The case were the two words that echoed around our home throughout most of 1952. They were never far from any of our minds and always on the tip of Charles’s tongue. He seemed to be genuinely insulted that he was being made to suffer such public indignity and hated seeing his name in the papers for any reason other than a celebratory one. Indeed, when the Evening Press published an article stating that his wealth had been much exaggerated over the years and that should he lose and face not only a period of imprisonment but a hefty pecuniary punishment he would most likely go bankrupt and be forced to sell the house on Dartmouth Square, he spiraled into a blustering hurricano of rage, like King Lear in the badlands, calling forth to the winds and the cataracts and the all-shaking thunder to drench the steeples, drown the cocks and singe his fine head of dark hair until the thick rotundity o’ the world had been struck flat. Max, instructed to issue legal proceedings against the newspaper, wisely ignored the directive.
The dinner party was arranged for a Thursday night, four evenings into a trial that was expected to last two weeks. Max had selected a single juror whom he believed to be particularly susceptible to influence and run into him accidentally on purpose as he walked along Aston Quay one night, inviting him into a pub for a drink. While there, Max informed the man, one Denis Wilbert of Dorset Street, who taught mathematics, Latin and geography at a school near Clanbrassil Street, that the close relationship he had formed with twelve-year-old Conor Llewellyn, his star pupil who received top marks in every examination despite the emptiness of his deeply attractive head, was one that could be misconstrued by both the newspapers and the Gardaí alike and that if he didn’t want this information to appear in the public domain he might want to give serious thought to his verdict in Department of Finance v. Avery.
“And of course,” he added, “anything you can do to persuade the other jurors would be most welcome too.”
With one in his pocket he hired his favorite disgraced Garda to gather dirt on the rest of the panel. To his disappointment, former Superintendent Lavery came back with precious little. Three had secrets, he was told: one man had been accused of exposing himself to a girl on the Milltown Road but the charges had been dismissed as the girl had been a Protestant; one had a subscription with an agency in Paris who sent him a selection of postcards every month featuring naked women wearing jodhpurs; and a third (one of only two female jurors) had given birth to a child outside of marriage and failed to inform her employers, who would undoubtedly have sacked her as they were the supposed guardians of public morality: the parliament of Ireland, Dáil éireann.
Rather than track each person down and make veiled threats to expose their secrets, Max did something far more gentlemanly: he invited them to dinner. Using Mr. Wilbert, the pedophile teacher, as his middleman, he made it clear that should they refuse the invitation, the information that he had gathered on them would be leaked to the papers. What he didn’t mention, of course, was that he would neither be the host of the dinner nor a guest around the table; instead, that honor would fall to the man in the dock, my adoptive father, Charles Avery.
Charles invited me and Maude into his study that evening, shortly before the guests arrived, and we settled into the wing-backed armchairs that stood opposite his desk while he laid out his plans for the night ahead.
“The most important thing,” he told us, “is that we put on a united front. We need to give the impression that we are a happy, loving family.”
“We are a happy, loving family,” said Maude, sounding offended by any suggestion to the contrary.
“That’s the spirit,” said Charles. “As much as it won’t be in any of their interests to bring in a guilty verdict, we need to soothe their consciences by making them believe that tearing the three of us apart would be a reprehensible act akin to introducing divorce in Ireland.”
“Who are they anyway?” asked Maude, lighting a fresh cigarette as the one she was smoking was coming perilously close to the end. “Are they our sort of people?”
“I’m afraid not,” replied Charles. “A teacher, a dockworker, a bus driver and a woman who works in the tearoom at Dáil éireann.”
“Good Lord,” she said. “They let anyone on to juries these days, don’t they?”
“I think that’s always been the case, my love.”
“But was it really necessary to invite them into our home?” she asked. “Could we not have simply taken them out for a meal in town? There are any number of restaurants that people of that type would never get the chance to enjoy.”
“Darling,” replied Charles, smiling. “O sweet-natured wife of mine, remember this dinner is a secret. If it were to get out, well, there would naturally be a lot of trouble over it. No one must know.”
“Of course, but they sound so mundane,” said Maude, rubbing her arm as if a cold wind had just entered the room. “Will they have washed?”
“They seem clean in court,” said Charles. “Actually, they make a real effort. Best suits and so on. As if they’re going to Mass.”
Maude opened her mouth in horror. “Are they papists?” she asked.
“I have no idea,” said Charles in exasperation. “Does it matter?”
“As long as they don’t want to pray before we eat,” she muttered, looking around the study, a room in the house that she almost never entered. “Oh look,” she said, pointing at a copy of Marcus Aurelius’s Meditations that was lying on a side table. “I have that same edition upstairs. How funny.”
“Now, Cyril,” said my adoptive father, turning to me. “Strict house rules are in play tonight, understand? Only speak when you’re spoken to. Don’t make jokes. Don’t break wind. Look at me with as much adoration in your eyes as you can possibly muster. I left a list of things that we do as father and son on your bed. Did you memorize it?”
“I did,” I said.
“Repeat them back to me.”
“We fish the great lakes of Connemara together. We attend GAA matches in Croke Park. We have an ongoing game of chess where we only make one move per day. We braid each other’s hair.”
“I told you, no jokes.”
“Sorry.”
“And don’t call us ‘Charles’ and ‘Maude,’ all right? For tonight, you must address us as ‘Father’ and ‘Mother.’ It will sound peculiar to our guests if you say anything else.”
I frowned. I wasn’t sure I could bring myself to say those words anymore than a different child might be able to bring themselves to call their parents by their Christian names.
“I’ll try my best…Father,” I said.
“You don’t need to start now,” instructed Charles. “Wait until the guests have arrived.”
“Yes, Charles,” I said.
“You’re not a real Avery, after all.”
“What exactly is the point of all this anyway?” asked Maude. “Why must we debase ourselves for these people?”
“So that I can stay out of prison, sweet one,” replied Charles cheerfully. “We must flatter and cajole and if all else fails I will take them in here one by one later in the evening and write them each a check. Either way, I intend to end this evening confident in a verdict of not guilty.”
“Will Mr. Woodbead be coming to dinner?” I asked, and Charles shook his head.
“No,” he said. “If it all goes tits-up, he can’t afford to be seen to have had anything to do with this.”
“Charles, your language, please,” said Maude with a sigh.
“So Julian won’t be coming either?” I asked.
“Who is Julian?” asked Charles.
“Mr. Woodbead’s son.”