The dilemma continued to haunt Jo, as she could hear competing and opposing voices echoing round and round at the back of her head. Her first thought was telling John set her into a blind panic, both for herself and for John at the way he would react. She could not get away from the fact that, if she chose to tell John, her previous actions would be directly responsible for John reliving the trauma of when his mother committed suicide. She knew only too well that the fact that Jo had survived would cut no ice with him. That blind fear of losing her would let his anger take charge of him straightaway like a runaway train. On the other hand, she couldn't help but hear Karen's pleas to tell John, no matter how hard it might be. She could sense that, if John weren't told, they would irrevocably commit themselves to a lifetime's silence and what would happen if John finally found out years down the line. She had understood how much as a shock to his system to hear that he had been adopted only when he was in his fifties. Her mindset abruptly reversed course and seized upon her new resolve. Everything else was blotted out, had to be blotted out. After all, she was most comfortable with upholding the truth and doing what she had thought of as the right thing, for the long haul in life.
She resolved to seek out George and speak to her about the matter, the one other person most at the centre of their relationship. Even though it was summer, the weather was unusually blustery and cold and a cold blast of air greeted Jo as she stepped out of her car to greet George at her expensively furnished office right by Knightsbridge. She had mixed feelings about the visit. On the positive side were the nearby shops, which she could be persuaded to spend some spare time to browse round. On the negative side was Jo's fear of telling George of her intension to tell John about her overdose and what led up to it. Yes, she could understand George being protective of John on his behalf, but surely George didn't have a monopoly on this feeling? Why was she seeking clash of wills, she might ask herself? Her only answer was that she eagerly sought to bury at last all the arguments had been running round at a furious speed like a mouse inside a revolving wheel. She had to resolve them somehow, rather than stew over the whole thing.
"Mind if I smoke?" came Jo's terse greeting. Even though it was four days since her overdose, Jo was still not her usual self.
"Feel free, Jo. The politically correct police squad aren't here to batter down my front door to stop you"
It was on the tip of Jo's tongue to refer to John in their habitually bantering way until she stopped short and coloured at the memory of her recent overdose. It had diminished her own self-image, and feelings of her own unworthiness washed over making it impossible for her to criticise others, even in jest. Instead, she fumbled blindly for her handbag, muttering to herself in irritation as the zip jammed while George maintained a tactful silence. Eventually she found her lighter and packet of cigarettes, offered one to George who accepted it more out of diplomacy than anything else. She inhaled deeply and blew a cloud of smoke into the air while George's cigarette smouldered away.
"I thought I'd let you know that I've made up my mind to tell John what's gone on recently. I owe it to him to be honest with him and not to leave him totally in the dark"
George instantly stubbed out her cigarette. This was what she had dreaded. This was Jo all over at her worst.
"Do you really think that honesty and sincerity is all that matters in life, Jo"
"That's the way I've always led my life," Jo replied stiffly."It normally works for me"
"'A little sincerity can be a dangerous thing and a great deal of it, absolutely fatal.' Oscar Wilde. Try his insight for size"
"I could never understand what he was getting at. The man always struck me as a hopeless cynic"
Though George truly loved Jo, her own illness did not find her at her most patient and her attitude was beginning to irritate her. Jo was conveniently overlooking her concealment of her own alcohol intake but she let the matter pass.
"It means, darling, that you have to think very carefully of the impact of your 'sincerity' before you dare to inflict it on somebody else. You have to consider the other person's feelings and just what the reaction will be to your 'honesty' and 'sincerity'. Besides, there are ways and means of saying things. It's all about compassion at the end of the day"
"George, you are being so short sighted. OK, suppose I accept what you say for the sake of argument and keep quiet about the matter, then what happens three months down the line? Or six months? This sort of thing can go on forever. I am having nothing to do with
any cover up even if you're comfortable with the idea"
"Oh so exactly what are you going to say to him? I notice in your opening remark how coy you were about describing your OD. If you have trouble talking to me about it who was there at the time, how much more likely are you to be relaxed in telling John who wasn't there"
"That is not the point. George, I know you mean well but you are simply muddying the waters"
"Jo, watch my lips. They are well and truly muddied already. There are no grand sweeping answers. Surely you must see that"
Jo shook her head in confusion. After she had psyched herself up to the most fearful decision she had ever made in her life, George's attitude seemed perverse in whittling away at her justification and confusing her mind.
"You're forgetting one thing, George. Karen is insistent that I tell John because if I had succeeded in doing what I intended to do, then John would be reliving his worst nightmare if things had worked out differently"
"Karen is right about John's feelings, Jo but what on earth has that got to do with whether you tell him? I know what Karen wants you to do but that doesn't mean that you should do it. She told me that she can't keep quiet about it for long. In other words, she's scared about appearing to cover the whole thing up. I agree that there is something in how she feels about that. The bottom line is how on earth you can tell John exactly what you've done, especially with what happened to his mother . What sort of guilt are you going to land him with, Jo? Just think carefully"
"All you've asked me to do is to delay telling John till some time in the future and wrap it up in a sugar pill. That can't be done and you know that, George. I'm going to do what has to be done and not because Karen is telling me to. " Jo answered in steely determined tones.
A wave of weakness flowed through George. She wasn't really up to handling such an intense argument about matters that came close to home. Jo's mulish streak had worn down her strength right now. It felt to her that the more that she had tried to push Jo in one direction, she had only pushed back in the opposite direction even harder. Her panic fear for John's state of mind froze over that fluid capacity to reason. She gave up at that point.
Just then, a shaft of sunlight shone through her window of opportunity down onto the streets below. It all looked pretty washed out to her.