Trying Miss Lovelace

By CJ Kendal

At 26 Jocelyn thinks her life is sweet. Then one day the police turn up to ask strange questions about Lillian Lovelace, a charismatic woman she grew to hate. Why ask Jocelyn? And what could Lillian have done? Soon Jocelyn finds herself a reluctant witness in a trophy trial... but how reluctant? Lillian did betray her once. Could Lillian be guilty? Jocelyn could help send her to jail, or incur the wrath of ambitious cops if she doesn't cooperate. Then again, she might get poetic revenge on both...

• Language: English
• Publisher: CJ Kendal
• Release date: Aug 26, 2011
• ISBN: 9781465736819

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Trying Miss Lovelace

by C J Kendal

Copyright © 2011 C J Kendal

Smashwords Edition

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Trying Miss Lovelace

Chapter One

What began in a frozen February ended in the heat of August, but those months were separated by more than ten years. The vain and corrupt rarely resist a chance to abuse their power, and somewhere in a tidy drawer that I keep just for myself, out of reach of the children, I still have a small piece of stiff paper that I will never throw away.

The paper has no value now, and it didn't really have much that August, when I concealed it inside my pocket during the hottest summer we had known for a decade. I sat silent that morning in the empty corridor of a provincial city courthouse, alone with my quiet apprehension. I sought reassurance by gliding my unseen fingertips along the paper's fine edges, feeling its rich texture and stroking a smooth fold.

The paper wasn't important. It was just a receipt, hand-written in deep blue ink. Tom Sheridan wrote out his receipts in long-hand. Despite his love for hi-tech gadgetry he had a flair for the personal and archaic. That was something we eventually found in common. He was the brother of one of my oldest school friends, and he had spent a recent weekend in my house installing his best quality covert equipment, with the kind of diligence and attention to finish that only family warrants these days.

'Better to be safe than sorry,' Tom had murmured from the top of his step-ladder, his upper-crust drawl a little incongruous for a man in blue-collar overalls. 'These bastards can't be trusted any more.'

'Could they ever?' asked Janine. She sat beside me at my breakfast bar, drinking juice and working her way through my jar of marmalade.

Her brother didn't stop turning his screwdriver as he glanced down at us.

'For the most part. But now the police just care about their targets and PR. And their trophy trials, naturally.'

That last comment could not be more pertinent. I thought I understood that well enough as I twirled Tom's receipt and waited in a silent corridor to be called. I didn't. A mere day later I would understand it better, from the eight-by-ten confines of a police cell. But that insight was still to come. Today I was just mildly nervous, and my pocket hid the only signs. I wasn't sure why I had brought Tom's receipt with me. Its tenuous connection to the day's proceedings was irrelevant. Perhaps I simply found it symbolic of my friends' support during the coming ordeal.

The wide corridor in which I found myself was a temporary refuge from the public and the heat. Its gleaming tiled floor and high, airy ceiling were a welcome few degrees below the temperature outside. I tried to relax in the still quiet, wishing for a breeze on my face. The dark polished bench I was sitting on wasn't the most comfortable.

As long minutes advanced towards mid-morning the temperature climbed. A court usher brought me a sparkling mineral water and I soon drained the plastic bottle. For once I felt some sympathy for the press photographers sweltering in the street outside. The local tea rooms offered cramped cover from the sun. Their staff were more used to well-mannered tourists - the kind who bought buttered scones and pots of English Breakfast between browsing the antique shops and visiting the castle. Today their more hectic business was keeping competing paparazzi in sandwiches, bottled water and strong coffee.

Lillian's trial attracted press when it started yesterday, but this morning their numbers were swelled to bursting onto the busy road. In addition to the usual crown court reporters, national television had set up outside broadcasts on the pavements. Our small historic city was not used to so much noise and attention; and this influx of press motorcycles, extra parking problems and sweaty trade was all my fault, I realised.

Because I was here to testify; for the prosecution.

'JJ! JJ!'

The front of the courthouse was already milling with photographers and journalists when I arrived at nine.

'JJ! This way! Here!'

They call out because they want you to look at them. They want your eyes on their lens - your second of attention for the most lucrative image. They hope to capture that instant which will fool the world into believing that you're complicit in the moment.

It's tempting to walk faster as they snap at you over and over. The closer they chase beside you the more your pace wants to quicken. Everyone walks faster in numbers. Crowds in the street pick up their pace, even when anonymous. So when you're that crowd's moving centre - their literal focus - it's hard to remain unhurried, to seem unaffected.

The trick is to be ever mindful that you are affected, so you can slow your stride and calm your gaze to compensate.

But don't over-compensate. You don't want to look like you're posing. The media is a tightrope. Balance is everything.

That early morning was already warm and bright when I arrived, so Tanya's outrageously priced designer sunglasses over my eyes seemed less of an affectation if not quite a necessity. I'd phoned Tanya the day before, when I finally realised that there was no acceptable way to get out of this performance, and that I'd better take some control over it. She was ecstatic.

'Really, JJ? You want me? Now?'

She sounded astonished but overjoyed at my request.

Tanya was the young stylist supplied by our record company to make us look edgy and fashionable - in a world where fashionable means dated by next week and edgy prompts laughter in all but the young and impressionable. I'd driven poor Tanya to despair on a few occasions, not by doing or saying anything to her, but due to her inability to get much of a reaction out of me.

It wasn't Tanya's fault. She did her job well, and her job was to make a statement, often contrary to her own tastes as well as my indifference. It struck me as ironic that with her neat bobbed hair and tailored shirts she always looked conservative. Yet she scoured flamboyant markets and trendy warehouses to devise the next eye-catching look for us to wear and for others to emulate.

She had a much easier time pushing her costume concoctions onto the boys than she had with me. The lads loved an excuse to be peacocks. In contrast, my passive disengagement from the bags of attire she worked so hard to assemble must have been frustrating for her. Early on I was afraid of giving her the impression that I didn't like her, which wasn't true. I did like her. She was dedicated and industrious. It was just that I found the purpose she was committed to such a waste of time and effort.

So when I phoned and told her I wanted her attention for once - that I needed her to make me look stylish but irreverent in the way only she could pull off - I imagined I felt the moon's tremors as she leapt over it. Her strong Salford accent vibrated enthusiasm against my ear.

'I have loads of stuff! I'll drive right up!'

That afternoon I made sweet Tanya so happy. I made up for all the sessions when I had failed to stifle my yawns; for every time I ignored her pleas to wear more make-up, and for all the days I rejected her hard-sought creations and threw on a simple pair of dark pants and a shirt my mother would like. That afternoon Tanya had her way with me, and by the time she finished she had fashioned an understated cyber-pirate that would make my mother smirk and shake her head, but whose subtleties even I could appreciate.

As I studied Tanya's achievement in my full-length mirror I finally acknowledged her intuition in addition to her dedication. She made me look something far more useful than merely attractive, which I knew I could manage on my own with a bit of effort. She made me look both unusual and elegant - both classy and just strange enough to make people pause and wonder whether it was deliberate or accident, and whether I even cared what they wondered.

'You're a very talented girl, Tanya,' I told her.

She beamed. 'Please can I take some photographs of you for my portfolio?'

I grinned at that and nodded. 'And you're no fool.'

She wasn't. Tanya had to know that I must have called upon her skills for something more substantial than album-shoots and interviews. She knew the cajoling I required to work those things, and that this must be for something else. She knew it must be a component of a strategy on my part.

'We'll need to do your hair fresh tomorrow, of course,' she said.

I nodded. 'Early in the morning. Pick a room and stay the night, if you like. I have to be leaving by half eight.'

'How about some braids?'

I looked at her sideways. 'How sea shanty do you plan to take me?'

'No ribbons, I promise.'

'Good. I still need to be taken seriously.'

'This is for that trial, isn't it?'

'Yeah.'

I heard her sharp intake of breath. There had been speculation in the press that I would be called to give evidence. The police had made sure to leak that titbit. Beside the lawyers and players directly involved, Tanya might be the first person in the country to hear it confirmed.

'Am I allowed to tell anyone?'

I turned and smiled at her, I hoped kindly. 'Of course you are, as long as it's nothing more than you know.'

She faltered a little. 'But I don't know anything.'

'Except that I've told you I'll be there tomorrow by nine.'

She smiled back slowly. 'Which is more than anyone else does at the moment.' She paused to muse on the new implications of her role. 'Wow. It's all theatre.'

Indeed it was, and more than she could know. But whose directorial début? The police thought it was their show, and so far it seemed that way. I would not be taking part but for their insistence.

Tanya played the role I asked and I braced myself for the inevitable. I booked my local cab firm, whose selected drivers knew better than to tip off a press hotline and muddy the waters with excessive speculation. I wanted to arrive alone.

The following morning the taxi dropped me off a couple of hundred yards down from the courthouse, giving me the precious seconds I needed to approach unhindered and prepare myself before anyone noticed me. Then the cacophony started.

I forced my shoulders to relax and made a deliberate effort to walk up the courthouse steps steadily, my gaze calm and straight ahead. I tried to seem oblivious to the clicking cameras and the staccato pattern of questions.

'JJ! Are you here to give evidence?'

'JJ! Are you a witness?'

JJ. It's a name I don't like, but I have to tolerate it from those who don't really know me. I have been JJ to the press and public for some time now. That began when our front man Ray referred to me by abbreviation on a late night chat show. It was some time during our first year of chart success. It's hard to be sure exactly when. That year was hectic, with so much publicity to push on top of our scheduled performances.

'And what about these fights we hear about?' the host asked Ray, grinning a too-white smile. 'Do you really get into brawls when the gig's over?'

Ray grinned back and pretended to chew gum. 'Sometimes.'

'Just the boys?'

'Fuck no, JJ likes to kick arse too.'

Ray was talking out of his of course. The closest we came to brawling was a campy strop between Ray and Terry over cable channels in a hotel. Those two young male heterosexuals could out-bitch a nightclub of queens when they argued over frivolities, but they never came to blows. I never figured out who decided our image should stray towards the wild side. It seemed a throwback to the 1970s, or perhaps a deliberate antidote to the manufactured bands of a recent decade. But someone did. Perhaps it was Ray himself. His interview took our collective image another step towards delinquent, and mine took another inescapable one towards the rebellious enigma I was supposed to be. Well I must be, mustn't I? I was a lone female in a band of young men.

The record company weren't complaining and our manager never missed a trick. I was JJ on every piece of publicity that followed.

JJ to the public, Jo to my friends, Joss to my brothers, and Josie to my grandmother from the day I was born until the day she died. Ironically I have always rather liked Jocelyn, but I'm Jocelyn only to my parents and the tax man... and to Lillian.

'Miss Jay?'

The usher's voice pulled me back to the quiet corridor. I looked up to see a woman wearing a black gown over a tailored suit. She was smiling in that gentle, practised way that seeks to calm a person's nerves.

'Yes?'

'You're called. Please follow me.'

I let go of Tom's receipt. I pulled my fidgeting hand from my pocket as I stood up to follow. The usher gave me quiet instructions as she led me along the corridor.

'Please stay in the witness box until the judge tells you when you can step down. Just follow his directions or mine. After you've given your evidence you may leave, or sit in the public gallery - if you can find a space. It's rather crowded. But I imagine you're used to crowds.'

The usher smiled kindly and opened the heavy door.

It must be startling for most witnesses to enter a courtroom and find a sea of curious faces aimed in their direction. Crowds are invariably expectant. At that moment I was, as the usher guessed, too used to such attention to be unnerved by all those eyes watching me. The only thing I found unusual was the near silence that accompanied them.

I remember what it was like not to have people's eyes on me. There was a time when I did not warrant an automatic gaze. I don't mind attention, when it is transient and I am in control. I spoke up in class as a child. I read out loud and presented work without fear or shyness when required. Yet anonymity was a sanctuary I valued even before I lost it to the industry. I was nostalgic for it then. The money was more than compensation, but I wished for it to be unusual to find a room full of people looking at me because of who I was, rather than for anything I had to say to them.

Not that I wanted to say anything that day. I would have preferred to say nothing at all, but unless I wanted to see the cells that was not an option now.

It was a crown court of the traditional kind, with fine oak, quality carpets, and the rich scent of establishment. The hot weather had turned the public and press galleries into two crowded pontoons of shirt sleeves and bare arms, seemingly anchored in a becalmed sea of formality. The judge's red and black court dress was a flash of bright colour. It drew my eye to the bench at one end. I imagined that the judge and the black-robed counsel below must be used to the short powdered wigs they wore with apparent ease, since even in this heat they showed no sign of sweating beneath them. As the usher directed me into the witness box I again felt admiration for Tanya's forethought. The loose, open-necked shirt she'd dressed me in was as cool an item of clothing as I could wish for.

'Just a touch of the buccaneer,' she explained that morning as her fingers worked efficiently in my hair. 'Nothing flamboyant. We've got a few hints at the cuffs and buttons and boots and neckline. Take the shades off as soon as you go inside, or you'll look too posey. And wear your gold and those pearls I gave you yesterday. They add that touch of elite which folk will be expecting. People feel safer when you meet their unconscious expectations.'

She sounded more like a psychologist than a stylist. There was literally more to her art than met the eye.

'I'm not elite, Tanya.'

'You went to a posh boarding school, didn't you?'

I sighed quietly. That one again. The red tops regularly worked it into their question-marked copy: JJ, scholar or posh delinquent? Rebellious tomboy or the band's mother hen? I wasn't just the only girl. I came from a different background, and that confused the inside pages. They could not figure out how an officer's daughter with good A-levels shacked up with three lads from the inner city. The fact that we were all musicians didn't seem enough. The perceived incongruity paid for a few hacks' drinks and spawned more questions. They didn't know which of the lads to pair me with, if any. Are Ray and JJ an item, or do they both like girls?

'It was an independent grammar school,' I told Tanya in the mirror. 'My parents weren't rich. I just went to boarding school because they were posted overseas. It was hardly Roedean.'

'Sounds posh to me,' said Tanya. 'I was comprehensive. Anyway, it's best to satisfy a few expectations. It makes people want to trust you.'

Yes, Tanya understood the nature of this performance very well, I realised as I took the usher's small bible in my right hand. I hoped Tanya did well with her portfolio.

I read the words printed