Rosie O'Dell (40 page)

I squeezed Rosie’s hand and she smiled at me, but often that day when she
thought no one was looking at her, she closed her eyes and, like a cloud, a
shadow of anguish passed over her face. Before suppertime the announcement came
that the jury was filing back into the courtroom. Looking at them, I said
nothing to Rosie, but my hopes went up. It seemed as if all the jurors glanced
at Rothesay in disgust. Except maybe two of them, a man and a woman who didn’t
rest their eyes anywhere, as if they didn’t know where to look. Maybe they were
just eager to get back to home-cooked grub again. But the forewoman stated in a
voice quavering with what sounded like anger that they could not reach a
unanimous verdict. And there was no point in trying further. Four or five jurors
glared at Rothesay in utter contempt. Four or five more regarded Rosie with eyes
melting with compassion. Two stupid morons stared straight ahead. Lucy Barrett
would tell Rosie later that according to her mysterious sources, ten jurors
voted for a guilty verdict and there were two holdouts for not guilty. “Those
arseholes must be pedophiles themselves,” growled Suzy.

When I got home from the court, Dad and Mom were sitting at the kitchen table
talking. Dad stood and said, “I want to apologize for my stupid outburst last
week, Tom. The trial was awful for everyone, including me, but that was no
excuse. I am extremely sorry for my childish disrespect.”

“I’m sorry for anything stupid I might have said too.”

Dad came forward and awkwardly embraced me. “Well, now everyone can get back to
normal, you and Rosie especially, go forward with your regular lives for a
while. Is she at her friend’s house? I’d like to give her a call and wish her
well.”

I gave him the number, telling him that she might not be there yet
because she was probably still meeting with Lucy Barrett. I
went upstairs and threw myself onto my bed. Go forward with your regular lives.
Like Christ! First there was the question of another trial, and after that,
guilty or innocent, probably an appeal by the losing side, and God knew what
else. Perhaps, as hinted by Lucy Barrett, a civil suit by Rosie? And everything
about the case had been and always would be an unending uncertainty.

“Tom,” Mom called up from downstairs. “Rosie is on the phone.” I rolled over
on my bed and picked up the receiver.

“Hi. Back already?”

“Hi, love. It didn’t take as long as I thought. I’d just got in when your
father called. He was very nice, especially after all that’s happened.”

“What did Lucy Barrett say?”

“We discussed the options. Number one, a new trial. If we lose that, we could
take it all the way up to the Supreme Court of Canada, and if we win, he can do
the same, and either way it would only mean another new trial, and so on ad
nauseam till the end of time.”

“That’s a can of worms for sure.”

“Umm. Number two, I give up on the criminal charges and take civil action
against him. Lucy thinks his lawyer would advise him to settle confidentially
out of court for a handsome sum rather than risk ruining his reputation and his
medical practice.”

“That sounds more promising. A few bucks in the bank wouldn’t go astray while
you finish school and get ready for university.”

“In other words, ‘Here’s some money to stop you from pestering this innocent
man, you delusional bitch. Now sign here promising to go away and say nothing
and stop blackmailing him.’ If it was money I wanted, I could have had it out of
him all along, without having to be bought off.”

“Well… what are the other options?”

“Do nothing at all, and you and I get on with our life together.”

“Just drop everything and walk away.”

“Right,” said Rosie. “So, what do you think?”

“Sleep on it for a while. The thought of a new trial may feel better in a few
days. Or the civil action. Or both. I’ll help you think it through. But whatever
you decide, no matter what, I’ll be with you all the way.”

“Oh God, Tom, hearing you say that gives me the best feeling in the world.
Well, I’ve already decided. I’ve done what I can. I did my best and now I want
to get back to spending
good
time at long last with you, with all this
behind us, with nothing intruding, loving you every day. You and I are
going to concentrate on getting on with our lives. So that’s
the end of it.”

The idea of leaving this disgusting, gut-wrenching, heartbreaking affair behind
delighted me, but the thought that Rothesay would get away with his crimes yet
again conquered my delight. “Well, there’s lots of time. We can proceed on that
basis for now, tentatively, and leave a window open for second thoughts over the
next couple of weeks.”

“No, that is it. I’ve made up my mind, my love. I’m finished with it
completely. I know it’s hard to think about him, just… but if I don’t end it
now, it’ll never end. Could you tell your mother and father for me? They were
asking what my plans are, and I said I wanted to talk to you first. I’m going to
tell Suzy and her mother and phone Lucy with it. And then I’ve got to see where
I am in school. Those exams are coming up.”

“Don’t I know it? I’ll call you before I go to bed.”

Walking downstairs to give my parents the news, I had to stop on the steps.
Into my head came Rothesay’s dignified, elegant exterior, which so perfectly
covered the corrupt brain and the rotten heart. My first impulse was to go back
to my room and contemplate all this some more, but immediately that was replaced
by the feeling I knew I’d have of wallowing again in a foul ditch of self-pity
and vengeance. I went on down.

On hearing Rosie’s decision, Mom made a face and then smiled grimly. But Dad’s
phizog was the sun emerging from behind a cloud. “She’s doing absolutely the
right thing,” he beamed. “Here.” He whipped his wallet out of his pocket and
removed a bill. “You and Rosie have dinner at a good restaurant on us.” He
reached for my hand and slapped the fifty on my palm. This was a man who knew
the value of a buck, and this was one happy man.

Lying in bed that night, I mused on the nature of the love between myself and
Rosie. We still loved each other with an intense soulful conviction. But
physically, as the trial approached, we had expressed our love only in holding
each other in our arms and kissing each other gently. We stopped touching each
other intimately. As if by tacit agreement, everything was on hold until this
gruesome ordeal was behind us. Not that my sex drive had been demanding action.
The constant striving, not entirely successful, to keep out of my brain visions
of what might have taken place between Rothesay and Rosie had reduced my sex
drive to a shrunken, hardened, dry pea, barely alive, its powers deeply dormant.
Awake, I’d had no sexual urges at all. Asleep, any sexual impulses that came
were mixed with hideously hallucinatory dreams, like that nightmare involving
Pagan.

But the torment was over and done with now, and I could devote my
self to reviving the passionate physical side of our love. I frankly wondered
if I could ever go back to where I’d been before the revelations about her and
Rothesay. Alone in bed, I meditated on what it would be like to have Rosie there
with me right now, her loving face looking up at me, her beautiful body naked in
my arms, and I stirred with pleasure. The regeneration had begun.

The next morning, in front of my locker in school, avoiding the eyes of
passersby, I waited back-on to the corridor for my class to start so that I
could walk in and not have to talk to anyone. I felt breasts pressing for a
moment against my back and a tongue darting into my left ear. I started
guiltily—that was something Miss Christmas Princess would do when she and I had
been an item briefly a couple of years before. When I turned, it was
Rosie.

“Hey, that was nice,” I said. “How come you’re here? You’re going to be
late.”

“Nope. I’ve still got thirty seconds. I was thinking.” She bent closer to
whisper. “After our dinner tonight, we can go back to Suzy’s and have some time
to ourselves. Her mother is on the four to midnight shift.” I nodded immediately
and she broke into the widest grin I’d seen on her face for a long time, and
strode off to class with an animated wave back at me.

WHEN I STOPPED BY
the living room to say good night to
my parents, Dad asked, “Where are you going to dinner?”

“Three Oh One.”

“Here, you’ll need this. And take a taxi.” He pulled another fifty from his
wallet. That he was covering my extravagance at the most expensive restaurant in
town
and
a taxi without having won the lottery was a measure of the man’s
joy, his sadly short-lived joy.

In the taxi Rosie and I agreed we would not mention the trial that evening, not
one solitary word about it. “What a great game of tennis I had this afternoon,”
she said. “It felt so good to be back at it. How was your swim?”

“Good. Really great.” I looked out the window, racking my brains. But what more
could you say about a swim in an indoor pool? Mention the colour of the tiles?
The wetness of the water?

The restaurant was crowded for the middle of the week. “Ah,” Rosie sighed,
sitting at our table, “nice, cozy atmosphere.”

“Yes, really nice,” I replied, “and cozy.” We lapsed into a silence until the
waiter came to take our drinks order. We ordered Cokes.

“Good,” he said. “I don’t have to card you.” Then we looked
around the room till the waiter came back to take our meal order. People at
nearby tables were stealing glances our way. I didn’t know if we were being
recognized from the trial, even though there’d been no pictures or
identification, or if it was just that we were the youngest couple there and
looked cute. Waiting for our food, we gazed out over the harbour lights of St.
John’s, and squeezed each other’s hands.

“You realize how comfortable you are with a person,” said Rosie, “when you
don’t feel you have to make conversation and you just enjoy being in their
company.”

“Absolutely,” I responded. But she was speaking for herself. I didn’t feel all
that comfortable, in fact. Before the Rothesay revelations, our conversations
had flowed effortlessly from one interesting point to the next. Even when we
were studying together, we’d had a problem shutting up and sticking to the
books. But now, having talked obsessively and exclusively for months about the
court case, that cancer had cut off the blood supply to outside, healthy
thoughts. Tonight, every idea that came to me seemed connected to the trial. I
was curious, for example, about how Rosie would approach her mother in the
future, what their relationship, if any, would be. But that was clearly out of
bounds tonight. The same thing with any reference to Pagan. Nothing about her
that might occur to me could be discussed tonight. Anything at all would be
painful enough to spoil the entire evening. What a fucking monster that Rothesay
was, utterly destroying that little family! The chill of the thought of the hung
jury went through my body again as if I’d been immersed in ice water. I could
kill that bastard with a knife or a gun or a sledgehammer and laugh in his
contorted, dying mug.

Our appetizer plates had just been taken away and the main courses set down
when a question went through my head. Why had the police not been able to turn
up any evidence implicating Rothesay with anyone else after Rosie? Or after
Pagan? He must have done something with some other child afterwards. A study I
had read before the trial inferred that the pedophile’s compulsion to prey on
children was never cured and never stopped. Months had passed since Pagan had
died, and not a hint of anything with anyone else had arisen. Could he have
controlled himself so completely after that? His compulsion was probably
evidenced by his application to practise in British Columbia, and he’d been
stymied in that.

“Better eat your lamb chops before they get cold.”

I looked at Rosie. A second went by before I figured out what
she was talking about. “Oh yeah, thanks,” I said. “How’s the salmon?”

“Excellent. Like the whole evening. This is very soothing. No anxiety about
anything. No legal meetings tomorrow, no challenges or problems to be dealt with
in the morning. This is great. I can hardly wait for later.”

In bed with Rosie at Suzy’s, our naked bodies pressed together, our mouths
glued to each other’s, I abruptly drew my face away under the shock of an idea
that had just occurred to me, and looked at her with eyes wide and mouth hanging
open.

Rosie stared back at me. “My God, Tom, what’s wrong?”

“What difference does it make if he got to Pagan or not, or to anyone else
after? I mean—”

“Pagan? What are you…?” She half sat up and leaned against the headboard.
“Love, I thought we weren’t going to talk about any of that stuff
tonight.”

“I’m not. I’m talking about the future—what we should—”

“How can we talk about Pagan without…?” She turned her head away. I could see
tears appearing from under her closed eyelids. “Jesus,” she muttered to
herself, bringing the back of her hand up to her eyes. “Silly girl.”

I grabbed tissues and gave them to her. “My fault. Let’s stop this right now.
I’m shagging up our night.”

She sat up. “We’ve had a lot of shagged-up nights. If one more is going to kill
us, we might as well know it now. You’ve got something on your mind about Pagan.
You were saying, ‘What difference…?’”