24

I love it when someone is at the airport to pick me up, especially after a long flight. It is a comforting thought to know that you have arrived in a place where you have someone who cares about you.

‘Hello, sweetheart.’ Mum hugs me as I walk through the waiting throng and into her arms. I’m surprised when she starts to cry.

‘Are you all right?’

‘Yes. Yes. Of course. Of course I am. I am just so pleased to see you.’

‘I was home only two weeks ago.’

‘Yes, I know. But I’m your mother. Two weeks is a long time.’

I’ve been away for almost a year before this spate of quick visits and never got tears before but I let it pass.

‘How was the trip?’ Mum asks after we’ve packed my bags in the back seat of her car and begun the journey home. I can see she is still teary - those telltale red rims around her eyes.

‘Fine. I read a book on the plane. Billy Budd. It was Professor Young’s favourite. He talked about it all the time.’

‘That’s a nice way to remember him. Does his favourite book reveal anything?’

‘Do you know the book?’

‘I’ve heard of it but I’ve never read it.’

I tell Mum the basic storyline. The book is set in the late 1790s and tells the story of a sailor in the Royal Navy, Billy Budd. He’s an orphaned, illegitimate child but innocent and open, a little naive but likeable, popular with everyone. For some reason, probably jealousy and false gossip from a crew mate, he arouses the antagonism of the ship’s Master-at-Arms, John Claggart, who falsely accuses Billy of conspiracy to mutiny.

Claggart brings his charges to Captain Vere who summons them both to his cabin. Claggart makes his false charges but Billy is unable to defend himself. He has a speech impediment and isn’t articulate, can’t argue. He gets so frustrated about not being able to properly express himself and counter the charges that he lashes out involuntarily at Claggart, killing him with a single blow.

Captain Vere convenes a court martial. At his insistence, they convict Billy; Vere argues that any appearance of weakness in the officers and failure to enforce discipline could stir the waters of mutiny throughout the British fleet. Billy is condemned to be hanged from the ship’s yardarm.

‘That’s not a very cheery story. Not a very happy ending,’ Mum says when I have finished.

‘I know. When I discussed it with Professor Young he said that Captain Vere deliberately distorted the law to bring about Billy’s death. The story shows how when we apply the law in a seemingly fair but narrow way, without considering the idea of justice more broadly, it can create a huge wrong. That’s why Professor Young liked the book, I think. He was always interested in whether laws were applied fairly or whether they were applied in a way that might have seemed fair but actually caused great injustice. It was what he was known for. All the books he was most famous for were about that.’

‘It sounds like Professor Young was a very fine man. A man with great principles.’

‘He was. And I always found him so. You know how I admired him, even worshipped him really. And part of that was because he did have a sincere interest in justice and fairness, making sure that people were treated properly by the law and were not victims of its manipulation. But …’

‘But what?’ Mum asks, glancing sideways at me as she drives.

I’m thinking about my encounter with Professor Baxter.

‘But I don’t think it reveals as much about him as the fact that I don’t think his daughter liked him very much.’

‘Goodness, whatever gave you that idea?’

We have arrived in the driveway. ‘Make me a cup of tea, Mum, and I’ll tell you all about it.’

By the time we finish the tea I have relayed the details of the unsettling conversation. Professor Young’s book sits on the table between us, like a court exhibit.

‘She was so sure, Mum, so sure that his own daughter wouldn’t want it. She told me the book was very important to him. She said it was perhaps his most valued possession. Yet she was so adamant about not taking it.’

Mum pours me another cup of tea. I run my fingers across the leather of the books spine.

‘Well, I guess you can never know the whole story of what happened in his family.’

‘I guess. I saw his daughter at the memorial service. She looked, I don’t know, so angry. Her father was dead and she had all this rage. And I thought, I never want to feel that way about Dad.’

‘Of course not, Simone. Why would you? Your father loves you.’

I smile back at her but it is false.

I don’t doubt my father loves me. The problem is that since I saw him in that embrace I have not been able to get it out of my mind. And the more I dwell on it, the more I detest him. And I’m sure that is why the image of Professor Young’s daughter haunts me and why my encounter with Professor Baxter keeps coming to mind. I can see myself feeling like that, small and hard with my hate like a little nut. And if Dad died this minute I may have no way of letting it go.

I clearly can’t talk to Mum about why I am so angry at Dad. I could never hurt her that way.

There is only one person who I can have that conversation with and that is Patricia Tyndale.