Ken McClure: Crisis

‘What do you see, Charlie?’ asked Bannerman.

‘A toughie,’ said the technician.

‘Bad prep?’

‘Could be. Karen’s doing another one. It’ll be ready in a couple of minutes.’

The man stood up to allow Bannerman to take his place at the microscope. Bannerman altered the distance between the eyepieces to compensate for the fact that his eyes were slightly further apart than the technician’s. He adjusted the fine focus then manipulated the stage controls to permit a stepwise examination of the slide without going over the same area twice. ‘Shit,’ he said under his breath.

‘You’ve found something?’ said the technician.

‘It looks bad,’ said Bannerman, moving the focus control as if there was a perfect level that still eluded him. Take a look, just there at eleven o’clock.’

The technician sat down again and said, ‘Yes, I see it but it’s not as clear as …’ His voice tapered off as he showed himself unwilling to commit himself to a definite opinion.

A young woman came into the room and interrupted them. She said, ‘Theatre say they must know right away.’

‘I’ll see if the other prep is ready,’ said the technician who had been examining the slide. He came back a moment later looking sheepish. ‘It’s going to be another ten minutes I’m afraid. Something went wrong.’

Bannerman looked at the embarrassed expression on the technician’s face but did not pass comment. He turned to the woman and said, ‘I’ll talk to theatre.’ He got up and followed her through to the main lab where he picked up the receiver. This is Bannerman. Can you give us ten minutes?’

‘Negative,’ said the surgeon’s voice. ‘I have to know now.’

Bannerman closed his eyes for a moment and then said, ‘It’s malignant.’

‘Understood,’ said the surgeon and the line went dead.

There was a silence in the room which threatened to overwhelm all of them. Bannerman broke it. He said, ‘I’ll be in my office. Let me know when the other prep is ready.’

Bannerman walked over to the window of his office and lit a cigarette with fingers that trembled slightly. There was little to see, save for a stone wall barely seven feet from the window with rain water running down it from a faulty gutter somewhere above, but then he wasn’t really looking at the view. There was too much going on in his head.

A light tapping came to the door and Bannerman said, ‘Come in.’

The prep’s ready.’

Bannerman nodded and walked over to the door where the technician held it open for him. As he passed through, the technician said quietly. ‘You were right. I had a look. It’s malignant.’

Bannerman paused in the doorway for a second and felt the tension melt from him. He took a couple of shallow breaths and said, ‘I didn’t imagine for a moment that it wasn’t, Charlie.’

‘Of course not,’ said the technician with the barest suggestion of a smile. For a moment they held each other’s gaze then the technician said, ‘The second prep is as clear as a bell … poor woman.’

Bannerman left the hospital at six-thirty. He noticed that Stella’s white Volkswagen Golf was still in the car-park as he edged his own Rover out of its sardine-like space at the end of the line reserved for ‘Medical Staff. He had hoped that the worst of the rush-hour traffic would be over but he still had to wait for nearly a minute at the gate before he could ease out into the slow moving line. He swore as he had to clear the windscreen yet again with his glove as condensate built up because of the rain. ‘Living in London is like living down a dark wet hole,’ he muttered, turning up the fan and switching on the rear screen demister.

The traffic came to a halt because of some unknown obstruction up ahead; it did nothing to improve his temper. He pushed a cassette of Vivaldi into the car’s tape player and tried to concentrate on the music rather than the frustration of city driving. The tapes had been Stella’s idea. Fed up with his bad temper at the wheel, she had embarked on a programme of ‘sound therapy’, insisting that he try out the soothing effect of various musical styles as an aid to relaxation.

So far the biggest success had been a tape of Gregorian chant, recorded by French monks in an alpine monastery. The sonorous tolling of bells and echoing prayer chants had induced a marked improvement in his driving demeanour with their constant allusion to human mortality. The ironic drawback was that Stella found the ecclesiastical aura in the car almost as irritating as his bad temper. She had insisted on him finding something else. It had been Mozart’s turn last week, which had only moderate success; now it was Vivaldi’s big chance with The Four Seasons.

The traffic started to move but again ground to a halt less than fifty yards further on. Bannerman slipped the gear stick into neutral and sighed in frustration. Winter wasn’t doing too well. It took a further thirty-five minutes to reach the turn off for his apartment block. A few twists and turns through quiet back streets and he was safely through the gates and into the haven of Redholm Court.

As he got out and locked the car he suddenly remembered that he had yet to get some wine to take over to Stella’s. He toyed with getting it on his way there but decided that if he did that it would be warm. There was an off-licence a quarter of a mile down the road so he pulled up his collar and hurried along to it. He was back within fifteen minutes.

With the wine safely in the kitchen fridge Bannerman took off his coat and poured himself a large gin from a bottle which stood on a tray beside the window. He closed the curtains and switched on the television to catch what was left of the early evening news on Channel Four.

Bannerman lived on the third floor. It was a pleasant two-bedroomed flat rented at a price which included all services. He had stayed there for the last two years and had no intention of moving unless he had to. It was quiet, warm in winter and pleasant in summer because of the south-facing balcony and roof garden. The building itself was surrounded by private gardens which included several mature beech trees and a series of well-kept flower beds which the gardeners stocked according to the season. There was also a garage for his car although he seldom used it, preferring instead to leave it on the tarmac apron facing the row of lock-ups.

There was little in the way of furniture in the apartment, something which owed nothing to ‘minimalist’ fashion but much to Bannerman’s lack of interest in matters domestic. Most of what there was designed to hold books although even these pieces were insufficient to cope with his collection and several volumes lived permanently on the floor, something his cleaner was at pains to point out at frequent intervals. She maintained that it interfered with her ‘Hoover’.

Unknown to her, this fact gave Bannerman perverse pleasure. Anything that impeded the progress of that monstrous machine was to be applauded. He had an almost irrational loathing of the ‘Hoover’. It was a hated enemy, the ultimate symbol of domestic drudgery. On the odd occasion he found himself in the flat when the dreaded noise started up he would be into a track suit and off running round the grounds before the cleaner had finished saying, ‘I hope this won’t disturb you too much Doctor …’

Bannerman finished his drink, kicked off his shoes and padded off to the bathroom to shower. He noticed a message on the hall table and stopped to read it. It was from the cleaner and said that one of his shirts had gone missing in the laundry. She had ‘told them off about it and, ‘by the way’ he needed some more shirts anyway. Several were looking ‘weary’. Bannerman had to admit that that was fair criticism. He was probably one of the laundry company’s best customers.