The Thrill of the Case – Part Seven

Read Part Six of The Thrill of the Case, or go back to Part One.

"Based on the foregoing, your honour, I believe I have successfully proved that I, that is to say, Everarck Fanger, am not guilty of intellectual vanity."

And then because he'd always wanted to say it in a court.

"I rest my case."

And then he sat down, feeling immensely pleased with himself. This was the case that he'd painstakingly prepared with Gerellia, who'd turned out to be a vigorous advocate of his right to prove himself innocent of the ugly sin. He'd enjoyed working with her over the ten days or so of preparation, grown warm towards her, and privately in the comfort of his own mind, he was prepared to admit he'd even bonded with her more than a man in a long-term relationship ought to have.

He'd begun - and this had been his own idea - with a dictionary definition.

"Intellectual vanity can be defined - according to Cox and Moodie - as an excessive pride in one's own intellect or knowledge, often leading to a sense of superiority over others. Those who commit the sin of intellectual vanity often feel their own intellectual achievements or opinions are superior to those of others."

Gerellia had agreed that that provided a tidy opening to the subject. All he had to do now was go through the definition, bit by bit, and explain how no part of it described him, or his evident attitudes to others. She had even reminded him, "It doesn't matter if a defendant is actually guilty of a crime. It only matters if the defendant's conduct evinces criminal behaviour."

He had squirmed as she'd used words like 'crime' and 'criminal'. The other words: 'argument', 'demonstration', 'trial', 'judgement', with these he was comfortable, but 'punishment', 'prisoner' and 'sentence' made him shudder. Gerellia realised, watching him, that he saw the process as a high-minded exploration of whether certain qualities manifested in his behaviour. He had not, however, really grasped that he was in a literal court, which he had paid upwards of three thousand pounds to prosecute him and to which he had granted the power of finding him guilty of this form of behaviour, a social ugliness, which he himself had declared to be undesirable.

Intellectual vanity was not a crime, and the court had no power to imprison, but it was at the very least the architect of a public event whose proceedings had the power to stain a person's reputation, to humiliate them even as they attempted to wriggle free from the shadows in their own mind. Gerellia was not a lawyer. Everarck had simply assumed that. In fact, Gerellia was a psychologist, and what she saw in Everarck fascinated her. Never before had a person so obviously guilty of a social ill provided themselves to a process with such a powerful means of measuring it in them. That Everarck's motivation was to prove himself free of such vanity only plated the event with, to her, a profoundly satisfying irony.

She'd watched as Everarck had described his parents, his childhood, his dreams as a young person, his education and intellectual dreams. It had been a beautiful start to a strong argument. However, as the ten days progressed, shadows had swept over the self-examination, his gleaming autobiography. He had described his dreams of becoming a doctor which had seemed to wither even as he had pushed himself towards them. His daydreams of receiving that scroll of achievement had acquired, on one hand, the glow of utopian fantasy. On the other, parallel visions had showed the process as yellow and tawdry: the giving of a meaningless piece of paper in a dirty city hall surrounded by clowns in ridiculous gowns. Becoming tormented latterly that he would not be accepted by any university he'd want to join, he had pulled back from his exam preparation, and the results had been consequently mediocre.

"It was them!" he'd told Gerellia in strict confidence, "They were the intellectually vain!"

It was the gatekeepers of academic achievement who had been guilty of the sin. Gerellia had nodded encouragingly. From her own studies and the literature, she knew that accusing others of a sin is a behaviour repeated often amongst those most culpable of it. Then, taking pity, she had explained the phenomenon of projection to him, and got up and walked out of the room to allow him some time to himself. Clouds had occluded the sun that Tuesday afternoon, and the previously cheerful plant in the corner of the room had grown sullen.

He was guilty, he realised at last: guilty, guilty, guilty, guilty, and all that remained for him was to become a new man from this moment onward, to stand up in court and show that the events of the past no longer stuck to him. The best way to do that, the plant explained to him, was to plead guilty. Cleanse yourself, accept punishment, move forward, enjoy honesty.

"You smug bastard of a plant," he hissed, raising a pair of office scissors at it and stabbing the air, "I'll get out of this shit on my own if you won't help me!"

And then he had constructed his tale of Everarck the Innocent, knowing full well that it was a work of fiction, promising himself that he would not let himself off the hook in the court of his mind, if only he could evade the public humiliation now facing him.

The Sack of Dirt

Upon hearing that one would 'eat a peck of dirt before they die', a man purchased a large sack of earth, placed it in his wheelbarrow and carried it everywhere with him. Each day, he measured the contents to ensure that none had somehow escaped from the sack and got into his food. Each day, he confirmed that the sack remained full.

A year passed, and the sack was no emptier than when he'd bought it. He felt great elation that he, a simple man, had solved the problem of mortality so cheaply and so easily. He realised that, with this simple trick, he could live forever. He told no one of his discovery, but many noticed his beaming happiness as he went about his modest business.

As the years passed, he grew older and his hair went grey and his skin became wrinkly, but still the sack was full, so he didn't worry about death or mortality. In fact he remained blithe and generous for he could give away nothing of which there was not an infinitude.

After a few more years, he became sick and bed ridden. Friends and relatives visited to whom he cheerfully explained that this was temporary, and he'd soon get better. They admired his sense of humour and asked him if he had any last words. He responded by asking if a river had last words. No, it does not, he said, when they could not answer him. It goes down to the sea, rises into the clouds and falls again in the mountains. So the river is not in need of last words.

His friends continued to look dumbfounded, so he told them to go and inspect the sack of dirt in his wheelbarrow and tell him if it was at its limit of contents. They duly did so and reported that indeed the sack was full. There you go then, said the old man, I have not eaten my peck, and so I am not yet to die. But you are old and frail and lying in your death bed, they complained. Clearly your time has come.

No, I am not to die, he replied, beaming at them all, don't you see? They looked at his old, grey face, and still they did not know what to say. Imperturbed, he rested his eyes and there, still smiling, his breath grew fainter and fainter until, finally, there was none.

The man's funeral, testament to his spiritual and material generosity, was well-attended. In her eulogy, the minister, who had known him well, mentioned that the man had been known to carry a sack of dirt with him everywhere he went, that he'd believed that, while it remained full, he would never die, and that this was the secret of his happiness and his success.

Understanding at last this curious fact, the mourners had a statue of the man made, and now he stands on a plinth in the centre of the town. Every day, with the stone-hewn sack of dirt in his sculpted wheelbarrow, he smiles down on the people of that town. The tale of his happiness and kindness is passed down from generation to generation. And so it seems, that in the hearts of the townspeople who love him, he shall never die.

The Thrill of the Case – Part Three

Read part one and part two of The Thrill of the Case.

'Any success with the upgrade?' he further enquired.

'Mmm. Tricky one that, but old Nik knocked it out the park with a juicy new data set. While she was devouring all that lovely new info, she didn't seem to mind having her brain slightly reorganised,’ said the silver mop, bouncing with enthusiasm.

'Ah, foxy old Nik!' approved Everarck.

'Foxy old Nik with the hilarious face, you mean?'

'Oh, forget that! I was just upset about dropping these stupid e-mails on the floor.'

'I'll take that as an apology. Anything else I can help you with, young man?'

'Not really.'

'Hmmm? Yes or no?'

'No, I mean yes. I mean – have you seen that ad in the paper, “Are you so sexy, it should be illegal?”’

‘Goodness me, no. What kind of newspaper is this? It sounds a bit … top shelfian.’

‘No, the free thing on the bus.’

‘Ah, the illustrious Free Gazette!’

‘That’s the one! There was an ad in it yesterday. I thought it was interesting.’

‘Mmhmm.’

‘The Court of Public Opinion. You can… you just have to ring them up and apply for a law and then they, I think they arrest you and you have to, you have to prove you’re innocent.’

Nik’s face had slowly appeared from behind the sickly coloured screens. Two green eyes scorched Everarck from within a mass of wrinkled liver pink.

‘What are you blithering about?’

Everarck’s free hand patted his shirt pocket pointlessly.

‘I haven’t got it with me,’ he complained.

‘You are referring to your sanity, I take it,’ said Nik, looking over his shoulder before swiftly disappearing behind his machinery.

‘Oh, I checked my sanity in with HR when I started this job.’

Nik coughed. Everarck turned to find the short but undeniable image of Surd Fleeting examining something on the far wall.

‘As a general point of interest, the lawyer is in the reception area and seems to be waiting to be served,’ said the director in soft but resonant tones.

‘Oh, right, okay!’ exclaimed Everarck, simultaneously trying to bustle through the door while also attempting to permit Surd passage through the narrow space at the doorway, one carefully contrived to keep visitors to a minimum.

‘A lawyer!’ thought Everarck toing and froing dancingly around Surd as the short, stout man strode through his choreography, ‘I’ll ask him about the Court of Public Opinion! He’s probably very busy, but he might be able to tell me something about it!’ and the unsummoned image of a slim, severe and infinitely patient man blossomed in his mind.

He breathed with relief as the unheard computer fans were cut off as the door shut. He looked up and saw a young woman in an unembellished black jacket and red lipstick. He saw her as a rose in a vase and, as one does not speak to roses, he was not immediately able to speak. She watched him with curiosity as he entered the reception area with as much of an air of diffidence as he could muster.

‘Would I be able to assist you, madam?’ he asked, noting with discomfort that the question was several levels more polite than the one he’d asked the woman with the curly mop of hair and the pink cardigan twenty minutes previously.

‘I hope that you would,’ she said with a smile, ‘Is Ms. Lemender present?’

‘Yes, I believe so.’

‘This is it,’ he thought, ‘This is my moment to ask her. No lead-in required. She’s standing right there, and she’s smiling at me! All I have to do is say, “By the way” or “Incidentally” and I’m in! Committed!’

But at that moment he looked to his right and saw the monolithic form of Chariot Lemender descending the stairs with purpose.

‘She’s on her way,’ sighed Everarck and sat down at the desk.

Pushing both of the narrow double doors open, Chariot entered the reception area and the glow of her gaze fell upon the lawyer. The sound of the double doors slamming shut seemed to take place in another world.

The chief executive was indeed a towering woman in a severe grey skirt, thick framed glasses and a pearl necklace. Her look was intelligent, humorous leaning towards ironic, hungry. To Everarck, she was a lighthouse, the grey skirt the very rocks of which her beam-like gaze warned. But in this lighthouse were not merely a spiral staircase and bare brick walls, but a whole glistening library, organised in teak shelving. And so she summoned and warned off at once, stoked curiosity and dread.

‘Sobian! Thank you for coming!’ she declared as though speaking to a roomful of people, ‘How long have you been waiting?’

‘A minute,’ she said.

‘I’m so sorry. Mr., em, Fanger must have been busy. You have a lot of plates to spin, don’t you, Mr. Fanger?’

‘One or two,’ shrugged Everarck, immediately cursing himself for the implied dissent.

‘Don’t worry about signing in. Mr. Fanger will deal with that,’ said Chariot, standing to one side so that the lawyer was denied all moves but that of progressing into the field.

And then the event of the morning was walking away from him through the double doors and up the stairs, and Everarck was left wondering whether the initiative had been snatched from his fingers or whether he had allowed it to fall.

Read part 4 of The Thrill of the Case.

The Thrill of the Case – Part Two

Read part one of The Thrill of the Case.

At work the following day, Everarck sat in the horseshoe of the reception desk, doing such a marvellous impression of someone who was not the receptionist, perhaps a technician surveying the receptionist's equipment in their absence: phone, switchboard, computer, guestbook, pen, cash drawer, corporate agenda, complaint forms; that not one of the visitors found themselves able to approach him for help for eight and a half unbroken minutes.

However, even the white golf club baseball cap, incompetently Windsor-knotted tie and oblique, uncomfortable posture could not indefinitely suppress the idea that this small-framed man with squashed facial features might be able to perform the most basic tasks of a receptionist - with effort. And perhaps a little support.

To his credit, Everarck maintained the impression of not really being the receptionist but graciously prepared to stand in for them, fumbling with systems he knew intimately and lathering his instructions with mights and maybes, until the last of the visitors had disappeared into the labyrinth of the back offices or gone home.

At this point, Everarck wrote, 'Back in 5 mins. Pls wait or leave a msg' with a marker on a sheet of scrap paper, which he placed next to the guestbook, and left with a pile of emails which he had printed out according to corporate policy.

In truth, his pretence of not being the receptionist had some basis in fact. The company did not have a receptionist, and Everarck's job description specified little more than that he competently assist the director and put to rest a minimum of 40 hours per week on the premises. However, that the flexibility of Everarck's role and the official vacuum of services in the reception area provided him a permanent mooring point in the organisation had been so powerfully implied by the director, the stone-faced and permanently sleep-deprived Surd Fleeting, that Everarck had not had the will to resist. Few would have.

He took the meticulously compiled sheaf of papers towards the IT room and attempted to open the door with his two unoccupied fingers but succeeded only in opening the stiff door and spilling the papers directly from his guts in one great floe across the IT room's becabled floor.

'Well done, young man,' rumbled the only person there, a man whose thick hair in several shades of shining grey was the only part of him visible behind a variety of box-shaped machines the colour of rancid cream, 'That is by far the funniest thing to happen today.'

'Apart from looking at yourself in the mirror, Nik,' replied Everarck to Nichomachus, stooping to pick up the papers and slather them into a single jumbled pile.

'Don't be rude. You'll upset MARIA.'

Everarck knew that MARIA was how Nik identified the seemingly alert core of the interlocking databases that defined his professional sandbox.

'How is she today?'

'Temperamental,' replied Nik with a hollow laugh, 'She still hasn't forgiven me for my little holiday to Lake Solemn without her.'

Everarck was briefly caught up in the dream of a woman who would miss him when he was gone. But he was holding Zagonella to an impossible standard. He never went anywhere.

Read part 3 of The Thrill of the Case.

The Thrill of the Case – Part One

It had all begun, thought Everarck, with an advert in one of those newspapers circulated by bus seat. The advert had been entitled Court of Public Opinion and its text had read as follows.

Are you so sexy it should be illegal? Do others call you a criminal snob? Now you can take them to the Court of Public Opinion and prove them wrong – or right! Call us now on 0800-ARREST-ME to register the law you could be guilty of breaking.

It was as though someone had been following Everarck’s thoughts for the previous 24 hours and known that he would plant his eyes on that particular corner of the free paper. Only last night had Everarck been accused by Zagonella, his girlfriend of 12 years, of intellectual vanity.

‘You only read that book because you want people to think you’re clever,’ she’d said, referring to the copy of Writing and Difference at which he’d been staring, glassy eyed, for ten minutes.

‘I am clever,’ he’d snapped and turned a crisp page.

‘That’s not the point.’

And it was as she’d said the word ‘point’ that he’d felt he was falling all the way to the plosive ‘t’. He’d been silent for a moment, quietly turned the page back again and then rallied.

‘So you think I am clever?’

She’d rolled her eyes then and gone back to her book, which was pink. He detested pink and couldn’t believe she read it in public. It was even worse that she should find it more interesting than him. Nevertheless, he’d gone to sleep, and when he woke up, she was gone, and the bedroom was cold, and there was streaky condensation on the bedroom window, which was framed by nasty, cheap curtains that he hated.

If he’d had any sense, he thought, he’d have become a lawyer and be living in the Barbados for half the year by now. He imagined gazing down at the Pacific Ocean from the purple mountains of the Barbados, sighed, and went and ate some Flax Puffs with brown sugar.

And then he’d seen that advert on the bus, and it was like everything had come together. He’d thought about it all day, at least when he wasn’t wondering why Zagonella hadn’t texted him. In the evening, Zagonella still wasn’t home.

‘Double shifts at the hospital,’ he’d tutted, eaten some microwaveable macaroni cheese, carefully cut out the advert, sat on the toilet reading it several times, put his pyjamas on, sat on the bed, stared at the receiver of the phone as though it were a portal to pandemonium, read the blurb on the Derrida book and then, at thirteen minutes past six, called the number on the advert, rocking backwards and forwards with the book clamped between his knees until it clicked and the tone changed.

‘The Court of Public Opinion is waiting for your call between 8 AM and 6 PM, Monday to Saturday. Alternatively, leave a message and we’ll call you back.’

‘Hello, my name’s Everarck, Mister Everarck Fanger BSc (Hons). I’m calling because everyone says I think I’m smart, I mean my girlfriend says I want people to think I’m smart, but I’m not, I mean I don’t. I mean obviously it’s nice if someone recognises my efforts to be intelligent, but I don’t need that. I don’t know if you can help me. If not, don’t worry about it. But if you can, here’s my number.’

He'd given his number twice and hung up, put the advert in the Derrida book, watched some TV and gone to bed, waking briefly when Zagonella slipped into bed beside him at some unnameable hour of the night.

Read part 2 of The Thrill of the Case.