The Quantity Theory of Insanity (31 page)

‘That’s it then – you want me to turn up in court?’

‘And supply us, if possible, with a written statement.’

‘Presumably you want that on a letterhead.’

‘It may well be a decisive factor.’

‘Can you tell me exactly what happened?’

‘I’m afraid not, it would be up to Mr Stonehouse to tell you the details. Were we to say anything, it would be in direct breach of client confidentiality.’

Jim called later that morning. He was wholly unrepentant.

‘Just a little bust-up coming off the Marylebone Flyover. It’s absurd really that the thing’s got as far as Crown Court.’

‘Your brief says that he wants you remanded for psychiatric observation.’

‘Yes, well, err … it does seem the best course of action. Personally, I don’t mind – I mean I could use a few weeks’ rest. You know, making ashtrays and rapping with some jejeune shrinks.’

‘What happened, Jim?’

‘Well, I was coming in to work. I’d stayed the night with Carlos in Acton and it was only about half-seven. I was on the Westway and everything told me that I’d be clear to go the full length and come off at Marylebone rather than taking the Paddington exit. But when I got to the top of the Marylebone Flyover the traffic was backed up solid, at half-seven in the morning! I don’t know, I guess I just felt humiliated. I sat in the stack waiting to get off for about five minutes. It was infuriating, the sense of being contained to no purpose, and it was all the fault of an intellectual decision. If I’d tranced the way Carlos taught me, I’d have been all right.’

‘What happened, Jim?’

‘Well, I was coming off the end of the flyover at last, when this character tried to muscle in from the left, from the slip road that leads to the Edgware Road. He was a short, fat creep driving one of those midget Datsun vans. I remember it distinctly, it had a dirty cream paint job and a badly stencilled sign saying, “Exodus Fruiterers, Crouch End & Stanmore”, then a phone number. This character was all pushy and hunched over the little wheel. A bundle of senseless dingle-dangles swinging from his rear-view mirror, rinky-dink bazouki music blaring out of the window, eugh!

‘I’d been in that jam for five full minutes! So I just sort of
herded this little van man with my front bumper, just sort of herded him … across on to the side of the road. I didn’t damage his stupid van at all, just a scrape of paint, really, but he went absolutely mad, came out of it like a sweaty little grub. “Why you do that! Why you do that!” Over and over and poking me as well. I told him, “Because I felt like it.” And this enraged him more. He was a nothing, he was a Waiter, he meant nothing. So eventually I hit him, just to shut him up.’

‘Just to shut him up … ?’

‘Like I say, he was a Waiter, he was a nothing.’

‘So explain why you’re pleading insanity?’

‘Well, when the police took my statement I told them the truth and they started grinning at each other and making silly faces – so it sort of suggested itself, logically, as it were. Let me tell you, this could be a lot more than a stupid assault case. This could be the end of waiting for a lot of people.’

There was a lot more of the same before I managed to get shot of him. I wasn’t convinced. I was becoming more and more inclined to think that he was bad rather than mad. The bizarre trip I’d been on with Jim and the fluting failed albino stayed in my mind as something sinister. I didn’t like Carlos and I didn’t like his influence on Jim. Jim was becoming twisted and distorted; he was a personality viewed in a ‘fun house’ mirror. His mechanical arms were getting longer, his epicene hips wider and fuller.

I resolved to write Jim his reference, but not to turn up at Snaresbrook, unless he showed a willingness to break with Carlos and the whole perverse philosophy of waiting that he had built up. I wanted Jim to admit that he needed help – and use it.

Over the next couple of weeks I called Jim a number of times, both at home and at his office. He was always out. Carol was very distant, but not unsympathetic. I think she felt as I did, but with the added twist of having shared a bed with the man for five years. I modified my position and told her that I would write the statement, but I still wouldn’t turn up in court unless Jim showed some willingness. I told her to give Jim the message. He never called back. I left messages for him at his work; he must have ignored them. Eventually, I washed my hands of the whole thing.

Mr Clifton wrote and thanked me for my statement – which stated quite clearly the way I felt about Jim Stonehouse – and told me the date he was due to appear and the court number. I did my best to forget this information. But on the morning itself I sat in my office completely distracted. I wandered around the room picking up the Post-it notes that were stuck to every available surface and mashing them up into thick wadges of yellow paper and tackiness. I knew I was right not to go to court, I knew it was the strong – and ultimately caring – thing to do. At 9.30 Jim called up.

‘Just called to say goodbye, I don’t expect I’ll be seeing you for a while.’

I was choked with salty guilt. ‘Jim, I’m sorry about this…’ I was about to relent.

‘No, don’t be sorry. Clifton’s got his own little ideas, but, really, I’d positively like to go down. Carlos was inside for a couple of years and he says it was the formative experience that really made him fully understand the nature of the millennium. It’s waiting in a class of its own!’ There was an exultant, manic edge to his voice. He was laughing when we said our goodbyes and hung up.

As soon as I’d put the phone down it rang again. This time it was Clifton.

‘I really would like to make one last appeal to you. Ignore what my client says; he is undoubtedly an unstable man. I have personal reasons for believing that he has fallen under the influence of people who are …’ his voice trailed off ‘… evil. I urge you to come to Snaresbrook for 10.30. Mr Stonehouse needs help. He is not a man who will adjust well to prison.’

When Clifton had rung off, I sat at the desk spasmodically ripping up my wadded Post-it notes. After a while I looked at my watch, it was 9.50. I ran out of the office and down into the street. I was on the Gray’s Inn Road before I managed to find a cab.

‘I need to be at Snaresbrook Court by 10.30 – do you think we’ll make it?’

‘Hard to say, mate.’ It was a flat, laconic statement. The cabby’s hand circled lazily and brought the cab neatly into the traffic stream. ‘We could do it, it really depends on getting through past Clapton.’

‘Why not head north and cut across the Marsh to Leyton.’

‘Nah, nah, not worth it.’

‘But …’

‘Trust me. Anyway, what’s the hurry?’

‘It’s a friend, he needs me as a character witness, he could go down.’

‘Oh, I see.’

We sat in silence. The cab juddered its way through the morning traffic, purring noisily like a vast, bronchitic panther. I fidgeted with my lip, my cheeks. Smoked and flicked, squinted out the window at the facades of
buildings growing and retreating. The cabby took my advice after all. We turned off Green Lanes and cut across Stoke Newington to Tottenham High Road. The rows of semis and villas gave way to unfinished areas of warehousing and light industrial premises as we dog-legged round on to the Lea Bridge Road. It was 10.25. I sat forward in my seat, willing the traffic ahead to part for us.

‘What’d he do then, this friend of yours?’

‘He got fed up with waiting.’

‘Ha! If that was a crime we’d all be bloody banged up, wouldn’t we?’

‘Yeah, well, I suppose so. He reacted rather drastically though. He shunted some bloke’s van and then took a poke at him, then when the Bill came to get him he took a poke at them as well.’

‘I bet he did. Listen, that’s nothing. I was at this wedding on Saturday down the Roman Road, and one of the guests took a knife to the bride’s father ’cause he couldn’t stand waiting for a drink.’

‘Really … ?’

‘Straight up. Gave him it in the neck. Poor man’s still in a coma. The bloke then ran out into the road. But some of the other guests caught up with him. They held him down and then one of them ran him over in his car. Now he’s in a coma too.’

‘Too?’

‘Like the bride’s father.’

‘Nice friends you have.’

‘Well, they weren’t anything really to do with me. The groom was a mate of my son’s. I just went along for the hell of it.’

‘That sounds about right.’

We relapsed into silence again. The cabby was doing his best. Every time we got mired in the traffic he got his
A–Z
out and started looking for a shortcut. It wasn’t his fault that this part of north-east London was one tortuous, twisting high street after another. There were hardly any alternatives.

It was 10.30. We were stuck in a jam on Leyton High Road. I’d more or less given up. There was sixteen quid plus up in red on the meter. An artic was stranded across the intersection. A roar from behind us and a file of motorcycles came dodging through the stalled traffic, very fast. A blur of dayglo faring, leather shoulders, dirty visors, vinyl tabards and in front, already fast disappearing, the flapping flares of some familiar corduroys.

There was a jolt in the queue. The lights changed and two minutes later we were pulling up outside the court. I leapt out and shoved some bills at the cabby. Jim was being sentenced in Court 19, in the modern annexe. I ran through the car-park and into the building. I slowed to a walk going up the stairs, labouring to capture my breath. In the upper hall a tall black man with a wispy beard approached me. It was 10.40.

‘You must be … ?’

‘Yes, yes …’

‘I’m Clifton.’ He extended his hand. It was Jim’s brief. Carol was in a corner with a knot of people standing around a robed barrister.

‘But the case … ?’

‘We’ve had to ask for a slight postponement. Mr Stonehouse isn’t here yet.’

‘Isn’t here! Then where the bloody hell is he? The judge is going to take a pretty dim view of this.’

‘I should imagine he will.’

I went over to the corner where Carol was talking to the barrister – a rather hepatitic-looking woman.

‘Oh, hello,’ said Carol and introduced us.

‘Didn’t Jim stay at home last night?’

‘No, I was just saying. He’s more or less moved in with Carlos now. He’ll have been coming from Acton. It’s a long haul across town.’

‘I hope he’s at least managed to put a suit on for the occasion.’

At that moment, the devil we spoke of appeared at the end of the room and walked down it, erect, head swivelling mechanically from side to side. He beamed contempt at the motley bunch of defendants, lawyers, plaintiffs, witnesses and police who waited their turns.

‘Sorry I’m late. Got stuck in the lift. I had to wait for an hour before they let me out.’

Just at that moment the swing-doors from the courtroom swung open and a small throng appeared. The hepatitic barrister pressed through and I saw her lean over and talk to the clerk. I turned to Jim. ‘It looks like we’re on.’ We passed through and into the courtroom.

Jim took his place in a rather long dock to the right of the courtroom. In fact the dock stretched the whole width of the room; there was enough space in it to contain terrorist and stock market multiple defendants. Carol and I took our place at the back of the four rows of tip-up seats immediately to the right of the door we came in by. Together, the seats and the dock faced off two sides of the court. Opposite the dock was the bench; and in the main area, the pit of the court, were rows of desks for the lawyers. The whole place was well lit by flat, flickerless,
strip lighting. Every surface – the front of the dock, the lawyers’ desks, the witness box, the bench – was fronted with a light varnished wood. It reminded me of the Old Lecture Theatre at Houghton Street, except that there, all was dark with obscurity. Here, everything was light: truth, the panelling seemed to say, albeit of a particular, restricted, keyline-boxed variety, is about to be pursued.

The presiding judge gave a diffident tap with his little mallet and the court was in session. The clerk of the court rose and read the charges:

‘… that you on the 21st of August did wilfully cause damage to the vehicle belonging to Mr Takis Christos of 24 Rosemount Avenue, Crouch End; that you did thereafter assault Mr Christos; that you did fail to report the accident or to stop after the accident; that you did assault a police officer who came to interview you concerning the accident on the 22nd of August at your place of work. How say you to these charges, guilty or not guilty?’

‘Guilty.’ Jim sounded like a large plastic doll, the word ‘guilty’ wheezed out of him in a breathy, strangulated voice about an octave higher than I’d expected. It was clear that all his bravado had deserted him, he was frightened. A sharp toothpick of compassion entered my heart. My friend was on trial. It was painfully ridiculous.

‘Mr Stonehouse.’ This was the judge, a dormouse figure perched up on his high chair. He was little and pink; a quivering snout quested out from under his wig, his pink eyes blinked as if they had been recently washed in tea. ‘Can you tell the court why you were late arriving here this morning?’ The judge had an incongruously weighty and judicial voice. Imposing and threatening in equal measure, he must have practised a lot when he was by himself.

‘I got stuck in the traffic, your Honour.’

‘I see. Where were you coming from?’

‘Acton, your Honour.’

‘And at what time did you set out?’

‘8.30, your Honour.’

‘I see. It took you nearly three hours?’

‘There were extremely bad road-works in Hackney, your Honour.’

‘I see, I see.’

The prosecution counsel came to Jim’s assistance.

‘There were indeed bad tail-backs through Hackney, your Honour, I was caught in them myself.’

‘All right, all right. This is a court of law not an AA incident room, let’s get on with it.’

The prosecution set out its case. Counsel, the policemen and even Mr Christos kept things brief and to the point. I sensed from the manner in which they gave their evidence that they all believed that Jim was cracked and didn’t really want to see him go down. There was little vindictiveness in the way they spoke about him, it was rather that they were all playing their part as subsidiary cogs in a well-oiled machine. At each juncture the QC asked the judge if he wanted to ask further questions – the only time he did ask one, it was addressed to Mr Christos.