Hypocrite's Isle

Four

‘It’s come!’ A week had passed when Gavin burst into Frank Simmons’ office holding a small, plastic vial in one hand and reading excitedly from a covering letter in the other. ‘“Five grams Valdevan... for research purposes only... not for therapeutic use. Please sign and return agreement.” They’ve given it to me. Brilliant!’

‘Good show,’ said Simmons, who had been in the middle of a telephone conversation, but Gavin’s enthusiasm had overcome his annoyance. ‘The sooner you get started the better then.’

Mary and Tom exchanged smiles as Gavin, whistling loudly and tunelessly, started moving around the lab at a hundred miles an hour.

‘He’s like a ferret on speed,’ whispered Tom.

‘I think I preferred him when he was thinking,’ replied Mary.

‘Mary, what’s the best way to sterilise a solution of Valdevan?’ Gavin called across the lab.

‘Is it soluble in water?’

Gavin scanned through the specification sheet that accompanied the letter, tracing each line with his fingertip. ‘Yup, it says so.’

‘Then use a Millipore syringe filter. You’ll find one in the top drawer of the island bench. Be careful not to touch the business end with your fingers.’

‘I’m not a complete idiot.’

‘Sorry... I forgot... I think you may even have mentioned that...’

‘Light blue touch paper and retire immediately,’ whispered Tom under his breath, but Gavin was too busy to come back at Mary. He weighed out a little of the drug and dissolved it in distilled water before sucking up the solution into the barrel of a 10 ml syringe and expressing the solution through the filter membrane into a small, sterile bottle. ‘There we go...’ He returned to his desk in the corner of the lab, not so much to sit at it as sprawl over it, supporting his head with one hand while he made some calculations on a spiral-bound pad with the other, his fingers curled awkwardly round the pen. He occasionally broke off to use the end of the pen to punch numbers into a calculator as he worked out how much of the drug to add to the cell cultures. His plan — discussed and previously agreed with Frank Simmons — was to use several different concentrations of the drug in cultures: one of them would contain the manufacturer’s recommended dose, the others higher or lower levels.

He rechecked his figures before circling the calculated amounts and bringing out a number of flat glass bottles from the incubator. These were the cell cultures to be used for the experiment. They contained lab-stock tumour cells maintained at human body temperature. The bottles had been mounted on a piece of apparatus which had been timed to tilt them at regular intervals, ensuring that the cells which had stuck to the glass as they grew would be evenly bathed in nutrients and encouraged to form a continuous monolayer.

He placed each of the bottles in turn on the stage of an inverted microscope. The unusual configuration of this instrument ensured that it was possible to examine the cells from below, rather than above as with a conventional microscope. In this way, it was possible to focus on them without having to penetrate the culture fluid as well as the glass.

Mary and Tom noticed that the whistling had stopped. Gavin was sitting quite motionless, his eyes glued to the binocular eyepiece in what now seemed to be an eerie silence as his fingers gently moved the fine-focus control to and fro.

Eventually he sat up and started rubbing his forehead in a nervous gesture.

‘Problems?’ asked Mary.

‘There’s something wrong...’

Mary stopped what she was doing and went over to take Gavin’s place at the microscope. She smoothed back a wayward strand of her hair and examined all three cultures in turn. ‘They’re contaminated,’ she said. ‘Definite signs of bacterial contamination.’

‘But how?’

‘It’s the easiest thing in the world for bacteria to get into cell cultures when you’re setting them up. Your technique has to be really good, and even then some bug is still going to find its way into them on occasion. Who prepared these ones?’

‘I did.’

‘You did?’ repeated Mary slowly. ‘Why? We have a cell culture lab with trained staff. Why didn’t you ask the technicians to do it?’

‘I wanted to do it myself...’

Mary bit her lip. She was trying to think of something kind to say. ‘That’s fine if you wanted the experience... but did you ask for advice? Did you ask the technicians to show you how to do it properly?’

Gavin said not. ‘I read up on it. It seemed straightforward enough...’

‘You can learn to swim from a book, Gavin. Trouble is, you’ll drown when you hit the water because you’ve no idea what it feels like. There’s a big gulf between theory and practice in everything.’

‘Shit. Where do I go from here?’

‘I suggest you help yourself to a slice of humble pie and go ask the technicians for advice.’

Gavin turned and left the lab. Mary shrugged her shoulders and asked Tom, ‘Do you think I was too hard on him?’

‘Far from it. He seems determined to do everything on his own. One-man bands are all very well — and you have to admire the ingenuity that goes into them — but at the end of the day... they still sound shit.’

Mary picked up the phone and called the cell culture lab. ‘Trish? It’s Mary. Gavin Donnelly’s coming down to see you — he’s probably on his way as we speak. He screwed up his cell cultures and needs some help. Don’t be too hard on him.’

‘We offered to set them up for him in the first place but he insisted on doing it himself, as if he didn’t trust us.’

‘Well, that’s ridiculous,’ soothed Mary. ‘You guys are the best. It’s just the way Gavin is. He’s such a loner...’

‘Tosser more like...’ murmured Tom.

‘Okay, Mary. We won’t tell him to go screw himself... this time.’

But Gavin was not on his way to the cell culture suite. He had left the building and was making his way across the Meadows, the large green area to the south of the medical school, which separated the southern fringes of the Old Town from the respectable sandstone Victorian villas and tenements of the Marchmont and Bruntsfield areas. He had to bow his head against a bitter wind and thrust his hands deep in the pockets of his jeans to stop his fingers going numb. He had no real idea of where he was going. He just had to get out of the building. He had made a fool of himself and it was eating away at him, making his face burn with anger and embarrassment. Humble pie definitely wasn’t on the menu for today, but alcohol certainly was.

‘You’re late and you’re drunk,’ said Caroline when Gavin joined her in Doctors at ten past eight.

Gavin took one look at her face and mumbled, ‘Give me a break, not you as well...’

Caroline continued to stare at him, her silence demanding an explanation.

‘Look, I’ve just had a shit-awful day, right?’

‘And I can see how you’re dealing with it,’ said Caroline with a look of utter distaste.

‘Jesus,’ murmured Gavin, avoiding her gaze by looking down at the table.

Caroline gave him a few moments to elaborate, but when nothing was forthcoming she said in carefully measured tones, ‘Well, I’ve had a shit-awful day too.’

Gavin saw that her hands were shaking slightly. He interpreted this at first as anger, but when he looked at her he saw that there was something more. She looked hopelessly vulnerable.

‘My father phoned me this morning... my mother’s cancer has come back. She had breast cancer three years ago and they thought they’d caught it in time... but apparently not. It’s come back. Want to top that with your shit-awful day?’

‘Jesus, Carrie, I don’t know what to say...’

‘Of course not, you’re drunk and in no position to say anything without making a complete arse of yourself, so please don’t try. Just climb back into your trough of self-pity and leave me alone. This was always a bad idea.’

‘Carrie...’

Caroline got up and left without looking back. Gavin tried to follow but stumbled over a chair leg and fell to the floor. A barman appeared at his elbow and hovered threateningly as he struggled to get up. ‘All right... I’m going.’

The cold air made him wince as, in his drink-befuddled state, he set off in pursuit of Caroline to beg forgiveness. He called out her name every few yards. ‘Carrie, I’m so sorry... please believe me...’

He finally came to a halt when, after a few minutes, he rounded a corner where he could see the road for more than two hundred yards ahead. Caroline was nowhere to be seen. ‘Shit,’ he murmured, finally conceding defeat. He turned slowly to start heading back. He had only gone a few yards when he was confronted by three youths who had emerged silently from the alley they had been standing in.

‘Student tosser,’ said one, flicking his cigarette butt across Gavin’s path.

‘Always moanin’ about their grants. Never enough for the buggers. Look at him, pissed as a newt. These bastards are having a laugh.’

Gavin stepped off the pavement to pass them by, but one of them elbowed him in the side. ‘Is that right, fucker? You havin’ a laugh at us?’

Gavin tried to continue on his way but was tripped from behind and a foot thudded into his body as he tried to get up. ‘Bastard!’ he gasped.

Seizing on any excuse he sensed might afford him the moral high-ground, one of the yobs grabbed Gavin. ‘What did you fuckin’ call me?’

Gavin tried to focus on the hate-filled face but could make out little more than acne and gritted teeth. ‘Oh, fuck off...’

Kick after kick rained in on Gavin, until a bad day ended in a pool of his own vomit and merciful unconsciousness. He awoke at three in the morning in A&E.

‘Welcome back,’ said a voice that sounded vaguely familiar.

‘I know you...’

‘Simon Young, Mary’s boyfriend,’ said the voice. ‘You’re in hospital.’

Gavin blinked against the light with his right eye. He couldn’t open his left. He eventually recognised the tall, fair-haired man he had met in the postgrad union. ‘How are you doing?’

Young smiled at the enquiry. ‘I’m fine. I won’t ask how you’re doing: I know. I’ve just spent the last half hour examining you. I’m glad I didn’t offend the guy who did this to you. You obviously upset him big time...’

‘There were three of them. I got pissed; I got mugged,’ mumbled Gavin. ‘Shit happens. What’s the damage?’

‘Three broken ribs and a face your girlfriend might struggle to recognise for a few days.’

‘Don’t have a girlfriend any more...’

‘This wasn’t over a girl, was it?’

‘No, some locals decided to express their doubts about the value of higher education.’

‘Student bashing? Happens a lot.’

‘Good to know...’

‘Your being pissed didn’t help...’

‘We’ll have to disagree about that,’ said Gavin, attempting to sit up. ‘Where are my clothes?’

‘You’re in no fit state to go anywhere.’

Gavin let out an involuntary gasp. ‘You may be right...’ he agreed, putting his hands to his head as pain seemed to hit him from all directions.

‘Just lie back down, get some sleep, old son,’ soothed Young. ‘Tomorrow is another day.’

Gavin appeared in the lab at three the following afternoon. To a large extent, what had happened had wiped out the fact that he had gone off in a huff after discovering that his cell cultures were contaminated. All people wanted to talk about were his injuries and what had happened.

‘Ye gods,’ murmured Mary when she saw him. ‘Simon said you’d taken a bit of a beating...’

Gavin found it hard to adopt any facial expression at all, the left side of his face had swollen so much. It also kept his left eye closed.

‘You should be home in bed.’

‘I have to talk to the girls in the cell culture suite. Humble pie, remember? My favourite, yum yum.’

‘I’d put a paper bag over my head first,’ said Tom. ‘You might scare them.’

‘Fine... if you’ll put a plastic one over yours.’

‘Boys, boys,’ soothed Mary, walking over to the incubator and bringing out three cell culture bottles. ‘Actually, I asked around yesterday and the Macmillan group had some going spare. They say you can use these if you like.’

Gavin seemed speechless for a moment, then he said, ‘That’s great. I don’t know what to say...’

‘I think I’d go with “thank you very much” if I were you,’ said Tom.

‘Yeah... yeah... thanks a million, Mary. That was really kind.’

‘No, Gavin,’ said Mary, handing over the bottles. ‘It was really normal behaviour round here. Try to get your head round that. Incidentally, I put your Valdevan solution in the fridge. You left it lying out on the bench.’

Gavin accepted the rebuke with a grimace and gave a nod of thanks. ‘Thanks again... I guess this means I can set up the experiment right now.’

‘I guess it does,’ said Mary. ‘If you think your aseptic technique is good enough, that is...’

‘You don’t think it is?’

‘If you’re depending on what you learned in undergraduate classes and from what you’ve read in books, probably not.’

Gavin took a deep breath and let it out slowly. ‘Would you consider showing me?’

‘Get your stuff together.’

They moved over to the corner of the lab where a bench was kept for ‘clean manipulation’. Mary collected a variety of instruments and placed them in a glass beaker which she filled a third full with pure alcohol. She lit a Bunsen burner. ‘Flame everything,’ she said. ‘Every time you remove a cap from a bottle, flame the neck to keep it sterile. Every time you use an instrument, take it from the beaker and pass it through the flame so that the burning alcohol sterilises it. After a while it’ll become second nature.’

Mary took a pair of surgical gloves from the dispenser and put them on before picking up an automatic pipette. ‘How much drug do you want to add to the first one?’ she asked.

‘0.5 mils.’

Gavin watched as Mary set the volume and expertly carried out the procedure. She made sure that she did it slowly enough for him to take in every step. ‘Okay?’

‘I think so.’

Mary did another two before asking, ‘Want to try?’

‘Sure,’ said Gavin.

Mary gave up her seat to Gavin, who sat down and carried out the same procedure but using a different amount of the drug. He did so with a deal less fluidity than Mary, but then he had to think about everything he did.

‘Great,’ said Mary. ‘One more and we’re through.’

Gavin went through the inoculating procedure once more. This time he was a bit clumsy with the automatic pipette and touched the tip against the bench. He was about to continue when Mary said, ‘Bin it.’

Gavin discarded the tip, using the ejector mechanism, and fitted a new one.

‘Never take chances,’ said Mary. ‘Regard all surfaces as contaminated.’

Gavin finished and carried the culture bottles carefully to the incubator where he placed them on the tilt mechanism, making sure they were seated properly before clicking the door shut and feeling himself relax. He hadn’t realised he’d been so tense.

‘Okay?’

Gavin attempted a smile, but the pain it brought ensured it was short-lived. ‘Thanks, Mary, thanks a lot.’

‘You’re welcome. Maybe you should go home now and rest up?’

Gavin nodded. ‘I’d better just touch base with Frank first.’

Gavin knocked on Frank Simmons’ door.

Simmons frowned when he saw Gavin’s face. ‘God, that looks painful.’

‘Looks worse than it is.’

‘Sit down. Tell me about it.’

‘Not much to tell really. I had a bad day, drank a bit too much and got a bit of a kickin’ from three locals who figured I was pissin’ their hard-earned taxes against the wall.’

‘You seem to be taking it very well,’ said Simmons, impressed at the way Gavin was seeking to play down such a bad experience.

‘It’s an average night out in Liverpool,’ said Gavin, making Simmons laugh out loud. ‘Anyway, I thought I’d just tell you that the experiment is up and running. Mary got me some cell cultures from the Macmillan group after I screwed up big time yesterday.’

‘I heard you’d had problems. It happens to the best of us. Cell culture is more of an art than a science.’

‘Mary’s just given me a master class in aseptic technique.’

‘Good. I’m glad things are starting to move. In the meantime, why don’t you go home and get some rest? There’s nothing much you can do here until the cultures have run their course.’