Part One Hundred And Fifty Eight
When John arrived at the clinic for his session with Helen on the Tuesday evening, he found himself wondering just how long he would go on seeing her. He knew that these sessions were undoubtedly doing him good, but what would happen when Helen finally managed to break down the barriers that had been constructed over the last forty odd years. He was under no illusions that this would one day happen, because Helen was far too skilled at her job to allow him to dissuade her from such a course of action. She would keep chipping away at his psyche just as she had been doing all these months, and one day she would remove the most heavily guarded section of all his mental and emotional armour.
"You're looking better than you did when I last saw you," Helen observed as he took his usual chair opposite to her. "Things are, a little more settled," He said evasively, wondering whether or not this really was the word to describe everything that was currently happening. "I'm not sure if you remember," John continued. "But you once suggested that I should talk to George about a lot of the unresolved issues surrounding our marriage." "I remember saying something to that effect," Helen agreed with him. "Why?" "I did," He told her simply. "The day after she came out of hospital. I wouldn't have raised such an emotionally volatile issue at that time, but George had a pretty bad argument with Charlie, which seemed to bring a lot of things to the fore." "Does she often argue with Charlie?" Helen asked. "No, they usually remain in something of a stalemate, but when they do argue, it's almost always bad. Charlie still can't forgive George for not being the mother she always wanted. If you think I hold a lot of guilt about my marriage to George, George herself holds even more." "I can imagine," Helen said ruefully. "Well, I finally took the opportunity to apologise for some of the things I said and did during that time, as did George." "Good," Helen replied with a soft smile. "It doesn't mean that the guilt is gone, from either of us, but we've begun being a little more honest with each other, which is perhaps a start." "Honesty is always a good start, Judge," Helen said quietly. "It's a very valuable lesson that we all have to learn eventually," She added, thinking of the initial months of hers and Nikki's relationship. Nikki had always been honest with her about her feelings, but Helen hadn't always managed to do the same, something she had always regretted.
"I'm not sure what you have on the agenda for today," John continued carefully. "But there is something that I think we should discuss." "Oh?" Helen replied with a certain amount of curiosity. "It is an extension of the guilt theme that we don't seem to have left alone for the last couple of sessions, and it's something that needs putting to rest for both of us, not just me." "You're talking about Ross," Helen finished for him. "Yes," John replied quietly. Helen had known that they would one day reach this point, because it was as much an unresolved set of circumstances for her as it was for him, just as he'd said, but that didn't mean she was looking forward to reopening that particular poisoned chalice. "This is pushing at the extreme edges of professional boundaries, Judge," Helen told him solemnly. "Which is something you've been doing since the very first time I came here to see you," John replied just as seriously. "I suppose you're right," Helen conceded. "Well, go on then, if you think it's something we ought to discuss, you tell me where to start." Helen found herself praying that no matter what questions he might throw at her, she would be able to remain in control. She was the professional here, not him, and she would not allow him to make her feel as vulnerable as he had undoubtedly felt on previous occasions.
"What was your immediate reaction, when Ross first came to you as a patient?" "I was horrified," Helen replied, feeling a certain amount of confidence that she could answer his questions honestly enough to then get him back on track to answering hers. "This was Karen's son, my friend's son, and I couldn't help but wish that I didn't know what I did about him. It was plain that Karen had no idea about what was happening to him, and it became clear over the time that I saw him, that he had absolutely no intentions of telling her." "Did you try to persuade him to tell her?" John asked, slipping far too easily into the role of inquisitor. "Of course I did," Helen insisted vehemently. "Every bloody time I saw him I tried, but he didn't want to know. Something that occurred to me at the time, was that he was just as stubborn as his mother, because Karen reacted just like he did, when I tried to tell her about Fenner. She didn't want to know about Fenner, and Ross didn't want to know about her." There was a long, awful silence after Helen had uttered these words, with both of them trying to take in what she'd just said. "I didn't mean that," she said eventually, refusing to look John in the eye. "Yes, you did," He replied quietly. "You meant every word of it." "It just was sometimes far too obvious that she'd passed that particular trait onto him," Helen tried to explain. "Ross always thought he knew best, and when Karen was living with Fenner, so did she. That's why I originally thought of coming to you, because Ross wouldn't even consider speaking to her." "You were clutching at straws," John stated with a slight smile. "You know I was," She said, accepting his assessment of the situation. "Because anything was worth a try if it meant I could bypass the old adage of patient confidentiality. After what you said on that day I came to see you, I even tried coming up with a way to get him sectioned, just so that Karen would have to be told, but it was a bit of a non-starter."
"After you'd gone," John said, continuing to refer to the time Helen had come to see him in chambers the year before. "I sat there for hours, going over and over everything I knew about the law of patient confidentiality, trying to find the slightest loophole. In the end, when I realised that I was going round and round in circles, I decided to seek advice from a higher authority. It's funny, but even after George and I divorced, I still sought out Joe Channing whenever I needed legal advice, or advice of any kind. I told him everything that you'd told me, but he came up with precisely the same answer as I had. I persisted, telling him that the law was wrong and that it ought to be changed, something I know I'd said on previous occasions. But this wasn't just any normal legal argument, this was suddenly far more real, because it concerned a woman who ranked highly in my affections. I knew something that she didn't about her own son, a state of affairs that felt despicably, indisputably wrong. Every time I saw Karen after that, I was forced to beat down the urge to ignore the consequences and simply tell her where her son was and what was happening to him. On the night he died, you accused me of doing only what was legally right, instead of what was morally right, and I entirely agreed with you. If I had done what was morally right, Karen would have been in a position to try and help her son, and he might still have been alive today." "That wasn't just the case for you, judge," Helen told him quietly. "It was for me too. I was so angry with you, myself, and the whole bloody system. Another life had been pointlessly wasted, just because neither you nor I had been legally able to tell a friend what she needed to know. That night was one of the worst nights of my life. She sounded so happy when I phoned her, so alive, with not a care in the world at that particular moment. She was in the car with George, and I had to shout at her to persuade her to get off the road. I tried to explain to her that Ross had been coming to see me, and what for, and she said that it made his behaviour over the last few months make some kind of sense. When I finally told her that Ross had killed himself, all she could ask was how. Having to put that into words, having to tell a mother that her son had taken the most difficult, most traumatic and painful of ways out, that was probably the hardest thing I've ever had to do. She couldn't say a word after I'd told her what he'd done, and all I could think was that I'd just completely obliterated everything Karen had ever worked for."
In the resulting silence, John watched as the tears poured down Helen's cheeks. He shouldn't have done this, he couldn't help but think, he shouldn't have put her through this, because it really wasn't his place to do so. He had unwittingly put Helen into the far too vulnerable position that he had occasionally inhabited in previous sessions, which certainly wasn't the prerogative of any patient, no matter how well he might know her outside of the consulting room. Getting up from his chair, John handed Helen the box of tissues that usually resided on the coffee table between them, and sat down in a chair next to her. "I'm sorry," He told her quietly. "I didn't mean to upset you." "It doesn't matter," Helen said as she wiped her eyes and blew her nose. "If I'd thought about it long enough when you first asked to become my patient, I might have known we'd get to this point one day." "One thing you said to me a couple of sessions ago," John continued carefully. "Was that holding onto the guilt I feel couldn't possibly do me any good. I think that you need to consider taking your own advice. You acted within the constraints of your profession, as did I, as did my ex-father-in-law. As individuals we cannot change the laws that currently exist to protect a person's right to confidentiality, no matter how much we might disagree with them. Karen certainly doesn't blame you for what you did, and I'm fairly sure that she doesn't still blame me for it either. You need to stop blaming yourself, and so do I." As she listened to his calm, measured, thoroughly thought out words, Helen knew that he was right. It didn't mean that she could let go so easily of the guilt she had tried to bury about Karen, but his words had given her a reason to try.