The Forgiveness Thing

THE FORGIVENESS THING

It never not comes up, the forgiveness thing. It isn’t always the first question, but

everyone gets round to it at some point.

‘What people want to know is...’ Here it comes now, only seconds after she sat down.

‘What people want to know is how did you find it in your heart to forgive him?’

‘It isn’t about forgiveness,’ I said. ‘Forgiveness is a big ask. It’s something more...I

suppose it’s closer to...Whatever it is, it’s not forgiveness.’

‘But four operations, reconstructive surgery...’ My interviewer sipped carefully at the

coffee I made for her. She was used to real coffee, not the brown liquid I drink. ‘And it’s

not as if he showed any remorse at the trial.’

Of course he didn’t. Did you imagine that he would? Did you expect that someone with

zero life chances would even know what the word ‘remorse’ meant?

‘What it was...’ I was struggling. ‘What I’m saying is that words like ‘evil’ didn’t do the job.

He kept getting in the way. The human being.’

‘What people need to know, I guess, is where does it come from, this...’ She searched for

an alternative to ‘forgiveness’. Magnanimity? Forbearance? Or—even worse—

compassion?


‘I don’t know. It’s a long process. You’re angry at first, and then, over time...But it’s not

forgiveness. I don’t think I know how to do forgiveness.’

By now I’d worked out she was one of those journalists who played dumb: one of those

I’m-trying-to-understand journalists who understands only too well.

‘But he puts you through hell, and then I read that you...’ She goes to her notes. ‘...that

you think he’s the one who’s suffering. Have I got that right? You think he’s the one

suffering?’

‘I don’t think I used the word ‘suffering’,’ I answered. ‘I may have said that he’d had a

difficult life. Which, of course, he had. Violent parents, foster homes. The list of people

who let him down goes on and on.’

‘There are those who would say that you’re making excuses for him.’ Yes, she really said

‘there are those who would say’. I’ve been back to her piece and checked.

‘I’m not making excuses for anyone,’ I said. ‘When it happened, I wanted him to spend

the rest of his life in prison. But how does that help? The only thing that would’ve helped

in his case is early intervention. We need to work with offenders while they’re young

enough to turn round.’

She decided not to ask an improvised follow-up and returned instead to her list of pre-

prepared questions. ‘Do you think your victim statement contributed to him getting such a

lenient sentence?’


‘I don’t think victim statements affect the sentence, do they? And I don’t see myself as a

victim.’

‘And him? Do you see him as a victim?’

‘I’m against all labels, for both of us. That’s my point, don’t you see? Good, evil, villain,

victim, how do these labels advance anyone’s argument? So no, I don’t think he’s a

victim.’

‘What did you feel when they let him out after...just two years, wasn’t it?’

‘Eighteen months.’

‘I believe you were still having reconstructive surgery when he was released?’ Still

prodding, still trying to goad me into...what?

‘How are the two things related?’ I said. ‘Are you saying they breached some kind of

protocol by releasing him while I was still having surgery?’

I think it was about then that she switched off her recorder.

‘I’m just wondering,’ she said, ‘if you’d apply the same kind of thinking to a crooked

banker or a con man, someone who walked away with your life savings. I’m guessing you

wouldn’t, but how do we know that the middle-class con man hasn’t also been let down

by the system?’


‘This has nothing to do with my attacker being working-class.’

‘I don’t think he’s ever worked, has he?’

‘This isn’t sentiment on my part,’ I replied. ‘What I’m trying to say is that I arrived at where

I am now by a cold, hard examination of the facts. It would also be sentimental to want

revenge.’

‘And what I’m trying to say,’ she said, ‘is that your assailant is just like the middle-class

conman who went to a good school and had great parents. They both target their victim

in exactly the same way. It’s calculated. And they both have the same sense of

entitlement. Whether they empty your bank account or slice open your face—they both

get angry if you don’t stand there and let them do what they want.’

Now I knew why she’d switched off her machine. This was coming from the heart: she

was no longer putting a proposition on behalf of her readers: she was telling me who she

was.

‘Shall I tell you what really gets to me about these people?’ she said. ‘Their pitiful

excuses in court, the way they always say they never realised that other people suffer as

a result of their actions. Why then do they run away when they hear the police siren? If

they don’t think they’ve hurt anyone, why do they always do a runner?’

‘They’ve hurt you, I see,’ I said.


She stared.

‘Well, someone’s hurt you.’

‘Why do you say that?’

‘Why? Because it’s there for all to see.’

Yes, even someone as pathetic and as contemptible as me can see it. When I meet

people for the first time, it’s hard to work out if they’re repelled by my woolly liberal views

or by my hideous countenance and the reconstructive surgery that fails to disguise it. I’m

guessing she was offended by my hideous countenance, but she tried to obscure it by

hiding behind her disdain of my woolly views.

‘Shall we get back to the interview?’ she said. ‘This so-called idealism comes from...

where? Politics? Boy scouts?’

I replied that my ‘idealism’, such as it was, was informed by my beliefs.

‘Religious beliefs?’

I nodded.

‘Aren’t you expected to turn the other cheek only when you have another cheek to

turn?’ And realising she’d gone too far: ‘I’m sorry, that was...’


Unforgiveable?

‘Is the interview over?’ I asked. ‘I notice you’ve switched off your machine.’

‘I have all I need.’ She rose and put down her unfinished cup of brown liquid, adding,

‘You should expect a hostile reaction when the article’s published.’

The reaction is always hostile, not least because my correspondents know that I’ve

earned the right to hold the views that I do. That’s what really upsets them, the fact that

I’ve come by my wooliness the hard way.

As one of my less bruising critics wrote, it’s always harder to kick Jesus in the head.

*

She went away and wrote up the story. To be fair, she didn’t parade her own contempt in

the article. As for her readers, they were even more contemptuous than usual: some of

them (anonymously, of course) suggested additional amendments to my face. Comment,

as they say, is free.

About a month after the interview, my esteemed interviewer phoned to ask if I’d heard the

news.

‘What news?’


‘He’s dead.’

He’s dead. Does she mean he’s dead? Of course. How could she be talking about

anyone else?

‘That’s...This isn’t how...Well, I’m sorry. I’m really sorry.’

‘Why? He was a worthless piece of shit. Someone’s done the world a favour.’

‘He was murdered?’

‘Of course he was murdered. People like him never die from natural causes.’

The first of several telephone silences.

‘Don’t you even want to know if the police have any leads?’ she asked.

‘Do you think they’ll be looking?’

‘Every life,’ she said, now in full ridicule mode, ‘is precious.’

‘That’s not what I meant. I meant—’

‘You meant they aren’t going to waste man hours on scum like him.’

‘Your word, not mine.’


Another silence. You think she’s going to say something else, then she leaves a long

silence. She listens during these silences; gauges my reaction.

‘Was there anything else?’ I asked.

‘Yes. I wondered if you’d like to comment on this...tragic outcome.’

I thought for a moment. ‘There is something I’d like to say. His death...’

‘His untimely death?’

‘His death,’ I resumed, ‘reinforces everything I expressed in the interview. Everyone

thinks that people like him get away with what they do, but they don’t, not really, they

always end up paying. Disproportionately sometimes. That’s what gets left out of the

equation. If you don’t get a good start in life, you’re more exposed.’

Another of her scornful silences.

‘Are you still there?’ I asked.

‘Was there anything else you wanted to say?’ she said.

‘That’s it. That’s all.’

‘And you really didn’t know he was dead? The police haven’t been to see you?’


‘Should I expect them?’

‘Well, you’re a suspect. Or would be in the normal course of events. But,’ with a shrug in

her voice, ‘you’ve announced to the world, through the auspices of my newspaper, that

you’ve forgiven him, so...I don’t suppose they’ll be coming.’

Not just in your paper. I’ve done several interviews. But then you already know that.

‘Well, they know where to find me,’ I said. ‘I’m not leaving the country. I can’t. I’ve got

another operation scheduled for next month.’

Another silence, this time for me, I think, to give me space to decide if I wanted to expand

on anything I’d said.

‘I keep saying you’ve forgiven him,’ she said eventually, ‘but you haven’t, have you?

Wasn’t that what you said in our interview? That you haven’t forgiven him?’

‘I think I said that forgiveness was an aspiration. Grand principles are all very well, but

sometimes it comes down to simple practical measures. Like avoiding mirrors.’

‘Why do you avoid mirrors?’

‘Isn’t that obvious? By avoiding mirrors I’m not reminded of his handiwork.’

‘Doesn’t avoiding looking at yourself also remind you? It would me.’


‘I can see why you might say that. You struck me as someone who placed a high

premium on looks and physical attractiveness.’

‘Did I?’ She seemed interested in, rather than offended by, my observation.

‘Yes. You seemed repulsed by my appearance, so I assumed physical attractiveness is

important to you. Like most of the modern world.’

She didn’t even bother to defend herself. ‘If I look away, your attacker is the reason why.

It’s why you look away when passing a mirror—because you had to be someone else

because of him. Unless...’

Another pause, this time for effect.

‘Unless the reason you look away is because of something you’ve done.’

I asked her to elaborate.

But she wouldn’t take the horse over the jump.

‘What it leads me to ask...you having to be someone else because of him, the whole

thing...’ She decided to come at it again. ‘What all that leads me to ask is how do you

manage to exclude him from your every waking thought? I don’t understand how that

works.’


‘Are we doing another interview?’

‘Too late for that. We’ve done the interview.’

And then she said:

‘You haven’t asked how he died.’

I said I wasn’t interested in the gory details.

‘He was hit from behind with a blunt object,’ she said, ‘just hard enough to daze him. His

eye was gouged out while he was still semi-conscious. With a spoon, the police think. He

was kicked repeatedly in the groin. By now he has a detached testicle as well as a

detached retina. Only then does his killer finish him off with the aforesaid blunt object.’

‘Well...I’m sorry. No-one should have to...’

‘Rather like the days when they hung people, then cut them down while still alive, so they

could watch themselves being disembowelled. It doesn’t take a genius to work out that

his killer had suffered at his hands at some point.’

‘Well...Clearly his assailant—’

‘His killer, yes.’


‘Clearly his assailant was accustomed to...’ Trying to find my semantic bearings. ‘...to

doing this sort of thing.’

‘Or perhaps his killer—’ Underscoring the word ‘killer’ again. ‘—wanted us to think that he

was accustomed to doing this kind of thing. Perhaps his killer was nice and ordinary and

very middle-class. And...forgiving.’

I asked her if the police had found the murder weapon.

‘Well, the killer won’t keep it as a memento, will he?’ she said. ‘Or his blood-spattered

clothes. He’s in the clear, unless a witness comes forward at the last moment.’

She may not have taken the horse over the jump, but she came close. Perhaps she was

too ashamed to come right out and say it: ashamed for herself, that is, ashamed that she

and other journalists may have allowed themselves to be ‘used’. Well, wasn’t that what

she was implying? Or am I reading too much into her critical silences?

‘If,’ she said, ‘it turns out his killer is middle-class, and was loved by his parents, and went

to a nice school, do you think he deserves the same consideration as your attacker?

Could you also find forgiveness in your heart for him?’

‘If I can find forgiveness in my heart for my assailant,’ I said, ‘it would be illogical not to

forgive my assailant’s killer. But then, as I say, this word ‘forgiveness’...’

‘Yes. I know. Forgiveness is something you’re still aspiring to.’


One final silence. I was waiting for her, she was waiting for me.

‘Are you recording this?’ I said.

‘Do you mind?’

‘Aren’t you supposed to say when you’re recording?’

‘Some journalists do.’

‘What are you going to use?’

‘Just the quote that you gave me, about how people like your attacker always end up

paying in the end. And maybe the bit about you not looking in mirrors. That’s it really.’

‘Sorry I couldn’t give you a more memorable quote.’

She said that journalists have to work with what they are given, or words to that effect.

Maybe she should have come right out and demanded a memorable quote, but that, I

suppose, would be like asking someone to be funny: very few people can perform to

order.

‘I’m just not very good at this interviewing malarkey, I’m afraid,’ I said. ‘I don’t know how

to play the game.’


I expected her to say: ‘Oh, I think you do’ or something similar. Too obvious, though.

‘Journalists seem to want me to echo what they’re thinking,’ I went on. ‘You’re all a bit

contemptuous if I don’t say what you want me to say.’

‘If I was contemptuous before, I’m not now. Now ...’ She thought for a few seconds. ‘Put it

like this, I think I can see where you’re coming from now.’

‘You can?’

‘Yes. You’re saying you can’t go through life eaten up by thoughts of revenge.’

‘Exactly. That’s it exactly.’

‘Well, now you won’t have to, will you? He’s dead, so now you won’t have to. You can get

on with your life.’

‘Your point about the murderer getting rid of incriminating evidence...’ I said, cutting

across another of her listening silences. ‘I think you’re right about that. He’ll have already

disposed of the weapon and the blood-spattered clothes.’

‘Do you think so?’

‘There’s absolutely no doubt about it.’

‘Is that what you would have done?’


‘Definitely.’

One final, final silence, then she thanked me for my time and hung up.

Why had she keep returning to this forgiveness thing? I thought that I’d made it clear in

the first interview: forgiveness is an aspiration: very few people have it in them to rise to

the challenge. Even the most devout Christians have a problem with it, and I’m certainly

not devout. Devout doesn’t come close to describing me.

As long as she makes that clear when she quotes me. Because she didn’t last time. She

made me seem forgiving. But it’s not about forgiveness. It’s never been about that. I

don’t know how to do forgiveness.

The Forgiveness Thing

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