The White Tower

by Dorothy Johnston

‘No, it’s—I live alone.’

  ‘Did you ever play Castle of Heroes?’

  ‘I can’t stand all that war game bullshit.’

  Who had kept the friendship going? I pictured two shy seventeen-year-olds gravitating towards one another, discovering a common interest. But then? According to his father, Niall had been a reserved, self-contained young man. Was it reasonable to guess the friendship had been more important to Eamonn?

  I wished Brook had been able to get me the police report. He’d probably come good with it, but I was too impatient to wait. I would have benefited now from knowing what Eamonn had said to the police.

  ‘You saw Niall the night he died. How did he seem to you?’

  ‘Excited, high, happier than I’d seen him in ages.’

  ‘Happy?’

  ‘He’d been depressed. I hadn’t seen him outside work for a while. I thought he’d been avoiding me. I didn’t like to push him.’

  ‘But you were worried?’

  ‘I don’t know about worried. Niall was a moody guy—no it didn’t worry me, though looking back of course it should have. When Niall was in one of his moods, the best thing was just to let him be. That’s what I thought, anyway.’

  ‘He’d always come round before?’

  ‘Kinda. Yeah. I mean Niall was always quiet. I didn’t mind that. I’m quiet myself. We kind of understood each other.’

  ‘But that night was different?’

  ‘Definitely. I hadn’t seen him like that—like I said—in a long time.’

  ‘And you asked him why?’

  ‘Pardon?’

  ‘You asked him why? What had happened?’

  ‘He said he’d had some good news, but he wouldn’t tell me what it was.’

  ‘Did you have any idea?’

  ‘I wondered if it was to do with his girlfriend. I knew they’d split up of course. I guessed that was maybe why he’d been down. I wondered if they’d decided to give it another try.’

  ‘But?’

  ‘I’ve got nothing against Nat. She’s a nice girl, but Niall never seemed that heartbroken when they broke up. I mean, it wasn’t the end of the world for him or anything.’

  ‘Did Niall talk to you about Castle of Heroes?’

  ‘I knew some dickhead had been giving him a hard time.’

  ‘But you didn’t take it seriously?’

  ‘Didn’t want to.’

  ‘What did you talk about?’

  ‘A bit about work. We didn’t actually talk much. We had a couple of beers, and, you know, joked around. Niall laughed a lot. But he wasn’t drunk, and he wasn’t on anything either.’

  ‘How do you know?’

  ‘Because we’d got stoned together and this was different.’

  ‘When you talked about work, was there anything in particular? Or anyone?’

  ‘Niall’s boss had been riding him a bit.’

  ‘What about?’

  ‘I don’t know, to be honest. Have you met him, Dr Fenshaw?’

  ‘I’m about to. What did Niall think of him?’

  ‘Respected him. Admired him.’

  ‘So he’d take any criticism seriously?’

  ‘Oh for sure yes. He would.’

  I heard something in, or under, Eamonn’s tone. ‘Admired—was there more to it than that?’

  Eamonn blushed and didn’t answer.

  ‘Was there an argument between Niall and Dr Fenshaw?’

  ‘Niall didn’t go looking for trouble, but he was such an independent guy. Hated being told what to do. But he was terribly proud of his department.’

  ‘Could the good news have been to do with work?’

  ‘Well, possibly, I suppose, but—’

  Eamonn stared at me, his calm gone, in its place a mouth that could not find a straight line.

  I took refuge in practical details and asked, ‘Did he have anything with him that night?’

  ‘What do you mean?’

  ‘Was he carrying anything? A bag? A folder, or envelope of papers?’

  ‘No.’

  ‘Did he say anything about where he was going after he left you?’

  ‘No.’

  ‘What was he wearing?’

  Eamonn thought for a moment, then said, ‘Jeans. Black jeans and a shirt.’

  ‘Just jeans and a shirt?’

  ‘Yeah, I think so.’

  ‘Did he have a jacket with him?’

  ‘Maybe he left it in the car.’ Eamonn glanced at his watch. ‘Sorry to cut this short, but I have to go.’

  ‘What about your background?’

  ‘Background?’

  ‘Family. You’ve got an Irish name.’

  ‘Oh that. My folks were born here. I’m about as Irish as—’ Eamonn waved a hand, faltering, eyes on his watch again. ‘How about Mahoney?’

  I nodded. ‘Did you and Niall talk about Ireland? Irish politics?’

  ‘From time to time.’

  ‘Which side was he on?’

  ‘He wasn’t political. I really have to go.’

  I thanked him for meeting me and he agreed that if anything occurred to him that might help, he’d give me a call.

  I watched his departing back with mixed feelings. I’d liked him straight away. At the same time a part of me was saying, be careful. Eamonn had been careful. Apart from Niall’s state of mind on the night he died, he hadn’t given anything away. He’d denied any detailed knowledge of the trouble Niall was in with Castle of Heroes. Why tell me categorically that Niall wasn’t political? There was the game, for one thing.

  I pushed my cake aside, wondering if my habit of leaving myself too much time between appointments was to create the illusion that I was busier than I was. I’d told Ivan I had a whole day of interviewing at the hospital. Why did I have to rub it in?

  . . .

  Over the phone, the head of the radiation and oncology department, Dr Alex Fenshaw, had made it clear that he was extremely busy, or rather his secretary had made the point on his behalf. In the end, we’d agreed on a short meeting, followed by a tour of the department with one of his staff, who would fill me in on the kind of work Niall Howley had done.

  I found the department after making a few wrong turns along what seemed like a hundred dogleg corridors.

  I told the receptionist who I was and that I’d come to see Dr Fenshaw. She checked her list. I wasn’t on it, which caused a flurry for a few moments until I explained that I wasn’t there for a consultation, but to see the doctor about a former staff member.

  While I was waiting, I filled in the time reading pamphlets about ­palliative care. Dr Fenshaw finally appeared with a swish of white coat and long, dark-suited legs, ushering me through a doorway with a sweep of his arm. He was so tall that I felt physically diminished beside him, and I was sure the receptionist, who gave him a quick nervous smile as he hurried past her, had shrunk a good five centimetres.

  He had that bearing-down look common to especially tall men. His mouth was wide and firm, curving upwards, lifted by his chin to make a point, to rest on that point for an instant before moving on. Yes, the hospital was wonderful. No expense was spared. His unit was especially wonderful. He was blessed by the dedication of remarkably talented young people.

  ‘After decades of struggling inside the public system, going the rounds with my begging bowl outstretched.’

  Fenshaw laughed at himself, stretched out his large smooth doctor’s hands and flicked them over. He smiled winningly. ‘After all these years I’ve landed on my feet.’

  People could get better just by looking at this man. He knew it in the way his eyes flicked to a point just above my breasts. From someone else, this might have been offensive, or boring, or both. He apologised for being late, as an afterthought, and without being sorry in the least. His dark brown eyes smiled behind their glasses.

  ‘Niall’s mother’s paying you, is that right?’ His voice lingered on the words to give them weight.

  ‘Do you know her?’

&nb
sp; ‘She came to see me a couple of weeks after the funeral.’

  ‘How did she seem?’

  ‘Very upset naturally.’

  ‘What did you say to her?’

  Fenshaw moved his shoulders in a way that indicated the helplessness of a strong man used to helping. ‘There wasn’t much I could say. Sorry seemed a good deal less than adequate.’

  ‘You felt responsible?’

  ‘For what happened to Niall? I didn’t know the extent of it until afterwards. I knew something was bothering him.’

  I waited.

  ‘It was a sin of omission, of oversight on my part, not to get to the bottom of that business with the internet. Niall was part of my team. I should have been paying more attention.’

  ‘Did you argue with him?’

  ‘I tried to find out why he was coming to work looking like he hadn’t had a wink of sleep.’

  ‘Did the other radiographers know what was going on?’

  ‘Niall was a very private young man. That was part of his problem. What is it that his mother wants you to do?’

  ‘Help her understand what happened.’

  Fenshaw’s pager blipped. ‘Excuse me.’ He half turned away from me. ‘I’m needed I’m afraid.’ His wide mouth turned down apologetically. ‘One of Niall’s former colleagues, Colin Rasmussen, will show you around. Please give me a call if I can be of any further help.’

  ‘I’ll do that,’ I said, and thanked him for his time.

  I stopped at the desk to ask for Colin Rasmussen. The receptionist told me to take a seat, he wouldn’t be long.

  I passed Fenshaw as I was walking to the row of seats nearest the door. His dark head and big protective shoulders were bent over a small girl. He smiled, bent even closer, said something to the child, who laughed, looking up at him. The woman standing with them, a tall woman, standing stiffly, carrying the child’s features, chanced a smile herself, the stiffness cracking a little along her jawline, caught between gratitude and terror.

  . . .

  Colin Rasmussen held out his hand and introduced himself.

  ‘I’m used to people staring,’ he said. ‘It’s not that often you meet someone with different coloured eyes. Chimaerism, it’s called. People with one brown and one blue eye. From different cell lines.’

  ‘Different what?’

  ‘A very early fusion of eggs, one expressing one set of genes and one another. I should have been a twin.’

  ‘Oh,’ I said. ‘Does it affect your vision?’

  ‘No.’ Colin blushed as though he’d heard more in my question than I had intended.

  I followed him out through the reception area and along a corridor. He held himself erect, not glancing back at me or making small talk. I stared at the back of his head, a good thirty centimetres above mine. He wore his fine blond hair tied back in a ponytail, as Niall had in the photograph Moira had lent me. But Colin was built very differently. Whereas Niall had been slight, but in proportion, Colin was tall and thin, with rounded shoulders and a concave chest. His ill-fitting white coat made him look a bit like an albino scarecrow. When he finally turned round and started talking to me, his brown and blue eyes startled me all over again.

  But then he smiled, as though, having taken in as much of me as he could at first glance, then digested this impression with his back turned, he’d decided that I wasn’t as much of a threat as I might have been.

  He’d obviously given some thought as to what might constitute a satisfying tour of the department. One of the treatment rooms was vacant and he offered to show me that first.

  He led me down a narrow corridor with a ninety degree turn half way along it, explaining that the design was an extra precaution against people wandering into a treatment room by mistake. Another precaution was a flashing red light above our heads. He opened a metal door and stood aside for me to go in ahead of him.

  The great eye of a linear accelerator stared down at us from the centre of the room. The accelerator was attached by a long arm to the body of the machine designed for radiation treatment, and the whole was connected by cables to cameras and monitors flush with the ceiling. Colin picked up a small device that looked like a TV remote control and showed me how the eye and arm could be tilted in any direction. A narrow bench stood next to the accelerator, covered with a white sheet, and there was a steel shelf and cupboard in one corner. The cupboard was slightly open. Inside it hung a row of metal vests and on the shelf was a pile of hospital gowns.

  ‘We have two Ventacs,’ Colin said. ‘All our equipment is state of the art.’

  He flicked a switch and a double row of flashing numbers came up on the machine, repeated in the TV monitors. ‘This one, the Ventac 2, is eighteen MeV and it’s a dual energy machine which means it can produce both electrons and X-rays.’

  ‘What does MeV stand for?’

  ‘Million electron volts.’

  Pressing another button on his remote, Colin raised the bench and tilted the accelerator so that the bench and huge eye were in line with one another. ‘Relatively shallow tissue is treated with electrons. To reach deeper tissue, the electron beam is converted into X-ray photons.’

  Part of the bench was solid steel, and part transparent. Colin pointed to what looked like a crosshatching of black wire under clear perspex. Again he pressed a button, and the bench was lifted higher. ‘This is for the electrons to come up through here. A lot of our patients are treated that way.’

  ‘Where are you while the patient’s being treated?’

  Colin indicated the wall opposite the TV monitors. ‘The observation room’s through there. The patient’s being filmed from a number of angles. You can see it all clearly on the monitors.’

  Neither of us spoke for a few moments. The reliable, unerring hum of the accelerator was the only sound, a sound so superior to human ones that it created its own form of indifference. Its eye took us in and reproduced our silence on the screens.

  Colin returned the bench to its original position and replaced the sheet.

  ‘How long did you and Niall Howley work together?’

  ‘About two years.’ Colin’s face was turned away from me and I couldn’t see his expression. I realised I should have asked my first question about Niall when we were facing one another. I sensed a change in him, a tensing of his shoulders, a self-protective narrowing of his chest.

  ‘What was he like to work with?’

  Colin was saved from having to answer when the door was opened by a dark-haired young woman in a white coat.

  ‘Eve.’ Colin smiled nervously.

  Eve returned his smile in a way that showed she appreciated the effect she had on men.

  ‘This is Sandra Mahoney. I’m giving her the grand tour.’

  Eve’s eyes barely grazed mine as she opened the steel door of a locker.

  Still watching her apprehensively, Colin said, ‘I’ll show you the control room next.’

  . . .

  Laughter came through the control room door as Colin opened it, and two young women turned to stare.

  They were sitting at a bench in front of computers. Monitors above their heads showed the treatment room we’d just left. What had the joke been about? They weren’t laughing now.

  Colin introduced us, blushing again. Neither woman seemed willing to meet his different-coloured eyes.

  I glanced up at a monitor. Eve was using the remote control to position the treatment bench.

  Colin explained how the computer verified the treatment data against the settings she was choosing.

  A man who looked to be in his late sixties entered the treatment room. Eve helped him take off his coat, and he walked unsteadily over to the bench.

  I thought it would be better if we left the two women to get on with their job. Colin led me down another corridor and opened yet another door. ‘I’ll show you how we make the shells.’

  He took a plastic face mask from a cupboard and smoothed his hand gently over curves of chin and cheek.
r />   The mask, or shell, as Colin called it, was attached by staples to a wood and plastic stand. He undid these and pointed to a narrow headrest made of wood and yellow foam.

  ‘This is where the patient’s head goes.’ His voice was warm and interested. Whatever had upset him was gone, or at least he felt able to set it aside.

  ‘This cross here is the treatment area for—’ He glanced down at a name written in black texta on the base of the mask. ‘Anne.’ Saying the name, he seemed to be recalling the person with affection. ‘We make them here. Of course, each mask has to be made and fitted individually. These lines—’ Colin pointed out the crosshatching on the side of the plastic neck, ‘correspond exactly to tattoos on the patient. The tattoos are made with blue ink just under the skin. Lots of patients take their shells home with them.’

  Colin glanced across to a cupboard, where masks like the one he’d shown me lay in a heap. They’d obviously belonged to patients who hadn’t wanted to take them home, but Colin was remembering the ones whose attachment to a bit of wood and plastic might have equalled his.

  ‘They have to fit absolutely perfectly.’ He showed me how, once the head was in place behind the shell, the sides were stapled down. ‘The patient mustn’t move at all.’

  ‘How long do they stay like that?’

  ‘Five or ten minutes usually. Sometimes longer. Most of our patients, once we decide on a course of treatment, come every day. Ten days to two weeks would be average. The longest we’ve had since I’ve been working here is thirty-five days.’

  ‘Thirty-five days straight?’

  Colin nodded. ‘Weekends are rostered. There’s generally only one radiographer on at the weekends, but if we have to schedule more, then of course we do. In the case of that patient it was felt that to miss even one day would be dangerous.’

  As Colin spoke, his greeny-blue and brown eyes sought mine, willing me to feel as he did. I thought of Eamonn and what he’d said about Niall’s commitment to healing. Colin’s skin was very fine. Colour ebbed and flowed beneath it. He was the type to blush easily and often, but it was his eyes that drew attention to themselves. It seemed as though, having that uniqueness, being born to, growing up to curiosity about it, he’d decided that there was no point in subterfuge, that he might strive not to be noted as an oddity, but this striving would always be thwarted.