Part One Hundred And Thirty Six
After Jo and Charlie had left, John made his way quietly up the stairs. Jo had taken the task of trying to get through to Charlie after her argument with George, and now he had the far harder job of breaking down George's usually formidable barriers. There had been something in Charlie's face, something that had told him that she knew she was in the wrong, but that she would go a very long way before admitting it. When he entered George's bedroom, her entire form was submerged under the duvet, telling him more than any words that she was hiding, from him or from herself, he wasn't sure. She had moved over to what was usually his side of the bed, lying on her right side facing the middle, with her back to him as he sat down on the edge of the bed. She didn't acknowledge his presence, and he certainly knew better than to try and talk to her right away. Slipping his hand under the duvet, he gently rubbed her back, feeling the shudder that ran through her body as she tried to keep her crying under control. Then, as he realised what it was that she needed most, he removed his shirt, trousers and shoes, and slid under the duvet on the other side of the bed. George was facing him now, and the look of utter desolation in her eyes frightened him. Putting out his arms, he gently held her to him, being careful so as not to aggravate her still tender flesh. This was closer than they'd been since her operation, and John felt that this state of affairs was long overdue.
She rested her head on his chest as she clung to him, still hiding her grief from him, though he could feel the steady fall of tears on his skin. He occasionally ran his fingers through her hair, thinking that a good, long cry would probably do her good. When he thought that she was beginning to calm down, he said into her hair, "I love you." Instantly, her body stiffened. "Don't," She said, lifting her face to meet his. "Please don't say something that I certainly don't deserve." "Darling, I love you, whether you think you deserve it or not," He replied, her words hurting him deeply. "I just can't help wondering if Charlie was right," George said, feeling as though she could cry forever. "She pointed out that not even you could possibly have it in you to love two women. John, when you first met me, when I was still only twenty, I possibly did have something about me that was worth loving. But now it's as though there's nothing left, nothing but an empty shell of melted down pride." "Stop it," John said almost harshly. "I do not want to hear you refer to yourself like that. Now, I don't have the slightest idea of what Charlie could have said to you, to make you feel as low as you do, but whatever it was really is not important, at least not at this moment. I love you, and I know you love me. If you didn't, you wouldn't have made the stupid, feckless decision you did, to try and get through this entirely alone. Part of me wishes that you didn't love me as much as you do, because then you might not have taken such a dangerous risk with your own life. George, this is so much akin to the months after Charlie was born, that it's almost uncanny. You have yet again put your physical health in serious jeopardy, simply because you couldn't talk to me. You couldn't talk to me about the fact that you didn't love Charlie, and now you couldn't talk to me because you were terrified of losing a breast and not remaining sexually attractive to me. Do you really think so little of me, that you imagine I would abandon you, just because you have lost a breast, and therefore look considerably different to what I am used to seeing in you?" "John, the most terrifying fear I have, is that I might one day lose you for good. If I didn't have you in my life, it really wouldn't be worth living. When we were still married, and I found out about Jo and went away for those few days, I contemplated not coming back, because I knew that I couldn't make you happy anymore. But I did come back, because I realised that no matter how much we'd hurt each other, I needed to still have you somewhere near me, even if that was only in court." "Is that why you became so distant?" John asked quietly. "Yes," She admitted miserably. "Because every time I saw you, every time I saw Charlie, it came home to me just how much I'd hurt both of you. No wonder Charlie started referring to me as The Ice Maiden. It was tearing me to shreds not being able to have your arms around me, not being able to make love to you, and I know that I didn't just cut myself off from you, but from Charlie too. Even now she resents what I did to her, and to you, and the terrible thing is that I really can't blame her for it. Do you remember what you said to me, on the night I found out about Jo?" "I will never forget it," John said darkly, his conversation with Helen nearly two weeks before flashing up in his mind.
She had told him to talk to George about their marriage, to try and put some of the past to rest. Could he do that now? Could he honestly go into that heavily guarded area of his memories, to drag up the one thing he'd done that made him flinch and want to throw up with revulsion and regret? "You told me," George continued. "That you loved Jo because she had a heart, clearly meaning that I didn't." "And do you have any idea how often I've bitterly regretted those very badly chosen words?" He asked her. "Never in my life before or since, have I ever said anything quite so reprehensible. But I think the part about that which has intermittently haunted me over the years, is the fact that you didn't argue with what I said. You didn't question it, or try to tell me that I was wrong." "Because you were right," George insisted. "With both the way I was towards you and Charlie, and the fact that she still bitterly resents everything I am, you must have been right." "No," He told her, his voice quiet though full of feeling. "The reason that you didn't know how to love Charlie, is because you didn't and still don't know how to even like yourself. That doesn't mean you can't find it in you to love, because no matter how many times I've hurt you, you've somehow managed to love me. When Charlie was born, you hated what you thought you'd become, but you still did your best for Charlie. You did everything for her that a mother can do. You breast fed her, which I know at times you found extremely difficult, and you cared for her just as any other good parent would. That showed me that you did have a heart inside you somewhere, even after you told me how you felt about Charlie. In those last couple of years of our marriage, you became outwardly so abrasive, because I was picking up more and more women and eventually settling on Jo. It went in a vicious circle, because you became angrier the more women I slept with, and I slept with the women because you were cutting yourself emotionally off from me. We still had sex on a fairly frequent basis, because I think we both needed the pretence of being able to keep on making each other happy."
"John, how do I even begin to make everything up to her?" George asked after a long and thoughtful silence. "I don't think you have anything to atone for," John tried to assure her. "What Charlie needs to learn, is that no one is perfect, and especially not parents. We all make mistakes, and we usually do our best to rectify them. Charlie may find it terribly easy to blame you for what she thinks she missed out on, but that doesn't stop her from coming to you for help, whenever I either can't or won't give it to her. If she truly resented your part in her creation, then she wouldn't do that." "She comes to me very occasionally because she knows I can be useful to her," George said a little morosely. "But I'd rather she did that than not at all." "Which brings the conversation back to us," John said quietly, knowing that they had to pursue this line of enquiry, no matter how painful it might be to do so.
"Where did you go for those few days?" John asked, this always having been a source of speculation for him. "I went to Paris," She told him. "And haunted all the places we'd been to on our honeymoon. It allowed me to really think about what I wanted, from you and from myself. It was pure torture in one way, but in another, it gave me a feeling of almost blissful contentment. We'd been so happy during the fortnight we'd spent there, and I think it was those memories that kept me from doing something utterly stupid. Being in a place where we'd been so happy together, it cleared my mind enough for me to realise that divorcing you was the only way forward for both of us. I knew that I wasn't a good enough mother for Charlie, and I thought that if you could find her a better one in Jo, then that's how it should be." "I'm so sorry," John said, gently kissing her, and thinking that he had a lifetime's worth of hurt to put right. "So am I," George replied with feeling. "Both for Charlie, and for this," She said, touching the place where her left breast had been. They held each other close, softly kissing and exchanging the occasional words of love and affection. But eventually George's mental and physical exhaustion began to catch up with her. "Go to sleep," John told her when she tried to stifle a yawn. "That's one thing I'm definitely sick of," She said disgustedly. "Being quite so tired." "With what you've got coming over the next few weeks if not months," John said reasonably. "I suggest you get used to it." Cuddling herself even closer to him, she laid her head on his chest, listening to the rhythmic beat of his heart, the most reassuring sound she had ever encountered.
When George was asleep, John very carefully disentangled himself from her and slipped from the bed, tucking the duvet round her as he left. Swiftly putting his clothes back on, he went downstairs to wait for Jo's return. He needed Jo, he needed to make love to her, to express his love for both of them in joining with Jo's body as nature had always intended. It wasn't all that long before he heard the distinct sound of her car pulling up in the drive, and he went to open the door for her so that she wouldn't wake George with the doorbell. When she moved into the hall and he'd closed the door, she moved into his outstretched arms and as he held her, burying his face in her hair, he knew that for the moment, he was forgiven. "I'm sorry about Connie," he said into her hair, neither of them having raised this subject since he'd told her about it on Tuesday. "You always are," Jo replied a little wistfully. "But perhaps this time, I am actually finding myself wanting to believe you. I wish I could understand what makes you do it, but I don't, and doubt that I ever will. But if George can forgive you, when I know it hurt her far more deeply, it would be uncharitable of me not to forgive you too. Just try not to take my acceptance of your wayward attitude to women too much for granted." "Did you prepare that speech on the way home?" He asked with a slight smile. "No," She said with a smile of her own. "I was trying to work out how you would eventually explain our situation to Charlie, because explain it to her you must do, and one day soon. She's wondering, John, and it won't be long before she arrives at the correct conclusion all by herself. As her father, and the one she turns to for answers, explaining this to her will inevitably fall to you." "Not a conversation I shall look forward to with relish," John replied dryly, though knowing that Jo was probably right. When Jo kissed him, he clung to her tightly, some of his residual torment from the conversation he'd had with George flowing through him with a shudder. "Can we go to bed?" he asked, needing the feeling of normality that making love to Jo would provide. "I don't see why not," Jo replied after a moment's thought, seeing a wild look in John's eyes, the barely restrained emotions that needed to be released.
As they moved up the stairs, it dawned on both of them that they would need to be extremely quiet if they weren't going to disturb George's rest. The thought of the amount of vocal restraint they would need to find in themselves was almost intoxicating. It was as though they were yet again doing something forbidden, something wrong that they simply could not forego. They continued kissing as they rapidly removed each other's clothes, their occupied mouths barely letting out a sound. Their hands followed their old familiar course once they were under the duvet of the spare bed, though their touching was calculated to achieve the maximum response in the shortest time. Neither of them wanted to prolong the overture to the main central act of their lovemaking, because they both needed that joining, that coming together of bodies and souls that made them one for the duration of the performance. With the emotions that they had both held in check for the last few days, their coupling was frantic and frenzied once they finally came together, their intertwining bodies expressing all that was in their minds. They seemed to forget their need to be quiet, their utter devotion to the furthering of their pleasure being their only concern.
George had drifted back into wakefulness as they had mounted the stairs, and she had only become more alert as she realised what they were doing. Their stifled gasps and exclamations of pleasure made her own senses tingle with desire. She didn't attempt to touch herself as she listened to the sounds of their loving, because she didn't think herself currently capable of an orgasm, but the moisture which gradually collected between her legs was testament to just how arousing she found the experience. She loved them both, and to hear them loving each other so entirely was a truly wondrous thing. But once she heard their combined cry of ejaculation, her arousal turned immediately to grief as she became aware of John's heart-felt sobs of terror that he might lose her.
It hadn't surprised Jo when John's sexual release had turned into tears, because she knew this had been coming ever since he'd found out about George's cancer. She held him to her, gently rocking him as she might a child, trying to soothe away his fears, even though she felt most of them herself. "I can't lose her, Jo," He said as his body trembled. "I can't lose either of you." "And we will do everything we can to make sure that we don't lose her," Jo promised him. "The battle isn't over yet, John, in fact it's barely begun. We can fight for her survival by helping her through it, because she is going to need us, both of us to keep going over the next few months." "I just wish there was something tangible I could do," He said, sounding submerged in total despair.
When he became aware of the other figure slipping under the duvet behind him, he turned over to face her, now lying on his back between them. As her arms went around him to join Jo's, he wrapped an arm around her, never wanting to let her go. "Darling, I'm not going anywhere," She promised him. "Not yet anyway. I'm not going to go down without a fight, I promise you." After a calming silence, Jo ventured a question. "Did we wake you?" She asked, making George smirk, which was something they hadn't seen in her for far too long. "In a manner of speaking," She said, giving Jo a wink. "Oh, please tell me you didn't listen to us..." She stopped, not quite sure how to phrase what they'd been doing. "And would you have passed up such an opportunity?" George teased her. "Perhaps not," Jo admitted with a slight blush. "Of course you wouldn't," John told her with a smile. "It was the most beautiful thing I think I've ever heard in my life," George said with utter seriousness. "And if there's one thing I definitely have to live for, it's what you two give me by being here. You have no idea just how precious that actually is."