Part One Hundred And Ninety One
When John left Karen's flat, neither admitting nor denying Yvonne's last assertion, he thought that he may as well walk back to his own flat, it not being all that far away from Karen's. His thoughts were in turmoil as he walked, ranging from anger, to despair, and even ending up on guilt. He should have been there last week, he should have been there to either stop Jo from doing that in the first place, or to do the right thing and take Jo to hospital. Why on earth had Karen acted quite so stupidly? She used to be a nurse, for god's sake, so she knew that Jo should have been in hospital. Then his thoughts centred in on Yvonne. How dare she call him a self-righteous bastard, when all he had been trying to do was to gain some answers to some clearly difficult questions. Then there was George. Karen had said that George had been the one, along with Thomas Waugh, who had insisted that Jo not be taken anywhere near a hospital. This had to be wrong, surely it did. Why would George do such a thing? He obviously wanted some answers from her too, like why hadn't she told him about this earlier, but he didn't think that tonight was the right time to be doing that. He was already considerably overwrought by the evening's revelations, and all he wanted to do was to get back to his safe, familiar flat, and sink a large portion of Scotch.
This was precisely what he did. When he arrived home, he opened all the windows to let in some air, selected Fauré's 'Requiem' which he slotted into the CD-player, and collected a bottle of single malt and a glass. As the soft, subtle tones of the mass for the dead began to envelop him, he drank the liquid that usually made fire course throughout his veins, but which now left him feeling partly numb, and partly extremely saddened by what Jo had done. What could possibly have made her want to end her own life? She was beautiful, intelligent, everything he desired in a woman. She had two happy, healthy children, even if they were now grown up and leading their own lives. She had him, and she had George, everything she could possibly want with regards to sexual partners, yet she still wanted to leave them all, in order to afford herself some much needed peace. He knew that she had been drinking too much, but what could he honestly do about that if she wouldn't be truthful to herself, never mind him or George? But maybe that was the point, maybe she had finally faced up to the fact that she had a problem, and saw killing herself as the only way to nip it in the bud. As for George, she really ought to have contacted him in Milan to tell him about this, but yet again, she had kept quiet over something spectacularly serious. Why did she always do this to him? Whether it concerned either herself or someone else, she always found a reason to keep things from him, things that by rights he ought to be told. Look at what had happened over her breast cancer. She had kept it from him and talked Jo into doing the same until a designated time for telling him.
As though his thoughts had conjured her up, the phone rang, and when he answered it, it was George. "This is a surprise," He said somewhat bitterly. "I thought you'd be avoiding me like the plague." "That's hardly fair, John," She replied a little caustically. "I rang to make sure you were all right." "No doubt hoping that you won't have to do a rescuing act on me too." "Do you want to talk to me or don't you?" She demanded, matching his obvious anger with a touch of her own. "No, not right at this moment, I don't," He told her without any hesitation whatsoever. But George wasn't going to give up so easily. After a few moments of silence between them, she asked, "What on earth are you listening to?" "Fauré's Requiem," He told her. "It seemed rather relevant to the thoughts that are currently fighting to be acknowledged." "And you really think that's a sensible course of action, do you?" "You can hardly talk about sensible courses of action," John said scornfully, his anger not far below the surface. "John, I'm coming over," She told him. "Because I don't think that this conversation ought to be had on the phone." "I would really rather you didn't," He replied, currently wanting no company but his own. "Tough," She replied before slamming the phone down and looking for her car keys.
John wasn't best pleased at the thought of seeing George tonight, but refilling his glass, he tried to ignore the fact, deciding to deal with her if and when she arrived. As he took another sip of his whisky, the requiem reached the Sanctus, the prayer for the loved one to rest in peace. It brought tears to his eyes to think that this was what Jo had been seeking when she consumed such a lethal combination of sedatives. She had been looking for peace, both for herself and for those who would have been left behind. She thought that ending her life was the only answer, because she badly didn't want to end up like her father. He knew that was what was behind her actions of last Friday, even if she hadn't said so. In fact, it was probably because she hadn't said this that he could believe it to be the real reason behind her wish to die.
When George arrived, she let herself in with the key John had given her some time ago. She did this very quietly, wanting an opportunity to observe him before he became aware of her, so that she could best know how to approach the situation and the very difficult conversation they were about to have. He was sitting at one end of the sofa, bathed in the subtle glow of a table lamp, with a glass in one hand and tears running down his cheeks. Her heart went out to him as she saw this, coupled with the sad and gentle music coming from the stereo. John only became aware of her presence, when she sat down beside him and put her arms around him. His arms went automatically round her, because although he had said he didn't want her, he really did need her, to soothe away everything he was currently feeling. "Where did you spring from?" He eventually asked. "Didn't you believe I'd come?" She countered back. "I'm not so sure that you should have done," he replied regretfully. "Darling, I wasn't going to leave you to stew about this on your own, and that," She said, reaching for the remote control to the stereo and switching it off. "Is hardly going to do you any good." "Funny," He said, clearly trying to goad her. "I thought that a mass for the dead was more than a little appropriate." "Highly inappropriate more like," George replied scornfully. "Oh, so you're going to tell me that it was all a dream, are you, Jo thinking it was a good idea to kill herself?" "No, of course I'm not," George retorted disgustedly. "Thought it was a good idea not to involve a hospital and a fully qualified medical team though, didn't you," he threw back at her. "Really good thinking that was, George."
Getting up from the sofa, George went into the kitchen and made him a mug of very strong coffee. Returning and putting it down on the coffee table before him, she said, "I refuse to take anything you say remotely seriously whilst you are as drunk as this, so get that coffee inside you and then we might be able to have a civil conversation." "I'm not drunk," He protested. "Oh, so that's plain water in that glass, is it?" "One can drink alcohol without the need to become inebriated, you know, George." "Yes, well, at the moment, Jo doesn't appear to agree with you." There was a stunned, awful silence hanging between them, before John reached forward, picking up the mug of steaming coffee. "This looks like tar," He said before taking a tentative sip. "And it probably tastes like tar," She replied. "But you're still going to drink it." After taking a swig and grimacing, he asked, "So, are you going to tell me why you insisted on the utter farce that took place last Friday?" "John," George replied carefully. "The one thing that is stable in Jo's life right now is her career. If she lost that, then I doubt she would fail next time. Keeping that area of stability is extremely important, if she is to make the slightest attempt at a recovery." "Karen said something to that effect." "So you've talked to Karen?" "I went to see her," John replied, putting the coffee mug down on the table. "And?" George asked, slightly fearing what was coming. "I shouted at her, and because Yvonne was there, I shouted at her too." "John, if it wasn't for Karen possessing the skills necessary to do what she did, Jo would probably be dead now." "That still doesn't make it right," John persisted stubbornly. "Look," She said, taking one of his hands in hers and gently holding it between her own. "If I were in your position, I would probably be furious with me too, as well as Karen and Yvonne, so I do understand why you feel the way you do. But shouting at people, including one of your closest friends, isn't going to achieve anything. You and me, and Jo, owe Karen the biggest debt a person can have. You shouldn't blame Karen, just because she did what I asked of her, rather than what she initially told me to do." In the resulting silence, John took in what she'd said, trying to make sense of it and wanting to be able to believe that she was right. He inwardly knew that he owed Karen a bigger debt than he could ever hope to repay, but did that honestly mean that she was right and he was wrong?