ch44-54

44
SATURDAY 21ST FEBRUARY 2004.It was at the Siduri over a chelow chicken kebab and cups of chai that I met my old and dear friend, the man with the caustic wit, Telemachus Johns.
Mr Johns who ate with relish the sumptuous cuisine of Persia and liked fried fish roe kuku sabzi, thick mutton kookoo, chicken giblet oresht washed down with a sweet carrot havij bastani. Most of all he liked grilled meat and bean shahm with garlic, onions and herbs, which gave to his palate a fine tinge of faintly scented saffron. He had arrived back from his Thailand adventures and heard the appalling furore about my arrest and upcoming trial and felt it his duty to administer the last rites to the condemned man.
“ So it’s been grim then, Leo…a vigilante’s toll to reckon with then…. one slashed tyre, a broken window and the carnage of mass murder of your forsythias by the Havens paedophile assassination squads?”
His lips laughed about the edges of his white glittering teeth. Laughter seized his entire strong well-knit trunk. Insensitive sod, I thought. His hands plunged and rummaged about his trunk while he searched for a clean handkerchief. He kept on his blithe broadly smiling face.
“It’s not funny, Tel…I’ve only just moved back to my place. It’s my poor Japanese tenants who copped the worst of the flak what with cars scratched, daubing of doors with insults and all.”
As he patted his portly paunch gibbering Johns tangentially jabbered onward with his absurd and unhelpful postulations.
“Maybe it’s not you but the Orientals they’re really after….maybe it all goes back to the Bridge on the River Kwai…Burmese chindits…..old world war two vets meting out some belated payback?”
A fat consoling paw is flung around neck in brotherly fashion.
“You may scoff, Johns. But the Turkish One next door to me really queered my pitch there. But thanks for the books anyway-they’ve been useful.”
My fat fingered friend shakes me round my neck for all the world as if her were my reproachful father.
“Ah, come on, old son! Cheer up! Don’t be such a Vivian Dark, Bloomer, old boy. I see you don’t agree that there is only one thing worse than being talked about and that is not being talked about.”
I begged him to spare me the glib Oscar Wilde quotes. John’s growing literary pretensions were worse than mine. I blame Mrs Johns, who was more the genuine intellectual thoroughbred article and from whom Telemachus purloined so much of his winning erudite one-liners. You see, Mr John’s welsh wife, Taffy Ann was chief librarian at the local college, and she had kindly dug up some dog-eared old law books often used by undergraduates on criminal law.
Ann Johns was a short, stout plain woman bereft of any great femininity for which marriage to TJ was an escape from the certainty of spinsterhood. While in return TJ made Ann his Patsy Pedant, his erstwhile respectable cloak to a murkier side of his character that she, nor any other wife, would condone as seemly to a respectable middle-aged married couple.
Lucky for Tel, Ann was as trusting and devoted as they come and never caught on to the occasional clues about TJ’s lascivious leanings that twenty years of friendship with that old scoundrel prevent me from divulging in these pages. But on my own particular indiscretion my friend still had a further question for me.
“ Didn’t you say you had some theory that a man can’t really be a kiddie fiddler if the object of his affections was a female with the fully-ripened body of a woman?”
Now he was broaching on a facet of this matter I felt peculiarly pertinent to the positing of paedophilia.
“I did indeed. It’s all in the hip-to-waist formula! I have my facts to aid my theoretical arguments, too!”
I put my case to him thus: a girl becomes a woman from the time the distribution her body fat attains that Darwinian perfection of a waist to hip ratio of 0.7. That is what makes the fertile female human form so unique. He looked somewhat askance at the implausibility of my opening gambit but I continued with my theory.
“By looking at the female waist to hip ratio, you know when a female is of the right age for reproduction. At that time, and if the mind is mature enough you can argue that you are dealing with a woman and not a child. If nature says she a woman then she is a woman-it’s not arbitrary like the age of consent laws that vary so wildly throughout the world from country to country, jurisdiction to jurisdiction.”
Teasing Tel laughs at the pomposity of my global gobeshitism.
“Is that an argument in mitigation or a plea for universal standards?”
No, no. Hold off with the jokes, I said. I wanted him to take on board the reasonableness of my argument.
This isn’t just me saying this. What I am stating is merely a re-iteration a long-held view going down through the pages of history. From Ishtar, the Babylonian goddess of sacred prostitution to the 32,000-year-old Venus of Dolni Vestonice right up to the modern Barbie doll-curves that define the perfect woman and the dreamiest dimension for a woman’s waist to hip ratio at the universally accepted zero point seven.
I pleaded with a howling Tel to stop his mocking laugh. He wiped the tears from his eyes and I told him again to his fat face.
” I didn’t cook it up my friend. It crosses the boundaries of time and culture and social class. Ask anyone-anyone at random and test the theory. “
To prove my point I beckoned over to our table that fine waiter. Gilgamesh took great pleasure in acquiescing with me on the matter.
“Yes, indeed, fine sirs. I should assure you that on my long travels from Accra to Bahrain, Bridgend to Southend… every upstanding gentleman would have his head turned by the movement of the hourglass walk.”
He gives a fiendish stroke to his moustache and a guttural laugh and a wink then from behind the back of his waiter’s hand and surreptitiously asks me if I have seen any good Japanese Shōjo-ai prints lately.
My swarthy Persian friend decided this might be the opportune time to garner some trade from me about some fine prints from the Bakunyuu genre to his own growing cosmopolitan art collection.
I dismissively assured Gilgamesh I would certainly peruse again the finer antique shops when next on my travels. Bu I had important matters to ponder and no time right for chitchat on deals for his extracurricular enterprises in erotica as I shoo him way with my frowning rebuff.
Mr Johns asks, “So what about breasts? Aren’t you forgetting the plumpness of the bosom in all this? “
He had a point. A lot of men like to ogle those sumptuous mammary mounds more prominent, but structurally identical and homologous to the male of the species.
“Ann and me could never have kids-ovaries and such, you know.”
No. I didn’t know. That was news. Mr Johns confided in me he was most thankful of his escape from fatherhood not being the nurturing kind of man to attend the nest of a nursing old crow.
“So why do men like women with large boobs then, Bloom?” He was baiting me for more merriment at my baleful blusterings.
“Well one theory why us men go for bigger boobs is that breasts mirror the buttocks as a sign of fertility and biologists have also proven that women’s breasts evolved to be larger in order to prevent infants from suffocating while feeding”
“What? That’s silly!”
No. This wasn’t silly, I assured him and hinted he should wipe mutton kookoo grease from his cuckoo mouth.
“Since human infants do not have a protruding jaw like human evolutionary ancestors and other primates, the infant’s nose might be blocked by a flat female chest while feeding. According to this theory, as the human jaw receded, the breasts became larger to compensate.”
He took his sauce stained napkin to his ruddy face and dabbed about the words as they spilled tartly from his lips.
“I think you’re spending far too much time with your head stuck in books, Bloomer, ‘cause you’re sounding scary now!”
So what’s wrong with a little bit of learning? I had to occupy my time constructively since I was forcibly removed from my teaching duties.
A man has to defend himself with solid and reasoned arguments, I said. This ought to be the discourse of the cultured and wise, the sharers of truth and dialectic reason. I needed the wisdom of the world to assist me in my penitent studies.
I should be ready for my grand legal inquisition and not to prepare would be to prepare to fail. But fat face Johns still had a put down for the lean, mean Leo machine.
“Well…what’s more to the point is you shouldn’t have got yourself into playing your wife’s games in the first place anyway, Leo. Why do her dirty work? Besides what you’re really saying is you had the hots for the girl anyway! Its mitigation at best my old mate. To many, including our education bosses at county hall, you’re still a kiddie fiddler. As far as they’re concerned teachers can’t consort with their students and the law of the land says it, too, and that will be the end of it!”
I corrected him on one important point. I was never Rebecca’s teacher at any school- not now, not ever. A hint of a smile on his face and it seemed to me as if Johns had a self-satisfied smugness about him as if he was gloating.
He dismissively tossed the stained linen rag upon his plate and spat out a couple of trite phrases like’ if you can’t stand the heat get out of the kitchen.’ It all tripped a little too easily from his mealy mouth. So I wag a reproachful finger back at him.
I countered. ” The trouble with you Tel is I know you too well. A whiff of hyper hypocrisy in the air don’t you think? With you it’s anything with a pulse! You always were of the ilk that stood for ‘any hole is a goal’ so…and how was your trip to Thailand by the way? Did you dally with any of those ladyboys? Maybe you bought Ann some ever so risqué shōnen-ai art? Well, perhaps we won’t go there-what more can I say? ”
He paused momentarily as if to speak something unutterable but checked himself then quaffed the red rosé from his glass with a brisk headshake chaser to follow. While I, in turn, paused to clean my plate of delicious meat sauce with a thin bread of Nan-e Cookieari before I changed my angle of attack.
“One surprising fact I’ve already, gleaned from the legal tomes your goodly lady gave me, Tel, is that England is the only country in the democratic world that allows a false confession as evidence in court. Other civilised countries expect a prosecutor to bring other corroborating evidence, but not here, oh no!”
“Oh god, Leo, not Juris prudence! Spare me that, please! That’s not going to help you, is it! The North Haven criminal courts have no time for philosophical niceties on matters of highbrow nonsense. It just seems to me it was your own folly to run your gob off- like you’ve always had a tendency to do, old chum. My top tip is never cough to anything under caution. The rote my lawyers always told me is ‘say nothing, admit nothing.’ But you waded in ineptly and blathered on and said ‘I’ and not ‘we’ when the constable asked you who had sent the texts.”
I put aside my now limp and sauce dubbed nan bread and took issue with the point.
“ I was arrested for assault, you rotund rat! I was only thinking about the details of the scuffle ….I didn’t realise I was saying ‘I’ when I really meant ‘we’ and thereafter it was ‘we’ every time!”
Johns puffed and piffled back at me in sour rebuke. I paused momentarily before continuing our debate around that rickety little ‘sofreh’ cloth covered table as it did slightly intrigue me when he mentioned about ‘his lawyers’ and the unspoken darker side of the man.
“ Well, Leo, you gave the police woman the ‘I’ and that was your undoing. She took a fancy to it!”
“Yes, once I gave her the ‘I’ she smiled like a Cheshire cat. She had me done up like a kipper in under two hours-bar dotting the eyes and crossing the teas- I coughed like a fool!”
“Yes, you poor stupid cougher, you did seem to give something of a premature birth to that Internet intriguer Mr Sexihunk, who you say now was your stepdaughter’s mad creation. But all in one breath, alone, in the first person singular you cried, ‘I’m Sexihunk’. But not to let you be her martyr your loyal Lita comes cop crowing that she is the one and only, true Sexihunk!”
Who is Sexihunk? He mocks me in glorious Technicolor and in wide screen format slaps the table with his hand and asks aloud ‘who is Spartacus?’ Then he proclaims ‘I am Spartacus. No, I you are Spartacus! No she is Spartacus’.
A diligent and watchful Gilgamesh reads John’s signal to come over to our table to take an order for coffees and remove the discarded remnants of our feast.
“ So, Leo, where was your solicitor while you were being a coughing fool at the police station?”
A good question he did ask. And I had to concede I had made a monumental error of judgement. Like my drunken sop of a father always warned me, ‘ better say nothing and be thought a fool, than open your mouth and confirm it.’
A wiser counsel would have had me zip up my loose tongue. But I poured out a lot of ‘we, we’ after I gave her the ‘I, you see? ‘ I’ was taking the piss! Or was it she? Pa! I hold pee!”
“Well, Leo, like Einstein said everything is relative and you should notice there is a difference from intelligence to intelligence: some human beings understand irony and some don't even understand what you tell them!”
I tried to tell Tel that I was allowed a phone call from my cell to the duty solicitor and I gave him the full SP and he just said ‘tell the truth!’ and have done with it. Twat! I should have sussed that being that ungodly hour he just didn’t want to rise from his bed to put in his personal appearance and do me the proper job.
“So, my dear capitulator, do you now have a serious anti-capitulating strategy at all for your trial?”
“Indeed I have, old boy. Did most of it myself-and a fine effort, too, so my brief tells me. I have a tangential line of attack ingeniously comprised of discrediting of the witnesses and meticulous studies of the complainant’s audiotape! It is all prepared for D-Day!”
“D-Day? Meaning?”
“Discreditation Day obviously! I’ve pored over the witness statements of Rebecca van Hiller, Abel Tractabull, her scum boyfriend, and that evil karaoke belly dancer, Cilla Karibdis, and they all contradict each other in their tangled web of lies! The tape discredits Abel ‘cause he says he was at Truva Park hiding in the bushes watching then when I left the park to go speak to Cookie (she was watching it all from over the road). Abel claimed he then ran out and had a chat with Becky!”
“Well, what’s the catch?” Asked an enquiring squire.
“The catch, old son, is she had her tape recorder going the whole time and all you can hear on her tape is her heavy breathing and noises like smoking a cigarette while she waiting for me pop back. Then to top that there’s the voices of some kids shouting in the background,’ Becky, Becky! Prozzy! Prozzy!’” I exclaimed as I slurped on my tea.
“And the police didn’t do anything about it? Surely if there were other witnesses and they did nothing to find them… And they believed the boyfriend’s story even though they knew he was lying?”
His wrinkled brow showed his incredulity.
“Well, Tel. They knew from the tape she was also lying too, coz in her statement of lies she made out I had asked her to come back to my place for an hour’s sex. Then she goes off on some cock and bull fairy tale that I’d snatched her asthma inhaler. She alleged we had an almighty scuffle over it and then I threw it! Well, none of that old twaddle is on the audiotape either!”
I scoff a complimentary chocolate left temptingly on a small china plate.
“So you’re confident then? But didn’t you write to the Crown Prosecution Service before the trial and tell them all this or something?”
Mr Johns, not to be outdone, bags one inviting chocolate of his own and stuffs it greedily into his great pouting gob.
“Absolutely! I laid out the whole case for them and they wrote back saying they weren’t bothered!”
“Holy Mary Mother of God!”
“Indeed! To top that we then had the farce after my arrest about Lita’s stolen mobile phone…but do please keep this under your hat, my old friend…I found some…er… photos on Cookie’s computer in a hidden folder under Lita’s screen name-looks like she or Rebecca took a few compromising snaps using the mini camera in the phone…You know what kids are like to day- horseplay and stuff.”
His eyes flickered appraisingly over me.
“Are you sure there wasn’t some shady shenanigans of your own doing there Leo? I think know you better than you let on. I bet you had a squeeze of that ripe little lemon, too- though-don’t say you didn’t! Peal, I’d hope!”
He guffawed and spluttered in amused apoplexy.
“He? Load pipe. Is that it? Give it up, Mr Judas! One man’s cuddle is another man’s grope and don’t you start on that one….if it were a lad getting a hug from his stepmother not another word would be said, so try cutting me some of that politically correct equality slack if you can spare the reasonableness of it.”
He drains the dregs of his coffee cup to help clear his throat and catch his breath.
“So….you had told me something before on the phone about… that you got the cops lined up for a few other things too, if my memory serves me.”
”Yup….I’m thinking of suing them all afterwards for gross negligence or something.”
He chuckles weakly at my preposterous proposition and slowly shakes a weary head at me. I failed abjectly to convince him of my post-trial strategy and I let it ride. I drain what is left of my own cup and go to pay the bill.
“Well, good luck with the trial my friend. Don’t put the cart before the horse and all that. It does sound like they really are taking the mickey!”
I get another of Johns’ consoling pats on my shoulder as we head out for the door and into the icy winter air of the street. I clasp the heavy hand offered to me in salutation and I bade my buddy farewell. I had a lot on my mind to consider yet. He had left me feeling uneasy. There were still loose ends to tie up.
I had homework to be getting on with. Brigid Kearney had set for me my final tasks before the trial. I needed to photograph the play area of Truva Park in good detail. With the aid of some clear photographic evidence we would ask pointed questions as to his whereabouts and position during the incident. Physical proof would pulverise the prosecutor’s pitiful pawn.
The stark nakedness of winter branches unclothed by foliage was as evident in mid March as it was on these brutally cold last days of February.
I intended to show the court in irrefutable full colour photographic detail that there was no canopy of cover in the bushes for Tractabull to hide behind.
No convenient hole for him to bury his heinous hide; no easy perch from which he could scuttle out to speak with his mentally ill viral nag when I had left her alone for those two minutes.
I must make a call-quick, I thought. I need to get hold of Charlotte. Now. While I think of it! I hurried to my car parked across the street on the ‘no parking’ zone in front of the funeral directors. I called her from my mobile as I sat in my car demisting the windscreen. Perfect! I got an immediate answer. Charlotte was at home- her day off. Her faltering voice betrayed hurt I had inflicted on her shattered heart. I told her I would be there shortly.
The atmosphere was tense as soon I got to Wallow Walk. Her son and daughter had not long got home from school and were clucking around their mother’s heels for attention. But Charlotte shouted and shooed her brood out of the kitchen as I sought to speak earnestly with her.
Our conversation was strained.
I felt the tension and I trod gently not to stamp on her heart any more than necessary. I had for the past couple of days been boxing up a few of my things ready to move back to Eccles Drive.
I hadn’t the money to hire a van to ship everything out in one foul swoop so I sweet-talked my honey into letting me leave a dozen or so boxes as well as leaving a few other assorted bagged bundles in her study.
Then I saw in her reddened eyes the rawness of her hurt. My poor Friday girl still wanted every day to be ours and she grabbed at my hand and pulled me to her sorrowful face in a silent plea. But to my miserable Maybe Mayes I pleaded back my own desperation and fear of imprisonment. It drove me to these desperate acts, I told her. I had to shake her out of her love funk. Please forgive me, I said as I kissed her softly on her cheek.
As opportune and cold as it sounded I had self-preservation on my mind but women have a tendency to let their hero fall on his sword in great acts of sacrifice to the god of romantic love. Well, no eager Eros or cunning Cupid is going to save me from the slammer-its every man for himself right now. I kissed her again and softly on her forehead and sent her off to salvage from her garage some more of the remover’s boxers we had used to move into our love nest at Wallow Walk only last summer.
I was packing up some papers in her study when my eye caught sight of the fancy new digital camera old man Mayes had bought his doleful daughter for Christmas. I turned on a little charm when she came back in and comforted Friday Girl a tad so as she would not feel so down.
I told her it would do her good if she came out and with me and be my photographer at Truva Park before the daylight dimmed. Chin up, old girl. Let’s be positive, life isn’t all back and white. I could still picture us as the perfect couple again in the future, I told her. I just needed those American lemons to sour the prosecutor’s plans. If they could get me out of this squeeze then Mayes and me could get fruity once more.
We zoomed off in the Benz to the scene of the crime and entered the Truva Park past the trees and bushes on the corner of the road junction with Odyssey Road. I pointed to the naked branches all about.
“You see, darling? Just like I said. No leaves anywhere-all along here there are just deciduous trees -exactly as it must have been last March the Twelfth!”
So much for Tractabull hiding in bushes, I sneer. Wash your mouth out, you fraudster- you laving liar. With Charlotte’s willing hands we got all the shots I needed. That cold night air fell upon us unexpectedly fast and a chill wind put a shiver into Charlotte’s frail limbs. Her eyes were moist. Those tears I put there harshly and she bore them bravely. ‘Wish me luck,’ I begged as I dropped her off. I was callous and calculating. I used her love.
I met Ashkenazi, my barrister, the Monday before my trail in a hurriedly arranged meeting at Brigid Kearney’s office. It was astonishing how much about my case he had absorbed in such a short time. I wasn’t expecting someone so young. Bald too. Bald as a billiard ball. But sharp as a tack, as Cookie said. I had to take her with me. She had arrived on the JFK to Heathrow flight on the Saturday but was bright as a button to meet Mr Billiard Ball or Ashkenazi Schaffernacker to be more precise.
“Please just call me Ash, no one calls me Ashkenazi-its an old family name.”
“Ashkenazi Shaffernacker?” Is that a Jewish name? New York Jews often make the best attorneys! You ever been to New York, Mr Shaffernacker?”
No. He hadn’t and my wife’s bluntness and ethnic comment just increased my evident discomfort. After a run through on the evidence and some basic coaching on how he wanted us to give our evidence Ash asked Cookie to wait outside for a brief moment.
“I would recommend that we keep your wife off the stand if at all possible, Leo. How shall I put this? I think her frankness of thought and expression may be problematic to you.”

45
THURSDAY 26TH FEBRUARY 2004: THE TRIAL
Crown Versus Leonard Odysseus Bloom
At: North Haven Magistrates’ Court
Before: Tobias Mahoney
For the defence: Ashkenazi Shaffernacker For the prosecution: Matthew McNutt
“ Leonard Bloom, you are firstly charged on three counts. These are specimen offences under the Telecommunications Act (2003) whereby you transmitted obscene and harassing messages by wireless telephony between the dates of February 14th 2003 and March 12th 2003 with the intention to cause distress to one, Miss Rebecca van Hiller, how do you plead, guilty or not guilty?
My throat was sore. For three days I had felt an infection coming on. I was run down and tired but this was not the time to give in to it.
“ Not guilty!”
“You are further charged that on the evening of Wednesday March 12th 2003 on or around 6pm at Truva Park, North Haven, you did assault and batter Miss Rebecca van Hiller. How do you plead?”
“Not guilty.”
Slightly phlegmy need to keep clearing throat. I pled a hope. She rises before her audience. Rebecca van Hiller (juvenile sworn). I am seventeen years old. In February 2003 I was sixteen years old. I grew up in New Haven and lived with my parents.
I left home soon after I turned sixteen and stayed with Lita Limoncello and her mum, Carla. They are related to the defendant; step dad and wife. This was the twenty-ninth of April 2002 when I lived with them. The defendant came to visit almost every day to the Limoncello address.
I left that house on the nineteenth of January 2003 and went and stayed with Cilla Karibdis until September 2003.
I had a mobile phone on which I received text messages. Generally from friends and usually funny ones. Sometimes I got small photos, too. Yes, I got regular messages from them and one particular ex boyfriend. Yes, that was more than all other text messages I ever got. No, maybe I got them two or three times daily. Yes, I found them offensive in nature. Yes, I recognise the list of texts. They are the same ones as given to me by the defendant when we met.
He said nothing about anyone else sending them. No, he didn’t say he sent them. No, I never gave my phone number out freely: only a few friends, of course and family. Yes, I found the messages offensive. I did not like them. No, I never arranged to meet anyone for paid sex. I ignored them. Ok, yes I answered them. Yes, but I got scared then and afterwards. I was scared even when I talked to Cilla. Cilla said to ignore them. Messages never stopped until I went to the police.
Yes, I did agree to get meet the anonymous individual and if I met them then I would know who it was. I always suspected him. Yes. Leo Bloom. Cilla suspected him. Abel agreed. Yes, my indication was the personal details he knew. Only he knew about that. Yes, it was a hidden scar. No one knew about that scar but him. Yes, one of the texts he said it-he said he saw it once long ago. A scar on my lower left side just above my hip.
Yes, I told Cilla of this. I decided to meet him and go with Abel with me. Yes, I also took that tape recorder. Yes, that’s right. I suspected it was him-the defendant. No, I hid the recorder in my bag to record the meeting. Yes, I gave the tape of meeting to the police. Yes, the tape is of the meeting in the park. Yes, those voices on the tape are the defendants and mine.
[Tape is played, transcript of recording given to bench]
As the tape is played I study her but with fresh eyes. I see her again as if she were my delectable fruit. No green bananas there. Nature’s done her work. All things grow with variance and peculiarity. Like Darwin postulated: survival of the fittest. The horticulturalists strive for the best growth in the best conditions.
Optimum yields when you tender the crop and nurture the most favourable genes. I reflected back on what Professor Hare had to say on psychopaths. They thrive by predatory instinct, too. Criminal but cunning to avoid prison with chameleon charm with the abilities to cut a swathe through society with a scythe of evil leaving a wake of ruined lives.
Hare said it 'emotion for the psychopath is like a second language,' one she struggles to speak and never masters- deep down.
Yes, absolutely sure. Those are our voices- the defendants and mine. I felt scared of what he would do, (he wrote to my doctor and my school).
He threatened me and he said he would write to everyone. Yes, I felt he did get aggressive. My instinct was to run away. Too scared to move. I was petrified. The defendant’s mood was getting angrier and angrier. I was trying to move away from him but he grabbed my arm. No, he was not invited or permitted or welcome by me to do so. He would ‘fuck me up’ over and over he said. Yes, he did say he wanted to talk and walk home. No, I was scared. He was getting violent. No, I did want to run and go.
But I was getting evidence. He snapped his fingers. Yes, he said there were eight people who would fuck up my life. Yes, I got more nervous. I wanted to get away from him. Yes, he mentioned Lita. I did not want to talk about her. Said all he wanted was an hour alone with me. He said Cilla hid behind the curtains to spy on him.
He grabbed my inhaler, had it over his head. After tape ended we left. No! Before then I hit his arm to bring it down. No, the heavy breathing is mine. Started to come back home. No, I did not permit him as we walked to kick me in my leg. And bruises swelling and not invited or permitted at any time to strike me.
No, no, no! I never attacked him. We went home to Cilla’s. Yes, I was crying continuously. No, I do not know why its not heard on the tape. Yes, straight inside and locked the door. Lots of pain, yes, my leg was dead. Soon after, yes, Cilla called police. Yes, right away I told Cilla everything. No, I did not send him any more text messages. Yes, that is my telephone number. Yes, there was physical contact. I had dropped my inhaler. No, I didn’t ask him. I told him to go away. Like I said, the defendant picked it up and held it over his head. Yes, that did happen. I then slapped him in the face. I was angry. I tried to get it back.
Then the defendant slapped me. He held my inhaler in his right hand and then with his left hand. As he walked out he kicked me. No, the inhaler he kicked after. I don’t know where-at some place in the park. I think it was near the enclosure by the gate. No, I can’t remember how long. In time you mean? No, don’t know! No, I did not have a stopwatch! How could I?
The defendant had left the inhaler there. Yes, the day after. The next day Cilla and me went back and found it. I had walked ahead and he continued to kick me to my side.
Yes, as we walked. No, I tried to walk ahead but he returned with me. Yes, that is the whole truth!
All through I sat and wrung my hands from time to time. I would catch myself showing weakness. Letting out some little slip of emotion: a mock laugh at an absurd question or answer, a punch to the air when the whacked out wench warbled a woeful untruth. I constrained the aching bursting anger pulsing my veins as best I could and for contemplation I imagine myself reposed as Rodin’s ‘Dante.’ I had to constrain myself. I had already been warned for contempt once for my outbursts.
As her long interrogation continued I looked her more pityingly than with anger. I began to mourn what she once was what she might have been- my sweet little bean, my variant vanilla girl. It pained me to watch her go through that ordeal as much as it also pained my aching arse. Mucus at back of my throat irritated me ever so. I coughed. A withering look fell upon me once more from the bench. Not good. These court chairs were the pits-all bony and hard.
I was then at such pains to look sombre, calm and composed. But all the while my head was numbingly heavy and uncomfortable. I scribbled a poem for her in my diary. Just to take me away from here if only momentarily. To be free of this torture.
Sweet my love is you to me
Ever in my soul with glee
X-rays of my heart do show
Indelible is your name and so
Hell shall take my soul from thee
Untold pain but n’er do flee
Now is tolled your time to show
Kill me never with thine bow
‘No! No! I already said!’ The witness on the stand exclaimed loudly. A harsh reality tears me back to the drone of the court of inquisition and still her voice penetrates and pummels my brain. A frailty to her stumbling answers now.
“He kicked me over and over!” she says.” He walked beside me and kicked me hard to my left thigh. All the way home he hit me! He used force-kicking me-over and over. Kicked so hard to my left thigh”
Yes, she said. It was in her witness statement to the police made later that day (shown to victim). Yes, it was the seventeenth of March, she agrees. Yes, she saw the policewoman on the twelfth, too and returned to speak to her the following week.
I raised my eyes to them and tried to shake the fog of influenza from my wretched brain.
Defence Barrister: “ Miss van Hiller the officer’s statement shows you made reference to slaps not kicks while walking home. This is at variance with the evidence you are giving today.”
Complainant: “He slapped me yes, he still slapped me with a hand. Don’t know why I didn’t mention it. It should be in the statement. But I am telling the truth today. Kicking me and slaps, too!”
Defence Barrister: “ From the statement of events you gave to the officer on March 17th 2003 there is a clear difference from what we are hearing today, Miss van Hiller. Do you not accept that?”
Complainant: “ I’m telling you he kicked me to my thigh as I walked away and he slapped me, too.”
Defence Barrister: “ And you want the court to believe your story that along a busy residential street Mr Bloom was walking beside you and alternately taking kicks and slaps at you in full public view? Is that really what you want this court to believe? Is that your story?”
Complainant: “ It’s not a story! It’s true! I showed the police my injuries. I showed them my thigh.”
A torrent of tears explodes down her face. The court usher ushers forth with a box of paper tissues to stem the tide. Her tortured face grew red and twisted and green globs had to wiped from her trembling top lip.
I saw her hair and it now seemed matted and unkempt. Her staged composure was slipping badly as were the tousled black locks that covered her errant bad eye. She was the sad Cyclops of this farce, she was sadder than Cyclops; she had Cilla Karibdis as her offstage director. Karibdis looked on enraged. Her purple face puffed in contempt for the barracking my barrister was giving her mumbling, stuttering minion.
Defence Barrister: “ Yes, Miss van Hiller we get the picture. A hail of blows to your face and leg rained down upon you from a man twice your size inflicted upon you for what you allege was the entire journey back from Truva Park to your front door some five or six minutes’ walk away.
[Plan of park produced]
A nervy van Hiller now identifies the areas on the diagram where she alleges the assault occurred. She points with an efficacious forefinger affecting only to look the part and never sounding it.
If she were a black and white cinematic transposition from the silent screen this starlet would, at her grand entrance, be up for the Oscar. But as the performance plays out she trips and falls over her words more and more like a novice. Her insanity drives her on and in the faces about me I sense a growing incredulity. Surely barmy Becky’s cuckoo claims are fooling no one now.
My throat still sore and stinging, I guess she looked as uncomfortable as I felt. Her eyes seem to assume a glazed, almost lost look. In what I took as a desperate plea for help the unzipped zealot scanned about the court her for a friendly face but this vast chamber was filled only with the cold stares of a questioning audience. I began wistfully to muse upon on the loss of my girl next door and I watch.

As I glanced at her in repose sat amongst her henchman huddled in the corner gallery she shot me a cold and withering look that betrayed the protective arm wrapped around her shoulder. She wore her camouflage well that one. The psychopath. It all fitted her purpose. Glib when it suited or friendly and easy-going, then in an instant switched back to her stock in trade performance as the hapless victim. She was truly devoid of the petty anxieties that trouble most of us. No conscience. Her wooden tops had all been danced around to the merry tune of a masterful puppeteer.
Such a sad waste. A clamour of coughs, a fulmination of chatter and abruptly it all stops. No more questions for the witness. The witness is excused.
A brief recess is called. All about me screeching chairs and heavy footsteps on wooden floors break the sombre air that had grown heavy and wearing for the past two hours. I hear a laugh then someone splutters a ‘sorry.’ With a swish of his black cape my able sidekick Shaffernacker turns to me with eyebrows raised.
“How are we doing?” I gingerly enquire of him. A ‘fine-mostly’ he speaks in a foul breath of garlic. I climb uncomfortably from my perch and strode purposefully beside my crafty counsel past the departing throng then ushering Ash put a cautioning forefinger to his lips whispering a while that he will elucidate further on some points once we reach the secure confines of the briefing room. Once in the quieter confines of our war room I pull up a chair at the desk and Ashkenazi begins to evaluate his morning’s work.
“ As you saw, Mr Bloom, counsel for the Crown has endeavoured to paint Miss van Hiller as the pawn in your world of sexual obsession. It went less well for him once she turned on those ridiculous crocodile tears. I’m sure everyone saw through that little gambit, courts are wiser to that little game these days.”
I nodded and smiled approvingly and thought it the opportune time to show open my briefcase and pull out some papers I wanted to show my counsel. I placed them before him on the desk. He seemed rather pleased with my transcript of the audiotape. He was looking forward to presenting that when I took the stand.
“We blast the balls off them once the court hears the tape again and compares my transcript with that fiction McNutt tried to pull off earlier!”
Looking like a sham ham of Batman my counsel waves out his wizard’s black sleeves and purposefully straightens his caped crusader’s garb.
“It’s the text messages charges that are really uppermost in my mind, Mr Bloom. This new Telecommunications offence is not the easiest nut to crack in your case.”
He pulls some papers from his files and reels off some facts. According to estimates, 500 million text messages per month are sent on UK mobile phones alone. He warned me the prosecutor would be due to make his big play on the texts. It now hurts to swallow.
“Electronic sexual harassment was ‘a significant and growing new issue’ in the modern electronic age as this case proves when people send each other so many mobile phone text messages or e-mails without a thought as to the consequences.”
My black wizard went on to tell me in some great detail that the law has striven to catch up with technology and now any offensive text message or e-mail can be considered part of an environment that constituted unlawful sexual harassment.
“It’s a new challenge for me, Leo, but I’m sure there will be plenty more to come in the future. People just don’t seem to understand you just can’t do things like this!”
I heeded his words but felt confident my jolly foul-breathed barrister was ready for that fat-fingered prosecutor, Mr McNutt.
“I anticipate that this afternoon the prosecution will argue that you sent sexually explicit text messages knowingly and with the express intention of causing offence to a girl of school age. He will tell to the court that such messages were grossly obscene and intended to corrupt van Hiller for your own personal deviant and private sexual pleasures.”
His baldhead shone a yellow so vivid it was like a lemon and a sour sounding one at that.
“Leo, I must advise you in no uncertain terms that if you are found guilty of the text offences you cannot expect any mercy from the court. On the basis that you pleaded not guilty and have fought this every step of the way with such a young victim, to boot, and what with this being a new criminal statute you should expect them to throw the book at you. I fear, even with your prior clean record you may well go to prison in what would be a landmark conviction and you’ll possibly a fine thrown in for good measure."
Those words shook me. My throat was now worse and the pain settled on the left side. I was unavoidably reminded that he was, invariably, accurate in his legal assessments. My mouth went even drier. I felt light-headed and needed a drink fast. It was suddenly very claustrophobic. Then I felt the sickening, insipid yellow light fluorescing above my head.
Shaffernacker handed me some papers and said I should consider the facts. I began to read.
In 2002 the advertising watchdog reprimanded a company for sending an offensive text message calling for consumers to upgrade their mobile phone. Phonetastic UK, a company based in Newport, Gwent, sent a text message to customers that stated: "You are a dick and I am going to kick your head in ya big useless donkey. UPGRADE UR MOB 0800 0859362."
The Advertising Standards Authority (ASA) received a complaint about it ruled that the message was "likely to cause serious or widespread offence to recipients" and cautioned the company that a repeat of the offence may incur legal proceedings.
The genealogy of this particular law may be traced back to section 10(2)(a) of the Post Office (Amendment) Act 1935, which made it an offence to send any message by telephone which is grossly offensive or of an indecent, obscene or menacing character. It was again reproduced in section 78 of the Post Office Act 1969, save that "by means of a public telecommunication service" was substituted for "by telephone" and "any message" was changed to "a message or other matter". Section 78 was elaborated but substantially repeated in section 49(1)(a) of the British Telecommunications Act 1981 and was re-enacted (save for the substitution of "system" for "service") in section 43(1)(a) of the Telecommunications Act 1984. Section 43(1)(a) was in the same terms as section 127(1)(a) of the 2003 Act, save that it referred to "a public telecommunication system" and not (as in section 127(1)(a)) to a "public electronic communications network". Sections 11(1)(b) of the Post Office Act 1953 and 85(3) of the Postal Services Act 2000 made it an offence to send certain proscribed articles by post.’
Never archaic bell. All gobbledegook. Enough of this! Please! I wanted air, to feel some fresh air, a breeze, a fresh smell, anything but that garlic breath and this odorous little Calcutta hole of a room.
“ Are you alright, Mr Bloom, you look very pale.”
I was nauseous and needed to get out of that place. Without further ado he scrambled up his papers from the desk and breathed on me his final words, ‘ ok then-lunch!’ Cautioning me to be back by one he scurried off to raid the coffee machine. No doubt to top up his halitosis.
I took myself off out into the cold grey daylight. A whiff of dead fish pervaded the North Haven air but it was a welcome change from the stuffiness behind me. I was struggling. I was still sore, some catarrh, left sided. It hurts to swallow.
Before I had time to clear head the usher recalled the sitting. We entered in to the courtroom once more in funereal fashion past uncomplaining stout columns of chalky marble standing as monuments to pettiness and proscription.
We were back in those awful hard seats again sitting in prostatic discomfort. Everyone took his or her place as before. Rebecca would barely look my way except to cast a glacial stare of frosted ice. Frozen vanilla turned her head resolutely towards the prosecutor. She seemed more intent on acting out her pathetic drama to him than anyone. I felt sure it was the psychopathic tendency that possessed her. She was always out to sway that particular whomsoever she had chosen. Mc Nutt would now be that easily impressionable male who she thought would do most for her. For now I was long resigned to the fact she had forever forsaken poor old, tall, dark, handsome, enigmatic Leo and was now eyeing short, fat, oily, pompous, self-important McNutt as her new benefactor.
But that vanilla presence continually sucked my eyes back to her. I mused upon her then just as the ‘streetwalker glazed and haggard …palpably reconnoitring on her own with the object of bringing more grist to her mill.’ Fear not them that sell the body but have not power to buy the soul. She is a bad merchant, this one. She buys dear and sells cheap.
The nobler man inside of me had long ago determined I was never to properly seed that particular mill. Other men’s seeds she had no doubt taken in her mercenary fashion. Now Abel Tractabull took the stand and was duly sworn in. I felt sure once my trial was done and dusted that screwed up nut would quickly dispense with Tractabull and be off with the next poor fool.
The performance continued. The latest ham actor trotted out his rehearsed lines. The audience sat enrapt. Tractabull sought to corroborate van Hiller’s evidence and so on, and so on, nonsense without end. He was poor fare indeed. McNutt said I was ‘grossly offensive’. Throat still sore, both sides, dry and stinging. I laughed inwardly and contemplated my first grand inquisition in police custody now over a year past. I lifted up my gaze once more. I turned to the bench. Their grey faces as stern as in mourning as if we were all here to bury someone.
I want to be absolved of my hideous sins, oh, Father. I was a good catholic-pope hailed-always at morning prayers-the matins. I long observed, talking of body and soul. A holy vigil service I rendered. Let me believe in the soul and give me perfect absolution and preserve my intelligence, the brainpower as such, as distinct from any outside object, the table, let us say, that cup. I believe in the convolutions of the grey matter. Don’t let me the sacrificial lamb. Spare these stiff, cold fingers clasped at my lap as I feel the stabbing eyes upon me. The Birmingham six, Guildford Four, the Balcombe Street trial, ad naseum. What pitiful justice once more for an Irishman.
“ Did you pick up on that? “
The odorous breathing one fixed me in a hunter’s stare as I scrambled my senses to come back to him and this infernal court.
“Bloom! Did you see the faces …on the bench….less tense….good sign.”
He pulls me to my feet and I see I must stand. Protocol. We have been adjourned for lunch. He puts his black-clothed arm round my shoulder and whispers the greatest secret.
“ The mood has shifted…did you not sense it?”
Feeling not sensing was all I was about just then. His sweaty, furrowed brow and ghastly breath was all I sensed. I straightened my tie and buttoned my suit jacket and we shuffled away beside past the throng and once more retreated to the vacant meeting room adjoining the court.
A constricting feeling seized my throat as we decamped again in that oppressive little windowless room. But my flapping friend was a blackbird chewing on a worm. Shaffernacker fidgeted and shuffled yet another stack of papers across the desk.
Shaffernacker was slick and smooth still wanting to impress me with his breadth of knowledge. He spoke with refined tones. Smoothly shaved man of the bald pate I deigned to metamorphose in my imagination into who in culinary might be a fine pâté de fois gras accompanied by a crisp Chenin Blanc manner, or perhaps a sublime Salmon terrine, with a cream and herb sauce for his subtle refinement.
I tried to be attentive despite a numbing headache and tickly feeling at back of throat then extends to left ear. Sinuses. He advised me that since our last recess one of his underlings had faxed through a synopsis of a benchmark case that may have impact here on these proceedings. It was the finer points of a case concerning a Mr Leslie Collins from North West Leicestershire who had allegedly made a number of calls to the offices of his MP, Lee Taylor, and left racially offensive telephone messages.
“Mr Bloom, as I tried to explain to you earlier this morning it has been a criminal offence since 2003 to send or cause to send any message that is “grossly offensive or of an indecent, obscene or of a menacing character” by means any mobile phone or Internet service. So far, the courts have not been asked to consider messages sent using such media. Your case which involves Internet transmitted text messages is unique as it’s the first I know of under the new amendment to the law.”
Wow! I was a trailblazer was I? Yippee! How wonderful? Here I am breaking new ground. Oh, how my family will be proud! Maybe I should feel honoured or something. I really didn’t much care for my new notoriety one tiny jot.
Not be interrupted Shaffernacker jabbered on.
“It is clear from Lord Bingham's judgment in that case that the aim of the particular offence is to prevent a service provided and funded by the public, for the benefit of the public, from being misused in a way that contravenes certain basic standards.”
Basic standards? What does that mean? And I didn’t send any offensive or obscene messages I tried to tell him. But he insisted I had already made an admission under police caution a year ago and that was that.
“Do try to follow my point, Leo. It’s not necessary for a recipient to be personally offended by the message.”
He pointed to his papers in emphasis of his points.
” The court will firstly decide whether it was you who had sent the messages and if they think that it was probable that you did then they will then consider whether you used terms that were offensive to that recipient.”
Slight tickle right at the back of my throat. I think my eyes must have begun to glaze but Ashkenazi Shaffernacker tried to clarify this.
He took my arm and guided me to my chair. “ Look, Leo, its my view that you will be convicted on the text message charges unless Lita gives her personal confession to this court. I’ve had a word with the prosecutor and the beak and it’s a done deal now- if she doesn’t show then the court won’t admit her written confession. You’re done basically!”
I again nodded. Sharp pain in neck at front left side.
“I’m afraid what the Leslie Collins case proves is that my Plan B just isn’t going to fly.”
I asked him why he had never mentioned a Plan B when we had our meeting last Monday at Brigid Kearney’s office. I was getting a trifle flustered at this development so late in the day.
“Well, Leo, I had allowed for the possibility that your stepdaughter may not be able to make the trip from New York to be here for your trial. Therefore I had sketched out a rudimentary argument whereby Miss van Hiller in no way indicated in her own text replies to yours that she was in any way offended or distressed by them. But, sadly, the Collins ruling has me scuppered on that I’m afraid to say.’
I asked my barrister to explain why.
“ Well, Leo, take, for example, those now common sex chat hot lines. You know the ones…..”
I nodded trying to look as intelligent and attentive as possible.
“…the ones where men and women are on a premium rate phone call using words and suggestive language very much like this present case. Well, plainly under the old 1988 Act there would be no offence, and if a conversation took place in the street between you and van Hiller…it would be laughed out of court... But now….now under this new section… 127(1)(a)…. The change in the law says that because the speaker or sender knows he or she is using grossly offensive terms then they are committing an offence if they communicate it via the Internet and by text message.”
I confessed that I had never realised before that a private telephone conversation or text message correspondence like in my case would be a criminal offence. I kind have guessed if it was done repeatedly and the receiver objected and said so then that would amount to harassment but this was much more, much worse. Shaffernacker was at pains to point out that the new law is less about harassment and more about punishing people if they use the public telephone network in an obscene or offensive manner: as Lord Bingham had put it in the House of Lords, ‘to prohibit the use of a service provided and funded by the public for the benefit of the public for the transmission of communications which contravene the basic standards of our society’.
Shaffernacker scratched at his chin, “ In fact, to be frank, I can see considerable chaos with this new amendment to the law. The sexchat phone line industry could be shut down at a stroke if the letter of the law is applied. Quite clearly by the new definitions almost all such calls must involve the sending and receiving of indecent or obscene messages proscribed by section 127(1)(a)…I’m at an utter loss as to where this will all lead.”
I was less concerned about Britain’s invaluable sex industry and more about my own neck.
“Jesus Ash! So where does that leave me?” I asked.
“ Well, as you must realise this is a point I am preparing to put forcefully in my closing speech to impress upon the court. They would be opening a can of worms to convict if they find that you did, in fact, send the texts for which you are charged but that Miss van Hiller was not distressed or offended by them and acquiesced for the purposes of taken money for sex. You see there is both an issue of enforcement and scapegoating. “
Shaffers shook his head ruefully. The black-robed magician was going to have to pull some legal rabbits from of his hat. The finer points of the criminal law remained very much alien to me. My neck felt stiff. The sour air of this confined windowless room was stifling.
“ I feel sick-I need some air, excuse me a minute!”
I flung open the heavy wooden door and escaped into the bland void of the corridor.. Dizziness overcame my senses and the grubby institutionalised walls, nothing but grey featureless people all about, even the stone pillars seem to swirl and fall towards me in harsh heartless fashion. It was becoming all too much for me
I staggered out alone into noisy pandemonium of babble as faceless spectres wafted to and fro in a haunting stone mire. The stifling air made foul by a glum old tramp in from the cold slumped alone on a bench. His nauseating odour hit me hard but not as hard as the message he unwittingly sent me.
All about his putrefying derelict form the tramp had wrapped old newspaper for some warmth. My eyes were shocked to see my own face printed large upon the page. The headline above my photo screamed, ‘ Trial of the Lewd Teacher.’ God, please spare me this hell! Oh, I wish I were out in fragrant woods, sucking in fresh air, among the trees and the birds again living that clean, wholesome life.
I remember the avocets of Havergate Island. I remember that late September day and our eyes were gifted with a crisp and clear Indian summer azure sky and salt sea air filled our lungs. To me it was, and always will be, my special place where you can see a wide range of wading birds, wildfowl and brown hares. I had thought Becky would enjoy sharing my passion for natural beauty I tried my best but my twitching binocular hands were soon intent on following what I took to be the mysterious nightjar, flitting low over the heath. I pointed to it and gave her my glasses and we could hear the 'churring' from a newfound song post.
That golden place had dunes and marshes that backed along the coastline and further down towards the south there exists virtually deserted pine forest and sandy heaths. All round this foxy coast the languid air did swoon. I asked my young princess the question: Isn’t this wonderful? But although she smiled bravely at my helpful pointers to the species on offer it seemed inexplicable to me that this rare beauty took no genuine pleasure in the naturally captivating beauty all around us. It was if she was in competition for my attention. She had to impress and there was no one of her ilk to woo and preen for. None of her usual canoodling crowd, the peckers and setters of the street and the public houses were back at their own turf. They were the sub-species down the bottom of the food chain in this cycle of life. My vanilla bird had been courted by a far superior genus and she knew it but she acted from instinct. And her instincts, her subliminal needs were base and unsophisticated. She was resolutely unimpressed by our tracking of this new habitat and she displayed scant regard for my elucidation on the duneland flora. My dilettante duchess walked on ahead of me alone the dusty dirt track declaring she had no use for sea kale that is the ancestor of cabbage she had. Was I mad? Did I always have to go on and on about it? We wheeled up and gently along the winding way towards a gaggle of old aged pensioners wrapped as if foraging into Artic Tundra contrasting starkly with our own loosely clad attire. Bex cast a bemused eye over them as they brimmed broad smiles through us.
Isn’t this much better than some smoky old pub?” All I got was a hurrumph.
Am I really so dangerous and corrupting? Is she better off in the company of career criminals or a man of letters- a tender soul, such as me, with sensibilities for aesthetic pursuits?
“ Did you hear that?” Hear what, was her abrupt reply. It was a Bittern. Oh, she said unremarkably. How do you know that if you can’t see it? The Bittern, has it’s own unique "booming" sound, don’t you know? No she didn’t and why should I expect her rattled my acerbic adolescent angel.
I taught her birdcalls often confuse beginners and experienced birdwatchers alike and she could start by learning the easy ones like chiffchaff and common birds like robins and blackbirds. But I remember that shrug she gave. I told her she didn’t realise how lucky she was living in a region so replete with outstanding natural beauty. I wanted her to share with me the opportunity to see rare plants and animals some of which are only found hereabouts.
It was quite amazing after all because we saw many butterflies that day including the Swallowtail. I even saw my first "Norfolk Hawker." God, that was such a huge dragonfly and it looked pretty damn frightening. It flew straight at us and Becky shrieked thinking it was a giant bee. But it was harmless. I took her hand and she yielded to my comfort and we walked among those secluded places of grazing marshes, reed beds and dykes. The incident with the Hawker kind of shook her out of herself a bit and she listened more attentively to what I said about the marsh flowers, insects and birds. I told her how I had coped with my own stresses by coming here to unwind. Perhaps she, too, could find inner peace among nature, I was naive.
“In spring, you can watch avocets and marsh harriers or hear booming bitterns. Look, down there… on the beach.”
I pointed out to her a special area that was cordoned off to protect nesting little terns.
“ Why do you come out here and look at the same thing all the time?” She enquired. Her shinning brown eyes, I thought, were so set off by the pallor of her indoor skin.
It’s not the same thing all the time though, I tried to tell her. In autumn and winter, many wading birds and wildfowl visit the reserve. Wasn’t it gorgeous? I looked but I never touched. We then descended down a footpath to a hidden promontory that gave us wonderful views over the tidal waters and mud flats. Her pigeon-toed walk was kind of cute and her unsure footing gave me an excuse to wrap an avuncular arm around her inviting shoulders. Not sexual.
Migrating birds returning from Africa are drawn to these wide-open spaces. I took her across the heath. I scared her mischievously to get my own back at her for her flightiness by warning her to look out for the adders. She only had her skimpy shorts on and bare legs! She freaked at me and I laughed. But there were only tame, completely harmless silver-studded blues, the odd toothless tiger beetle and dilatory Dartford warbler. Yet we did get one evil glare from the marauding male of a courting couple scooting into a sandy hollow with mischief afoot.
I crave to be there again right now. Free and unshackled I was then, unguided, and not judged meandering my coast of grazing marshes, reedbeds, unspoilt heathland and ancient woodland remnants. She stopped me momentarily to read a sun-faded sign. ‘Look out for the many species of butterflies and dragonflies.’ I stroked her hair as it teased me in the breeze while she perused. She leant forward her silky blouse filled with heaving white cleavage. Let the dog see the rabbit, I thought. That was perfect spot for courting couples to be close and to be at one together. Stalking my territory I moved about her as I listened to the faltering melody of her young voice as she recited on about wildfowl, breeding marsh harriers, woodlarks, nightingales and bitterns. I was fascinated by her display behaviour and partook of that birds mating display. Beauty is a wondrous thing to behold. To see the movement, the graceful I could see my chickadee was craving some wooing and nurturing as she pecked and preened the now wind swept mop about her head.
So as not to ruffle her feathers any further we stopped off on our trek at the teashop up on the ridge near the cliff’s edge. I pointed out where half the old village had tumbled down into the sea. Coastal erosion. She said she knew all about global warming. They did it at school.
At the teashop she perked up noticeably when her gaze was drawn to a sickly feast of garish coloured cakes. She hovered over her chosen prey ready to swoop.
“Please, can I have a chocolate orange one?” She squawked like a ten year old and betrayed her truer passion. I listened politely as she crowed about her mother’s superb homebakes as we tottered with trays of hot teas and loaded plates of cake carrion to a rickety cane table and chairs. As she gleefully laid out her spread across the blue checkerboard tablecloth she stuttered with messy fingers to smear her lips with rich buttercream in her vulgar but strangely delicious manner.
“Did you see those horny sods in the dunes? “ She smirked. Yes, I did. My knowing smile met by hers. She ran her tongue along a coffee orange brown wedge teasing the creamy ooze with the tip of her tasty tongue. “ Oh, this is heaven” she sighed. I concurred with a slice of my own creamy heaven kept wrapped hygienically in my vacuum-packed psyche. She was as scrumptious as the prize specimens exhibited in glass cases in the shop and the fare she had ravenously foraged. Satiated by vulgarity.

46
“ Hey, Leo, you want a sandwich and a coffee?” I was shaken from my daydreaming stupor by an accent I recognised. No appetite.
“Shaff’s just been giving me some not so good news, Hun.”
Cookie took my arm and with a wistfully soft smile politely led me past a cackling throng of Karibdis’ cronies that congregated en masse in those dark dank halls. Deftly she swept us forward and on towards the heavy lacquered oak doors of the courthouse entrance ignoring tiresome scoffs and half-heard taunts. I felt the firing of scornful darts our way but pretended not to hear the chuntering of bilious contempt.
“Let the fish hags go hang- we’re always two steps ahead of them, Leo.”
My wife locked tightly onto my arm and gamely she ushered us through the maul of the rabble and out onto the wintry street. On she led me to the tearooms down the road for hot tea and pastrami in a bap. In her pep talk luncheon my comforting wife wore her best stoical smile yet broke her cover to declare her inner frustrations.
“ I hate not seeing what’s happening…are you sure I can’t sit at the back? It’s absolutely unbearable having to wait out in the halls.”
Her face suddenly looked pained and gaunt.
“No, no…. you’re a witness…to be called…maybe tomorrow or something…I…we can’t have you in there!”
Her eyes rolled in frustration and she swatted at errant crumbs sprinkled decorously across her heavy bosom.
It was hard to eat heartily or think about anything other than pondering how well Harlot Hiller had primed her fellow conspirators for their shabby performances.
At the stroke of two we were back in the grimness of the stale courtroom confines sitting in strained, tense silence once more. On stage were the usual main cast. The key actors dresses suitably their black cloaks and wigs and the galleries filled in anticipation of another prize performance.
Again the jousting of words began in tortuous fashion. It tore at my tattered nerve ends as on and on my name was used and abused over and over. The same hateful eyes plunged their spears and arrows in my exposed direction.
The stiffness in my joints worsened as the afternoon’s proceedings played on. In from the wings came Tractabull once more but this time to feel the stabbing blade of sharp cross-examination by Ashkenazi Shaffernacker. Give those Jews their due they do make good lawyers. I muffled my scoffing laugh as I remembered my wife’s tactless turn of phrase.
As I watched the styles of the opposing barristers I recognised a distinct and subtle change in play. The prosecutor’s fat, oily hands