John's voice echoed round in his mind at undisturbed parts of the day when the demands of reading the latest set of trial papers allowed his mind to devote his attention to it. He was hearing different takes of what he might say to Jo to get her to talk about her drinking and rejected every single one outright.
"I have known you for years, Jo as a very dear friend and lover. From what I've noticed, you may be having problems with your drinking……"
He discarded that approach as a minor variation of all the other rejects. As he thought closer about the matter, he was only too keenly aware how stubborn she might be, and just dig in her heels on the matter. He put his head in his hands as his head hurt.
As he lay back in the wide, comfortable sofa, Karen's advice came back into his mind. The picture was clear enough to John all right. An image came back into his mind of Jo down the years. She had always been studious, caring, dedicated and possessed that easy calm that attracted her to him when the tensions between him and George had become too much for him. He had thought of Jo as his security who would always be there. Everything had changed between the three of them and he had happily gone with the flow, making all past antagonisms redundant. What hadn't changed was his perception that Jo was the steady one, until the evidence before his eyes had finally claimed his attention.
When he thought about it, Jo would have periods when she would drink perfectly normally. It was only in moments of extreme crisis, when she would hit the bottle. At that time, he had always put it down as a perfectly natural reaction. Now he looked back on the past, these occasional blips had become more pronounced and more frequent. He had to grasp the nettle on this occasion even if he risked being stung. He loved her too much to hold back, to blind his eyes and pretend that a problem didn't exist.
To be fair to Jo, he examined the nature of his own reaction to stress. Instantly, he realized that he bottled it up and that it may have escaped in the form of righteous fury, which he would visit on his natural enemy. It had threatened to land him in hot water on more than one occasion although some good had come from it. It had taken some tricky footwork to extricate himself from trouble, even if it were for a good cause. He had to concede that it was a form of living dangerously, but he had good reason to consider that it wasn't in the same league as alcohol.
"John, you have the makings of a real puritan when it comes to healthy living. You are a fanatical anti-smoker, you fence regularly, you go through vegetarian phases and I have never seen you drunk in my life. How do you account for it?" Jo commented with an amused smile as they sat back on the sofa. She had strolled into his chambers after close of court on Friday and the atmosphere was nice and peaceful.
"I claim no special virtue about smoking as I have a simple aversion to it," John answered smoothly with a studiously blank expression on his face. Inside his mind, the light bulb has been turned on, as he sensed his chance and seized it with both hands. "I have seen much to fear of what alcohol can do from when I was a young man, just starting out in the profession. In those days, it was a much more male dominated profession. In particular, I studied the behaviour of the more elderly barristers very closely and their lifestyle always worried me. They were oblivious to it themselves but I could see it. I vowed to myself that I would never end up like them any more than I would end up as a dried up old cynic as some of them did"
"Tell me more, John." Jo asked, her abstract interest aroused in John's early career.
"There was one man whose florid eloquence was the talk of chambers, someone who I very much admired. He was my mentor in my early days and I learned a lot from him. It took a little while before I realized how often he took himself down to Pomeroy's wine bar, and used to get thoroughly plastered every evening. I was a young junior barrister just learning my trade and got to realize how much of a close run thing it was that he would be in shape for the next day. When he did get going, he was magnificently eloquent. It was a shame and a tragedy that his drinking gradually destroyed his talents, bit by bit"
"So you chose sex instead as your form of indulgence, John"
John winced slightly at Jo's all too accurate verbal thrust, delivered with a smile. At one time, he would have gone into denial, wrapped up in eloquent verbiage but not now.
"In another era, I would have said that it does less damage than alcohol but now I'm not so sure. I recognize it for what it is and I own up to the consequences of my self centred behaviour"
"Where is this conversation leading to, John?" Jo enquired, a troubled expression in her eyes.
"It's just that he declared over and over that he never had a drinking problem. It was very likely that when he was younger he could live with it. It was accepted behaviour, much like the House of Commons in every respect"
"Why are you now coming out with all these reminiscences?" Jo asked much more sharply.
"Because…..because…..I am much afraid that you could follow in my mentor's footsteps. It isn't just him who I remember, but others too."
"I don't have a problem, John." Jo declared flatly, trying to conceal that she was working up to hyperventilating. "Am I reaching out for the bottle right now? Am I watching out for you to turn your back to sneak a top up out of your supply of the finest spirits? Do I look like an ..alcoholic?" Jo stormed.
"Your word, not mine." John added recklessly and bitterly regretted it.
"I am not an alcoholic, John. I know much more about the matter than you will ever know from my father, from going to AA meetings with him to try and get him to get better. I could not possibly hold my own in such a demanding profession if I was as you describe"
Jo's body movements suggested a pent up anger, almost a violence in her movements that greatly disturbed John. He sought to smooth matters down with a little diplomacy.
"I am really sorry for my lack of tact. I should have been more considerate of your feelings"
"You aren't, John. It's just that you have been caught out. You can't back away as easily as this"
"I am not regretting talking to you about my concerns for you, only the way that I put it." John answered in steady precise tones, looking her straight in the eye. A little inkling at the back of Jo's mind registered the sharp contrast between his first attempt to smooth talk his way out of an awkward situation and his later stark simplicity. However, she wasn't in a listening mood, least of all to herself.
"Look John. I appreciate your concern but I do not have a problem. I really don't. OK, there have been a couple of times when I've had a bit too much to drink but I've pulled through the next day. I really don't want to discuss this further so can we please change the subject and talk about something more pleasant. It's been a long week and I'm tired."
Jo's sweet smile as she finished disarmed John, making him feel utterly powerless to change the course of events. He was accustomed to his power as a judge in his official capacity and his silver tongue as a lover in his private life, but both sources of strength had signally failed him utterly. He had tried and failed to get anywhere and he concluded that he was hitting his head against a brick wall. He could have harked back to Barbara Mills' trial but he felt that it would be foolhardy in her present mood. As he sank back in his chair and sipped at his wine, he could not think of how tenacious Helen was when she was trying to breach his labyrinthine defences. He had to admire her and wonder how she had the drive and determination to make a living out of what he was attempting as a amateur.