Kid Gloves (36 page)

Authors: Adam Mars-Jones

What was the charge? It was rape. Bamie was being
charged with the rape of his wife's cousin. My knowledge of legal procedure was and is
rudimentary, but it seemed unlikely that I could give evidence in any useful way. The only way I
could help Bamie's case was by proving that he was with me at the time of the alleged assault,
and that wasn't on the cards.

I asked the solicitor if anything I said in court
could possibly make a difference. He said it could do no harm.

Bamie's defence was that he had been having an
affair with his wife's cousin at an earlier stage, when she had been living under their roof,
and that there had been no coercion either then or when they resumed their relations.

There must have been a time when Bamie explained
to his wife about the falseness of the accusation made against him and how it was to be
combated. I was glad not to have been present at the conversation when he had given her the good
news.

She had moved out, taking their son with her, and
was now living in a hostel. Further misfortune had rained down on this family fragment in limbo.
The little boy, exploring in an unfamiliar kitchen, had pulled a pan of boiling water onto
himself and been scalded.

I gave an undertaking in
principle that I would testify on Bamie's behalf, though I admit I was hoping not to be called
on. I could certainly be a character witness, but how was that relevant? Rape is not something
on the level of a character flaw.

It was months before the case came to trial, and
then it was announced for a day when I was away on holiday â not on the far side of the earth,
it's true (Devon), but far enough away to make my heart sink still further. It had to be done
though, in conscience, and I took a train from Totnes with my praise for Bamie thoroughly
rehearsed, ready to emerge in solid sentences. I still had the feeling that what I had to say
was meaningless in this context, and if Bamie was relying on my testimony then things did not
look good for him. A young female relative by marriage and an elderly stranger he looked after
for pay were obviously in different categories. Ideally he would have mild and tender dealings
with both, but it was faintly mad to look to one of these styles of behaviour for evidence about
the other.

I didn't stay long after doing my turn in court,
and returned to pick up the threads of my holiday. Later I heard that Bamie had indeed been
acquitted, I imagine on firmer grounds than someone being appreciative of his skills as a
carer.

Years later, when I had moved to South-East
London and was waiting for a bus on Denmark Hill, I was startled by a car on the other side of
the road doing a drastic U-turn, so as to end up in the bus lane next to me. A man leaped out of
the driver's seat and came towards me. I have to admit that I recoiled until I saw it was Bamie,
transmitting intense goodwill on a wavelength bang next door to the one usually reserved for
aggression.

He told me that life was much better for him than
it had been the last time we had met, though he admitted that it had
been
touch and go for a while. His religion had been sorely tested, and he had come close to losing
his faith. He grasped my hands and said he would never forget the help I gave when he needed it.

There were so many reasons for cutting the
conversation short. A 468 bus was heading our way â my bus â and even if I didn't want to board
it Bamie's car was blocking the bus lane. He needed to jump back in and do another U-turn to
carry on towards Camberwell. I didn't even have time to ask whether he and his wife were back
together. In fact I wasn't sure I wanted to know, and I certainly didn't want to hear him
talking about his recent history in terms of a test of faith, some sort of religious trial.

This was a reading of painful family events that
seemed guaranteed to yield no insight, besides being unappealing to believers and unbelievers
alike. The Book of Job would have exercised a lot less fascination down the millennia if its
starting-point had been Job having sex with his wife's cousin.

Before I moved to South London I was unaware of
religious diversity, in terms of the day to day. The beliefs on offer seemed to be variations on
white-bread, meat-and-potatoes faith. Only Edith Wellwood had an unorthodox background, having
been brought up in the Catholic Apostolic Church, a millenarian denomination inspired by Edward
Irving. He's commemorated with a plaque on Amwell Street. The church was somehow both high and
low, with a hierarchical ministry (angels, priests and deacons) but also talking in tongues, or
âspeaking in the unknown tongue' as it was called in the church. As a girl Edith had been told
to pray for the Lord to return in her lifetime, which she did, though adding under her breath,
âBut not before I get my Matric.' The church died out like a self-limiting virus. Established in
the first place to await the imminent end of the world, its constitution wasn't built for
endurance. When the last Apostle died, in 1901, there was no mechanism for
creating clergy, and when the last minister died there was no more church.

Living in Herne Hill I found there was an
explosion of spiritual cuisine more or less on my doorstep, with many local varieties and no
doubt the occasional attempt at fusion. I go most days to catch a bus or a train at Loughborough
Junction, where there are such exotic spiritual blooms, though they are housed by and large in
battered commercial premises, as the Power of Faith Continual Miracle Church, the Celestial
Church of Christ (Clapham Parish) and the Light of God Evangelical Ministry (A Palace of
Breakthroughs). There's a Vessels of Treasure Sisterhood that holds regular meetings. The Light
of God Evangelical Ministry offers a monthly Night to Repossess Your Possessions, which I must
admit intrigues me. Repossession has an ominous overtone, but I'm sure it's not meant to. How
does the magic work? Do you bring along the possessions in question, or is a list enough?

The Miracle Times
slips through my
letter-box in multiple copies, with a list of preparations available that includes Court
Anointing Oil (âtip the scales of justice in your favour'). I never thought lawyers would need
to fear competition from aromatherapists, but that day is here. The front page is given over to
testimony about the virtues of Bishop Climate Irungu's Fire Service. A woman's life was being
made hell by her neighbours (âIt was like this family's mission was to destroy my life, just
because I'm alive and breathing'). She was building an unauthorized extension (âI like to pride
myself in my home and personal belongings') when a lady came from the council to inspect the
works, tipped off by neighbours offended by the noise. This lady recommended more ambitious
construction, saying âWhy didn't you build more? You could have used more space!', so she went
on building and the neighbours went on complaining.

Finally she put the family's
name on a list and put it in the fire at a Kingdom Church service (âIf we put someone's name who
is innocent then God will spare them, but if they are guilty God will revenge for us'). It
wasn't long before God got to work â âpeople were saying, “Did you hear what happened to
Geoffrey? His burial is next week!”' Yet still her troubles weren't over. Another neighbour âwas
always scrutinizing my property, making my life a living hell'. Another list, another fire
service, and âthe neighbour's wife is bedridden so that they need carers and expensive hospital
trips. I've finally been left alone. Now there is peace in my life!' Loving your neighbour isn't
the whole story down our way. For the benefit of those unable to attend Fire Services, Bishop
Climate's âprayer warriors' are waiting by the phones. Do they have the authority to accept
donations, the means to process them? I feel sure that they do.

Of course I don't know if Bamie's God was of that
sort or of another stripe. But whatever his denomination and whatever his attitudes, Bamie had a
right to have the evidence I gave on his behalf, however soggy it was forensically. The
tenderness of his duty towards Dad had been extraordinary.

While the general pattern was to treat Dad as if
he was less
compos mentis
than he was (or might be), Bamie behaved as if Dad had full
possession of himself, and full knowledge of his own preferences. What this meant in practice
was asking Dad from time to time if he wanted to move from his chair in the bedroom to his chair
in the sitting-room, or the other way round. I had more or less stopped making these suggestions
myself, since Dad tended to say Yes to anything that was put to him, whether out of politeness
or a spirit of adventure. Once he had been helped to move between rooms, I was careful to leave
a lapse of time before suggesting that he move back, for fear of making the whole little
expedition seem pointless, and the whole ritual of consultation futile from the first.

Bamie never acquired this
little bit of strategy, and I have to say that I approved on general principles, however much
work he was making for himself. When I returned to the flat late in the evening, he would say
that he had enjoyed talking with Dad. Talking with, or talking to? He seemed confident that
there had been communication.

Several times in a shift Bamie would ask Dad if
he wanted to go to bed, and if the answer was Yes would change him from sweatpants and jogging
top into his pyjamas, even if he found Dad horizontal but open-eyed a few minutes later, ready
to give the idea of getting up again his obliging endorsement.

When Dad wet himself, I changed his pyjama
bottoms. Well of course I did! But Bamie would change his pyjama top too. In some strange way,
he had the higher notion of Dad's dignity and what it demanded. I didn't feel that Dad in
mismatched pyjamas amounted to some sort of violation of the order of things. It wasn't
something Dad was bothered by, and I didn't have another yardstick. That was good enough for me.
Bamie's concern was professional, but it was more than professional. This, though paid (and
indeed part-time), was devotion, uncomplicated by the turbulence of family feeling.

I'm not going for a big finish here, more of a
syncopated-coda effect.

Some acknowledgement was necessary after Dad
died, and inviting Bamie to the interment of ashes in Llansannan, though well-intentioned and
certainly the right gesture to make, was probably from his point of view as much a test of
endurance as the accolade and act of recognition it was meant to be.

The undertaking to testify in his favour was a
better salute to excellence. No-one would choose to be accused of a criminal offence for the
pleasure of hearing himself celebrated, but there was a latent appropriateness about my turning
up at
an address that could stand in for Dad's workplace, the environment
of his daily life for so many years, and giving praise to Bamie for high standards in his own
profession. High standards, and even something beyond high standards.

Come to that, I was testifying almost in the
religious sense of the word, not really contributing to the substance of the case but giving
vent to low-key middle-class whoops of acclamation and thanksgiving. Bless you, Bamie! Though
whether that sort of thing went on at his home church I don't even know. Still, one way or
another, it was probably an unusual thing to take place at Snaresbrook Crown Court, and even if
it wasn't unusual it was a proper settling of accounts between two rather different
personalities, very far from brothers, who called the same man Dad.