Ken McClure - Hypocrite's Isle

‘Trish, I need some normal human cells. Any chance of getting some before the holidays?’ asked Gavin, who had been waiting outside the Cell Culture Suite since 8.45 a.m.

A look of dismay came over the technician’s face. ‘You’re kidding... no, you’re not, you’re serious.’

‘There’s some doubt about the behaviour of normal cells in the literature; I have to be sure.’

Trish looked uncertain. ‘Shit, Gavin, we were actually counting on closing down the suite this afternoon and spending the last day just cleaning up and replenishing stock solutions.’

‘I’ll love you forever...’

‘Not sure if that’s a good enough... I’d have to check with the maternity unit to see if a placenta is liable to become available for amnion cells...’

‘Forever and a day?’

Gavin followed Trish into her small office and stood by as she phoned the maternity unit. After a short conversation she said, ‘They are expecting four births this afternoon.’

‘Great.’

Trish broke into a resigned smile. ‘You do realise this means I won’t be going to the Christmas lunch with the girls?’

Gavin saw that she was serious. ‘Shit, I’m sorry, I didn’t realise it was that big a deal. Maybe this is something I could do myself if you pointed me at a book of instructions?’

‘I won’t pretend it’s not tempting to walk off and leave you to it, but primary lines are a bit tricky if you’ve never done them before.’

Gavin grimaced.

‘They’re not like tumour cells which go on dividing forever as long as you feed them and dilute them. Healthy cells have a limited lifespan. We have to prepare them fresh each time and break down the tissue into component cells before we can even start.’

Gavin sighed. ‘I’m sorry. I should have thought. I really didn’t realise there was so much to it...’

‘Having said that,’ said Trish hesitantly. ‘It’s not impossible... providing the maternity unit comes up with the goods early enough. If they do, I’ll set you up a batch before I go off.’

‘You’re an absolute ace person; I really won’t forget this.’

‘Yeah, yeah... I’ll give you a call when they’re ready or leave a message on your desk saying where you can find them.’

When Gavin returned upstairs to the lab he found a note on his desk from Frank Simmons, asking if he was coming to Christmas dinner or not. He had to know today. When Gavin went over to knock on Frank’s door, Mary Hollis called out, ‘He’s not there. Sutcliffe’s called a meeting of senior academic staff.’

‘Was he wearing a Santa suit and carrying a sack?’ asked Gavin sourly.

Mary broke into a smile. ‘And just when I thought you were beginning to mellow...’

‘You’ve not exactly been all sweetness and light yourself these past few weeks if I might say so,’ said Gavin.

‘Fair comment,’ said Mary, her smile fading. ‘Simon and I broke up. He found himself a blonde staff nurse with big tits.’

‘Seems reasonable to me,’ said Gavin with his back to Mary, but he was smiling, looking at the wall, waiting for the come-back.

Mary threw a box of tissues at him but she too managed a small grin. ‘At least everyone knows where they are with you, Gavin. What you see is what you frighteningly get.’

‘But really, I am sorry,’ said Gavin, turning round to face her. ‘You two looked good together, like it was the real thing.’

‘It was for one of us.’

‘I guess this has ruined your Christmas.’

‘We’ll see. I’m going home to Dublin to stay with Mum and Dad. My brother Pat is coming home from Germany, so it’ll be nice to see them all again. I’ll be leaving just after lunch. Tom’s already gone off home to Bristol, and I think Frank said he was heading out to do his Christmas shopping after Sutcliffe’s meeting. He probably won’t be back this side of the New Year.’

‘It’s going to be lonely round here.’

‘You’ve decided to work through the break?’

‘They don’t give you a Nobel Prize for eating Christmas pies.’

‘So that’s where I’ve been going wrong.’

Gavin scribbled a note saying that he would love to come to dinner on Christmas Day and sellotaped it to Simmons’ door.

‘Are you off out?’ asked Mary.

‘Just to an off-licence to get a bottle of wine for Trish. She’s doing me a favour and setting up some human amnion cells for me.’

‘You asked Trish for primary cells the day before we break up and she said yes?’ exclaimed Mary.

‘I told her I’d love her forever and she took pity on me.’

Mary seemed lost for words until she affected an exaggerated shake of the head and came out with, ‘Men are something else.’

‘Cancer doesn’t stop for Christmas.’

‘Neither does bullshit.’

Frank Simmons walked briskly along the corridor, determined for once not to be the last to arrive at the latest departmental meeting called by Professor Graham Sutcliffe. He had no idea what it was about — the memo hadn’t said — but took comfort from the thought that his research group had done nothing lately to upset the smooth running of the department. Apart from that, it didn’t take much for Sutcliffe, who saw communication as a great virtue and an essential element of academic life, to call a meeting. In Simmons’ book this translated into nothing being too trivial to merit endless discussion.

Sutcliffe, wearing a light grey suit with a trouser waist that threatened his armpits and a university tie in deference to his later lunch appointment at Old College with the deans of the faculties, perched his reading glasses on the end of his nose and looked over the top at the people in front of him. He apologised for the short notice in calling the meeting. ‘I understand that several of you have recently received letters from the pharmaceutical company Grumman Schalk, inviting you to apply for funding under a new research support scheme they have just announced?’

Five staff members, including Frank Simmons, agreed that this was so.

‘Good. I thought that might be the case. As soon as I read the company’s press release in Nature , I got in touch with the their administrators to ask for clarification about the wording concerning “special cases” and, without going into too much detail, it would appear that our department would almost certainly be viewed as a special case. The fact that we have so many distinguished researchers and an international reputation means that we could make a block grant application and expect to receive — assuming we were successful — a sum in excess of twenty million pounds sterling. A rough estimate says that that would be around twelve times as much as we could hope to achieve from the sum of individual applications. I’ve called this meeting to ask what you think about the idea.’

‘There must be some serious conditions attached,’ suggested Simmons.

‘The company would want certain safeguards,’ said Sutcliffe, as if to belittle the comment. ‘It does not pretend to be a charity.’

‘The power of veto over papers submitted for publication perhaps?’ said Simmons.

Sutcliffe moved his feet uneasily. His voice took on a note of irritation. ‘I should think that the company would almost certainly like to see such submissions before they were sent off, if only to check with their patents people in case something might require legal protection. Grumman Schalk would naturally want to protect their investment — perfectly reasonable in the circumstances, I think you would all agree?’

‘Can you assure us that only their patent lawyers would want to examine submitted work? Their scientific directors wouldn’t have the power of veto over results they didn’t like or wouldn’t want made public?’