Up the sunlit staircase he trudged, swirling with hope and dread. There was a scrum of people from the balcony to the courtroom—clearlyword had got around. Henry pushed his way through and walked along the aisle and found Hugill already seated at the front.The defense counsel grimaced sympathetically. Henry took his seat. Waiting, while behind him the gallery filled. He hadn’tlost a case so far in his short career. Surely he couldn’t lose this.
The judge arrived, the prisoner was brought back in. Brooks looked ashen. A meek and cowardly stare. Henry eyeballed him butcouldn’t catch his gaze, then in came the jury, a sullen shuffle to their seats. The judge asked for their verdict, the foremanrose, the room held its breath.
“Not guilty.”
Pandemonium in the gallery. Shouting and clapping and hats thrown in the air. The judge ordered the prisoner’s fetters removedand, dumbfounded, Brooks stepped down from the dock. The jury was dismissed, the courtroom slowly emptied, Hugill patted Henry’sshoulder as he passed. A man came in and began sweeping up peanut shells and orange rind from the floor, the hush of his broomon the boards, as Henry sat there numb, the only one left in the courtroom, unable to bring himself to leave.
* * *
Two bottles of wine over dinner was never going to be enough: with his hands in his pockets and collar upturned, Henry rolledbetween the sly-grog shops of the Frog’s Hollow slums, his polished shoes sinking into the oozing mud, bypassing gamblinghouses, red-lit doorways and opium dens, brushing off the whores and spivs, drinking himself into a stupor until finally,long after midnight, he felt an urge for home.
It was a short walk to the boardinghouse. Henry tripped coming into the building, his laughter echoing through the empty lobby, the rug pattern blurring beneath him in the dim lantern light. He hauled himself up the stairwell, gripping the smooth wood banister, his muddied shoes scuffing stair to stair, to the first-floor landing, where he hovered by his front door before slipping his key back into his pocket with a wanton smile. What was the use in pretending? This wasn’t why he’d come back—who was he even pretending for?
Along the landing he shambled, to another near-identical green door. So much of his life he had kept hidden—at least now hewas beginning to admit to himself what he was. Ever since that Sunday when his father, with a stern shake of the head, hadconfronted him with the rumors of his deviance, his sickness, and for the first time in his life Henry had found the strengthnot to deny it, instead sitting straight-backed and silent as if saying, Yes, this is me, here is your son, the two men staring hatefully at each other while his mother clutched her chest, then his father pronouncing him banishedfrom Sydney society like some fucking Shakespearean king, forcing Henry to move his pupilage up here, to Brisbane, where he’dspent the last three years trying to prove himself; or rather, to prove that bastard wrong.
He knocked on the door and waited. Glancing down into the lobby, over the rail. A scrabble of locks and he jerked to attention,turned to find Jonathan standing there, a maroon robe over his pajamas, bed-tousled hair, squinting into the dim light.
“Henry? What is it? Are you all right?”
Henry leaned against the doorframe. His speech came mumbled and slow: “It was the Clarence murder trial today. I lost.”
“Oh, dear. I’m so sorry.”
“Were you sleeping?”
“Of course, it’s after two. Where have you even been?”
Henry waved a hand, meaning out, and slurred, “It was a fucking travesty. That bastard should have swung.”
“The Hollow, I’m assuming? Am I wrong?”
Henry shrugged and Jonathan grimaced; he didn’t approve of Henry’s excesses. But the longer they stood there together, Henry looking at him dolefully, big sad bloodshot eyes, the more Jonathan’s expression softened, until he held the door open and stepped aside, saying, “Come in, before somebody sees you in this state.”
Henry wobbled into the apartment. Like his own, it only comprised two rooms: a bedroom and a living room; meals were provideddownstairs, and there was a shared bathroom at the end of the hall. He flopped down onto a dark-mustard-colored sofa, tippedback his head, and watched Jonathan lighting the lanterns, rekindling the stove, putting the kettle on to boil, a womanlyfussing that made Henry smile.
“You know, you really should be more careful,” Jonathan said. “I mean it—what if someone had recognized you?”
“Half the city is doing something. I’m hardly the only one.”
“Yes, but lesser things have ruined a man. You’ve enough secrets as it is.”
“I’m tired of keeping secrets. Let them see me for who I am.”
Jonathan laughed. “You’d be run out of chambers faster than a dog chasing cats, and you most certainly would never take Silk.The only Queen’s Counsel I know are respectable married men with families and children and houses in the suburbs, who keeptheir predilections discreet.”
“Well . . .” was all Henry said, knowing he was right.
Jonathan made two cups of sweet tea and sat next to Henry on the sofa. Henry shrugged out of his coat and warily took a sip.His hand was trembling slightly. His knee bounced up and down. But the tea was warm and comforting, and steadily he calmed.He glanced across at Jonathan. “Ask how long it took them.”
“How long it took whom?”
“The jury, to reach a verdict, ask me how long.”
“All right—how long?”
“Ten minutes. Less. I hadn’t even time to reach the courthouse door.”
“It sounds like you stood no chance.”
“Probably not. They called me Judas in the courtroom. And here this man beat another to death with his fists and was cheeredwhen he was set free.”
“Will you appeal?”
“They won’t want me to, I am sure, but I don’t see that I have any choice. It is a manifestly unsafe decision. The judge shouldhave intervened.”
“You mustn’t take it personally, Henry. I’m sure you did all you could.”
“But I do take it personally. And so should you. If it had been you or I killed by that man, Jonathan, or a Chinaman
