Deconstructing Lesley
Chester’s one storey prairie style house overlooked the desert. The ethic rugs on the wood floor, and the white walls gave the house a rather contrived atmosphere. He was business-like which impressed me; I didn’t go in for things like this so I was naturally suspicious. He was around 5, 5 with short curly hair and round glasses. He wore blue jeans and a white shirt, firm handshake and positive air. The ‘couch’ was covered in a heavy woven material, in the style of a highly coloured Aztec pattern, which was surprisingly soft to the touch. It was set against the large, floor to ceiling glass window that over looked the parched desert. This terrain with the wonderful rough scrubby trees and bushes, red/brown sandy earth, bulking up to the mountains and hills, topped with the light-blue sky.
‘I didn’t think you used them anymore’ I said pointing to the therapist couch. It produced the same feelings of dread like that of the dentist chair.
‘Most people expect them, and I am not here to challenge historic practice, if people find it helps, well, I shall use it’
Then realising he came over a little sharp added
‘Anyway it has a good view of the countryside’
After a drink we got down to business
‘I am here to help Lesley, help her uncover any thoughts or feelings that she may wish to express, and having spoken to her, perhaps she feels that now, is the right time to talk.
I looked at Lesley who simply nodded saying ‘it feels right’
Chester followed on;
‘This is not a deep psychoanalytic therapy, but just to facilitate what Lesley would like to tell me, this is free association, with an emphasis on the ‘Free’. This could be very painful for both of you, there could be things said here that will hurt. Yet I believe that in the long term, it can only help Lesley come to terms with the past.
‘Now Helen, I can not let you in the room when the session is on, there are confidentiality issues here, I’m sure you understand that. You could become upset, in fact I can guarantee it, and it will break the flow. But Lesley has expressed a wish, that the session be recorded. I have cleared this with my advisor, and as long as you listen to it here, and I have the ownership of the tape and material.’
‘Why does she want to do these things anyway, she knows what happened, she knows she killed her’ I could feel myself becoming hostile, I felt cornered and angry.
.
Chester waited for me to sit back down.
‘Helen, Lesley came to tell me what she has been remembering, or thinking what she has been remembering. The point being, is that she has never told anyone. At the trial the only thing she said was ‘sorry’. Now she can remember parts of the night, such as the car ride, and really needs to talk. If she has repressed something, she really needs to express it for her own mental health, in her own time and way. Just talking about the crash will help her come to terms with it, and perhaps prevent any negative lifestyle-choices such as alcohol and drugs in future.
I stood up ‘What about me? What about my feelings, what about the anger I have carried, what about Emma?’
He came over and sat by me.
‘Both of you have carried this for so long, I think it’s time you moved on, and you both seem ready.
‘You did do it Lesley, I’m sorry, but you still did it’ I shocked myself by my escaping anger.
‘I believe that if Lesley was in denial about this, she would not be here’ said Chester in not very calming voice.
‘We all know this happened, but please let me say this Helen, we will never know how bad it is for you, and I believe you suffer most. However, and I have worked in this area before, in prisons and such. The strain of living with the knowledge of having killed someone, especially a child is Immense, and therefore ddebilitating.
‘I just don’t want Lesley to come over as the victim here’ I said fuming.
‘I needed someone to talk to when you were not here Helen’ said Lesley, you saved me, made me carry on, I can never repay you enough for your help. I am not here to try and forget what I did, I am here to remember it.’
‘Look, do you women want to come back at another time’ sighed Chester, as if caught in the middle of a woman’s tiff.
‘No,’ I said, ‘but I have not forgotten Emma’s suffering and never will, even when I sleep I can’t escape, I still wake from dreams seeing her die’
‘For Lesley to move forward she needs to do this, and to do this she needs help, and I think I can support her. Her mind will only release what she can cope with, but the guilt can build up again’
I felt myself calm down a little , but I was not done
‘I only let you live, so that you could remember what you did’ I’m sorry but it’s true’
Chester interrupted.
‘I feel that if Lesley needs to talk to someone, and help her through the therapeutic process, she wants you to know what is being said, so that you don’t think she is trying to pass the guilt or blame’
Lesley gave me that poster girl look
‘Stay with me Helen, don’t go’
Chester explained a few things to us;
‘What we are talking about here is repression; According to Freud, and I know he is out of fashion these days, but he got this right; people often experience thoughts and feelings that are so painful that they cannot bear them. Such thoughts and feelings could not be banished from the mind, but could be banished from consciousness. These thoughts and feelings can be buried so deep that people don’t even realize they have repressed them’.
I always thought she was lying about not remembering, blaming it all on the drink she had that night. What a cop-out, how convenient to forget everything when you are in court for killing a young girl. I was worried that she was in some elaborate way, manipulating her church, Chester and me, but she must be pretty sick to go this far.
Chester would never allow me into the room while the sessions were on and quite honestly I didn’t want to be there, listening to her talk about the night; how she drank, how she knocked Emma down. I thought that if I heard this, I might just really kill her this time.
Up until that time, Chester had given Lesley relaxation tapes and exercises to do so she could be ready and relaxed enough to talk without direction or prompting. She had a small income from her ex-husband, and some money left to her from her father, this would fund her therapy.
What follows is the much edited transcript of the weekly sessions with Chester and Lesley.
‘I met Reeves when I was training; I fell in love with him and came over to England to follow him. I worked in London until I had to move and found a good job in Oxford. I lived with a girl called Christine who had a dinner party and one of the guests was Julian. He was the idea man; tall, bright and handsome-and a doctor...
…There was a nurse on my ward called Chloe. She was the fun girl, the one that always dressed up for charity nights and Christmas day. Anyway, she had a shared house with three other nurses across town, whose parties where famous. The first one I went to was late on a Saturday night, it was packed with nurses and med staff including Julian and his ‘A-Team’.
They all looked and sounded like him; ex public school and confident and sure of themselves. One thing they could be sure of, was the nurses, they would fling themselves at them, it made me uncomfortable…
Around 1am when everyone had far too much drink, the ‘team’ started some games. I noticed a new nurse, a tubby girl down from the north of England, who looked out of place with her frizzy hair and unfashionable clothes. She was pleased to have been invited and was flattered to be the attention of the doctors… they suddenly they grabbed hold of her pulling her on to the backroom dinning table.
Everyone was laughing at first, then the ‘Team’ started to hold her down and take her clothes off. She was calling out for them to stop, but they laughed louder, they pulled off her top and bra and threw them across the room... The girl began to cry but nobody helped, fear I suppose, of getting in tr
ouble with the doctors. I could hear her screaming as they pulled her shoes, jeans and underwear off. Still they held her down for everyone to look at, one of the team took some photos. The girl was distraught, crying loud, as she was held spread-eagle on the table, people mocking and laughing at her. I could see the doctor’s faces, leering and mocking the girl. Despite what the glossy magazines may say that a women’s fantasy is to be watched, this was not a pleasant experience.
…I went to get my coat and Julian stopped me, I said I didn’t like what had happened, but he laughed and said it was just fun, later he asked me out to dinner. Like the tubby girl I felt flattered, saying I would think about it. Days later, I thought I was being a prude about the party, and said that I would go out with Julian. We went on a dinner date; he was charming and swept me off my feet…
…He said that he had been watching me while I worked, that he felt I was special, and not like the others. We agreed to meet again, which was very nice, as he seemed kind and a real gentleman. When I told people at work about him, they were very nice, yet hesitant with their best wishes, but I was falling so I didn’t care, I put it down to jealousy.
…Even on those early dates he said he didn’t want to hear anything about my past boyfriends, nothing at all. He said I was ‘his angel’ that I was so pure and beautiful. I met Margaret a few months later who was a little cold with me, but I put it down to her being a widow and all, and Julian her only child, she doted on him. She asked about my family and mocked the American med schools…
…Eventually we moved in together and things were good- for a while. I was deeply in love and I could see no bad in Julian at all. After about six months, he became possessive, I mean very possessive, no parties no other couples, only us, us alone. He liked me to be ‘girly’ my long blond hair in a ponytail, ‘sweet’-frilly blouses, he called me his ‘little girl’…
He didn’t like me to talk about other men, even if it was someone we knew, or worked with. He threw out all my jeans and trousers, saying he liked me to be he’s ‘sweet child’ the ‘little sister’ he didn’t have. I blocked all this in my head off and concentrated on the house, his good looks, and his status at the hospital… He opened and read my letters, listened in when I called people, sometimes accusing me of ringing other men. I wanted to return to the States to see my brother when his marriage broke down but Julian prevented me, saying that he couldn’t bear to be without me and would miss me too much. When I argued with him he became very upset, it began to worry me.
…Getting on for a year together, people had started to remark how I had changed; the ‘get up and go girl’ that crossed the Atlantic by herself and made a new life had gone… Julian had made me give up work, so I just wandered around the house in my pink dresses, Alice band in my hair tiding up the nursery of a bedroom we slept in…
…Julian had funny ‘ways’ he liked me to dress ‘pretty’ for him, white underwear, no perfume, he told me once to ‘smell of soap and water’. He wanted me to shave ‘down there’ to be smooth like ‘my little girl’. I did it in the end, which didn’t make me feel good about myself, but I couldn’t take the rows or silences…
…In secret, Chloe came over for lunch one day, and after a few drinks told me about Julian and the team. The undressing of the girl at the party was not the first time they had done that. Yet the nurses still flung themselves at the doctors hoping to be picked. Sometimes the team would make the girls strip off and then they would choose.
‘I know it’s sad, but the girls like it, it’s a laugh really’ said Chloe, a little unconvincingly.
‘But we girls got to see them when they put our uniforms on, and they started to rugby tackle and ‘scrum’ each other, they love that, on top of each other stuff. We were all watching as they rolled on the floor with each other, some of them got ‘heated’. …Julian likes the young blond types, pretty girls, always did’ then remembering she was talking to his live-in partner added;
‘But that’s all in the past now’
…Julian hated Reeves most of all, as he was still around to remind him of my past. Reeves would have to visit all the hospitals in the South of England at some time or another, and someone had told Julian I knew him. After one of Reeves visits there were weeks of rows and silences.
…Julian desperately wanted to know about my past but didn’t want to hear it; it was a mayor conflict for him. He slept in the spare room calling me a ‘slut’.
We got married in the spring with Margaret coming along for the honeymoon. Over dinner one night she told us that she expected a grandchild and that this would be the perfect time to conceive. At the end of the night she held Julian’s hand saying ‘you have always been a good boy, she will carry our child’ but that was the trouble; ‘She’ never could.’
While listening to this part I turned off the tape I didn’t want to hear anymore, it was all too intimate; too strange, what had this to do with Emma? I didn’t want to hear all this, this...nonsense, yet I knew I had too.
…Six months before I came to England I had an abortion, Reeves didn’t even know about it until much later. …I hadn’t seen Reeves for a long time before he came back to our town in the States and we had a ‘reunion’, it was a heat of the moment thing, with neither of us thinking past our clothes coming off. Not long after I discovered I was pregnant and began to panic. It wasn’t that my parents would get mad or anything, they are the most understanding people you could meet, perhaps it was their kindness that stopped me telling them. If they didn’t care about me or had treated me badly, one could expect a child out of wedlock…
…I didn’t want to let them down, it was a small community, everyone knew everyone else and their business. My only saving grace was that it wasn’t a local boy, because then the whole community would know.
Reeves used to laugh saying
‘…community? That’s where everyone one else lives’, and he was right.
Yet we were part of our community. I wanted to contact Reeves but he had returned to England and I felt alone. My brother’s marriage was on the rocks and my grandparents were going through a long painful illness. I felt I had to be strong through this and booked in to a clinic. They talked through adoption and the other option, which at the time felt right for me. I took a weeks holiday and told Mom I was visiting a friend…
…The operation seemed to go well, but when I got back to a hotel I began to bleed heavily. I began to panic, I felt totally alone and guilty, for not telling my folks and Reeves and for the baby I had just terminated. I sat in the shower hoping the bleeding would stop; I didn’t know what to do so I called an ambulance and went to hospital. I had to stay in for two weeks as there had been some internal damage and I had lost a lot of blood. I told everyone at home and work that I had caught a virus on holiday and had to stay away…
…Not long after I got back home I looked for jobs in England, it didn’t take long to get a job and I went. I met up with Reeves again and told him what happened, it was strange, he was angry I hadn’t told him and this put a distance between us. I became depressed in London, the job, the place, and my health was going down hill. …Twice my boss warned me, that I would lose my job if I didn’t pull myself together. I had made mistakes, none fatal thank God, but they could have been. I got the job in Oxford and moved there.
…It was good that Julian didn’t want to know anything about me, he wanted snow-white… if I bought up the past he would go crazy, saying,
‘I don’t want to know what you have been doing, don’t ever ever tell me’
So I didn’t. …It got difficult when the baby didn’t come, made worse because Julian had told everyone we where trying for a baby, plus Margaret would ring every week and ask if I was pregnant.
…. Julian of course tested himself, and everything was fine there. He asked me to see a doctor in London, as he didn’t want anyone from the hospital to look at me. The doctor told me I would never have children because of the internal damage from the terminatio
n. He knew exactly what had happened… I asked him not to tell my husband why, which he agreed to, but Julian knew from the medical report how the damage occurred.
… he would leave me for days, living at the hospital or with his mother.
…I was left alone in the house, Margaret would come round to tell me what a whore I was, and how I had ruined her son. I couldn’t go home, I had told my family how good things were as they were having such a hard time at home, what with my grandparents and my brothers marriage trouble. Julian proscribed Trelinox; an anti depressant drug that kept me numb, like a zombie, and I began to drink…
…Julian had put in plans in place for a divorce and I didn’t really know what was going on.
…one day he came round and asked me to pull myself together for a function down in London. He told me I had to say we were happy and very much in love and together; he thought it would look bad that he was still single or worse still, getting a divorce to his colleagues in London. I still wanted to make up and be with him, so went along with the farce.
…The function was at the Royal Free hospital in Hampstead. Julian, and some his team were being honoured for a clinical procedure. All very black-tie self-congratulatory, mutual backslapping, I had been to them before, like the parties at Chloe’s house, only now in evening dress.
…I put on my best face and we travelled down, Julian said nothing and told me to shut up and don’t say anything to anyone about the baby, or look at any of the men. We stayed in a hotel in separate rooms and attended the prize-giving the following evening…
…I remember the drive down in the car. Julian received his prize, and I was proud, but he didn’t talk to me, he went off and left me with a couple of other doctors wives. They were kind enough, they pored some drinks for me, everyone was celebrating. Perhaps it was because I had been talking the Trelinox, but I felt in a cosy, fluffy womb…
…I didn’t notice Reeves, he came over and sat with me. His company had sponsored some of the prize-giving and he looked great in his DJ. For the first time in months I laughed. He brought over Champagne and along with the other two women at the table, drank the bottle dry. We went and stood by the large windows overlooking the grounds, he bought another bottle of fizz, and we stood chatting in the buzz of the party.
…I remember loving him that evening, feeling warm and fuzzy, just looking at him, feeling close and bonded to this kind and gentle friend, everything was right being by his side, from nowhere, Julian found us.
He stood looking at us, when we turned he said sarcastically
‘Planning a fuck, don’t worry about contraception mate, she can’t have a baby’
Very calmly Reeves said ‘I know’
‘So this is the father? Laughed Julian
‘A fucking Sales Rep, is that the best you can do?’
There was some pushing and shoving until one of Julian’s friends came out and stopped it. Julian walked off shouting at me to get my coat….
The night air hit me, making me woozy, the tablets mixed with the wine made everything fuzzy, I was feeling sick.
‘Why don’t you go off and fuck him? You have fucking shamed me, a fucking whore. Jesus Christ, where’s the fucking car keys, you have ruined this night, my night, as you ruined my life’
He stormed back in to the party to look for the car keys…he had wanted to park the sports car outside the function so everyone could see it, but the security made us park it round the back.
… I had to sit on the pavement, shortly after he returned with the keys. He pulled me around the corner to the large old Mercedes. It didn’t have headrests and I couldn’t find the seat belt, I felt so woolly, my head was spinning, I felt sick. We drove at speed around the one-way system and up towards Hampstead Heath, we turned a corner too quickly and bumped up onto the pavement…
There was a very long silence from Lesley on the tape, then she spoke very slowly and quietly
…It all happened so quickly…for a split second I saw a frightened young girl stretch her arms out, I must have hit my head on the dashboard…
I woke up back in the Royal Free with dreadful pains from a long cut across my forehead …later I was told was caused by hitting the steering wheel. I couldn’t remember anything at all. The police came to talk to me, asking about the accident. The last thing I could remember was Reeves... I felt shocked and guilty, as if I had been found out about everything; the termination, hurting Julian, not being able to have a baby…
They were saying that a young girl had been hurt. Had I been drinking? Had I been taking drugs? Yes to all.
…Did I remember hitting a young girl two nights ago?’ I couldn’t be sure. Julian came in and told the police not to badger me, that he would get a good lawyer, that I didn’t mean to do it, that I had been drinking heavily because I had been depressed as I couldn’t have children. The police had tested me; three times over the legal limit, large consumption of prescribed drug Trelinox that should not be taken while in charge of machinery ... it was true, I had been so anxious about the party I had taken two extra tablets and had drank more than I had in years. I am not sure of most things that happened that night but, and I may be wrong, but I swear I was not driving the car.
Goodbye Rick and Roger
I resigned from my job during a strange lunch with my boss Roger. If I hadn’t left I felt should have been sacked, as I had taken so much time off that it was impossible to continue to hold down a stable job.
‘My God Helen’ said Roger, you look wonderful; I never would have believed it was you. Your hair is great and you have lost weight, I know who to put out as our poster girl now.’
This made me blush; yet secretly inside I was chuffed to bits. Roger was not the only one to say I looked good; Kenneth was also forthcoming (for him) ‘very nice dear’
I told Roger I was leaving, explaining why and how I had enjoyed working with him and that if he ever decided to retire and work part-time he would be very welcome at the ‘Emma Kirby Trust’. We drank a little too much and sat talking about old times for a while. He held my hand for a while then he told me about the developments at the charity and how things were going well. I felt it was a good time to go.
I had known Rick now for almost two years and we had reached a halt in the relationship. His business in Spain had taken off really well, much of it’s success I must admit to Juliet. She had stayed online and had taken control of all the boring background work of the business, stuff that Rick had not really planned for; bed-making, making breakfast, advertising and banking and investing, paying back the loan. It had been a hard year slowly building up the business, putting up with the occasional gang fight and knocking the property into shape. Saffron was now settling down at school and beginning to master Spanish. Rick was booked up for almost a year in advance following a write-up in a motorcycle magazine
‘Rick’s Dakar pit stop a hit with riders’
There was a photo of Rick in the article sitting on his latest bike trying hard to smile. The clientele was different now, higher class, which meant less fights but more demanding. These were the rich motor enthusiasts, who didn’t really need to work and took off on their bikes going to trade shows and motor racing anywhere they pleased. They wanted more than pizza in the evening, resulting in Juliet hiring a chef from the local town when need be, but Rick had to be there all the time. He could not come back to England, he did the ‘meet and greet’ and everyone who came down to the ‘Dakar Pit Stop’ wanted to see Rick.
I was busy working for Emma’s and Joyce’s trust but took some time out to visit him, although we would not admit it I believe we both felt that this was make or break time. Juliet greeted me enthusiastically, kissing me on both cheeks and holding my arm as she took me into the kitchen for a drink. She had filled out a little and it suited her. She said I looked ‘fantastic’ and that Saffron would love to me again. The place had changed, much more professional, gone the days of clients paying in cash out on the patio table. Now
Juliet had arranged for a small extension to the main house that served as an office and reception. She had designed a desk area and arranged for credit-card payments that most (including the biker gangs) welcomed for tax purposes.
There was now a ‘laid’ driveway leading from the main road that didn’t throw up so much dust. The giets had been renovated to a very high standard and now included satellite television (for the race channels mostly) and a trouser press! Juliet showed me round, saying hello to guests as they came and went, she seemed to know them all, and them her.
‘That’s where the swimming pool will be, and the tennis courts just to the right’
Later we sat drinking tea.
‘Thank you Helen, thank you for trusting me, I love it down here and Saffron has settled down so well. Rick’s working a bit hard these days but he loves it, we can’t wait till you move down’
When Rick returned from having taken some German Christian bikers for a run. We were a little cold with each other; still it was good to see him. We chatted about the improvements to the ‘Stop’ yet every five minutes, either one of the clients or Juliet would call asking for this or that. He would get up and apologise, leaving me to sit waiting while he sorted out what couldn’t wait.
We could only walk for a short while as he had another run to do in the afternoon. He spoke enthusiastically about the improvements to the property saying the swimming pool would be covered and the tennis courts would be double, with basketball nets either end ‘for the yanks’. The more he told me about it all the more I felt left out or left behind. They had moved on, he and Juliet were living like a old married couple, which indeed they were. They were happy with their success, and it showed in his tired yet contented face.
We managed to have some time after the clients had drifted away after dinner, which had been interesting, but not the sort of thing one would I like to do every night. Stuck talking about the latest Honda to the Munich Christian Biker Club, being shown photo after photo of every model from 1950 to the present day with a full description and discussion on each.
It’s the only thing I have done well at Helen, just a bit longer and I can leave it for Juliet to run for a week or two, we could go somewhere. Anyway after Dakar it will be a bit quieter and I can come back to England for a while’
‘But that is almost a year away’ I reminded him.
‘Why can’t you transfer your Trust to down here in Spain, the wonders of the Internet and E mail you could be anywhere’ he said with ‘that’ smile
I could see his point but I was focused on getting back to the States, itching to get the trust going with Stephen, then there was the Screen-prints and the exhibition to organise with De-Hem. There was a lot to do and I wasn’t sure I wanted to live in Spain, it seemed far away from everything, of course that’s the pleasure for some people, but not me I was not running away any more. Furthermore, I could not breath as well as I could in Arizona, it was there I could breath easy, plus it was a nice flight to Texas. I even found myself looking up the Tucson junior girls soft-ball results on the internet, while I waited yet again for Rick in his office. I looked up the flying lessons at Apache Junction private airport that Bezz had told me about, just for fun…
I felt Rick was holding me back, and I him, but it was the next day that made up my mind.
After a delicious lunch, which Juliet had slaved over, had returning red-handed yet smiling and made me a drink. She was tanned now and looked pretty, her shoes kicked off, skirt hiked up in a gesture of contented relaxation, that made her look beautiful.
‘I need work, a purpose; I don’t like time to think, because I think bad negative thoughts, can’t help it, always have this keeps me busy-and happy’
She smiled, holding her head back in the sun. The school mini-bus trundled up the driveway, dropped off Saffron and turned in front of the house, its windows filled with waving children.
The little girl, taller now, with long hair tied back in a ponytail held together with a black bungee elastic, toped with a large red silk flower. She wore tight jeans and a ‘Dakar Pit-Stop’ tee shirt. It was lovely to see her so well and happy. She held my hand as she told me about the school and the other children. She also told me about the house and grounds
‘Do you know we are going to have a swimming pool?’ she said full of innocent enthusiasm.
I told I did know, and about the tennis court, I was genuinely pleased to see her again.
‘Where’s daddy?’
‘Oh’ I laughed, turning to Juliet and winking ‘and who’s that?’ I asked
‘Roo, said Saffron, rather sharply, as if I had asked a silly question, ‘Ricky Roo’
Juliet looked embarrassed,
‘Darling I have told you not to say that, haven’t I? I said you could call him Roo but not Daddy remember?’
I got up and walked back to the house, I heard Juliet call ‘Helen’ but I kept walking.
At the door one of the German’s came over to me.
‘Helen I have found that photograph of the 1973 Honda twin model I said I would show you’
‘Oh bugger off’ was all I could muster, without hitting him, slamming the door in his face.
Juliet followed me in and caught my arm.
‘Helen, Helen wait, it’s not like that, really, it just that Saffron has taken to him, she started calling him daddy as a joke and it sort of stuck. I said she could call him Roo, you know, because he is always jumping on his bike and bouncing off somewhere’
I looked at her, I didn’t know what was going on but I needed some time alone.
‘Thanks, thanks for telling me’
I lay for a while thinking, this was not working out. We were like different people now and he seemed to have his own ready-made family. Rick was meant to return for dinner that evening but rang and said he couldn’t make it, as one of the clients was taking him to show him his yacht. I pretended to be asleep when he got back and rose early in the morning. He apologised, but I felt that this was how it was going to be. I was due to stay to the end of the week but booked a flight the next day, there was no need to prolong it any further. Of course Rick explained the next day on the way to the airport that nothing was ‘going on’ but I felt I was locked out of the intimate circle of work and Spanish life, that bonded them together. We got on well enough, but even on the way to the airport he constantly took calls on his mobile phone, two from Juliet and one about a 1973 Honda.
I went back to England not really knowing if I would not see him again. We had grown apart and it was time to move on, Emma’s work had to continue, and to me that was what Mattered now.
Mr Lee/confronting Julian
‘What absolute tosh! Who the hell does she think she is trying to fool? She will deny anything to save her skin’
I had phoned Kenneth as soon as Chester called me with ‘developments’ I shouted at him across the Atlantic until he told me what Lesley had said.
‘I have been taken in Ken; I have been an absolute fool. Woman’s trying to say she didn’t do it now, what a bloody cheek, going in for all this mumbo-jumbo therapy business, they probably put it into her mind to say that’
Kenneth listened while I shouted and ranted for almost half an hour, before calmly saying ‘she could be telling the truth’
I sat up most of the night, the whole thing coming back to me; being told of the accident, the hospital, the removal of her hands and her beautiful eyes now vacant and empty, then her death and funeral. I wanted to leave it behind now, walk away, I had had enough, I was beginning to move on and now this. I really didn’t think I could take anymore. In the morning I went to see my solicitor Mr Perkins.
‘These are very serious allegations and this will not stand up in court’ said Mr Perkins as unruffled as his dark suit.
She finds God and has therapy, and all of a sudden she has started to remember things’ I countered ‘and very conveniently she can now remember that she didn’t do it after all. They brain-washed her’
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Perkins listened, said he would look into it, but said that we should think very seriously before we went accusing people of killing someone. He said the case was closed and unless there is a private prosecution and/or new evidence it would be difficult to reopen the case.
‘Do you really believe her?’ asked the towering Mr Perkins, our solicitor, who had seen us through our divorce a couple of years back, hands behind his back, as he walked the lino in front of his desk, black shoes shining.
‘You see she admitted to it, the blood tests showed she was well over the limit. He is a most respected doctor and it won’t look good, having evidence from a American therapists couch, you see, there’s been so much of this lately, you know, that recalled memory thingy, I am not sure it will stand, let me look into it’.
Ken and I thanked him and walked to the door, then Perkins called.
‘Look, don’t take this the wrong way but, well, didn’t Emma ever tell you who knocked her down, I remember she was conscious for a while-just a thought’
We went for coffee in M&S in Orpington, dazed to think that I never asked her, it was somehow always taken for granted that Lesley did it and we never spoke about the accident to Emma. We spoke of the consequences, but never of the actual event. She said she had been out for the evening, started to walk home, the car came round the corner and hit her.
‘Do you trust this Lesley woman Bee? do you think she is pulling the wool over your eyes, manipulating us in some way?’
‘I did, I don’t know for sure, not sure of anything anymore Jesus Ken, I thought we could start to recover, move on from all this, it feels like it did two years ago when all this happened’
He held my hand and asked if I wanted to come back home to Pam, I did, but I wanted to sort this out, and soon.
‘The only one who spoke to Emma that night, was that chap Lee, you know Dennis Lee who called looked after Emma at the car, I’m going to call him’
Mr Lee’s house was one of the large villas overlooking Hampstead Health. He lived on his own now that his wife had died a few years back, and it looked like it. Books and scientific papers were stacked everywhere in the tall Victorian hall. We stepped over bundles of yellowing papers as we walked up the littered stairs to the first floor sitting room. He told us he had been a physicist for almost sixty years, and still gave talks all over the world. He wore a worn out cardigan and old cord trousers.
‘Thank you for seeing us’ I said as I moved the notes and journals from the sofa.
‘Sorry, what did you say? The hearing is not what it was; explosion during the war’
I explained, raising my voice a notch that we just wanted to clear up a few things, and thank him again for his kindness with Emma that night. He was kind enough to show us from the window where he had walked the night of the accident.
‘It’s behind those trees, over on the other side of the Heath’
He told us, as he had told the court, what he had been doing that night.
‘I had been over to a friends house, a small monthly gathering with some like-minded star-gazers, not much really, few sherries and a look at the sky, done it for years, lots of astronomers around here. Anyway, I walked back about 10.30, don’t like to leave it any later, and I saw the car and your Emma, terrible business.’
‘Did she say anything?’ asked Kenneth
‘Sorry old chap, speak up’
‘DID-SHE-SAY- ANYTHING’ ken shouted
‘Oh yes, ‘move her, something like that, but I couldn’t really make it out’
I looked at Ken
‘Do you think that she may have said ‘moved her?’
He sat back and scratched the dishevelled grey hair on his head, for what seemed a long time.
‘My hearing is not so good these days, but, yes it did sound like that, but I thought she was asking me to move her, which I couldn’t.
I thanked Mr Lee again and walked to the car telling Kenneth to pack a case for the trip to Oxford.
After checking in to the hotel rooms we drove to the hospital, telling the receptionist that we had an appointment with Dr Howard. We were told that we were a day early, as his clinics were the following day. At 4pm the next day Julian Howard walked from clinic office at the end of the long corridor. He was of the medical old school: suit, white shirt, silk tie. Not for him the blue oxford shirt, kaki chino trousers, and the ever-present stethoscope around the neck. He pretended not to recognise us as we walked towards him, he looking far into the distance until Kenneth called him.
‘Mr Howard? We would like a word’
‘I’m sorry, I didn’t recognise you, how do you do? look I am due in a meeting teem minutes ago, can I get my secretary to make some time?’
Kenneth moved forward
‘No, I’m sorry but we won’t keep you’
He looked around the corridor, than waved us into the clinic waiting area that was now empty, save for the mess of magazines on the table in front of the rows of padded benches.
As we walked Kenneth whispered.
‘Let’s give him the benefit of the doubt’
I nodded and sat down
‘How can I help?’ he said, smiling with his best bedside manner.
‘Your wife, your ex-wife, well... she has been saying things, things about the accident, in short saying that she can remember what happened, and… that it wasn’t her that knocked our daughter down’
Julian stood up shocked.
‘For Gods sake, the woman is a mess, always was, I am sorry, but I am not going to listen to this rubbish. She had fooled you all, she was on drugs, but she can manipulate very well, you’ve been had’
He got ready to leave
Kenneth stood his ground
‘We just wanted to ask you what you remember, that’s all, we are not accusing you’
‘If you were I would sue you for everything you had, you heard what I said in court, she had been taking those drugs and didn’t tell me she had been drinking…I’m not saying any more, now get out, before I throw you out’
Kenneth pushed him back, forcing Julian sit down.
‘Don’t you dare speak to us like that, we only came to talk to you’ said Kenneth red faced.
Julian stood up shaking.
‘You came here again and I will put a restraining order on you.’
He walked briskly from the room patting his hair back in place.
‘What has Pam been feeding you on?’ I said with an anxious smile on my face.
‘Sorry dear, but he seemed so rude, so arrogant, but he’s hiding something’
I rang the States to talk to Lesley; I wanted to hear it from her.
She said she could remember most of the night of the accident now.
‘Chester believes that with my Christian background, the termination and the divorce, I felt I deserved the punishment, blocked it all off. I almost wanted it to be me, a suitable punishment for my sins’
Of course we went back to the police and to Perkins. The police interviewed Julian but he held tight, plus his solicitor was brilliant, turning it round to us, as if we wanted to make money out of him somehow, in this time of compensation.
Perkins said he could put together a private prosecution but it didn’t look good, Lesley had been tried and found guilty, mostly on her confession, and the good character of Julian. His mother had called me to warn me off, saying I was wrong being manipulated by a very sick woman. To be honest, I too, had my doubts about all this, it was like mind games. If I had not been out to Tucson to meet Lesley I would never have believed it could be anyone else but her, now I was not quite so sure.
The whole world had it seemed closed ranks round Julian, as if a doctor and a handsome one at that, could never do such a thing and then lie about it. I must admit it is against everything we respect and stand for. I was sick of it all, I needed to know the truth. I did consider using Maureen’s help, but Julian had his own very good support system.
‘If you are lying Lesley, or play
ing some sick game, you must stop it now’ I said as ultimatum.
‘I know it sounds strange’ said Lesley, her sincerity poring down the phone,
‘But I still don’t want anything bad to happen to Julian, not even now that I know. I wouldn’t do this to you Helen, I swear to God, but I can’t live with it anymore, I can’t, and now God has given me the strength to tell you’
Kenneth and I left Perkins office at 8.30pm on Friday after an exhausting all day session trying for one last time to find a loop-hole in the law to bring a case against Julian. Perkins had spent the day on the phone and meeting barristers and anyone who would listen to him. At eight PM the last came through telling him that there was no case. We could go ahead with a private case but every and everyone said we would lose, with Perkins summing up;
‘If she had not admitted it, had not been so drunk, had not taken more tablets than proscribed there may be some glimmer of hope’ he said this drained from the case adding; ‘it will break you both’
On the way to Ken’s home I said that ‘I was already broken’
Ken held my arm and comforted me, before waving me off as Pam opened the door with young Emma in her arms.
Sitting in the dark sitting room looking out at midnight, I wondered how I could get justice. I had read about restorative justice, and how that can help people came to term with feelings of resentment and hate, but that was not for me. I could easily get a child-porn site account put on to his computer, but I wanted him to be sacked for lying about, and killing Emma. What would hurt him most, what would turn things round, and there in the dark his mother came into view.
I knocked at Margaret’s door at 7 in the evening, she didn’t recognise the woman with the American make-over, then she did and shut the door in my face, after knocking again, reluctantly, she let me in.
Although all the props were in place, and I should know: the obligatory bookcase, the piano, photographs of the family, the reading light, an old clock, everything had it’s place, yet I didn’t feel I belonged in that setting anymore.
‘Never, never in a million years would my son do something like that’ he face white with anger.
I asked her if she knew about the abortion, she didn’t, but said it ‘didn’t surprise her’ But I could tell she was a little stunned, so I moved in,
Did she know that Julian would never let her talk to other men, talk about the past, or that Lesley would have to dress like a nine year old?
She snapped
‘What’s all this got to do with anything? She was lucky have him; he could have had any girl he wanted, she should shut up and count her blessings. She has ruined my son’s career, smeared his good name, I knew she was a bad lot from the start.
‘Did you know he liked to dress-up in women’s clothes at parties and ‘wrestle’ with other men on the floor?’ I barked.
There was a just the faintest hint of recognition, her gapping mouth shut slowly, she looked crushed and found out.
I moved nearer to her,
‘I am trying to help you, it will look better if he admits to it himself, I am sure he didn’t want to kill my daughter, it was an accident. But what he did was wrong, you know that’
‘Don’t talk to me about right and wrong, you have no idea what has gone on here…’ she stood up and hastened to the kitchen.
A little later she came back into the low-lit sitting room.
‘I have thought about it and I think you are wrong, now please leave’
I got up, and gave her the ultimatum.
‘Then I have no choice than to go to the newspapers, tell them everything, weather they believe me or not, it will be printed, you know what they are like’
She screamed at me
‘Get out of my house and leave us alone’
By the time I arrived home there was a message from Margaret
‘I think we should talk’