Rosie O'Dell (31 page)

When Mr. Abbott asked if he had in mind an alternative that did not diminish
their responsibility to Rosie, Dr. Rothesay said he did. His proposed solution
stemmed from his recent realization that her condition was entirely his fault,
having resulted from his unforgivable lapse in judgment. Motivated by the
overwhelming power of love, he had pushed himself upon this little family too
early and too forcefully. It hadn’t affected the younger and less sensitive
Pagan, but in Rosie’s case, she being on the
cusp of puberty and
given to much morbid pining regarding her father, her sense of responsibility,
blameless but nonetheless real in her mind, for his death, Rothesay’s taking his
place at the hearth and in her mother’s heart, Nina’s assuming of Rothesay’s
name, all emotionally traumatic to a high-strung child—well, he simply ought to
have waited longer. But regrettably, Dr. Rothesay said, strangling a groan and
reaching for Nina’s hand, he could not. However, and herein lay the silver
lining, it was his considered professional opinion that her natural young
resilience would soon cause her to improve and very shortly to recover
completely from her girlish hysteria. The alternative, therefore, to the drastic
action of an official investigation—the rumour mongering alone here at school
and among parents would involve God knew whose names—was to observe her closely
for a few more weeks for improvement or deterioration. From his medical
expertise, he believed she would improve, but since he was a parent as well as a
doctor in this case, he might be indulging in a loving parent’s wishful
thinking. Hence he would leave it entirely to Mr. Abbott and Miss Pretty
themselves as concerned professionals to decide on the immediate course of
action. He should say, however, that if they did decide to wait and it turned
out that Rosie showed no substantial signs of recovery very soon, then he
himself would override any differing opinion and go straight to the police at
once, despite the dangers to Rosie herself, and to others, of her creative,
inventive imagination, frequently given to histrionics. What did her mother
think?

Nina Rothesay said that she fully expected her daughter to bounce back soon
from her condition, and the youngster should be afforded that opportunity before
inquiries were contemplated that would have no effect except to cause
irrevocably damaging gossip and cruelty from other children.

The consensus in the office was to give the matter a short while longer, a
month at most, of careful observation. As to the person who had first raised the
suspicions, Mr. Abbott said he would tell her straightaway of their decision and
brook no nonsense. The Rothesays, as parents, and the principal and teacher
in loco parentis
, bore the prime responsibility for her well-being
and they were acting according to their very best judgment in her very best
interest, sparing her the ruinous repercussions that would grow like malignant
tumours as a result of precipitous rather than considered action.

That afternoon, Mr. Abbott had telephoned my mother at the hospital
and given his account of the discussion and the conclusion
reached. He assumed, he said, that she agreed. She told him she would sleep on
it. Then she called Miss Pretty. The teacher was not as keen about the decision
as Mr. Abbott, but considered it the lesser evil for now. That night Mom
discussed all aspects with Dad, and they concluded that in the circumstances and
for the time being the decision made sense.

I recalled how my parents had “discussed” it—my father’s enraged, panicky
blow-up which had caused my own frightened knock on the door to the study and
made them clam up about it around the house forever.

Mom finished her account to Rosie with how she had called Mr. Abbott at school
the next morning and told him she’d wait a little longer to see if Rosie showed
improvement. “And you did improve, or at least you seemed to,” she said to
Rosie. “But from what we now know about Dr. Rothesay in England, I’m very sorry
we didn’t pursue it back then.”

“I’m glad you didn’t, Aunt Gladys. In my deluded state, I would have denied
everything, not knowing what he really was. What a sly and deceitful man he is!
Insinuating I was hysterical and sick in the head and capable of falsely
implicating friends and teachers. Pretending he was ready to go to the police
himself. What a lying, self-serving monstrosity!”

“It was all so uncertain, with nothing to go on except my intuition,” said
Mom. “Your own mother having no suspicions ended it for me. If there had been
anything happening, I felt Nina would have spotted it and come forward with it.
Instead she told me she was outraged and insulted at my sneaky, treacherous,
behind-her-back interference over absolutely nothing.”

“Poor Mother. I’m sure she had no idea in her state. You were very courageous
to bring it up in the first place, Aunt Gladys. It’s a tragedy I didn’t have
more courage or better judgment myself. We might have been able to save
Pagan.”

“I remember thinking at the time that although the break between Nina and me
was complete, I trusted her to be on the lookout after that for anything
untoward. So, maybe, I thought, it wasn’t entirely in vain. I believed, in my
naïveté, I guess, that Pagan’s going away to school on the mainland was part of
all that.”

“It’s incredible to me now,” said Rosie, “but I actually thought I was unique
as his child paramour. The delusions of ego.”

“We all deluded ourselves because the alternative was so mind-boggling. Rosie,
I’ve helped out in some child abuse trials as a nurse, and I’ve
gotten to know this prosecutor, a female lawyer in the Department of Justice.
She is excellent, sensitive but no-nonsense. Why don’t I set up a meeting with
you on a confidential basis so that you can go over everything with her?”

As Rosie described her conversation with my mother, I experienced surges of
rage over how wimpy everyone had been when we’d been in grade seven. My own
success in pushing for the information from London and in uncovering my mother’s
earlier suspicions made me feel very authoritative these days. “It’s going to be
great putting him in jail,” I said. “It’s no longer just your word against his.
We now have the London evidence, and we have Mom’s and Dad’s observations from
back then, and whatever else the police turn up when they really start to
investigate.”

“Well, let’s hold our horses before we get too carried away,” said Suzy. “I
know from my own experience what it’s like when the police and the lawyers get a
hold of something like this. You—we—need to be really prepared for the endless
ordeal of a police investigation and a Supreme Court trial and God knows how
many appeals and retrials.”

“There’s not going to be any trial,” I scoffed. “When we tackle the perverted
psychopath, with his criminal record over there and what we’ve got on him here,
he’ll plead guilty, just like your grandfather did. What else can the cowardly
pervert do?”

THE CROWN PROSECUTOR
,
LUCY
Barrett, was
already a legend in her mid-thirties. The scores of cases she had prosecuted
included nine jury trials for serious charges ranging from rape to murder. She
had not lost one jury trial. The joke in legal circles was that a new federal
prison being touted for Newfoundland should be called the Lucy Barrett
Penitentiary since all those convictions of hers had made it necessary. I was
eager to get Rosie’s reaction after her first meeting.

“She’s very nice,” said Rosie. “She listened to me for a solid hour and a
half. She seems to have some doubts about the English stuff. She’s going to
check it out and get back to me.”

“Doubts?”

“She said she was perplexed by it.”

Lucy Barrett worked fast. She called Rosie the next afternoon with new
information about Rothesay she’d received from the office of the Director of
Public Prosecutions in London. The report which Dad’s firm had obtained from the
London police was accurate as far as it went, but hadn’t gone nearly far enough.
It was okay for dealing with a job applicant, but woefully inadequate for
prosecution purposes.

Rothesay, then known as James Balbo, had three older sisters, all married with
children. At university and medical school he’d boarded with one of the sisters
and babysat for all three for extra money. One day a niece of Uncle Jim Balbo’s
got into a fight with her best friend at school, and in the middle of their
slapping, scratching, and hair pulling, the best friend screeched at her, “I
hope the bloke who’s bonking you does kill you, you
slut.” This
startling comment caused the teachers to question the two eleven-year-old girls
closely and the friend confessed. The niece had divulged to her in confidence
that her uncle was her secret adult lover. The police were called in.

All the nieces and nephews of Balbo/Rothesay were questioned. Three other
nieces admitted under intense questioning to having had prepubescent sex with
their Uncle Jim. Charges were laid in all four cases. Balbo pleaded not guilty.
The prosecutors proceeded with one case first on the likelihood that, if a
conviction were obtained there, Balbo would change his plea to guilty on the
other three. After a gruelling trial, the jury convicted him and he was
sentenced to three years.

Balbo appealed his conviction. The appeal judges held unanimously that the
prosecutor’s references in front of the jury to the allegations of the other
nieces had prejudiced his right to a fair trial. They overturned his conviction
and ordered a new trial. When the new trial was about to begin, the parents of
the first niece decided they could not put their daughter through that nightmare
again. For lack of evidence, therefore, the prosecution of the new trial was
stayed. The other parents also decided they didn’t want to put their children
through the same ordeal they’d seen their niece go through in the first trial,
and those charges were stayed as well. The English Medical Association, which
had commenced proceedings against Balbo to take away his licence to practise,
pending the outcome of the trials, thereupon dropped their charges too. Hence
Dr. James Balbo, because his conviction had been overturned, had no court record
of conviction and his credentials as a physician remained in full effect.

Such was the official record. A lawyer in the Public Prosecutions office in
London told Lucy Barrett what he’d heard unofficially. Following their decision
not to proceed with the charges against Balbo, the fathers of his four nieces
paid a visit on Uncle Jim at home. They advised him that unless he changed his
name and disappeared completely and forever from the British Isles he ought to
start arranging for his own medical treatment by colleagues specializing in
broken bones and brain damage.

There followed swiftly an application to change his name from Balbo to Rothesay
because, the judge was told, the former was the same name as a fascist comrade
of Benito Mussolini who’d served as Italy’s Marshal of the Air Force and had
been heir apparent to the Italian dictator. Whereupon the newly minted Dr.
(James) Heathcliff Godolphin Rothesay elected to
bless Britain’s
oldest overseas colony with his medical skills and charming bedside
manner.

“And so,” said Rosie, relaying all this to me and Suzy, “once the court of
appeal struck his conviction down, it no longer existed. All that’s left is the
fact that he was charged, and Lucy Barrett says we wouldn’t be able to use that
as evidence in our trial because the judge would consider unproven charges to be
too prejudicial to the accused.”

I tried to keep a neutral face, but I felt at once embarrassed and provoked
beyond endurance. I couldn’t speak.

“So we’re back to square one,” said Suzy.

“Well, not exactly,” said Rosie. “Lucy is considering the possibility of
bringing what happened in England before the court here as similar fact
evidence. It would depend on whether any of the nieces he victimized would be
prepared to testify here at this stage in their lives and whether the judge
would even allow their evidence in.”

“What does she think the chances of any of that happening are?” asked
Suzy.

“Slim.”

“So it’s your word against his again—him a medical doctor, pillar of the
community, honey-tongued enough to sell ice to Eskimos.”

I jumped in. “I’m sorry that information from England is not more use to us,
but at least it does show exactly what he is. So things are certainly not the
same as they were before. And something does have to be done. Imagine how you
would feel, Rosie, if another victim were to be assaulted by him after we knew
all this and did nothing.”

“That’s too horrible to even think about,” said Rosie.

“So everyone agrees we’ve got to do something,” I said. “How about if you tip
off the media here as well as the police about what he did in England? They
could do a big story on him, while you stay out of a court case
altogether.”

“Lucy Barrett and I talked about the media. There’s a court ban in England
against identifying him to protect the identity of the victims. Maybe with his
name change and if no relationship between him and his nieces were to be shown,
it could be done, but she calls it a high hurdle.”

“Jesus, can they dream up anything else,” said Suzy, “to make sure perverts
can have their way with children without consequences wherever they go in the
world?”

“Yeah, I know. Lucy was really mad when she was telling me what hap
pened in England. Those men and the whole system dumped a known
child rapist over here, anonymously and without warning, she said, where he
could continue to prey on children behind the backs of trusting parents. We have
to ask ourselves as females, she said, how we can stop him from victimizing
other little girls anywhere in the world. So she’s prepared right now, she says,
to advise the police to lay charges and to take it on as prosecutor, but she
won’t try to talk me into it. After all is said and done, it’s entirely up to me
whether we go ahead, since I’m the one who has to carry the can.”

“That’s a hell of a burden to pile on you on behalf of the whole world,” said
Suzy, “just because she’s a pissed off feminist. Ask yourself what it would do
to you if he got acquitted. In other words, everyone knowing that the jury
didn’t believe you? That’ll feel great.”

“Lucy says there’d be a court ban on the media using any names or
identification.”

“And I know how good that is in keeping your name from being the subject of
constant rumour mongering and gossip among all those who know or find out
through the grapevine.”

“Well, I agree with Lucy Barrett’s approach,” I said. “We’ve got to stop the
bastard.”

“We all want to stop the bastard, Tom,” said Suzy. “I’d love to choke him
personally with his own testicles. That’s not the problem. The problem is the
iffy case we’re suddenly looking at here.”

“Jesus. All I wanted to do is finish school, go to university, leave all this
behind, and get on with our lives.” Rosie took my hand. I could see from her
eyes that, if she ever meant that, she didn’t mean it now. She wanted to nail
him as much as I did. She was just giving me a way out if I chose to take
it.

“Suzy just called it iffy,” I said. “But how iffy is it, really? Did you
happen to discuss with Lucy Barrett the chances of convicting him if this went
to court just with what we have now?”

“She says there’s a tendency for a jury to believe a victim unless her
credibility is undermined. In this kind of case—victim’s word against abuser’s,
without corroboration—we’re generally talking about a sixty-forty proposition.”
Rosie stopped for a second and began to blush as she continued. “But Lucy thinks
we have a better chance in this case. To quote her, she thinks I’d be a very
credible witness. So she figures we’d have a seventy-thirty chance.”

“You’d be a great witness,” said Suzy. “A prosecutor’s dream. But so
would he be a great witness. A charming, believable liar. Can’t
you just see him on the witness stand now? And I wonder what side your mother
will come down on when he gets started?”

“That’s another route Lucy is thinking of exploring. Maybe when Mother hears my
story and finds out what he did in England, and thinks about Pagan more, she
will remember some incidents that will allow her to corroborate my story.”

“Well, that’s a big maybe,” said Suzy. “I don’t mean to be offensive about
your poor mother, Rosie, but… Also, don’t forget, he will have the best lawyer
and expert witnesses money can buy. And if we get a conviction after all that?
Wham, an appeal might overturn it, exactly like in England. This all iffy enough
for you, Tom?”

“I understand what you’re saying,” I replied, “but here’s what I think. Lucy
Barrett knows the jury will believe Rosie, and that we will win. I’d say she
didn’t go higher than seventy-thirty in our favour because she has to be
cautious. She has never lost a jury trial and she’s prepared to go ahead with
this one right now. I’m sure she doesn’t want to ruin her record. But besides
all that, going ahead is right for every reason, and not going ahead is wrong
for every reason. We will know, whatever happens, that we’ve done the right
thing.” I put my other hand on Rosie’s and held it between my two. “I want you
to know, Rosie, that whatever the outcome, whatever the ordeal along the way, I
will always be there with you through it all and you can count absolutely on my
support and help and my unconditional love. And then, after it’s all over, as
you just said, we can get on with our life together.”

Rosie searched my face. Then she put her other hand on Suzy’s and looked at
her. I’ll be damned if Suzy didn’t have tears in her eyes after my speech. “I’ll
think about it some more,” Rosie murmured. “And I’ll listen to whatever else
Lucy has to say. But I know already that Tom is right.”

WHEN LUCY BARRETT TELEPHONED
me and asked me to come and see
her, I assumed she wanted to talk about what testimony I could offer as a
witness in a trial. We’d already had one brief chat by phone. But that was not
what she wanted at all.

In her office, she greeted me and sat me down without ceremony. “Rosie tells
me,” she said, “that you are encouraging her to proceed with pressing
charges.”

“Ah, yes, I am.”

“I get the impression that she would be more doubtful about going
ahead with this without your encouragement and support. For you
to take that position in these painful circumstances is admirable.”

“Thank you. But I think Rosie is the admirable person in all this.”

Lucy Barrett gazed coolly at me before continuing. She was a very attractive
woman, fit and energetic and fine-featured. Rosie had told me she worked out
every day no matter how busy she was. You have to stay fit just to meet the
demands of life, she’d said. Her eyes were grey and bright and penetrating. With
her short, amber hair, they gave her a very alert appearance. Her voice was high
and girlish, which had surprised me at first, but as she talked on now it seemed
to intensify, perhaps by contrast, the authority with which she spoke. “Tom, I
don’t believe Rosie has discussed in detail with you the full nature of the
sexual abuse Rothesay perpetrated upon her.”

“We have discussed it in general terms, but neither of us wants to go into the
details.”

“Right, and that’s the reason I wanted to see you today. The successful outcome
of a trial, if it takes place, will depend to a large extent on Rosie’s
continued strength and courage and morale. Right now she has lots of all three,
but it would be a very difficult trial for her, putting a dreadful strain,
probably a terminal one, on her relationship with her mother. They’ve already
had some big blow-ups because of Rosie’s insinuations that she knew or should
have known there was something unhealthy going on in Toronto between Rothesay
and Pagan. But her mother is in a state of complete denial and will probably not
have anything useful for us, since it would be very difficult for her at this
stage to admit to herself, let alone a jury, that she ever heard or saw or
suspected anything regarding Rosie or Pagan, and did nothing. So, if we do lay
charges, Rosie will have to move out of the house altogether for the duration
and continue to live with Suzy in fairly cramped quarters at her house.”

“I told her she could stay at our place. There’s lots of room there. I’m sure
Mom and Dad would be okay with it.”