Armistice (24 page)

“Say whether you believe Dore.”

A straight question, flatly asked. She composed her reply with infinite care.

“I believe that it's impossible to prove your story.”

“Did you form an opinion regarding the merits of his truth versus mine?” Voice rising.

“He strikes me as lonely.”

That was not the answer to his question.

“Do you like him?”

“I don't like him!”

“Methinks she doth protest too much.”

“What?” exclaimed Philomena.

“What's the matter?” said Jonathan, level now in the face of her indignation. “It's perfectly simple. Do you like Anthony Dore? Do you believe him over me?”

“It's not about that.”

“Do you like him?”

“I think he's—no, I don't ‘like' him.”

“But you believe him over me.”

Now he was after her. The litigator had arrived on the scene.

“I wish you weren't making it about that,” she said.

“But that's what this is about,” said Jonathan.

“Look,” she replied forcefully, “you told me an incredibly detailed account that was utterly convincing and he refutes it. It's one word against the other. As you've made the allegation it's up to you to prove it, not up to him to disprove it. Is that the law?”

“That's the law, yes,” Jonathan concurred, “but I'm asking you whom you believe.”

“And I'm asking you not to ask me that,” she said.

“Because you don't want to say the words out loud: ‘I believe Anthony Dore over you,'” he challenged.

Her heel tapped away under the table. She looked up at the ceiling. She couldn't say it, couldn't take that step. Jonathan shrugged and shifted back in his seat, his point made.

Philomena didn't know what to say or do next to get them out of the knot they were in. Perhaps there wasn't anything. Perhaps this was it; the end for them.

“I'm due in court,” said Jonathan eventually, wearily. “Are you still going back today?”

“Yes. Now.”

“Please meet me again before you go,” suddenly begged Jonathan. “Please. Come with me and we can talk in recess. Please, Philomena.”

She really didn't want to prolong the agony, but he had his hands clasped, beseeching her. She felt awful.

“You can leave your luggage here.”

But she emphatically didn't want to have to come back to Jonathan's apartment again, so took her luggage with her.

In the taxi, to break the silence, she asked what case it was he was in court for. In bitter tones that she hadn't heard him use before Jonathan replied that it was the same case—the same judge; Judge Dore, Anthony's father. Anthony Dore was still getting away with it; he'd fooled Philomena, he seemed to be saying. His was the lone voice crying in the wilderness. She felt that she was betraying Jonathan—or perhaps that was just what he wanted her to feel. It was so important, imperative to him that she believed his story. She worried for his safety if he didn't have that assurance.

“Your hands have stopped moving,” he said.

For a moment she didn't know what he was talking about.

“Your hands.”

He meant that her hands had ceased their independent movements.

She spent the session in the public gallery studying Judge Dore, alert for any sign that he knew of the hostile relationship between his son and Jonathan. Would a judge be prepared to have a barrister in his court who had accused his son of murdering a comrade?

The man who'd admitted that he “went round there” was in the dock again. Philomena didn't know what he was accused of, but assumed a violent act—serious violence if he was being tried here at the Old Bailey. Jonathan glanced up at her several times as if to make sure that she was still here.
She almost, but not quite, regretted stripping off her clothes and painting with him, but it had felt essential. It complicated things, though, of course it did. She didn't make a habit of revealing her body to men she'd known only a few days. Apart from her father and Dan, Jonathan was the only man who'd ever seen her completely naked. Her father also being dead, that made Jonathan the only man alive who had seen her like that.

Judge Dore looked up at her in the gallery and frowned. She looked away from him, unintentionally catching Jonathan's eye and straight away regretted doing so, for she could see Dore Senior had made the connection between them.

On the floor, Jonathan stumbled over his words when he saw Major James sit down behind Philomena. Jonathan's consternation made Philomena turn around to look for its cause. She jerked back. Major James in turn appeared horrified that she was there, and he realized that Jonathan was looking up at him. Looking behind himself, Jonathan saw that Judge Dore was frowning deeper, following the ripples of tension flowing between him, Philomena—now with her head in her hands—and Major James. To an outside observer they must have borne all the hallmarks of characters in a plot that was unraveling.

“Recess,” called Judge Dore, baffling the court, making it rise with him. Major James hastily vacated his seat and made for the door. Philomena looked down at Jonathan for any sign that he might have an explanation. All he could do was shrug. She rushed out of the gallery. Jonathan found her in
the public areas. She nodded sideways toward where Major James was receiving directions from an usher. He saw them and his eyes glazed over: he neither smiled nor greeted.

“They've got to him,” said Jonathan, out of the side of his mouth.

Major James was going to have to walk past them. They stood still and watched him. As he passed he looked only at Jonathan and said “Priest,” quietly and formally, barely voicing the word at all. They turned to watch his back. When Major James made a certain turn and entered a certain door Jonathan was able to inform Philomena:

“He's heading for the judges.”

They stood in silence and tried to think through what this visit might mean. As Major James had appeared in Judge Dore's court, it seemed safe to assume he intended to visit him.

“We don't know if they're talking about Dan, or Anthony Dore, or anything to do with us,” said Philomena.

“No,” said Jonathan, unconvinced, “we don't.”

In his room, Judge Dore tried not to glare at the nervous military man sat before him. Having introduced himself, Major James now steeled himself to broach the reason for the meeting, a hesitation that infuriated the judge. Get on with it, he thought. The tension was more than he could bear.

Anticipating a violent reaction from the imposing man opposite, Major James wished the girl had never come to see him—no, that's not true. He wished that he'd never given
her any hint of an insight into events after the death of Second Lieutenant Case. So now he was doing Anthony Dore's dirty work for him in exchange for what he had been led to believe was immunity from any nasty business. He could discern some similarities between Dore father and son: the coloring, the shape of the nose, but the father gave the impression of being twice the size of the son, and their characters were obviously dissimilar. Judge Dore was looking straight at him, for one thing, and this reminded Major James that Anthony looked slightly sideways at you, as if ready to deflect, or conceal. He hadn't consciously noticed this before; it was the comparison with the father that brought it out.

“I'm going to have to tell you about a disagreeable event,” Major James began, “involving your son while he was in uniform, during the war, at the end, just after the end.”

Following the unscheduled break Philomena occupied a different seat in the public gallery, this time nearer the exit. Major James didn't reappear and the court was kept waiting for several minutes by Judge Dore. When he eventually entered and took his place he looked up to where she was sitting before the recess. He looked away, glanced up—three times toward different seats—until he located her. A shiver passed through her and her skin goosebumped. As the prosecution resumed speaking Judge Dore gazed at her, fixedly, for what seemed like an eternity. Her heart threatened to leap from her breast and her mouth went dry. The enmity flowing up from him was intense.

This was what Jonathan and she were up against. All this in this room; this man, called a judge, his costume, all the other men in costumes, their wigs and gowns and strange paraphernalia. This court, one of many courts, in a magnificent, heavy, historic building, with ushers and guards and policemen, all with their uniforms and codes and paraphernalia. And Latin; Latin words here and there and above. Words that might be about to be used against her and Jonathan, for Major James had surely told Anthony's father about the allegation—Anthony's version of it, too, because Major James would feel more loyalty, or affinity, or duty to a man like Judge Dore than he would to her and Jonathan. And, if push came to shove, Major James, anyone, would be more frightened of Anthony Dore and his father than they would be of Jonathan and her—what had they got? No power! Compared to all this, this, weight. They were nothing. People like Judge Dore owned England; if he decided to crush them, they'd had it. Jonathan might have one foot in their world but his other was still firmly in hers. Judge Dore could just amputate him.

Philomena could see the turmoil in Jonathan. She willed him to calm, to hold himself together, to stop looking at Judge Dore in that way. The two of them down there seemed to be growing less part of their surroundings, to be focused only on each other. And it wasn't just Philomena who noticed it. The prosecution barrister began to act bewildered; the judge appeared to be ignoring him. He faltered to a close and said, “No further questions, your honor,” as if it were a tentative inquiry. He sat and there was a long pause.

That began to make people nervous. It felt like someone had forgotten their lines, or, worse, that nobody was in charge of proceedings. A palpable gust of fear swept the room. Folk began to look uncertainly about them, like sheep that have realized they have broken out of their field. Officials began to make eye contact with one another, urgently signal, and it became clear to all that something had gone wrong.

From the gestures Philomena deduced that the onus was on Jonathan; he was supposed to be doing something, now that the prosecution had finished, and if he didn't, Judge Dore was supposed to do something. But Jonathan was still in his seat, in private communion with Judge Dore, the two of them excluding everyone else.

“Mr. Priest?” said the judge, sending a wave of relief around the room. “Approach, please, Mr. Priest.”

Jonathan rose and went to Judge Dore. From where Philomena was sitting he looked like a small boy having to get up on tiptoe to reach a telling off.

He kept his features as blank as possible and so did Judge Dore. Lowering his voice, so only Jonathan could hear him, he growled “If you ever, ever repeat that allegation I shall make it my business to see that your life is destroyed.”

Jonathan considered this not unexpected threat for a moment.

Judge Dore added: “And tell that girl the same.” Certain that his demand once voiced would be obeyed, Judge Dore indicated that Jonathan should return to his place and resume.

To Philomena, Jonathan looked crushed. She felt utter
despair. Tears pricked her eyes. Jonathan was undone. His steps were shaky, his shoulders hunched; he presented the sorry sight of a proud man humbled.

He'd reached his seat when she caught a spark of something from him that made her want to leap up and cry, “Don't do that!” It was the same feeling she'd had when she saw the shabby young soldier about to step off his chair, the noose around his neck. She willed Jonathan to look up at her but he wouldn't. Judge Dore indicated his impatience by deliberately clearing his throat.

On the floor of the court Jonathan leaned toward his bewildered prosecution counterpart and stage-whispered: “Is that it?”

The poor man looked completely baffled.

“I said, is that it?”

The prosecuting counsel looked up at the judge, pleading.

“Mr. Priest!” barked Judge Dore.

Jonathan clearly refused to look at him.

“What did you just say to your learned friend, Mr. Priest?” Jonathan ignored him.

“You,” snarled Judge Dore at the prosecution. “I order you to tell me what he said.”

The prosecution meekly stood, and unwillingly related: “He said, ‘Is that it?'”

“Explain yourself, Mr. Priest.”

Jonathan, sounding completely reasonable, replied: “I was referring to my learned friend's prosecution, my lord. The strategy of it, the detail of it, and his execution of it.”

The entire court was agog.

“You're showing contempt for this court, Mr. Priest,” threatened Judge Dore.

“I am?” said Jonathan. “I'm showing contempt for truth and justice? The prosecution has been, to put it politely, limp, and your son is a murderer.”

“No!” Philomena shouted, to a background of gasps.

Jonathan plowed on: “On the eleventh of November last year at just gone eleven a.m. on a battlefield in France, Anthony Dore, in the most cowardly manner possible—”

“Shut his mouth, shut his mouth!” screamed Judge Dore, launching various officials. They ran toward Jonathan and he stopped speaking, gestured his surrender—there was no need to physically restrain him.

“Get him out of here! Get him out!” roared Judge Dore, on his feet now, as pandemonium broke out. “And I'm declaring this session sub judice! Sub judice, you hear me? Nobody breathes a damn word of this or they go straight to jail!”

Already out of her seat, Philomena ran down into the public area but there was no sign of Jonathan. She begged an usher to tell her where he had gone and was told that he'd left the building—nobody knew where to. Several officials closed on her, so she took a tight grip on her bag and ran for an exit. Once outside she hailed the first taxi cab that came and told it to take her to Jonathan's chambers, where she asked it to wait.