by D. B. Martin
Now, comparing the man to the child, I’m still largely unco-ordinated. My golf swing is only fair and I gave up on squash and tennis in my early forties once I married Margaret and handed on the baton of the social integration race. Her co-ordination was impeccable – like everything else.
Back to then: our road was quiet for a slum area. Unusual to even have one still around in the sixties, but the rag and bone man was possibly the most interesting thing that made its way down the street at this time in the evening. He was on his way home and just stopping by to see if there was any trade around before ending his day in the next road. No-one had ever been able to explain to me why he was called a rag and bone man, apart from that he sometimes accepted old clothes, even rags. There were no bones on his horse-drawn cart.
I knew that because I’d lain in wait once and clambered up on to it to check when he was having a fag. Once or twice I’d been allowed to pat the horse and feel it blow gently from its great cavernous nostrils onto my open palm as I held out a handful of grass. Its nose felt like nothing I’d ever felt before, soft and smooth like the black velvet they’d draped over Grandpa’s coffin. I couldn’t understand the rag and bone man’s call either until on one of the occasions that I was patting his horse he explained that it was for the things he was after. Everyone dumped the things he might collect on the kerb for him. Opposite our house there was an old loo cistern that had been abandoned in the gutter and he stopped to load it on the cart as I and The Authorities man were looking out the window. A man was walking along the pavement and watching, maybe wondering what the rag and bone man would do with such a foul thing. He wasn’t looking where he was going and walked straight into the lamppost, banging his head with a clang we could hear from our flat. The Authorities man and I both laughed simultaneously and the brief moment of shared laughter encouraged me to ask him more.
‘Is it in the country or in a town?’ I hoped he would say the country so there might be some horses there and I could find out more about the strange way such a big beast as a cart-horse could also be so gentle when I fed it grass. He sucked his lower lip in and rubbed his hand across his face thoughtfully.
‘I don’t know I’m afraid, but I’m sure it will be fine. A nice place where you’ll be with other children your age and it will be fun.’ The words ‘Children’s Home’ were never uttered. Even at that age, and ignorant as I was, if they had, I would have made a fuss. Ma kissed us each weakly on the cheek and Pop nodded at us, still scowling, as we were led away.
*
The records I’ve seen since confirm my age then – nine – but, like Ma, I wasn’t entirely sure of it at the time. Birthdays didn’t feature much in our lives. There was no money so why would there be cake and presents? It’s only since adulthood and seeing the money lavished on modern day kids that ‘birthday’ means anything other than another day of grazed knees, rumbling gut and dodging Pop’s belt for some mischief I’d supposedly done and he’d found out about. I hadn’t done anything wrong that day, ironically, and it was that which worried me for so long afterwards. That and the fact that maybe I should have tried harder to explain to Ma that my bumps and bruises weren’t from fights or mischief, just from running down the side of the air raid shelter. Maybe she wouldn’t have assumed I was bad then and they would have kept me, otherwise why had I been punished when I hadn’t done anything wrong?
You can think something is your fault nearly all your life, but it’s not. It’s just the way it is and you’re the poor sod who got caught in the backlash at the time. So it was for me then, caught in the backlash of the grinding poverty, Catholic rigidity over birth control, and the sheer desperation to survive that was life for my family along with so many others at the time. When number eleven came along, something had to give. It wasn’t just me, of course. The other kids went too, and none of us had done anything wrong.
But it wasn’t anywhere nice, even though it was in the country.
Not anywhere nice at all.
2: The Case
I struggled back to the present and the cold reality of now. I could still barely believe she was dead – or considering blackmailing me whilst alive. I studied Margaret’s blandly smiling face in the photo of her that took pride of place on the desk in my study, as if it might provide a reason for her treachery. She’d been at a charity ball, wearing the black and white silk dress with the splashes of red that now reminded me of blood on a skid-marked road. Ever the correct social hostess, it offered me nothing but polite platitude. It was then I noticed the case folder, lying forgotten next to her photo. The defence case she’d been so keen for me to take – and I’d been so reluctant to. I’d already made my name at the Bar, established my reputation, and determined my career path. Next stop High Court Judge. I didn’t need problematic little legal aid cases anymore. That was my excuse, anyway.
I put the incriminating list she’d left me to one side, sensing now it was the sweetener, not the main course. A morsel to whet my appetite and make me anxious for more – or bilious for less. I wondered which. It must have been very important for Margaret to go to so much trouble, but without her there to explain, sweetly, reasonably, logically – as she always did when I was being primed to do something she wasn’t sure I would want to – it was a mystery. The key to it had to be in the case. It was too circumstantial otherwise. She’d seemed to accept my rejection of it with nonchalance, and I’d been relieved, even though I’d tried not to show it. I knew it must be one of her projects, and her minute but unobtrusive observation of my reaction as I scanned its contents hadn’t gone unnoticed, but I’d naively assumed at the time she was merely gauging what I would do for next to nothing, in her do-gooder role, not assessing what the folder’s effect was on me or how well I could be manipulated. But as with all human life, vulnerability isn’t about the clever trick missed or the careless comment that later trips you up. It’s about the unseen and unplanned.
So what had Margaret planned for me before the unseen had engulfed her? I opened the folder and was faced with yet another inevitability on the first page. I had no choice now but to take the case. Unbeknownst to me, Margaret had told the Chambers’ clerk to accept it – probably with the implied threat of repercussions if they queried it with me. That would have sealed it. They were more in awe of her than me. I silently cursed her for her deviousness but knew I was beaten. I turned the page and read on, head spinning as this time I studied every sordid little similarity between the defendant and myself, and tried to work out why my murdered wife had set me up to defend my doppelganger – an almost exact copy of the child I’d been, but thought in adulthood I’d managed to escape. In the aftermath of what the papers had called Margaret’s ‘untimely and tragic death’ I hadn’t anticipated anything worse could happen – and certainly nothing as bad as this.
With the careful juxtaposition of the two items on my desk, I suspected the list of names, places and dates she’d pointedly provided me with would become very relevant at some stage too, knowing her. Margaret was the only one who’d known anything of my past – albeit the most mean, meagre and insubstantial parts I could be forced to part with. It had been necessary. There are some things you have to tell a wife merely to explain your silence. When we first married I explained that without explaining, and she claimed to understand what I meant. Returning to the list, she’d filled in the gaps well – and with what appeared to be present-day names and addresses. It was a gift horse if I wanted to find or be found. But at forty-nine, and with a lifetime of burying the past, why would I want to unearth it now? Of course, I didn’t, but nevertheless, having read all those excruciatingly analogous facts, and obvious parallels, nor could I ignore it.
By the time I’d reached the final pages of the case folder, it was clear the boy was not only one of Margaret’s projects but that she’d also potentially had another far more private agenda sketched out in relation to it, although not why she’d chosen this way to achieve it. The boy in the folder was almost a duplicat
e of me – but in the modern day. And the crime was an almost text-book copy. But why should she specifically alight on it and him? There was more to this than coincidence. When this insignificant little case had popped up weeks ago, she’d ostensibly known virtually nothing of my past yet she’d immediately pounced on it and made the connection. The discomfiting thought that Margaret had known an awful lot more about me for a very long time pushed its way through my stunned dismay. Along with it came the lingering fear I’d overlooked something else very important tucked away within the pages of the folder, like I’d tucked away my past and my secrets.
3: The Boy
‘Weren’t me. Weren’t there. Didn’t do it.’ He folded his arms across his chest and the very defiance in his small bony face and East London twang made me want to slap him. It was our first defence case conference – a fact-finding mission, with him offering no facts. I forced the irritation down beneath a smoothly reasoned response. My clerk glanced at me nervously. I would rather not have brought him with me. He was a standing joke and I understood now why my partners in Chambers – Francis, Jeremy and Heather – had passed him on to me with such alacrity. He was pathetically keen to please, but pathetic. He needed toughening up. Less of the clerk, more of the bastard. Perhaps I should encourage him to cut his teeth on this, depending on the likelihood of controversy. It was only a kid involved, so surely he could hold his own against a child, and perhaps relieve me of some of the more tedious aspects of the case. For now, though, I had to get the little tyke to break and actually tell me something – anything.
‘You were caught red-handed by the police, so you can hardly claim you weren’t there. I have it here.’ My clerk obediently passed the statement to me, all fingers and thumbs, and I wafted it lightly in front of the child’s mutinous face. I thought of the stolen video that had been found in his rucksack – a ridiculous concoction based around a street gang who’d discovered they had supernatural powers that allowed them to slip between parallel universes. Slipping the chains, it was called. ‘Or maybe you want me to believe you were universe-jumping and it was your alter ego there beating the living daylights out of Mrs Harris?’ I knew the sarcasm was inappropriate but I had better things to do than waste my time on a vicious little thug – things like ordering the wreath for Margaret’s coffin and choosing the hymns for the service, or seeing what progress the plod had made in tracking down the driver of the hit and run. Apart from which, this was the very last situation I wanted to be confronting again. Margaret had been right about one thing though, and she’d made the point very clearly with all her own good works. Altruism was for putting on a show when a show was needed. But why now? I already had public approbation before all this and with her convenient death, I hardly lacked sympathy. It was catapulting me right into the public eye as the QC with a conscience – defending the underdog even whilst dealing with his own personal tragedy. A veritable knight of compassion.
‘That’s crap really. No-one can jump universes. You’re jarring me man. Don’t yer know nuthin? And I weren’t there anyway.’
The social worker shook her head apologetically. ‘Mr Juste is trying to help you, Danny. He’s very high up in the courts.’ She nodded meaningfully at me, presumably implying she wanted me to follow suit. ‘Important – almost a judge.’ I took a deep breath and joined the charade.
Although, possibly I was. My appointment as High Court Judge, and a real knighthood, had to be on its way soon, with time already under my belt as Crown Court Recorder and Deputy High Court Judge. All the noises from the Lord Chancellor’s Department were positive and as 1999 prepared to slink into the past one newspaper hack in particular was having a field day with me – dubbing me the harbinger of the new order for the year 2000. No longer merely plain Lawrence Juste. Mr Justice Juste in waiting – a true peer of the modern order – embarrassingly before the LCD had. I’d dropped the Kenneth long ago. The Kennys of this world were yobs, not barristers; and Kenny was the name on my criminal record anyway. But Kenny was in serious danger of re-surfacing if my enthusiastic and curious hack dug too deep into Mr Justice Juste in waiting’s past, and Margaret’s inexplicable list found its way into the open. Anyway publicity wouldn’t do me any good with the LCD, even if it was good publicity. The list and my chequered past was definitely bad publicity, and any publicity raised my profile just a little too high under current circumstances. This looked dangerously likely to continue that.
‘If you’re so important why am I still in here? This is long. I want out.’
Long? What the hell did that mean?
‘Gangsta – all the kids speak it now,’ my clerk whispered in my ear. Not so easily floored all the time then.
My aquiline face and stern expression often stared back long and grey from the newspaper at the moment. ‘Distinguished’ they described me as – whether that meant in looks or career. One dimensional was how I felt. A billboard for sterility now Margaret was dead and life was truly based only around work. A choice that now, whilst offering comfort through its encompassing of every spare moment of my time, gave me no warmth or love back for my loyalty to it. My private emotional over-reaction to this case and this child was the nearest to humanity I’d felt in a long time – angry at the inequality, irritated by the child’s belligerence, and disturbed by the similarity to me. One of the last disagreements Margaret and I’d had was over my ‘coldness’ as she put it when we’d discussed, disputed and I’d eventually disposed of her tentative suggestion that we might still have a family one day. Perhaps Margaret’s plan had more to do with that, than the boy’s defence? At least my future prospects were encouraging, if I could navigate the press, even if the boy’s weren’t.
‘Then you need to spill if you want to get out of here – by telling me what I need to know to defend you. Otherwise your time spent inside will be long – get it, gangsta?’
The social worker raised her eyebrows at me and I admonished myself silently. It should have been one of his parents there, but she’d been designated as the ‘appropriate adult’ in their stead. It seemed neither of them were. She explained her current role as link between Social Services and to facilitate communication between Counsel and the boy, since he had little more to say than in the statement his solicitor had prepared with him. He still wasn’t saying anything more, and I had no reason to expect him to from the pysch’s report on him, but I was still irritated by the sullen refusal to admit facts. Nevertheless I knew how to remain stoic; how to cut off the world. Do it now, you fool. Forget the distractions and petty annoyances. This one has to be seen through in the public eye – no mistakes here. Whatever Margaret’s ultimate intentions, she had at least picked it well for its human rights appeal, and played her part even better than usual in inducing me to take it – in her absence, ironically. The boy seemed to be able to cut off the world as effectively as me. His face closed further in on itself and he folded his arms protectively across his chest. The social worker frowned at me and tried to persuade the boy to talk. I let her. It allowed my mind to wander – and it was anywhere but here today.
The acknowledgement that Margaret wouldn’t be hovering in the hallway when I got home, dutifully solicitous as to how the interview had gone, and whether I needed a drink to wind me down after it, brought an unexpected raw ache of – what? I didn’t recognise it, but it felt disturbingly like how I remembered feeling when I was sent to the children’s home in Eastbourne. Small, anxious and very lost. I shook the sensation away by focusing instead on easing something more useful out of the boy. Very few made High Court Judge. It had been my wildly ambitious target since the time I’d first dragged myself out of the gutter. I wasn’t going to let an unexpected personal loss and a curved ball of a case stop me achieving it.
‘Perhaps if you could explain to Danny what will happen if he doesn’t help you, he might understand how important it is?’ the social worker prompted.
I’d give her that – she was trying to help. I took a closer look at her. Unexpec
ted stirrings of something approaching desire surprised me. She was attractive in a not-my-cup-of-tea kind of way. Then shame at the designation of Margaret as an unexpected personal loss took over. It made it seem like I was equating her with losing my watch or my diary, although honesty dictated I admit that ours had been no grand passion.
‘OK, it goes like this Danny, yours is an indictable offence. Someone died because of what you’re accused of so there’s no choice but that you’ll go to court. Therefore you have to defend yourself or ...’
She’d initially performed exceptionally as one of the Chambers’ clerks and then diligently as my wife – even apparently accepting our childless state as a pre-qualifying condition to the title of Mrs Juste. She’d set herself to painstakingly oiling the right wheels to speed her husband on his rapid journey to the top with her charm and social ease, until she’d walked under the wheels of a different kind of speed freak. She was several years my junior, arriving in Chambers when I was finally starting to make a name for myself just nearing forty, and following me faithfully down the aisle four years later when I was forty-four and she in her early thirties. Five years on and here I was contemplating another guest list, but this time for a funeral. The number potentially on the list was testimony to her popularity, but I knew barely a handful of the names better than to acknowledge them politely in passing. Margaret was the socialiser; I was the work horse. People had long since become mere stop-off points along the way to the top – safer like that. No chance to be rejected or used as I had been as a child. Margaret had been the exception to the rule in getting past my barricades, although I’d never fully figured out why, apart from her persistence and my necessity. By the time she came on the scene it was apparent it was going to be necessary to have some form of social respectability after a period of excess. A wife more than fitted the bill – although that might well have been what Margaret had told me at the time. Now I still needed her, even if I didn’t grieve for her.
