A Special Relationship (36 page)

‘You must call me the moment you’ve heard the judge’s decision. What did your lawyer tell you today?’

‘Not much. Just … well, we’ll see I guess.’

‘Sally – how many anti-depressants are you taking right now?’

‘The recommended dose.’

‘I don’t believe you.’

‘Why would I …’

I shut my eyes as yet another sentence lost its way somewhere between my brain and my mouth.

‘Now you’re really scaring me,’ she said.

‘Think, I dunno, maybe one too many earlier.’

‘Well, don’t take any more for the rest of the night.’

‘Fine.’

‘You promise me?’

‘You have my word.’

Of course, I popped one shortly thereafter. I didn’t need sleeping pills that night – because the extra dosage of anti-depressants packed a sucker punch. But then, at five that morning, I snapped back into consciousness, feeling toxic, feverish, ill. Like someone who had just crashed out of an extended flight in the druggy stratosphere ... which, indeed, I had.

I sat in a hot bath for an hour, a steaming washcloth over my face for most of the time. I dried my hair, I ignored the haggard face in the mirror, I went into the kitchen and made a cafetière of coffee. I drank it all. Then I made another pot and drained it too. When I returned to the bathroom and attempted damage limitation with the use of pancake base and heavy applications of eyeliner, my hands were shaking. Toxicity, caffeine overload, terror. The most oppressive terror imaginable. Because I was about to be judged – and though I kept telling myself that Ginny Ricks knew what she was doing, I still feared the worst.

I dressed in my best black suit, and touched up my face with a bit more pancake to mask the dark rings beneath my eyes. Then I walked to the tube. On the District Line to Temple, I fit right in with the morning rush hour crowd – I was just another suit, avoiding eye contact with my fellow passengers in true London fashion, stoically dealing with the overcrowded train, the cloying humidity, the deep indifferent silence of the citizenry en route to work. Only, unlike them, I was en route to discover whether or not I’d get to see my baby son again.

I left the tube at Temple and walked up to The Strand. I was an hour early (I certainly couldn’t afford to be late for this event), so I sat in a coffee bar, trying to quell my nerves. I didn’t succeed. I had been warned by Ginny Ricks that my husband might not show up at the hearing (‘he’s not bound by law to be there – and can let his legal team handle everything for him’) but even the outside chance that he might make an appearance terrified me. Because I didn’t know how I’d react if brought face-to-face with him.

At ten-fifteen, I approached the High Court and walked up the steps. A young woman – plain, bespectacled, in a black raincoat over a simple grey suit – was waiting by the entrance doors. She looked at me questioningly. I nodded.

‘Deirdre Pepinster,’ she said with a nod. ‘We’re this way.’

She led us through security to a large vaulted marble hall. It was like being in a church – with high vaulted ceilings, shadowy lighting, the echo of voices, and a constant parade of human traffic. We said nothing as we walked through the hall and then down assorted corridors. This was fine by me as I was becoming increasingly nervous. After several turns, we came to a door, outside which were several benches. Ginny Ricks was already seated on one of them, in conversation with an anaemic looking man in his forties, dressed in a very grey suit.

‘This is Paul Halliwell, your barrister,’ Ginny Ricks said.

He proffered his hand.

‘I’ve just received the witness statements this morning,’ he said, ‘but everything seems to be in order.’

Alarm bells went off in my head.

‘What do you mean, you just received the statements?’ I said.

‘I meant to call you about this late last night,’ Ginny Ricks said. ‘The barrister I’d instructed fell ill ... so I had to find a substitute. But really, not to worry. Paul is very experienced—’

‘But he’s just looking at the statements now—’

We were interrupted by the arrival of the other side. At first sight, they were like an identikit version of my team: a thin, grey man; a big-boned blonde woman, exuding high maintenance – a few years older than Ginny Ricks, but very much graduates from the same ‘noblesse oblige’ school. They all seemed to know each other – though, as I quickly realized, the grey man was Tony’s solicitor, whereas the ‘to the manor born’ blonde was his barrister. I watched her watching me as she spoke with the others – the occasional cool sideways glance, during which she was sizing me up, taking the measure of me, putting a face to all that she had been told about me.

Paul Halliwell came out and pulled me aside.

‘You know that this is merely an Interim Hearing, which you are not obliged to sit through, as it can be a bit stressful.’

‘I have to be there,’ I said, wanting to add,
Unlike my husband, who’s sent others to do his dirty work for him.

‘Fine, fine, it’s obviously better, because the judge knows you really care about the outcome. Now, I’m just going to have a quick read of all this,’ he said, brandishing the witness statements, ‘but it does seem very straightforward. The report from the doctor at hospital is the key here. Very encouraged by your progress, and so forth. About the fact that you threatened your baby ... I presume you were tired, yes?’

‘I hadn’t slept in days.’

‘And you never in any way physically harmed your son?’

‘Absolutely not.’

‘That’s fine then. The key here is that there was nothing violently aberrant in your behaviour towards your baby that would convince the court you pose a risk to the child …’

‘As I told Ginny Ricks …’

On cue, she poked her head into our conversation and said, ‘I’ve just been told we’re starting in five minutes.’

‘Fear not,’ Paul Halliwell said. ‘It will all be fine.’

The courtroom was a panelled Victorian room with leaded windows. The Judge had a large chair at the front. Facing him were six rows of benches. Tony’s team sat on one side of the courtroom, his barrister in the first bench, the solicitors behind him. My barrister sat in the same bench as Tony’s, but on the opposing side of the court. I sat in the second row with Ginny Ricks and Deirdre. They informed me that, at this sort of hearing, the barristers didn’t have to wear wigs and the judge wouldn’t be in robes.

‘Nice suit, by the way,’ Ginny Ricks whispered to me as we waited for the judge to arrive. ‘He’ll immediately see that you’re here – which speaks volumes about the fact that you so want your son back. And he’ll also see that you’re not some harridan, but eminently respectable and—’

The court clerk asked us to stand as the judge was due to arrive. A side door opened. He walked in. We all stood up. His name was Merton and he was noted for taking care of business in a brisk, no-nonsense manner.

‘In the great scheme of things, he’s not the worst,’ Ginny Ricks told me before he came in. ‘I mean, considering the number of genuine misogynists who could be hearing the case, we’re rather lucky. He’s old school, but fair.’

He certainly looked old school. A seriously tailored black suit, silver hair, a patrician bearing. He asked Tony’s barrister to ‘open’ the case, which she did in about two minutes, telling the judge who the parties were and explaining the background to the first
ex parte
hearing. The judge then said that he’d read the statements and that he just wanted to hear submissions.

Paul Halliwell stood up first, his diminutive height and off-the-peg greyness suddenly making him look a little shabby in front of the thoroughbred on the bench. But he spoke in a clear, moderately thoughtful voice, and from the moment he kicked off his submission with the words ‘My Lord’ he narrated my side of the story with straightforward clarity and no lapses of concentration. The terrifying thing was, he was essentially winging it (how could he do otherwise?) – like one of those rent-a-padres at the local crematorium who insert the name of the deceased into the pre-ordained service. At least here, he managed to sound reasonably convincing, but the argument he presented wasn’t really an argument, merely a repetition of the facts.

‘As Ms Goodchild’s attending psychiatrist, Dr Rodale, states in her deposition, Ms Goodchild responded well to treatment and re-bonded well with her child. As to the claim that she informed her husband’s secretary that she would kill her son … uh …’

He had to glance at one of the statements.

‘… her son Jack … the fact is that, at no time did Ms Goodchild ever actually physically harm her son. And though her comment may have been somewhat extreme – and one which Ms Goodchild deeply regretted from the moment she uttered it – it is important to take into account the fact that, like any new mother coping with an infant, Ms Goodchild had been suffering from extreme sleep deprivation which, in turn, can cause anyone to say excessive, unfortunate things in exhausted anger ... which have no bearing whatsoever on the loving relationship that she has with her son. I would hope as well, My Lord, that the court will take into account the fact that this comment was made when my client was suffering from postnatal depression, which is a most common and fiendish medical condition, and which can make an individual temporarily behave in a manner completely out-of-character. Once again, I refer My Lord to the statement of Dr Rodale …’

A few sentences later, he wrapped it up with the comment that it struck him as cruel and unusual punishment that my son be taken away from such an eminently respectable woman like myself – ‘a former distinguished journalist’ – because of one angry comment spoken while ‘trapped within the horrendous mental labyrinth that is depression’; a labyrinth from which I had now emerged back to ‘completely functional normality’. And surely, how could the court keep a child from its mother, given the lack of any violent behaviour on my part?

I judged it a rather good performance, considering the fact that he had been handed the role only minutes before curtain up. And I was pleased that he underlined the cruel extremity of the order against me – surely a sensible, no-nonsense judge like Merton would have to see the truth in such an observation.

But then Tony’s barrister stood up. Ginny Ricks had told me that her name was Lucinda Fforde, and little more. Perhaps because she already knew something that I didn’t … but was certainly about to find out. Fforde had the predatory instincts of a Pit Bull.

And yet, her voice – like her demeanour – was the apogee of cultivated reasonableness. She sounded so calm, so concerned, so certain. And devastatingly precise when it came to undermining everything about me.

‘My Lord, my client, Mr Anthony Hobbs, would be the last to dispute the fact that his wife was once a distinguished journalist with the
Boston Post
newspaper. Nor would he dispute the fact that she has been through a serious psychological illness, through which he supported her with great sympathy and understanding …’

Oh, please.

‘But the issue here is not about Ms Goodchild’s onetime professional standing or the fact – clearly documented by her psychiatrist – that she is gradually responding to pharmacological treatment for her postnatal depression. No, the issue here is about the welfare of her son Jack – and the fact that, through her actions of the last few weeks, Ms Goodchild has raised severe doubts about both her ongoing mental stability and her ability to cope with a young infant without endangering its safety.’

And then she brought out the heavy artillery.

‘Now, My Lord, you will note from the witness statement by Ms Judith Crandall – who was Mr Hobbs’s secretary at the
Chronicle —
that Ms Goodchild rang her husband at the newspaper several weeks ago and said – and this is a direct quote – “Tell him if he’s not home in the next sixty minutes, I’m going to kill our son”. Thankfully, Ms Goodchild did not make good on this threat, and though her counsel can certainly argue that this heinous comment was made under duress, the fact, My Lord, is that all women dealing with newborn children suffer from sleep deprivation and its attendant lassitudes, but the vast majority of women do not threaten to kill their children, no matter how fatigued they might be. More tellingly, though one might be able to forgive one such outburst made in exhausted anger, the fact that Ms Goodchild made such a comment twice …’

I heard myself saying,
‘What?’
Immediately, every eye in the court was upon me, most tellingly that of the judge who looked at me with care.

Ginny Ricks jumped in before he could say anything.

‘Apologies, My Lord. That will not happen again.’

‘I should certainly hope not,’ he said. Then turning back to Lucinda Fforde, he said, ‘You may continue.’

‘Thank you, My Lord,’ she said, calmness personified, especially as she now knew that she had me. ‘As I was saying, Ms Goodchild’s threat to kill her child was not simply a one-off event. Following the delivery of her son, Ms Goodchild was hospitalized in the Mattingly, during which time her postnatal behaviour became increasingly erratic, to the point where, when her son was in the paediatric intensive care unit of that hospital, she was overheard by one of the nurses, telling her husband – and this is another direct quote from one of the witness statements that My Lord has before him: “He
is
dying– and I don’t care. You get that? I
don’t
care.”’