CHAPTER SIX
Appearing in a long trial is like walking through a long dark tunnel. You eventually step out into the blinking sunlight and wonder what happened in the world while you were away. Any new wars? A major natural disaster? A new election? On Monday morning, while sitting on a train to the city centre, I scrolled through some internet news sites and confirmed the world was still in one piece, pretty much.
When I reached Chambers, I got out of the lift and saw the reception desk was unattended. I strolled around to my room, sat at my desk and realised I was not mentally ready to start working. I had stopped thinking about the Milic trial - well, most of the time, anyway - and was focused on Patricia Ransome instead. What a fool I was to let her slip through my fingers! It's not easy to phone up a woman you have spurned and try to weasel your way back into her life. But my courage was leaking away. It was now or never.
I nervously picked up the phone and called her firm. A receptionist asked who I wanted to talk to.
"Patricia Ransome."
"And your name is?"
"Brad Kennedy."
"Please hold."
After an eternity of silence, she said: "I will put you through."
At least Patricia was prepared to talk to me. After another long silence, she came on the line, sounding terse. "Patricia here."
I talked like a salesman through a screen-door. "Hi Pat, it's Brad. It was, umm, good to see you on Saturday night. I've been meaning to call you but, quite frankly, didn't have the courage. I was wondering if we could have coffee sometime, or even lunch, if you're not too busy."
"Why do you want to see me?"
"Why?"
"Yes, why?"
I hadn't expected that question. "I've been thinking a lot about what happened - how I behaved - and I realise I was very, very stupid. I'm not asking for anything, of course. But I'd like to see you."
"It's too late for that. I'm not interested."
"But …"
"I'm not interested, OK. You made a mess of my life and then pissed off. I won't go through that again."
"I'm sorry about that. I was stupid and confused; I've learnt my lesson."
"So have I. So leave me alone."
The phone went dead and I listened to my heart thump. Shit. I really was having a run of bad luck. However, my disappointment was mixed with a strange sort of satisfaction. At least, where Patricia was concerned, I would not die wondering.
To distract myself, I spent the next hour reading through a new brief from the Legal Aid Office. My client was a teacher accused of sexually assaulting a pupil 20 years ago. The facts made me despondent and I was relieved to hear someone enter my room. "Got time for coffee, comrade?"
I looked up at Wayne Newhouse, standing in the middle of the room, leering. Wayne had thick curly hair, a chubby but not angelic face and manic eyes. He had few of the inhibitions that shackle ordinary men. As a result, his life had been littered with crises: suspended from practice for punching a prosecutor; bankrupted for not paying his tax and twice divorced. But, every time the bell rang, he rose from his stool and danced back into the middle of the ring.
In Court, he was often fearless to the point of foolishness. He asked police officers why they were persecuting his client rather than chasing real criminals, accused opposing counsel of duplicity and berated judges for not understanding his submissions. He recently accused a judge of presiding over a "star chamber" and said the only reason he knew he was in a courtroom was the furniture. The judge's complaint to the Bar Association was still pending. Wayne saw nothing wrong with his behaviour and boasted about his quip to all and sundry.
A good barrister obviously needs courage and aggression. But it sometimes seemed as if Wayne, instead of being born, was parachuted into life on a combat mission. A colleague once told me: "They don't make barristers like Wayne anymore, and that's probably a good thing."
Still, as always, his vibrant presence lifted my mood and I nodded. "Always got time for coffee."
"Good. Let's scoot around the corner."
We left our building and strolled through Queens Square. On one side was the forbidding Supreme Court tower; on the other, a huge statue of a dumpy Queen Victoria about to bowl her royal orb across the pavement.
In Macquarie Street, we grabbed a café table on the pavement, across the road from the unimposing State Parliament building. A waiter dashed forward and took our orders. Then Wayne turned to me. "How'd your trial go?"
"Straight down the plug hole."
A shrug. "What went wrong?"
I explained how I had to shake Hanrahan during cross-examination and failed. "I feel bad about losing that one. I really think the punter was fitted up."
"Don't beat yourself up. You can only play the cards you're dealt. Anyway, I'm sure Milic will feel right at home in the jug, back with his old mates. You're probably taking this harder than him."
I was being self-indulgent and changed the topic. Wayne had been appearing in a District Court trial for a defendant charged with importing heroin. "How'd your trial go? I thought it was supposed to last a few more days."
Wayne produced a rare blush. "It was, but it got aborted."
"Why?"
Wayne fingered a satchel of sugar. "Umm, a juror complained about me to the judge."
"You're kidding?"
"No, she sent him a note."
"What did it say?"
The blush turned a devilish red. "She, umm, accused me of staring at her tits all the time."
"You're joking?"
"No. The judge said her concern - whether justified or not - might prejudice her against my client and discharged the jury."
"You're definitely joking?"
"I'm not."
Had this happened to anyone else, I would have maintained my disbelief. However, this was the sort of land-mine Wayne jumped up and down on until it exploded. "Well, did you stare at them?"
A rueful smile. "Let me put it this way: I may be a barrister, but I'm also a man."
"You did?"
A shrug. "I snuck a few peeks. I mean, they were huge and only about a metre away. I could almost reach out and touch them. "
"Thank God you didn't."
"Of course I didn't. But she had no right to complain: she had a plunging neckline that almost thrust them in my face."
"You mean, it was the victim's fault?"
"She was no victim. She knew exactly what she was doing, or showing. And then she got upset when I took a peek. I was the victim!"
I would have got upset if I saw a chubby barrister with roguish eyes staring at my breasts all day. "You could have been more discreet."
"I thought I was; I've obviously lost my touch."
"Obviously."
A shrug. "It wouldn't have happened, of course, if the trial was more interesting. But the prosecution was tendering a lot of documents and I was bored out of my brain."
If a trial was aborted because I was perving at a juror, I would have crawled under the bar table, rolled into a ball and died of shame. However, Wayne was made of sterner stuff.
I said: "Have you, umm, mentioned this to Mary?"
Mary was his unaccountably lovely third wife. "Of course not. She knows I'm a pervert, but doesn't know I've been publically exposed. I thought I'd spare her that."
"Wise move. Thank God there were no journos in court."
He smiled. "That crossed my mind. One of the great things about the decline of the news media is that stuff like this doesn't get reported anymore."
As a waiter put our coffees in front of us, I wished I could sail through life with Wayne's aplomb.