Yvonne had sat impassively throughout the trial and her eyes had taken in every nuance of the behaviour of the chief players in the courtroom below her, while doing her best to ignore the solid wall of puritan disapproval from Barbara's one time stepchildren. She had gone into the witness gallery in something like the same mixture of keyed up anticipation and nervousness as to how the cards may fall. By now, she had had enough experience of trials to realize that the whole thing was an up and down experience, where intense excitement from a moment when a trial is going her way could so easily be followed by the feeling of a bucket of water thrown in her face from a sudden reversal. Nothing was so certain as unpredictability and she was as emotionally well prepared for what might befall her, her daughter or more precisely, her mate Babs. It was all the one and the same for her.
The opening exchanges had started according to a predictable pattern as Brian Cantwell had played the role of bastard to perfection. Yvonne had raised her eyebrows that fraction to see that Jo had hit back with such charged emotion but she had to hand it to her to see how deftly she had recovered her balance. It hadn't been until that pathologist had given her evidence for the prosecution that vague alarm bells had started to ring in her mind. Of course, it had been a shock to Yvonne to hear the apparently unbreakable chain of medical evidence had fastened the noose round Babs' neck but it was George, not Jo, who had jumped to her feet to protest. The next day Yvonne saw that, while George had slid into the cross-examination and had expertly demolished the evidence of the pathologist, Jo had remained seated and had exhibited all the telltale signs of being visibly hungover.
She had come to that resolution even before her exchange of words with George and drove away in a purposeful way. She did not bother to work out what she might say as she had no inhibitions in how she would handle the situation and that the words would form themselves.
"What a pleasant surprise," Jo had exclaimed as she opened the door, eyes blinking. Her smile was a little strained but Yvonne deduced that was because she was still recovering from the night before.
"Mind if I come in, Jo"
Yvonne noted that the curtains were drawn and the room was in darkness apart from a dim sidelight. Jo had clearly lain down on the sofa as a quilt had been carelessly discarded.
"Certainly. I'm in the mood for some company and I've no work to catch up on for tomorrow"
"Want a drink"
"Better make it coffee. I'm driving and there's too many copper sniffing around these days. Don't want to chance my arm"
Jo's smile widened in relief as she gestured Yvonne to a seat and popped into her kitchen to bring the very drink that she needed on her own account.
"As you can see, I've not been very well today and I considered that the best course of action was to go home, take it easy and get myself better so I'll be back on top tomorrow." Jo said crisply, to reassure herself as much as Yvonne that she was back to normal and so she would be, given a few hours.
"What was the matter if you don't mind me asking"
'Oh, some wretched flu bug. I've found that the run up to a long trial can take it out of me. I get over it soon enough"
"Funnily enough, that's exactly what George told me." Yvonne said in her most innocently beguiling tones.
"Oh really?"
"The only thing is that I didn't believe her either"
Jo's face flushed as she felt the full force of Yvonne's scrutiny but said nothing as shame sealed her lips.
"Believe me, I can spot the signs of the morning after the night before quicker than I can spot a bent screw, Jo. I knew that George was covering for you for all the best reasons. I'm glad you're feeling better but I'm asking you what went down as I was dead worried about you"
"Let's just say that perhaps I care too much about the case. It just got to me emotionally"
"So that's why you went after Cantwell's scalp. And there I was with Roisin being as good as gold while you were really pushing it with Cantwell and the judge on the very first day. That was really bad"
Jo could not help but grin at Yvonne's droll and very gentle description of the scene and the way she shook her head in mock disapproval. It made her start to feel better.
"Babs's case comes too close to home, doesn't it"
Jo nodded without speaking. She felt unable to elaborate. Very tactfully, Yvonne didn't pursue the matter as she knew enough to be going on with.
"I ain't telling you to care less about Babs, Jo. I've lived too much of my life around some right bastards, Charlie and his mates to be exact. I owe you so much for looking after Lauren but there's ways of caring so you don't do yourself in over it"
"I've got to be on top of this trial, Yvonne. That's my duty"
"Jo, you've got George to do half the work. That's what I've paid you both for." Yvonne explained patiently. "I know you've got pride in what you do and you feel that you must hold up the universe by yourself but you must know that there are others there to help you. Don't block everything and everyone out. Believe me, it doesn't work"
It was a revelation to Jo how incredibly tender Yvonne could be and, at that moment, she got to understand how strong for others she was and how well deserved her reputation was from Larkhall. Some of Jo's mental barriers began to come down and the world started to look less black and despairing.
"If you don't mind, Monty, I wouldn't mind spending time in my chambers catching up on some private business"
Monty raised his eyebrows in surprise as they paced the corridor behind the courtroom. He had thought that they ought to confer about the trial, which, from his perspective, was veering dangerously out of control. He could not help but accede to John's polite request but only with the very greatest reluctance.
"Just as you say, John." He replied a little stiffly.
"I am aware that the conduct of some of my trials tend towards the unconventional. I do intend to talk to you about the conduct of the trial but not quite yet"
Monty nodded and slipped into his chamber.
Back in his room, John sat in an armchair, a curious half smile on his face, which could denote anything. The events of the day had been a very confusing and disturbing tangle, which it was extraordinarily difficult to make sense of and put in some kind of perspective.
It had all started innocently enough, he considered judiciously. He had seen Connie take the stand and both he and Monty in their considered opinion and as admirers of the female form decided that Connie's physical attractions were way in excess of what normally appeared before them. The exact process by which the trial had developed was not altogether clear but something seduced him into playing the art at which he was far too skilled of his smooth and silken voice coaxing a woman, equally skilled in the arts, into a sexual encounter in his chambers. Instantly, a tripwire in his mind pulled him up short. The words 'sexual encounter' was not the words he would have liked to describe God's most splendid free experiences that there is for the taking. The glowing promise of a Renoir portrait made flesh did not exactly fit the experience of being unclothed in a cheap undignified posture in front of George who had burst in and confronted him with anger and hurt. To be shouted at was not a new experience but to be caught in flagrente was unpleasantly new and was pulling on his trousers did not help his dignity.
What had taken him aback this time was that his normal mental processes by which he had put this unpleasantness behind him were simply not working. His memory worked by itself and out popped the voice of George who had scorched Connie with her fury of denunciation. Her words had echoed down the ages of his life and, curiously enough, he could hear Jo's voice take on the bottom harmony.
'You're not the first, and you certainly won't be the last, so get used to the fact that he won't want to know anything about you in a day or two.'
He had to admit that there was justice in this remark as he suddenly stood up to pace round the chamber and find himself looking out of the window so that no one could see him. That was the way it had happened in the past but should it always happen in the future? Did he want it to be this way? Did he have any control over himself?
As he questioned himself, his excellent memory pulled out for his attention his own self description and he knew that a very different tone of voice was about to take up the questioning, a woman's voice, a Scottish accent and two large bright piercing eyes and a very alert mind behind it, to probe his secrets.
'I am aware that some of my actions where women are concerned are thoroughly reprehensible.' Yes, he had said those very words to Helen and when asked to explain further, he had put it this way. .
'I have hurt Jo, and George, far more times than I could ever count. George to some extent managed to get used to it, but Jo never did. Every time I do it, it hurts her almost as much as if it were the first time it had happened. When I was married to George, she got into the habit of completely ignoring the fact that I was picking up other women on a regular basis. She knew I was doing it, but chose to act as though she didn't.'
There it was, at that very minute when his best intentions were to reform himself, he had relapsed quickly into his old ways. The evidence was plain to see.
'You'd become hooked, just like any other addict. Guilt feeds on itself, Judge, so that the longer you feel it, the more deep-seated it becomes.'
So what on earth was he to do about himself, he asked the heavens, casting his eyes heavenwards. Supposing for the sake of argument that he was addicted to sex, did that mean that no matter how hard he tried, he was doomed to failure?
'Do you have any idea just how stupid that was? If that had been Ian Rochester instead of me, you'd be off this trial and out of this court before I could say impeachment. Barbara needs you on this trial, precisely because you can't be leaned on'
That brought him up short. He was used to there being disorder in his private life but he had always supposed that his public role would remain sacrosanct, that the ideals, which he sincerely and passionately believed him, would sustain his self belief and that certainty that he was doing the right thing. Other judges had fudged, compromised and sold themselves out for self-advancement. By some quirk of fate, he had managed to have it both ways, elevation to the position of high court judge and acting morally.It really brought it home to him that his private life could so easily have compromised his public actions.
He began to tentatively enquire by what process he had arrived at the illogical conclusion to invite Connie to his chamber. He knew very well that the very idea was injudicious as a generality but that he had bent that rule out of his whimsical idea to be different, not out of corrupt motives. The very fact that he had done so on this occasion was certainly foolish in the extreme but he could not work out why. As Helen's stare into his eyes prompted him, he began to examine his feelings more critically and could only conclude that an irresistible temptation had driven him onwards which Coope's silent disapproval had only intensified. Why this should be so, he could not understand any more than the foolish way that his door could so easily have been opened. He surely could not have wanted to have been discovered as that was totally illogical, self-destructive and the most sensible construction he could place on her actions was that he was so carried away by sexual arousal that every consideration of prudence was simply forgotten.
'Don't forget, I had Jo right in my line of vision for the entirety of this morning, and if I didn't know better, I would say she looked hung over.'
John suddenly heard his very words replayed in his mind a very short period of time before he had so fatally given way to temptation. It took him only a very short stretch of reasoning to deduce why Jo would react so emotionally to this trial and why she would have reached for the bottle. He knew that certain trials affected Jo emotionally more so than was good for her. That quality was very double edged. It gave her that power of conviction in her words that enabled her to be such a compellingly articulate barrister but it threatened to draw her in too deep, to threaten her objectivity. John knew very well that Jo identified so closely with Barbara, another woman who had tended a dying husband and there but for the Grace of God, she had not assisted her own dying husband out of this world. He felt this intense wave of sympathy for Jo at this moment at what she would be going through and George's reply was so apt. 'Which means that both of us are going to have to support her through every minute of it.' It was then that the full weight of his guilt hit him as all became so pitilessly clear. It hurt him as much as any emotional pain felt for the first time in life that he could not frame it in words. He rubbed his hand against his eyes and sat in the chair he had found himself in and didn't move. The only crumb of comfort he could cling onto was that he would do his utmost to ensure that Jo was protected from the incredible stupidity and, yes, immorality of his actions.