Jessica (63 page)

Judge Blackall brings down his gavel. ‘The counsel for the defence will please sit down. You may crossexamine this witness at a later time if you wish.'

‘Your Honour, in the interests of the truth, I would be happy for Mr Phillips to answer my learned. colleague's question,' Runche says.

‘Very well, you may answer, Mr Phillips,' the judge says wearily.

‘Well, sir, they didn't ask me. I were dismissed three weeks later from the Girls' Home by the matron, she said it were on instruction from the Board in Sydney. There wasn't no police come to see me at the bakery.' ‘Thank you, Mr Phillips. Now let us continue,' Runche says. ‘When you. were trying to revive this young girl would you not have been in a good position to study her face?'

‘I'll never forget it as long as I live,' Phillips replies sombrely.

‘Ah, then maybe you can help us, Mr Phillips. I have here a photograph of a group of schoolchildren. Perhaps you can identify the young girl in it.' Moishe hands the photograph to Runche who, in turn, hands it to Joshua Phillips.

Phillips studies the photograph. ‘I can't rightly say, sir,' he says, giving an involuntary tug to his earlobe. ‘Mr Phillips, can you read?'

‘Yes, sir, I can manage well enough with the newspaper and all.'

Runche turns to Moishe. ‘Do you have half a crown, Mr Goldberg?'

Moishe digs into the pocket of his trousers and produces a half-crown piece. Richard Runche KC hands it to Joshua Phillips. ‘Mr Phillips, can you read the inscription around the rim on this coin?'

Joshua Phillips squints, holding the coin close. ‘Me eyes, they ain't what they used to be — it was the war, sir.'

Moishe, who as usual has thought of everything, hands Richard Runche a large magnifying glass. The barrister passes it to Joshua Phillips. ‘Try it now.'

Joshua Phillips holds the magnifying glass to the silver coin. ‘George V Rex. 1916 Australia,' he announces. ‘Good, now look at the photograph through the magnifying glass, Mr Phillips.'

‘The dark girl, she's the one! She had this one tooth missing and that mark on her face, the side of her nose, like a burn. That's her, orright.' ‘Are you certain, Mr Phillips?'

‘Yeah, I reckon, that's the closest I ever got to a blackfella.' He takes another look through the magnifying glass. ‘Yeah, that's her, no risk.'

‘Thank you, Mr Phillips, you may step down, Richard Runche says, ‘unless my learned colleague wishes to cross-examine the witness?'

The judge turns to Francis Codlington. ‘Do you wish to cross-examine the witness?' he asks. ‘No, Your Honour, not at this time.'

‘Very well, the senior counsel for the plaintiff will proceed,' Blackall says. Richard Runche has been expecting the judge to pull him up and ask where his questions are leading. But now he senses that Blackall has a keen interest in the evidence unfolding and is giving him a little rope, although whether it's to hang himself or to prove his point, Runche is not yet sure.

‘Your Honour, I wish to call Mrs Margaret Roberts to the stand.'

Francis Codlington comes to his feet. ‘Your Honour, I must insist that my learned colleague comes to the point. What have the two witnesses he has summoned to the stand — and the one he is about to put under oath — got to do with Mrs Simpson's capacity as a mother, and my client's rights to remove her children from her care?'

The judge looks down Micawber-like at the big barrister. ‘I suspect the counsel for the defence is about to find out.' He turns to Richard Runche. ‘The counsel for the plaintiff will make clear to the court what he hopes to prove in relation to the question just asked by counsel for the defence. I must say, I am myself somewhat mystified — I appear to be trying an entirely different case, involving a young girl named Millie Carter.'

‘Your Honour, I crave your indulgence. What I hope to prove is that the Aborigines' Protection Board is not responsible and cannot be trusted to protect my client's children and that they are therefore far better off under the protection and care of their mother. My next witness will, I hope, further amplify the fact that the Board cannot be trusted with the young lives under its jurisdiction and that it is prepared to act in a duplicitous and conspiratorial way to conceal its incompetence.'

Francis Codlington has become almost apoplectic in his appearance and he is barely able to find the voice to say, ‘Your Honour, we wish to ask for an adjournment so that we may study the evidence presented by the counsel for the plaintiff.'

‘Adjournment? What sort of an adjournment? I am prepared to give you one hour to be added to your luncheon recess.'

‘Thank you, Your Honour. We have come to this court to argue a point of law and now we are confronted with a line of inquiry which we believe to be inappropriate. Our fervent request is for the case to be reconvened at a later date.'

‘Inappropriate or inconvenient? This is the first case of this nature to come to the courts. I hope it won't be the last. No, I am not prepared to postpone this hearing. As I understand it, there have been several months of delay caused by your deliberate efforts to prevent it coming before the bench. I see nothing in this case which requires further preparation on your part. You will have ample opportunity to cross-examine the witnesses. ‘

‘Your Honour, I should like to consult with my instructing lawyer.'

‘Very well, I shall adjourn this court for lunch. We shall reconvene at two o'clock.'

‘What does it all mean?' Jessica asks Moishe and Runche. She is holding onto Mary's hand and they are seated on a park bench munching corned beef sandwiches and drinking lemonade. Richard Runche looks longingly at the pub across the street. He hasn't had a drink for almost two years now, yet what he refers to as the ‘clarion call of claret' still sounds cleanly and clearly in his ears.

Moishe grins, nodding towards Runche. ‘The old man has caught them flat-footed. They had thought to argue the case on a point of law, to stonewall it.' ‘Stonewall?' Mary asks.

‘Whatever we say, whatever we prove, they would point to the law of the land. Keep to the one point, that the law allows them to remove mixed-blood children from their families for their own good without necessarily having to prove anything, that's stonewalling,' Moishe says.

‘And now?' Jessica asks.

‘Well, we're going on an issue of incompetence — an inability, if you like, to carry out the law. If the law allows that it may take mixed-blood children from their parents the assumption must be that it is for the ultimate good of the children. That the children are better off than they might be if left with their own parents.

We have set out to prove that this is not the case, and the suspected murder of Millie Carter and the implication that the police inquiry was plainly aborted has, well .. .' Moishe tries to think of a suitable word, ‘set the cat among the pigeons.'

‘But can we do that? I mean, with Millie Carter? You heard what Mr Codlington said — what's it got to do with Mary's kids?'

Runche grins. ‘Get away with it? I don't know, my dear. It depends very much on the judge. It is clear that there is a case for a miscarriage of justice with regard to Millie Carter, but whether it can be married to our case remains to be seen. We are still in a most tenuous situation. Fraught, most fraught.'

The court is reconvened and the judge turns to Richard Runche KC. ‘The counsel for Mrs Mary Simpson will explain more clearly why he believes the plaintiff's children are placed in a situation which is likely to endanger their lives. He must do so to my satisfaction or I shall discontinue this line of questioning, which I should point out remains only just within the parameters of this case.'

Knowing himself to be on a warning, Runche decides to take a slightly different tack and not to pursue the Millie Carter murder any further by calling Mrs Roberts to the witness stand. He begins slowly.

‘Your Honour, how strong yet fragile is the human condition. We can take starvation and hardship and all manner of physical pain and we may still recover, but if it is done to our heads and our hearts, that cannot be repaired. If we are loved we can endure. If we are hated we will soon perish in spirit. It is when we are young that the love will nourish and the hate will most effectively destroy.

‘Man's greatest wickedness is the abuse and malevolent manipulation of the young, innocent mind. The child, in particular the orphan or institutionalised child, has no means at its disposal to resist, nor does it possess sufficient maturity to question the authority or to discover the truth for itself. Children are in no position to argue, they have no one of equal status to contradict the authority of the voices railed against them, and they are subject to arbitrary punishment if they show the slightest resistance to the lies and half-truths inculcated in their tender young minds. These children are the true victims of our white supremacist society. Millie Carter is believed to have shouted out, “Me mother's a blackfella and she loves me!” And for this, for this cry in the wilderness, this child crying out in pain, she was lashed to a bell-post and flogged and left all night to be found dead in the morning. For God's sake!

‘Do we honestly believe that children can recover from such an experience? That every child in that Girls' Home will not believe that the same could happen to them? That they won't be filled with terror so that their minds are forever numbed? Your Honour, my client, Mrs Simpson, loves her children and wishes them to grow up as decent and caring human beings. The Aborigines' Protection Board has placed them in a position of terror and anxiety where they believe their very lives are threatened.

‘No democratic government, no matter how callous, can stand by and allow this to happen, to condone the control of children through fear, no matter how rigorously the statutes which control the right to steal children from their mothers are written into the law of the land.

‘As long as there are good men and women on this earth, as long as freedom prevails in our land, we will be judged on how we regard our children. How we treat those who cannot defend themselves. A child is not a half-caste, or a quadroon or an octoroon, or white or black, it is a small heart that can be made to trust and love or one that can be made to beat in terror and fear. Colour or breed or race doesn't change this.
We
do. We control this love or we create the fear.

‘i ask this court to release my client's children from this bondage of terror. Your Honour, I don't believe it is necessary to bring yet another witness to the stand to prove what I believe has already been proved. The authority entrusted by the government to undertake the task of caring for half-caste children is patently unable to adequately undertake for their welfare.' Runche pauses and looks about him. ‘I rest my case, Your Honour.'

The judge turns to Francis Codlington. ‘I now ask the counsel for the defence to make its reply.'

Codlington paces the court grim-faced, then he looks up. ‘Your Honour, what a shame that my learned colleague did not make his concluding speech in front of a jury. Why, I confess myself almost in tears, such mawkish sentimentality is wasted on so few of us. I do not propose to bring any witnesses into this court. I do not even propose to cross-question those witnesses my learned colleague has produced in an attempt to confuse the matter in hand with quite another. However, the law of this land remains inviolable, aloof from the cheapening of emotions. It is the will of the majority of the people and it is the wise counsel of the elders of our land — those men who have been chosen by us to carry out our wishes.

I shall put my trust in it and only it.'

Codlington pauses. ‘I am appalled by my learned colleague's imputation that it is the wish of our people to persecute the children of this glorious land, whether they be white, black or brindle. It is precisely because we care about our children that we do not wish them to be harmed by an environment of drunkenness, malnutrition, sexual and physical abuse. The law will not tolerate this happening to our children regardless of their colour.

‘Now, it is common knowledge that for the most part the half-caste children of this land live in squalor, with disease and malnutrition their constant companions. Their parents do not have the sensibilities the white race enjoy and are quite devoid of responsibility. If we allow their children to come under their influence we will end with a race of wild people who put us all in danger. The half-breed has a dozen children to the single child of the full-blood and the handful of children in a white family. They simply breed like flies without regard for how they will feed the fruit of their pernicious loins. If we allow them to remain on the outskirts of society, on the fringes of our towns and cities, we will soon be overrun by this tide of human vermin. We must find a solution and this we have done.

‘The solution is a fair and honest one — it is even a generous one. We will take their children, these misbegotten children, and assimilate them into the white society. In this way we will give them every opportunity to succeed in life and we will have the satisfaction of knowing that they have been well fed, housed and educated at our expense in the hope that they will adopt Christian ways and live decent and honest lives. That they will marry white men and women and, in the long run, breed a race of people as white as any on God's glorious earth.