This House of Grief: The Story of a Murder Trial by Helen Garner Page B

Every
day he asks the question, why did this have to happen to me? What have I done?
    He ushers King to the door, still talking hard. Remember how he never used to get
in fights down the pub when King and the others did? He is upset, he’s disappointed,
it cuts deep that King should think he’d do such a thing. It’s not in his nature.
He doesn’t want there to be any ramifications.
    ‘All right,’ says King. ‘I know you were angry that night. And I misinterpreted.’
    Farquharson urges King to calm himself by means of the relaxation techniques that
his psychologist has taught him to use when he’s driving the car. He demonstrates,
in a whisper. ‘You count. You say, The tension’s gone. The tension’s gone. The tension’s
gone. Let it flow out.’
    Are they already outside in the yard? Night birds pass, with faint, melancholy cries.
The chink of keys. A car starts up. But Farquharson talks on and on. He must be leaning
down to King’s open window, as he did outside the fish-and-chip shop.
    ‘When you drive off from here, you should be able to say, “It’s off my chest. He’s
telling the truth. He’s been truthful to everyone, truthful to me.” I mean, I’m an
honest person. Put it aside. Let it flow out. It’s gone. You’ll feel so much better.
As far as I’m concerned, that’s the end of the topic. And it should be for you. You’ll
sleep a lot better. But if there’s any problems, give me a bell before you do any
counselling.’
    …
    People filed out of the court, subdued. Louise and I walked all the way down to Tattersalls
Lane with our eyes on the ground.
    ‘I’ve just lost my doubt,’ she said, at the shabby door of the Shanghai Dumpling.
‘But not my pity.’
    ‘He wasn’t very surprised, was he,’ I said. ‘You’d almost think he was expecting
it.’
    She mimicked Farquharson’s histrionic trope: ‘And I loved them more than life itself.’
    Students around us were yelling and laughing. We sat in silence. I could hardly meet
her eye. To have my residual fantasies of his innocence dismantled, blow by blow,
and out of his own mouth, filled me with an emotion I had no name for, though it
felt weirdly like shame. Our plates were thumped on to the laminex.
    ‘I’m coming round to that journalist’s way of thinking,’ said Louise, picking up
her chopsticks. ‘That he’s a selfish, cold-hearted bastard. Who betrayed his children’s
love and trust in the most horrible way.’
    I was straining to hold it at bay. I wanted to think like a juror, to wait for all
the evidence, to hold myself in a state where I could still be persuaded by argument.
    ‘Journalists have to work very fast,’ I said. ‘That must be why they form a detached
view so early. We’re dilettantes. We’ve got time to wallow.’
    She gave me a wry look. Without another word, we polished off the vegetable dumplings.
    …
    Was there a form of madness called court fatigue? It would have mortified me to tell
Louise about the crazy magical thinking that filled my waking mind and, at night,
my dreams: if only Farquharson could be found not guilty, then the boys would not
be dead. Cindy would drive home from the court and find them playing kick-to-kick
in the yard, or sprawled in their socks on the couch, absorbed in the cartoon channel.
Bailey would run to her with his arms out. They would call for something to eat.
She would open the fridge and cheerfully start rattling the pots and pans. I could
not wait to get home, to haul my grandsons away from their Lego and their light sabres,
to squeeze them in my arms until they squirmed. Young boys! How can such wild, vital
creatures die? How can this hilarious sweetness be snuffed out forever?

CHAPTER 6
    Criminal barristers like to see themselves as free-spirited adventurers, armed with
learning and wit, who gallop out to defend the embattled individual against the dead
hand of the state. They love to perform. A rill of ironic laughter bubbles under
the surface of their