31. Guest v. Finbow Day Seven
GUEST V. FINBOW: DAY SEVEN
The following morning, I stand hardly ten paces from the woman I was once devoted to and study the oath.
All the while, Jean surveys me, her expression fixed in a muted scowl.
Does she understand, I wonder, how far our power dynamic has shifted?
I think of the way I towered over her last night in the park, phone recording in hand.
The evidence I now possess, which could collapse her case instantly, even incriminate her.
For the first time in my life, I have collateral over Jean; she owes me .
We made a deal over it, a deal for Mary’s freedom.
I am to tell the truth: That is all that is demanded of me.
Why, then, do my legs threaten to buckle from underneath me? Why now do I doubt if I am capable?
“The whole truth,” I say, one hand trembling on the red book, the seismic pressure of what I am about to do building inside me.
I can feel, from the left, Anna’s wounded glare moving across my body.
I gaze at her with a deeper remorse than she could ever understand, taking in the soft pink cardigan she has draped on her shoulders, her slim wrists and forearms triangulated on the desk. “Nothing but the truth.”
“Tell me about the sessions,” Ms. Carr says, standing tall at her desk, treating me with exaggerated kindness to emphasize that I am Jean’s victim. “How did they start?”
I speak about my residency in Rome, the model casting, our encounters at her apartment, my studio.
For several minutes, I am questioned over how Jean cultivated my dependence.
I stammer over my words. It is painful to articulate all the sweet things I let Jean do for me—the meals cooked, the scented baths she drew, all the tips on Rome she provided—in order for Ms. Carr to argue that she had an ulterior motive: control.
“She didn’t seem controlling, at first. I thought she was glamorous and charismatic.”
Ms. Carr nods. “How did you feel when she wanted you to commence formal sessions of coaching with her?”
“Excited. Lucky. It was appealing, the idea that she might fix me, or turn me into a better person.”
“Did this happen, during the course of your relationship with Ms. Guest?”
I hesitate. Her phrase catches on me: the course of my relationship. In a second, hot tears form and blur my surroundings, but quickly, I blink them away, training my mind instead on the portrait, the letter, the freakish predator Jean made me out to be.
“The opposite,” I say. “Jean Guest shaped me into the very worst person.”
Jean’s head jerks upward, and I am seized with the pleasure of hurting her, of speaking the truth. Briefly, Anna and I lock eyes. The slight nod of encouragement she gives is unbearable, knowing what else lies ahead.
“In your witness statement,” Ms. Carr continues, “you allege that Ms. Guest exploited your discomfort around acknowledging or accepting certain aspects of yourself.” She points a pen. “Specifically, pertaining to your sexuality. Do I have that right?”
“You do,” I say, feeling my cheeks flame to acknowledge this so openly.
“Jean—Ms. Guest—can detect the shame on you very easily. It is like a magic power. She extracts it from you and then holds it, out here.” I extend my arms and make a cupping gesture with my hands. “Making it external. Making it safe.”
“But it wasn’t safe, was it?” Ms. Carr asks, her eyebrows raised theatrically.
“No,” I say softly, watching Jean at her desk. “It wasn’t safe at all.”
Ms. Carr refers then to the transcript of my session, quizzing me over the reading I was set, the websites I was asked to study, the regularity and length of our meetings.
“You’ve said in your statement that you would interact with Ms. Guest for astoundingly long periods of time,” she notes.
“And that Ms. Guest exploited your fatigue, bringing you to conclusions that, out of sheer exhaustion, you could only agree with. Is this still the case?”
“Yes.”
“What, specifically, did these conclusions relate to?”
“Every aspect of my life. Mostly around my upbringing.”
“To remind you,” Ms. Carr explains carefully.
“We are here to ascertain the truth of my client’s statement, that Ms. Guest creates false memories in the minds of those she coaches.
Can you expand on how Ms. Guest might have reframed episodes from your past to contaminate or change them, for instance? ”
“The truth is,” I say, “I don’t really know how .
We talked about my childhood all the time.
Jean was always adamant that I’d suppressed certain episodes as a coping mechanism.
She called my parents a ‘toxic influence.’ You saw,” I stammer, “the recording. At the time I found it helpful. Liberating, even.”
“How is your relationship with your family now, Ms. Bird?” Anna’s lawyer cuts in.
“Distant.”
“In your statement, you use the word ‘estranged.’ Which is it?”
My hand clutches my chest. It’s still painful to admit this publicly.
In the moment’s pause, my gaze travels upward to the gallery, checking once again for my parents.
Despite what Jean said last night in the park, there is no sign of them.
I feel, at first, a tragic flutter of relief, then rage at Jean for making me fear that she’d encouraged them to come.
Her threats were empty, just another desperate attempt to keep me from court.
Fuck you , I think as I glare over at her.
Fuck every single one of your cowardly threats.
Fuck you for what you made me say about them. Fuck you for recording our sessions.
“Estranged, yes,” I say, bringing my attention back to the lawyer.
Ms. Carr watches me, carefully, anxious that I might misstep.
She has no idea how much worse is to come.
“Yes. Sorry. That’s more accurate. In subtle ways, Ms. Guest made me fixate on my parents’ flaws.
If I wanted to develop, if I wanted to grow, it was critical to cut them off. ”
“In order to isolate you? And depend on her?”
I nod miserably. For the purposes of the court recording, I am asked to confirm aloud: Yes . The lump in my throat swells and rises. Satisfied, Ms. Carr turns the page.
“Let’s go now to another part of your witness statement: how Ms. Guest purposely exploited your feelings for Mary Finbow, the defendant’s daughter, in order to proliferate her network. What, precisely, did she convince you of?”
A tense silence falls over the courtroom.
“She made me believe there was much more to our relationship than there really was.”
“Such as?”
I lower my head, remembering Mary’s words, how she had accused me of touching her against her will: I needed a friend . Surely, this was another of Jean’s lies? I had to believe that. The alternative—that I had misread things, that Mary hadn’t ever wanted me, not even fleetingly—was too unbearable.
“Jean made me think there could be a future. But only if Mary forgot her old life and her family.” My legs shake as I admit my pathetic gullibility.
“Yes, Jean implied that Mary’s parents wouldn’t have it—her being with a girl.
That if it wasn’t for her family—specifically Anna—I’d be able to be with Mary, romantically.
And I was naive enough, in love enough, to believe it. ”
Ms. Carr pauses, training the judge’s attention on my words. “How did that make you feel toward Anna Finbow?” she asks carefully.
My tone lowers. “Resentful.”
“Is this the reason that you introduced Mary Finbow to Ms. Guest? I believe the phrase you used in your statement was ‘cure her’?”
“There were multiple things I wanted to help Mary with,” I say. My mind crowds, suddenly, with Lawrence. That holiday photo, the reflected flash in his eyes. “But I also felt a financial pressure.”
“Go on?” A tremor of pleasure passes across Ms. Carr’s face as I raise this. She makes a little swipe of her pen against her notes. “Throughout this trial, we’ve heard reports that Ms. Guest’s sessions were very expensive. Was this also your experience?”
“I could never have afforded our sessions. And Jean knew that. I paid her almost nothing, which she never let me forget. It made me feel very bad, like I owed her more.”
“Like you owed her Mary?”
“Yes,” I whisper, too disgusted with myself to say it any louder.
“And what else?” Ms. Carr booms. “How else did you pay her back, once Ms. Guest launched her legal battle?”
The judge turns to me with interest. I take a sip of water, then stare straight ahead, steeling myself for what I am about to admit. Mary. The baby. The squat. We have to get her out. The first step to a better world is the belief that it is possible.
“I paid her back by helping her in this case.”
Ms. Carr glances around the courtroom to ensure that everyone is following her line of argument.
This is her volta, the crucial shift in her approach, and I hate that I am about to disappoint her.
“In your statement, you allege that Ms. Guest pressured you into obtaining information about Mrs. Finbow—her legal opponent—on her behalf. Will you tell us, as carefully as you can, what exactly happened?”
My heartbeat quickens. If I keep to the script, I’ll now be talking about Stoke.
How Jean encouraged me to move, then to apply for roles within Anna’s team at Bellinter.
My statement describes how, under Jean’s duress, I manipulated my way into Anna’s confidence and trust, gathering all I could find about her legal strategy, the witnesses she was summoning.
I’ll explain how I was coerced, that I complied with Jean’s insane demands for one simple reason: I was afraid of her.
Instead, I hear myself stuttering an apology. Closing my eyes, I bring my fists to my cheeks. The next words come shakily. “There is something in my statement that I want to correct.”