Ken McClure - Pandora's Helix

“I’d be obliged, Kate,” said Neef, getting to his feet. “Maybe I should have a word with our junior doctors. How are they getting on, by the way?” There had been a staff rotation two weeks before when two new housemen had been appointed to the unit for six months. Neef had not seen much of them.

“They’ll do,” said Kate. “They’re taking it all to heart but that’s no bad thing at this stage. It’s the ones who take it in their stride that I worry about.”

“Me too,” agreed Neef. “I’ll have a walk round before I go.”

Kate Morse got to her feet to accompany him but Neef raised his hand. “No,” he said, “just a little walk round on my own.”

Neef went first to the side room to where Lisa Short had been moved. One of the nurses was with her, making her more comfortable although she seemed too sleepy to notice. The nurse stood up when she saw Neef enter but he held up his hand to indicate that she should continue. “I just popped in to say hello,” he said. “How is she?”

“Dr Fielding increased her painkillers earlier but he wanted to keep her conscious if at all possible. I understand her parents are on their way. She seems fine at the moment, just pleasantly drowsy. No pain.

“Never-never land,” said Neef, his face tinged with sadness.

Lisa’s eyes flickered open and he smiled and took her hand. “Hello there,” he said gently. “Mummy and Daddy will be here soon.”

The child’s mouth made an attempt at a smile but she was very weak and her eyes closed again. Neef lifted her medication chart from the hook at the foot of her bed and noted what Lawrence Fielding had written her up for and at what time it had been given. He checked his watch and said, “Let’s hope her parents make it within the hour.”

The nurse nodded, allowed herself a brief moment’s for reflection then set about busying herself rearranging toys along the back of Lisa’s locker. She had worked in oncology for eight months. She had learned how to cope.

Neef continued round the unit checking charts and scheduled treatments for the following day. John Martin was supposed to start a course of radiotherapy in the morning but as Kate Morse had reported, it had been a bad day for him. One of the housemen, Tony Samuels, was with him.

“How’s he doing?” asked Neef.

The houseman hadn’t heard Neef approach and was startled. He got to his feet, nervously feeling at his tie.

“Sorry, I didn’t mean to startle you,” said Neef. “How is he?”

“Comfortable for the moment,” replied Samuels, regaining his composure. “I think it’s just been a bad reaction to chemotherapy. We may have to consider changing it. What do you think, sir?”

“Not just yet,” replied Neef. “We’ll keep him on standard primary regimen for another couple of days. See how he gets on. If he still reacts badly, we’ll think about changing then.”

“What about his radiotherapy tomorrow?”

“Cancel it,” said Neef. “Poor kid’s got enough on his plate right now. We’ll think again about that in a couple of days as well.”

“Very good, sir.”

Neef saw that Tracy Torrance had been moved to a side room and guessed why. He looked round the door and had his suspicions confirmed. The floor was almost covered in cuddly toys that had been sent in by readers of the Evening Citizen after the first story. He knew Tracy’s parents wouldn’t be here this evening; they were appearing on a local television programme. He himself had been asked to appear but had declined, preferring that a ‘hospital spokesman’ be used instead. “Hello Tracy,” he said.

The little girl smiled up at him and he felt pleased that she knew nothing about the political and show-business wrangling going on over her illness.

“Who have you got there?” he asked.

“Mr Raggins,” replied the child, holding up the rag doll she had come in with. She hadn’t come to terms with the host of brand new cuddly strangers surrounding her. This was a feature of terminal conditions in children. They lost their interest and excitement in new things, preferring to cling to the old and familiar.

Neef saved looking in on Neil Benson till last. He tried not to have favourites among the children, or at least not to show it, but he did have a soft spot for Neil. “Hello Tiger,” he said when the boy saw him. Neil held his arm up in the air and Neef knew this was the signal to present him with his own open palm. Neil brought his hand down on Neef’s in his own version of a high-five. Neef smiled. There was something about Neil, an inner strength, a resilience that went way beyond his years or prospects, come to that. There seemed little doubt that Neil’s tumour, a malignant melanoma, was going to end in his death but for the past three weeks it had stopped growing. Daily measurement of the affected area had shown a plateau on the graph. Unfortunately the tumour had not shown any sign of regression but they had been afforded a breathing space and there were so many non-medical factors at work in cancer therapy that it was unwise to predict anything with an air of complete certainty.

Neef finished his round and popped his head round the door of the duty room to say, good night to Kate Morse.

“You’re off then?”

“Some days feel like they’ve had thirty-six hours in them. This has been one.” said Neef.

“Chin up,” smiled Kate. “Most people know that you can’t believe all you read in the papers.”

“I hope that’s true, for all our sakes,” said Neef.

“Don’t take it to heart, Mike,” said Kate Morse softly. “It’s what’s really true that matters, not how these people twist or misrepresent things.”

Neef nodded and said, “Thanks Kate. Maybe you and Lawrence and I could have a meeting tomorrow? There’s a biotech company interested in carrying out a Gene Therapy trial on our patients. I’d like to know your feelings before I talk to them.”

“Sounds interesting,” said Kate. “Anything resembling progress is always welcome.”

Neef drove home slowly. The evening rush hour was long past, the sky had cleared, the wind had dropped and evening sunshine was filtering through the leaf canopy on the long narrow lane leading down to where his cottage nestled at the foot of a steep single track road. It was no more than eight miles from the hospital. Getting this cottage was the luckiest thing that had ever happened to him, Neef reckoned.

He had just come back from the States to take up the job at St George’s and was desperately looking for somewhere to stay. He had spent another fruitless evening looking at over-priced flats in the area when he had taken a wrong turning on the way back to the hotel where he was staying and found himself at the foot of the hill. He had been looking for a place to turn the car round when he had come across the cottage lying derelict among tall grass and wild rose bushes that were threatening to engulf it. Intrigued, he had looked around and about and discovered that a railway had once run along the base of the hill. The track had long since been removed but he found evidence of ballast and it was possible to follow the route of the line through the undergrowth. The location of the cottage said that it had probably had something to do with that railway, perhaps the home of a signalman or level crossing operator. After checking with British Rail and discovering that they had forgotten about the existence of the line and the cottage, Neef had badgered them until they had come up with the deeds to the property and, after a lot more prompting; they had finally agreed to sell it to him. He had spent the last three years making it habitable and comfortable.

Neef parked his Land Rover Discovery on the piece of land he had cleared beside the cottage for that purpose. He needed a four wheel drive vehicle to get up the hill in winter. This neck of the woods was definitely not a priority on the Council’s gritting schedule.