The herd, p.26
The Herd, page 26
The case is starting half an hour later than usual this morning at 10.30 a.m. Judge Bower didn’t say why, which suggested he had something personal he had to attend to. Like the way he viewed a teacher when he was a child, Ash finds it odd to think of Judge Bower having a life outside the court, almost laughable to think of him flicking through an old magazine in a dentist’s waiting room or attending a grandchild’s nativity play.
Ash and Bry are using the extra half-hour to have a meeting with Ed before Bry is called to the witness box, where she will be questioned by Elizabeth. They know the drill now; the usher unlocks their little locker room with a friendly smile and they both take off their coats, hats and scarfs, silently folding them into the same locker before Ash goes and buys them both a cup of tea from the vending machine. By the time Ash is back in the room, Ed has arrived, already dressed in his robes and wig and bent over the small table, Bry looking tiny but upright, listening carefully as Ed says, ‘Right, Bry, I don’t want you to feel you have to be a certain way today. I just want you to answer the questions honestly. If you get emotional, so be it – it won’t hurt for Bower to see for himself how distressing this has been for you. Elizabeth will really try to push your buttons, but I’d like you to avoid getting angry or appearing dismissive – neither of which I’ve ever seen from you before, so again, I’m not worried.’
Ash walks towards them and puts the two cups on the table so he can shake Ed’s hand. ‘Sorry, mate, I should have got you a tea as well.’
Ed shakes his head to show he doesn’t want tea.
‘Take a seat, Ash.’
Before Ash has sat down, Ed starts talking again.
‘I was just telling Bry that Elizabeth might try and make her appear a bit unhinged, make it look like Bry is the sort of person who could behave recklessly.’ He turns back to Bry as he says, ‘But don’t worry. If you tell the truth, that you were raised to be sceptical of vaccines – feel free to talk about your brother, by the way – that will help our defence.’
Bry’s eyes are wide, locked on to Ed, but her hand doesn’t shake as she takes a sip of tea and her voice is steady as she says, ‘OK, I’ll do my best.’
Ed bends towards his briefcase and slides a thin folder across the table towards Bry and Ash. He keeps one hand on top of it, not quite ready to reveal the secrets inside.
‘So, this is a copy of the paperwork submitted to Bower outlining my plans for the defence.’ Ed looks from Ash to Bry and back again to Ash. His eyes flash, excited, like light reflected in small mirrors. ‘Now, I know you have had some queries about my approach to date.’ Ash rearranges his feet under the table. ‘Queries’ is a bit of an understatement. ‘And I think this’ – he taps the folder with his long fingers – ‘will give you more questions. But please, you have to trust me and let me do my job, OK?’
Another thing that has kept Ash blinking into the thick December nights is that, apart from his opening statement, Ed hasn’t contributed anything beyond, ‘No questions from the defence, sir,’ when the judge has invited him to cross-examine Elizabeth’s witnesses. Sometimes, when the court is stuck on some legal detail, Ash sits in his hard seat and works out how much Ed has cost him so far – almost fifteen thousand is his reckoning. Ed has attempted to reassure Ash, in exactly the same way as this morning, telling him that it’s better if he doesn’t reveal too much about his plans and imploring Ash to trust him. He says he knows exactly what he’s doing and is pleased with how everything’s going. Ash can’t see how he could be, given that the judge has heard nothing from the defendants. Every time Ed says his line about not having any questions, Judge Bower lifts his eyebrows and purses his lips as if he’s faintly irritated or amused; Ash can’t tell which, but neither feels positive.
Elizabeth’s case – and he does always think of it as ‘Elizabeth’s’ – on the other hand, seems to Ash to be meticulous and well planned. Over the last two days she’s called to the stand an intimidating list of professionals, including Clemmie’s neurological consultant, an infectious disease expert, a representative from Public Health England, a child psychologist and a social worker. They have all been impressive, answering her questions clearly and coolly. The medics confirmed that nothing – short of a radical and unprecedented advancement in brain surgery – can help Clemmie regain her sight. The other two scientists confirmed that had Clemmie not been exposed to measles she would still be able to see, that the significant drop locally in herd immunity – mainly due to rubbish posted on social media – is, in their view, to blame. Clemmie’s time at the school fete on that Saturday before the Chamberlains’ barbecue and how close her contact with the Spanish boy had been was only given the briefest review by the PHE official, and Ash couldn’t help himself lean over and whisper to Ed, ‘You are going to question this, aren’t you?’
But Ed infuriatingly replied with his stock answer: ‘Please, Ash, you have to trust me.’ The hardest part was listening to the child psychologist’s report. There were a few murmurs and stifled sobs from the public gallery as the court listened to the psychologist read from a transcript about how much it hurts Clemmie when she bumps into things, how she’s already starting to forget what her brothers look like, and how frightened she is now of things that never frightened her before.
The next round of witnesses were personal connections rather than professionals. Gerald took to the stand, telling the court in a voice vibrating with emotion how at the barbecue back in July they’d all discussed vaccines, that Elizabeth and Jack had made it clear that they needed to be extra careful to protect Clemmie, and that Bry and Ash knew ‘without question’ that Clemmie was vulnerable. At one point Elizabeth passed Gerald a tissue to stop his tears splashing on to his yellow waistcoat. Then she’d called two mums – Amanda and Jenny – who smiled at Elizabeth, awed and humbled by Elizabeth’s bravery, as they confirmed that, yes, Elizabeth’s email about their children’s vaccination status ahead of Clemmie’s party had been very clear, that they’d respected and understood why she’d felt compelled to send it. One of them kept casting quick, furtive looks at Bry, like Alba, Ash thinks, when she’s told not to stare at someone but still she can’t resist.
Now, here they are. Just one more witness left on the claimant’s list – Bryony Kohli – before it’s Ed’s turn to take the stage.
In front of him, Ed lifts his fingers away from the top of the file. Ash looks at Bry but she doesn’t move, so he leans forward, opens the file himself. He blinks down at the photocopied piece of paper in front of him. Ed’s written only one name. Elizabeth Chamberlain. Ed must read the shock and then the worry printed across Ash’s face.
‘Ash, I know what you’re thinking, but there’s nothing I can do but ask you to trust me.’
‘You could tell us what you’re planning …’
‘We’ve discussed this. If I did tell you, then I would be worried that one of you might – unwittingly of course – behave differently or do something that might somehow influence things. Trust me, I’ve seen it happen. Things are going well, I don’t want anything to jeopardise that.’
Ash had forgotten what a patronising, smug bastard Ed could be at uni, but it’s coming back to him now, hard as a punch in the gut. Perhaps he’d been too hasty hiring his old friend; they hadn’t even got a mates’ rate on Ed’s fee. But Bry is looking up at Ash, her eyes seeming to have grown even bigger in the last few moments. ‘I’m OK with it if you are,’ she says, and Ash reminds himself that in a matter of minutes Bry will be walking up to the witness box and facing questions from the woman who for two decades she called her best friend, a woman who will do everything in her power now to destroy her.
He needs to stay calm and resolute for Bry, but he doesn’t smile as he nods at Ed and says, ‘OK, it seems we don’t really have a choice. We have to trust you.’
Judge Bower pulls his glasses away from his face and looks directly at Bry. His voice is gentle, as though he’s worried for her, as he says, ‘Mrs Kohli, please approach the witness box.’
Bry feels hot at the sound of her name, a burning feeling gripping her solar plexus. Ash’s hand falls away from her leg as she makes herself get up. She keeps her eyes on the witness box, just like Ed advised, as she walks towards it. Her voice is small as she is sworn in but she doesn’t shake and she looks directly at the solid, upright figure of her dearest and oldest friend. For a moment the whole court stills. There are no shuffles or coughs from the public gallery and even the press stop tapping at their devices as the two women face each other. Externally, Elizabeth looks like Elizabeth – the well-kept blonde hair, the thin face, the quick, blue eyes – but to Bry, the person before her is a mannequin. Her eyes are hard, set, and with one look Bry feels the whole world between them and she knows, deeper than she’s ever known anything before, that this woman who has comforted, loved and always prioritised their friendship now despises her.
But then Elizabeth does something unexpected, something that unsettles Bry far more than her statue-like absence. She smiles. Elizabeth smiles and says, so quietly only Bry can hear, ‘Hi, Bry.’
Bry holds on to the witness box to steady herself because there she is, there’s a glimpse of the old Elizabeth – changed, yes, but it’s the same voice she’s heard every day for all her adult life. But her eyes – no, Elizabeth’s eyes are still full of rage and Bry knows that despite the smile, despite the soft voice, this Elizabeth mannequin isn’t her friend but a dangerous construct, created to unsettle Bry, to make her seem unstable, like the kind of person who could intentionally hurt a child.
Bry grips the stand harder, nods at Elizabeth to show she’s ready, and the smile, like a bird shot mid-flight, falls from Elizabeth’s face.
‘Mrs Kohli, can you please tell the court, in your own words, why you chose not to vaccinate your daughter?’
Bry opens her mouth, the fire from her chest licking up into her throat. When the words come, they’re painful but there’s also something purifying about at last telling the world – this new world that thinks she’s stupid, uncaring and reckless – the simple truth. She was scared.
‘I have a severely autistic, non-verbal elder brother. He has lived in a home for almost twenty-six years. My whole life, I was taught that my brother’s autism was the direct result of him receiving the measles vaccine as a baby. There are other conditions in my family – Crohn’s disease and some asthma – that I also grew up believing were caused by vaccines. Not vaccinating my daughter wasn’t so much a choice, but rather something I knew I could never risk. In the same way we’d never let our daughter play with knives, I’d simply never allow her to be vaccinated.’
Elizabeth looks at Bry, her eyes unseeing, as though Bry’s explanation is so dull she’s close to sleep.
‘Who was it who “taught” you as a child that vaccines were a risk?’
‘My mum, mostly. She was, and still is, adamant that they cause far more harm than good.’
‘Do you think of yourself as a responsible parent, Mrs Kohli?’
‘I’m not perfect, I can be disorganised—’
‘I’m not asking how organised you are, I’m asking whether you see yourself as a responsible parent – yes or no?’
‘Yes.’
‘So when you became an adult and then a responsible parent yourself, you didn’t think to do your own research, to look into the vaccine issue yourself?’
Out of the corner of her eye, Bry sees Ed make a note on the empty pad in front of him.
‘My husband, Ash, wanted to …’ Bry glances at Ash, who is watching her, perfectly still, not even blinking.
‘Again, that wasn’t my question. I wasn’t asking about Mr Kohli, I was asking about you. Did you do any research into vaccine safety and efficacy yourself as an adult and responsible parent?’
‘You know I didn’t.’
Judge Bower turns to Bry and says, a hint of warning in his voice, ‘Please address the court in your answers, Mrs Kohli.’
Bry clears her throat, nods an apology at Judge Bower, and looking out beyond the public gallery, says, ‘No, no, I did not.’
‘Do you know how many accredited scientific research studies have concluded that there is a link – or even suggested there could be a link – between the MMR vaccine and autism in the last twenty years?’
Bry shakes her head.
‘No? No, of course – you haven’t done any research. The answer is none. Not one accredited scientific paper of the hundreds published in the last two decades concludes there is even a tenuous link.’
Bry’s head suddenly fills with noise, arguments shouting about the dangers of aluminium, toxic overload, vaccine shedding, but it’s not her own voice screaming at her, it’s Sara’s.
‘If I could go back and change things, I would.’
Elizabeth’s eyes snap up, clash with Bry’s, and she hisses, ‘Oh, trust me, if we could go back and change things you’d never have come anywhere near my family.’
‘Mrs Chamberlain!’ Judge Bower’s voice quivers; he is outraged that events in his court have momentarily spiralled into the familial rather than remaining safely in the legal. ‘This is an official warning. If you let things become personal again I will have to prematurely dismiss your witness. Do you understand?’
‘Yes, sir, I apologise.’
Elizabeth looks down, chastised, and the press gape as their fingers fly across keyboards and notepads. But Bry knows from the flicker at the corner of Elizabeth’s mouth that she wanted things to get personal, that she wants to remind the court and the people beyond the court reading their papers and scanning headlines online how deeply she was betrayed. That she is the brave mama-bear rearing up, fighting for her little cub, and Bry is the cruel hunter who caught her baby in a snare. It is very personal indeed. Elizabeth curls her hair behind her ear; the gesture seems to settle her back into her new lawyer persona.
‘What happened on 20th June 2017, Mrs Kohli?’
Bry’s eyes crease. She has no idea; her memory rarely reaches back beyond July 2019 any more. All she can think of is ladybirds.
‘You look confused, Mrs Kohli. Perhaps I can help refresh your memory? You were in a park in London having a picnic with some friends and your toddler daughter. You were drinking wine – a responsible adult might say that you drank too much wine, because you lost your daughter, didn’t you, Mrs Kohli?’
The fear had been like liquid lava as Bry ran, screaming Alba’s name, around London Fields. Alba was found by a friend twenty minutes later sitting on a wall and eating her first ever ice cream with a dreadlocked woman whose dog she had decided to follow. It was only when Bry had screamed, ‘What the fuck are you doing?’ at the woman that Alba had started to cry.
‘Was that what you’d call responsible behaviour?’
Elizabeth had been the first person, before Ash even, Bry had called, sobbing great lungfuls of air into the phone.
‘What about the time you locked her as a baby in your flat in London on her own? Or the time you left her in the car while you paid for petrol at a service station? I believe a member of the public complained about that one. Do any of these bear the markings of a responsible parent?’
‘No. No, obviously they don’t.’
‘You are aware, are you not, that people who have not been vaccinated are more vulnerable to contracting some infectious diseases than vaccinated people?’
‘Yes, of course I am.’
Elizabeth raises an eyebrow in a way that suggests that when it comes to stupidity, on Bry’s level, even the simplest facts cannot be taken for granted.
‘And when were you made aware that our daughter could not be vaccinated and was therefore more vulnerable?’
‘When she was just a baby, a few months old, I think.’
‘She was a year old when we were told not to vaccinate her. I called you that evening.’
Bry swallows, frightened of where this might be going, but she forces herself to nod. ‘OK, I knew when she was one.’
‘So you had six years when you knew you were intentionally putting my daughter at risk. Is that correct?’
‘I …’
‘Seven years of sharing her life: taking her for walks, joining us for meals, Christmases, birthdays, holidays … the list goes on and on, and during all that time – all those baths, hugs and special treats – you never thought about the fact you and then your own daughter could be exposing her to a potentially deadly disease?’
Bry hangs her head. She feels her body demand more and more oxygen but she also feels weightless suddenly, untethered, as though gravity has decided to let her off and leave her to float around.
‘Did you love my daughter, your goddaughter?’
‘Yes, of course – I, I still do.’
‘But not enough to not put her at risk?’
Bry’s chest starts to thump and her throat starts to close, as though it too is giving up on her, and Bry thinks, OK, Elizabeth, you can have it, here it comes, here’s your moment.
‘I … I’m not sure …’
‘Did you, for example, talk to either me or my husband – keeping in mind the fact that you saw one of us most days – about the issue?’
Bry clutches the witness box.
‘No, no, I didn’t.’
‘Did you try to encourage some distance between our daughters, and between my daughter and yourself, in order to protect her?’
Bry’s hands slip with sweat.
‘I’m sorry, I’m so, so sorry …’
‘Just answer the questions, please, Mrs Kohli.’ Bry feels Elizabeth’s eyes on her as her throat closes smaller and smaller while her panicked lungs fight for oxygen, sweat prickling against her neck. There are tears running down her face now but she doesn’t wipe them away.
‘So, over the course of seven years you were fully aware of the serious risks you were exposing my daughter to, but you chose to do absolutely nothing to alleviate those risks. Is that right, Mrs Kohli?’
‘I was scared, I was—’
‘I don’t care whether you were scared or not, Mrs Kohli – did you do the responsible thing and try to alleviate the potentially serious risk you were exposing my daughter to – yes or no?’
Ash and Bry are using the extra half-hour to have a meeting with Ed before Bry is called to the witness box, where she will be questioned by Elizabeth. They know the drill now; the usher unlocks their little locker room with a friendly smile and they both take off their coats, hats and scarfs, silently folding them into the same locker before Ash goes and buys them both a cup of tea from the vending machine. By the time Ash is back in the room, Ed has arrived, already dressed in his robes and wig and bent over the small table, Bry looking tiny but upright, listening carefully as Ed says, ‘Right, Bry, I don’t want you to feel you have to be a certain way today. I just want you to answer the questions honestly. If you get emotional, so be it – it won’t hurt for Bower to see for himself how distressing this has been for you. Elizabeth will really try to push your buttons, but I’d like you to avoid getting angry or appearing dismissive – neither of which I’ve ever seen from you before, so again, I’m not worried.’
Ash walks towards them and puts the two cups on the table so he can shake Ed’s hand. ‘Sorry, mate, I should have got you a tea as well.’
Ed shakes his head to show he doesn’t want tea.
‘Take a seat, Ash.’
Before Ash has sat down, Ed starts talking again.
‘I was just telling Bry that Elizabeth might try and make her appear a bit unhinged, make it look like Bry is the sort of person who could behave recklessly.’ He turns back to Bry as he says, ‘But don’t worry. If you tell the truth, that you were raised to be sceptical of vaccines – feel free to talk about your brother, by the way – that will help our defence.’
Bry’s eyes are wide, locked on to Ed, but her hand doesn’t shake as she takes a sip of tea and her voice is steady as she says, ‘OK, I’ll do my best.’
Ed bends towards his briefcase and slides a thin folder across the table towards Bry and Ash. He keeps one hand on top of it, not quite ready to reveal the secrets inside.
‘So, this is a copy of the paperwork submitted to Bower outlining my plans for the defence.’ Ed looks from Ash to Bry and back again to Ash. His eyes flash, excited, like light reflected in small mirrors. ‘Now, I know you have had some queries about my approach to date.’ Ash rearranges his feet under the table. ‘Queries’ is a bit of an understatement. ‘And I think this’ – he taps the folder with his long fingers – ‘will give you more questions. But please, you have to trust me and let me do my job, OK?’
Another thing that has kept Ash blinking into the thick December nights is that, apart from his opening statement, Ed hasn’t contributed anything beyond, ‘No questions from the defence, sir,’ when the judge has invited him to cross-examine Elizabeth’s witnesses. Sometimes, when the court is stuck on some legal detail, Ash sits in his hard seat and works out how much Ed has cost him so far – almost fifteen thousand is his reckoning. Ed has attempted to reassure Ash, in exactly the same way as this morning, telling him that it’s better if he doesn’t reveal too much about his plans and imploring Ash to trust him. He says he knows exactly what he’s doing and is pleased with how everything’s going. Ash can’t see how he could be, given that the judge has heard nothing from the defendants. Every time Ed says his line about not having any questions, Judge Bower lifts his eyebrows and purses his lips as if he’s faintly irritated or amused; Ash can’t tell which, but neither feels positive.
Elizabeth’s case – and he does always think of it as ‘Elizabeth’s’ – on the other hand, seems to Ash to be meticulous and well planned. Over the last two days she’s called to the stand an intimidating list of professionals, including Clemmie’s neurological consultant, an infectious disease expert, a representative from Public Health England, a child psychologist and a social worker. They have all been impressive, answering her questions clearly and coolly. The medics confirmed that nothing – short of a radical and unprecedented advancement in brain surgery – can help Clemmie regain her sight. The other two scientists confirmed that had Clemmie not been exposed to measles she would still be able to see, that the significant drop locally in herd immunity – mainly due to rubbish posted on social media – is, in their view, to blame. Clemmie’s time at the school fete on that Saturday before the Chamberlains’ barbecue and how close her contact with the Spanish boy had been was only given the briefest review by the PHE official, and Ash couldn’t help himself lean over and whisper to Ed, ‘You are going to question this, aren’t you?’
But Ed infuriatingly replied with his stock answer: ‘Please, Ash, you have to trust me.’ The hardest part was listening to the child psychologist’s report. There were a few murmurs and stifled sobs from the public gallery as the court listened to the psychologist read from a transcript about how much it hurts Clemmie when she bumps into things, how she’s already starting to forget what her brothers look like, and how frightened she is now of things that never frightened her before.
The next round of witnesses were personal connections rather than professionals. Gerald took to the stand, telling the court in a voice vibrating with emotion how at the barbecue back in July they’d all discussed vaccines, that Elizabeth and Jack had made it clear that they needed to be extra careful to protect Clemmie, and that Bry and Ash knew ‘without question’ that Clemmie was vulnerable. At one point Elizabeth passed Gerald a tissue to stop his tears splashing on to his yellow waistcoat. Then she’d called two mums – Amanda and Jenny – who smiled at Elizabeth, awed and humbled by Elizabeth’s bravery, as they confirmed that, yes, Elizabeth’s email about their children’s vaccination status ahead of Clemmie’s party had been very clear, that they’d respected and understood why she’d felt compelled to send it. One of them kept casting quick, furtive looks at Bry, like Alba, Ash thinks, when she’s told not to stare at someone but still she can’t resist.
Now, here they are. Just one more witness left on the claimant’s list – Bryony Kohli – before it’s Ed’s turn to take the stage.
In front of him, Ed lifts his fingers away from the top of the file. Ash looks at Bry but she doesn’t move, so he leans forward, opens the file himself. He blinks down at the photocopied piece of paper in front of him. Ed’s written only one name. Elizabeth Chamberlain. Ed must read the shock and then the worry printed across Ash’s face.
‘Ash, I know what you’re thinking, but there’s nothing I can do but ask you to trust me.’
‘You could tell us what you’re planning …’
‘We’ve discussed this. If I did tell you, then I would be worried that one of you might – unwittingly of course – behave differently or do something that might somehow influence things. Trust me, I’ve seen it happen. Things are going well, I don’t want anything to jeopardise that.’
Ash had forgotten what a patronising, smug bastard Ed could be at uni, but it’s coming back to him now, hard as a punch in the gut. Perhaps he’d been too hasty hiring his old friend; they hadn’t even got a mates’ rate on Ed’s fee. But Bry is looking up at Ash, her eyes seeming to have grown even bigger in the last few moments. ‘I’m OK with it if you are,’ she says, and Ash reminds himself that in a matter of minutes Bry will be walking up to the witness box and facing questions from the woman who for two decades she called her best friend, a woman who will do everything in her power now to destroy her.
He needs to stay calm and resolute for Bry, but he doesn’t smile as he nods at Ed and says, ‘OK, it seems we don’t really have a choice. We have to trust you.’
Judge Bower pulls his glasses away from his face and looks directly at Bry. His voice is gentle, as though he’s worried for her, as he says, ‘Mrs Kohli, please approach the witness box.’
Bry feels hot at the sound of her name, a burning feeling gripping her solar plexus. Ash’s hand falls away from her leg as she makes herself get up. She keeps her eyes on the witness box, just like Ed advised, as she walks towards it. Her voice is small as she is sworn in but she doesn’t shake and she looks directly at the solid, upright figure of her dearest and oldest friend. For a moment the whole court stills. There are no shuffles or coughs from the public gallery and even the press stop tapping at their devices as the two women face each other. Externally, Elizabeth looks like Elizabeth – the well-kept blonde hair, the thin face, the quick, blue eyes – but to Bry, the person before her is a mannequin. Her eyes are hard, set, and with one look Bry feels the whole world between them and she knows, deeper than she’s ever known anything before, that this woman who has comforted, loved and always prioritised their friendship now despises her.
But then Elizabeth does something unexpected, something that unsettles Bry far more than her statue-like absence. She smiles. Elizabeth smiles and says, so quietly only Bry can hear, ‘Hi, Bry.’
Bry holds on to the witness box to steady herself because there she is, there’s a glimpse of the old Elizabeth – changed, yes, but it’s the same voice she’s heard every day for all her adult life. But her eyes – no, Elizabeth’s eyes are still full of rage and Bry knows that despite the smile, despite the soft voice, this Elizabeth mannequin isn’t her friend but a dangerous construct, created to unsettle Bry, to make her seem unstable, like the kind of person who could intentionally hurt a child.
Bry grips the stand harder, nods at Elizabeth to show she’s ready, and the smile, like a bird shot mid-flight, falls from Elizabeth’s face.
‘Mrs Kohli, can you please tell the court, in your own words, why you chose not to vaccinate your daughter?’
Bry opens her mouth, the fire from her chest licking up into her throat. When the words come, they’re painful but there’s also something purifying about at last telling the world – this new world that thinks she’s stupid, uncaring and reckless – the simple truth. She was scared.
‘I have a severely autistic, non-verbal elder brother. He has lived in a home for almost twenty-six years. My whole life, I was taught that my brother’s autism was the direct result of him receiving the measles vaccine as a baby. There are other conditions in my family – Crohn’s disease and some asthma – that I also grew up believing were caused by vaccines. Not vaccinating my daughter wasn’t so much a choice, but rather something I knew I could never risk. In the same way we’d never let our daughter play with knives, I’d simply never allow her to be vaccinated.’
Elizabeth looks at Bry, her eyes unseeing, as though Bry’s explanation is so dull she’s close to sleep.
‘Who was it who “taught” you as a child that vaccines were a risk?’
‘My mum, mostly. She was, and still is, adamant that they cause far more harm than good.’
‘Do you think of yourself as a responsible parent, Mrs Kohli?’
‘I’m not perfect, I can be disorganised—’
‘I’m not asking how organised you are, I’m asking whether you see yourself as a responsible parent – yes or no?’
‘Yes.’
‘So when you became an adult and then a responsible parent yourself, you didn’t think to do your own research, to look into the vaccine issue yourself?’
Out of the corner of her eye, Bry sees Ed make a note on the empty pad in front of him.
‘My husband, Ash, wanted to …’ Bry glances at Ash, who is watching her, perfectly still, not even blinking.
‘Again, that wasn’t my question. I wasn’t asking about Mr Kohli, I was asking about you. Did you do any research into vaccine safety and efficacy yourself as an adult and responsible parent?’
‘You know I didn’t.’
Judge Bower turns to Bry and says, a hint of warning in his voice, ‘Please address the court in your answers, Mrs Kohli.’
Bry clears her throat, nods an apology at Judge Bower, and looking out beyond the public gallery, says, ‘No, no, I did not.’
‘Do you know how many accredited scientific research studies have concluded that there is a link – or even suggested there could be a link – between the MMR vaccine and autism in the last twenty years?’
Bry shakes her head.
‘No? No, of course – you haven’t done any research. The answer is none. Not one accredited scientific paper of the hundreds published in the last two decades concludes there is even a tenuous link.’
Bry’s head suddenly fills with noise, arguments shouting about the dangers of aluminium, toxic overload, vaccine shedding, but it’s not her own voice screaming at her, it’s Sara’s.
‘If I could go back and change things, I would.’
Elizabeth’s eyes snap up, clash with Bry’s, and she hisses, ‘Oh, trust me, if we could go back and change things you’d never have come anywhere near my family.’
‘Mrs Chamberlain!’ Judge Bower’s voice quivers; he is outraged that events in his court have momentarily spiralled into the familial rather than remaining safely in the legal. ‘This is an official warning. If you let things become personal again I will have to prematurely dismiss your witness. Do you understand?’
‘Yes, sir, I apologise.’
Elizabeth looks down, chastised, and the press gape as their fingers fly across keyboards and notepads. But Bry knows from the flicker at the corner of Elizabeth’s mouth that she wanted things to get personal, that she wants to remind the court and the people beyond the court reading their papers and scanning headlines online how deeply she was betrayed. That she is the brave mama-bear rearing up, fighting for her little cub, and Bry is the cruel hunter who caught her baby in a snare. It is very personal indeed. Elizabeth curls her hair behind her ear; the gesture seems to settle her back into her new lawyer persona.
‘What happened on 20th June 2017, Mrs Kohli?’
Bry’s eyes crease. She has no idea; her memory rarely reaches back beyond July 2019 any more. All she can think of is ladybirds.
‘You look confused, Mrs Kohli. Perhaps I can help refresh your memory? You were in a park in London having a picnic with some friends and your toddler daughter. You were drinking wine – a responsible adult might say that you drank too much wine, because you lost your daughter, didn’t you, Mrs Kohli?’
The fear had been like liquid lava as Bry ran, screaming Alba’s name, around London Fields. Alba was found by a friend twenty minutes later sitting on a wall and eating her first ever ice cream with a dreadlocked woman whose dog she had decided to follow. It was only when Bry had screamed, ‘What the fuck are you doing?’ at the woman that Alba had started to cry.
‘Was that what you’d call responsible behaviour?’
Elizabeth had been the first person, before Ash even, Bry had called, sobbing great lungfuls of air into the phone.
‘What about the time you locked her as a baby in your flat in London on her own? Or the time you left her in the car while you paid for petrol at a service station? I believe a member of the public complained about that one. Do any of these bear the markings of a responsible parent?’
‘No. No, obviously they don’t.’
‘You are aware, are you not, that people who have not been vaccinated are more vulnerable to contracting some infectious diseases than vaccinated people?’
‘Yes, of course I am.’
Elizabeth raises an eyebrow in a way that suggests that when it comes to stupidity, on Bry’s level, even the simplest facts cannot be taken for granted.
‘And when were you made aware that our daughter could not be vaccinated and was therefore more vulnerable?’
‘When she was just a baby, a few months old, I think.’
‘She was a year old when we were told not to vaccinate her. I called you that evening.’
Bry swallows, frightened of where this might be going, but she forces herself to nod. ‘OK, I knew when she was one.’
‘So you had six years when you knew you were intentionally putting my daughter at risk. Is that correct?’
‘I …’
‘Seven years of sharing her life: taking her for walks, joining us for meals, Christmases, birthdays, holidays … the list goes on and on, and during all that time – all those baths, hugs and special treats – you never thought about the fact you and then your own daughter could be exposing her to a potentially deadly disease?’
Bry hangs her head. She feels her body demand more and more oxygen but she also feels weightless suddenly, untethered, as though gravity has decided to let her off and leave her to float around.
‘Did you love my daughter, your goddaughter?’
‘Yes, of course – I, I still do.’
‘But not enough to not put her at risk?’
Bry’s chest starts to thump and her throat starts to close, as though it too is giving up on her, and Bry thinks, OK, Elizabeth, you can have it, here it comes, here’s your moment.
‘I … I’m not sure …’
‘Did you, for example, talk to either me or my husband – keeping in mind the fact that you saw one of us most days – about the issue?’
Bry clutches the witness box.
‘No, no, I didn’t.’
‘Did you try to encourage some distance between our daughters, and between my daughter and yourself, in order to protect her?’
Bry’s hands slip with sweat.
‘I’m sorry, I’m so, so sorry …’
‘Just answer the questions, please, Mrs Kohli.’ Bry feels Elizabeth’s eyes on her as her throat closes smaller and smaller while her panicked lungs fight for oxygen, sweat prickling against her neck. There are tears running down her face now but she doesn’t wipe them away.
‘So, over the course of seven years you were fully aware of the serious risks you were exposing my daughter to, but you chose to do absolutely nothing to alleviate those risks. Is that right, Mrs Kohli?’
‘I was scared, I was—’
‘I don’t care whether you were scared or not, Mrs Kohli – did you do the responsible thing and try to alleviate the potentially serious risk you were exposing my daughter to – yes or no?’
