Love on the NHS (45 page)

"But I think it'll look good on you."

His mother was right. He bought the silver necklace, one that on the label was said to protect and guard its wearer. From that day on, whenever he was somewhere he could not bear he would put it on and the weight and firm, smooth feeling of it would stop him walking too fast or becoming too caught up in his emotions. He still felt alone in the world and unappreciated. No matter how far he had come, he still had no friends. No one knew him. His only motivation was all that happened to him and it was now beginning to seem so far away. Now he had written about it so much it did not traumatise him quite like it used to. All he could feel a lot of the time was a feeling of being lost. He only felt the march of time and the dread he did not know what he was doing; and so he came near to giving up writing his screenplay but with his parents' support and carrying on trudging steadily through his state of depression he was getting closer all the time.

LXIX

At last he had finished it. He felt more proud than he ever had; he had produced a text of more words than most students used in the dissertation they wrote for the end of their course. He must have redeemed himself at least a little bit now in the eyes of people who thought he was just a quitter, someone who had given up. He sent out his completed screenplay to a dozen film companies in England and eagerly awaited their responses. For weeks he dreaded getting through another day of anticipation, each more familiar than the last. Then on a Saturday four weeks after he first sent the letters, he received one in return. It was from a major studio in Hertfordshire that wanted to commission his film. A business meeting was arranged and soon Luke had signed the rights for a director to produce a movie in which he would be credited as the writer.

Two years passed before the film came out. It was late in the springtime and the studio had hyped it up through interviews with the media and advertising on the internet. Luke's name was not well known yet but he was getting more visits to his website and a lot of news from the studio. Then the film came out and Luke began earning royalties for each screening. Hits to his website rose from a few a day to tens of thousands every week. A few months later with the release of the Blu-ray he earned yet more royalties with each sale. Though the royalty on each screening and Blu-ray sale was not so large when the dust had settled on the venture a year later he had made a not inconsiderable sum of money. Blu-ray sales were still doing well and he had already netted a million pounds from the royalties. He was ecstatic as this was a whole new world for him. Even after tax he was rich beyond his wildest dreams.

The following summer an officious letter arrived in the post. Luke opened it quickly, assuming it would be an offer from another studio to produce a script for them. It was not: it was nothing of the kind. On the top right corner he noticed the logo of Woecaster Crown Court. He hurriedly scanned the letter. He was being summoned to appear in court on charges of breaching his acceptable behaviour contract. Greater Woecaster Police and Jolly had jointly applied for an appearance before a judge. And so after a year of living fast and being on top of the world, everything hanged in the balance. He walked to a mirror on the wall and looked closely at himself. Have I gone too far? Did I get too close to the bone? He did not know what to think; what to do. When he had calmed down a bit Luke began to wonder why Jolly and the police had done this to him.

He was quite certain it was part of the contemporary culture; the obsession with professionalism and all the politically correct, systematically rigid strictures that it carried along with it. From what Luke gathered people such as doctors, nurses, police officers, lawyers, teachers, members of parliament and employees of government agencies were the ones who were known as professionals. There always seemed to be an implication of power in the term - it was not often used to describe a welder or a customs officer; it seemed to used more for jobs in which the people working in them could make big decisions about other people's lives. In a sense Luke felt it was there to guard them from criticism, to elevate them to a kind of godly status: how could a professional be wrong? They were not amateur was what they seemed to be desperate to convey.
Many professionals obeyed the law to a tee - at least when they were being watched a cynic might have said. They followed rules and regulations no matter whether they ruined people's lives with their strict nature. Luke's half-brother Edward had once befriended a woman who had been conned by a landlord. The woman had mental health issues and was being pursued for debts that had accrued as a result of losing hundreds of pounds to the conman; she then began to ask Edward for money. The situation would never have happened had the government had the sense and good nature to ban large deposits and advance fees tenants sometimes had to pay - but that was typical of today's Britain, being governed by the rich for the rich.

At first Edward helped her but after a while he began to worry she was becoming too dependent on him and that someday she would ask for too much. He also felt scared of where the situation was heading and although not entirely impoverished he himself was unable to work due to depression. He therefore in anguish called his social worker for some advice. Because the social worker had professional protocols to follow they immediately went to call on the woman - and not on their own; had they done that and kept an open mind the situation may have ended happily. Rather due to the their professional rules they took along a police officer with them because indeed the woman had in the often blind eyes of the law been committing a simple act of harassment.

The woman was then given a warning and, naturally, not expecting police to turn up and threaten to convict her she was shaken by the incident. A feeling of powerlessness overcame her even greater than the one she felt of being indebted. From then on she hardly spoke a word to Edward and neither felt better for what had occurred. That was only one example of so many Luke had heard from people of how social workers had indiscriminately ruined lives - but then they were bound to behaving professionally. Professionalism was a system and all systems are ridiculous in their inflexibility. Luke could see as could the French philosopher Voltaire that experience was what people should use for their basis of judgment. By pre-judging the woman, the social worker had condemned her to her fate before finding out the whole situation.

Luke sighed and thought about his own situation, of what might become of him. Could he end up in ruin too? When a professional fell in love with a client of theirs or a client fell in love with them the standard response was to treat it as unacceptable. Yet a recent report published in the media made it clear that police officers in an undercover squad of the Metropolitan Police routinely formed sexual relationships with people they were investigating to gain information. There had been many other cases in the news of police officers disciplined, jailed or sacked for having sex on duty or engaging in sexual relations with victims of crime. Were people then to accept these hypocrites telling them what the law was when they themselves break it?

Luke had read about the few black sheep among social workers who had formed relationships with the people they helped. This was seen by the law as wrong yet the thing that occurred to Luke was that nobody seemed to realize people fell in love. Without choosing who it was to be it happened. Even if professional guidelines existed for a good reason and were high-minded that was not to say they were always right. Often they were there through good intentions and did achieve many good outcomes by avoiding abuses of power; but blanket policies with one-size-fits-all rewarded only cowardly or stupid yes men.

In some cases the people social workers helped had no social circles whatsoever. They were often very isolated from society and faced prejudice due to their situation - whether it be because they were disabled, poor, an asylum seeker or a care leaver - and here Luke thought to himself, I won't continue to list further, it will be a long list. Due to discrimination, poverty and poor health many people social workers helped may not have had the time or ability to meet people to the degree most people could. If this one relationship gave them hope and strength, taking it away from them could destroy their lives. Luke felt it was long overdue people take another look at professionalism. Where was the line to be drawn? The British - and he supposed many other countries too - were risking losing their humanity and if they lost that they had lost everything. No system was worth saving that had no heart. A society could be adequately judged by how well it treated its most unfortunate citizens.

LXX

Judgment day had come. The judge barely fitted into his dark purple gown and his curly white wig framed his angular features and kinked nose grotesquely. He looked down at Luke from his high chair, behind his wainscoted desk and said, "Step forward, Mr Jefferson. Do you understand why you are here today?"

"Yes, your honour," replied Luke, stepping forward in the dock.

"You are here today, Mr Jefferson, to defend the charge of breaching an acceptable behaviour contract."

The judge then turned to Jolly who was stood on a platform a few yards away; the platform was positioned at a forty five degree angle to the dock. "And do you, Miss May, now want to proceed with your claim of harassment?"

"Yes, your honour."

"Very well. Let us continue," boomed the judge blandly.

Luke had never been near Jolly before. He noticed she was sat next to her smartly suited partner. He had seen her photograph, had heard her voice many times and felt he knew her but this was the first time he had seen her in the flesh. She was even more radiant in real life than a photograph could capture and her curved, blonde hair and deep blue eyes seduced him once again. Luke looked above where the twelve members of the jury were sat then look around the room taking in the minute taker on her laptop, the lawyers and the police officers he recognised from past visits. Jolly's lawyer came forward, then questioning began.

"Mr Jefferson, is it true that you signed a contract the police came up with in which you agreed to stop contacting or making any mention of Jolly May on the internet?"

"Yes."

"Then tell me, Mr Jefferson, what possessed you to think it would be alright to leave messages on Twitter that relate to her?"

"I have already told the police about that. At the time it seemed the right thing to do. I can not delete them now. I lost my account's password and had mistakenly deleted the e-mail account linked to it. I e-mailed Twitter but they won't help. There's nothing I can do."

"If you say so, Mr Jefferson. Ladies and gentlemen of the jury, I put it to you that he might be lying."

Luke's lawyer jumped up. "Objection, your honour! The defendant's character is being unduly slandered!"

The judge banged his hammer on the gavel. Then he gave a quick glance to Luke's lawyer and shouted, "Overruled!" Presently he turned to Jolly's lawyer and instructed, "Continue the prosecution."

"Mr Jefferson, after you had posted the messages on Twitter you then made videos on YouTube which it may be assumed related to Jolly. You created a video in which you recited lines from films said between lovers. In one of the speeches you give in the video you say, 'I'm a firm believer that sometimes it's right to do the wrong thing.' How more obvious could you be? You were clearly communicating indirectly with Jolly. You viciously ignored the feeling of fear you were creating in her and clearly broke the rules set out in your acceptable behaviour contract. How do you justify that?"

"The videos I posted were not directed at Jolly. The one you described was about love - I have loved quite a few women. The videos were merely artistic expressions. I'm a creative person. I always have been."

"A creative liar, are you, Mr Jefferson?"

"I never said that. You're putting words in my mouth."

"Am I? Well, tell us all, then, Mr Jefferson - why is it that in the film you wrote, the highly-grossing "Love Without Class", you depicted a character very similar to yourself who created YouTube videos in an effort to woo a lady very similar to Miss May?"

"Because fiction is not real. Writers like all artists have artistic license to make up anything they want in a story."

The prosecutor paused. "Mr Jefferson, in your film the character resembling yourself finds information about the woman like Miss May through internet searches. Would you not classify that as harassment?"

"What the character does in the film is unrelated to my life, sir. And in any case, I believe it is not harassment since every man and his dog does an internet search on anyone they meet; if they feel like it, anyway. It is an ordinary thing to do these days. Information on the internet is in the public domain too unless it is on a password protected page."

"Mr Jefferson, I put it to you that what happens in the film is a true depiction of what you did in real life. Your behaviour was alarming, offensive and unwanted by Miss May. You caused her considerable anguish and horror and scarred her for life. I rest my case." The prosecutor spun on his heel to face the jury. "Ladies and gentlemen of the jury, this man is a writer. He has a high intelligence and is a more cunning individual than most. I caution you to think carefully about what such a man could do. Has he not demonstrated himself to have no regard for Miss May and the police's acceptable behaviour contract? I urge you to find him guilty so that an anti-social behaviour order may be given to him and he can make no further actions that harm Miss May."

The judge thanked the prosecutor and called the defence lawyer. The lawyer looked at Luke and weighed up how to begin. He then began quietly, "Mr Jefferson, when you wrote your film what was your intention?"

"To make something of myself. To tell a great story."