JOCELYN KNIGHT. September 2002

JOCELYN KNIGHT

September 2002

Jocelyn Knight, QC, is a Londoner. Not born, not bred, but by adoption, with the fierce defensive love that entails. Her life runs on fixed, well-oiled tracks. J Sheekey for work lunches, Elena’s for supper with friends. Aquascutum for work clothes, Liberty for everything else. She knows the best corners to hail a black cab but prefers to walk. She takes the back streets from her flat in Farringdon to her chambers in the Inns of Court. She knows every cobble and crack on the way; she never needs to look down.

She reaches her chambers through a little gate on Fleet Street. To step from the busy thoroughfare into Middle Temple Lane is to step back in time. These Georgian palaces were built too close for cars to pass. Their leaded windows catch the light at odd angles and dazzle the uninitiated. Newcomers to the city, newcomers to the law, get lost in the tight brick mazes, but it was here that Jocelyn Knight found herself. And she was magnificent.

Her photographic memory had always been useful in studying the law, but it was in practice that she discovered her real gift. It was an ability to see things as others do; anticipation is nine tenths of the law. It was expected that Jocelyn would follow her parents into academia, and, out of respect, she pretended to consider it in her final year at Oxford. But breathing new life into dead texts was never going to be for her. She wanted to apply her mind to something living. And the law is alive; it is reborn with every case.

When Jocelyn was first called to the bar, her gender made her a rarity. Clients were immediately drawn to her but judges and jurors were harder to convince. They’d take one look at her, with that dewy face and the twisted gold rope of hair beneath the powdered wig, and they would dismiss her. But she would have their respect seconds after she began to speak. She has the best record of anyone in her chambers. Not bad for a girl from West Dorset, even one with her pedigree.

Jocelyn goes home to Broadchurch twice a year. Once in July, to enjoy the beach before it is infested with tourists, and again over Christmas. It’s just the two of them: Jocelyn and her mother, Veronica. Her father died of a stroke before he could retire; he went suddenly, at his professional peak, which is how he would have wanted it. Now that Veronica has at last stepped down from her own professorship, she visits Jocelyn in London for the May and August bank holidays. Four weekends a year is plenty of time together. That’s how they both like it – everyone knows where they stand; there is no room for wheedling. Jocelyn has friends whose mothers only communicate in emotional blackmail. ‘Why don’t I see more of you? ’ That’s not in Veronica’s nature. Her life is as rich and full as it ever was. She still gives guest lectures, although at clubs and societies now rather than the great seats of learning. She paints, she goes on rambles and she is working on what she calls, with typical assurance, her ‘first’ novel. It’s the kind of retirement Jocelyn wants for herself; put off until the last minute, then as busy as any professional life. Veronica and Jocelyn enjoy other’s company very much, but they are not needy about it. The Knight women are proud of their mutual independence.

Which is why, when Jocelyn telephones in September to say she’s coming home for a few days, Veronica’s first reaction is fear.

‘We never see each other in September, ’ she says. ‘Darling, are you ill? ’ There’s an old-lady tremor in her voice that Jocelyn has never noticed before.

‘I’m perfectly well, ’ replies Jocelyn.

‘Is it work? Are you in trouble at work? ’ That knocks Jocelyn’s pride. If there was something wrong at work, then Broadchurch is the last place she’d be. She’d stay in London and face the fire.

‘Work is fine. Better than fine. I just …’ she trails off. She promised to conceal the reason for her flying visit from everyone. There’s something that needs her attention back in Broadchurch and she doesn’t want to be drawn on it. She quickly changes the subject to the weather forecast before saying goodbye and starting to pack her suitcase.

Jocelyn did not, as a rule, become attached to her clients, but Jack and Rowena Marshall were an exception.

She thought of them both as her clients, even though he was the criminal. The charge: unlawful sex with a minor, the May-to-December relationship consummated just over a month shy of the girl’s sixteenth birthday. Jack was the first sex offender Jocelyn ever represented, and her last ever defence case. He was also her final client before she got silk. He could barely afford her then and he certainly wouldn’t be able to now.

So why did she take him on? She certainly wasn’t fishing for friends in the pool of dirty old men or nymphomaniac schoolgirls. Initially, she met him for the experience – when prosecuting sex crimes, it pays to know your enemy – and to placate Neil, her overworked clerk. He dangled the buff file by its red ribbon and let it swing before her eyes like a hypnotist’s watch.

‘Bloke wants to plead not guilty, ’ said the clerk. ‘I need someone to persuade him not to take it to trial. You won’t win, and he can’t afford it. ’ (Neil was afflicted with a conscience, a terrible handicap in a clerk. )

Jocelyn raised one eyebrow at him. ‘Why me? ’

‘He’s a stubborn old fucker. I need an unstoppable force for my immovable object. ’ Neil let the file drop onto her desk.

‘I didn’t say I’d take it! ’ she called at Neil’s retreating back, but she was already tugging at the ribbon.

Jocelyn invited Jack and Rowena to come down from Yorkshire for the express purpose of giving them a bollocking. She was rightly famous for her bollockings. She never prepared them but they seemed to come out of her mouth fully formed, as eloquent as any closing speech. It broke the ice and gave clients a taste of what they would undergo in court. This bollocking would write itself. Five weeks! If they’d only kept their pants on for five more weeks, they wouldn’t have broken the law. Of all the pointless cases …

And then she saw the two of them, nervously holding hands in reception, Jack in a tweed jacket that looked older than Rowena, although she was the one with a protective arm across his chest. The bollocking disappeared like words being erased from a screen. Love; as rare as a comet, and just as unmistakable. Jocelyn Knight could recognise love when she saw it, in other people at least.

‘You tell me why he should have to stand trial when there’s actual rapists out there getting away with it? ’ said Rowena.

‘A guilty plea gets you a shorter sentence, ’ said Jocelyn. ‘You could serve as little as a year. ’ Jack flinched and Rowena put her head in her hands. Jocelyn softened her tone. ‘The sooner you change your plea, the sooner you’ll be back together. ’

When Jack was inside, he and Jocelyn wrote to each other, largely about the books they were reading. She introduced him to Michael Chabon and he persuaded her to finally give Wilkie Collins a go. Jack never told Jocelyn what he was going through in prison and it was not in her nature to ask. She never visited; those orders were too precious for Jack to waste on anyone but Rowena.

He served just over a year. Six weeks after his release, he and Rowena married. Jocelyn and her then pupil, a bright spark called Sharon Bishop, were the only witnesses at the wedding. It was a fond but formal sort of friendship. They saw each other perhaps once a year or so, always as a threesome. Jocelyn found that she had more in common with Rowena, still a teenager, than she did with many of her peers; she was serious about music and serious about Jack, but everything else was at the mercy of her tinderbox-dry humour. The three met at recitals at the Wigmore Hall every winter, or new plays at the Donmar. They never entered each other’s homes.

Over time Jocelyn’s unspoken role became to give an official stamp to the milestones of their relationship. When Simon was born, Jocelyn temporarily put aside her atheism to be his godmother. And it was to Jocelyn that Jack turned, years later, after the terrible accident – the dark, wet road, the shattered windscreen – that cost Rowena her looks and Simon his life.

It was seven months later that she met him. They dined as a pair for the first time. By horrible coincidence, they were seated at a table set for three.

‘She doesn’t want me in the house, ’ he said to his plate. ‘She says she can’t bear to be in the same room as me, that she thinks I blame her. ’

‘And do you? ’

His mouth set into a hard line, which is as close as he would get to answering her. Even in tragedy, he would not hear a word against his beloved wife, let alone utter one.

‘I’m too old to start again. Where can I go? ’ He repeated the question, his voice cracking. ‘Where can I go? ’

Where do you go when life is over?

‘I don’t know, ’ said Jocelyn sadly. ‘I’m so sorry, Jack. I just don’t know. ’

The following evening, in her weekly call to her mother, Jocelyn learned that the woman who ran the little newsagents down in Broadchurch harbour was retiring, and the business was up for sale.

Jocelyn purposely lets Jack settle in by himself. She’s never been one for holding people’s hands, not even clients who become dear friends. And besides, she doesn’t want anyone to link his arrival in Broadchurch with her. She’s in the middle of a case and it’s a flying visit; she’ll be catching the first train back to London tomorrow.

For the first time, Jocelyn is glad she isn’t in touch with Maggie Radcliffe any more. If anyone could sniff out the connection, it’s her.

It’s warm for autumn, and afternoon fades gently into early evening. Jocelyn walks the perimeter of Broadchurch harbour, in flat shoes and her father’s old Barbour. Around her are the childhood sounds of calling gulls, the gentle tap and clank of moored boats. The noise calls her like a bell, summoning something long-buried inside her. If there’s one thing she does miss about London, it’s not being able to fish. She’s been catching her own since she was a teenager. In a rare moment of projection, she has a glimpse of herself, a grey old lady, fishing for her supper. For the first time, she realises, she is thinking not in terms of if but when.

When Jocelyn sees the newsagent, her heart lurches in her chest; she has made a terrible mistake. When she heard newsagent, she instinctively thought of the tobacconists opposite the Old Bailey; the grown-up necessities of newspapers, cigarettes and travelcards, the anonymous stream of commuters and transients. This place is a toyshop. It is September but the remnants of summer stock are outside the shop; buckets and spades and shrimping nets for those brave enough to walk the beach in the autumn. What will it be like in the summer? For a few minutes, she watches in horror. No child seems able to pass the shop without tugging on a parent’s sleeve and begging for sugar. Jocelyn is not used to feeling shame but she burns with it now. She has sent Jack Marshall to grieve for his son, and come to terms with the end of his marriage, in a place that is steeped in family and childhood. What was she thinking? This is worse than insensitive, this is professionally dangerous. If she lets herself become insulated by her privileged London life, if she loses her empathy, she’s finished. She peers through the window into the gloomy interior.

‘Is that you? ’

Jack Marshall emerges from a back entrance. Jocelyn swallows a gasp. He looks twenty years older than when last she saw him. Rowena and Simon had kept him looking young; it is as though their loss has drained him of something vital.

‘I’m sorry, ’ she says. ‘I didn’t think. I didn’t think it would be so …’ she gestures to the toys, the comics and the sweets. He knows what she means.

‘No, no, ’ he says. ‘It’s a good business, and I need to make a living. And the shop, it’s a good way for me to find a new community. Between this place and the church, I’ve been made very welcome here. I’m grateful. ’

‘If you’re sure it’s not too painful here …’

‘In a way it helps. I wouldn’t expect you to understand—’ He checks himself a second too late. It’s the first intimation Jocelyn’s had that Jack Marshall regards her the same way as everyone else, and she’s hurt. Not that she shows it. This isn’t about her.

‘How are you finding the town? ’ she says carefully. ‘Any like-minded souls? ’ It wasn’t meant to come across as sarcastically as it did.

The old Jack resurfaces with a snort. ‘It’s not exactly a hotbed of intellectual debate, ’ he replies. ‘But maybe that’s as well. I’m not reading any more. I can’t. As for music …’ He shakes his head slowly. The silence of the songs he can’t listen to hangs between them, and Jocelyn finds herself lost for words.

A small explosion across the harbour makes both of them jump; someone has let off a flare in the little yard outside the old Methodist church hall. Boys on the cusp of primary and secondary school age, wearing what look like scout uniforms, screech in delight.

‘Oliver Stevens! ’ shouts an old man, his back curved under a blue shirt. ‘If I find out that was you, you’re banned, do you understand me? ’ The little mob turn to stare at a skinny kid with dark hair.

‘Sea brigade, ’ says Jack quietly. ‘It’s quite a thriving little group. He’s looking for someone to take it over. I was quite the salty sea dog in my youth. ’ Jack gives a watery smile, which quickly fades. ‘I was going to teach Simon to sail, ’ he says.

Again, Jocelyn feels the stab of her unintentional cruelty of sending a grieving man to this place.

‘Jack! ’ A child’s voice carries across the street. They turn together to see a little girl of about four – Jocelyn’s not great with ages – on the opposite pavement. She’s wearing a pink raincoat and wellies, and her wispy white-blonde hair dances in the breeze. ‘Hiya Jack! ’ For a moment she seems about to cross the road on her own. There’s a car coming their way, and Jocelyn instinctively gets ready to spring forward.

‘Jesus, Chloe! ’ A young man, barely out of his teens, races from behind the corner of the harbour wall to scoop the child up in his arms. ‘Don’t run off like that, you’ll give me a heart attack. ’

‘Sorry, Dad, ’ says Chloe, delighted with the attention. ‘Can I have a treat? ’ Her eyes travel past Jack to the shop behind him.

‘Good to see you, Mark, ’ says Jack. ‘How’s Beth? ’

At this, a smile splits the young man’s face. ‘Ask her yourself, ’ he says, as a young woman comes round the same corner. Her dark red hair is scraped back in a scrunchie and fatigue has ringed her eyes with violet, but she has the same wide smile as her – Jocelyn checks Mark’s left hand – husband.

‘It’s a boy! ’ she says. ‘Three days old! ’ She’s clearly blind to the pain that scores Jack’s face in the millisecond before he smiles.

‘Here, let’s bring him over, say hello properly, ’ says Mark. They thrust the pram under Jack’s nose. Jocelyn feels a bollocking coming on – how dare they be so insensitive? – but she catches herself just in time. Of course no one here knows about Jack’s history. To explain Simon would be to explain Rowena, with all the prejudice that summons. The loneliness of locking out his past is the price Jack must pay for this new start.

The baby is awake, but his eyes are unfocused. He has still got that flaky, scrunched-up look of the newborn, although his dark hair is thick, standing up like the bristles on a broom. Gently, Mark lifts him out of the pram. His little legs kick reflexively at the air.

‘High hopes for this one, ’ says Mark. ‘He’s gonna be a striker for Bournemouth FC. ’

The mum, Beth, notices Jocelyn for the first time. ‘This is my first time out since, ’ she says, looking expectantly at Jocelyn, like she’s waiting for the usual questions; did she have a good birth, what did he weigh?

Jocelyn replies with a smile. She’ll only step in to this conversation if she needs to cover for Jack. She studies him closely; he seems to be coping.

‘What are you going to call him? ’ he asks.

‘Jack, ’ says the little girl, to laughter from her parents.

‘No, we’re not calling him Jack, ’ says Mark. ‘He’s Daniel. Danny. ’

Jack disappears into the shop for a few seconds. When he comes back, there’s a chocolate bar in his palm. He raises his eyes at Beth, who nods her permission. Losing Simon clearly hasn’t robbed Jack of the unspoken language parents use to communicate with each other.

He crouches down to Chloe’s level.

‘This is for being such a good big sister, ’ he says, pressing the chocolate into her hand. ‘It’s your job to look after him, you know. Keep him safe. ’

‘I will, ’ says Chloe solemnly, her eyes fixed on the shiny wrapper. Mark helps her unwrap it, his large fingers fumbling with the twisted paper. Jack watches closely; his eyes grow bright.

‘We’ve just come from Ellie and Joe’s, ’ says Beth, and then to Jocelyn, although she hasn’t asked for details, ‘That’s my friend from ante-natal classes. I gave her the baby to hold – they reckon holding a newborn can bring on labour. She’s ten days overdue. ’

‘She looks like an egg, ’ says Chloe, through a mouthful of chocolate.

‘We’ve got our fingers crossed for a little boy for them, ’ says Mark, cleaning Chloe’s fingers with a baby wipe. ‘A little mate for Danny. ’

There’s a moment’s pause. The chip shop over the road has started frying for the evening; the smell of hot fat chases away the subtler, salty harbourside smells.

‘Well, we thought we’d show him the beach, ’ says Beth. ‘Seeing as he’ll be spending so much time here. You’ve got to get them used to it as soon as possible, haven’t you? ’

‘I’m glad he arrived safe, ’ says Jack. The new parents are deaf to the crack in his voice.

The pushchair turns on a penny and off they go, Chloe riding on the back wheels.

Jocelyn is afraid to look at Jack. It is undignified enough for such a proud man to cry. He doesn’t need her to witness. She stares at her feet until she hears the shop door close. It is past seven o’clock; surely he must shut up shop around now. Gently, she turns the sign on the door to CLOSED.

Jack’s past is a ball and chain that he must drag behind him for ever. But this little family, their future stretches out before them, bright and endless as the shimmering blue horizon. Their path to the beach is interrupted by streams of well-wishers. They can’t go more than a few paces without people stopping to congratulate them. They seem to know everyone. After a long while, they park the pram and Beth scoops up the baby, walking carefully across the beach towards the shore, the Jurassic cliffs at their backs. Jocelyn studies the landscape of her birthplace and feels a world away from home. She breathes deeply, down to her diaphragm. It’s as though she’s trying to bank as much clean air as she can before returning to the city.

Jocelyn finds herself strangely mesmerised by the Latimers, staring without blinks. There’s a twitch in the corner of her right eye; her vision is not what it used to be. Very quickly, sooner than she would have expected, they are just dots on the sand.

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