Magistrate

We have been told—twice now—to go to the wrong place.
Wrong building, wrong floor, and now here we are,
back where we began,
going up in the lift to the Magistrates’ Court.

The twins are restless. Their little heads bounce from side to side
like curly-mopped meerkats,
unable to sit still.

We arrive in an octagon-shaped space,
with arm-like corridors extending out from a central circle.
There is a shafted lighting well in the butter-beige ceiling,
and we can hear an indistinct announcement
calling names and court numbers.

Everyone who works here is wearing a suit.
Everyone who is here
because they have to be
looks like they have made an effort.
Everyone
looks stressed.

A blonde woman, flying fleet on her feet,
beelines towards us.
“I am your lawyer. I can’t be with you—I’m on Family Violence today.
Wait in Court 15. No children allowed.”

My parishioner looks at me in panic, but I tell her the little ones and I will be just fine—me and two nearly three-year-old twins. What could possibly go wrong?

As soon as their mama disappears, they begin to wail—both of them, at the same time—and both of them want out of that pram and onto my hips.
I press lift buttons, push the pram with my elbows, and am just struggling through the door when mama comes back.

“There was no one there,” she says. “They told me to wait with you.”

We are here today to get court recognition of paternity, so that this mama—who is couch-surfing, not a citizen, and all alone—can get some child support and, also, some justice.

Hours pass. Then all of a sudden, like the flash of a bird plummeting into a river, the lawyer is back.

“Quick,” she tells us.
“Now. Court 22.”

This time, when mama leaves, the girls do not protest. They are exhausted now, close to sleep.
I begin to sing—old Scottish folk songs about drowning sailors and mine explosions, and girls left holding babies, spinning wheels while the men fight the war.
All the while I rock the pram and close my eyes.

Time has stopped.
There are just these babies, this song, this octagonal waiting room.

I am woken from my dream state by the lawyer.

“Quick,” she instructs.
“The magistrate wants to see the girls.”

I wheel them in, trailing textas and teddies. We are a little coracle, being pulled in the wake of the lawyer’s urgent stride.

In the courtroom—which is deeply quiet and almost empty, except for the magistrate, the court clerk, and us—the magnitude of an idea falls upon us all.
The idea being, explicitly: justice.

The magistrate reads through the documents. She tuts and frowns.
“What’s this?” she asks, about an intervention order.
“What’s that? How dare he. Why was this allowed?”

She looks up, straight at my parishioner.

“You are just a mother trying to do what’s right for your babies,” she says.
“This is about justice. This is about responsibility.
The father will acknowledge these girls.”

Then she looks at me.
“And you—who are you?”

At this stage I am on the floor with a blanket and the girls.

“I am her minister,” I say.
“I am Reverend Alexandra Sangster.”

“Yes,” she says.
“Yes, you are. Good on you.”

Suddenly she softens, looking at the twins and then back to Mama.
“These are the hardest times,” she says,
“but there is so much joy. I remember—with my boys.”

“Stop recording,” she says to the clerk.
Then she tells us stories—of women who were wronged, just like in the songs I was singing moments before.
But this time it is 2026, and she is the magistrate, and I am the priest, and the mama is being honoured, her pain acknowledged, her courage applauded.

The twins begin to run—
sweet sparrows of joy, looping around us.
A mini murmuration.
A ribbon of rebellion.
Running in court!

I try to bring them back to the blanket, but the magistrate smiles.

“Let them run,” she says.
“Let them run.”

And so we do.