“Can you defend him?”
The advocate looked unperturbed by the question. “It all depends on how I know that,” he answered. “If I know that he’s guilty because he’s suddenly told me so in a consultation and because he wants me to put him in the box so that he can lie to the court – as sometimes happens – then I must ask him to get somebody else to defend him. I cannot stand up in court and let him lie. But if I just think he’s guilty, then it’s a different matter. He’s entitled to have his story put before the court, whatever my personal suspicions may be.”
Angus frowned. “But Cyril can’t talk,” he said. “He’s a dog.”
Again there was silence. Then the advocate spoke. “That is something that we can all agree we know to be the case.”
“And since he can’t give any story at all – because of his . . .”
“His canine condition,” supplied the advocate.
Angus nodded. “Yes, because of his canine condition, then surely we must give him the benefit of the doubt.”
“Of course we must,” the advocate conceded. He gestured at the papers in front of him. “Except for the fact that there is rather a lot of evidence against him. This is why I believe we might be better to accept that he did it – that he bit these unfortunate people – and concentrate on how we can ensure that the outcome for him is the best one. In other words, we should think about making recommendations as to his supervision that
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“Evidence?” Angus asked nervously.
“Yes,” said the advocate. “Your solicitor has obtained various statements, Mr Lordie, and it seems that there are three people who say that they recognised your dog as the biter. They each say that they knew it was your dog because they had seen him with you in . . .” He looked down at a piece of paper. “In the Cumberland Bar. Drinking, I might add.” He paused, and looked searchingly at Angus. “Do you think your dog might have been drunk when he bit these people, Mr Lordie?”
Angus did not reply. He was looking up at the ceiling. Cyril is going to be put down, he thought. This is the end.
On several occasions, Bertie had asked his mother whether he might stop psychotherapy, but the answer had always been the same – he could not.
“I don’t need to see Dr Fairbairn,” he said to Irene. “You could still see him, though, Mummy. You could go up there and I could sit in the waiting room and read
that magazine. I could even look after Ulysses while you went in to see Dr Fairbairn. Ulysses could look at
Irene laughed. “Dear Bertie,” she said. “Why should I want to see Dr Fairbairn? It’s you who are his patient, not Mummy.”
“But you like him, don’t you?” said Bertie. “You like him a lot, Mummy. I know you do.”
Irene laughed again – slightly more nervously this time. “Well, it’s true that I don’t mind Dr Fairbairn. I certainly don’t dislike him. Mummy doesn’t dislike many people, Bertie. Mummy is what we call tolerant.”
Bertie thought about this for a moment. It seemed to him that much of what his mother said was simply not true. And yet she was always telling him that it was wrong to tell fibs – which of course he never did. She was the one who was fibbing now, he thought. “But there are lots of people you don’t like, Mummy,”
he protested. “There’s that lady at the advanced kindergarten, Mrs Macfadzean. You didn’t like her.”
“Miss Macfadzean,” Irene corrected. “She was Miss Macfadzean because no man in his right mind would ever have married her, poor woman.”
“But you didn’t like her, did you, Mummy?” Bertie asked again.
“It was not a question of disliking her, Bertie,” said Irene. “It was more a question of feeling sorry for her. Those are two different things, you know. Mummy felt pity for Miss Macfadzean because of her limited vision. That’s all. And her conservative outlook. But that’s quite different from disliking her. Quite different.”
Bertie thought about this. It had seemed very much like dislike to him, but then adults, he noticed, had a way of making subtle distinctions in the meaning of words. But even if his mother claimed not to have disliked Miss Macfadzean, then there were still other people whom he was sure she did not like at all. One of these was Tofu, Bertie’s friend – of sorts – from school.
“What about Tofu?” he asked. “You don’t like him, Mummy.
You hate him, don’t you?”
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“Thinks what, Mummy?” Bertie asked.
“I think that Tofu is just a little bit aggressive,” Irene said. “I don’t want you to grow up being aggressive, Bertie. I want you to grow up to be the sort of person who is aware of the feelings of others. The sort of boy who knows about the pain of other people. I want you to be
Bertie looked thoughtful. “And you don’t like Hiawatha,” he said. “That other boy in my class. You said you
