Palindrome Page 14

  “I hope you’ve got enough energy left to finish your lunch, Nick?” Pat said, pointing at his empty plate. “Do help yourself to some more meat.”

  “Yes, do,” Gabriel said. “Pat was thrown into a paralysis of anxiety over what to cook for you two. First, she couldn’t remember what you liked, Nick; then, she wondered whether Carla might be a vegetarian or not eat this or that.”

  “The food is perfect,” Carla said. She emitted an abrupt staccato laugh. “I eat everything.”

  “South Americans like meat,” Grant said, spearing a piece of beef on his fork and gazing at it intently before popping the fork into his mouth. “They have too much of it. Probably accounts for a lot — that energy and temper of Carla’s...”

  Grant finished eating and laid down his knife and fork. Since he always bolted his food he had to wait awkwardly while others finished theirs. He stretched out his legs and yawned. His eyes and eyebrows were smiling but his mouth had a sardonic twist.

  Gabriel knew that Nick Grant was clever and highly educated but suspected that he had quirks of character that made relationships with him difficult. Grant talked about serious things but never seriously. In fact, the most characteristic thing about his conversation was its wise-cracking style. That humour now seemed to grate on his wife who kept giving him disapproving looks.

  Carla got up and went inside to find the bathroom. Grant followed her with his eyes; his look was anxious, almost beseeching. When she returned he watched her run a hand negligently through her hair, pushing her straggling black curls to one side. During the whole afternoon Carla, like her hosts, drank no more than two glasses of wine. The rest fell mostly to Grant who could drink almost any amount without getting drunk. He topped up Pat’s wine glass when he filled his own again.

  “You’re both spoilt, I suppose, dining in at college,” he remarked.

  Gabriel answered for the two of them. “Not really. I don’t go often. I’m usually too busy or too tired, and Pat only dines in when she has a late tutorial or a college meeting. Isn’t that right?”

  She nodded.

  “We’re not like Palmer,” Gabriel continued. “He dines in regularly at his college.”

  “Bachelor, is he?” Grant asked.

  Gabriel nodded. “Yes, he’s something of an Oxford type.”

  “What does that mean?” Carla asked in all innocence.

  “Oxford — the college and science — are his life.”

  “How does he get his kicks then?” asked Grant.

  “I really couldn’t tell you. But some scientists get a real buzz out of what they do — discovering something new, doing experiments that prove their ideas right. Even the struggle to get the funds to keep their research going, which is something we all complain about, has its own rewards: it gives you bragging rights over others. It’s a competitive business and there are some who relish that sort of competition. Scientists like Palmer like the game.”

  “I’ve met him on a few college committees,” Pat said, cutting a potato in half. “He’s very much the eminence grise; he likes to get into corners and plot, make secret pacts with other dons, those that count in the University.”

  “It sounds as if he likes playing games,” Grant said.

  “He does and some people would say it is all one game,” Gabriel observed. “You have to be as much a politician as a scientist to survive in Oxford these days.”

  “Anyway, he knows how to play the murder game,” said Grant. “It’s good that he was nowhere around Nebotec when the murder was committed.”

  “Do you think the police see people as either good or bad?” Pat asked.

  “Actually, as far as I can tell, they see most people as bad.”

  “But they must come across some who are good? Innocent people?”

  “They’re not bothered about them. They’re paid to catch the ones that aren’t.”

  Carla yawned. She was struggling to follow what was being said. What was the point of all this talk? She refused Nick’s offer of more wine.

  “Who else is in the frame?” Pat asked.

  “Take your pick,” Gabriel answered.

  “Not now,” Grant said, leaning back in his chair. “I’m too tired.”

  “You’re always tired,” Carla observed, suddenly recognising something in the conversation to which she could contribute. Her expression was stony, like that of a child who does not understand why she has not been allowed out to play.

  Pat noted her discomfiture and with unabashed eagerness announced, “I know what we all need. A brisk walk. The days not so rotten. We could go for a walk to the Boarstall Tower.”

  Carla, the young Carla, turned enthusiastically towards her husband, but Grant, the old Grant, comfortably settled in his chair, cut her off with a shake of his head.

  The numbers in the Hospital Trust boardroom gradually swelled. The octagonal clock above a notice board said a few minutes of two. Most of the staff were seated. A few were standing around a trolley on which there was a machine that dispensed coffee and tea which was clearly not to everyone’s taste given the number of discarded cups that were half-full.

  Those management staff who were seated had already begun leafing through a thick report in a plastic ring binder. A few were talking in subdued voices that seemed curiously to amplify what they were saying, causing others to look at them with annoyance. An instant hush, not unlike that which greets the raising of the curtain in a theatre, met the arrival of Poole, the Medical Director, and Sheila Jones, the Chief Executive.

  The meeting began immediately after the two of them sat down without any thought of waiting for anyone else to arrive; it was somehow understood that their presence alone was important; some of the board members with a canine instinct that recognised authority set down their cups and looked toward them, waiting to be instructed.

  Poole spoke first in a way that was half wedding toast, half teacher instructing dull students. His speech was rapid, a kind of urgent monotone that left almost no break between the words; it was as if he had calculated that pauses gave people time to think, or worse, ask questions. Jargon phrases and a string of obscure but important acronyms punctuated his exordium which went on and on:

  “The SHA... the PCT... the NHS... options... equality... patient choice... service review... service delivery... options... equality... the future... grateful to all the managers... and a heartfelt word of thanks to Sheila and her staff who had worked so hard on getting the figures together.”

  This last was greeted with a murmur of approval and Poole was duly comforted and satisfied by the response. He grinned weakly along the line of his colleagues until he came to a seat near the window where Gabriel sat. A few peered in the same direction, not with alarm but with curiosity and a little surprise, for the first time noticing Gabriel’s presence. Perhaps they were surprised to see him there. He generally avoided attending management meetings, preferring to send Liz Reynolds or another member of the consultant staff in his place.

  Sheila Jones followed Poole’s opening remarks with a summary of the findings of the management review, opening the report at certain marked pages and outlining where it was intended that changes to services could be made; she spoke clearly and forcefully like a strict parent.

  Poole shifted his position in the chair while she spoke. He was small, sturdy and overweight; he bulged out of his suit. He adjusted the crease of his trousers at the level of the knee, first on the left, then the right. All his movements, like his speech, were abrupt; they carried with them something of a threat; whether he was speaking or not he seemed to dominate the show. Gabriel was struck by the way Poole looked as if he was the only one who counted; the other managers all seemed to look toward him before voicing their opinions.

  Gabriel could not help noticing that there were an awful lot of women at this meeting — they outnumbered the men two to one. Several of them spoke after the chief executive ended her summary. They fundamentally agreed with what had just been said and their
talk, littered as it was with the same jargon and acronyms, reminded him of liturgical responses.

  “What about the effect of all these intended changes on patients?” asked Julian Quinn, a medical oncologist, one of the few jobbing clinicians besides Gabriel present at the meeting.

  Poole smiled when this question was asked. He had expected it and immediately launched into a long, well-prepared reply that made points one, two, three, four, before going on to conclude that the service was clearly not being run efficiently and therefore not benefiting patients by all measurable parameters.

  “But it works,” interjected Gabriel. “And although it doesn’t work perfectly, it works well enough. Julian makes a good point. You should always think carefully before changing something that does the job.”

  For one moment, just one moment, Poole’s composure seemed to desert him. He stared furiously at Gabriel then at Quinn as if not sure which of them to destroy first; it looked as if he was considering whether to rush down the table and physically assault them for challenging his authority.

  But it all remained very civilised, very controlled — this was England, after all — and, as if on cue, a stern-looking, brick-shaped woman from the Finance Department, another member of the housewife brigade as Gabriel uncharitably saw all the women on this committee, supported Poole’s case, making the point that the projected revenue would be unable to cover the present level of service delivery.

  Poole kept his eyes on Gabriel. Head cocked, he seemed to be looking out for any sign of a movement or word of disapproval. In vain. It was Quinn who spoke first.

  “It’s difficult to see though how the service can operate at all if you make the cuts you intend. And these plans to re-grade all the non-clinical staff, they won’t go down well.”

  Good for Quinn, thought Gabriel. He was worrying the right areas of the report.

  “All the changes will be made in consultation with the staff,” Poole said. “They’ll have an opportunity to object to their re-banding if they wish.”

  Gabriel was aware of a hesitation in Poole’s voice; it seemed to signify concealment.

  “I suppose my laboratory and other diagnostic support staff will have to go through the same process?” Gabriel queried.

  “Of course,” Poole answered. “But it’s unlikely there will be much re-banding there. It’s the overmanned (and overpaid I must say) secretarial staff that this exercise is most directed towards.”

  “But there are few enough secretaries to do the work already,” said Gabriel. “Don’t you realise that as you’ve increased the work of the hospital year on year you’ve increased the volume of work they have to deal with as well? If some of them leave on account of this exercise then I predict chaos. This whole rebanding exercise is all about saving money.”

  Poole’s reply was long and rambling; it pointed out the hospital management’s financial responsibility and the need for the trust to break even this year. That could only be made through rationalisation of both services and staff, all of whom would be looked after. Those secretaries who did not accept their new contract would be offered redundancy.

  “I predict that the trust will end up re-employing them as agency staff to get through the work that will pile up,” Gabriel observed. “And for that they will have to be paid at a higher hourly rate. It doesn’t make sense. I can’t see huge savings resulting from this exercise. It will just antagonise staff and further damage morale.”

  The meeting broke up soon after that. It is a matter of record that no vote was taken on the matter discussed, but that was expected: this was, after all, a strategic and not an executive meeting. The management staff left the room in curious disarray, looking at neither Poole nor Gabriel who was still smiling at his last stupid remark.

  All Gabriel’s relations with “management” were like this: there was the obligatory game of opening assertions, then objections, followed by polite temporising with the promise of consultation before inevitable implementation. You could never exactly calculate the first management move in advance but you could bet that it was motivated by political or financial pressure rather than concern for patients or staff.

  Gabriel left with Quinn. They both felt a curious sense of release when they left the room, like coming out of church after a long and dreary service. They were both restored by the functional world they re-entered. This was the NHS they knew: the NHS that was concerned with patients, not money.

  “They’ll throw the baby out with the bath water,” Quinn said with an embarrassed laugh as they passed through the vociferous overcrowded outpatients department.

  “That’s a risk they never seem to mind taking,” Gabriel answered, peeling away from him further down the corridor to descend a set of stairs that led to the Pathology Department.

  An hour later Gabriel was working, analysing the results of investigations which sorted out for him the diagnosis of several difficult cases. He dictated his reports on them as well as some correspondence before giving the tape to Jane his secretary who accepted it with a panting smile.

  Jane was polite but not deeply respectful to him, and he was the same with her. She was no great beauty but she had attractive clear blue eyes and a pleasant voice. Just as with Pat at home she was the greatest help in getting him through his day. She was very capable, a good organiser, not afraid to make decisions. Now she kept him going, bringing him in a cup of black coffee when he needed it. Gabriel thanked her and settled down to some long-delayed reading of an article on nuclear palindromes.

  Ten minutes later the telephone rang.

  “I’ve got Tom Duncan ,” said Jane’s panting voice.

  The name was a nagging reminder, a little like a shred of celery lodged between his back teeth.

  “Tom,” he repeated. “All right, Jane, put him through.”

  “No, he’s here,” said Jane. “He’s come to see you.” She must have judged that Gabriel was not sufficiently occupied. Before he could say another word, she concluded, “I’ll send him in.”

  Gabriel guessed that Tom wanted either to consult him about a diagnosis or to discuss his research on bone marrow transplantation. It turned out to be the latter and a short time later his desk was littered with the papers and graphs that contained Tom’s most recent findings on certain mutations in transplanted bone marrow cells.

  “The results look very promising,” said Gabriel. “It shouldn’t be long before you can write them up and submit a research paper.”

  Tom Duncan nodded. His glasses had steel-coloured rims which gave him a forbidding, unwelcome appearance. He was dressed like a bank clerk: white shirt, plain dark tie and neatly pressed trousers. His sober appearance as usual worked against him. He looked unimaginative, conventional: too trad which, in Gabriel’s estimation, he was.

  “I was rather hoping to have the paper submitted before the interview for the Clinical Tutor post and to include it as part of my MD thesis.”

  “I wouldn’t worry about that. There’s nothing to stop you talking about it at the interview. Your research is going well but it’s not quite at the stage where it can be submitted. There are a few more experiments to be done.”

  Tom nodded resignedly. His eyes had a desperate look. Gabriel was again reminded of the prisoner facing the firing squad in Goya’s The Third of May 1808.

  “You shouldn’t be in such a hurry to write up the paper.” Gabriel continued. “This is not a business, you know. We’re not in competition with anyone, despite what people tell you about research groups vying with each other to be the first to publish this or that new finding. It’s more important to be right than first.”

  Tom was silent. His cheeks coloured. His face showed a respect for Gabriel’s name and position but Gabriel could see from the expression in his eyes that he was disappointed. Perhaps puzzled as well. These words from a professor who ran an academic department the performance of which was measured in terms of scientific output must have struck him as strange. Gabriel felt uncomfortable and t
alked longer than necessary. Behind his words of advice there was the kind of pity one reserves for those with a serious illness. Tom Duncan seemed to have few friends in the department and Gabriel wondered if that was because his colleagues looked on him the same way.

  When Gabriel finished speaking there was a short pause during which Tom appeared to be contemplating whether to pursue the subject further. Just as in his work he seemed to fear making a decision. He looked at Gabriel, his gaze stricken with doubt. He did not seem to know what to say. It was as if he knew that the one thing that troubled him would not be the end of it: that he would have to face a second and then a third because that had always been his fate.

  When the words finally came they rushed almost involuntarily from his lips. “May I ask what’s happening about the Clinical Tutor post? Is it still going ahead?”

  Tom seemed instantly to regret his words as if he recognised that he might have gone too far. There was no doubt about it, thought Gabriel: the post meant a lot to him. The buxom Mrs Tom had given him, in the intervals of working as a midwife, a new baby and very likely the financial pressures which come with that blessing.

  “I can’t say too much about it, but it is going through. Dr Reynolds and I have each drawn up a short list and we’ve submitted it to Human Resources. We’re waiting to hear back from the others on the interview panel. These things tend to proceed slowly these days. I shouldn’t tell you this, I suppose, but both Liz and I short-listed you. I’m sure the others will as well so I wouldn’t make any holiday plans before the interview.”

  Tom laughed with relief but could only say, “That’s good”. Gabriel, fixing his gaze on him, asked, “Why did you think it might not be going ahead?”

  “I just wondered with all that’s happened — Anna Taylor’s death, I mean — it might have changed things.”

  “No, why should it?”