47
On Friday morning, Madeleine held her head high as she walked to the witness stand. She knew that this was a risky move, but it was one that she had to take.
The judge, the media and, most of all, Kate needed to hear from her.
Her sister-in-law had already been brave and done an incredible job, and her great friend Lucy had done her utmost to paint her in a decent light. Now she had to top their performances and make the case for why she, and especially her family, were not guilty of negligence, and while they might be considered indirectly responsible for this, their decision not to vaccinate Jake and Clara did not make them monsters.
Eschewing the conservative suits she’d worn to court so far, today she wore a flowing floral skirt and light pink cashmere polo-neck sweater that was much more her usual day-to-day style. She smoothed the skirt carefully as she took her seat.
Looking around the courtroom, she adjusted to the change in landscape of the room from this point of view and decided that this was much like a pet goldfish must feel like in a fish tank.
“Mrs. Cooper—Madeleine—thank you for taking the stand today and for your willingness to share your testimony with the court.”
Nodding at Michael McGuinness, she clasped her hands in her lap and tried to remain calm.
But her palms were sweating.
“Madeleine, I would like to begin by recounting your own experience of March twentieth last year when Clara fell ill,” the barrister said. “Can you talk us through the events of that day?”
“Yes. Clara had been a little sniffly the night before, and my husband commented that she might be coming down with chicken pox. The school had sent a note home—another girl in my daughter’s class had come down with it that week—so we knew that it was going around and I was prepared for the fact that Clara might well catch it. She’d never had the disease before but Jake, my eldest, had.”
“Indeed. And how did you feel about that?”
Madeleine decided to be circumspect. She’d agonized over how she should play it today, especially knowing that she and Tom had always been considered unconventional, or even cavalier, in their approach. And as that same approach had been criticized long and hard well before this whole thing started, she felt there was no point in trying to paint things any differently to how she saw them. The judge, and indeed the media, would see right through that. “No parent likes to see their child ill,” she said, “but these diseases, particularly among school-going children, are almost a rite of passage.”
“I see. So the idea of Clara contracting such a disease didn’t bother you.”
“Not at all. Chicken pox in particular is an uncomfortable but relatively harmless illness. In fact, many parents hold chicken-pox parties so they can control when their children fall ill with it, and thus can make work arrangements around this.”
“Just for clarification, you’re saying that some parents arrange to actually infect their children on purpose?”
“Correct. In my experience, this occurs often when there are a few siblings involved so that all children in the house can be cared for at the same time, and particularly in the case of working parents, so that no further time off is needed to deal with the same illness subsequently. But I am lucky in the sense that I work from home, so I don’t need to plan around these things as much as most.”
“But you did have a work commitment on the morning of March twentieth, did you not?”
Madeleine took a deep breath. “On that particular morning, yes, I did. The nature of my work sometimes necessitates media appearances, which by their nature are often time-sensitive and last-minute.”
“But you were aware of this prior commitment on Monday evening, were you not?” McGuinness probed.
“I was, yes. But chicken pox usually takes a couple of days to develop and I’d hoped, as did my husband, that Clara’s sniffles were the result of her immune system trying to fight off the numerous bugs and infections all school-going kids are exposed to. As I’m sure most parents know, if you worried about every little cough and sneeze, you’d never be able to sleep a wink.”
She winced a little, realizing that last remark had come out a little more glibly than she’d intended, and she hoped it hadn’t made her come across as uncaring. But she got the sense that the judge was a bit of a no-nonsense sort who wouldn’t be inclined to mollycoddle every child with a runny nose, and she needed him to view her as a competent, sensible parent and not the feckless, irresponsible monster the media, and indeed Kate’s solicitors, had painted her thus far.
And Madeleine also felt it was especially important to get a mention of Tom in there, too, so everyone could see that both parents were equally unconcerned about Clara’s prognosis, so much so that they both intended to carry on the following day as planned.
“OK, so you assumed, although you couldn’t yet be sure, that Clara might be coming down with chicken pox?”
“Based on the school note we’d received, I thought this was a reasonable assumption, though of course I couldn’t be sure. Like I said, there are always various bugs going around at all times. She could just as easily have been coming down with a common cold. Or nothing at all.” She paused then. “But, as we know now, it wasn’t quite that simple and, of course, with the benefit of hindsight—”
“Objection. The witness is illustrating hindsight bias.”
“Agreed, Counsel,” said the judge, before turning to address her. “Mrs. Cooper, if you can, try to continue your testimony without referring to the outcome, so as not to distort your recollection of events.”
Madeleine swallowed hard. Damn. Matt Townsend had warned her about this, that hindsight bias was a cognitive phenomenon that could be especially damaging in a defense situation. She needed to focus her testimony on how things actually happened rather than try to alter them based on her knowledge of the outcome.
She cleared her throat. “Sure. I’m sorry.”
The defense barrister helped her along. “So on the morning of March twentieth, your family got ready for the day as normal. Was there any further development or deterioration in Clara’s condition—perhaps a difficult night or any sickness?”
“No, nothing at all. We went to her grandmother’s house after dinner, and she even seemed to brighten a little as the evening went on. I gave her some acetaminophen as a precaution before bedtime and had her eat an orange and some blackberries to boost up her levels of vitamin C...”
This earned a titter from the media gallery and Madeleine flushed despite herself. What, were they laughing at her naivety in attempting to, God forbid, use a natural means of boosting her child’s immune system? Talk about hindsight bias...
“OK, so Clara showed no sign of further deterioration. Talk us through what happened the following morning.”
“She woke up, again a little sniffly, but, for the most part, she seemed OK. She refused breakfast, but can be a fussy eater at the best of times, so this didn’t ring any alarm bells.”
“So, to your mind, there was still no outward reason to keep her home from school?”
Madeleine paused. “That’s correct. So I made a call. Just like every parent up and down the country would do in a situation like this. I can’t deny that she was a bit off but seemed OK, and I honestly didn’t see any reason to keep her home. And my husband and I already had other commitments, responsibilities that couldn’t be canceled last-minute for something that we both felt was your typical childhood-sniffles situation. And you have to understand that more often than not, kids are troupers—they can be at death’s door one minute and then bounce back the next as if nothing had happened.” Again, she grimaced inside, wishing for Kate’s sake that she’d phrased that a little better. But the room was so quiet when she was speaking, and everyone clearly paying close attention, that she felt she was coming across OK.
“Yet you still decided to engage your friend Lucy as backup, just in case, did you not?”
“That’s correct; of course I wasn’t going to head off that morning without a care in the world. And because on that particular morning I would be away, I needed to ensure that someone would be there for Clara just in case she did happen to get worse.”
Madeleine was very careful this time not to evoke hindsight but it was almost nigh on impossible. If she’d known then what she knew now, obviously things would have been very different...
“Where were you and how did you feel when the school phoned to let you know Clara had indeed gotten worse?”
“I was at the Channel 2 studio about to go live. I was upset, naturally, and felt guilty for not being there the one time she needed me. But I also knew she was in good hands with Lucy and, in fairness to Clara, she’s not needy or clingy. Neither of my kids are.”
“Because, as Mrs. Murphy herself testified just a few days ago, you raised them to be confident, independent—”
“Objection. Irrelevant and shamelessly misleading!”
“Sustained. Counsel, you’re on dangerous ground with that nonsense. I won’t tolerate it.”
“My apologies, Judge. I was merely trying to help illustrate that Mrs. Cooper was acting in accordance with her daughter’s behavior and personality.” He turned back to Madeleine.
“So, let’s continue. Far from being negligent or willfully irresponsible, you took the necessary steps to ensure your daughter was taken care of should she become ill.”
“Counsel...” the judge warned, but for her part Madeleine was buoyed by the defense barrister’s bravery. It made the whole thing come across so much more reasonable.
“Duly noted, Judge, and again my apologies. Mrs. Cooper, tell us what happened afterward when you returned from your work commitment in Dublin?”
Feeling heartened by how things were going so far, Madeleine continued, her voice becoming more confident. “Lucy was good enough to stay with Clara at my house for the hour or so it took me to get home, and after that I kept her in bed, gave her some more acetaminophen and kept a close eye on her to see how things would develop. Obviously I kept her home from school from thereon in. I began operating under the assumption that it must in fact be chicken pox—after all, it was going around. But then her temperature spiked and I became concerned, though not enough to take her to the doctor or anything. My feeling was that these things had to take their course.”
“And when did you discover the true nature of Clara’s illness?”
“It was a few days later. I was tending to Clara at home when I received a call from Lucy. She called to tell me that Rosie O’Hara had gotten sick, too, and I told her that I wasn’t too surprised, especially when chicken pox is so contagious. But then she mentioned that Rosie had already had it a couple of years before. At the same time, I didn’t think that was particularly odd, either; I believe some kids can get different variants of a disease more than once. But Lucy told me that wasn’t the case and urged me to check Clara’s chest for spots. It seemed Rosie’s mum had very quickly recognized her own daughter’s symptoms as measles. She’s a nurse, of course, so she would know.”
McGuinness considered this information. “And how did you feel then?”
“Well, I was taken aback. And worried, obviously, as well as annoyed at myself, too, for missing it. It had been some time since I’d come across measles before, though, a good six years previous when Jake was a baby, so it wasn’t foremost in my mind. And I immediately thought about the holiday we’d taken to Florida over Easter, where there’d been news of a small measles outbreak, and wondered if she could have picked it up there or on the flight back, even.” Despite Matt’s, and indeed Tom’s, advice, she thought it best to own up to the idea that Clara was likely the source of the infection, because she felt the alternative was just too damaging.
“So I immediately pulled my son out of school, too. Even though Jake had already had the disease, he could still be carrying it, and I didn’t want to put other kids at risk.” Her voice was earnest, and Madeleine didn’t think there could be anyone in the courtroom who believed she wasn’t telling the truth.
“Responsible move,” commented McGuinness, while Madeleine waited for the other side’s barrister to object.
But Patrick Nevin didn’t, because what was there to object about? She had acted responsibly, based on her knowledge of events at the time.
Hindsight.
Michael McGuinness looked at Madeleine thoughtfully. “So you did wonder if Clara might have picked it up in Florida, but how could you know for sure? As previous witnesses already mentioned, it is not easy to locate Patient Zero.” The defense barrister still wasn’t quite willing to give up the proof angle.
“That is correct, but from what I understand, our time there did coincide with the incubation period for the disease.”
Nevin stood up. “I object. Speculation. Mrs. Cooper is not a medical professional.” She rolled her eyes inwardly, wondering how she was supposed to win when just then she was effectively playing devil’s advocate for the other side.
“Sustained,” replied the judge.
“But, looking at the timeline, it seems a bit of a reach to automatically assume Clara infected Rosie, doesn’t it? Couldn’t it just as easily have been the other way around?”
“Objection! Speculation!” shouted Nevin.
“Sustained,” replied the judge. “May I remind you, Counsel, that the source or origin of the infection is not under discussion here, rather the question of whether or not Mrs. Cooper was negligent in sending her daughter to school given the risk her unvaccinated status posed. Please refrain from commenting or alluding to the source.”
“Apologies, Judge. It won’t happen again.” He turned back to the witness. “Mrs. Cooper... Madeleine, this last year has been tough on your family, hasn’t it?”
Grimacing, Madeleine shook her head sadly. “It’s not just about my family. I know this hasn’t been easy for Kate O’Hara or Rosie, either. And maybe I can understand how frustrated and out of control all of this must feel—she lost her husband a few years back, and now this terrible situation with her daughter. I also suspect that she’s had some people in her ear, giving her bad advice. But I know all of us could have handled this whole situation better, myself included. When it was evident that both Clara and Rosie were sick, I should have made more of an effort to help Kate—we could have helped each other. I know I’m not supposed to talk about hindsight, but there’s no denying that if I could go back to that morning and change things, I would. But, well, all I can say now is that it’s been a trying and scary time for both of us, but we can’t change the past.”
Finally, she’d had the chance to say this to Kate, to speak directly to her. Madeleine tried to meet the other woman’s gaze as she did so, but Kate kept her eyes fixed on a spot somewhere else in the room, away from the witness stand. She would give anything to be able to read what was in her mind just then. Couldn’t she see that Madeleine had never meant for any of this to happen, had done nothing wrong and was desperately sorry about the outcome?
“Speaking of moving forward, remind us of the timeline of Clara’s illness and when you became aware that she had measles?” McGuinness went on, swiftly changing the subject and she guessed the barrister was concerned she was being almost too sympathetic to the plaintiff’s position. Time to get back on track.
“Clara started showing symptoms of...something on Monday evening, and she came home from school Tuesday at lunchtime. It was Friday by the time I actually realized she had measles.”
The implication was clear. There was no way Madeleine had sent Clara to school knowing she was measles infectious.
“Thank you very much, Mrs. Cooper,” said the defense barrister. “No further questions.”