Assange took political asylum in the embassy, which meant he had elected to hide inside a converted women’s bathroom. He owned a table, chairs, treadmill (a gift from film director Ken Loach), laptop, phones, and ‘safety equipment he keeps close to his bed’, according to the Daily Mail. He told the paper, ‘Of course it’s difficult to wake up and see the same walls but on the other hand I am doing good work . . . While I’m imprisoned here, there’s a developing prison where you’re living as well.’
The theme and point of his WikiLeaks work was freedom of information. But that right was supposedly taken away from Assange in a strange sub-plot to the Australia–New Zealand literary event.
The first I heard about it was when journalist Steve Kilgallon rang from the Sunday Star-Times in Auckland. He said, ‘What do you know about the New Zealand embassy getting Julian Assange banned from speaking at the festival?’ I knew nuzzink, but it was a thrilling question. I said I’d ask around.
Kilgallon called again on Saturday morning. I’d made my pilgrimage to the Ecuadorean embassy the previous day. I thought: wouldn’t it be fantastic if Assange appeared at a window, and waved or something? I was a fan, an admirer. But when I looked into the claims of his expulsion from the festival, and wrote about it in the Star-Times, I presented myself to WikiLeaks as just another running dog of the mainstream media, a dunce, a stooge.
It was my own hopeless little journey. It started well. I went to Harrods, which is in front of Assange’s gilded cage, and bought a lobster sandwich. I stuffed my face with the sensational feast while mooching around the streets of Knightsbridge. A cherry-red Ferrari was parked outside Prada. Giuseppe Zanotti held an anniversary exhibition of its shoes in the front window; each pair was given a name, and boring history — ‘Slim’ was inspired by a beach in wintertime, ‘Venere’ was a fusion of woman and serpent.
There were two Rolls-Royces on Sloane Street, one white, one burgundy. Dolce and Gabbana, Bulgari, Versace. A serf in a top hat unlocked the gates to a private garden for a man with a greyhound. The mutt galloped inside, and shat on the grass. ‘Spare a pound, please?’ a beggar asked. She was from Brixton. ‘I’m a fucking mess.’
I got to the embassy. It was on a quiet street in a handsome red-brick building. All of the curtains were drawn. You could probably see Hyde Park and the Thames from the top two levels. I thought that might at least afford the WikiLeaks savant some pleasure, but the policeman out front said Assange’s rooms were on the ground floor. Its only view was the Harrods loading bay.
He worked 17-hour days, according to reports. He had a personal trainer. He watched TV (The West Wing, 1960s sci-fi series The Twilight Zone), he shredded anything that might leave a paper trail, he waits — for something, anything.
The officer outside the embassy was feeling chatty. He said three cops kept constant watch from the street. A fourth was on a rooftop. A fifth was inside the building, patrolling the stairwell and lobby — the rest of the building are apartments, and the east wing is the Colombian embassy. ‘All this for a sex offender,’ he said. ‘And we’re not even here because of WikiLeaks and all that. It’s just the sex.’
4
It’s just the sex. On the second morning I attended Harris’s trial, he was busy inside his glass cage as the clock ticked towards 10am. He was talking to himself. It looked as though he were practising his lines. Was he perfecting the infinite ways he could mutter, ‘I suppose so’? On his opening day in the witness stand, he gave an astonishing performance — he mimed his amazing wobble board, he imitated the didgeridoo, he sang verses from ‘Jake the Peg’, his 1965 smash hit: ‘I’m Jake the Peg, diddle, diddle, diddle-dum, with an extra leg . . .’
There would be no repeat performance. After Harris’s strange rehearsal on Thursday morning, he took his seat in the witness box, and Wass said to him, ‘You are a brilliant and polished entertainer, Mr Harris. There’s no question of that, and the Crown have no wish to challenge that.’
Harris nodded.
‘But,’ she said, with dreadful scorn, ‘this isn’t a talent show, is it, Mr Harris?’
The dry, papery voice said, ‘No.’
She took away his music. The judge took away his art. Jurors spotted Harris drawing in court; it’s against court regulations, and Harris felt the full weight of justice. ‘The sketches,’ announced Justice Nigel Sweeney, ‘have been confiscated and destroyed.’
What did that leave him? He had his dignity and he had his defence — that he didn’t molest or abuse anyone. Wass said his victims were groomed, bullied, traumatised. He denied it. ‘They’re all lying.’ His right hand hung over the edge of the witness box. The fingers were splayed. The hand looked like a kind of starfish. Harris, diabetic, with a bad heart, an old man in a damp month, gasped for air.
Wass leafed through his 2001 autobiography Can You Tell What It Is Yet? and tried to place him at the scenes of his alleged sex crimes. Malta, Cambridge, Portsmouth, London, Hawaii, Hamilton . . . She had placed dozens of yellow and red Post-it notes in the pages. I thought: I’d like to read that book. When I got back to Auckland, I looked it up in the library system. The only copy was at Northcote Library, which has stunning views of the harbour; it stopped me in my tracks, all that blue water sparkling in the sun.
I took the book home and prepared for the usual happy narrative of fame. Most showbiz memoirs are cheerful, self-satisfied
