Part One Hundred And Sixty Two
When Karen awoke on the Saturday morning, George was nestled up against her, softly breathing in a deep sleep. Just for a moment, hardly longer than a second, Karen felt normal, happy, the way she always did when she woke with George in her arms. But then she remembered, and the crashing weight of grief and depression fell down on her. Ross was dead, her one and only child was dead. Never again would she hear him laugh, or ask for money, or criticise the latest man she had in her life. Had this been his final act of rebellion, she wondered? Had it really been his intention to hurt her like this by taking his own life? Or had he simply done it because it was what he wanted, giving no thought to anyone he might be leaving behind.
She could hear John moving about in the kitchen, probably making a cup of tea. Sure enough, when he put his head round her bedroom door a few minutes later, he was carrying a mug in each hand. "Is that for me?" Karen said quietly, not wanting to rouse George from her slumber. "Yes," He said, putting one of the mugs down on the bedside table and perching on the end of the bed, simply looking at them. This must be a first for him, Karen thought to herself, to see George in bed with someone else. Knowing that the tea would still be too hot to drink, Karen waited a while before disturbing George. "How did you sleep?" John asked, thinking that they really did look enchanting together, cuddled close in each other's arms. "Like a log, but only because of a sleeping pill. What time is it?" "A little after eight." Eventually, Karen gently disentangled herself from George's entwining limbs, and sat up to drink her tea. When George opened her eyes, she was a little confused to see John sitting on Karen's bed with them. "What are you doing here?" She asked groggily, and then remembered precisely why. Seeing the full force of realisation crossing George's face, Karen said kindly, "Yes, I did that too." George had absolutely no idea what to say. How did one comfort someone at a time like this, she just didn't know. Also being a little lost for words, John got up from the bed, returning in a moment with a mug of tea for George. "I've got to go and identify him," Karen said into the silence. "You don't have to do that today, surely," George protested. "Trust me," Karen said decisively. "The longer I leave it, the worse it will be." Leaving them to it, John went to take a shower, continuously reminded of the day when he and George had thought that Charlie was dead. "Do you want me to come with you?" George asked, not altogether sure she really could go through with this. "I think I need to do this on my own," Karen told her, though still appreciating her offer. "I've a feeling that Helen's got an awful lot to tell me, an awful lot that I probably don't want anyone else to hear." "I don't think you ought to do this on your own," George said tentatively. "I've done everything else to do with Ross on my own," Karen said philosophically. "So I may as well do this." George left this line of attack for now, but she wasn't willing to give up entirely.
An hour or so later, they were all sitting in the lounge, drinking coffee and John eating some toast. George had more firmly introduced the topic of whether Karen should or shouldn't go alone to the clinic, and they were mildly arguing about it. John kept his opinion to himself, because he didn't want Karen to feel that they were ganging up on her, but he did have to agree with George. No mother should be left to see her son's dead body without some sort of support. "At least let me drive you there," George persisted, as Karen lit a cigarette with a slightly shaking hand. The combination of the after effects of the sleeping pill, and the caffeine from her cup of espresso, making her tremble. "You're not going to give up, until I say yes, are you," Karen said, a little exasperated, though quietly appreciating George's resilience. "No, I'm not. I really don't think it would be safe for you to drive." "Fine," Karen agreed, not having the energy to argue the point any further. Then, looking over at John, she said, "Please would you stay here, till we get back?" "Of course," He said, after taking a mouthful of coffee. "Is there anyone you would like me to inform?" After thinking for a moment, Karen said, "If you could tell Yvonne, she can put everyone else in the picture," Taking it for granted that he would also phone Jo.
A little while later, when they were driving across London towards the clinic, Karen reflected that perhaps George had been right. She didn't have the concentration for driving, and would probably have ended up dead in a car crash. Shying away from the thought that perhaps this might not have been such a bad idea, she gave George the directions that Helen had given her over the phone, when Karen had called to let her know when she was coming. Helen had sounded sombre, but professional, exactly how she, Karen, would have sounded, if she'd still been a nurse, and having to give that sort of news to worried relatives. They were silent as they drove, neither of them knowing what to say, but Karen found her thoughts occasionally centring on the day when Yvonne had been in her position. She'd driven Yvonne to see Ritchie's body, just as George was doing now. "I'm getting a real feeling of deja vu," Karen said eventually. "It's almost two years since I was taking Yvonne to see Ritchie's body. He killed himself on a Friday too." George could remember that weekend. She'd still been with Neil then, and all he'd worried about after reading of the double suicide in the paper, was the bad publicity for his precious government. Instead of saying something that would no doubt sound totally inane and stupid, George reached out to briefly touch Karen's hand.
When they drew up in the car park of the clinic, Karen sat still for a moment, contemplating what was about to happen. Part of her wasn't sure if she could do this, actually go in there and look at her son's body. If she did that, it would all be real. But the rest of her knew that she had to do it, and that she had to get it over with as soon as possible. "Will you wait here?" Karen asked, knowing that it was either now or never. "Yes," George said, reaching out to give her a quick hug. "But I'll be right here, if you change your mind." Getting out of the car, Karen walked through the automatic doors, wondering just how many of her questions were about to be answered.
Helen had been watching for a sign of Karen's car, from an upstairs window that looked out onto the car park. She'd talked to Nikki long into the night, and had barely slept for the rest of it, trying to sort out in her mind exactly what she should and shouldn't tell Karen today. She'd asked one of the nurses to pack up Ross's belongings, as well as making sure that the Clinic's very basic mortuary was ready for Karen to see him. When she saw Karen's car arrive, she slowly made her way downstairs, trying to put the moment off as long as possible. She hated the fact that she'd been forced to keep her knowledge of Ross's condition from her, and she had no idea how Karen would react to discovering that John had also known. Helen knew that she had to tell her about this, because they'd all had far too many secrets kept one way and another for far too long. When she first saw Karen, walking through the doors and across the waiting room towards her, Helen wasn't entirely sure how to act. This was Karen, this was her friend, but she knew that for now, she had to remain professional. "You look a bit like I feel," Karen said when she reached her. Opening her mouth to reply, Helen hesitated a moment, and then abandoned the professional persona just as suddenly as she'd decided to wear it. "I'm so sorry," She said, flinging her arms round Karen, and feeling the tension in every muscle. Karen held onto her for a moment, sensing that Helen was almost as unsettled as she was. Eventually detaching herself and feeling a little foolish for her outburst, Helen said, "Did you bring George with you?" "She insisted on coming," Karen said ruefully. "That's probably a good idea," Helen replied, leading the way down a carpeted corridor.
When they entered Helen's office, Karen wondered if this was where Ross had come every fortnight for his sessions with her. Ignoring the professional barrier of her desk, Helen sat in one of a couple of functional armchairs under the window. "I don't know where to start," Helen began, feeling completely out of her depth. "Try at the beginning," Karen helped her, knowing that this must be one of the most difficult conversations of Helen's career. "Ross, started coming to see me in the middle of April. It was one hell of a shock when I realised who he was. He looks a bit like you. He found it very difficult to talk to me at first, and I still don't know what led him to seek treatment in the first place, except that he didn't want you to be disappointed with him. I tried so often to get him to tell you, but he wouldn't. He was so angry, with himself, with how he'd ended up..." "And with me?" Karen suggested. "Sometimes," Helen told her regretfully. "That's no surprise," Karen said quietly. "He resented practically every decision I made, whether it was for his own good, or mine. Was he self-harming?" She asked, slipping into the jargon of both their professions. "I think so. He wouldn't admit to it at first, but he certainly had a couple of injuries that he refused to explain." "Helen, how could I not have known all this?" Karen asked, though knowing there wasn't any simple answer. "Because he didn't want you to know," Helen told her gently. "And because I wasn't allowed to tell you. I must have picked up the phone so many times, wanting to tell you, but being legally bound not to say a word. You remember that day I came to Larkhall? When I was in your office, I saw that picture you have of him on your desk, and I almost told you then. I couldn't believe the change in him. He was so bloody adamant that he wanted to do it without you, no matter how much I tried to persuade him that you wouldn't be cross with him, and that you'd do everything you could to help him." "Where do you think he gets, got, his stubborn streak from," Karen said bleakly, the adjustment to the past tense making her flinch. "I did try and find a way to tell you," Helen insisted. "I even got some legal advice, just to make sure I knew what I was doing." "Who from?" Karen asked, getting a horrible sinking feeling inside her, that someone else had known about this, someone close to her. When Helen didn't immediately answer, Karen persisted. "Who, Helen? Who else knew about this and didn't tell me?" "The Judge did," Helen said eventually, wondering if the atom bomb was about to explode in her face. Karen reeled back slightly, almost as if Helen had struck her, staring back at her with a mixture of anger, betrayal, and the tiniest fragment of understanding spreading through her. "John, knew about this?" She clarified, wondering just how long he'd known that her son was in serious difficulties. "Believe me, I know he would have preferred it otherwise," Helen said quietly. "I went to see him, at the time when I persuaded Ross to become an in-patient, at the end of May. Ross wasn't coping on the outside, so I managed to talk him into doing the full rehab course. I went to see the Judge, because I wanted to make absolutely sure that I couldn't tell you what was going on." "How did he get on when he became an in-patient?" Karen asked, bypassing John's knowledge of the situation until she was better equipped to deal with it. "He tried his best, but he just didn't have the willpower to keep up with it. He found coming off the drugs very hard, and staying off them even harder. There is something else you need to know, that might explain why he often felt as though there wasn't any point continuing with it. He was HIV positive." Karen sat stunned, not knowing how much more she could take. How long had he been susceptible to any passing infection? Had he been like this, when he'd stayed with her at Christmas? "Before we go on," Karen said carefully. "Are there any more enormous shocks you need to give me?" "No," Helen told her honestly, seeing that Karen was coming to the limit of what she could stand. "You know everything, and I don't know much more about how he was really feeling." "And what you do know, I wouldn't want to, am I right?" Karen asked knowingly. "You might, one day, but not today," Helen said fairly. "Because I refuse to sit here, and give you any excuse to blame yourself for this." "Oh? And just who else is there to blame?" Karen demanded, her self-control finally beginning to crack. "I've been so wrapped up in my new job, dealing with everyone else's problems on a daily basis, that I couldn't even see what was going on under my very nose. One thing I can be sure of, is that he told you how much of a career mum I always was, and do you know something, I'm really beginning to think he was right." "No, Karen, you will not do this," Helen insisted. "He could have asked you for help, but he chose not to. That is his fault, not yours." "Helen, please," Karen almost begged her, the tears now coursing down her cheeks, in spite of her willing them not to fall. "You mustn't blame Ross for this. I should have seen something, I should have known. That's what being a parent is all about. Somehow, being a parent means keeping your child alive, keeping them safe, and doing your damnedest to make sure they don't end up in a mess like this. For some reason, that at the moment I don't want to contemplate, I didn't do that. Something went wrong, somewhere along the line, so that I didn't hear whatever he was trying to say to me." Reaching for the box of tissues on Helen's desk, Karen scrubbed at her face, not wanting Helen to see any more of her grief. They stayed quiet for some time, Helen giving Karen a few moments to gather her scattered wits. "Before I see him," Karen said eventually. "Will you show me where he spent the last two months?" "Of course," Helen replied, getting to her feet, and leading the way out of the office, along the corridor and up some stairs. It was odd, Karen thought as she followed Helen, but every type of medical setting, whether that be a large teaching hospital, or a fairly small clinic such as this, always had the same smell. She could have been led into a place like this blindfold, and could still have told exactly what type of building she was in. The combination of antiseptic and lack of fresh air, seeming to grip the unhealthiness and hold it within its walls.
When they emerged through the double doors, two floors up, Karen was pleasantly surprised. The atmosphere didn't feel like a treatment clinic, or somewhere in which someone could be confined by law, but it bore the slight resemblance to a students' hall of residence, except that it was far more spacious. Following Helen down the corridor, passed a lounge where some of the patients were watching TV, she was slightly comforted by the thought that Ross hadn't spent his last two months in somewhere uncaring. When Helen led her into one of the bedrooms, Karen stood perfectly still, all her senses reacting to her surroundings. It was the smell that had shocked her, the extremely familiar scent of Ross's aftershave, presumably from the bottle she'd bought him for Christmas, combined with the distinctive male aroma that was simply her son. "It's funny," Karen said into the silence. "But until now, it's all felt unreal, like some horrific dream that I might wake up from, but not any more. I wanted so much, not to have to believe you, but being here, I can't do that. It's this room, I can smell the aftershave he always wore. That proves to me that he was here, and that all this really is happening." Karen walked across the neat but functional room, to look out of the window. At night, Ross would have been able to see all the lights of central London, shining with life, just as he would never again do for her. Turning about, Karen walked out of the room, Helen knowing that the time had finally come for Karen to see her son's body. But as they walked towards the stairs, they were approached by a woman who looked no older than nineteen, and who reminded Karen fleetingly of Denny. "Are you Ross's mum?" She said, standing in their path, and having obviously seen them emerge from his room. "Yes," Karen said, wondering what this woman's name was. "He was a really nice guy," The girl told her with a sad smile. "It might not mean much, but he was a real charmer. I'm sorry he's dead." "Thank you," Karen said quietly, wondering just how many times she would be saying such ironically grateful words over the coming days.
When they returned to the ground floor, Helen led the way towards the back of the building, to the clinic's tiny mortuary. Both their shoes seemed to sound incredibly loud as they moved from carpet to concrete, the slightly chilled air leaving no one in any doubt as to where they must be. When Helen drew the sheet back from the face of the only corpse currently in residence, she moved back out of the way, to give Karen as much privacy as she might need. Karen stood, looking down at him, seeing the cold, lifeless face of her barely twenty-two-year-old son. She'd never entirely believed it when relatives said that their loved ones looked peaceful, but he did, almost as though he were merely asleep. She put out a hand, to gently touch his cheek, half of her brain telling her to wake him up, and the rest of her feeling the coldness in his skin. She ran a thumb along the line of his cheekbone, feeling the slight stubble that must have been there by the time he killed himself last night. Twitching the sheet back a little further, she reached for his left hand and turned it over, palm upwards. "No!" Helen said, but she couldn't stop Karen from staring horror-struck, at the long, brutal gash on the inside of his wrist. The wound stretched from radius to ulna, completely severing the radial artery, showing her in no uncertain terms that he'd really meant to do it. She still held his hand in hers, and she couldn't take her eyes away from the place in his arm where there should have been perfectly smooth, healthy skin. She could feel the rushing of blood from her brain, hear the insidious echo in her ears, the persistent replaying of the last argument she'd had with him. All she could see in front of her eyes was blood, his blood, the immense loss of blood that had killed him.
When Karen crumpled to the ground, Helen put her head out of the door to summon some help, before dropping to her knees by Karen's side. "Come on, sweetheart," She said persuasively. "It's all right." Helen could have cursed, it wasn't all right, nothing was all right, and nothing would be all right for some time to come. Blearily, Karen opened her eyes. "What happened?" She asked a little groggily. "You fainted," Helen told her. When one of the nurses appeared, they helped Karen up between them, whilst someone else discretely covered Ross up again so that she couldn't see him. When they reached Helen's office, Helen quietly told the nurse who was with them to go and fetch George. When Karen was again sitting in one of the armchairs, she said, "I'm sorry about that." "Don't be," Helen told her with understanding. "You've had a hell of a lot to deal with today." Lighting her a cigarette, Helen asked, "Would you like a cup of tea?" Saying that she would, Karen took a long and grateful drag. When the nurse who had been sent to fetch George reappeared with her, Helen left Karen on her own for a moment, shutting the door behind her. As George took a breath to speak, Helen held up a hand, and led the way down the corridor towards the little kitchen that the staff used for their own purposes. "Is she all right?" George asked when they were out of earshot, immediately thinking this a particularly stupid question. "No, not very," Helen said somberly. "When I took her to see him, I couldn't stop her from looking at his wrist." "Oh, Christ," George said with feeling. "What happened?" "She fainted." As George watched Helen pouring the tea, she said, "How do I help her through this?" "You might ask the same about any of us," Helen told her. "And the answer is, I just don't know. She's had three fairly hefty shocks in the last twenty-four hours, and I don't think she knows where to start." "How long has, had, he been coming to see you?" "Since the beginning of April," Helen told her regretfully. "And, because he was over the age of eighteen, I couldn't say a bloody word." "That isn't your fault," George said sincerely. "That's just the way the system works."
When they returned to Helen's office, George sat down next to Karen and took her hand. Karen looked at her, only half seeing her, still unable to get away from the sight of her son's body. Karen drank the hot, strong tea, though the warmth did nothing to take the chill from her bones. She could see that George wanted to help her, but that she simply didn't know how. Well, that makes two of us, she thought, wondering just how she'd managed to stay so level headed for Yvonne when Ritchie had died. When Karen replaced the empty mug on Helen's desk, George broke in on her contemplation. "What do you want to do?" She asked. "I'd like to go home," Karen said quietly, knowing that there was nothing left for her to do here, and that she most of all needed some time alone, time to assimilate all the facts that were whizzing around in her head. When she got to her feet, Helen moved forward to give her a hug. "You give me a call if you want anything," She said, giving Karen a squeeze. "Any time, and if you don't want to be anywhere near me, I won't blame you." "Helen, the fact that I didn't know about this isn't your fault," Karen told her a little shakily. "The other person who knew, may well have some explaining to do when I've got the energy, but not you. I know that Ross will have had all the help you could have given him, and that really does mean a lot." As they walked down the corridor, George pulled Karen's arm gently through hers, offering her affection in place of words, still at an all time loss as to what else she could do. It may have been something of a novelty for Georgia Channing to be incapable of forming a coherent sentence, but no words seem to be good enough, no single phrase sufficiently meaningful to convey how deeply she felt for Karen, and how much she wanted to help her.