Ken McClure - Hypocrite's Isle

Gavin met Caroline outside the pub just before eight. He took her in his arms and felt a wave of emotion overcome him as he held her close. ‘God, it’s so good to see you.’

‘You too. You’ve been through such a lot since I last saw you. I’m still finding it hard to believe what happened in the lab.’

‘Let’s not go there,’ said Gavin. ‘I’ve been over it so many times in my head that I don’t want to talk about it any more. Instead, you can tell me what’s troubling you.’

‘Is it that obvious?’

‘To someone who loves you.’

‘My mother’s asked me to help her.’

Gavin closed his eyes as it dawned on him what Caroline meant. ‘Oh, God,’ he murmured.

‘She feels she can’t ask Dad because it would be against everything he stands for. She sees having a medical student for a daughter as her next best option.’

‘What a nightmare.’

‘She sees it as a simple request to her daughter. I get her some pills; she takes them, and there’s an end to her pain, her suffering and her indignity. We kiss, say goodbye and it’s all over. Done and dusted. Only, of course, it isn’t quite like that for the rest of us...’

‘What did you say?’

‘I told her not to be so silly. She should hang in there. She could still beat this thing if she put her mind to it. The papers are always full of stories of people beating the odds. The medical profession is proved wrong on an almost daily basis. But of course, that was all rubbish. I was bullshitting my own mother. I know damned well that things are only going to get worse for her, and there’s a doctor’s surgery in the house for God’s sake. Getting the drugs wouldn’t be a problem. I was just desperate to get out of a situation I didn’t want to be in. In the end, I just put up the shutters and refused to talk any more about it.’

‘Did she accept that?’

Caroline shook her head and her eyes became moist. ‘She pleaded with me to change my mind. Can you imagine what it’s like to have your own mother plead with you to end her suffering?’

Gavin grimaced and shook his head.

‘But you know the worst thing?’ continued Caroline. ‘It wasn’t feelings of pity or compassion that overwhelmed me. It was anger. I was angry that she’d put me in that position. She was my mother and I was furious she was doing that to me. I stormed out of the house and came back to Edinburgh and now... I am so ashamed of myself. I am so consumed by guilt that I just want to curl up and die.’

The tears were flowing freely down Caroline’s face now as she looked to Gavin. ‘Well, Gavin... what should I do?’

‘You know I can’t tell you that.’

‘Not good enough. You’re big on truth and telling it like it is. I need your take on this.’

‘It was you who pointed out that people don’t always want to hear the truth.’

‘This time I need to hear it,’ countered Caroline.

Gavin’s reluctance made him consider for a long time before he said, ‘You can’t afford to become involved in ending your mother’s life. It would be illegal and you’d probably get caught. You’d be charged with murder, or more likely manslaughter, and possibly go to jail. There would be lots of sympathy and understanding for you, but it wouldn’t translate into permission to break the law. Either way, there would be no place for you in medicine any more. Your career would be over before it started.’

‘And Mum’s wishes?’

‘They don’t come into it.’

‘Ouch.’

‘Sorry.’

‘Now tell me the right thing to do, Gavin. Not the legal thing or the sensible thing but the right thing.’

‘I can’t do that.’

‘You can tell me what you think the right thing to do is?’

‘That can get messy when it’s different from the legal, or even the moral, thing.’

‘Stop fencing. Tell me what you think.’

Gavin took a hesitant breath. ‘The right thing to do is to help your mother end her suffering. She can’t be cured, and the medics are only interested in keeping her alive as long as possible to make their survival rate figures look better. Success is measured by how long they keep you alive, not how good your quality of life is. There are no boxes to be filled in for pain and indignity. They don’t figure in the notes.’

‘Thanks, Gav.’

‘But you can’t. The stakes are too high.’

Caroline nodded.

‘Your father should do it.’

Caroline recoiled at the sting in the tail, and made a face to emphasise just how out of the question Gavin’s suggestion was. ‘You don’t know my father,’ she exclaimed.

‘No, but I know the situation. If anyone should help your mother it should be him.’

‘My father gets ill at the thought of parking on a double yellow line,’ exclaimed Caroline. ‘His whole life has been governed by rules and regulations, manners and convention. The idea that he should help my mother commit suicide is just...’ Words failed her.

‘Maybe he needs you to spell it out for him.’

‘How?’

‘Shock him out of his comfort zone. He obviously believes that he is doing all he can to help the woman he loves so dearly. Tell him that feeling bad about everything doesn’t do a damn thing to help her. Point out to him that he has the means to stop your mother’s suffering if he’d just start thinking for himself instead of having the BMA and Church of England do it for him.’

‘I couldn’t do that to him.’

‘Desperate times, desperate measures.’

Caroline shook her head as she thought it through and came to the same conclusion. ‘I just couldn’t.’

‘Then you’ll both watch your mother go through hell until the Good Lord or whoever relents and lets her go. Still, a couple of choruses of “The Lord’s My Shepherd” and a few words of comfort from the vicar should make everything all right. Flowers on the grave every first Sunday of the month and a picture on the piano...’

‘You bastard!’

‘Sorry.’

‘No, I asked you to tell me what you thought,’ said Caroline, enunciating each word carefully ‘And that’s exactly what you did. I thank you for that. And, if it’s any comfort, I still love you.’

Gavin’s shoulders relaxed.

‘But just who the hell are you to talk?’

‘I’m sorry?’

‘Come on, Gavin, you’re in cancer research. You’ve come up with a way of treating tumours, and not once have we discussed this in relation to my mother. Why not?’

Gavin sat back in his chair and appeared to look in all directions for inspiration. ‘Because I work with test tubes. It’s a world away from real people. A few lab experiments have worked out okay and things are looking promising but...’

‘Do I hear the sound of furious back-pedalling, Gavin?’

‘Okay, I do think it has a chance of working if anyone ever gets round to giving it its chance, but even then there will be hurdles to jump before it’s tried out on people.’

‘But you have the wherewithal to try it?’

‘I’ve got the drugs, if that’s what you mean...’

‘So your objections are... legal? You don’t have the necessary paperwork, permissions, approvals, etc?’

‘I suppose... but there’s more to it than that. There’s what you have to prove before you get the paperwork.’

Caroline chose to ignore the proviso. ‘How about moral objections? It’s wrong to experiment on people?’

Gavin shrugged, clearly unhappy with the way the conversation had turned.

‘So if you can’t do the legal thing and you can’t do the moral thing, what does that leave us with... the right thing... does it not?’

‘Carrie...’

‘I just thought I’d tell you what I thought, Gav, since you were so obliging when I asked. I think it all boils down to me finding it strange that we’re sitting here discussing who should kill my mother, when you might well have the means of saving her.’