Hypocrite's Isle

Two

Gavin Donnelly left the medical school, pausing to fasten up all the buttons on his denim jacket and wrap a scarf round the lower half of his face as he felt the cold air hit him. He stopped at the hospital gates, considering whether he should go back to the flat and have spaghetti on toast or nip round for a pie and a pint at the postgrad union. The halo round the street lights — a sure sign of a heavy frost to come — swung his decision in favour of the union and he skipped across the road, dodging in and out of the stopped and slow-moving traffic of the evening rush hour. The union was nearer and it would be warm — unlike the flat, which depended on electric heating, and whoever was in first to turn it on. He shared a third-floor tenement flat with three other people — a nurse and two office workers — about two miles away from the med school, in Dundas Street on the north side of Princes Street. This had been his choice over the alternative of staying in halls of residence when he arrived in Edinburgh some two months before.

Gavin ordered his food and picked up a pint of lager at the bar, before moving to a seat and shrugging his rucksack from his shoulder to guide it under the table with his foot. He draped his jacket over the back of the chair and smoothed his collar-length hair back before straightening the holed green sweater he favoured most days — Carla, the eldest of his four sisters, had knitted it for him when he’d first left home for Cambridge.

‘Pie and beans!’ the short, bald man behind the bar called out as the microwave bleeped. Gavin went over to pick up his food. He was halfway through eating it when he became aware of a figure at his shoulder. It was Mary Hollis.

‘That looks good,’ she said pleasantly.

‘Then it looks better than it tastes.’

Mary sat down opposite, looking both amused and exasperated. ‘Don’t you ever lighten up, Gavin?’

Gavin looked bemused. ‘What’s the problem? I just...’

‘Told the truth? Yes, I know.’

Gavin sighed and looked at her. ‘Sorry,’ he said. ‘What should I have said?’

Mary shook her head and spread her hands, ‘God, I don’t know; made a joke or something. If you’d laughed before you said it looked better than it tasted it would have been fine, but you automatically slap people down. You defend yourself when no one’s attacking you. People generally mean you no harm... honestly.’

Gavin suddenly smiled broadly and Mary capitulated. ‘Sorry,’ she said. ‘Lecture over.’

‘All right, Mary,’ said Gavin. ‘I’ll believe you... despite a long list of acquired evidence to the contrary. I haven’t seen you in here before.’

‘I’m meeting Simon, my boyfriend; he’s a houseman at the hospital. He gets off at seven. This is as good a place to meet as any and it’s warm.’

‘Can I get you a drink?’

Mary shook her head. ‘He’ll be here any minute, thanks all the same. We’re going to see something at the Filmhouse. How about you? How are you going to spend your evening?’

‘Medical library.’

‘Is this to fuel the thinking process?’

‘You got it.’

‘You’ll be doing experiments next.’

‘Ouch. What was it you said about not slapping people down?’

‘Sorry, but you haven’t exactly been bursting a gut in the lab since you arrived and people have been noticing.’

‘It’s the easiest thing in the world to keep busy in a lab.’

‘So?’

‘Keeping busy is not doing research. It’s window dressing.’

‘Doing nothing isn’t doing research either.’

‘Like I said, I’ve been thinking.’

‘I won’t say you don’t get a PhD for thinking when you do, but eventually you have to do something with the fruits of your thinking...’

‘Unless you’re a philosopher.’

‘You probably still have to tell someone...’

‘As Jean-Paul Sartre once said to Simone de Beauvoir, Whatevah.’

Mary smiled. ‘You can be quite funny when you try. Oh, here comes Simon.’ She got to her feet as a slim, fair-haired man entered the bar and came towards them. Mary did the introductions before turning to leave. ‘See you tomorrow. Don’t work too late.’

‘Enjoy the film.’

‘Good,’ said Mary, looking back with a grin. ‘Very good.’

Gavin drained his glass and thought about what Mary had said as he shrugged his shoulders into his jacket and picked up his belongings. She meant well enough but what did she know about his world? She was an only child and both her parents were academics. She fitted in: she had always fitted in. She couldn’t possibly understand what it had been like for the son of a Liverpool labourer to arrive at Cambridge, knowing nothing of the ways of academia, or the customs of a society far removed from his own. Cambridge had seemed like a different planet, a strange place inhabited by exotic creatures with peculiar names and drawling accents, and often with a self-confidence he’d found mesmerising. He remembered desperately wanting to be part of it all — there was just so much he wanted to discuss and argue about and he really hadn’t had the opportunity before — but it wasn’t to be. There was a ‘them and us’ divide and he was definitely ‘them’.

He had coped with the open hostility — even confronted it on occasion, and proved that first-fifteen rugger was no match for back-street Liverpool when push came to shove — but it was the middle-class deceit he’d had most problems with. He’d been used to taking people at face value: if folks smiled at you they liked you; as simple as that. But it wasn’t. Too often the smiles and overtures of friendship had hidden another agenda. They hadn’t been laughing with him, they’d been laughing at him. In the end, he had concluded that the only way to be accepted as an equal was to prove that you were better. The Liverpool paddy had worked harder and studied longer than anyone else. He had grafted while the others had partied, punted and picnicked, and when it came to having trouble telling the genuine from the fake? His philosophy had said screw the lot of them. He didn’t need anyone.

Gavin showed his matriculation card to the woman at the desk and walked into the medical library. He’d always loved libraries and had spent a lot of his time in the local one as a child, avidly embracing the world it opened up for him. There was a special smell about them — leather and dust — that evoked memories of the past and the thrill of finding out things as a curious youngster. Tonight he was going to look for information about a cancer drug he’d seen referred to in passing in an article he’d found in the current issue of Cell. The drug had apparently failed to justify the initial optimism of its makers when it had first come on to the market some twenty years ago, but Gavin had found the reference to its mode of action interesting. He wanted to know more.

The warning that the library would close in fifteen minutes broke his concentration and made him curse under his breath. He had spent two hours in a paper chase that had led up one blind alley after another, but in the last fifteen minutes he had started to make real progress. He quickly made reference notes so that he could pull out the relevant journals next time and checked his watch before deciding that he had just enough time to photocopy one of the articles to take home with him.

Leaving all the other books and journals on the table, he took the relevant one across to the photocopier and inserted his card. ‘Shit!’ he murmured, when he saw that he only had enough credit left for two pages. The article was seven pages long.

‘Problems?’ asked a voice behind him.

Gavin turned to find a girl about his own age standing there. She was tall — almost as tall as he was at five feet ten — with ash-blonde hair, and blue eyes which suggested both intelligence and confidence as she waited for a reply.

‘Card’s run out,’ he said.

‘How many more do you need?’

‘I’ve done two: I need another five.’

‘Use mine.’

‘You mean it? That’s really good of you.’ Gavin threw his expired card into the bin beside the copier and inserted the girl’s card for the last five pages. Just as the last page rolled out, the closure of the library was announced and power to the machines was cut off. Gavin put his hand to his head and said, ‘God, I’m sorry, you didn’t get to make your copies.’

‘Not your fault. I really didn’t think I would. I’ve got quite a lot to do. It’s no big deal. I’ll pop in tomorrow.’

‘I’m Gavin.’

‘Caroline,’ said the girl, turning to walk away.

‘Maybe... I could buy you a beer?’

Caroline turned and looked thoughtful for a moment before saying, ‘Why not?’

‘Great. See you at the door.’ Gavin hurried back to the table to pack up his belongings and return the books he’d been using to their shelves.

‘Where’s good around here?’ he asked as they stepped out on to the street.

‘You must be new to the university?’

‘Two months. I’m a postgrad in molecular genetics. You?’

‘Second-year med student. There’s a pub I quite like called Doctors — just opposite the hospital in Forrest Road.’

‘Then let’s go there.’

As they spoke, Gavin noticed that Caroline seemed completely at ease, while he himself was nervous and felt the need to smile a lot. He learned that Caroline came from Keswick in the Lake District and was the daughter of a GP. ‘It runs in the family: my granddad was a GP too. I’ll probably end up doing the same.’

‘I’m from Liverpool.’

Caroline smiled. ‘I’d never have guessed...’

‘Oh, right... my accent.’

‘It’s nice,’ said Caroline. ‘You sound like the early interviews with John Lennon. My folks were big Beatles fans.’

Gavin smiled non-committally.

‘Tell me about your research.’

‘What do you want to know?’

‘Everything.’

‘Well, cancer is really a cell division problem; it’s uncontrolled cell division of the patient’s —’

‘Yes, thank you, Gavin, I am a med student.’

‘Sorry. Then you’ll know that the problem when it comes to tackling it is that the tumour is made up of the patient’s own cells. It’s not a foreign body. It’s not different enough for drugs to be able to discriminate between the tumour and the body’s healthy cells, so any kind of treatment — chemotherapy or radiotherapy — will end up destroying perfectly normal tissue as well.’

‘Collateral damage.’

‘Exactly. What we need is some way of making the tumour cells appear different to either drugs or the immune system so that we can target the difference and leave normal tissue alone. Kill the bad guys, let the good guys live.’

‘But how can you if they’re identical?’

‘They’re identical in every way except for the division process. That’s the thing that’s gone wrong. Normal cells stop growing and dividing after a while, but cancer cells go on and on until they finish up as tumours. That key difference is where the answer lies.’

‘And you hope to find it. You’re going to find a cure for cancer,’ said Caroline.

‘That’s the plan,’ said Gavin.

Caroline raised her eyebrows, slightly taken aback at the confident answer.

‘It touches so many lives,’ said Gavin. ‘There’s hardly a family in the land that hasn’t been affected by it.’

‘Yes, I know,’ said Caroline sharply, with a look that stopped Gavin in his tracks. She took a sip of her drink and said, ‘Don’t you think you’re perhaps underestimating the size of the problem?’

‘There’s no point in looking at the size of the problem when you can be looking for the solution,’ said Gavin, his Liverpool accent coming to the fore.

‘I’m sure you’re right,’ said Caroline, taking another sip of her drink and glancing at her watch. ‘I’m assuming that cancer research involves team effort, or am I wrong?’

‘I’ve never been a big fan of teamwork,’ said Gavin.

‘Gosh...’ said Caroline slowly. ‘It seems a lot to take on by yourself...’

‘I’m going to give it my best shot,’ said Gavin, with a smile that wasn’t returned.

‘Good for you. Well, it’s getting late... I’d better be going.’

Gavin suddenly realised that things had gone pear-shaped, but wasn’t quite sure why. He tried damage limitation. ‘Look, maybe I could see you again?’

‘I’m sure we’ll bump into each other in the library.’

Gavin took the knock-back. ‘Sure.’

Caroline turned to face him when they’d left the pub. ‘Thanks for the drink.’

‘Thanks for the photocopies. I’m going that way,’ said Gavin, indicating north.

Caroline indicated south. ‘Good night.’

Gavin made his way along George IV Bridge to the junction with the High Street. He was angry with himself for having blown it with Caroline and opted to walk home, even though the temperature had fallen below freezing and the pavements were icy. Physical effort and discomfort could bring distraction and this was what he sought. A two-mile, sub-zero walk was going to clear his head for some late-night study of the article he had copied.

The lights of Princes Street were spread out beneath him as he started to snake his way down the Mound — the broad, winding thoroughfare that joined the Old Town of Edinburgh, with its narrow, cobbled streets and towering tenements, to the grandeur of the Georgian New Town that lay to the north — a steep incline that had been constructed from earth excavated from the land in front of the Castle Rock. He had come to like this view a lot in the short time he’d been living here: the castle, majestic, illuminated, perched high up to his left on its rock, and the classically-columned art galleries nestling down below to his right. Tonight it all looked particularly beautiful because of the frost, which sparkled on the pavements and coated the black iron railings. There was even a full moon. Walt Disney couldn’t have done it better.

‘Hi, Gav,’ said a man in his late twenties when Gavin got in. Tim Anderson, the oldest of the four flatmates and the lease agreement holder, worked for Scottish Widows, a large insurance company. He was nursing a mug of coffee and watching late-night sport on TV — highlights of football matches played earlier. ‘Cathy was asking if you’re going home for Christmas. I think she wants to invite her boyfriend to stay if you are.’

‘I haven’t made my mind up, but I’ll definitely be here for New Year. I hear the fireworks are worth seeing.’

‘They are. They’re bloody brilliant. You’re out late tonight. Get lucky?’

‘Library,’ said Gavin.

‘Jesus, I thought students spent all their time drinking beer and getting laid.’

‘Not in the library. How did Liverpool get on?’

‘Won three-nil.’

‘Happiness is...’ said Gavin, kicking off his shoes.

‘You know, I can remember when Hibs were in a European competition. I was in short trousers like, but I can remember.’

‘Maybe the good times will come back.’

Tim shook his head. ‘No, I saw them on Saturday.’

‘Well, I’ve got some reading to do,’ said Gavin, picking up his shoes and rucksack. ‘Are the other two in?’

Tim nodded.

‘I’ll put the snib on the door. G’night.’

Gavin’s room was at the back of the building. It was consequently quieter than the ones at the front but was much smaller — he had been the last to join the flat. There was barely room for a single bed, a small bedside table, one chair and a chest of drawers. There was a single, tall window looking out on the backs of other tenements and their communal drying greens, which were enclosed by buildings on all sides and segregated by rows of rusting iron railings. He looked down before closing his curtains and saw the green eyes of a cat on the prowl in the darkness. He turned on his electric fire and suffered the smell of burning dust as its single 750-watt element attempted to heat a room with a twelve-foot-high ceiling.

He pressed the button on the base of the table lamp and turned out the room light, immediately feeling at home when he saw the circular island of light in the darkness — the learning pool. He’d slid a lot of books into the learning pool over the years, and it was something he could create wherever he was in the world. He brought out the photocopy from his rucksack and pushed it under the light to begin reading.

Valdevan had been launched by the large international pharmaceutical company, Grumman Schalk, in 1979, amidst a blaze of publicity. The company’s research laboratories had trumpeted their success in finally coming up with a product which targeted tumour cells in preference to the patient’s healthy cells, killing the cancer cells in dramatic fashion in lab experiments. The drug had shown no significant toxic side-effects during volunteer trials, and licences had been granted for its use across the world. It seemed too good to be true, and so it had proved. The impressive success the drug had achieved in the laboratory had not translated into in vivo situations, and patients on Valdevan had fared no better than those being given other drugs. After a year of what amounted to dismal failure, the drug had been withdrawn from the market. Gavin scribbled down details of the lab methods used. The photographs of cell cultures had not come out well on the photocopy, but he thought he could see what he was looking for: a slight difference in the membrane of tumour cells undergoing treatment with Valdevan, when compared to those growing without the drug. He was, however, conscious of the danger of seeing what he wanted to see. After reading the paper in Cell, he had predicted in his own mind that there might be such a difference. He examined both illustrations again, turning them this way and that under the glow of the table lamp. Once again he felt that he could see a difference — a periodic pinching of the cell membrane in the presence of the drug — but the smudging on the photocopy definitely wasn’t helping. He would have to go back and take another look at the originals. He would drop into the library first thing in the morning.

He switched off the fire, cleared the table and got ready for bed, tiptoeing to the bathroom across the cold vinyl of the hall in order not to wake the others. When he came back, he turned out the light, opened the curtains so that he could see the sky, and slipped between the sheets. They were icy cold. A frosty moon looked back at him.