From the May 20, 1999 issue of the NYROB is a book review by Hilary Mantel:
Cries Unheard: Why Children Kill: The Story of Mary Bell by Gitta Sereny.
Mantel is conflicted. She has had bad experiences with the Medical
Profession and doesn't trust Sereny or her solutions. Nevertheless she
does think something should be done. At the time, ten year old Mary Bell
could be tried as an adult. While disagreeing with Sereny's proposal that
such children should immediately see a psychologist, not be tried in an
adversarial courtroom or subject to decisions by untrained jurors, she does
think that trying Mary Bell at age 10 in a court-system designed for
examining adults was wrong.
She interviewed Mary's mother, Betty, who apparently tried to kill Mary on
several occasions if she could make it look like an accident. Sereny has
difficulty believing Betty and has her go over Mary's childhood several
times: Mantel writes, "The innermost secrets of Mary's childhood are
yielded up with difficulty. She gave Gitta Sereny at least four versions of
events, the last of which I have decided is probably as close to the truth
as her memory could manage."
Mary Bell is now age 57 according to Wikipedia. Her name has been changed
and her identity is hidden by order of the court. In her criticism of
Sereny, Mantel writes, "The problem is also the nature of memory, the
passage of time and language itself, the language of the many versions, and
the meaning that slides away between them. 'I must have done, I must have
known, I must have thought. . . .' says Mary, responding on her state of
mind as she killed Martin Brown. I must have the eleven-year-old child
speaks through the mouth of a woman forty. It is hard not to think that
Mary is a giant translation problem. If we could solve it, would we hear a
language that means anything to us . . . ?"
COMMENT: I mentioned an accident I had on 8-15-19, coming down my stairs,
feeling struck from behind by it had to be one of my dogs, falling on the
kitchen tile floor and breaking my right knee-cap. Everyone I've discussed
this with wants to know how it happened, but I have to use language like
Mary's in order to describe it. I don't know which dog ran into me from
behind. My eight-year-old 125-pound Rhodesian Ridgeback could most easily
have done it, but he is very mild-mannered, and it is unlikely that he would
have done that of his own volition. My three-year-old Irish Terrier,
Jessica, does like to horse around, and if she chose that moment to
horse-around with Ben, she could have driven him into my legs from behind.
She could have done it on her own, but I can't think why.
When asked, I always say that my dogs knocked me down from one of the lower
steps of my stairs, but as the technician was doing an EKG to see if I was
in good enough shape to have my knee operated one, I asked if there was any
indication of a stroke or a heart-attack. She poured over the EKG for a
moment and said, "no, you've never had a heart attack or a stroke." I asked
that question because I had begun to doubt my memory of what happened. I
"thought" one of the dogs ran into me, but perhaps I had blacked out from a
mini-stroke?
My son who sees Jessica dashing about mere inches from my bad leg has no
doubt. He thinks Jessica is the sole culprit. But I couldn't prove it by
means of my memory.
In case anyone wonders, my affection for Jessica hasn't lessened. It seems
comparable to what I might have felt for Susan if she were driving while I
was in the passenger seat and was injured. I knew when we were just dating
that she was a terrible driver. She had been in several serious accidents.
In one she ran into a stanchion holding up part of an overpass in her VW.
She wasn't wearing a seat belt and broke her front window with her head.
I knew what I was getting. By a similar token, Irish Terriers are very
ferocious, willful, fearless little dogs. I knew it would take several
years before she settled down. Planning ahead I decided an Irish Terrier
would be good as my last dog. Small enough for me to handle, but tough
enough to handle coyotes at the river by herself if need be. She'll
probably still be good in that role. I'll just be limping a little when I
take her for walks or hikes at the river. J
Lawrence
