Machines Like Me

But we did know that God failed to protect Gorringe from certain misfortunes of legal timing. With Miranda’s case not yet come to light, Gorringe stood before the law with one rape already on his account. When it came to sentencing, the judge assumed that he would have received a longer term for the assault on Miranda had it been known that it was his second offence. No allowance, then, for the time he had already spent inside. The judge was in her early fifties and represented a generational shift in attitudes to rape. She made an implicit reference to the vodka bottle of the first case when she said that she did not believe that an unaccompanied young woman walking home at dusk was ‘asking for trouble’. Miranda had made her statement and wasn’t in court. I was in the public gallery, sitting across from Mariam’s family. I could hardly bear to look their way, their radiating misery was so intense. When the judge handed down Gorringe’s eight-year sentence, I forced myself to look across at Mariam’s mother. She was openly crying, whether from relief or sorrow, I would never know.

Miranda’s case came round all too soon. Her barrister, Lilian Moore, competent, intelligent, charming, was a young woman from Dún Laoghaire. We met her in her chambers in Gray’s Inn. I sat in a corner while she talked Miranda out of a ‘not guilty’ plea, her first impulse. It wasn’t difficult. The prosecution was bound to make much of her recorded description of her revenge on Gorringe. His statement, made from prison, dovetailed with hers. They were remembering the same evening. Miranda’s ‘not guilty’ plea would bring a longer sentence in the likely event of a successful prosecution. And, of course, she dreaded a trial. A ‘guilty’ plea was entered, though she tormented herself that she was somehow letting Mariam down.

The April evening before she was due in court for sentencing was one of the strangest and saddest I’ve ever spent. Lilian had told Miranda from the beginning that a custodial sentence was likely. She had packed a small suitcase and it stood by the door to our bedroom, a constant reminder. I brought out my only bottle of decent wine. The word ‘last’ kept occurring to me, though I couldn’t mention it. Together, we cooked a meal, perhaps a last meal. When we raised a glass, it was not to her last evening of freedom, as I silently thought, but to Mark. She had been to see him that afternoon and told him she might have to be away for work for a while, and that I would be coming to see him and take him out for treats. He must have sensed there was some deeper meaning, some sorrow in this ‘work’. When she came to leave, he clung to her, yelling. One of the helpers had to prise his fingers from her skirt.

During the meal, we tried to hold off an invading silence. We talked about the fiercely supportive women’s groups who would be outside the Old Bailey the next morning. We told each other how marvellous Lilian was. I reminded her of the judge’s reputation for mildness. But at every turn, the silence came in like a tide and to speak again was an effort. When I said that it was as if she might be going into hospital tomorrow, the remark was not helpful. When I said I thought it was likely she would be eating with me at this table tomorrow night, that fell flat too. Neither of us believed it. Earlier in the day, in a better frame of mind, somewhat defiant, we had thought we’d make love after dinner. Another last. Now, in our sorrow, sex seemed like some long-abandoned pleasure, like playground skipping or dancing the twist. Her suitcase stood guard, barring entrance to the bedroom.

Next day in court, Lilian made a brilliant speech in mitigation, conjuring for the judge the closeness of the two young women, the brutality of the assault, the vow of silence that Mariam had imposed on the accused, the traumatising shock of her dearest friend’s suicide and Miranda’s sincere desire for justice. Lilian referred to Miranda’s clean record, her recent marriage, her studies and, above all, her intended adoption of an underprivileged child.

It was a statement in itself, a bleak one, that Mariam’s family were not in the public gallery. His Honour’s judgement was long, and I expected the worst. He emphasised Miranda’s careful planning, the cunning execution, the deliberate and sustained deception of the court. He said that he accepted much of what Lilian had said, and that he was being lenient when he sentenced Miranda to serve one year. Standing upright in the dock, in the business suit she had bought for the occasion, Miranda appeared to freeze. I wanted her to look my way so that I could send her a sign of loving encouragement. But she was already locked up in her thoughts. She told me later that at that moment she was confronting the implications of having a criminal record. She was thinking of Mark.