Part One Hundred And Eighty Eight
On the Wednesday afternoon, Jo picked up Karen's report of her overdose which Karen had e-mailed to her that morning, and got into her car to drive to St. Mary's hospital. Karen had explained on the phone to her why Ric wanted to see her, and Jo had been forced to agree with her. She might not like the idea of someone in Ric's position knowing about her stupid mistake, but she did trust him. He had after all treated George with the utmost skill and professionalism, and she didn't doubt that he would do the same with her. The hustle and bustle of the NHS hospital was far removed from the quiet, almost peaceful quality of the Haddlington where George had spent those few days for her surgery and for those interminable sessions of chemotherapy. But this was where Ric had asked to see her, because this was where he was holding his liver clinic. After pulling up in the car park, she clutched Karen's report to her and traversed the long and winding corridors and took a lift up to the fifth floor and Keller ward.
She was greeted by a woman whose name badge said Sr. Lisa Fox. "If you'll take a seat over there," Lisa told her, gesturing to a row of chairs. "Mr. Griffin will be with you in a while. You are his last patient of the afternoon so he shouldn't be too long." Doing as she was bidden, Jo took a seat, half of her cringing away from the possibility that either Zubin or Tom might come across her here. As though her thoughts had conjured up his presence, she suddenly saw Tom and Connie Beauchamp come out of an office down the corridor, clearly in the middle of some argument and thankfully not taking a blind bit of notice of anyone around them. But she had reckoned without Tom's or Connie's ability to see anything out of the ordinary at a mere glance. Before Tom could open his mouth to speak to Jo, he thought better of it. She might not want him to know she was here, for whatever reason, so he should leave it up to her to speak to him if she wanted to do so. But just to satisfy his curiosity, he leaned over the desk, and infuriated Lisa by removing the appointment book to see what type of problem Jo Mills might be here for. "Tom," Lisa protested. "You could just ask to see the appointment book." "Ah, but then you wouldn't give it to me, would you," Tom replied with a playful smirk, glancing down at Ric's clinic list for the afternoon, and seeing that it was for liver complaints. "No, you're dead right I wouldn't," Lisa said, taking the book back and hiding it in the top drawer of the desk. "Well, did you find out what you wanted to know?" "I did, Lisa, thank you," Tom replied amiably, walking towards his office. A liver problem, well, that was hardly a surprise where Jo Mills was concerned, now was it. He could remember that day in the middle of Barbara Mills' trial. It had been his morning to take the stand, and he had come across Jo Mills standing outside the court, smoking and looking distinctly hung over. When he had tentatively asked her about it, she hadn't tried to hide it from him, but perhaps that was because she was aware of his own problem with alcohol. Well, perhaps he might just ask Ric about this later.
"Mrs. Mills, would you like to come in?" The pleasant, well-remembered voice was a shock to Jo, as she had been submerged in her own thoughts until he had spoken to her. Picking up Karen's report, she walked to where Ric was standing in an open doorway. He could see immediately that she would rather be anywhere else than where she was at the present time. When he had closed the door behind her, he told her to sit in the chair in front of the desk. Taking the chair opposite to her, Ric wondered how to begin this very difficult conversation. "First of all," He told her gently but firmly. "I don't want you to blame Karen for my now being aware of what happened last Friday night." "I don't," Jo said in surprise, not having expected anything like this as an opening gambit in the slightest. "She needed to talk about what she'd done, to someone who would entirely understand the consequences had she not succeeded." "I do know just how difficult it was for her," Jo said quietly. "Something I will always regret." "And do you regret what you tried to do?" Ric asked her, now coming straight to the heart of the matter. Jo had to think about this, because she really wasn't sure. "I can't say that I'll never want to do it again," She said eventually. "But I don't think I am very likely to put any thoughts along those lines into practice, now that I know what is involved in dealing with it." "That is entirely the kind of answer I would expect from a lawyer," Ric replied with a slight smile. "Now, having obtained a copy of your blood results, you can be somewhat relieved that your kidneys are still functioning normally, but the results of your Liver Function Test do warrant further investigation." "Karen asked me to bring you this," Jo said, handing over the copy of Karen's report. "She said that you would need to know what drugs I had been given and in what quantities." Ric took the report, and spent a few minutes reading it through, marvelling at the lengths Karen had gone to, and the sheer risks she had taken. "That's fine," he said, eventually putting it down. "But what I need to do now, is to take a closer look at your liver. We can do this by an ultrasound scan. Do you have any objection to my registrar, Diane Lloyd, being present for this?" "None at all," Jo replied, only now taking notice of the ultrasound machine in the corner of the room beside an examination couch. Sticking his head out of the door, Ric called down the corridor to where he could see Diane standing at the nurses' station, and asked her to join him so that they could begin.
When Diane appeared, Jo barely noticed how pretty she was. God, how could she have been so stupid? How could she have been so stupid as to possibly screw up her liver? If she had managed to do herself any damage in the process, John really would be furious with her, but then he was going to be angry enough already. Diane took in Jo's uneasiness, and strove to act in as professional a manner as possible. Ric briefly gave her the bare facts of the case, leaving out any names that might get Karen into trouble. Diane had a tendency to want to go official about things like this, something Karen could ill afford. "Please can you remove your blouse and bra?" Diane asked her. "And then lie down on the table." Once Jo had complied with this request, Diane informed her that she would now apply some contact gel to the skin in the area of Jo's liver, which would enable the transducer to give them a picture of what was going on inside. She asked Jo to turn on her left side, so that the picture would hopefully be clearer. Ric allowed Diane to get on with it, only occasionally providing a little guidance. "Jo," Diane eventually asked. "How long would you say that you've had a problem with alcohol?" "I've had the occasional, binge I think they call it these days, usually after a particularly harrowing trial." "You're a lawyer," Diane stated with a smile. "That ought to keep you on your toes, Ric," She added with a smirk in his direction. "Today isn't the first time I have met Mrs. Mills," Ric informed her. Then, turning to Jo, he asked, "Was it George's breast cancer that made everything a little harder to deal with?" "I think that was part of it," Jo admitted, feeling thoroughly stupid. "But it all started to go wrong before that, during the trial that your friend Professor Khan was involved in." "Was that the same one as Tom and Connie?" Diane asked, now really curious about this woman. "Yes," Jo told her with a slight smile. "It's fair to say that I found that trial far more stressful than I normally would." "Why?" Diane asked, not meaning to be intrusive but succeeding nevertheless. "I don't think you need to know that," Jo told her quietly. "So, are you going to tell me what you've found?" "Get dressed and then I'll show you," Ric told her, but then he changed his mind. "Actually, Diane, if you will do the honours, I'll try and chase up that last set of blood results." Knowing that this was Ric's way of telling her he needed to do something that he didn't want their patient to know about, she agreed.
Once Ric had gone, Diane gestured for Jo to join her at the screen of the ultrasound machine. "You see there," She said, moving the picture of Jo's liver into clearer focus. "Where the surface of the liver is slightly puckered? That shows us that you do have the very beginnings of cirrhosis, but that we have hopefully caught it before there is any irreparable damage. What it really means for you though, is that under no circumstances must you ever drink alcohol again. I'm not just talking for a month, or a year, but for the rest of your life. It may seem a little trite of me to say that you have been extremely lucky, but you have. You may not feel that you want it, but you have been given a second chance, not something that ought to be wasted." "I do understand," Jo assured her. "But I think I saw an overdose as the only way to stop drinking." "That's not unusual," Diane told her, perching on the edge of the examination table whilst Jo sat in a chair. "I once knew someone with a gambling addiction," She said, talking about Ric though not revealing his name. "He'd always been a pretty reckless gambler, but when he realised that I'd terminated another man's child instead of actually having his, the gambling suddenly got worse. It was like watching a car crash happening in slow motion." "I think that's what it was like for John and George," Jo said without thinking. "Get Ric to explain that one to you," She added a little hurriedly. "The point is," Diane continued. "That he did eventually manage to kick the habit. Admittedly, after causing several people an enormous amount of pain, and just because he has managed to stop, doesn't mean that he doesn't occasionally go back to it. But you can stop drinking, if you have the right support and enough fight left in you to try."
Walking hurriedly down the corridor, Ric knocked on the door of Tom's office. Being bade to come in, he opened the door and closed it behind him. "Ric, you don't normally come seeking my company, what can I do for you?" "I have Jo Mills in my consulting room, and I need your help." "Yes," Tom replied thoughtfully. "I had noticed that she was here." "Tom, she's here because she has a drink problem, and because a few days ago, she took an overdose." "Not Jo Mills. Are you serious?" "Very," Ric said with a heavy sigh. "I've given her an ultrasound and she does have the beginnings of cirrhosis, but I'm hoping that we've just about caught it in time." "And you want me to talk to her," Tom deduced. "If you would," Ric replied gratefully. "You are after all the resident expert on alcoholism." "Thank you very much for reminding me," Tom said drolly. "But yes, I'll talk to her, and I won't let her know that you've told me."
When Jo finally left Ric's and Diane's clutches, she walked along the corridor feeling very much detached from her usual self. Today had been one of the weirdest days she'd had in a long time, and it wasn't even over yet. "Jo?" She turned at the voice calling her from a nearby office. Walking to the open door, she saw that it was Tom's. "Tom," She said, standing in the doorway and being wholly unable to think of anything to say. "I thought you might have a coffee with me before you went home," he said, telling her immediately that he had known of her appointment with Ric. "Yes, all right," She said a little hesitantly. Installing her in the visitors' chair in front of his desk, he left to make them both a coffee. When he returned, he put the mugs down on the desk and closed his office door. "So, how'd it go?" he asked, sitting back down behind his desk. "I have just been told that I have mild cirrhosis, but I suspect you knew that." "I certainly wondered why you were here," He said quietly, neither confirming nor denying her assertion. "Do you want to tell me why you have cirrhosis?" "Tom, you know why," Jo insisted vehemently. "It's because I drink too much, it's because I can't seem to find solace in anything else but scotch, and it's because I stupidly thought that killing myself was the only answer." Jo stopped, utterly stunned by her unexpected outburst. Bitter tears had risen to her eyes because she felt so stupid, so feckless. Getting up from behind his desk, Tom walked round to her, gently pulled her up from her chair, and put his arms around her. "I feel so stupid," She said, her tears now coming thick and fast. "I know," He told her gently. "I've been there too, Jo, and I know that it's complete and utter hell." "George was so angry with me," Jo continued, no longer caring that she was clinging to someone she had only previously known in a professional context. "Quite how someone can be angry and kind at the same time is beyond me." "It sounds as though you're lucky to have her," Tom said thoughtfully, gently rubbing her back to try and calm her down, though he did understand the need for the occasional outburst. As she stood there, cocooned in this man's embrace, and seeming to shed through her tears, at least a portion of the weight of guilt that had been pressing down on her for far too long.