Fourth Attempt

by Claire Rayner

  ‘I know. You already told me that. What sort of research?’

  ‘I’m interested in motor-neurone disease. And stuff like it.’

  She grimaced. ‘Nasty. So little anyone can do. And it’s so damned fast, isn’t it?’

  ‘Sometimes. Some patients manage to live a long time, however. Like Stephen Hawking.’

  ‘Ah, yes. The exception that proves the rule, hmm?’

  ‘No. The exception that proves research makes sense. If one man can live so long with such symptoms, why can’t another? And is it possible to delay the onset of symptoms once the disease process starts? And can the effects of the nerve damage be reversed? And —’

  ‘Sounds like you’ve set yourself a major research programme,’ she said, trying not to smile.

  He shook his head at her. ‘Don’t you laugh at me! Sure, it’s a big project, but big projects are the sort most likely to win through. My dad used to say “Aim for the sky and you’ll hit the top of the tree. Aim for the top of the tree and you’ll never get off the ground.”’

  She had been struck by that and hadn’t been ashamed to say so, and they had settled to a long talk about the possibilities of the work he was doing with an ease that had made her feel she’d known him for a long time and not just for an hour or two. But he made it extra easy by doing most of the talking. She knew as much about neurology as she had to, and perhaps a little more, but it didn’t match his expertise so she listened, fascinated, as he outlined some of his plans.

  Since then, they had shared tables in the canteen on several occasions. He always seemed to choose the same time to go to lunch as she did; after a while she had begun to make a point of going at a set time, to make it easier for him, even lingering at the end of the line-up for food until he arrived, if she got there before him. Over the months they’d developed a comfortable bantering friendship that she valued more and more. Especially when she was annoyed with Gus, which seemed to happen rather more often lately.

  But now, she reminded herself, was not the time to think about Gus. She concentrated on watching Zack come towards her across the Board Room, and felt a frisson of pleasure. This evening’s clambake would be, she had told herself as she tidied herself to come to it, a real buttock-clenching bore, but now she felt much more cheerful about it, even glad she was here; and also glad, at a deeper level, that she’d put on her deep red silk dress this morning, with the matching tights and shoes. It was a racy outfit that looked good on her; and though that shouldn’t matter, for after all she wasn’t meeting Gus, somehow it pleased her. And hadn’t she promised herself not to think about Gus? Dammit.

  ‘Hi,’ he said and smiled until his eyes disappeared. Smiling back was a real pleasure.

  ‘Hi,’ she replied.

  ‘This feels like a funeral rather than a celebration.’ He looked over his shoulder. ‘Look at those locusts, will you? If they lick his ass any harder they’ll wear their tongues to points.’

  ‘Hey, come on!’ she said. ‘You were up there with the thick of ’em when I came in. Pots and kettles, isn’t it?’

  ‘Ah, hell,’ he said. ‘I didn’t think you’d notice. Care for some white wine? It’s actually chilled tonight, or it was when I got here. It’s probably pretty warm by now, but it’s not too bad. The old boy’s really pushed the boat out.’

  He was right. The drink he brought her from the long table in the far corner was cold and tasted good. She relaxed as she drank and happily let him fetch her another, sopping it up with a handful of potato crisps taken from one of the tables. Even they were better than they usually were at these events. Zack’s right, she thought. Old Hunnisett really is making an effort. I wonder who will get his job? And will it make a lot of difference to us at Old East? How much will it matter to the researchers? It was somehow important to her that Zack should be safe in his little niche in the offices and little labs of the Institute, which had been carved out of the old medical school building for them; it was none of her concern, of course, but it would be a pity to lose the edge Old East got from having its own research set-up. And she smiled at Zack as she took her drink from him and blinked a little owlishly round the room over the rim of the glass. Yes, it would be a pity.

  Hattie moved into her line of sight and she lifted her chin at her cheerfully. After a moment’s hesitation Hattie came over to join them. ‘I saw you a while back,’ she said. ‘When I got here. But I didn’t want to intrude.’ She looked with limpid eyes at George and dared her to say a word.

  ‘It’s no intrusion!’ Zack said. ‘Good to talk to you at any time, Hattie.’ He grinned at her too and as she grinned back George felt a stab of-what? Irritation was too strong a word, and yet…

  ‘Why should you be intruding?’ she said lightly. ‘This is the old man’s farewell bash, not a private party.’

  ‘Oh, I don’t know,’ Hattie said, peering up at them with bright eyes. ‘You both looked so absorbed in what you were talking about.’

  ‘Probably,’ Zack said. ‘I’ve been told I’m at risk of turning into a real nerdish bore because work is all I ever talk about. Right, George?’ This time he grinned at George, which made her feel better. They hadn’t even mentioned his work tonight, hadn’t talked about anything much, but it pleased her that he should speak so; it felt like a defence. Then she drew her brows together for a brief moment. Why on earth should she feel she needed any defence against Hattie, her old friend? This wine must be going to my head, she thought. I’m thinking rubbish.

  There was a little flurry at the far end of the room which was now quite crowded as more and more of the staff arrived. Surgeons congregated with surgeons as usual; George could see Keith Le Queux and Robert Gray, the gynaecologist, with their heads together as Kate Sayers, like Le Queux from the Renal Unit, and Peter Selby, an ENT man, talked earnestly to them over Gerald Mayer-France’s shoulder, while in another cluster the physicians huddled in exactly the same sort of way. Agnew Byford from Cardiology was standing next to Barbara Rosen, the psychiatrist, as Maurice Carvalho, the diabetologist, talked confidentially into his left ear. Only Neville Carr, the oncologist, stood aloof from his colleagues, though he had found congenial company; standing with an air of eager subservience at his side was one of the young men from Radiology, the senior radiologist, George seemed to remember, and she was amused. The only person no one at Old East gossiped about was Neville Carr. Not any more, not since he’d come out and told everyone in the sunniest manner possible that he was gay, had been gay all his professional life and was damned if he was going to apologize for it any longer.

  The only people who weren’t talking to each other were the anaesthetists, who had distributed themselves amongst other groups. There was David Denton, chatting up Margaret Cotton, the Head of Finance, and Heather Dannay, the Head of Anaesthetics, scowling into her glass and clearly hating everyone around her, and the most recently joined of the Gasman Team (as they were commonly known), James Corton, leaning against the wall in a brown study, clearly anywhere but here. George felt sorry for him, he looked so lonely; and she had a sudden memory of her own first days at Old East. It wasn’t the most welcoming of places to newcomers, and she would, she decided, make an effort to talk to him some time.

  Someone tapped a microphone in the maddening manner that microphones seem to force on certain types and there was a booming ‘testing, testing, can you hear me?’ followed by a cough that made several people with acute hearing wince. Professor Hunnisett looked expectantly at the corner of the room where the microphone was and slowly the chatter died away.

  ‘It’s good to see so many of you here tonight!’ Matthew Herne, the Hospital Chief Executive Officer, was looking exceedingly dapper, George decided, in a fine houndstooth suit which had the silky sheen that spoke of expensive cloth. I wish he were more thoughtful, though, she thought, looking sideways at some of the other younger men in the room, the registrars and the lesser lights of the administrative staff. He makes them all look so shabby when he dresses so w
ell.

  ‘Very good of you to turn out when I know how busy we all are. We’re running at over ninety per cent capacity at the moment, I have to tell you. Pray there isn’t a major push on A & E, or we’ll find ourselves in the papers again!’

  A faint rustle moved round the room, not quite a sigh, not quite a laugh. They’d read the attacks on them in the local paper, and indeed in several of the nationals as well. The NHS was a choice political football at the moment and Old East in particular got more than its share of the kicks. All they needed was one more patient forced to spend the night on a trolley for want of an available bed in a ward and all hell would be let loose. The threat of closure always hung over them, they felt, even though the Department of Health had promised them they were safe. But then the Department had promised all sorts of things to all sorts of hospitals that somehow never quite happened.

  ‘And of course, we have had some unfortunate publicity over the sad — um — loss of three of our staff. Not all suicides, of course, though the papers tried to suggest so, using unfounded surmise as a stick with which to beat us.’ Herne scowled slightly, as though he were mentally castigating Mendez and Lally Lamark for having the temerity to die accidentally, let alone Pam Frean for actually killing herself. That he disapproved of all three of them rather than pitying them was very clear. ‘But we will no doubt weather this little storm as we have weathered greater ones. Yes. Hrrmph.’ He coughed, rearranged his facial expression to one he clearly regarded as suitable for what he had to say, and went on.

  ‘Now, tonight we have bad news and good news. The bad news you all know. We’re losing our esteemed and trusted colleague and long time medical guru, Professor Hunnisett.’ He turned towards the old man and made applause gestures and obediently everyone joined in. ‘We wish him a long and happy retirement and fruition of all his plans for the future. You’ll hear more about that in a moment. Right now, with the good news that will help cushion us against the loss of Professor Hunnisett, here’s our Chairman, Sir Jonathan Spry. Sir Jonathan, let me just move the microphone down a little for you.’

  Sir Jonathan, who was a little tetchy about the fact that Matthew was at least five inches taller than he was, smiled in a wintry fashion and firmly took the microphone stand from Matthew’s hand and made it his own. For the next half-hour.

  What he had to say did matter. He had to announce that Professor Hunnisett was retiring in one sense, but not in another; he would still be part of the Research Institute he had founded. That much he managed to make clear fairly quickly. The rest of his news was less easy to comprehend. But when he’d finished and there was a spatter of applause and the presentations of engraved silver salvers (‘Who uses things like that these days?’ hissed Hattie into George’s ear in disgust), George leaned towards Zack and murmured, ‘I need a précis. I’m not sure I got hold of all that.’

  ‘It’s not as splendid as he tries to make out.’ Zack sounded unusually serious. Generally he was a relaxed and cheerful individual, but now he looked enclosed and tight and George looked at him curiously.

  ‘As I understand it, the Research Institute is to go on working while they look for a new chap to take over from the Professor?’

  ‘Yeah,’ Zack said. ‘That’s what it sounds like, but the fact is unless we can get more money in on all our individual projects, no one worthwhile will want to come. He implied all that without saying it. We have to get more projects in place to make the job a really interesting one for a high-flyer. It’s a bastard.’

  ‘What happens if you don’t get more money in?’

  He grimaced. ‘End of Institute, I suppose.’

  She was horrified. ‘Hunnisett would surely never let that happen?’

  Zack looked at her and shook his head. ‘He’s not the man he was. Tired, to tell the truth. That’s why he’s announced his retirement. He could have gone on for a couple of years more if he’d pushed for it. But he’s — well, he’s a weary old man now. We’ll just have to fend for ourselves, I guess.’

  He seemed to realize that he was saying more than he meant to and smiled at her, and was at once his usual comfortable self. ‘But no need to worry. I have a few irons in the fire to get my money in. Here’s hoping the others do. Some of ’em need a hell of a lot of capital.’

  ‘Don’t you?’

  ‘Uh-huh. But I’ve got every chance of getting it. I told you, irons in the fire. Nothing like a cheerful cliché to make a point, hmm? Look, let’s get out of here and go for a drink somewhere, what do you say? This wine’s warmed up now and it’s getting very stuffy.’

  She hesitated. Hattie had drifted away from them now and they couldn’t be overheard. She could easily accept and go out with him and no one would know, so there would be no gossip. But, dammit, this wasn’t a date he was asking for, just a drink. So she smiled at him and nodded.

  ‘Let me do a quick whirl round the room and talk to the Prof.,’ she said. ‘And have a word with my own staff who turned out, then I’ll be ready. Give me — what, twenty minutes? Will that be OK?’

  He looked at his watch. ‘You can have nineteen,’ he said.

  She bowed her head ironically. ‘Nineteen it is. See you by the main door?’

  ‘The main door it is.’ He laughed and she knew he was thinking just what she had: if they left the room together there might possibly be talk. It would be much safer to bump into each other accidentally downstairs on the way out.

  She went round the room as fast as she could, nodding at people and stopping for a few moments to ask after Kate Sayers’s brood of babies and to talk to Barbara Rosen, the crumpled and always rather grubby-looking psychiatrist for whom she had a particular affection; then she looked round for her own staff before making her final sortie towards the Professor and her way out.

  She saw Jerry and Alan Short talking in a corner and made her way through the chattering hubbub towards them. Jerry greeted her cheerfully. ‘What ho, Dr B.! Not poisoned by the vol-au-vents yet? I ought to run a salmonella check on them, only I don’t dare. We’d have to close the whole hospital down if we really knew how much death and disease lurked in ’em. Have you tasted one? I have and I’m not long for this life, I swear to you.’

  ‘More fool you for risking it,’ she said. She tried not to frown as she asked, ‘Where is everyone else?’

  Alan went scarlet. ‘Um, Jane wasn’t feeling too good,’ he muttered. ‘I told her I’d make her apologies.’

  ‘Oh, that’s all right,’ George said quickly. ‘I didn’t mean her. It was Sheila I wondered about. She left the lab early especially to go home and change. Which shouldn’t have been necessary if she’d remembered to dress suitably this morning.’ Her current irritation with Sheila, who was indeed being more than usually captious, spilled over into her voice to sharpen it.

  Jerry all unwittingly fed the flames. ‘Oh, she always has to go home to change for these shindigs. You never know who you might meet,’ he said, in a fair imitation of Sheila’s rather high voice and pinched would-be upper-class accent.

  ‘Yeah, no doubt,’ George snapped. ‘All the same, she should be here. I told her I expected all the senior people to turn out. It doesn’t look good if the most senior technician cuts the Prof’s farewell do.’

  ‘She definitely said she was coming.’ Jerry now realized he’d put his foot in it and rushed to Sheila’s defence, though normally they sparred like a pair of bad-tempered puppies trapped in the same basket. ‘She knew it was a three-line whip, because I told her as well as you. Anyway it’s not like her to miss a party. She actually likes the vol-au-vents.’

  ‘I’ll talk to her tomorrow.’ George set her jaw. ‘I can’t have — Well, thanks for coming, you two. And tell Jane it’s all right, Alan, I do understand. Throwing up, is she?’ Alan went even redder, if that were possible, and started to stammer. She patted his shoulder affectionately. ‘It’s all right, Alan. We all know, you know. This is a hospital, remember. No secrets here.’

  Indeed, however hard
the couple tried to hide the fact that Jane was in the very early stages of a pregnancy, everyone in the department knew about it, and were making snide comments about the speed with which the pair were launching themselves into parenthood. ‘Give her lots of glucose and a hint of salt and she’ll feel better,’ George said.

  She said her goodbyes to Professor Hunnisett, who assured her that he would indeed see her again since this was just a retirement from active clinical practice they were celebrating rather than a total eclipse of all his medical activities.

  ‘The work of the Institute of course often involves your special contribution,’ he said and beamed in a way that she found quite nauseous. Clearly the old boy was hoping to get cut-price work out of the department. Well, he’d have to deal with Ellen Archer, the Business Manager for the lab, not herself; she smiled sweetly at him and said, ‘Of course,’ before escaping downstairs to meet Zack Zacharius.

  As she went she was planning exactly what she’d have to say to Sheila next morning for her defection of duty tonight. Really, she thought furiously, goddamn Sheila. She’s getting too big for her boots altogether. She just took an early evening off and ignored what I told her about tonight. I really must do something about her.

  3

  Zack wasn’t at the main door when she reached it, and she felt a stab of disappointment. He had tired of waiting for her, she told herself; after all, she’d taken rather longer to escape from the party than she had meant to. But all the same, he could have waited a little longer.

  Oh well, she thought, and pulled her silk jacket a little closer. The weather was unseasonably cool for June and she regretted not wearing something warmer than the red silk. The sooner she got home and into a thick tracksuit in which she could spend her evening curled up on her sofa watching TV, the better. And again she felt a stab of disappointment, but this time because of Gus.