Broken Country (Reese’s Book Club)

38. The Trial

The Trial

My mother, sister, and I are in the front row of the public gallery when my father takes the stand. There are many things I will never forgive myself for and here is one of the worst—the impact the trial has had on my parents. I’ve seen my father several times since the shooting but today, I am shocked by how much he has aged. Eleanor sees it too, for she gasps and grabs my hand. His hair has been thinning for a while but, from our bird’s-eye view, I see how the sparse strands he carefully sweeps over disguise an almost naked pate. His face is deeply lined, his neck has become craggy without any of us noticing, and his hands are shaking. For his court appearance, my dad is in his best suit, the one he used to wear to weddings and now gets out for funerals. A landslide of grief none of us were prepared for.

Once he begins talking—confirming his name, address, profession, and relationship to the defendant—my father’s nerves seem to disappear. This is his calm, confident teacher voice, a man who has spent three decades holding his pupils’ attention. We were advised to choose a professional person as a character witness, a doctor, a lawyer, a teacher, someone of high standing in their community. No one with better credentials than my father. Do I feel guilty about his testifying in court knowing, as I do, he does not have the full set of facts before him? Yes, I feel sick with it. If he finds out, there is every possibility he may never forgive me. But what else could I do? There are three of us bound by this lie and far too much at stake to risk telling anyone, even my dad, the truth.

The examination with our barrister passes easily enough. No difficult questions to trip my father up, plenty of opportunity for him to provide a glowing reference for the defendant. Beside me, my mother begins to relax. She even manages to turn to me at one point and smile.

But, all too soon, the Crown prosecutor Donald Glossop is standing for his turn.

His voice is gentle at the start, but I have seen enough of his cat-and-mouse tactics to dread what lies beneath.

“How long have you known the Johnson family, Mr. Kennedy?” he asks.

“I’ve known them many years. David Johnson, Frank and Jimmy’s father, was initially an acquaintance, I would say, rather than a friend. Hemston is not a big village and we all knew each other to varying degrees. Once my daughter married into the family, I came to know the Johnsons much better.”

“And in that time, did you see much friction between the two brothers? Can you think of an incident, perhaps an argument that got out of hand, an explosive row, say, or indeed any sort of conflict?”

“Absolutely not.”

I catch my mother’s half smile as my father leans forward with intent. She knows exactly what he is about to say; the two of them must have rehearsed his witness statement a dozen times.

“The brothers were closer than any siblings I have ever seen. They looked out for one another. Frank was a devoted older brother. He worried about Jimmy constantly and always tried to keep him on track. A good man, a kind man, he went the extra mile not just for Jimmy but for everyone in the village. And Jimmy was the same. A sweet boy, troubled at times, but with a big heart.”

“But, latterly, you were aware of the conflict between them?”

My father hesitates. For him, not telling the truth is an impossibility.

“Things became tense at the farmhouse in the days leading up to”—he stumbles, for the first time—“the tragedy. Jimmy became very volatile I am told. He was drinking heavily, and I believe it clouded his judgement. The brothers disagreed on how certain matters should be handled.”

It is unbearable, my father tying himself in knots as he tries to navigate the perilous task of saying enough, yet not too much.

“You’re referring to your daughter’s affair with Gabriel Wolfe?”

“I am not here to comment on my daughter’s private life. I am here for the sole purpose of providing character evidence for the defendant. Which I hope I have done.”

“I understand that, Mr. Kennedy. Nevertheless, I believe it is in the jury’s interest if I ask you how long you have known Mr. Wolfe.”

My father hesitates again. “I knew him as a young man, briefly.”

“When his relationship with your daughter began the first time?”

“Yes.”

“How long did that first love affair last, Mr. Kennedy?”

“Not long. One summer and perhaps a month or so after that.”

“And quite soon after it ended, she started a relationship with Frank Johnson?”

“Yes.”

“They married young, didn’t they?”

“They did, yes.”

I feel it, a new alertness in the room. We are all of us—the judge, the jury, the journalists on the press bench, the members of the public who queue up day after day to ensure their place in the gallery—attuned to the changing nuances of Donald Glossop’s tone. A softening in his timbre does not signal empathy, quite often the reverse.

“One might think your daughter, Beth, had not fully recovered from this first, most passionate love affair.”

My father says nothing. His hands are not visible but I know he will be clasping them together— Here’s the church, here’s the steeple, open the door and see all the people. How many times did he chant the rhyme with Bobby? A hundred? Five hundred?

The prosecutor’s voice grows forceful. “It is my belief Frank Johnson harbored a ferocious jealousy of Gabriel Wolfe from the very beginning of his marriage.”

“No.”

“No? He wasn’t jealous of the man your daughter was in love with as a girl? And he wasn’t jealous many years later when the affair started up again, right under his nose?”

“Frank is not jealous. That isn’t his temperament.”

“Are you an honest man, Mr. Kennedy?”

My mother frowns and Eleanor sucks in a long, jagged breath as she tries not to cry. My father is the most honest man you could ever meet.

“I am.”

“Then allow me to ask one final question. Do you genuinely believe your son-in-law felt no jealousy whatsoever while the woman he loved was spending her daylight hours in bed with another man?”

So heartless to draw that picture for my father in the witness stand, my mother beside me in the gallery. You’d think I’d be macerating in shame, but the truth is, I’ve been ashamed for so long now it is my background noise, my everyday wallpaper, the emotion so familiar I feel little else. Our love triangle—the farmer, his wife, and the famous author—has been prodded and picked over and sensationalized out of all proportion in Fleet Street. A blizzard of headlines pointing the finger of blame—and shame—at me. You grow inured to it after a while. None of it matters, anyway.

“Frank understood my daughter’s reasons for the affair,” my father says. “If he felt jealous, then he was extremely good at hiding it.”

Donald Glossop allows himself a tiny smile of satisfaction. “Thank you, Mr. Kennedy. No further questions, my lord.”