A Lovely Way to Burn

by Louise Welsh

  Django nodded towards the other side of the lounge where a man was slumped in a corner seat, his shaggy head resting on the table in front of him. ‘That’s Melvin. Come the future, he might be your only chance of root canal treatment.’ Django crossed the room, put a hand on the sleeper’s shoulder and gave it a rough shake. ‘Melvin … Melv …’

  Melvin Summers’ head lay in the crook of his right elbow. His other arm was stretched across the table, his hand still curled around an almost-full tumbler of beer, the way a sleeping child might clutch a favourite toy. Django eased the glass from Summers’ grip and poured its contents over the dentist’s head. At first Summers reacted at the speed of a mollusc, then the liquid met its mark and he sprang to his feet, toppling the table.

  ‘Wha the fuck … wha the fuck … fucking …’

  Django put a hand on the other man’s shoulder and pressed him gently back into his seat. He righted the table and set it back in place.

  ‘You woke me up.’ All the grimy wrinkles in Melvin Summers’ face creased. It looked like a fetish mask carved from some pale, moon-grown wood. ‘Do you know what it takes for me to fall asleep?’ His voice was too weary to hold a threat. ‘Christ Almighty.’

  The dentist let out a groan and started to bang his forehead against the table.

  Stevie leapt to stop him, but Django was quicker.

  ‘Fuck, Melv, don’t do that.’ He grabbed the collar of the dentist’s jacket, holding his head upright, like an executioner who had forgotten the formality of the guillotine. ‘I wouldn’t have woken you, mate, except that this lady here said she might be able to help with your little Joy.’

  Summers bore no resemblance to the neat professional who had graced his company website. His shirt hung open, exposing chest hair matted with beer and sweat. Remnants of dried blood were jewelled around his nostrils and Stevie guessed this wasn’t the first time the dentist had pounded his head against the table.

  ‘Behave yourself.’ Django ruffled Summers’ already ruffled hair.

  Melvin Summers’ mouth hung slackly open. He turned his eyes on Stevie and said, ‘Joy’s dead.’

  It sounded like a verdict on the state of the world.

  ‘We know, mate, but …’ Django looked at Stevie as if suddenly realising he didn’t know her name.

  ‘Stephanie.’

  ‘Stephanie here is going after those doctors that let Joy down, and she wants anything you can give her on them.’

  ‘Fuck off.’

  Melvin Summers rested his forehead on the table and covered his head with his hands. Django looked at Stevie and shrugged.

  ‘I told you.’

  ‘Mr Summers.’ Stevie sat next to the dentist. He reeked of stale sweat, sour beer and urine, but she leant in close and asked, ‘Why were you so sure that the doctors were responsible for Joy’s death?’ The dentist kept his head buried beneath his hands and his reply was muffled. Stevie put a hand on his shoulder. She felt him shrink beneath her touch, but he didn’t pull away. ‘What convinced you?’

  The dentist raised his head and looked at her.

  ‘Because she died.’

  ‘It wasn’t just that, was it, Melv?’ Django had settled himself on a stool on the opposite side of the table. ‘She’d been ill a long time, your girl, since she was born. There were reasons you didn’t think it was natural causes, weren’t there?’

  ‘Piss off, Django. Go and get your hole and leave me alone.’

  Django gave Stevie an apologetic look and said, ‘Keep it clean, Melv.’

  The dentist rested his chin on his knuckles, as if the weight of his head was too much to carry unaided.

  ‘Where’s my drink?’

  Django held up the empty beer glass.

  ‘If I get you a refill, will you have a chat with Stephanie?’

  Melvin Summers’ face was still sticky with the beer Django had poured over him but he looked at his empty glass with bemusement. He thrust a hand into his trouser pocket and pulled out a bundle of notes.

  ‘S’okay, Melv, put your money away. It’s on the house.’ Django looked at Stevie. ‘What’s your poison?’

  Stevie thought it might be nice to drown in a river of vodka or an ocean of gin, but she said, ‘I’m driving.’

  ‘Way things are, I doubt anyone’s bothering about the drink-driving laws and I know where Doris kept the champagne.’

  ‘She said she didn’t want anything, Django.’ The dentist’s voice was knotted with desperation. ‘Now piss off, please, and get me a beer, like the good man that you are.’

  ‘What did your last servant die of?’ Django said, but he sauntered towards the bar, looking like a man who could face anything, as long as he had a whisky in his hand.

  Stevie wondered if she should wait for the drinks to arrive and lubricate the conversation, but the carriage clock on the mantelpiece chimed five. Time was draining away.

  ‘I’m sorry to dredge up painful memories, but like Django said, I’m looking into Fibrosyop, the doctors who treated Joy.’

  Melvin Summers stared at her. He had handsome, symmetrical features beneath the blood and stubble, but his eyes held a recklessness that might not be entirely due to alcohol. Stevie wondered whether he would have been a happy family man if his daughter had lived, or if alcoholism and bitterness had always been lurking somewhere, ready to catch him out.

  He asked, ‘Who are you representing? A rival drug firm?’

  ‘No one. Myself.’

  ‘Why?’

  One of the crashed-out drinkers mumbled something in his sleep and turned over.

  Stevie said, ‘I lost someone too.’

  It was the answer she had given Django, and not quite a lie, but the taste of it was sour in her mouth.

  Melvin Summers massaged his eyes with the heels of his hands.

  ‘Fuck, my brain hurts.’ He leant back in his chair and stared at her. ‘It won’t do you any good. They all back each other up.’

  ‘Who?’

  ‘The drug companies, the doctors, the money men.’

  Summers looked towards the door of the lounge and Stevie followed his gaze. In the bar beyond, a woman was dancing on her own. The woman raised her hands in the air and wiggled her fingertips, like someone miming rain. The dentist gave a deep sigh. ‘Django’s taking his time.’ He tapped his fingernails against the table in a restless military beat that turned into a clenched fist rapping against wood. Stevie bore it for as long as she could and then put a hand over his.

  ‘I need your help.’ Now that Melvin Summers’ fist had stopped its banging Stevie could hear the carriage clock ticking off the seconds, beneath the snores of the sleeping drinkers. ‘And I might be the only other person still interested in what happened to your daughter.’

  ‘What difference will it make now?’ Melvin Summers closed his eyes and Stevie thought she had lost him, but after a moment he opened them again. ‘I’m like the bloody ancient mariner. I’ve got one fucking story and a compulsion to ruin everyone’s day with it. Poor sod had a thirst on him too if I remember rightly.’

  He looked again at the door connecting the bar to the lounge.

  Stevie said, ‘Don’t worry about ruining my day. It’s already hit the skids.’

  ‘It’s early. There’s still time for things to get worse.’ Summers rapped his knuckles against the table again, and then settled back in his seat. ‘Parents of sick kids get to know parents of other sick kids. I guess in the old days you would have run into each other in waiting rooms, or maybe at support groups, if you could find the time to go to a support group, but these days the Internet connects us all.’ He spread out his hands, like a conductor getting ready to rouse the orchestra, and then slumped back in his chair again. ‘Joy wasn’t the only child the treatment didn’t help. She also wasn’t the only one who died while she was undergoing it. Okay, so Joy was ill, and there were no guarantees, I understood that, but children with cerebral palsy can live well into adulthood.’ Melvin Summers ran a hand through
his hair. It flattened beneath his fingers and then sprang up into the same wild tangle as before. ‘After Joy died, I followed what happened to other children on the programme. The death rate was higher than in the general population of children with cerebral palsy, and the ones who did survive just didn’t improve, not in the way the research suggested they should have.’

  He gave Stevie a defiant look, inviting her to contradict him.

  ‘Sounds like you knew a lot about Fibrosyop’s research.’

  ‘Of course I did.’ Melvin Summers’ eyes had lost their glassy sheen, as if talking about his daughter’s case had sobered him. ‘It didn’t matter to me that the treatment was expensive. I didn’t care about that, neither did Carol, but I wanted to be convinced that it had a better-than-average chance of being effective. Joy had been through a lot and this was an invasive procedure.’ Django returned and set a pint next to the dentist’s elbow, but Melvin Summers ignored it. He leant forward, his eyes on Stevie’s. ‘You meet parents who would do anything in the hope of making an improvement to their child’s condition, however slight, even if it involves putting the child through more suffering. I didn’t want that.’ Summers lifted his pint and took a long deep swallow that left a foam moustache on his top lip. ‘Carol said she felt the same way.’ He wiped his mouth with the back of his hand. ‘She did feel the same way. But the heart and the head don’t always agree. My wife would have done anything for Joy. She wanted to rush into the treatment, but I insisted on time to research it. I read everything available – the prognosis was amazingly good.’ He looked at Django. ‘What is it they say? If it sounds too good to be true then it probably is.’

  The other man nodded. ‘So you reckon it was like some Nigerian prince wanting to share his fortune with you. All you need to do is give him details of your bank account and he’ll make you a millionaire.’

  Summers said, ‘Substitute sick kid for bank account and you’ve got it in one.’

  Stevie wished Django would go away and leave them to talk in peace. She touched his arm, hoping he would take the hint and keep quiet. ‘You think the doctors deliberately went out to con you?’

  The dentist grinned and she saw the reckless gleam in his eyes again. It made him look like a pirate, or a murderer. He said, ‘Let me ask you a question. What do you do for a living?’

  ‘I sell stuff.’

  ‘What kind of stuff?’

  ‘Various things.’

  ‘Various things.’ Melvin Summers raised an eyebrow. ‘Well, maybe selling various things is an honest profession, but I’ve been a dentist for almost twenty years, and I can tell you, dentistry has its share of crooks. There’s money to be made from medicine and, as far as I’m concerned, wherever you find an opportunity to make money you’ll find villains. Anyone who thinks otherwise is a fool.’

  Stevie smiled to soften the sting of what she was about to say. ‘The doctors who founded Fibrosyop tried to get their treatment licensed for use by the National Health Service. They didn’t turn to the private sector until after the NHS rejected it.’

  ‘I’m not saying they planned it. But mistakes happen and sometimes they work to people’s benefit. By the time Joy was undergoing treatment, those doctors were making so much money I reckon they didn’t want to stop, even if they knew their miracle cure was a piece of painful and expensive shit.’

  Stevie said, ‘Did you take your suspicions to the authorities?’

  Summers’ voice was boozy with contempt.

  ‘They’re all in league with each other. I needed numbers if I was going to get anywhere. The website was just the first move. My plan was to rally as many parents as possible and then get the media on our side. One fucked-up dentist wouldn’t convince anyone, but a group of parents with media interest would have a chance.’ The dentist looked at her. ‘What’s the fucking point?’ He put his pint to his mouth and took three deep swallows. The liquid was low in the glass and Stevie wondered if he was about to finish it and leave. ‘I’ve told you what I know. If you don’t believe me, you can fuck off.’

  Django leant forward. ‘Stephanie only wants to know what makes you so certain.’

  Summers ran his fingers over his skull, roughly kneading his head. It was a long time since the dentist had had a haircut and his hair was thick and coarse, like an animal’s winter pelt.

  ‘After Joy’s death, one of the doctors came to see Carol and me in the hospital, to give us his condolences. I saw his face.’ He shook his head. ‘That doctor knew the treatment was a crock of shit and he was ashamed.’

  Stevie said, ‘He told you?’

  ‘No, but it was written all over him.’

  Summers looked straight at Stevie, challenging her to disbelieve him.

  She asked, ‘Did you say anything to him?’

  ‘Not then. Carol was with me and she’d been through enough. I tried to tell myself how hard it must be for a doctor to lose a patient, especially a young patient. But I knew it was more than that and it ate at me. Every time I closed my eyes and tried to go to sleep, I’d see that doctor’s face, the shame on it. Other children were being subjected to the same useless procedure, and other parents were lying awake in their beds, praying that everything would work out, when what they should have been doing was enjoying the child they still had.’ He lifted his pint and emptied the last of the dregs from his glass. ‘I knew there was no point in trying to make an appointment to see him. He’d just find reasons not to meet me. So I staked out the hospital.’

  Django pulled a bottle of beer from his pocket and struck its cap against the edge of the table. A slice of cheap veneer splintered from the tabletop and the metal cap bounced on to the carpet. He handed the frothing bottle to the dentist. ‘What happened?’

  ‘I saw him swanking across the foyer with another couple of doctors, all white coats and stethoscopes. I didn’t say anything, just walked up and stood in front of them. He recognised me straight away. It was obvious I’d been waiting for him, but he was smooth. You don’t get to that level without being smooth. He actually seemed pleased to run into me.’ The dentist grinned again and tilted the bottle to his mouth. ‘Looking back, I can see he was desperate to get me out of the building in case I’d come to make some kind of public scene. A brouhaha. He suggested we went for a drink.’ Summers flicked a fingernail against the rim of the beer bottle and it made a small ping. ‘I guess he got my measure pretty quickly. I seem to remember that I drank three malt whiskeys and he had one beer which, now that I look back, might have been non-alcoholic.’ Summers smiled at Django. ‘Never trust a man who drinks non-alcoholic beer.’

  ‘Unless he’s operating on a sick kid the next day,’ Django replied softly.

  ‘God forbid.’ Melvin Summers spat on the carpet. ‘I laid it all out in front of him. My observations, the way the research and the reality didn’t stack up, and he listened patiently.’

  Summers paused again and Stevie said, ‘I’m sensing a “but”.’

  ‘There was no “but”. Not straight away. He was tight-lipped, but you’d expect that. Britain’s becoming as litigious as the US. No one admits to anything unless they’re forced to. The doctor told me he was just one of a small team who made up Fibrosyop and that as far as he knew the trials were watertight. Nevertheless, he said, he took my concerns seriously and would initiate a review of the treatment’s results.’

  Django said, ‘Sounds reasonable.’

  ‘I thought it sounded like a pile of shit, and I was right.’ Melvin Summers grinned, like a man about to lay his trump card on the table. ‘That evening two police officers came to my house. They told me that the doctor had been clear that he didn’t want to file an official complaint because of my “obvious and understandable distress at my recent bereavement”, but if I persisted in harassing him, he would seek an injunction. It was all rather gentle.’ He shook his head. ‘They were your typical coppers, big guys. The kind you suspect might have turned to crime if they hadn’t joined the force, but it was like
a little bit of Dr Sharkey was in the room with us. Apparently he had called in at the station personally to make sure there were no mix-ups. He’d obviously impressed them.’

  Stevie started at the sound of Simon’s name, but neither of the men seemed to notice.

  Melvin Summers let out a sigh. ‘I’d already put the website online. That may have been one of the reasons the police didn’t take the case seriously. They thought I was some kind of Internet vigilante.’ He took another swallow of his beer. ‘I let Joy down twice. First when I handed her over to Fibrosyop, then when I confronted Dr Sharkey. I should have held fire and got everything in place before I showed my hand.’

  Django patted the dentist’s shoulder. ‘You shouldn’t blame yourself, mate.’

  Stevie said, ‘Grief makes people do all sorts of strange things.’

  Melvin Summers took a mobile phone from his trouser pocket and handed it to Stevie. A photograph of his daughter beamed out from the screensaver. Joy Summers was sitting bolt upright, her neck and head supported by her wheelchair’s pillowed headrest. The girl’s hair was dark and tied in a silver ribbon, her eyes framed by glasses. Her smile was a hundred watts.

  ‘She was beautiful,’ Stevie said, and she meant it.

  ‘Carol and I knew about our daughter’s condition from the start. We knew the name Joy Summers would sound silly to some people. But it suited her. She was a joy and quite frankly I don’t care if it sounds corny to you or anyone else. She brought sunshine into the life of everyone who met her.’

  Django leant forward and said gently, ‘She wouldn’t want you to be like this though, would she, mate?’