Part Sixty Five
As she walked down the steps to her car, George couldn't believe he'd done it. Neil had actually struck her. Hell, she knew she could be bad on occasions but tonight hadn't been half as bad as she sometimes was. She hadn't even thrown anything. All she'd done was to protest her lack of responsibility in the Merriman/Atkins trial. If they'd really thought she could get those two off, they should have brought her in on it from the beginning. She was at an immediate disadvantage, only having a night to prepare for it, but that didn't seem to make any difference to Neil and his cronies. She stepped on the accelerator and roared out of the drive and down the road. Her cheek throbbed. She briefly took one hand off the wheel to touch the rapidly forming bruise. She winced as her fingers came in to contact with the point where that blasted signet ring she'd given him had broken the skin. She could feel the trickle of blood running down her face and strove to stem the flow with a tissue. But what was she doing, driving through London at this time of night looking like she'd been involved in a drunken brawl. She fumbled for the mobile phone in her handbag, which she'd had enough sense to grab on her way out. The realisation that there was only one person she could call didn't improve her spirits.
When he answered, she said in a rush,
"John, are you busy?"
"I'm doing some reading for a ruling I have tomorrow. Are you in the car?"
"John, I need to see you." He could hear the urgent quiver in her voice.
"Is it Charlie?" He asked, referring to their daughter.
"Charlie's fine," Said George. She swore as another car suddenly loomed up out of the darkness.
"George, get off the phone and keep your eyes on the road. I'll come down and let you in." This was an order and she knew him well enough not to disobey.
When she cruised to a stop in the carpark of the Judge's lodgings, he was waiting for her, stood under the porch. He came forward when she got out of the car, and stared at her as the security light lit up her bruised and bleeding face.
"What the hell happened?" George was so relieved to finally be somewhere safe that at first she couldn't answer. "Did Lover Boy do this?" Asked John and she could hear the fury in his voice.
"John, please, just let me come in. It's freezing out here." He noticed that her voice was less strident than normal, somehow sounding defeated. As they walked up to his apartment, she was utterly quiet. Realising something must be very wrong, he didn't comment on this. When George dropped in to a chair, he put a large glass of brandy in to her hands.
"You're shivering," He said quietly.
"I think it's what they call delayed shock," She replied, her usual level of sarcasm not reaching its normal proportions. He went upstairs, and returned with a blanket and gently tucked it round her. Mimi, the whippet, rose from her basket and lightly jumped on to George's knee. John made to remove her, but George tangled her fingers in the dog's fur, as if needing something to hold on too. When John had filled his own glass and sat down opposite her he said,
"Talk to me, George."
"I don't really know what I'm doing here," She said, after taking a long, eyewatering swig of brandy. "I should go," She said, putting down her glass and preparing to lift the dog from her knee. John put out a hand as if to stop her.
"Calm down," He said gently. "You obviously came here for a reason. I'm assuming you and Lover Boy had a pretty monumental row." George laughed mirthlessly.
"There's no point calling him that any more. I told him to be out of the house by the time I get home tomorrow. I was going to ask you if I could stay here, but I'd forgotten you don't possess anything resembling a sofa." Briefly thinking that George had probably never slept on a sofa of any kind, John smiled.
"You can still stay here. I think we're both adult enough to share the same bed after all these years."
"True," She said, thinking that this really was turning out to be the oddest night of her life. As she dabbed at the cut on her cheek which had begun to bleed again, John filled a glass with cold water and took a clean handkerchief from his pocket. He dipped a corner of the monogrammed square in the water and reached forward to clean away the blood. Her hand came up and halted his progress.
"I'll do it," She said, her voice clearly betraying her tension at having him so close to her. When he'd returned to his chair he asked,
"Was that all he did?" gesturing to her face.
"You didn't seriously think I would have stayed for any more after he did this?" Her tone was incredulous.
"You might not have had a choice," Said John quietly.
"I left virtually as soon as he gave me this," She said, trying to put him at ease.
"What on Earth were you arguing about?" Asked John, thinking that it must have been something pretty serious for this outcome.
"Merriman and Atkins," George said succinctly. "I was supposed to get them off, and I didn't deliver."
"Ah," He said, the pieces beginning to fit in to place. "I'm assuming the cabinet wanted to ship her back to the states to avoid the bad publicity."
"That's about the size of it. Them both committing suicide didn't exactly help the situation."
"George, no-one could have persuaded a jury they weren't guilty. The evidence was stacked sky high."
"Always nice to have an impartial judge," Said George dryly.
"Oh, come on, George, you know me better than that. I'm just saying that it would have taken a miracle, that's all." George began searching through her handbag, then remembered her cigarettes were sat at home on the coffee table.
"Would Jo have left any cigarettes here by any chance?" She asked. John began looking through the clutter on the sideboard.
"I wish you two would give that up," He said in mock disapproval.
"No chance," Said George, taking the packet he'd found for her. As he poised the lighter, he looked in to her face. For all her bravado, she looked hurt, vulnerable and totally drained.
"You look done in," He said gently. The tenderness in his voice brought brief tears to her eyes.
"I'll be fine," She said, the hard edge of bitterness utterly failing to cover up how close to cracking she really was. Looking for anything to change the subject, she spied his violin case leaning up against one end of the sideboard.
"Do you still play?" She asked, gesturing to one of his favourite pastimes.
"When I have the time," He replied. "There's a string quintet I play with on a fairly regular basis."
"And I bet none of them knows you're a Judge," She said, remembering of old how he liked the anonymity of simply being a normal man doing normal things. "You should have gone professional," Continued George.
"I thought about it once," He replied, "But I think I'd have missed the people contact."
"Rubbish," Said George giving him a conspiratorial smile. "You'd have loved all those groupies, women hanging off your every note. Anyway, you've only exchanged one stage for another. That's why you always question the witnesses too much. You can't bare not to be playing the leading role."
"That's rich," He said grinning at her. "Coming from the woman who objects to every question."
"You know I only do that with Jo."
"Yeah, and she gives you as good as she gets."
"You miss all the sparring, don't you."
"There's nothing quite like a good intellectual fight."
"I wish Neil would stick to verbal sparring. But he knows I'd win if he restricted himself to words." George was on her second large glass of brandy, and John could tell the alcohol was having the desired effect of making her open up.
"Has this happened before?" He asked.
"Good god, no," Replied George. "He'd have had to look for somewhere else to live if he had. If I'd thought about it, I might have known he'd resort to fists one of these days. He's like a four-year-old when he can't get his own way." Thinking that this was a fairly good description of George herself, John tried to hide a smile and failed. "Don't look at me like that," Said George. "We're talking about him not me. You're the main thing that gets him started. He stupidly assumed that because of our past, it would be relatively easy to persuade you to lean heavily on the jury." John looked outraged at this. "Oh, I know," Went on George. "But your world and his world are miles apart. The way he sees it, justice is there to be upheld when it suits them and manipulated when it doesn't."
"How did you end up with such a spineless crettin?" Asked John.
"I think I was bored," Replied George without any hesitation.
"What are you going to do?" He asked.
"I don't know," She said, again looking defeated. "I've told him to be out of the house by the time I get home tomorrow, but beyond that, I have no idea."
A while later when she lay in John's large bed, wrapped snugly in a soft duvet, George listened to him washing their glasses and switching lights out downstairs. He'd found her an old T-shirt of his for her to sleep in, and she knew it made her look a little ridiculous. She lay on her right side, so that the cut on her cheek wouldn't be aggravated by the pillow. She heard him coming up the stairs, and watched as he placed the dog basket containing a sleeping Mimi under the window.
"That dog's got you wrapped round her little finger," Said George with a smile.
"She likes to think she has," Replied John. George listened as he prepared for bed, and watched the dog gently twitch its tail in the midst of a dream. This is utterly surreal, she thought. She hadn't shared a bed with John for years. When he joined her under the duvet, she knew this was where she'd always felt safe. But safe had never been enough for Georgia Channing. She liked the challenge of the chase too much. Oh, the sex had been fantastic, but nothing can compensate for that extra little bit of intrigue. But look where that had got her, a black eye and a broken relationship. An enormous wave of regret swept over her for what she'd put John through. She knew she'd never been an easy person to live with, only the appearance of their daughter had calmed her down. Their arguments had been monumental, until he'd learnt that the best way to deal with her was to simply ignore her outbursts. But even when she'd smashed an incredibly valuable vase, he'd never once raised his hand to her. That'd been the night she'd found out about his affair with Jo. George could remember every detail of that nightmare like it was yesterday. She'd picked Charlie up from school; she'd been six at the time. They'd decided on impulse to go to court to pay Daddy a surprise visit. George had only just pulled in to the carpark, when she'd spied John coming out of the front doors of the court, accompanied by a tall, very attractive woman. John hadn't seen her car, if he had, he'd never have kissed this woman long and hard on the steps of the court for all the world to see. George had known about his previous flings, and to be honest they hadn't worried her over much. But John and this woman, whom she'd later found out was called Jo Mills, looked, right, complete, as if no other person existed for either of them. That was the beginning of the end for her and John. From that day onwards, George had always known that any feelings of serious commitment in John were reserved solely for Jo. After watching their little display, George had put the car in to a three point turn, and roared out of the carpark. When she'd had it out with him that evening, after Charlie had been put to bed, she'd discovered that he hadn't even been aware of her presence whilst he'd bid goodbye to his latest sweetheart.
"Am I really such a bitch?" She asked, still with her back to John as they lay closer than they'd ever been since that night. Hearing the slight quiver in her voice that heralded tears, he gently put his arms round her, but she still lay with her face turned away from him.
"Nothing you could have done warranted what he did."
"Oh, come on," Said George scornfully, her anger rising to disguise her tears. "Surely even you can remember what I'm like when I'm furious."
"Yes," He said with a smile in his voice. "We were finding fragments of that Ming vase for weeks."
"So, why did you never give me a black eye?"
"Because, I don't believe in beating up anyone without a good reason, especially someone who couldn't even begin to match me in physical strength." George abandoned any attempt to hide her weakness.
"He was so furious with me," She said in a strangled voice. "He seems to think that because of our relationship, I'm the cabinet's personal QC to do their bidding."
"George, none of this is your fault."
"Oh, of course not," She replied, all her bitterness turned inwards on herself.
"You've got to believe it," He said softly. As she turned over and lay her head on his chest, he held her as her body shook. He didn't think he'd ever seen her quite so vulnerable, not even eighteen months ago when Charlie had been involved in and possibly hurt in that hunger striker protest.
"I'm sorry," Said George, hardly able to believe she was showing him how pathetic she felt.
"Don't be," He said gently. She turned away from him and groped on the bedside table for the box of tissues that sat there.
"I feel so pathetic," She said, the self-disgust all too resonant.
"George, this is me," He said as she dried her face. "I've seen you cry before."
"You've never seen me with a beaten up face before," She said, lying back down. It seemed natural for her to slip back in to his arms, to lay her head on his firmly muscled chest.
"This is like old times," He said, running his fingers gently through her hair.
"No, it's not," She replied, "We're neither fighting nor making up." He laughed.
"We did have some peaceful times."
"Very very occasionally."
"There's something else that's different from then," He said turning serious, "You're far too thin."
"Rubbish," She said sleepily. Deciding for once to let her have the last word, he said nothing. As she slowly drifted to sleep, lying snugly against him, John not only wondered how George was going to deal with this, but he also prayed that Jo would forgive him having given George sanctuary. George was still the mother of his child, and if nothing else, he would always feel the need to protect her.
As she walked down the steps to her car, George couldn't believe he'd done it. Neil had actually struck her. Hell, she knew she could be bad on occasions but tonight hadn't been half as bad as she sometimes was. She hadn't even thrown anything. All she'd done was to protest her lack of responsibility in the Merriman/Atkins trial. If they'd really thought she could get those two off, they should have brought her in on it from the beginning. She was at an immediate disadvantage, only having a night to prepare for it, but that didn't seem to make any difference to Neil and his cronies. She stepped on the accelerator and roared out of the drive and down the road. Her cheek throbbed. She briefly took one hand off the wheel to touch the rapidly forming bruise. She winced as her fingers came in to contact with the point where that blasted signet ring she'd given him had broken the skin. She could feel the trickle of blood running down her face and strove to stem the flow with a tissue. But what was she doing, driving through London at this time of night looking like she'd been involved in a drunken brawl. She fumbled for the mobile phone in her handbag, which she'd had enough sense to grab on her way out. The realisation that there was only one person she could call didn't improve her spirits.
When he answered, she said in a rush,
"John, are you busy?"
"I'm doing some reading for a ruling I have tomorrow. Are you in the car?"
"John, I need to see you." He could hear the urgent quiver in her voice.
"Is it Charlie?" He asked, referring to their daughter.
"Charlie's fine," Said George. She swore as another car suddenly loomed up out of the darkness.
"George, get off the phone and keep your eyes on the road. I'll come down and let you in." This was an order and she knew him well enough not to disobey.
When she cruised to a stop in the carpark of the Judge's lodgings, he was waiting for her, stood under the porch. He came forward when she got out of the car, and stared at her as the security light lit up her bruised and bleeding face.
"What the hell happened?" George was so relieved to finally be somewhere safe that at first she couldn't answer. "Did Lover Boy do this?" Asked John and she could hear the fury in his voice.
"John, please, just let me come in. It's freezing out here." He noticed that her voice was less strident than normal, somehow sounding defeated. As they walked up to his apartment, she was utterly quiet. Realising something must be very wrong, he didn't comment on this. When George dropped in to a chair, he put a large glass of brandy in to her hands.
"You're shivering," He said quietly.
"I think it's what they call delayed shock," She replied, her usual level of sarcasm not reaching its normal proportions. He went upstairs, and returned with a blanket and gently tucked it round her. Mimi, the whippet, rose from her basket and lightly jumped on to George's knee. John made to remove her, but George tangled her fingers in the dog's fur, as if needing something to hold on too. When John had filled his own glass and sat down opposite her he said,
"Talk to me, George."
"I don't really know what I'm doing here," She said, after taking a long, eyewatering swig of brandy. "I should go," She said, putting down her glass and preparing to lift the dog from her knee. John put out a hand as if to stop her.
"Calm down," He said gently. "You obviously came here for a reason. I'm assuming you and Lover Boy had a pretty monumental row." George laughed mirthlessly.
"There's no point calling him that any more. I told him to be out of the house by the time I get home tomorrow. I was going to ask you if I could stay here, but I'd forgotten you don't possess anything resembling a sofa." Briefly thinking that George had probably never slept on a sofa of any kind, John smiled.
"You can still stay here. I think we're both adult enough to share the same bed after all these years."
"True," She said, thinking that this really was turning out to be the oddest night of her life. As she dabbed at the cut on her cheek which had begun to bleed again, John filled a glass with cold water and took a clean handkerchief from his pocket. He dipped a corner of the monogrammed square in the water and reached forward to clean away the blood. Her hand came up and halted his progress.
"I'll do it," She said, her voice clearly betraying her tension at having him so close to her. When he'd returned to his chair he asked,
"Was that all he did?" gesturing to her face.
"You didn't seriously think I would have stayed for any more after he did this?" Her tone was incredulous.
"You might not have had a choice," Said John quietly.
"I left virtually as soon as he gave me this," She said, trying to put him at ease.
"What on Earth were you arguing about?" Asked John, thinking that it must have been something pretty serious for this outcome.
"Merriman and Atkins," George said succinctly. "I was supposed to get them off, and I didn't deliver."
"Ah," He said, the pieces beginning to fit in to place. "I'm assuming the cabinet wanted to ship her back to the states to avoid the bad publicity."
"That's about the size of it. Them both committing suicide didn't exactly help the situation."
"George, no-one could have persuaded a jury they weren't guilty. The evidence was stacked sky high."
"Always nice to have an impartial judge," Said George dryly.
"Oh, come on, George, you know me better than that. I'm just saying that it would have taken a miracle, that's all." George began searching through her handbag, then remembered her cigarettes were sat at home on the coffee table.
"Would Jo have left any cigarettes here by any chance?" She asked. John began looking through the clutter on the sideboard.
"I wish you two would give that up," He said in mock disapproval.
"No chance," Said George, taking the packet he'd found for her. As he poised the lighter, he looked in to her face. For all her bravado, she looked hurt, vulnerable and totally drained.
"You look done in," He said gently. The tenderness in his voice brought brief tears to her eyes.
"I'll be fine," She said, the hard edge of bitterness utterly failing to cover up how close to cracking she really was. Looking for anything to change the subject, she spied his violin case leaning up against one end of the sideboard.
"Do you still play?" She asked, gesturing to one of his favourite pastimes.
"When I have the time," He replied. "There's a string quintet I play with on a fairly regular basis."
"And I bet none of them knows you're a Judge," She said, remembering of old how he liked the anonymity of simply being a normal man doing normal things. "You should have gone professional," Continued George.
"I thought about it once," He replied, "But I think I'd have missed the people contact."
"Rubbish," Said George giving him a conspiratorial smile. "You'd have loved all those groupies, women hanging off your every note. Anyway, you've only exchanged one stage for another. That's why you always question the witnesses too much. You can't bare not to be playing the leading role."
"That's rich," He said grinning at her. "Coming from the woman who objects to every question."
"You know I only do that with Jo."
"Yeah, and she gives you as good as she gets."
"You miss all the sparring, don't you."
"There's nothing quite like a good intellectual fight."
"I wish Neil would stick to verbal sparring. But he knows I'd win if he restricted himself to words." George was on her second large glass of brandy, and John could tell the alcohol was having the desired effect of making her open up.
"Has this happened before?" He asked.
"Good god, no," Replied George. "He'd have had to look for somewhere else to live if he had. If I'd thought about it, I might have known he'd resort to fists one of these days. He's like a four-year-old when he can't get his own way." Thinking that this was a fairly good description of George herself, John tried to hide a smile and failed. "Don't look at me like that," Said George. "We're talking about him not me. You're the main thing that gets him started. He stupidly assumed that because of our past, it would be relatively easy to persuade you to lean heavily on the jury." John looked outraged at this. "Oh, I know," Went on George. "But your world and his world are miles apart. The way he sees it, justice is there to be upheld when it suits them and manipulated when it doesn't."
"How did you end up with such a spineless crettin?" Asked John.
"I think I was bored," Replied George without any hesitation.
"What are you going to do?" He asked.
"I don't know," She said, again looking defeated. "I've told him to be out of the house by the time I get home tomorrow, but beyond that, I have no idea."
A while later when she lay in John's large bed, wrapped snugly in a soft duvet, George listened to him washing their glasses and switching lights out downstairs. He'd found her an old T-shirt of his for her to sleep in, and she knew it made her look a little ridiculous. She lay on her right side, so that the cut on her cheek wouldn't be aggravated by the pillow. She heard him coming up the stairs, and watched as he placed the dog basket containing a sleeping Mimi under the window.
"That dog's got you wrapped round her little finger," Said George with a smile.
"She likes to think she has," Replied John. George listened as he prepared for bed, and watched the dog gently twitch its tail in the midst of a dream. This is utterly surreal, she thought. She hadn't shared a bed with John for years. When he joined her under the duvet, she knew this was where she'd always felt safe. But safe had never been enough for Georgia Channing. She liked the challenge of the chase too much. Oh, the sex had been fantastic, but nothing can compensate for that extra little bit of intrigue. But look where that had got her, a black eye and a broken relationship. An enormous wave of regret swept over her for what she'd put John through. She knew she'd never been an easy person to live with, only the appearance of their daughter had calmed her down. Their arguments had been monumental, until he'd learnt that the best way to deal with her was to simply ignore her outbursts. But even when she'd smashed an incredibly valuable vase, he'd never once raised his hand to her. That'd been the night she'd found out about his affair with Jo. George could remember every detail of that nightmare like it was yesterday. She'd picked Charlie up from school; she'd been six at the time. They'd decided on impulse to go to court to pay Daddy a surprise visit. George had only just pulled in to the carpark, when she'd spied John coming out of the front doors of the court, accompanied by a tall, very attractive woman. John hadn't seen her car, if he had, he'd never have kissed this woman long and hard on the steps of the court for all the world to see. George had known about his previous flings, and to be honest they hadn't worried her over much. But John and this woman, whom she'd later found out was called Jo Mills, looked, right, complete, as if no other person existed for either of them. That was the beginning of the end for her and John. From that day onwards, George had always known that any feelings of serious commitment in John were reserved solely for Jo. After watching their little display, George had put the car in to a three point turn, and roared out of the carpark. When she'd had it out with him that evening, after Charlie had been put to bed, she'd discovered that he hadn't even been aware of her presence whilst he'd bid goodbye to his latest sweetheart.
"Am I really such a bitch?" She asked, still with her back to John as they lay closer than they'd ever been since that night. Hearing the slight quiver in her voice that heralded tears, he gently put his arms round her, but she still lay with her face turned away from him.
"Nothing you could have done warranted what he did."
"Oh, come on," Said George scornfully, her anger rising to disguise her tears. "Surely even you can remember what I'm like when I'm furious."
"Yes," He said with a smile in his voice. "We were finding fragments of that Ming vase for weeks."
"So, why did you never give me a black eye?"
"Because, I don't believe in beating up anyone without a good reason, especially someone who couldn't even begin to match me in physical strength." George abandoned any attempt to hide her weakness.
"He was so furious with me," She said in a strangled voice. "He seems to think that because of our relationship, I'm the cabinet's personal QC to do their bidding."
"George, none of this is your fault."
"Oh, of course not," She replied, all her bitterness turned inwards on herself.
"You've got to believe it," He said softly. As she turned over and lay her head on his chest, he held her as her body shook. He didn't think he'd ever seen her quite so vulnerable, not even eighteen months ago when Charlie had been involved in and possibly hurt in that hunger striker protest.
"I'm sorry," Said George, hardly able to believe she was showing him how pathetic she felt.
"Don't be," He said gently. She turned away from him and groped on the bedside table for the box of tissues that sat there.
"I feel so pathetic," She said, the self-disgust all too resonant.
"George, this is me," He said as she dried her face. "I've seen you cry before."
"You've never seen me with a beaten up face before," She said, lying back down. It seemed natural for her to slip back in to his arms, to lay her head on his firmly muscled chest.
"This is like old times," He said, running his fingers gently through her hair.
"No, it's not," She replied, "We're neither fighting nor making up." He laughed.
"We did have some peaceful times."
"Very very occasionally."
"There's something else that's different from then," He said turning serious, "You're far too thin."
"Rubbish," She said sleepily. Deciding for once to let her have the last word, he said nothing. As she slowly drifted to sleep, lying snugly against him, John not only wondered how George was going to deal with this, but he also prayed that Jo would forgive him having given George sanctuary. George was still the mother of his child, and if nothing else, he would always feel the need to protect her.