Personal Narrative

It was the storytelling part of law that fascinated Sarah. The challenge of finding a way of turning the ‘accused’ into a person, someone real and vulnerable; someone that the judge and jury – if there was a jury - would warm to and empathise with. There was a way of presenting the evidence, the arguments that gave the court a sense of the person beyond the crime, before the crime; storytelling was what made the difference between a good barrister and a mediocre one. The prosecution would produce victim statements from the dead girl’s parents and her sister, the grandparents, the aunts and uncles and friends. These would be sad accounts. Narratives that would fill the courtroom with grief and with anger, that would make no sentence seem long

They were not people she would ring if needed help. Who would she ring if she needed help? Her brothers? They would lend her cash if she was short of money, give her a bed for a couple of nights if her building collapsed in an earthquake or was guttered by a fire. She could count on them; they were the sort of brothers, sisters said, they’ll do anything for me. But they didn’t know her. Conversations at family dinners were possible only if they focused on the football, or travel. Intimacy was dependant on collusion - always against their mother – they complained about her outrageous demands, laughed about her latest acquisition.

Sarah liked most of the people at work, sometimes they went out for lunch, occasionally for drinks on a Friday night. If she needed advice, she could ask them. But if she left work she’d hardly see any of them at all.

What made Jo the kind of person that Ashleigh would have as a best friend? What made Jo the kind of person that would have a best friend? What was Jo’s story? And what if Jo didn’t have a story? Was that possible? Were some people only ever secondary characters in other people’s stories? And if Jo didn’t have a story how would Sarah give the judge insight into her life, create