The Truth Commissioner by David Park Page B

unfairness of it, the moral
righteousness of this young woman who sits as his judge.
    â€˜The quality of mercy is not strained,’ he says, indifferent to whether it sounds ‘portentous or not.
    â€˜I don’t want a pound of your flesh.’
    â€˜What is it you want, Emma?’ he asks, exhausted by the vertiginous precariousness he feels, willing to plunge headfirst into the chasm below rather than continue to walk this knife edge. Better to know his fate, receive his sentence and try to let his life continue in whatever ways he himself will choose.
    â€˜I want your help,’ she says as she straightens her back and looks directly at him. Then she looks away again and asks the
waitress if she can have a glass of water.
    â€˜Are you all right?’ he asks. ‘You mustn’t get upset in your condition.’
    â€˜So you’re an expert in pregnancy now?’ But there is no bitterness in her words and he’s able to reply with a smile and a
shake of his head. ‘And I’m not upset.’
    As the waitress brings the glass, he asks for another coffee, keen to extend their entitlement to the table. She wants his
help and that cheers him but he knows it won’t be the beautiful simplicity of money that she’ll request and he knows so little
about the circumstances of her present life that he can’t even begin to anticipate what she’s going to ask. What he does know,
however, is that a request for help opens up possibilities that formerly seemed closed and so he leans attentively towards
her.
    â€˜Anything,’ he says. ‘You only have to ask.’
    Perhaps it’s something to do with the child that’s coming – perhaps she needs him to fulfil some role in relation to that, or
even might it be that she’s thinking of moving back to London. He has a vision of their lives intertwining again in a better
place than this, of the infinite possibilities of a newly found future. But his hopes tumble about him as he hears her say,
‘It’s not for me; it’s for Maria Harper.’
    Why has he not seen it coming? Why has he not had the intelligence to understand what lay behind her call? And he feels like
a fool who’s been suckered in and as he watches her sip from the glass he tastes the bitterness of his disappointment and
then anger at his blinkered naivety.
    â€˜Maria Harper?’ he asks coolly as if the name means nothing to him.
    â€˜Yes, you met her a week ago. Maria is my classroom assistant and a friend. Her brother’s Connor Walshe.’
    â€˜Connor Walshe?’ Already this is a name that he doesn’t want to hear.
    â€˜She wrote you a letter, told you what happened to him.’
    â€˜Emma, I can’t discuss the private affairs of the Commission.’ Immediately he regrets using the word ‘affairs’ but takes refuge
in a flow of words. ‘I’m sure you understand that these are delicate matters and we’re bound by very strict codes of confidence.
I can’t sit here in a …’ he leaves the description unfinished but gives a little gesture with his hand ‘… and discuss
matters that are bound by the protocols of the Commission.’
    â€˜I’m not asking you to discuss it,’ she insists, putting the glass down on the table with slightly too much force so that
the water slurps against the rim, ‘I’m asking you to help her.’
    He has to resist the momentary temptation to punish her with a cold indifference hidden in some supposed strict adherence
to a set of rules but he knows this is perhaps his last opportunity to establish a bridgehead so instead he says, ‘Of course
I’ll help her.’
    â€˜She wrote you a letter, didn’t she, told you everything that happened? She asked me to read it, to help with the writing.’
    â€˜It’s very well written,’ he stalls.
    â€˜And you’ll be able to help