“I think I’ll wait in here, on second thoughts,” she said, squeezing into a pew at the back. I assumed the waiting room must have been crowded, though I hadn’t noticed many people arriving yet. It wasn’t until after the service, when she made a conspicuously hasty exit and told me she’d changed her mind about coming to the reception, that it dawned on me the Rosedales must have been in the waiting room, and that it was the sight of Alec Rosedale—Sir Alec Rosedale, QC—that had upset her.
It occurred to me at that point that I had in fact already made the shift from observer to participant in Marco’s drama, and that my role, minor as it was, had already implicated me in the distress of at least one person: an elderly woman who had once helped me, and whom I admired greatly.
2
2
IT WAS AT my urging that Marco had finally told his father what was going on. I’d suggested it early on, and I pressed him again soon after that sobering phone message of Julia’s announcing (among other things) that Renata was going to publish her memoir.
“You’re going to need legal help,” I’d said. “Why not get the best?”
As before, Marco was reluctant:
“He’s not a libel lawyer, my dad. The reverse, if anything. Free speech was always his thing; anti-censorship . . . He defended a publisher in an obscenity trial once.”
“All the more reason to get his advice. He’ll know the subject from both sides.”
“I don’t want to drag him into this, though. At his age he deserves some peace. Also, it’s just so humiliating, getting my dad to bail me out. And it’s embarrassing, too. Can you imagine telling your father you’ve been accused of rape?”
“He’s going to find out anyway, if you don’t stop the book. Then you’ll end up with the worst of both worlds.”
He hung his head. “I know. But I can’t tell him. I just can’t do it.”
But eventually he swallowed his pride and called his father.
Far from being unwilling to get involved, the old lawyer had rallied at once to his son’s defense. Elderly as he was—ancient, really—he retained a keen interest in political and social affairs, and grasped instantly the danger facing Marco.
“This will destroy you,” were the words Marco dourly reported him saying, “unless we fight back and fight back hard. If we lose, you’ll never make another film. You won’t be able to publish articles in reputable places either. And don’t expect your friends to stay loyal. This sort of thing is absolutely radioactive. But we shan’t lose. I’m going to put a team together. Send me your correspondence with that man at the Messenger.”