Past Lives

Eight

On the night before he was due to leave, Karen and Jeff Bliss gave a small dinner party for Macandrew. Saul Klinsman and Mike Kellerman were invited and it turned out to be the kind of evening that made Macandrew wonder why he was going anywhere at all. The food was good — it always was when Karen cooked — the wine was excellent — Saul Klinsman, who considered himself something of an expert on the subject, had insisted on choosing and bringing it — and the conversation was hilarious. Mike Kellerman was at his funniest in relating tales, either real or imagined, about his early experiences in medicine. When these were exhausted he changed to a Hollywood-Scottish accent and insisted on probing Macandrew’s “real” reasons for visiting his ancestral homeland, insisting that money must somehow be involved. Jeff suggested that Macandrew’s great grandfather was still owed five cents by someone back in the old country and Macandrew was determined to collect.

‘Why do people have this thing about their roots?’ Klinsman asked Karen when the laughter subsided. ‘Is it really that important?’

‘Only if you don’t have any,’ said Karen, ‘Most of us take our roots for granted. We know where our mother and father came from and probably our grandparents, maybe even our great grandparents, but not all people have this foundation and it can be a big miss. The people who suffer most are orphans who know nothing at all about their origins. Many will spend their entire lives worrying and wondering about where they came from and who their folks really were.’

‘I guess that’s why adopted kids often insist on tracing their real parents,’ said Mike Kellerman.

‘Exactly that,’ replied Karen. ‘And it causes such distress because it’s construed by the folks who brought them up as ingratitude. But it’s not. It’s just something the kids have to do. They can’t help themselves.’

‘So what’s Mac’s problem?’ asked Kellerman.

‘I suspect he’s just mildly curious,’ smiled Karen.

‘That’s true of course,’ said Macandrew, ‘but I recognise elements of what you’ve been saying in my motivation. It was the strangest feeling out in Weston when I found the graves of my relatives. It was just as if...’

‘You’d just put an important piece in the jigsaw puzzle and seen the picture take shape?’ said Karen. ‘It made you feel secure. You were part of the great scheme of things. You fitted in.’

‘That’s right,’ said Macandrew.

It was well after midnight before anyone left, despite Macandrew’s earlier insistence that he was going to have an early night because he had such a long day ahead of him. Saul Klinsman said he’d drive him home. Macandrew suspected he wanted to talk.

‘Any idea how long you’re going to be away, Mac?’

‘Two weeks, maybe three, depending on how things go.’

‘I watched you at dinner. Your hands seemed okay.’

‘I can use a knife and fork if that’s what you mean,’ said Macandrew feeling ever so slightly irritated. ‘What’s on your mind, Saul?’

‘I’ll level with you. We’re feeling the strain in Neuro. I’m going to have to take someone on.’

‘Makes sense,’ agreed Macandrew although he felt a definite hollow arrive in his stomach. That someone was going to fill his job.

‘I wanted you to hear it from me rather than have you come back and find a stranger working your lists. This has nothing to do with the way I think things will turn out. I’m talking about a locum appointment. Gonzalez thinks you have a better than even chance of being as good as ever and that’s good enough for me. I just don’t want the unit building up a big backlist in the meantime.’

‘Understood.’

The car drew to a halt outside Macandrew’s place and Macandrew got out. He shivered in the cold night air and drew up his collar before bending down to thank Klinsman through the driver’s window for the ride.

‘Safe journey,’ said Klinsman.

Macandrew paused for a moment to watch the Buick drive off and then looked up at the night sky as a police helicopter flew overhead on routine night patrol, its searchlight probing the ground at the back of nearby houses. He went inside and tiptoed up the back stairs so as not to wake the Jacksons. He poured himself a nightcap before slumping down in a comfortable chair to reflect on the evening.

There had been moments when he’d wondered if he was doing the right thing in going away at this time but Klinsman’s talk of bringing in a new surgeon to the unit had convinced him that he was. Despite his assurance that the arrangement would be temporary, he knew that there was no real way of knowing that just yet. Things were still very much in the balance. If he hung around Kansas City he would only brood about it. He was sure he’d find plenty to distract him in Scotland. Apart from that, he needed to look back at the Francini affair from a distance and maybe see things more dispassionately. He had made good physical progress but he still had to come to terms with the psychological trauma. People often overlooked this aspect of violent crime. In many ways it could be worse than the actual physical pain and discomfort involved. Constantly reliving the nightmare was only part of it.

Just before setting out for the airport in the morning, Macandrew noticed the file containing the strange Israeli news report that Karen had given him: he hadn’t had time to read it yet. It was sitting on the window ledge next to the slim folder he’d compiled on Hartman’s tumours. Remembering that what little work there had been done on them had in fact, been done in Edinburgh — where he just happened to be going — he slid both files into the wide front zip pocket of his leather travel bag along with Karen’s taped interview with Jane Francini and looked out of the window to see that the cab had arrived.

Macandrew already felt that it had been a long day. He’d had a five-hour wait at O’Hare airport between the domestic flight’s arrival in Chicago and the transatlantic take-off, but now the Atlantic Ocean was thirty-five thousand feet below and they were into the comfortable phase of the journey. The passengers had been airborne long enough for them to relax. Jackets had been removed, ties loosened and the cabin lights dimmed in deference to those watching the movie. The flight was only three-quarters full and the seat next to Macandrew was free so he kept his travel bag on it.

Having no interest in the movie, he brought out the Hartman’s tumour file and switched on his overhead reading lamp to give him an island of light. He cut out background noise by putting on his headphones but without plugging them into the seat socket.

After an hour and a half without interruption, he understood quite a bit more about the work of John Burnett and his co-workers but was no nearer to figuring out why a line of research, which had seemed so promising, had come to an abrupt halt. But thinking about it wasn’t going to help, he concluded as he recognised he was going round in circles and it had been a long day. He asked the flight attendant for a whisky. The alcohol put him in the mood to catch a few hours sleep.

It was eight-thirty local time on Monday morning when the Boeing 747 touched down at London Heathrow: it was raining heavily. Macandrew made his way through throngs of unsmiling people to find the British Airways shuttle desk and barely had time to down a cup of coffee before he was airborne again and on his way to Edinburgh. In a little over an hour, he felt the aircraft bank steeply to the left as they made a turn over water.

‘First time here?’ asked the man beside him. It was the first time he had spoken on the flight.

‘It is, yes,’ replied Macandrew.

‘You’re an American?’

‘Yes.’

‘These are the Forth bridges down there. The red one’s the old, Victorian rail bridge, the other’s the road bridge, built in the sixties.’

‘I must have seen the old one at least a hundred times in photographs,’ said Macandrew. ‘And I remember it featured in a famous film...’

‘The Thirty-nine Steps,’ said the man. ‘A John Buchan classic. I take it you’re not here on holiday?’

‘Actually I am.’

‘In November?’

Within seconds of stepping outside the terminal building to join the queue for taxis, Macandrew understood the man on the plane’s surprise. An icy wind was driving rain almost horizontally across the tarmac and gusting so strongly that his suitcase was almost snatched from his grasp. He turned quickly to keep hold of it but, as he did so, his travel bag slipped from his shoulder and splashed down in a puddle at his feet. A leaden sky suggested there was more of this to come.

‘Where to?’ asked the taxi driver.

‘City centre, I guess,’ said Macandrew. On the way, he asked the driver about accommodation. ‘I just need some place to stay until I can get my bearings and decide what I’m going to do.’

The driver nodded without saying anything and Macandrew sat back in his seat to look out of the window as they sped towards the city. Thirty minutes later he was standing outside a hotel in the Bruntsfield area of the city with the driver’s assurance that he was only a mile or so from the city centre. The man smiled for the first time when Macandrew tipped him well.

Macandrew woke at seven thirty. He knew this because he’d looked at his watch. What he wasn’t quite sure of for a few moments was whether it was morning or evening. He could hear traffic sounds but it was dark outside so that wasn’t much help. It was evening, he decided after a little think. Jet lag was always worse travelling west to east but at least, on this occasion, he was on vacation. He wasn’t attending some conference or medical meeting with a tight schedule and possibly a paper to present. He could relax and take account of what his body told him instead of his diary. Right now it was telling him that he was hungry. He got up, showered, dressed and went off in search of food.

With a meal of pasta and ice cream inside him and feeling refreshed from a long unbroken sleep, Macandrew acknowledged that he felt a lot better. As a bonus, the wind had dropped, the rain had stopped and he could see that Edinburgh was a place he was going to like. He walked the entire length of Princes Street, admiring the huge rock to the south with its floodlit castle on top.

At nine-thirty in the evening, most of the shops were closed but a couple of large bookshops were still open so he went into one and looked through the tourist guide and maps section. He hadn’t actually planned on doing this until the following day but if he could get what he wanted right now, so much the better. Once he had the maps, he could spend the remainder of the evening making plans. He picked up a couple of road maps and also 1:25,000 Ordnance Survey sheets for three areas in south-west Scotland. There wasn’t much in the way of tourist guides for the area he was interested in but he felt sure he would be able to get these locally.

Unlike many Americans who came to Scotland armed with little real knowledge of where their forbears had originated, Macandrew knew exactly where his great grandfather, Neil Morrison Macandrew, had come from. He had been born in the village of Drumcarrick on the Ayrshire coast in Southwest Scotland, one of three sons of a farm labourer who himself had worked as a farm labourer in the area before setting out for the New World. His father had been James Alexander Macandrew and his mother, Matilda Leadbetter.

His plan was to rent a car, drive down to the Ayrshire coast and take a look at Drumcarrick. He would hunt through local graveyards and parish records if he could find them, hoping to find mention of his family. As he spread out the map in front of him, he hit his first problem. He couldn’t find Drumcarrick on it. This was annoying but he refused to see it as a major setback. Drumcarrick might well be too small to be recorded on the map. He felt sure that once he was in Ayrshire he would have no trouble finding it. In the meantime, he wanted to see more of Edinburgh and to do it in daylight. He arranged for car rental through hotel reception but said that he wouldn’t need it until Wednesday — the day after tomorrow.

The weather was cold and clear on Tuesday so Macandrew dressed warmly in cord trousers, a thick sweater and a tan leather jacket. Around his neck he wore a navy blue scarf and on his head, a waterproof cap. He chose shoes that would be comfortable for walking in and checked his wallet to see that he had enough British money.

He spent the morning exploring the Royal Mile, the famous old street that ran down from the castle at its head through the old town of Edinburgh with its high tenements and ancient buildings, to the royal palace of Holyrood at the foot. Here he found exactly the kind of escapism he was looking for. Edinburgh was as different from Kansas City as Mars was from Earth.

Being the only tourist around — or so it seemed — marked him out for special attention. People were friendly and seemed anxious to tell him things. He had lunch at a pub near the palace and sampled British beer for the first time. He wasn’t overly impressed nor was he with the food but it didn’t matter. The landlord was friendly and talkative — if only about American football, which he followed on television. Macandrew was enjoying himself.

There was still no sign of rain when he had finished eating so he continued exploring the myriad streets and lanes leading away from the main thoroughfare and the small shops he found there with their treasure troves of times past. He was beginning to feel a little tired — but not unpleasantly so — when he happened upon a large dark-stone building and a notice outside telling him that it was the medical school of the University of Edinburgh. He realised that this must be where Burnett and his team had carried out their work on Hartman’s tumours.

The huge, arched entrance spoke of an age when doctors wore frock coats and stolen corpses were trundled through the streets by body snatchers under cover of darkness to supply the needs of the infamous Dr Knox’s anatomy classes, an age when anaesthetics had yet to be discovered. Come to think of it, anaesthetics were discovered here. Simpson had carried out his early experiments with chloroform in this very city. And antiseptics too! Joseph Lister had introduced carbolic acid to the world of surgery in the hospital adjoining this very medical school.

Macandrew felt suitably awed to be standing outside a building that had played such an important role in the history of medicine but its more modern link to the Francini affair through the work of the Burnet group was making him feel uncomfortable. He flexed his fingers subconsciously as he looked up at the windows surrounding the quadrangle, wondering if John Burnet was sitting behind any of them. He even considered going in and asking but stopped short of doing that. For the moment, the events in Kansas City were a long way away and that’s how he wanted to keep it. Maybe he’d call in before he went home but, for now, he was here on vacation. He turned his back on the med school and walked off. He had a trip to the Ayrshire coast to plan.

Hertz delivered the hire-car to the hotel just before nine on Wednesday but Macandrew decided to let the morning rush hour pass before setting out — although he did want to be in Ayr, some seventy miles away — by lunchtime. It was his intention to spend the afternoon visiting the local tourist agencies — hoping that they would be open at this time of the year — to ask about Drumcarrick. If not, he’d try local museums or historical societies.

‘Your luck’s still holding,’ said the breakfast waitress as she cleared the table and nodded to the sunshine outside the window. It was another cold clear day.

‘I think you were kidding about the weather here,’ said Macandrew. ‘It’s beautiful.’

The waitress — who had told him earlier that the weather could change every ten minutes — gave him a pitying look.