can’t make these incidents go away and I can’t mete out or have the company mete out any retribution. The best I can possibly do is try to get these women a decent settlement before I’m gone.’

  ‘But Carla’s totally opposed to a settlement.’

  The three of them sat around the table in silence. In the distance a crowd of people could be heard singing happy birthday to someone called ‘Kayden’.

  ‘Do you think it would help if I spoke to Carla? I’ll tell her I’m from Torrent’s HR department, if she doesn’t already know, and I know that’s not exactly going to endear me to her but I’m a woman who’s experienced the culture of the place. Maybe I can, I don’t know, I can . . . apologise.’

  ‘Apologise? Why would you apologise?’ Betga asked, and then added, ‘Oh yeah, you’re in HR.’

  II

  There was someone else whom Betga thought Carla should hear from before Jessica, someone who might help convince her to accept a settlement offer from Torrent Industries. A meeting with Jessica was too uncertain a prospect to be the next step. Carla might react negatively, seeing Jessica not as someone genuinely sympathetic from whom to take counsel but rather as a representative of Torrent Industries’ HR department, a softer face of the heartless behemoth. Maserov and Betga mulled it over and agreed that Betga should try meeting with that someone else first.

  It was a meeting that was inherently uncomfortable for Betga and its outcome, too, was far from certain. First, there was no certainty the man would even show up. Over the phone he’d sounded very dubious about the prospect of sitting down with Betga. When the appointed time arrived and the man had not appeared Betga glanced at his watch and said to himself under his breath, ‘No appearance, your honour.’ He experienced but did not allow himself to acknowledge the small relief in which one briefly luxuriates when a difficult or at least unpleasant task is removed from a person’s schedule through no fault of one’s own. But when Betga heard the crowded bar hush around him he knew his rendezvous had entered the bar even before he could see him. Acting Sergeant Ron Quinn stood hesitantly before Betga’s table. Betga stood up and shook the policeman’s hand but was unable to hide his disappointment.

  ‘What?’ the Acting Sergeant said defensively.

  ‘You’re in uniform.’

  ‘So?’

  ‘Didn’t you hear the silence ripple through the bar as you walked in?’

  ‘I told you I’d come straight from work.’

  ‘Yes, you did but . . . I don’t know,’ Betga said, gently shaking his head in bewilderment. ‘I didn’t think you’d come in uniform. These are good people,’ Betga said, gesticulating around him, ‘relaxing at the end of their day. They don’t want to be drinking around the police. Any decent citizen would be unnerved by it.’

  ‘Are these people, in fact, citizens?’

  ‘Citizens, permanent residents, asylum seekers, student visa holders de facto and de jure, entry-level frequent flyers and even some American Express card holders craving acceptance; unlike so many these days, this institution doesn’t discriminate in issuing invitations to the public to partake in convivial libations in this non-judgmental yet still immensely tasteful setting that subtly pays homage to many of the aesthetic traits of the eighties, traits that helped to make that decade what it is today.’

  ‘What is it today?’

  ‘Gone; completely gone. The eighties, the decade that taste forgot. But that’s not my point. Look, Acting Sergeant . . . and I mean no undue disrespect, none of these people would take comfort from the visible presence of the constabulary at the end of their day.’

  ‘Is that why you’ve invited me here, to insult me?’

  If only it had been, Betga thought wistfully. Afte
r apologising, he ordered Acting Sergeant Quinn a craft beer said to have come proudly from the Košice region of Slovakia and less proudly from certain laneways in Abbotsford. For the first time he looked into the eyes of Acting Sergeant Ron Quinn. There they were, just a few feet away from him, two shallow reservoirs of disappointment.

  ‘I know that in certain respects you and I might be seen as adversaries but —’

  ‘How so?’ the policeman enquired.

  ‘Well, first there’s the law, and then —’

  ‘We’re both officers of the court, aren’t we?’

  ‘Yes, but I interpret and interrogate the law in a frankly highly creative manner while you stolidly uphold a draconian version of it in that way that makes people around you want you to drink somewhere else. You bow down to the chain of command whereas I answer to a higher power.’

  ‘Do you mean God? You don’t strike me as a religious man, Mr Betga.’

  ‘No, I don’t mean God.’

  ‘Then what higher power?’

  ‘Well, Acting Sergeant,’ Betga began philosophically, ‘it’s more a repository of certain values than a deity marketed by any commonly venerated, state-sanctioned vehicle for tax relief, and I admit to remaining agnostic as to its name. But it sure as hell isn’t the chief commissioner of police.’

  ‘Well, yes, he’s had his problems.’

  ‘Yes, I’m glad we can agree on this. That’s a good start. But then, of course, there’s our different standing with and approach to . . .’ He paused. ‘Carla.’

  ‘Yes,’ said the policeman, ‘I treat her honourably, while you . . .’

  ‘Well, now, you see,’ said Betga, shaking his index finger as though it were a recalcitrant thermometer or salt shaker, ‘there’s that tendency of your vocation again; judging someone harshly according to just one prior conviction, one to which I pleaded guilty.’

  ‘Mr Betga, the way I heard it, she caught you. Wasn’t there a woman who called Carla and —’