Part Forty-Nine
On the Friday evening, George thought it was about time she went to see Karen. She had been putting it off for the last few days, because in truth she really didn't know how to approach her. Karen almost certainly wouldn't want any of them to know what she'd been doing to herself, but George couldn't just leave things as they were. She owed it to Karen to check up on her, to let her know that she George was still there if Karen ever needed her. But as she drew her car up in front of Karen's flat, George was forced to admit that she also still held some slight residual anger for what Karen had done with John at that conference. She knew that now probably wasn't the time to let that out, but it definitely was something that ought to be discussed between them.
Karen had only stayed one night with Helen and Nikki, as her front door had been mended the very next day, making her home once again secure. She had wanted to regain her privacy as quickly as possible, though she had appreciated both Helen and Nikki's kindness towards her. The last few days hadn't exactly been easy for her, with Sullivan's enquiries and Di's dismissal being only two of the hurdles she'd had to get over. She'd had to force herself to meet Nikki's eyes, and not to avoid them, as she would have preferred to do. She didn't like the fact that Nikki now knew her secret, but to give Nikki her due, she hadn't once referred to it.
But when she opened the door, to see George standing on her doorstep, she couldn't help but wonder what had brought her. "Come in," she said, looking neither pleased nor irritated to see her. "How are you?" George asked as Karen closed the door behind her. "Oh, all right," Karen said evasively, leading the way back to the sitting room. "Really?" George asked her, "Because you honestly don't look it." Her eyes strayed from Karen's face down to her left arm, instantly betraying the reason why she was here. "He told you, didn't he," Karen said resignedly, sitting down and lighting a cigarette. "Darling, did you seriously expect him to keep it to himself?" George asked her, sitting down at the other end of the sofa and regarding Karen thoughtfully. "I didn't want him to tell you," Karen said regretfully. "Why?" George wanted to know, hating the fact that Karen wanted to hide so much from her. "I'd have thought that was obvious," Karen said after taking a long drag. "I'm ashamed of it. I know how utterly self-destructive it is, and I know that it doesn't solve anything, but I can't stop doing it. Cutting yourself, it's hardly something to be proud of, is it?" "Neither is starving oneself to the point of virtual extinction," George replied matter-of-factly. "But that doesn't prevent me from doing it every now and again. One thing that you really mustn't feel is ashamed, I mean that." "John was furious with me when he found out," Karen said quietly, feeling a slight sense of relief that George was dealing with this so calmly. "He didn't show it, but I could see it in his face." "Yes, well, that's because he doesn't and never will understand what drives some of us to do things like that to ourselves." "You do though, don't you," Karen asked her, needing that extra bit of reassurance from her. "Of course I do," George told her seriously. "It might terrify me that you've finally reached this point, but I do understand how you've arrived here. Though I can't help wondering what provoked you into this in the first place." "I think it was seeing Henry's coffin," Karen told her, not having any other explanation for why she'd started doing it on that particular day. "Was it?" George asked her knowingly. "Or would it be fair to suggest, that this was more about what happened at that conference."
Karen went very quiet, her cigarette suspended halfway to her mouth. Eventually stubbing it out in the ashtray, she said, "You're still angry with me about that, aren't you." "Yes, very," George told her firmly. "And no, not because you rather successfully made John go back on his promise." "How much did he tell you?" Karen asked, though knowing that George's anger had to have something to do with what they'd actually done, or more accurately, what she, Karen, had done to John. "Everything there was to tell," George informed her blithely. "I'd have thought that once like that with Ritchie Atkins might have been enough for you, or did he simply give you the taste for it?" Karen winced, this being one of the cheapest shots she'd ever heard from George. "You can do better than that," Karen told her, not betraying her hurt at George's words. "Because throwing insults at me isn't your style these days, or are we choosing to regress to our former battle lines in order to prove a point?" "Do you have any idea what that did to him?" George demanded acidly, ignoring Karen's jibe because she knew Karen was right. "Yes," Karen replied bitterly. "And believe me, I've never felt more guilty about sleeping with anyone than I do about that. I know he felt out of control, and I know he thought that he'd forced himself on me. George, that is the last thing I would ever want to do to anyone." "You haven't really got any idea, have you," George threw back at her. "John didn't just feel as though he'd raped you, he was terrified that he would end up doing the same to me. He was so scared of repeating what he'd done with you, without in the least meaning to do so, that for a little while, he couldn't sleep with anyone, not me, not Jo, not anyone. It wasn't that he didn't want to make love with either of us, he quite literally couldn't." All the colour drained from Karen's face, as she realised just how cataclysmic this would have been for John. Out of all the men she'd ever known, he was the one man who relied on making love to keep him going, to convince him of his own existence.
"I'm sorry," Karen said quietly, the tears of regret finally rising to her eyes. It hurt her immensely that she'd done this to John of all people. "I can't help being bitterly angry with you for that," George told her, tears rising to her own eyes as all her unresolved feelings of anger rose up in her. "John didn't know what to do with himself for a few weeks, because he was terrified of never being able to make love to anyone again. I knew it would come back in time, and so did Jo, but he didn't. As far as I know, that hasn't ever happened to John, and he didn't know what he could possibly do to cure it." "Does Jo know I slept with him at the conference?" Karen asked, thinking that she would have seen Jo before now if she did. "No," George told her. "Because I wasn't stupid enough to tell her about it. She knows that John couldn't sleep with either of us for a while, but she doesn't know why. She thinks it was just one of those things. I couldn't be cross with John, because he had his punishment, a far bigger punishment than he really deserved. I want to be angry with you, but at the same time I know why you did it. If I'd been in your situation, I suspect I might have gone looking for some company too, though John did tell me that it was he who did all the running." "That isn't important," Karen told her gently, not wanting to hurt her further by confirming John's assertion. "I'm sorry," George said in horrified realisation. "I came here to talk to you, and to find out why you've been cutting, not to shout at you." "It was definitely very well deserved," Karen told her. "And not all that unexpected. I just wish I'd known what sleeping with John would do to him. I wouldn't wish that on any man, but especially not him. I didn't mean to hurt you, or Jo, or John, or anyone, but that's all I seem capable of doing at the moment. Nikki's been doing her damnedest to find out what's wrong with me for the last couple of weeks, and all I've done is ignore and avoid her concern, and you should have seen Helen's face when she finally achieved her goal the other night, and made me tell her about this," She said, briefly touching her left arm. "She looked as though it really hurt her to see it, which I suppose it did. Why do I do it, George? Why do I keep on hurting everyone who means so much to me?" The tears were streaming down her face by this time, something George hadn't seen in Karen for months. She hadn't even cried like this when her son had died, that grief being somehow restrained, whereas this came straight from the heart, straight from the well of anger, hurt and confusion that so clearly raged in Karen's mind. Purely on instinct, George moved along the sofa, putting her arms round this woman she'd once held so frequently. "I think you're doing this, because you've so much hurt inside you that needs to come out," She said a little hesitantly, the tears running down her own cheeks at seeing Karen's almost unmanageable distress. "I don't want to be like this," Karen said through her tears. "How I feel does not give me the right to hurt anyone else. It's not something I mean to do, I promise." "I know," George told her, softly rubbing her shoulders. "But it's something we all do when we're struggling to cope with something as monumental as losing a son. That's why you've been hurting yourself, isn't it," She said in realisation. "You've been cutting yourself, because you want to avoid hurting those of us who mean something to you, because you think that somehow you deserve it whereas the rest of us don't." "Possibly," Karen admitted grudgingly, unable to fault George's assessment of her actions. "Darling, you don't deserve any of it," George insisted vehemently. "Really you don't." "I'm so angry with him, George," Karen told her, the bitter admission slipping from her without any further prompting. "I'm so furious with him for doing this to me. I tried my best to be what he wanted me to be, but it still wasn't good enough. Nothing I ever did was ever good enough. Part of me wants to shout at him for doing something so bloody stupid, and the rest of me wants to hold him so tightly, that he can't ever do anything like that in the first place."
After a while of simply being held by George, her crying decreased enough for her to remember just who was sitting so close to her. "I'm sorry," She said, moving slightly away from George and reaching for the box of tissues on the coffee table. "Darling, you don't need to be sorry," George assured her, her own brief tears having long since dried. "You need to do this, as often as possible. It's the only way you're going to get through everything you're feeling, to let everything out once in a while. It'll do you far more good than cutting yourself any day. Promise me never to feel guilty for crying or being angry with me, with John, with Helen, with anybody." "I'm not used to doing this," Karen admitted sheepishly. "No, I know you're not," George said ruefully. "You're used to being there for everyone else, and surviving entirely on your own. But do you know something, that isn't going to work this time. So when you feel that cutting is the only answer, or whenever you want to get everything out of that incredible mind of yours, you come and see me, or any one of us, because I'm not going anywhere, and neither is anyone else. I will be keeping an eye on you, because I'm not having you become as much of an endangered species as I have in the past. Is that understood?"