‘Tell me,’ said Macandrew drowsily as he closed his eyes and put his head back on the shower wall.
Simone reached up and yanked the regulator over to COLD, causing Macandrew to let out a yelp of surprise. ‘Make an omelette,’ she said.
‘Will you come with me to the lab tomorrow?’ Simone asked from the kitchen.
‘If you like.’
‘I’d like you to see my results with the in vitro cell system. I haven’t been able to show them to anyone and you would be the perfect collaborator. It’s no good having a cure that only works in the lab...’
Macandrew was slow to respond to this and Simone noticed. ‘There’s something wrong with that idea?’ she asked.
‘It might take time to set up,’ said Macandrew. ‘Getting permission to perform any kind of surgical research in the mid west of the USA isn’t easy.’
‘I see,’ said Simone, in a tone that suggested that she didn’t. ‘Is that all that’s worrying you?’
Macandrew had no heart for verbal chess. ‘I’m not operating at the moment. I’m not sure if I ever will again.’
Simone stopped what she was doing and came through to stand in the doorway. Macandrew had his back to her but knew she was there. He told her what had happened while continuing to gaze unseeingly out of the window.
‘But that is absolutely awful!’ Simone came over and joined him. She took his hands gently in hers. ‘When will you know?’
‘The pain has all but gone and I seem to have freedom of movement but whether it’s going to be good enough for surgery... well, that’s something I still have to find out. I’ll spend some time in the autopsy room when I get back and see how I get on with a knife in my hand. Practice on the dead makes perfect on the living, as an old professor at med school used to say.’
‘What an absolutely awful thing to happen,’ said Simone. ‘So this is how you came to be in Scotland in November?’
Macandrew nodded. ‘I had to get away. I needed something to take my mind off things so I thought I’d do what we Americans tend to do and come to Europe to trace my roots.’
Simone said, ‘And you got more than you bargained for.’
‘And then some.’
They ate and spent the rest of the evening getting to know each other, telling each other about their backgrounds and how they came to enter medicine. A second bottle of wine came into play and the conversation moved on from talk of the academic systems in their respective countries to memories of student days and finally to childhood confessions as they became perfectly comfortable with each other.
Macandrew learned how Simone had once stolen her sister’s clothes while she was bathing naked in a pool near the family’s summer home in Provence. He owned up to once emptying large amounts of liquid soap into the fountain in the grounds of his school in Boston on prize-giving day.
As it grew late, the wine and the events of the day started to take its toll on both of them. Macandrew noticed Simone’s eyelids coming together. He said gently, ‘It’s been a long day: you’re tired.’
Simone smiled and said sleepily, ‘Thank you for saving my life today.’
‘Don’t mention it,’ replied Macandrew. ‘It’s a man thing.’
The morning was cold and damp and a fine drizzle settled on Simone’s hair as they waited at the front door for the police car that was to take them up to the Seventh University of Paris. When it finally did arrive, they got in and sat in silence as they made painfully slow progress through the early morning traffic.
‘Not very lovely, I’m afraid,’ said Simone as they pulled up outside a concrete campus which was still scarred by graffiti from student protests of many years before. ‘Nineteen sixty-eight.’ said Simone in answer to Macandrew’s unspoken question.
‘Of course,’ said Macandrew after a moment’s thought. ‘The famous Paris student riots — the folks who were going to change the world. Wonder what became of them,’ he said as he tried to decipher the messages living on in the fading spray-paint.
‘They became doctors and lawyers and accountants like every other generation I suppose,’ smiled Simone.
‘And now, with something to lose,’ said Macandrew, ‘they’re a bit more reticent with their demands for social justice.’
‘Do I detect a certain cynicism there?’ smiled Simone.
‘People are people. Don’t expect too much and you won’t be disappointed. That’s my motto.’
‘Definitely cynical.’
‘I prefer realistic.’
They arrived at a tower block building with the number 43 on it. ‘This is where I work,’ said Simone. The police driver who had walking a few paces behind them took up station at the entrance while Simone and Macandrew went inside. Macandrew carried his travel bag over his shoulder. It was his intention to catch a flight back to Edinburgh in the afternoon.
‘If you do find that your hands are all right for surgery...’ began Simone cautiously.
‘Then I’d like nothing better than to collaborate with you,’ interrupted Macandrew.
Simone relaxed. ‘Good; maybe I should give you some brain sections to examine,’ she said. ‘You can study them along with the topographical sketches I can also give you. You might like to carry out some feasibility studies while you’re down in Pathology? You could pinpoint the relevant area of the brain in cadavers and maybe think about the best surgical approach?’
‘I think I already have an idea how I might approach it but a lot depends on what has to be done to the cells to stimulate them.’
‘I’m hoping that simply bathing them directly in the activator will be enough to trigger them back into production,’ said Simone. ‘That’s what happens in the test tube.’
‘Then that should be possible with a minimum of invasive surgery — perhaps through the introduction of a flexible needle via the nasal route.’
‘I’d like you to see my data,’ said Simone. She brought out a thick file of papers from her desk and thumbed through them before picking out a graph and sliding it over to Macandrew. She came and stood behind him to emphasise various points.
Macandrew was aware of her nearness and her perfume.
‘This is where the protease was applied,’ said Simone. ‘You can see that production of Theta 1 stops almost immediately.’
Macandrew saw the flattening of the curve until it became a plateau. ‘Certainly does.’
‘And here is where I added back the activator.’ Simone pointed with the tip of her pen. ‘Production of the enzyme starts again after a delay of only a few minutes.’
Macandrew followed the line which took a steep rise. ‘No doubt about that and it’s back to normal in... four, five, six... less than seven minutes. That’s really impressive.’
‘Do you think so?’ said Simone, suddenly seeming vulnerable again and looking directly at him. ‘It would be so good to be able to do something for these people.’
‘If this works as well in vivo, then you’ve done it,’ said Macandrew. ‘You’ve found a cure.’
‘It’s still a big if,’ said Simone, turning away. She brought out a flat wooden box from a cupboard behind her desk and flicked open the lid. It contained rows of microscope slides. She ran her finger down the index on the lid and removed three, which she installed in a smaller cardboard box fitted with plastic guides to keep the slides apart. She sealed the box with tape. ‘These are the brain sections I mentioned,’ she said.
Macandrew slipped the box into his bag, checked his watch and got to his feet slowly. ‘Well, I guess I should be going,’ he said.