While John was away, George had subsided back to the necessary sleep that her body demanded, and her faint grip on Jo's hand relaxed its hold. She gently laid it next to her, and continued to look at that very familiar profile with her head laid gently on the soft white pillow. It struck her how unusual to see her with her eyelids closed, and not to see those brilliant blue eyes. Always, they sparked of mischievousness, anger, humour and life itself. Somehow, Jo's sharp ears had caught the light sounds of John's footfall behind her. Turning round, she took one look at John when he made his way back to the hospital wing.
"You look cold"
"Must be the time of the year. It's cleared my head anyway"
Somehow, John's empty expressionless voice worried her. It was so unlike him. In turn, John became aware that the biting cold February air had cut him through to the bone. Back in the super heated hospital fug, he still felt chilled throughout, or was it an utter desolation of spirit in finding so much, so late being dumped on him emotionally. It was more than he could make real to himself, and the answers he had sought only addressed the surface perceptions. Somehow, the very clearly spoken words like 'needle biopsy' 'mastectomy' and 'mammogram' whirled round his head. He had not realized before the degree to which medical terminology came over as gobbledygook, designed to intimidate the average layman who came across its path. John turned away to stare at the windows opposite them, as a vague feeling of resentment swept through him as his only way to fend off a very disturbing feeling of professional and psychological weakness and vulnerability. He needed that focus of resentment.
"You know that the surgeons will do their very best for George, John." Jo said softly, laying her fingers on his arm. She had seen a cold bleak expression settle on John's face in profile, and did her best to comfort him.
"You're right, I was forgetting myself." Mumbled John. He looked again, and he could see the troubled expressions on the faces of Zubin, Ric and Connie. They were concerned professionals, just like any other.
"It might be best to let Ms Channing rest." Tricia's voice softly spoke out of nowhere to John and Jo. Though she was no stranger to grieving patients, there was something in the badly self-controlled manner that struck a chord with her. John looked at his watch, and was startled to see that the time was past eight o clock. He didn't think that it was so late and realized that the nurses and doctors carried on while he had long since finished his working day.
"I'm sorry if we're detaining you." John replied with his natural courtesy while Jo smiled formally at her. As they turned for the exit, both of them stole a final glance at George, strapped up to a mass of hospital machinery.
Somehow, they found their way back at the hospital car park and their will to further action temporarily deserted them.
"What do we do now"
"Your place or mine"
"Yours"
John was relieved. He was glad someone could make a decision. All that he knew was that he did not want to be alone. Presently, both cars were on the road, Jo tailing John's red and very certain rear headlights as his car drove by automatic habit. He was grateful for this, as his mind was starting to grapple with questions unasked and only the automatic pilot of driving home kept these at bay.
With customary politeness, John hung Jo's coat on the hook and they found themselves emotionally stranded inside his flat.
"It's late. Do you want something to eat?" John offered tentatively, and Jo barely nodded in reply. While Jo sank back in the sofa, John busied himself with a 'throw it in the same pan' risotto, which managed to be economical with effort. It busied his hands to give him something to occupy his mind, and also looked presentable. It was later that they nibbled in a desultory fashion at the meal in silence, while barely touched glasses of white wine marked milestones upon the day. Automatically, Jo volunteered to wash the pots while John attempted to wash the tiredness of the day out of his body along with memories of the agonizingly slow drive home from Warwick and his pent up fear for George's life. Just as Jo dried a large saucepan and placed it on the side, a tired looking John appeared in the doorway.
"There's something I must explain to you, Jo that I want to get off my mind"
The way the words were wearily dragged out of John gave her a precarious yet tentative sense of confidence, and she briefly smiled. John headed to the drinks cabinet and poured himself a large measure of spirits.
"Drink, Jo"
"I had better not, John. It is doing me good to have a break"
"I'm sorry, Jo. I wasn't thinking straight"
John lowered himself into an armchair, and stretched himself full length while he gazed into space. He helped himself to a fair measure of spirits before straightening himself up, and suddenly spoke out of nowhere.
"I've been thinking things over and I think I've worked out why George acted the way that she did."
As John paused, Jo looked quizzically at him. John appeared to be stating the obvious and the kindest thing she felt that she could do was to let him continue at his own pace. For more puzzling moments than reality finally explained to her, John remained silent, his face immovable while he searched frantically for the words to frame his thoughts.
"I can see now why George was terrified to tell me about the cancer. I suppose when I think about it, I have a not undeserved reputation for prizing a woman's beauty perhaps to a disproportionate degree. I had always considered that it was my way of showing some sort of appreciation for a woman."
"You have said nothing that I or George couldn't have told you in two seconds flat, not to mention the evidence of all the nameless women down the years."
John visibly winced at the sharp reminder of his past misdeeds. It came closer to home than Jo knew but she was to find out very soon. The prospect of telling her that terrified him.
"Yes, but I had not considered that George could have felt so threatened. I took too much for granted. Now I can see why she was terrified to tell anyone. I pity her for being so scared to talk to anyone especially to us, who are closest to her."
A feeling was growing within Jo that there was something that she was not grasping. Otherwise, what John was saying was only too self-evident.
"Well, I'm glad you have seen the light at last"
There was a peculiarly strained pause as the conversation petered out. John battled with that age-old inclination not to confess to his indiscretions unless he was forced to. Finally, he swallowed down his fears and gave voice.
"That's not quite all, Jo. There's something you don't know."
"What do you mean"
"I have a confession to make"
"Is it your usual sort of confession"
"It's something I'm not particularly proud of." John started to say.
"John, what is going on? Why are you talking in riddles"
"Jo, I slept with Connie Beauchamp"
"Connie Beauchamp, as in the Connie Beauchamp who appeared before you as a witness in the Barbara Mills trial?" Jo asked on automatic pilot to confirm that she had got her facts right, before an intense wave of shock and cold anger abruptly silenced her. She had winced at John's inept attempt to gild the lily.
"What happened, John? I don't want to know the full sordid details but just enough so that I know what the hell went on"
"It was when she first took the stand. I had this irresistible attraction for her and I gave way to temptation in I summoning her to my chambers. I'm not going to lie to myself or to you in denying what I was doing and, as I found out, she felt the same. What made it worse for both of us was that George walked in at the end of it"
This is the same John, Jo's fury told her. Does he ever learn? Just how many chances can George and I keep giving him? Those phrases hammered their way round and round in her head but her anger was too intense for words. Instead, she glared at him, making John
feel more wretched and unworthy of being included in the human race than ever before.
"Why did you decide to tell me now, John?
"I couldn't go on living a lie especially after I found out what was wrong with George. Now you can see how it hit me so hard when you told me the news. These days, I simply have to confess what I'd done rather than cover everything up until it has to come out."
John's mixture of humble penitent confession and his pathetic attempt to cover himself with the rags and tatters of the moral high ground only made Jo's anger switch to white heat and boil over. John's vague allusion to his therapy went right past her.
"What do you feel guilty most about, screwing that woman or knowing now that George was seriously ill when you did it"
"Both." John said promptly. "I felt terrible at the time the way I hurt George and you but when you phone me up to tell me I could have died if that weren't so selfish"
A tiny voice at the back of Jo's mind was starting to sift the data that John presented to her. At one time, John might have commented on her choice of language but, curiously enough, he didn't and made her aware that this scene was not the same scenes they had enacted in the past. A memory floated past her of George's acid words hanging in the air and the sheer venom with which she set about tying Connie up in knots.' Are you trying to suggest, that the higher echelons of a profession don't have highly suspect relationships with either their colleagues or members of the public, and that they don't in fact make a total mockery of the rules and regulations that govern such practices?' Now she knew what George was getting at.
"Fine words, John," she almost sneered," but how did George take to your performance"
"Incredibly badly and rightly so. She told me to stay away from her if I valued my life, was angry at my stupidity at a time when you were struggling with your own problems, and my foolishness when Sir Ian could have walked in instead of George, at letting everyone down who relied on me running the trial. She said everything but her own feelings………and that she had cancer. I find that the hardest of all to deal with right now"
"Are you not aware of the sheer potential career suicide of sleeping with a witness before she has finished giving her evidence, John? I have seen you act recklessly in standing up for justice against the establishment which has some kind of logic but it is an entirely different matter to risk throwing away every good thing you have in your life, including your career."
John smiled limply at Jo. He could have got away with curtailing his confession at that point and sunk into Jo's forgiving arms but a twinge of conscience prodded him on to carry on to the very end whatever it cost him personally. He was used to taking very high risks in court out of his sense of justice and an adrenaline thrill of standing on the edge of the precipice. This situation was different, as he had nothing to sustain him except the feeling that he ought to act for the best.
"Wait, there is more, Jo. George came over to talk to me. She wanted to know just why I had acted as I did. I must have felt more guilty than I knew at the time and I told her the truth, far too graphically than I should ever have done and I hurt her badly"
"What exactly did you tell her, John?" Jo asked sharply.
"I don't want to go into the details of it, Jo. Suffice it to say that I was needlessly cruel to her. I never intended to make comparisons with her and Connie.. It just came out that way"
Instinctively, Jo let it go and continued to the next phase of her cross-examination. She had heard enough.
"And then what"
"I apologized and told her how much I love her and tried to tell her how much she means to me. I told her that I was worried about her but she wouldn't have it. The most she said was that she wasn't pregnant. I can now see that it was because she thought it was the last time she would be able to sleep with me as we did later that night. Anyway, before she left the next morning, she left a message on my computer. I can remember one part of it. It said 'But this time is different. I am finding it hard to forgive, and even harder to forget seeing you looking quite so good with Connie. You've got no idea just how beautiful the two of you were, and that reminded me with all the finesse of a punch to the jaw, that I am ten years older than her, and not nearly so attractive.' If only I'd known what was behind it all. I put it down to some needless sense of inferiority in relation to Connie, admittedly not helped by my badly chosen words"
Jo had to pace round the room as it hurt her brain to assimilate such a catalogue of horrors while John lay back, feeling horrendously guilty. Eventually, she wheeled round and posed one final question.
"Is that everything, John"
"Everything"
For the first time, John was able to look Jo in the eye. Previous to then, he had looked in every direction except straight at her and had fidgeted in an agitated fashion that was so unlike him. He was least like the suave, debonair man that he had always thought he was.
There was a dreadfully long silence as Jo weighed everything up and eventually delivered judgment.
"You will not throw yourself on your sword in guilt, John. I forbid you to and so would George if she were here. You will have to struggle your way through this night until I have time to calm down in the morning and then you might get my sympathy and I only said might, John. Sorry as I feel for you, I also feel sorry for George and, yes, for myself. Don't ever get the idea that either George or I will endlessly forgive you. There has to be a limit. That's the way it goes."
John lay back limply in his armchair, totally emotionally annihilated by the contrast between the serene way his day had started and the emotional roller coaster that he had been subjected to. Just before she turned to go, her tall slim figure towered over him. Somehow he knew that Jo's anger was working its way through her system and, while she would not forget what had happened, she would ultimately forgive him on strict conditions and not just for George's sake.