Ken McClure - Pandora's Helix

As he opened the door, the lady of the house came to meet him. Dolly was soft and sleek and very elegant. She moved silently and with a graceful sinewy gait that always evoked his admiration. She also had a beautiful, thick, furry tail. Dolly was a cat, but not just any cat as Neef was always keen to point out. Dolly was a Maine Coon.

Dolly brushed up against Neef’s legs and then again as he stooped to stroke her. “I take it this means your bowl is empty,” he said. He was more used to being ignored. “Let’s get you something.”

Dolly followed Neef to the kitchen where he opened a tin of cat food for her and carried it out to the back porch where her bowl was kept. Dolly scampered round his feet and waited impatiently until Neef had emptied out the contents; she almost pushed him out the way in her anxiety to start eating. Neef stood up and looked down at her. “I take it I’m no longer required,” he said.

Dolly did not interrupt her meal.

Neef poured himself a large whisky and settled down in an armchair that looked out through French windows to the back garden. The evening sunshine was now deep yellow, almost orange and he wished it could have been the end to a better day. He toyed with the idea of not watching the TV programme featuring the Torrance couple but thought better of it. It would be as well to know the worst. He turned on the TV.

The Torrance report was the third item in the local news bulletin and started with a summary of the facts, then the camera moved towards Mr and Mrs Torrance sitting, facing a staff reporter.

“But you don’t accept that your daughter’s condition is beyond help, do you, Mrs Torrance?” the reporter asked.

Mrs Torrance, a slight woman with dyed red hair and gimlet hard eyes, held a handkerchief to her face while her husband, much taller and broader and with a vacant expression, put his arm round her. “No, I don’t,” she almost whispered.

“You believe there is a treatment that would help Tracy but that she is not getting it. Is that correct?”

The woman nodded silently, keeping the handkerchief to her mouth.

“Why not, Mrs Torrance?” asked the reporter gently.

“Money. They won’t treat my little girl because it’s too expensive.”

‘They’re going to let her die,” Mr Torrance butted in.

“I know this must be very distressing for you,” continued the interviewer, “but the hospital of course, deny this. They maintain that the decision not to treat Tracy was made entirely on medical grounds. Money was not a consideration. What do you say to that?”

“They bloody would, wouldn’t they?” retorted Mr Torrance. “Ever since they became... what do they call it?... A Trust, a bloody Trust, it’s money, not people they’re interested in.”

The interviewer turned to camera and said, “This afternoon, I put this point to John Marshall, spokesman for the St George’s Hospital Trust and he had this to say.”

John Marshall, press officer for the hospital and looking a smooth as the TV professionals themselves, offered his sympathy and understanding to the Torrances and made a good job of insisting that the decision had been made for medical reasons. Neef silently gave thanks.

The filmed interview with Marshall ended and the studio interviewer came into shot again. “In the last half hour,” he announced, “this programme has learned that a newspaper, The Evening Citizen, has decided to step in and pay for private treatment for little Tracy. What do you think of that Mrs Torrance?”

The floor camera zoomed in to capture the tears as they flowed down Mrs Torrance’s face and her shoulders shook silently. It then moved up to her husband who was also moist eyed.

“There are no words,” began Mrs Torrance.

“No words,” agreed Mr Torrance, with a shake of his head.

The camera drew back for the interviewer to hand back to the main desk with a look of practised concern.

Neef had watched the whole thing without a flicker of emotion. He turned off the TV using the handset and gave a sigh of resignation before downing the remainder of his drink. “Momma told me there’d be days like this,” he groaned as he got up and went through to the kitchen. There was a decision to be made. Should he make himself something to eat or should he have another drink? He poured the whisky and paused to put some music on the CD player before settling down again to gaze out at the garden. The music was Albinoni. In a few minutes the sadness would come as thoughts of Elaine returned.

Neef’s wife, Elaine, had died nearly four years before of cancer of the liver. They had been married for seven years. There were no children. His rehabilitation had been slow but time had done its bit and taken the edge off the pain he had once thought unbearable. Still, when he listened to Albinoni, Elaine’s favourite, waves of sadness would wash over him and rekindle the pain of her loss. He put his head back on the chair and looked up at the ceiling. “I still miss you,” he whispered.

The music finished and left a sudden vacuum in the room. Neef brought his head up from the chair back and felt as if he had just landed after a long flight. He was back on the ground; there were adjustments to be made. His drink was finished and he had things to do. He had a life to get on with. He would make himself something to eat and then he would catch up on reading the medical journals, particularly those dealing with Gene Therapy.

Just after nine thirty, the telephone rang. It startled Neef who had been deeply into an article on the Gene Therapy Treatment of Cystic Fibrosis. It was this treatment that University College Hospital had come to grief on when they had tried it last year. The results had not been good, with none of the patients on the trial showing lasting improvement and several of them showing strong inflammatory reactions to the treatment. It had all been a big disappointment, not only for the patients and their relatives but also for the hospital which had attracted lots of publicity at the time for their pioneering work and for David Farro-Jones, a friend of Neef’s and the leading molecular biologist from their medical school who had set up the trial.

“Neef.”

“Dr Neef?” asked a woman’s voice. “Dr Michael Neef?”

“Yes, who is this?”

“It’s Eve Sayers. I found you through the phone book.”

Neef felt his heart sink. Hadn’t this woman done enough damage? What more could she possibly want? He tried to work out what new scheme she might have come up with to pay him back for what he had said to her. “Why?” he asked bluntly.

“I know I’m not exactly flavour of the month as far as you’re concerned...”

Neef remained silent as if to affirm this.

“But it’s been preying on my mind...”

“What has?”

“Everything really. You, the unit, the little boy, Neil. What you said. Everything.”

Neef was still very much on his guard. “Would you please come to the point, Ms Sayers,” he said. “I’m a bit busy at the moment.”

“Dr Neef, I’m finding it very hard to say what I want to say on the telephone. Could I possibly come over and speak to you personally?”

“I think not, Ms Sayers, I really don’t understand what it is that you want from me.”

“It’s simple really, but oh so difficult. I just wanted to say that I was sorry.”

Neef could hardly believe his ears. “Sorry?”

“It’s true,” said Eve. “For the first time in my professional life I’ve been feeling ashamed of something I’ve done and I wanted to apologise. I just didn’t understand.”

Neef couldn’t rid himself of suspicion which made a response difficult.

“I’m sorry I can’t stop the story going into The Citizen tomorrow. Things have gone too far already. My editor saw his chance to announce the private treatment angle early and get publicity for the paper on television this evening. The Torrances were being interviewed.”