For the next week, Tom couldn't get that totally unexpected confession from Jo Mills out of his mind. His memory took him back to that meeting nine months ago when he and Zubin first met her and George and he was impressed by their very feminine and incisive intelligence that was to firmly dominate the progress of the trial. Was it only a matter of months ago at the trial itself that he remembered a rather pale and washed out Jo Mills, recovering from a hangover and that he had casually mentioned diet coke as a hangover cure? He didn't think too much of it as many people suffer from hangovers from time to time. She had gone on to conduct a thoroughly professional double act with George when he had taken the stand and had then had his own history of alcoholism put under the spotlight. He had defended himself with some spirit and had received an unexpected measure of sympathy and understanding from the judge. Because of the pressures of a busy professional life, he had let those thoughts disappear into the ether or so he had thought. The conversation of the past week had brought everything back into sharp focus.
He debated with himself as to whether or not to make contact with Jo. Certainly, there was a neediness about her that touched him deeply, as if there was such a mountain of words that she needed to get out from inside her, that she couldn't put into speech. Well, he thought smilingly to himself, he had his share of personal charm, but that wasn't really important to the situation. What mattered most was that he had been incredibly fortunate to have walked that tightrope wire and had come back from the edge. He had received so much help from others, from Ed who had covered up his lapses, from Ric who had pushed him towards the course of action to save himself, something that he had shrunk away from for the so called best of reasons. The reasons were always extremely plausible from the outside in his specific line of addiction. Finally, Anita had been his psychiatrist and sometimes lover who had finally put him back on his feet again. He had taken so much from so many people and his drinking had caused hurt to so many people.
The penny dropped with him that he had to phone Jo. The choice was obvious.
With a slightly shaking hand, he reached for the phone one evening and dialled the required numbers. He held his breath in as he waited for the ring tones to give him the answer to that choice that he had made.
"I'm not sure if I'm phoning at a good time or not but I thought I'd phone you anyway," came Tom's slightly stumbling opening introduction.
"Why Tom. It's good to hear from you. You did the right thing"
Jo's warm tones gave Tom an immediate ego boost that made him feel good about himself. He had made this choice and the gamble had paid off.
"I wanted to phone you up as I was a bit worried about you when I saw you at the hospital"
"You were the right man at the right place and at the right time, Tom. I don't know about you but the experience of having a drinking problem is horribly isolating. You have the feeling that you have all those who are nearest to you but they can't really help you at the end of the day. They mean well but……"
"There's always that distance between you and them. Alcohol makes the situation that way"
Jo nodded her head fervently as Tom's wise words even though he couldn't see her gesture. It didn't matter right now.
"Do you know, you're the only person I've told as to why I took an overdose of sleeping tablets? I've been kidding everyone else, myself included that I made a 'stupid mistake.' I've done a really brilliant job in covering up the shame and disgust that I've felt for myself. I couldn't admit it to anyone that I actually thought that ending my life would give me some kind of peace"
"There have been moments when I have felt that way, Jo. It's just that I could never steel myself to do anything like that. I've read too many medical books and it's very off-putting clinically speaking"
Jo laughed slightly at Tom's dry humour and plunged on with baring her feelings. It felt safe to do so.
" I just kept up a pretence for years about it until there came the odd occasions when I couldn't pretend any longer. It didn't really matter as lots of people get periodically drunk. I could hide behind it and no one would really think twice……except John and George. I love them to bits but I don't want to hurt them"
"Does it help that they are close to you"
Jo didn't answer that. She knew that she loved them both and that they loved her. She couldn't work out in her mind where this added dimension of her was going to fit in. After all, family life had revolved around her father's troubles and she was worried about inflicting it on someone else.
"It's no good either of us beating yourself up for the mistakes that we have made in our pasts," Tom concluded." That will only dig ourselves deeper in the hole that we have made. You have to start to learn to take one day at a time"
"I know that from accompanying my father down to AA meetings. He was a recovering alcoholic, you know"
"Ah yes, Jo but is that something you're aware from the outside instead of breathing it, living it and feeling it?" countered Tom.
"Well, I suppose not…….at the end of the day, it was happening to someone else," mused Jo. The formula for coping seemed very real at the time but perhaps she had never given it enough thought. She was beginning to suspect that she would have to be reenrolled in the School of life and start from the beginning again. At least there was a classmate to hand if she chose to let him