Page 4 of Broken Country

His father is here now, panting and flushed, but scarcely different from the boy I knew. “Oh, Jesus Christ, you shot him.”

“Had to.” Frank gestures at the butchered lambs.

I don’t think Gabriel has any idea who Frank is, or atleast, who he is married to, but then he turns and catches sight of me. Momentarily, panic flits across his face before he recovers himself.

“Beth,” he says.

But I ignore him. No one is looking after the child. He is standing by his dog, hands covering his eyes as if to black out the horror.

“Here.” I’m beside him in seconds, my hands on his shoulders. And then I kneel in front of him and wrap my arms around him. He begins to weep.

“Keep crying,” I say. “Crying will help.”

He collapses against me, wailing now, a boy in shorts in my arms.

And this is how it begins again.

The TrialOld Bailey, London, 1969

Nothing could prepare me for the agony of watching the man I love sitting high up in the dock, flanked by two prison officers, as he awaits his verdict.

A man accused of an unthinkable crime.

He never glances up at the gallery to search for my face and he doesn’t look at the jury either. Doesn’t observe them, as I do, examining each one, panic pounding through me, as I ask myself: Will this tired-looking, gray-haired woman believe in his innocence? Will this middle-aged man in his banker’s garb of pinstripe suit, blue shirt with a white collar and cuffs, be the one to vote against him? The young man with shoulder-length hair, who looks kinder than the rest, might he be our ally? Mostly they are inscrutable, the seven men and five women who hold his fate in their hands. My sister says it’s good there are plenty of women. They are more compassionate, she says, as a rule. It feels like clutching at straws, but a part of me hopes the female jurors might understand the derailing passion that made us risk everything.

After months of our talking about it, the trial has begun. Everything about this courtroom seems to emphasize the severity of our situation: the high ceiling and wood-paneled walls; the judge, resplendent in red on his high-back chair, like a king on his throne as he surveys his court; beneath him the barristers in wigs and black gowns, looking through papers as they wait for proceedings to begin; and the court clerk quietly pompous as he stands before the dock and makes his chilling proclamation: “You are charged with the murder…”

The press bench is filled with journalists in tweed jackets and ties, not a single woman among them. And then there is the gallery, where I sit with Eleanor, along with all the rubberneckers. Not so long ago I shared their thirst for human drama. How avidly I followed the Profumo scandal and the subsequent trial of Stephen Ward. I remember, as if it were yesterday, the photos of Christine Keeler and Mandy Rice-Davies leaving court, how stylish they looked, how the press still managed to denigrate and cheapen them.

It’s very different when the prisoner in the dock is the person you love.Look up. Please, my love.I try to engage him telepathically, the way we always used to, but he stares ahead with his strange, blank eyes. The only giveaway of the distress I know he is feeling—felt in every waking moment since—is the angry clench of his jaw. To an outsider, perhaps, he looks hostile, but I know better. It’s the only way he can stop himself from crying.

Before

If I were to paint a picture of a classic English lake it would look just like the one at Meadowlands.

The surface is covered with clusters of water lilies, the flowers a fist of white and pink with bold yellow hearts. At the far end a pair of willow trees stretch out across the water, and three white swans are gliding toward us in a uniform line, as if the gaps between them have been measured with a ruler.

Gabriel has set himself up with a rug, a picnic hamper, and a folding canvas chair, a pair of fishing rods propped up against it. He gestures to the chair—“Be my guest”—but I choose to sit next to him on the rug instead. From the hamper he produces a tartan thermos of tea and a packet of Garibaldi biscuits.

I raise my eyebrows and he grins.

“I thought you might not come if I told you it was squashed-fly biscuits.”

I watch him pour tea into a white tin mug with a navy rim. He has beautiful hands, with long elegant fingers. He adds milk and sugar without asking and hands it to me.

On the far side of the lake, near to the willows, there’s an ancient-looking khaki tent, the kind you see in safari films. I can imagine Grace Kelly sitting outside it, sipping a gin and tonic, a neat shirt tucked into her fawn-colored breeches.

“What’s the tent for?”

“I camp here in summer. Wake up and swim every morning. Fry bacon and eggs on a little stove.”

It seems odd to me, a boy who lives in a house the size of Meadowlands, choosing to rough it instead under canvas.

Like everyone else in the village I’ve been to Meadowlands for the annual summer fete. I’ve eaten wedges of Victoria sandwich in the tea tent, hooked myself up to my sister for the three-legged race, come last but one in the egg and spoon. I’ve seen Gabriel’s mother, Tessa, dressed like a fashion model in head-to-toe black: her neatly tailored suit more fitting for Paris than Hemston; a wide-brimmed hat, huge sunglasses; scarlet lips her only hint of color. Compared to all the other mothers in their plain print dresses and sandals, she always seemed exotic and untouchable. I can picture his father, Edward, besuited, bespectacled, and much older, gamely lobbing balls at the coconut shy.

What I can’t remember is Gabriel.

“Why have I never seen you at the village fete?”

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