Ken McClure - Pandora's Helix

“Would you like a drink before we go and spring the joke?” asked Eve. She had said it with a smile but Neef imagined he detected a slight edge in her voice.

“I’m sorry,” he said, “I shouldn’t have put it the way I did. It was clumsy of me. I didn’t mean to infer that I was only asking you to lunch because I...” Neef paused then said, “I’m being even clumsier...”

Eve nodded with an amused look on her face. “I’d quit if I were you.”

Neef nodded. “Sorry.”

“Are you sure you still want me to come?”

Neef nodded. “I’m certain.” He was thinking how attractive she looked.

“About that drink?”

“I’ll wait.”

The MacSweens occupied the lower half of a red sandstone mansion in Collingbourne Crescent. They had lived there all their married life, some twenty three years and photographs of their family’s progress over that time occupied most flat surfaces in the comfortable drawing room that Neef and Eve were shown into. Neef liked the room; he knew it well. He had spent many happy evenings there since coming to St George’s. He had great affection for Frank and Betty; they had been particularly kind to him when he had first arrived at St George’s and hadn’t known a soul.

“You’re a dark horse,” said Frank MacSween to Neef, when he was introduced to Eve.

“Hello, my dear,” said Betty, smiling at Eve and taking her hand. “So glad you could come.”

Neef thought it typical of Betty. She always spotted who needed looking after and made it her business to put people at their ease. She was kindness itself.

“Eve is a journalist,” said Neef. “In fact, she’s the journalist.”

Frank MacSween looked surprised. “You can’t mean the Torrance story?” he asked.

“I’m afraid so,” said Eve.

“Then you and I have a lot in common,” said Frank, recovering his composure.

“How so?” asked Eve, “I thought you were a pathologist.”

“We both perform autopsies, only I tend to confine my activities to the dead.”

“And that will be enough of that, Frank MacSween,” scolded Betty. “This young lady is our guest and she is very welcome as any friend of Michael’s always is.”

“Thank you,” said Eve.

Despite the fact that Eve and Betty seemed totally different in terms of personality, they seemed to get on like a house on fire. It pleased Neef.

There were four other lunch guests, Kate and Charlie Morse, and Frank and Betty’s daughter, Clare who was there with her husband Keith. They had their baby son, Nigel with them. The baby slept through lunch in a Moses basket placed on the bench seat in front of the bay window. Kate Morse gave Neef a knowing look when she realised who his lunch date was but that was a far as it went. She was polite if not overly friendly towards Eve.

After lunch, Kate and Charlie fell to conversation with Clare and Keith about the state of their garden. They had discovered during the course of lunch that Keith ran a landscape gardening business up in Yorkshire. They were now discussing ornamental pools and whether plastic liners or pre-formed fibreglass was best. Eve disappeared into the kitchen with Betty, leaving Frank and Neef with each other for company.

“Fancy a walk round the garden?” asked Frank.

“If you like,” replied Neef.

The MacSweens had a large garden with well tended lawns and shrubbery. Betty looked after it. Gardening was one of her passions. Frank acted as a labourer when necessary but took no part in the planning apart from one feature which he was particularly proud of. He showed Neef a tunnel he had created in a dense beech hedge leading to a small circular clearing deep inside the hedge run. “Do you know what that is?” he asked Neef.

Neef shook his head. “No idea,” he said.

“That is going to be my grandson’s gang hut.”

Neef smiled. “Ideal,” he agreed.

“I’m looking forward to the day he discovers it,” said Frank. “I won’t ever tell him I deliberately made it. I’ve also plans for a tree house for him. It’ll go in the chestnut up there.” He pointed to the friendly looking tree at the top of the garden with lots of spreading horizontal branches. “I’ve started collecting the boards and I’ve managed to lay my hands on a rope ladder.”

“It sounds like you’ve got it all worked out,” said Neef.

“I have. Having children gives you the chance to turn back the clock and relive part of your life all over again. See things through their eyes, things you’d forgotten. Having grandchildren means the same all over again only it will be more relaxed. I’m looking forward to it.”

Neef nodded. He was thinking of Elaine.

“That’s a good looking young lady you’ve got there,” said MacSween as they continued their walk. “How come you’re walking out with the enemy?”

“I wouldn’t put it quite like that,” said Neef. He told MacSween of the series of events.

“So that’s why the story in the paper wasn’t as bad as I expected,” said MacSween. “Ms Sayers was pulling her punches.”

“I think if it hadn’t been for her editor’s insistence, she might have pulled the story altogether,” said Neef.

“So you’re going to let her visit the boy in your unit?”

“I think so. Neil liked her, I could tell. He’s got nobody else.”

MacSween gave a non committal grunt.

“You don’t think it’s a good idea, do you?” said Neef.

“It’s not my decision,” said MacSween, “But have you considered the possibility that Ms Sayers may have sacrificed the impact of one tear-jerker story in order to get several? The inside story of a children’s cancer ward. There’s a lot of journalistic mileage in that one. Second hand emotion by the barrel. Enough tears to fill a river.”

“Kate has expressed similar doubts,” admitted Neef, “but Eve has promised me that she will not be working when she’s in the unit. Neil is having a remission right now; his tumour has stopped growing. I think if he develops a relationship with Eve, it might help him. We can’t quantify the importance of mental state in terms of prophylaxis but we both know it matters. Cancer doesn’t like happy people. It prefers depressives; it kills them faster.”

“I hear you’re starting a Gene Therapy trial next week?”

“Tomorrow,” said Neef. “I’m optimistic about it. We’re working with a company called, Menogen Research. Their scientific director, a chap called Max Pereira has convinced me it could work.”

“We were all led to believe that about Farro-Jones and Cystic Fibrosis when Uni College tried it out last year,” said MacSween. “But the results were very poor. A pity, I think Farro-Jones might have got a personal chair out of the university if things had gone better but the powers that be were a bit miffed when it didn’t work after all that publicity beforehand.”

“That’s show business,” said Neef. His own comment suddenly made him think of Max Pereira. It was the sort of thing he would have said. “Menogen’s strategy is very different,” he said. “They’re not trying to replace a defective gene like Farro-Jones. They’re introducing a foreign gene which will make tumour cells susceptible to treatment with Gancyclovir.”

“If I were you I would have our Press officer... what’s his name?”

“John Marshall.”

“Aye, Marshall. I’d have him keep the lid on things until you have a success story to tell, otherwise, if it fails, you’ll have the Press back on your doorstep with tales of Dr Michael Mengele, the beast of St George’s using wee sick children as experimental animals.”

“I know the dangers,” said Neef.

“Did you have any trouble getting the trial past the ethics committee?”