BREAKING THE SILENCE
Jill Dawson reveals how she drew on the infamous Lord Lucan murder case and her personal experience of domestic violence when writing her moving new novel
Jill Dawson reveals the personal trauma behind her Lord Lucan novel
The murder of Sandra Rivett took place in the basement kitchen of Lord and Lady Lucan’s Belgravia home one November evening in 1974. Waiting in the unlit cloakroom at the bottom of the stairs, a man leapt out and began battering the head of the 28year-old nanny, Sandra, with a cosh. Moments later, as Sandra lay at the bottom of the stairs, Lady Lucan – Veronica – came to investigate. In the darkness, she was struck too, but managed to escape by grabbing her attacker by the testicles until he had to let her go. She ran to a nearby pub to raise the alarm.
That is the story Veronica told the police from the safety of her hospital bed and again during the inquest in 1975. She had, she said, gone downstairs into the darkness when ‘somebody rushed out and hit me on the head’. ‘What happened then?’ ‘I screamed and a voice told me to “shut up”.’ ‘Did you recognise the voice? ’ ‘It was my husband.’ What does it feel like to say ‘my husband attacked me’ or ‘my husband tried to kill me’? Exposing. Terrifying. There is that picture of yourself that even you don’t want to see. I know this because I’ve tried saying it. I tried quite a few times before I could say it clearly enough for anyone to hear.
Between the ages of 25 and 30 I was in love with a man who worked as a mechanic but in his spare time made beautiful violins. He could make anything, I discovered. I met him in a pub where he reached out his hand to circle my wrist, admiring a bracelet I was wearing and asking if he could study it, make a copy. He was dark, powerfully built, with eyes of an unusual, very pale blue. And he had a foul temper that would strike periodically like a mad dog leaping out of shadows. But of course I didn’t know that then. Within months I was pregnant. A year on and I’d moved to America with him, where we were living in a cabin in the middle of nowhere.
Why was it so hard to tell people about his violence? Partly because of embarrassment; partly a feeling that speaking of it would make it real. Rationalising, downplaying, was my way to cope. I told friends that he was ‘moody’ and told myself that I could handle him. I couldn’t seem to decide whether – or when – his behaviour crossed a line. Only now, from a safe distance, do I see the danger I was in and wonder if eventually one of his attacks might have proved fatal.
This was 25 years ago. I escaped – a whole novel in itself. I’m now happily married to someone else. As a patron of a domestic-violence charity I’m often asked to talk about my experience. The question ‘why don’t women leave?’ comes up every time. Women are raised with the romantic idea that love conquers all. Imagine right now that you had to leave the man you love, the father of your child, give up hope that he can change. Is it easy? Love is not a governable thing; it sometimes lingers longer than our rational self expects.
In her 2017 memoir, Veronica tells of other violent attacks by Lucan, before the murder of Sandra. She regrets that ‘an innocent woman died because of my relationship with my husband’. But she kept a painting of Lucan in his red erminecollared cloak above her mantelpiece for 43 years while her life unravelled and controversy about the most famous fugitive in British criminal history raged.
I too have kept photographs, mementoes from the cabin and, most treasured of all, a letter. In it my ex writes simply: ‘I am deeply sorry for my violence towards you.’ That acknowledgement, expressed without excuses or false promises, helped. Yes, my life had been in danger and he knew it too. But it also restored a little faith in my own judgement. I had not been entirely crazy. I had fallen for that better part of him, the part that was lucid and wanted to change. His letter freed me to get on with the rest of my life.
I recently went to the sale where the Lucan portrait was auctioned at Bonham’s. The auctioneer invited us with a few showy thumps of the gavel to ‘take these things away and love them for ever…’ Love them for ever. Sometimes that’s very bad advice indeed. ‘The Language of Birds’ by Jill Dawson (£18.99, Sceptre), inspired by the story of the Lucan murder, is out now.