Rosie O'Dell (35 page)

“Objection,” said Lucy. “Whether she has been trying to be intimate with
anyone else for a long time or a short time or not at all is completely
irrelevant to the matters before the court.”

“Miss O’Dell trotted that out, not me, My Lady,” said Dylan. “I was only
trying to clarify what she was attempting to say.”

“Nice try, Mr. Dylan,” said the judge. “Objection sustained.
The question is irrelevant.”

“Well, I put it to you again, Miss O’Dell, that your own word ‘memory’ is the
operative word in this case. You fantasized those horrible feelings just as you
fantasized the sexual acts, and you now remember your fantasies as if they were
real.”

“Look, Mr. Dylan, everything I have described were real events, not fantasies.
You remind me of what Dr. Samuel Johnson did when someone asked him how he would
refute the argument that nothing exists. He said, ‘Thus I refute it, ’ and he
kicked a big rock and injured his foot. And I would say the same thing. I know
what Dr. Rothesay did to me as surely as if I had kicked a rock, and I know as
surely as if I had broken my bones what injuries those real acts have done to
me. It all happened, sir, as facts, not fantasies.”

“You are an extremely well-read young lady—the pragmatics of Dr. Johnson
dragged out onto the stage as a prop, no less. Let us see how strongly grounded
you are as well in the literature of child sex abuse. Did you study up on sexual
abuse victims, their fears, their guilt, their shame, their disgust, their
sometimes spontaneous and unwanted physical reactions, in preparation for this
trial?”

“Not in preparation for this trial, no.”

“Oh? Because during my own reading in preparation for this trial, I came across
many of the very points you have made so well here today. Some of your points
seemed like quotes from the books and articles I read.”

“Long, long before this trial, sir, I did do a lot of reading in this area. I
am sure that if you had been a victim of sexual abuse as I was, you would have
done a lot of reading in that area, too, just as you have obviously done a lot
to become such an expert courtroom bully.” The jury and spectators stirred. Some
tittered: this was getting better and better.

Dylan gazed upon Rosie with an indulgent smile. “Now, now, Miss O’Dell, kindly
rein in your spiteful, resentful,
vengeful
streak and answer my
legitimate questions.”

“Yes, I said. Yes, I did read a lot about sexual abuse after it happened to me.
And it gave me some comfort to know I was not entirely alone in my youthful
overconfident stupidity and my years of shame and anguish. And I can assure you
that the terrible feelings you yourself read about in the literature are
absolutely true.”

“I am sure they are—in actual cases of abuse. But I put it to you, Miss
O’Dell, that you were indeed in love with your stepfather as
you have said, that naturally he did not reciprocate your love in the way you
wanted in your confused twelve-year-old state at the time, that you felt he
liked your beautiful younger sister more than you—we shall have evidence of
that— and that you became pathologically jealous, and you fantasized at the time
all the things you allege against him now, out of obsessive revenge or spite or
a misguided sense of spurned love. I am not saying you don’t believe they
happened—you quite possibly do believe them all—but if so, they are a product of
your ill imagination at the time. Miss O’Dell, you are either lying or suffering
from mental delusions. Tell us which it is.”

Rosie’s face turned red and she strained forward against the side of the
witness box. “It did happen,” she shouted. “It all happened exactly like I
said. I can describe to you something unusual about his genitals, if you don’t
believe me. How could I do that if it didn’t happen?”

“Pardon?” said Dylan. “You can what? Describe his genitals? Something unusual?
All right, describe away.”

Lucy Barrett was on her feet. “Objection, My Lady. The complainant’s
description of Dr. Rothesay’s genitals is not relevant or useful one way or the
other, as she may also have observed them in other contexts in a family
environment.”

“Yes, that is what I would contend as well regarding what she actually
observed, my Lady,” said Dylan. “But once again, I didn’t raise the matter. It
was the complainant herself who offered to describe something unusual about the
defendant’s genitals. She can’t be permitted in the interests of a fair trial to
throw out a provocative statement like that and then just drop it, to the
prejudice of my client.”

“Overruled,” said the judge. “We will hear her answer for what it’s worth, and
I shall then decide on relevancy.”

“Thank you, My Lady. Miss O’Dell, what was unusual about Dr. Rothesay’s
genitals?” Rosie’s hand was on her face and she remained silent. “Miss O’Dell?
Please answer.”

She muttered, “His penis was huge, way too big, nearly twice as big as normal,
I would say.”

“I see. And are you an expert in penises? I don’t mean to be flippant, but what
is your standard of measurement regarding the size of penises?” When Rosie
didn’t answer immediately, he went on, “How many penises, precisely, have you
seen in your life?”

“Personally? In real life?”

“Yes, let’s stick to real life for a change.”

“Two. But I’ve seen more in medical books and magazines.”

“Two in real life. And whose might they be?”

“His and my boyfriend’s.”

“Thomas Sharpe’s?” Dylan turned and bored amused eyes into me. “And your
comparison of Dr. Rothesay’s penis with Mr. Sharpe’s has led you to the
conclusion that Dr. Rothesay’s is huge, nearly twice as big as normal.”

Rosie looked down. “Uh huh.”

Dylan turned to the judge. “My Lady, I am so convinced that all this is a
fabrication of Miss O’Dell’s imagination that I ask to have Dr. Rothesay’s and
Mr. Sharpe’s penises compared with each other. It may turn out that the contrast
in their sizes is as Miss O’Dell suggests, in which case it may tend to
corroborate her evidence. Or it may turn out they are more equal in size, in
which case it may have the effect of weakening her credibility. I am willing to
abide by the result, and I am sure my learned friend would be prepared to do the
same.”

“I am prepared to do no such thing,” snarled Lucy Barrett. “The whole
suggestion is ridiculous and scandalous. The result, whatever it turned out to
be, would have no evidentiary value whatsoever. The perception of a prepubescent
twelve-year-old girl being raped vaginally, orally, and anally every night is
not comparable in any respect to that of a physically mature young woman.
Similarly, her memory of the ugliness involved in the acts, the violation of her
orifices by the organ in question, may have coloured her recollection in
retrospect.”

“I am glad Ms. Barrett has come around to my view of the complainant’s
defective perception and memory, and her lively imagination,” said Murray
Dylan. “But on the point at issue, Miss O’Dell herself brought it up, and I am
willing to abide by the result and whatever evidentiary value your ladyship may
ascribe to it.”

“Mr. Dylan,” asked the judge, appearing to struggle to keep an earnest face,
“how would you propose to make the comparison?”

“A professional photographer would take pictures of the respective organs in a
state of erection while the length and girth of each was being measured with a
plainly marked tape. That would be clear and graphic evidence for the jury to
examine. And we would request the owners of the organs in question to identify
them in the photos and to confirm the measurement.”

The judge looked gravely at Lucy Barrett, who responded, “This
is nothing but a blatant attempt to embarrass the complainant and her boyfriend
and drive a wedge between them. I object to every aspect of the scandalous
proposal.”

The judge contemplated the matter for a moment. “I shall take the matter under
advisement and consider it over lunch hour and give my ruling this afternoon.
Mr. Sharpe, please stand.” I rose unsteadily. “You are Mr. Thomas Sharpe?” I
nodded, and I was so unbalanced that the small movement of my head nearly threw
me forward upon my face on the floor. “As you have now become a potential
witness in this case, I would ask you to leave the courtroom and wait outside in
the witness room until you are called or excused.”

I went to walk, but my legs wouldn’t work right. I lurched and then stumbled
across the courtroom floor. My only physical sensation was the heat in my face.
And mentally, except for my feeling of terminal mortification, I was senseless.
At the door I grasped the handle before I was quite near enough, almost falling
forward again as I pulled the door open. Then, misjudging its weight badly, I
slammed it hard against the wall. I teetered through the doorway, off centre,
banging my hip on the jamb. Outside in the lobby a few people were left from the
earlier crowd. I didn’t know which way to turn. I took one step this way and one
that way and a third another way before I heard a uniformed attendant ask, as if
from the bottom of a well, “Can I help you, young fella?”

“No,” I croaked, “you can’t.” And I staggered for the door to the
street.

Standing at the top of the steps by herself, smoking, was Suzy. She looked
behind me to see who was with me and, seeing no one, asked, “What’s going on? Am
I up already?”

I leaned against the wall. “Lord fucking Christ Jesus,” I breathed.

“What?” said Suzy. She pulled the door open a little and looked in. “They’re
coming out.”

I straightened myself up and settled myself down and went back into the lobby.
Among the people walking through the courtroom door came Rosie, her eyes darting
about her. Seeing me, she strode over and seized my arm. “I’m so sorry, my love,”
she said. “I didn’t mean to drag you in like that. I sort of lost my head and
blurted that out. Tom, I’m so, so sorry.”

“That’s okay,” I muttered.

“What’s going on?” asked Suzy.

“Court is adjourned for lunch,” said Lucy Barrett. “Rosie was great
on the stand, wasn’t she, Tom?” She grinned. “Don’t look so
worried, the world is not coming to an end. The judge won’t go along with that.
Rosie and Suzy, we’ll talk over sandwiches in my office. I can drop you off,
Tom, if you’d like.”

“I’ll walk, thanks.”

As the others went out the door towards Lucy’s car, Rosie told them she’d catch
up. She kissed me on the cheek and hugged me, whispering, “I love you very, very
much.”

“Me too,” I said for the sake of form in a robotic, monotone rasp. But all
question of anyone loving anyone else seemed preposterously out of place right
here and now.

MY PARENTS
’
CARS IN
the driveway made
me want to keep walking. Normally, neither of them came home to lunch. What
fresh disaster had brought them both home today? I forced myself in. By way of
greeting, my father shook a document at me and said in a tone that could easily
be taken as holding me responsible, “Rothesay’s lawyer had your mother served
with a subpoena.
Rothesay
!”

“The bailiff came to the hospital this morning,” said Mom, “and marched right
into my office.”

“It requires Gladys Sharpe to testify,” said Dad, “as a witness for the
defence
.”

“What is going on, Tom?” asked Mom. “I thought Lucy had me down as a witness if
she needed me, she said, to add something substantial to Rosie’s case. She
didn’t say anything about the defence lawyer calling me.”

“It’s the first I’ve heard of it,” I said.

“I caught a report of the trial on the news driving home,” said Mom. “They
said the cross-examination was blistering. This fellow Murray Dylan sounds like
he’s hard as nails.”

“But he won’t be cross-examining you,” said Dad. “You’re
his
witness.”

“Oh, yes, right. I’m getting confused about whose damn side I’m supposed to be
on here.”

“We’ll talk more about this tonight,” said Dad, rising to leave. “It’ll be all
right, love.” He kissed and hugged Mom. But she had her hands to her face, her
eyes on the floor, deep in thoughtful mode. “I’ll see
you
tonight, Tom,”
Dad said with a tight mouth and mirthless eyes, more like a threat
than a farewell. “Find out what’s going on with this subpoena,
will you, and let us know.” Christ, what would he have been reacting like if
they’d said they were going to measure his cock?

BEFORE THE TRIAL RESUMED
that afternoon I mentioned to Rosie
that my mother had been subpoenaed by Rothesay. Rosie replied that Lucy had just
told her the same thing, and that she’d said she was not perturbed by it. Rosie
made a what-do-I-know shrug.

An hour later, a court official came into the waiting room where I was sitting
with Suzy, and said my name. I half expected him to continue with, “Take him out
and measure him.” But he said I could go back into the courtroom now, I was not
required as a witness. “Well darn that,” said Suzy, grinning and smacking her
fist into her hand. The three girls must have had a grand old laugh over their
lunch.

When I walked back in, Murray Dylan paused in his questioning to allow every
eye in the court, full of merriment, to go to me. Low cackles rose from some
spectators. For Rosie’s sake, I took my seat, trying to look as if it were not
just a pleasure but a distinct honour to provide their comic relief.

I heard Rosie replying, “Perhaps I do strike others as the epitome of a happy,
successful student in school and in my sports, but in truth not a day goes by
that I don’t feel hollow and polluted, like a used and abandoned garbage can,
empty but coated on the inside with a residue of filth.”

Dylan finished his cross-examination and Rosie answered a few questions from
Lucy Barrett on redirect. “Then I fell back in love,” she ended, “recaptured my
love with my boyfriend, Tom, and I am hoping that our love will overcome my
horrible reaction to any intimacy. But unfortunately our love has not yet
conquered all. And that is the dismal story of my life. Because of what my
stepfather did to me when I was a young girl, I may never be able to express my
love as I truly want to as a woman to the man I truly love.” When she stepped
down from the stand and walked over to me, the courtroom stirred as if they had
just heard a beautiful aria. She sat beside me and took my hand. Every eye in
the jury was on her. Rothesay’s normally motionless head moved back and forth in
weak and implausible denial. Jurors turned their eyes to him. Some glanced and
looked away as if in pain. Others sustained a glower. Their faces said they were
going to crucify that desecrater of this young innocent life.

The spell terminated with a growl from Murray Dylan: “Is Ms. Barrett
going to call her next witness, or does she want to milk the
moment of its sentimental pathos a little longer?”

Frowning at the insensitive brute she was up against, Lucy Barrett rose and
called Susan Martin. Suzy recounted how, in school, Rosie had deduced correctly
that she too had been a victim of sexual abuse and had told her of her own
experience. Suzy’s narrative jibed with Rosie’s perfectly.

On cross-examination Murray Dylan elicited that Rosie had been subjected to
many bullying attempts by Suzy. “I put it to you, Miss Martin,” he said, “that
you and Miss O’Dell developed a relationship based on this: she approached you
with a fabricated story of her own sexual abuse to pass herself off as a kindred
spirit of yours, to win you over from enemy to friend.”

“You put that to me, do you?” said Suzy.

“Yes, Miss Martin, I do.”

“Well, if I weren’t in court, I’d tell
you
where to put that—where to
shove
that, is more like it.” The room howled with laughter. Judge
Oona Ledrew asked for order and, with a smile, cautioned the witness to answer
the questions rather than regaling the court with her personal view of their
merit. Murray Dylan didn’t waste any more time on Suzy, and Lucy Barrett
announced she’d be calling Janet Pretty, Rosie’s teacher in grade seven, who was
flying in from Vancouver today, to testify tomorrow morning.

At home, I watched the suppertime news on the little black-and-white set I had
in my room. The trial led off. Because cameras weren’t allowed to capture faces,
twenty pairs of feet represented complainant, accused, jurors, witnesses,
supporters. I recognized my own shoes alongside Rosie’s before the camera rose
high enough to capture our clasped hands, identified by the reporter as “the
complainant and her current boyfriend.” The reporter gave an account of Rosie’s
and Suzy’s testimony, anonymously, ending with undisguised admiration for the
“scathing cross-examination of nationally renowned criminal defence lawyer
Murray Dylan.”

The announcer now said she was moving on to other news, and I sank back in my
chair and closed my eyes in relief: nothing on Rosie’s contrasting cocks. “But
right after the break,” the announcer went on, “we’ll have a lawyer’s analysis
of evidence on the relative size of the private parts of the defendant and the
complainant’s boyfriend.” I jumped to my feet. Pacing, waiting, I glimpsed my
face in the mirror: wild-eyed with terror.

“Lawyer Ralph Johnson, tell us about the potentially explosive evidence,” said
the interviewer, “that the pull-no-punches defence attorney Murray Dylan wanted
the jury to see.”

“Yes, Jessica, the alleged victim attempted to show that she
was intimately familiar with her alleged abuser’s private parts by testifying
that his sexual organ was twice as big as her current boyfriend’s. Now the
renowned Murray Dylan wanted to have photographs taken of the two aforementioned
organs to see if the complainant was right or wrong about the huge difference in
their sizes. But the prosecutor objected.”

“I could understand it better,” chuckled Jessica, “if the boyfriend jumped up
and objected…”

“Heh, heh, heh, heh,” continued the legal analyst.

“But why did the prosecutor object?”

“On grounds of irrelevancy, and the judge agreed. Ergo, no phallic photos for
the jury to compare and contrast.”

“What impact do you think the jury being excluded from interesting evidence
like that might have on their verdict?”

“Jessica, I doubt that the effect will be huge or even tiny, no pun
intended.”

“Ha, ha, ha. Good stuff, Ralph. Thank you very much for your lawyer’s inside
analysis of the complex workings of an important criminal trial.” I sat there
terrified at the prospect of ever venturing into school again.

The telephone rang. My mother shouted up that it was for me. “I’m very, very
sorry, my love,” said Rosie. “I just saw that atrocious interview.”

“Let’s not sweat the small stuff, no pun intended.” There was no reaction at
the other end. I added, “A little self-deprecating humour there.”

“Oh God, Tom, I was so stupid.”

“How’d your meeting go with Lucy this afternoon?”

“Disturbing.”

“How come? She thought you and Suzy were great on the stand.”

“It’s not that. I’m concerned about your mother.”

“Mom is behind us all the way. Is Lucy afraid of something?”

“No, she’s delighted Dylan called her, because she thinks she can get testimony
really helpful to our case from her under cross-examination. I’m not supposed to
be telling you this. But Jesus, I can’t start having secrets from you at this
stage. I know you won’t say a word. I’m worried about how your mother is going
to feel about me after Lucy is finished with her. If I’d known—”

“Hey, Mom’s a big girl. The important thing is to get the truth out. She’s
known that from the start.”

“I guess.”

“You sound a bit tired. Tell you what. Instead of getting
together tonight, we should make an early night of it. You must be dead after
being on that stand so long. I’ll call you first thing in the morning.”

“Okay, my love, good night. I’ll see you tomorrow.”

“Rosie, you were really great on the stand today.”

“I hope it was good enough. Whatever happens, it’s unimportant compared to us.
You are everything to me.”

“And you are to me too. Good night, my love.” I put down the phone. Shitting
fuck. My mother! She’d rather be anywhere but in that court tomorrow anyway, and
now here she was, being set up by my girlfriend’s lawyer for an ambush. And I
couldn’t say a word of warning to her about it. For ten minutes my mind flipped
between the disparagement of my penis today and the massacre of my mother
tomorrow. Just how the hell had I gotten myself into this?

A knock came to my door. “Tom?” It was my mom, the sitting duck. “Aren’t you
going to have your supper?”

“In a little while, Mom. I’m not hungry now.”

“Your appetite will come back when you start. I’ll reheat it and call you when
it’s ready.”

“Okay, Mom, thanks.” I listened to her going back down over the stairs. Dead
woman walking.

I shovelled down my supper, the sooner to get back to my room. Mom and Dad sat
there saying nothing. When she thought I wasn’t looking, she would gaze upon me
with heart-rending pity. Dad drank his cup of tea with closed eyes and a head
supported by one index finger to the centre of his forehead, murmuring every so
often, “God Almighty!”

I pushed my chair back to leave. Dad opened his eyes. “I get the impression the
defence lawyer is a pit bull. I can’t figure out what he wants your mother for.
What do you hear?”

“Nothing.”

“Nothing? Rosie’s lawyer must have mentioned something to her.”

“I’m not supposed to talk about anything to witnesses.”

“So you have heard something but you won’t tell us.”

Mom said, “Lighten up, Joe. This could be a lot worse.”

“How could it be worse, precisely?”

“They could have served the subpoena on you instead of me.”

Dad tried not to laugh, but he had to, and I used the moment to escape
upstairs. I walked, half-dazed, to my easy chair and eased myself down. The
thought came to me that I was the last sane person in a lunatic
universe. That perception would change in a few minutes. I picked up a textbook
but, instead of reading, I lay my head back and almost instantly fell asleep.
Fragmentary images in a dream featured a male organ entering the bodily orifices
of little Pagan. The organ was forensically identified as belonging to either
Heathcliff Rothesay or Tom Sharpe, but despite all the photographs of both in
circulation, nobody could say which it was, because they were so equal in
impressive grandeur. In the dream I knew it was my own and I felt enormous
satisfaction.

I jerked awake, dismayed by the dream, only to become appalled by reality. I
had ejaculated in my pants. I lurched out of the chair, pulled my clothes off,
and dumped them on the floor of my closet. Putting on my pyjamas, I shivered as
if the room were cold. In bed I lay on my side to forestall the bad dreams that
might come if I lay on my back. I wanted no more dreams. I needn’t have worried.
I tossed from side to side all night watching the numbers on my clock moving
inexorably towards dreaded daylight.

MISS JANET PRETTY GOT
right to the point. At the
meeting some four years ago between Dr. and Mrs. Rothesay and the principal and
herself, which had been called because Mrs. Gladys Sharpe feared Rosie was being
sexually abused, Dr. Rothesay had cajoled and browbeaten everyone by his
glibness and veiled threats into letting the matter drop. Back then, the
characterization of Rosie by Dr. Rothesay and her own mother as unstable enough
to let accusations fly out like a scatter gun, rang sufficiently true to give
everyone a self-serving rationalization for waiting rather than acting. And when
Rosie did improve, everyone was more than happy, of course, to let the horrible
thing drop permanently. In her own case and, she was saddened to realize in
retrospect, in Mrs. Gladys Sharpe’s as well, there was timidity if not outright
cowardice over the possible involvement, as Rothesay stressed, of teachers or
family friends. “We failed Rosie,” Miss Pretty concluded. “We failed that dear,
dear child abysmally. Mrs. Sharpe, Mr. Abbott, Mrs. Rothesay—they can speak for
themselves, but I will never forgive myself for that.”