The Marriage Act(111)
She handed the microphone to Nathan.
‘I’ve been warned of how much I’m risking my future career opportunities by going public,’ he explained. ‘I know Harrison’s people will victim shame us all. They’ll tell you not to believe us and that we approached her and that she turned us down. They’ll say we tried to extort money out of her or that we were trying to become famous by rubbishing her. They will say anything to make Freedom for All look like we’re the bad guys. It’s for those reasons that Corrine and I have brought someone else with us who is more qualified to explain what Harrison is capable of.’
Nathan passed the microphone to the fifth figure on the stage. Corrine gave him a reassuring nod that said You can do this.
‘I’m William Harrison and Eleanor is my mother,’ he began, his voice tight. ‘I believe what these guys have told you about her behaviour is true because she has twice done this to former friends of mine.’ Will took a deep breath and recalled to the crowd how Harrison had been an absent parent, and on the occasions she was at home, often disappeared into the private sanctuary of her home office to work for days at a time.
‘Six years ago, I was curious as to what kept taking her attention away from her children so I took a look at her unattended laptop. On it, I found page after page of pornography, of young guys having sex with much older women. She caught me and tried to laugh it off, telling me it was research for an anti-porn legislation project she was working on. But I knew she was lying. However, I didn’t mention it again because I assumed she was embarrassed. After that day, she never left a device alone in a room again.
‘Fast forward to my first year of sixth form college, and a friend was staying with us while his parents were holidaying abroad. Mum made him feel very welcome and, as they were both nightbirds, they’d stay up late watching classic movies from the early 2000s when the rest of us went to bed. But, midway through the week, he packed his stuff and disappeared without saying goodbye. When I finally got hold of him, he said he was staying with his grandparents instead. And when we returned to college, he went out of his way to avoid me. I couldn’t understand what I’d done wrong.
‘Something similar happened in my first year at Uni. Mum asked me if I wanted to invite some of my political student friends for a tour of Westminster. We took a train to London, attended a political debate and, at the end of the night, one of our group became deeply engrossed in a conversation with her. We left them to it and crashed at the hotel. The next day, my friend caught an earlier train home than us, and even changed one of his Uni courses so we didn’t share lectures. He went on to slip out of our friendship group completely. It was history repeating itself and my mum was the common denominator. They’d both been left alone with her.
‘This time, I approached the Uni friend and practically bullied him into telling me what the problem was. He admitted something had happened sexually between him and Mum but he couldn’t be sure what. All he knew was that he hadn’t instigated it and had no control over it. My former sixth form friend was harder to trace, but when I found him, and he eventually agreed to meet me, he told me the same story.’
Corrine took a moment to scan the crowd’s faces for their reaction. They shared her same sense of shock and disbelief that she had when Will had tearfully regaled her with the same story in their first meeting at the university library.
‘Why would I believe those people over my own mother?’ Will continued. ‘If you knew Eleanor Harrison, if you saw how detached and cold she can be, how secretive she is, how determined she is to get her own way no matter who it might hurt, you’d know she isn’t like other mums.’
Will turned to the left of the stage and raised his hand. On cue, an image appeared on a screen behind him of typed notes on headed private hospital digital notepaper. Corrine’s hacker friend had once again proved useful. ‘These official medical notes disprove her assault claims,’ explained Will. ‘She had a bruise to the head and slight swelling but no other injuries. Her missing tooth was a temporary plate she was waiting to get fixed.’
A second image was of the MP on the steps outside her apartment with her family by her side.
‘You might remember this photograph, me still standing by my mum as she lied to you all,’ said Will. ‘I have even benefitted from her crimes. When I confronted her with what I knew she’d done to my friends, she denied it. Yet she offered to pay my student loan fees, accommodation and living expenses in return for me not bringing up “such awful accusations” again and making an occasional public appearance. I was selfish to have agreed. My silence made me complicit. Today I am no longer standing by the side of my mother, but by the side of Nathan and the two friends I have so badly let down. I apologize unreservedly for taking so long to be the person they needed me to be. I hope this afternoon might go some way towards finding the justice they have a right to expect. It’s the very least I owe them.’
Will handed the microphone back to Corrine as the audience applauded.
‘The Marriage Act is as corrupt as the people who stand behind it,’ Corrine concluded. ‘No couple in a Smart Marriage should be treated any better than a couple who have chosen not to upgrade or a person who wants to remain single. And a democratically elected Government should not turn its people against one another even if it believes it’s for the greater good. Love is one of the last remaining things in this world that is free. Please, let’s stop putting a monetary value on it. Thank you.’