Page 254 of Murder in the Family

JJ NORTON

(to Laila)

Do you think Guy even remembers what happened? He doesn’t seem to – in fact, the way Wilson described it he could even have been sleepwalking.

LAILA FURNESS

I don’t think he has any recollection at all – he can’t do – he wouldn’t be involved in this if he did—

HUGO FRASER

(intervening)

But we are talking about someone with a chronic case of selective memory. What about that bloody wedding cake? He claims he doesn’t remember doing that either—

LAILA FURNESS

No, I don’t think it’s selective memory – or at least not in the way you mean.

Remember back at the start, when he said he was the only one present when his father collapsed and died? He was6 years old. Imagine the impact of something as sudden and violent as that on a child that age—

MITCHELL CLARKE

(nodding)

And yet he seems to have blocked it out entirely.

LAILA FURNESS

That’s precisely my point. Children who experience serious trauma that young can’t process it properly, so the memory is, in effect, jammed. I’ve seen it again and again in children who’ve experienced abuse. They retreat into dissociation as a survival mechanism.

MITCHELL CLARKE

I’m not sure I know what you mean by dissociation. What sort of behaviour are we talking about?

LAILA FURNESS

The child can go into a fugue state, ‘zone out’—

(she takes a deep breath)

They can also exhibit violent and apparently random fits of anger. Fits they almost never remember anything about afterwards.

The following dialogue continues over RECONSTRUCTION. A high camera angle above the garden of Dorney Place. It’s dark, raining, light streaming from the wide-open back door of the house. The camera gradually drops to ground level; ‘Luke’ is lying face up on the steps. ‘Guy’ is standing over him, a cricket bat in his hand. ‘Luke’ appears to be coming to, but as he starts to move ‘Guy’ raises the bat above his head and lets it fall, heavily, once, twice. The body jerks then lies still but the blows still rain down. The camera closes in slowly on the face of the little boy. Blood is running down his forehead, his cheeks, his hair. The close-up continues until all we can see are the child’s eyes. They are completely blank.

MITCHELL CLARKE

So what might induce a violent reaction like that?

LAILA FURNESS

It varies. A particular noise or smell might be enough to evoke the original trauma, but there can be visual triggers too—

HUGO FRASER

(nodding)

Like seeing someone collapse in front of them, exactly the same way their father did.

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