Part Ninety-Two
Both John and George maintained a stony silence on the way home, neither wanting the storm to break before they were behind closed doors. They could both feel the tension brewing, the clouds crowding in en masse, ready to burst at the slightest prick. Not one, single word was uttered between them, but George could see his hands gripping the wheel, almost in an attempt not to throttle her. But this was what mystified George. For once in her life, she really didn't know what she'd done. Something had clearly made him blisteringly angry, but she couldn't even begin to wonder what that might be.
As soon as the front door closed behind them, George opened her mouth. "Don't you ever do that to me again," She said icily. "What?" John asked, though knowing exactly what she was talking about. "Summon me to your presence, as if you were still behind the armour of your judge's robes, and could bend and manipulate any recalcitrant barrister to your every whim." If John hadn't been so angry, he might have laughed. "You're priceless," John said in disgust. "I wasn't the one trying to act the part of the next Jane Glover, whilst simultaneously hiding behind the proverbial fig leaf, not to mention turning a blind eye to Ian Rochester's blatant disregard for human decency. I've no idea what he said, or should I say wrote, to make you walk out like that, but if it was about Jo, which I think it was, I want to know." "And what my lord desires, he usually gets," George quipped back, the bite in her tone matching the growing fury in her eyes. "You're not the only one who can protect her from being hurt, you know," She added, hitting home with far more accuracy than a sniper's bullet.
Leaving him in mid gape, she stalked towards her office, retrieving the notebook from her handbag as she went. Her intention was to put the entire thing through the shredder bit by bit, so that John couldn't read the immensely insulting suggestion that had been made about Jo. George was extremely well aware, that if John got his hands on it, he would either verbally or professionally, beat Sir Ian Rochester to a pulp, doing himself substantial harm in the process. "I want to see that," John said from the doorway. "Well, you can't," George replied curtly. "It'll do neither you, nor Jo any good for you to see it." "That's a matter of opinion," He said stonily, moving towards her with all the stealth of a cat, fully intent on cornering its prey at any cost. As he made a swift lightning grab for it, she was too quick for him. She had been anticipating something like this, and her determination to keep it from him, giving her the agility of one of Swan Lake's finest. Holding the offending notebook behind her, she danced out of his reach. If she could only get to her paper shredder, which stood in the far corner, she might just manage to halt him in his quest. If he tried to take it from her, she would always dart away from his grasp, her success making him even more furious than he already was, and all the more intent on achieving his goal. When he eventually cornered her, with her back to her desk, he clamped his arms round her, fixing her left arm to her side. George knew by this that she'd lost. Her left arm was unable to break his hold, and her right was behind her, still trying to keep the book out of his reach. She struggled against his superior strength, but she couldn't fight him off. "Let, me, go," She hissed. "Not a chance," He replied, moving flush against her as she leant back, even now trying to keep it from him.
When he stood at last in triumph, the notebook held aloft in his hand, a remark rose up out of her, that she would regret for the rest of her life. "Well, well," She said, almost flatly. "I never would have thought I would see the day, when you would use your superior, male strength, to take something you wanted by force. A bit like Fenner, when you think about it." She bit furiously down on her tongue, thoroughly unable to believe she'd uttered such a profanity. The only feeling John betrayed was in the brief twitching of his hand, the one that wasn't holding the notebook. Just for an instant, he had been itching to slap her. He knew it, and she knew it. George had seen that blind fury only once before in a man, in her old lover, Neil Haughton. He had blacked George's eye, and she slightly quailed at the thought of John doing the same. But he didn't, John had far more control than the secretary of state for trade. He simply stood, staring at her for a moment, and then walked away, moving to stand near the window. He began flipping through the newly acquired notebook, trying not to dwell on what George had said to him. He bypassed the comments and suggestions that had been written about George, and those that concerned him, some of which she'd read out for all to hear. When he stumbled unexpectedly on the insults they'd aimed at Jo, he knew he'd found what he was looking for. George had gripped the notebook so tightly to rein in her anger, that her nails had left faint impressions on the page.
'Why does Deed stay with Mrs. Mills? We both know he lied through his teeth at her PCC hearing. Though quite why, is beyond me.'
'It's not as if she's anything special, is it.'
'Now, if it were Mrs. Channing, that would be understandable. But Mrs. Mills is about as ordinary as you can get.'
'Perhaps it's not her looks that keep him.'
'Well, her cello playing's got to come from somewhere, though she doesn't strike me as being very good mistress material.'
'Deed obviously thinks so.'
'I wonder if she's as good in bed as she is with her bow.'
'Ask Row Colmore. He's certainly had a taste of that particular forbidden fruit.'
Having read quite enough of this drivel, John dropped the notebook disgustedly back on the desk. "I'll kill him," He said, his voice slightly deeper with the force of his intent. "Which is precisely why I wanted to keep it from you," George said quietly. "I couldn't give a damn what the likes of Ian Rochester might think of me, but Jo would. Why else did you do your utmost to clear her name with the PCC? Jo can't bear her professional reputation to be tarnished, and we both know that you'll do anything within your power, and a lot that isn't, to keep it that way. In your eyes," she continued bitterly. "I can look after or ruin my own, but having followed and encouraged Jo's career from the outset, you feel it your duty to continue to do so. If you do anything about this, you'll be in serious jeopardy of reopening the issue of your relationship with Jo, and the way you both behaved in front of the PCC. You might not have been having an actual affair with her then, but you certainly are now." "Is that a threat?" John asked quietly. "No, you stupid man," George said in sheer exasperation. "I'm just as guilty as Jo is of sleeping with you, more's the pity. I'm just trying to make you realise what a can of worms you would be opening, if you rise to the bait. You saw only the bare minimum of their speculations about you and Jo, and about Jo's skill as a lover, but you don't need to see any more. I didn't want you to see it, because I didn't want it to get you into more trouble than you usually are with those two. But you just wouldn't have it, would you. Why can you never leave well alone?" "And why do you always have to hide things from me that I need to know?" He retorted vehemently. "Need to know, or want to know?" George demanded. "Is there a difference?" "Not in your case, clearly." "And something else I want to know," John questioned silkily. "Is the precise nature of your relationship with Neil Grayling." George simply stared at him. Then it hit her, John was jealous! He was seriously, irrationally jealous of how she'd sung those love duets with Grayling, one being the one they'd sung together on Easter Sunday. "Have you any idea just how ridiculous you sound?" She said, a laugh of utter incredulity in both eyes and voice. "Why, because this time it's you being unfaithful, instead of the other way round?" "John, he's gay," George clarified, unable to restrain her mirth at his ludicrous suggestion. "Oh, how convenient," John said in total disbelief. "It seems to be catching." "Before we get onto that little time bomb," George said acidly, any previous amusement having left her. "You might be enchanted to hear, that I loathed, hated and despised every, single bar of those duets. I've never felt less in love, nor more wooden than I did this afternoon. You weren't the only one who couldn't forget the way we sang it a few weeks ago. If you'd come down off your very high horse of ludicrous conclusions for five minutes, you'd see that I'm finding it incredibly hard to behave as though I'm in love with anyone but you. However, that isn't really the problem, is it, because we both know that there's something far deeper, and far more soul destroying to discuss. You've been waiting three months to have this out with me, and I think that now, might just be the time. So, go on then, finally come out of that self-imposed shell of yours, and tell me what you really think of my relationship with Karen."
"Okay, fine," John said resignedly. "You're right, this particular row has been waiting to happen, because some of the things I said to Karen back in January, probably ought to have been said to you, not her. The first being that I don't understand why you felt it necessary to go back on our arrangement, when it was me who was pressured into sticking to it." "This relationship wasn't my idea," George replied. "It was Jo's, or have you conveniently forgotten that? Yes, I was happy to agree to it, because it meant that I could still have the feeling, if not the actuality, of being loved by you. We both know why you agreed to it, because it meant you could go on loving and sleeping with Jo. Yes, I know you get a vast amount of pleasure from sleeping with me, but let's face it, so did old Lover boy himself, which isn't saying much. Jo originally suggested it, because she knew it was the only way to stop you from straying. Have you never considered, that perhaps I need what I have with Karen, because she is in love with me for myself, not for what she might be accorded by agreeing to stray only with me? You make love to me, and occasionally say you love me, because it allows you to do the one thing you've always wanted, to have a vaguely normal relationship with Jo." "But why Karen? Why a woman?" John persisted, trying not to look too closely at what George had just said to him, for fear that she might actually be right. "Why not a woman?" George responded. "You'd be even more insane with jealousy if it was a man, and you know it." "But why Karen? Couldn't you at least have picked someone I don't know?" "Absolutely not," George said firmly. "The only way to keep you from pursuing her, was to sleep with a woman you'd already been to bed with. Your curiosity streak could rival that of daddy's old Labrador, and I'd have had my work cut out, trying to keep you away from her." "I'm not that bad," John objected vehemently. "Yes, you are," George insisted. "If something with the right variety of equipment stands still, or should I say, lies down long enough, you'll fuck it." John winced at her vulgarity, loathing it when she resorted to such phrases in front of him. "Do you have to talk like that?" He complained. "Why, you're surely not telling me that all those women came into the category of real, actual lovers? I didn't think you used to hang around long enough." "When you've finished tearing strips off my character," John threw back. "You might remember that I have kept to our arrangement for the last eighteen months." He found himself conveniently ignoring the Sunday afternoon he'd spent with Yvonne. George didn't need to know about that. "But in spite of my doing that, agreeing to yours and Jo's one main condition, it's you who has insisted on involving someone else. Why, wasn't I enough for you? Is that it?" "Why, do you think Karen might just be giving me a better time in bed than you do?" George taunted. "Of course not," John scoffed in total self-assured arrogance. "No one will ever give you a better orgasm than me. I'll accept, with good grace I might add that you like to try something different occasionally. It isn't everyone who would submit to your every sexual whim, of wanting to be tied up, or of being treated like a whore, which does perhaps show the other side of the tempting angel you were trying to play on stage this afternoon. At least Jo likes her men fairly normal, fairly run of the mill." "My god, you are so arrogant!" George exclaimed, now really losing her patience with him. "That's what you like, isn't it, to be able to impress Jo with your prowess, your sexual skill. Is that why you wanted to spend the night with the two of us a couple of weeks ago? Did you want to use me to give Jo the time of her life, to show her the beautiful little plaything you'd managed to pick up, in said plaything's final year of university? Because believe me, that's exactly what it felt like. I know only too well how much of your commitment to this relationship is because of Jo, but you don't need to rub it in my face. You complain about my being sexually adventurous, when it was you who taught me half of what I know." "I didn't teach you to fancy women," He said bitterly, finally able to get a word in edgeways. "You really can't stand it, can you," George thrust home venomously. "You really can't bear the fact that sometimes, Karen can arouse me, just by talking to me, or that she has shown me an avenue of pleasure I didn't know existed. That isn't my fault, John, and I am not going to apologise for it. You are either going to have to learn to get used to it, or this relationship, as far as I'm concerned, ends, now." "You can't do that to Jo," He said in horror. "John, I wouldn't do anything in the world to hurt Jo, I never could," George replied, her voice suddenly quiet. "But if you can't learn to accept the person I am, or at least the person I have recently become, then you know where the door is." "What are you saying?" He asked softly. "You heard," She said, unwilling to put up with any more. "Just get out. This conversation is closed for the time being, because I've had quite enough." Walking swiftly passed him, she wrenched open the front door, and waited as a slightly bemused John walked through it. The resounding slam that sent him on his way, reverberated around the house, reminding George that at the end of the day, she was utterly, irrevocably, alone.