C HAPTER 26
A FTER THE SPECTACULAR destruction of Ms Randall in the witness box I felt a whole lot better, but I knew it was only one battle in the war. I almost felt sorry for her as she scurried out of court. She looked shell-shocked. I would have offered her a tissue but I didn’t feel quite sorry enough to do that. The moment Court adjourned for lunch I rushed up to Mr Blaine, but he wouldn’t talk to me. He was as rude as he had been the first time we met. He was a funny guy. I never figured him out. He was like an actor in many ways I think.
It took me a while, though, to recover from his comment that Gavin had led a thoroughly blameless life. Sheez. If anyone ever found out about the terrible thing he and Mark had done to the kitten, that’d be the end of my court application.
In the afternoon a parade through the witness box began and I spent a lot of the time with my head in my hands. I guess it’s only at a funeral that most people hear what others think of them, all the good things anyway.
I’ve always thought it was a shame, and when I read in the paper the other day about a guy who only had a couple of months to live so he organised a kind of funeral party where he could hear all the speeches people were going to make, I gave him a big silent cheer.
But here I was, still young and healthy, and I was getting to hear all this stuff, and it wasn’t exactly a funeral although it would be close enough to one if we lost the case. The idea was that if enough people who knew me stood up in court and said that I was a halfway decent human being, my chances of getting Gavin back would be a lot better. So I sat there and listened to Homer’s mum and dad, to Fi’s mum, to Kevin’s dad, to Mrs Goh and Mrs Barlow from school, Mr Young, and Mrs Salter from down the road, who was looking a lot more confident now that she’d left her husband, all telling the judge how I was possibly the finest human being on the whole planet, I should have my name in that footpath in Hollywood, get an Oscar, a Logie, an Emmy, a Grammy, and a Nobel Prize. And why the Pope hadn’t called me into the Vatican for a quick canonisation was a mystery. Oh yes, that’s right, you have to be dead before that can happen; still, you’d think, after listening to these people, that they should have made an exception for me.
My head’s big enough already, I really didn’t need to hear this stuff. But on the other hand I wasn’t going to miss a word of it.
Gavin’s teacher, Mrs Rosedale, stood up and said that Gavin was a good kid, sure he was mischievous and at times he could be a little unruly, but that was understandable what with one thing and another. I sat there listening and being amazed. It wasn’t like she was there to help me, she didn’t care whether I had Gavin or someone else had him, or at least that was the impression she gave me. Had the nicotine gone to her brain? But it wasn’t just Mrs Rosedale. Why do adults change so much in situations like that? It’s like school reports. Why do they give an A for Always for stuff like ‘Helping Other Class Members’ when you know the kid spends most of his time slumped at his desk dreaming of the good old days in Nazi Germany when people like him were in charge and he had the key to the gun safe? Weird.
Maybe the one who made the biggest impact, though, was General Finley. He came all the way from New Zealand to do it. And to see Jeremy I guess, to be fair. I couldn’t help thinking when I saw him walk in that this guy could have become my father-in-law.
Lee sat next to me, holding my hand when I wasn’t needing it to bury my head in it. I was using both hands quite a lot as the character witnesses came and had their say and left again. Lee kept whispering rude comments about the things they were saying, until Mr Blaine passed a note back saying Don’t talk, don’t show affection for boyfriend, no contact, which was a joke. Lee my boyfriend again? No way thanks. Mr Blaine’s note almost sounded like the rules at Wirrawee High. But I realised what he meant: it was not a good look for the judge to see us acting like teenagers in love. Anyway, God forbid I should be in a relationship. You wouldn’t want to entrust a kid to someone who can feel love, would you?
Anyway, General Finley. He was in full military uniform. He looked pretty damn impressive. Jeremy had told me he was retiring from the Army soon, to go into business, and I figured he’d do well. He was a classy guy.
He took the Bible and said the words that I was becoming very familiar with, after two days in court, about not telling any big fat greasy lies, and then went ahead and told them I was responsible, mature, sensible, brave, etc etc etc. So I figured he’d probably burn in hell for those porkers. He didn’t mention the fact that I’d just broken up with his son, and that might have caused his son to break up completely, but he actually apologised to me afterwards for Jeremy, and said he was taking him back to New Zealand to see a psychiatrist. But I’ll always remember him for his loyalty, in coming all that way.
‘The only true test of friendship is the time your friend spends on you.’ I just made that up. Cos nothing else matters really. People can spend time with you, but that isn’t the same thing. You can spend an awful lot of time with someone and not spend any time on them at all. And for that matter people can spend money on you or give you stuff, but when they actually hand you half an hour or an hour or a whole afternoon of their time and it’s all yours, then, well, that’s some gift.
Meanwhile the case went on and on. And on. I gave evidence, and was glad I’d had the experience of doing it in the trial of Mr Manning, because it did help a bit. Gavin gave evidence but I wasn’t allowed to be in court when he was there, in case I put him off. He had to be free to say whatever horrible, mean and nasty things he wanted about me. I was really regretting the number of times I’d bashed him, and hoping he could still remember the difference between play fighting and real fighting. And that he didn’t hold a grudge for all the times I’d pulled him away from Battle of Titans on the computer.
Then it was all over. Mr Blaine asked the judge if we could have a quick decision as ‘these two young people have been through a great deal in their short lives Your Honour and it would seem cruel to keep them waiting any longer than strictly necessary’. The judge looked irritated and snapped, ‘I’m quite aware that a good deal rides upon this case for them, Mr Blaine, as it does for everyone else who has applications before this court.’
He looked at his calendar and then announced that he’d give his verdict on Monday, which Mr Blaine told me afterwards was very good and unusually quick, and then I went home to wait.
CHAPTER 27
One thing about school, when your life’s going badly you can always hang out there, because so much is happening around you that you can forget your own troubles. Not that it’s my way, to spend all day wallowing in my problems, but there was a lot to worry about. So it was kind of refreshing to arrive at school on Friday and hear a Year 7 girl walking up to her friend and saying in one breath, ‘We get no lunch and we have to pick up papers all lunchtime how badly does that suck?’ which for some reason struck me as very funny.
To be honest, I think I was on the point of being hysterical, so any little thing struck me as crazily funny, and I remember my friends looking at me a bit strangely and saying, ‘Actually that wasn’t especially funny, Ellie,’ when I laughed till I nearly wept over someone dropping the ball in PE.
Wirrawee High School could have been called Wirrawee psychiatric hospital that week I think, because I wasn’t the only one cracking up. The first time I saw Jeremy I made a little noise without meaning to; one of those little ‘Oh’ noises of shock or surprise that only humans seem to make. I’ve never heard any of the cattle make a noise like that when they’re in the paddock chewing the cud and having a yarn to a neighbour about the price of clover and then they turn around and see me. That’s probably one reason other creatures survive better in the wild than we humans. Those little ‘Oh’ noises give us away every time.
Dealing with relationship issues, apart from my relationship with Gavin, was not something I particularly wanted to do right at this point. But I had to do something about Jeremy. I was still bewildered by the complete change in him, the way he’d gone from nice and modest and strong and intelligent to mean and jealous in one conversation.
He frowned at me when I did the ‘Oh’ thing to him, then looked away again. He was in the concrete area near the canteen, outside the boys’ toilets, leaning against a post. He looked terrible, which is why I went ‘Oh’. I don’t know whether it’s possible for a person to lose five kilos in a week, but if it is I want to know about it. I
