The Children Act (12 page)

“The shape, the form of it, and those two short lines balancing things out, you’re low, then you’re saved, the second overcoming the first, I liked that. And I liked the blacksmith’s strokes …”

“Long and slow.”

“Mm. Long and slow is good. And it’s very condensed, the way some of the best short poems are.” She felt some confidence returning. “I suppose it’s telling us that out of adversity, out of a terrible time, something good can come. Isn’t that right?”

“Yes.”

“And I don’t think you have to believe in God to understand or like this poem.”

He thought for a moment and said, “I think you do.”

She said, “Do you think you have to suffer to be a good poet?”

“I think all great poets must suffer.”

“I see.”

By pretending to adjust her sleeve she exposed her wristwatch and glanced down at it on her lap without seeming to. She must soon return to the waiting court and give her judgment.

But he had seen her. “Don’t go yet,” he said in a whisper. “Wait till my supper comes.”

“All right. Adam, tell me, what do your parents think?”

“My mum is better at dealing with it. She accepts things, you know? Submission to God. And she’s very practical, making all the arrangements, talking to the doctors, getting me this room, larger than the others, finding me a violin. But my dad is sort of tearing himself apart. He’s used to being in charge of earthmovers and stuff and making things work.”

“And refusing a transfusion?”

“What about it?”

“What do your parents say to you?”

“There isn’t much to say. We know what’s right.”

As he said this, looking at her directly, with no particular challenge in his voice, she believed him completely; he and his parents, the congregation and the elders knew what was right for them. She felt unpleasantly light-headed, emptied out, all meaning gone. The blasphemous notion came to her that it didn’t much matter either way whether the boy lived or died. Everything would be much the same. Profound sorrow, bitter regret perhaps, fond memories, then life would plunge on and all three would mean less and less as those who loved him aged and died, until they meant nothing at all. Religions, moral systems, her own included, were like peaks in a dense mountain range seen from a great distance, none obviously higher, more important, truer than another. What was to judge?

She shook her head to dispel the thought. Waiting in reserve was the question she had been about to ask before Donna came in. As soon as she started to pose it, she felt better.

“Your father explained some of the religious arguments, but I want to hear it in your own words. Why exactly won’t you have a blood transfusion?”

“Because it’s wrong.”

“Go on.”

“And God has told us it’s wrong.”

“Why is it wrong?”

“Why is anything wrong? Because we know it. Torture, murder, lying, stealing. Even if we get good information out of bad people by torturing them, we know it’s wrong. We know it because God has instructed us. Even if—”

“Is transfusion the same as torture?”

Marina stirred in her corner. Adam, speaking in breathy snatches, set out on his exposition. Transfusion and torture were only similar in that they were both wrong. We knew it in our hearts. He quoted Leviticus and Acts, he talked about blood as the essence, about the literal word of God, about pollution, he held forth like a clever sixth-former, the star pupil in the school debate. His violet-black eyes shone as his own words moved him. Fiona recognized certain phrases from the father. But Adam spoke them like the discoverer of elementary facts, the formulator of doctrine rather than its recipient. It was a sermon she was hearing, faithfully and passionately reproduced. He presented himself as a spokesman for his sect when he said that he and his congregation just wanted to be left alone to live by what they knew to be self-evident truths.

Fiona was attentive, she held the boy’s gaze, nodded occasionally, and when at last there was a natural pause, she stood and said, “Just to be clear, Adam. You do realize that it’s for me alone to decide what’s in your best interests. If I were to rule that the hospital may legally transfuse you against your wishes, what will you think?”

He was sitting up, breathing hard, and seemed to sag a
little at the question, but he smiled. “I’d think My Lady was an interfering busybody.”

It was such an unexpected change of register, so absurdly understated, and her own surprise so obvious to him, that they both began to laugh. Marina, just then gathering up her handbag and notebook, seemed puzzled.

Fiona looked at her watch, openly this time. She said, “I think you’ve made it pretty clear that you know your own mind, as much as any of us ever can.”

He said with proper solemnity, “Thank you. I’ll tell my parents tonight. But don’t go. My supper isn’t here yet. What about another poem?”

“Adam, I have to get back to court.” But she was keen all the same to turn the conversation away from his condition. She saw the bow lying on his bed, partly in shadow.

“Quickly, before I go, show me your violin.”

The case was on the floor by a locker, under the bed. She lifted it up and placed it on his lap.

“It’s only a school violin for beginners.” But he brought it out with extreme care and showed it to her and together they admired the contoured nut-brown wood edged with black and the delicate scrolls.

She laid her hand on the lacquered surface and he put his close to hers. She said, “They’re beautiful instruments. I always think there’s something so human about the shape.”

He was reaching for his beginners’ violin tutor from the
locker. She hadn’t intended for him to play, but she couldn’t stop him. His illness, his innocent eagerness made him impregnable.

“I’ve been learning for four weeks exactly and I can play ten tunes.” His boast too made it impossible to deflect him. He was turning the pages impatiently. Fiona looked over at Marina and shrugged.

“But this one is the hardest yet. Two sharps. D major.”

Fiona was looking at the music upside down. She said, “It might just be B minor.”

He didn’t hear her. He was already sitting up, with the violin tucked under his chin, and without pausing to tune the strings, he began to play. She knew it well, this sad and lovely melody, a traditional Irish air. She had accompanied Mark Berner in Benjamin Britten’s setting of the Yeats poem “Down by the Salley Gardens.” It was one of their encores. Adam played it scratchily, without vibrato, of course, but the pitch of the notes was true even though two or three were wrong. The melancholy tune and the manner in which it was played, so hopeful, so raw, expressed everything she was beginning to understand about the boy. She knew by heart the poet’s words of regret.
But I, being young and foolish
 … Hearing Adam play stirred her, even as it baffled her. To take up the violin or any instrument was an act of hope, it implied a future.

When he finished she and Marina applauded, and from his bed Adam made an awkward bow.

“Stupendous!”

“Fantastic!”

“And only four weeks!”

Fiona, in order to contain the emotion she felt, added a technical point. “Remember that in this key the C is sharp.”

“Oh yes. So many things to think of at once.”

Then she made a proposal that was far removed from anything she would have expected of herself, and which risked undermining her authority. The situation, and the room itself, sealed off from the world, in perpetual dusk, may have encouraged a mood of abandon, but above all, it was Adam’s performance, his look of straining dedication, the scratchy inexpert sounds he made, so expressive of guileless longing, that moved her profoundly and prompted her impulsive suggestion.

“So play it again, and this time I’ll sing along with you.”

Marina got to her feet, frowning, perhaps wondering whether she should intervene.

Adam said, “I didn’t know there were words.”

“Oh yes, two beautiful verses.”

With touching solemnity, he raised the violin to his chin and looked up at her. When he began to play she was pleased to hear herself find the higher notes easily. She had always been secretly proud of her voice, and never had much chance to use it outside the Gray’s Inn choir, back when she was still a member. This time the violinist remembered his C sharp. On the first verse they were tentative, almost apologetic, but on the second,
their eyes met and, forgetting all about Marina, who was now standing by the door, looking on amazed, Fiona sang louder and Adam’s clumsy bowing grew bolder, and they swelled into the mournful spirit of the backward-looking lament.

As they finished, the lad in the brown jacket was rolling his trolley into the room and the brushed-steel plate-covers made a cheerful tinkling sound. Marina had gone out to the nurses’ station.

Adam said, “ ‘On my leaning shoulder’ is good, isn’t it? Let’s do it again.”

Fiona shook her head as she took the violin from him and laid it in its case. “ ‘She bid me take life easy,’ ” she quoted to him.

“Stay just a tiny bit longer. Please.”

“Adam, I really do have to go now.”

“Then let me have your e-mail.”

“Mrs. Justice Maye, Royal Courts of Justice, the Strand. That’ll find me.”

She rested her hand briefly on his narrow cold wrist, then, not wanting to hear another protest or plea from him, she went
toward the door without looking back, and ignored the question he called weakly after her.

“Are you coming back?”

THE RETURN JOURNEY
to central London was quicker and during it the two women did not speak. While Marina made a long phone call to her husband and children, Fiona wrote notes toward her judgment. She entered the Courts of Justice by the main entrance and went immediately to her room, where Nigel Pauling was waiting. He confirmed that all the arrangements were in place for the Court of Appeal to sit tomorrow, if necessary at an hour’s notice. Also, tonight the hearing had been moved to a court large enough to accommodate all the press.

When she entered and the court rose it was just after nine fifteen. As the room settled she sensed impatience among the journalists. For the newspapers, this was not a convenient time. At best, if the judge was succinct, the story might make the late editions. Immediately in front of her, the various legal representatives and Marina Greene were arranged as before, within a wider space, but Mr. Henry was alone behind his counsel, without his wife.

As soon as she sat, Fiona began her routine introductory remarks.

“A hospital authority urgently requires the permission of
the court to treat against his wishes a teenage boy, A, with conventional procedures they deem medically appropriate, which in this case includes blood transfusions. They’re looking for this relief under a Specific Issue Order. The application, made forty-eight hours ago, was on an
ex parte
basis. As duty judge, I granted it, subject to their assurances. I have just returned from visiting A in hospital, accompanied by Mrs. Marina Greene for Cafcass. I sat with him for an hour. That he’s extremely ill is plain to see. However, his intellect is in no way impaired and he was able to make his wishes known to me with great clarity. The treating consultant has told this court that by tomorrow A’s situation will have become a matter of life and death, which is why I give judgment so late on a Tuesday evening.”

Fiona named and thanked the various counsel, their solicitors, Marina Greene and the hospital for helping her come to a decision in a difficult case that had to be speedily resolved.

“The parents oppose the application on the basis of their religious faith, which is calmly expressed and profoundly held. Their son also objects and has a good understanding of the religious principles and is possessed of considerable maturity and articulacy for his age.”

She then set out the medical history, the leukemia, the recognized treatment which generally had good outcomes. But two of the drugs conventionally administered caused anemia, which needed to be countered by blood transfusion. She summarized
the consultant’s evidence, noting in particular the declining hemoglobin count and the dire prognosis if it was not reversed. She could personally confirm that A’s breathlessness was now apparent.

The opposition to the application rested on three principal arguments. That A was three months short of his eighteenth birthday, was highly intelligent, understood the consequences of his decision and should be treated as being Gillick competent. In other words, as worthy of recognition for his decisions as any adult. That refusing medical treatment was a fundamental human right and a court should therefore be reluctant to intervene. And third, that A’s religious faith was genuine and should be respected.

Fiona addressed these in turn. She thanked counsel for A’s parents for bringing to her attention the relevant Section 8 of the Family Law Reform Act of 1969: the consent of a sixteen-year-old to treatment “shall be as effective as it would be if he were of full age.” She set out the conditions of Gillick competence, quoting Scarman along the way. She recognized a distinction between a competent child under sixteen consenting to treatment, possibly against the wishes of its parents, and a child under eighteen refusing life-saving treatment. From what she had gathered that evening, did she find A to have a complete grasp of the implications of having his and his parents’ wishes granted?

“He is without doubt an exceptional child. I might even
say, as one of the nurses did this evening, that he is a lovely boy, and I’m sure his parents would agree. He possesses exceptional insight for a seventeen-year-old. But I find that he has little concept of the ordeal that would face him, of the fear that would overwhelm him as his suffering and helplessness increased. In fact, he has a romantic notion of what it is to suffer. However …”

She let the word hang, and the silence in the room tightened as she glanced down at her notes.