Part One Hundred And Ninety
As the taxi drove John towards Karen's flat, he found himself having to restrain the urge to tell the driver to put his foot down. But when they arrived and John had paid him, he stood in the street, trying to battle his anger into something a little more controlled, but this wasn't to be. Karen was the one who had ultimately taken such a risk with his precious Jo's life, and she would have to provide him with some very good explanations if she didn't want his anger to burst over her in a tidal wave that might rock her off her feet.
Karen wasn't in the least surprised to see John on her doorstep. She had known that he was due back from Milan today, and she also knew that either Jo or George would have told him about what had happened the week before. "Come in," She said, taking note of the pulse that was rapidly beating at his temples. "Before you have a coronary on my doorstep." "You'd know all about that, wouldn't you," He found himself saying. "People being in life threatening positions and asking for your help." "Seeing as I worked as a nurse for about eight years, yes, I would," she countered back, knowing that he needed to get this out of his system, but also unwilling to go down without a fight. "That isn't what I'm talking about and you know it," John replied angrily, barely taking notice of Yvonne's presence at one end of the sofa. "Have you got something constructive to say, or have you just come here to shout at me?" Karen demanded, feeling in the mood for giving him the fight he was quite obviously looking for.
"How could you?" He continued furiously. "How could you take such a dangerous risk with someone I love?" "Oh, so it would have been perfectly okay to do that with someone you didn't love?" Quipped back Karen, her very unwise responses slipping out before they could be curtailed. "Don't be flippant!" He all but roared at her. "So what was I supposed to do," Karen demanded, returning to the seriousness of the situation. "Just stay away and let her die? She might not have admitted it to you, John, but she meant to do it. I had to help her, I had to do anything I possibly could to save her life. Is that so difficult to understand?" "Yes," he persisted scornfully. "The correct course of action would have been to get her to a hospital as quickly as possible, not to mess around playing Florence Nightingale with a first class degree in cover ups. So, are you going to tell me why? And I'm not asking for any more chivalrous patter about saving someone's life." In the resulting silence, that seemed to throb with all the unresolved feelings that were circulating the room, Karen sat down on the other end of the sofa to Yvonne and lit a cigarette. "When George phoned me," she began. "I told her that she had to get Jo to the nearest hospital. But George refused, using the fact that a section wouldn't exactly do a lot for Jo's career as a reason for not going down the official route. I had Thomas Waugh with me at the time, and much to my astonishment, he agreed with her." "Then he should be struck off," John put in venomously, pacing the length of the room as he listened. "Don't be ridiculous," Karen told him scornfully. "If it wasn't for Thomas giving me the necessary drugs and implements from Larkhall's hospital wing, Jo would in all likelihood be dead now." John flinched as she said this, but Karen had to give him the full, unvarnished truth. "Did it never occur to you," he asked, trying to put his fury back on its leash. "That Jo's career doesn't bear any importance whatsoever when compared to her life?" "John, I fully appreciate that that's how you see it, and to a major extent I agree with you. But I know only too well how important a career is when the rest of your life is not going to plan. It's the one thing you cling to, because it's the one area of your life that tends to remain on something of an even keel. I did what I did last Friday because it was purely instinctive to do what I could to save Jo's life. Yes, it was difficult, and yes it was probably the stupidest thing I've ever done, but it worked, and she is alive." "But you still shouldn't have taken that risk," He insisted, now unable to stop the thoughts from going round and round in his head, some of them making it out of his mouth. "Jo is the most precious thing in my life. She is what makes my life worth living. If I ever lost her, I wouldn't be able to survive."
"Don't you think Karen knows that?" Yvonne suddenly put in, bringing both their eyes on her. "Yvonne, I would rather you kept out of this," John replied, a little quieter than his previous outburst. "Don't talk bollocks," Yvonne told him succinctly. "I was there, remember, along with Karen and George because they needed my help." "So I've you to thank for this utter debacle as well?" "You self-righteous bastard," Yvonne replied scornfully. "Karen did everything she possibly could last Friday night, purely and simply because she does know how much you love Jo." "Leave it, Yvonne," Karen said quietly, all the fight seeming to have gone out of her. "No way," Yvonne said the flash of determination dancing in her eyes. "It's about time he knew just what lengths you went to." Then, turning back to John, she said, "Karen did the job of three possibly four people in trying to save Jo's life, something she would never have been expected to do in a professional setting. Karen pushed her skills and knowledge to the limit last Friday night, trying her damnedest to save the life of a friend. No matter how shit scared Karen was last Friday, she didn't reveal it to any of us. Not once did Karen admit to just how terrified she was, because she knew it wouldn't do any good. You can't blame Karen for this, John, and you certainly can't blame either George or me. Jo took that overdose, not me, not Karen, not George, but Jo. I suspect that she's fed you a line about how she accidentally took too many sleeping pills, but there was nothing accidental about what she did." "Yvonne!" Karen protested, not wanting John to be force-fed something that he currently didn't want to hear. "He has to accept it, you know that," Yvonne told her firmly. "And it's about time that you started appreciating what a friend like Karen will do for you in a crisis," She told John smartly. "Karen didn't have to do that for Jo, she could have passed the responsibility onto someone else, but she didn't, and it's about bloody time you acknowledged that."