I looked for Turpin the dockworker and found him in the second row, wearing the same suit that he’d worn on the evening he came to dinner in Dartmouth Square. When he caught my eye, he blushed a little and looked away, which I took as a bad sign. Seated next to him was Masterson, who imitated the moves of a boxer with his fists. In the front row, looking considerably irritated not to have been appointed the foreman of the jury, was Wilbert, and something told me that he had probably brought his Bachelor’s degree in Mathematics with him in a bid to secure that position. It hadn’t worked, however, for the foreman was not a man at all, but a woman, and Wilbert looked as if he’d swallowed a wasp when the bailiff asked her to stand.
Just before Mrs. Hennessy opened her mouth to speak, however, I realized that I had no idea what I wanted her to say. Other boys in my position might have offered a silent prayer that their father would be released, for the notion of prison and the prospect of a family being torn apart was one that, particularly in those unenlightened days of the early 1950s, was shameful. What would happen to me and Maude if we were left alone, I asked myself. How would I get through a day at school with such a scandal hanging over my head? And yet somehow, to my surprise, I found that I didn’t particularly care how things turned out. Maude struck a match loudly to light a fresh cigarette, the noise startling the silenced chamber as everyone, including my adoptive father, turned to stare at her in disapproval. She looked back at them shamelessly, placing the cigarette between her lips in a provocative fashion and inhaling deeply before blowing a cloud of smoke into the heart of the courtroom, tapping ash onto the floor between us with her index finger. I noticed a smile pass across Charles’s face, some element of fascinated adoration which might have explained how these two mismatched people had stayed together for so long, and was that a wink that Maude gave him just before Mrs. Hennessy declared him guilty as charged? It was. It most certainly was.
But what of Max Woodbead? Did he smile at the moment of condemnation? He had his back to me so I couldn’t tell, but I did notice that he leaned over his papers and covered his mouth with one hand so either he was masking his delight or another of his teeth had come loose after the fisticuffs of a few nights earlier.
The press gallery emptied quickly as its occupants ran from the courtroom to the line of telephone boxes that stood like sentinels along the quays in order to phone the result in to their editors. The judge made a few comments to the effect that Charles could expect a custodial sentence and my adoptive father immediately stood up and asked in a proud tone whether he might be given a moment to address the court.
“If you must,” said the judge with a sigh.
“Would it be possible,” asked Charles, “for me to begin my sentence today? As soon as I leave the dock?”
“But I haven’t decided the length of your term yet,” replied the judge. “And you’re eligible for bail until the date of sentencing. You could go home for a couple of weeks, Mr. Avery, to get your affairs in order.”
“My affairs are what got me into this mess in the first place, Your Honor. I’d just as soon take a break from them. No, if I’m going down, I might as well start now,” said Charles, a pragmatist to the last. “The sooner I get in, the sooner I get out, am I right?”
“I suppose so,” said the judge.
“Grand so,” replied Charles. “I’ll start today then if it’s all the same to you.”
The judge scribbled something down on a legal pad before him and glanced toward Godfrey, Charles’s barrister, who gave a shrug as if to say that he respected his client’s wishes and would make no appeal.
“Is there anything else you’d like to say,” asked the judge, “before you’re taken down?”
“Only that I humbly accept the decision of the court,” he replied. “And I will serve my time without complaint. I’m just glad that I don’t have any children to witness this moment of degradation. That, at least, is a mercy.” An assertion that left at least four members of the jury with utterly baffled expressions on their faces.
As we left the courtroom to a hungry pack of journalists and photographers, Maude ignored their questions and flashbulbs, marching forward purposefully without even a cigarette as her armor, and I did my best to keep up with her, aware that the slightest stumble on my part would result in me being squashed beneath the boots of the press.
“Him!” cried Maude unexpectedly, her voice echoing around the Four Courts, and as she pulled to a screeching halt, so did the media scrum around us. As it had inside the courtroom when she struck the match, every head turned in her direction. “The nerve of him!”
I followed the direction of her gaze to see a middle-aged man of indistinctive appearance, wearing a dark suit and sporting a small mustache that to my mind was a little too Hitler-like for comfort, standing in the center of a group of similarly attired men, accepting their congratulations.
“Who is he?” I asked. “Do you know him?”
“It’s The Man from the Revenue,” she declared, striding toward him as one hand reached into her bag. The accountant turned and observed her approach with fear in his eyes, glancing toward the hand as it emerged. Perhaps in that moment he thought that she was going to pull a gun on him and shoot a bullet through his heart; perhaps he wondered why he had devoted his life to the investigation and prosecution of improper financial transactions within the Irish banking sector when his first love had always been performance art. Or perhaps he didn’t have a clue who she was. Either way, he didn’t say a word and when she stopped in front of him, her face red with rage, he was surely bewildered by the fact that she was waving a copy of Amongst Angels in his face, which, quite quickly, she brought down on his head.
“Are you happy now?” she screamed. “Are you pleased with yourself? Goddamn it, but you’ve made me popular!”
1959 The Seal of the Confessional
A New Roommate