The Meddlers (22 page)

And when she looked at the baby in his cot, after reading of the hysterical assertions about his suffering at Dr. Briant’s hands, the spreading cult seemed to her to be such obvious nonsense anyway. How could he be the instrument that would bring sinful mankind back to God, as the evangelists said, this baby she fed, changed, bathed, and loved? To suggest so was ridiculous in Isobel’s eyes. It was easy, then, to dismiss the whole thing from her mind as an irrelevance.

And so for the past weeks she had gone on simply living from day to day, glorying in the baby’s developing attachment to her, the way he responded to her far more rapidly than to anyone else in the Unit, even though he saw them all so frequently. And as they came more and more to take her for granted, talking in front of her as freely as if she were as much a part of the research team as they were, she gained assurance. She let herself think about them as individuals and not just in relation to the baby.

She thought about Dr. Briant and his behavior, about the way Miss Hervey looked at him, the way they, together with Hilary Briant, would sit working and talking together for hours on end. She let herself wonder about them. Surmising about the people in the Unit brought an added interest to what was an undoubtedly circumscribed life.

But she never allowed herself to think about the work they were doing. If she had considered it at all, she would have expected to have become accustomed to the tests the baby underwent, the electroencephalograms, the blood tests, the collection of smears from his mouth, and the other tests she didn’t understand. In fact, each time one of the researchers arrived with a covered tray of equipment, she had to make an intense effort to maintain her quiet front, to appear as calm and unconcerned as she believed it essential to appear, though she ached to pull the syringes from their hands, and hold him close to her, defying them, refusing to allow them to touch him.

Yet despite her growing hatred of the things they did, she continued to keep her feelings in close check, living from four o’clock each day to three o’clock the next, steeling herself to accept what happened during that one hateful hour every afternoon.

And today, at five o’clock, the long safe hours of contentment stretched before her, hours in which she could safely love her baby and talk to him inside her head. She could sit in this warm quiet room, encapsulated away from the arguing people and the dingy gray skies she could see from the nursery window, happy until tomorrow afternoon at three o’clock.

  Hilary looked at the grayness of the cold sky outside the window and then at Barbara Hervey’s bent head and wondered whether it was worth pretending there was a draft that made it necessary for her to shift her chair. Then she could sit at the same side of the table. But that would mean she wouldn’t be able to look at her so easily without being noticed; and anyway, the last thing she wanted to do was give Barbara the idea that she, Hilary, was one of those silly types who fussed over physical discomfort.

It was lovely, the way the light lit the curve of her cheek, showing the faint downiness on her upper lip. She could see the tip of Barbara’s tongue at the corner of her mouth, and she shivered with a little frisson of pleasure; it made her look so defenseless, so very
real
, the way she did that, like a child just learning to write.

Barbara looked up and caught her eye and smiled, and Hilary felt herself redden and hated her own inability to control it.

“Bogged down? It’s not easy stuff, that. Do you need any help?”

“Oh, no! I’m … well, actually, there is a small thing.” She’d nearly missed an opportunity there. “I’m sorry to bother you. I mean, I can manage, I think, if you’re busy.”

“Oh, not to worry.” Barbara stretched her neck. “I’ll finish this today quite easily. Let’s see, then. Is it the graph or the readings?”

“Er, I’m not sure.” Hilary picked up her papers and came eagerly around the table to put them in front of Barbara. “Does this look right to you?”

Barbara took the graph and studied it for a moment. “Oh, this is lovely, Hilary! Really lovely. You make such a clean job of the things you do. Don’t tell him I said so, but Vernon’s graphs look like spiderwebs compared with these.”

“I’ll copy them if you like,” Hilary said quickly. “I like doing
graphs like this—making them neat, I mean. I … I’m awfully glad you like the way I do it.”

“Heavens, no! If we let you start going over other people’s work, there’ll be all hell to pay! And the last thing we dare do is upset people, the way things are. Half-pay is bad enough.”

She looked up and smiled as she saw the crestfallen look on Hilary’s face. “Oh, look, don’t be upset! It was sweet of you to offer. You weren’t to know that Vernon is the sort to get uppity about things. Now, don’t
you
go getting uppity too, will you?”

“Oh, of course not! I … I just want to be useful,” Hilary said and reddened again. “It … it’s so marvelous, working here with you like this.”

“It must be. It’s a great project,” Barbara said. “At your age I’d have given—oh, anything to work with someone like your father on such a project. He’s a great man, you know. You’re a very lucky girl.”

“Oh, I know. And it’s not just Daddy. I mean, I think … I think you’re all marvelous. You, specially. You work harder than anyone.” And then, with a daring of which she wouldn’t have thought herself capable, she added, “I worry about you sometimes.”

“Worry? About me? My dear Hilary! Whatever for? I’ve never been happier in a job before!”

“Well, you work so hard. You’re here to all hours every night. I can’t think how Daddy would get through it all without you.”

Barbara looked up at her sharply and then away. “Oh?” she said with a casual air. “Has has he remarked on it?”

“Oh, yes!” It’s not really a lie, she thought. If I asked him, he’d say it, I’m sure he would. “He thinks you—he really appreciates the things you do.”

“I … I don’t want appreciation. It’s such a vital piece of research, you know, I’m just happy to be able to work with—to work on it. But I’m glad your father is pleased.”

She stood up and moved away toward the window.

“Er, I don’t want to pry, Hilary, believe me, but, er, I worry too. About you and your father. It’s … I know a little about what
happened, of course, why you’re living here. I just wondered, how is your father feeling about things? He’s working much too hard. Never seems to relax, you know? Nor do you, of course. You could say
I’ve
been worrying about the Briants!” And she looked sideways at Hilary and laughed lightly. “All of us worrying about each other! Sounds like a television soap opera, doesn’t it?”

“Oh, no! It sounds nice,” Hilary said, and again the ready flush covered her cheeks. “When people worry about you it means they like you.”

“Of course I like you! When you work really closely with people you either like them or loathe them. You can’t be indifferent. And for me, well, I can’t work well if I’m not on good terms with my colleagues. That’s why I’m pleased your father likes … likes my work, you know? And why I’ve been concerned about him, about both of you.”

“Please, don’t be anxious,” Hilary said earnestly. “There’s no need. I’ve never been happier in all my life. Away from school—it was dismal, school—and doing real work, and having my father to look after, it’s marvelous. I … it was rather awful when—I mean, my mother and Ian—but it’s over now and, really, there’s no need to worry about us.”

“Your father too? I mean, you know, he’s not upset by—well, family problems can be depressing. Though he’s working better than ever, if that were possible. But he doesn’t say much about how he feels.”

“He never does. Except when he’s angry about something.” Hilary’s voice took on a tinge of pride. “He’s rather grim when he’s angry, isn’t he? Quite frightening, really.”

“Yes. I know what you mean. Though he only gets angry about important things. But I was wondering about … whether he misses your mother and brother. It can’t be easy for him.”

“No one could miss Ian!” Hilary said with sudden bitterness. “He gave Daddy a ghastly time. I know it sounds awful, but not having to put up with Ian is almost the best thing about it all.” Even to Barbara, Hilary couldn’t talk about her mother. She couldn’t even think about her; it had been easier to close her mind tightly into a box inside which her mother was locked.

“Brothers can be pretty ghastly,” Barbara said almost absently. “Teenage boys. Though I imagine your father is a bit—well, lonely sometimes?”

“I don’t think so. We’re very close, you know, Daddy and I. We can talk about the project, and that’s super. He needs to talk about work, and he couldn’t before, when I was at school. And at home it was—oh, you know. Not everyone is as interested in science as we are.”

“No. I know. Yes, I imagine you’re a great comfort to him. A great comfort.”

Barbara moved restlessly and went back to her chair and sat down again, and then she looked up at Hilary with a rather over-bright smile on her face. “But all the same, it’s a bit dreary for you both, just being tied to the Unit. I was wondering, er, I’d so much like you both to come and have dinner with me one evening. My flat’s not very big, but I’ve room for a small dinner party. Do you think your father would, er, like that?”

“Oh, that would be
super
!” Hilary was scarlet with pleasure. “I’m sure he would. I mean, apart from anything else, he must be sick of my awful cooking! Not that that would be the reason, I mean. Oh, I am awful! That sounded so greedy.”

Barbara laughed. “Not in the least! I know exactly what you meant! Well, I’ll leave it with you to talk to him about it. Next Saturday—would that be all right?”

They spent the remainder of the dwindling afternoon ostensibly working on the graphs. But Hilary was anxiously considering whether she could stretch her small budget to buy flowers to take to the dinner party, and Barbara was equally anxiously planning a menu designed to show George Briant that she was as good a cook as she was a biologist.

Gurney left the House by the St. Stephen’s Hall entrance, for once forgoing the pleasure of using a members-only way out; there was no point in seeking the stab of pleasure he got from being recognized as an MP by the people who hung about staring, not today. It wouldn’t help him feel any better.

How could Davidson be so stupid? Couldn’t he see that the mere fact that public opinion was strongly against Briant should be enough to carry it through without trouble? But he had just sat there muttering about proof of the man’s lack of financial integrity. As if that mattered! Gurney had tried as patiently as he could, to get the thing across to him. “It’s what he’s doing that’s the real point at issue,” he’d said, “not where he gets the money from. People are unhappy about it—using a human child for his experiments. You’ve heard enough to know that, surely. But you know as well as I do that it just isn’t possible to legislate controls of scientific experiments in blanket fashion. You’d have to build in so
many protections for acceptable work that the unacceptable would slide through. The only possible way is to go back to square one and control the selection of experimental material. That’s why I’ve named the bill as I have, the Scientific Research and
Human Experimentation
Control Bill, remember. It doesn’t mean I’ve got to prove there’s any dirty work going on in a financial sense—and you know no private member’s bill can discuss finance, anyway.”

“Nay, lad, you’ll ’ave to do better nor that,” Davidson had coughed through his cigarette, splattering his huge belly with ash. “I’m as ’uman as the next feller, but I know what I don’t know. And I don’t know enough about science to try to stop progress just because I don’t fancy the way they ’ave to make their progress. Folks didn’t fancy the way the chap who started vaccination did ’is job, but if ’e’d been stopped just because of their squeamishness, we’d still be dyin’ of smallpox. I reckon it’s the way they get their money that matters. Whether it comes into the wording of the bill or not—and o’ course I know it can’t be part of the structure—isn’t relevant. But if this Briant bloke or scientists like ’im could be shown to be playin’ about wi’ other people’s cash, then I’ll support your bill. But not otherwise. I’m a practical feller, Gurney. An’ I’ve been around politics a sight longer nor you. Folks’ll get over the way they feel now about this baby. This time next year, they’ll’ve forgotten all about it. But money, that’s somethin’ else again. They never forget that. So I don’t neither. You show me someone finaglin’, and I’ll be down like a ton o’ bricks. But if Briant’s straight—and I’ll tell you flat, I’ve no reason to think otherwise—I’m all for leavin’ ‘im be, no matter ’ow many babies he gets involved with. And from all accounts, the kid’s not comin’ to any harm. Clean opposite, if anything. Wish I’d ’ad that sort o’ care as a nipper. Would ‘ave been a sight better than growin’ up in the slag heaps I called home, I can tell yer.”

He’d hauled his great bulk up out of his chair then and looked down at Gurney. “I know ’ow you feel, lad. You’ve got a chance to do a bit of good for yourself wi’ your bill, and you’re as entitled as the next feller to drum up all the support you can get. I’ll do this much for you. I’ll not say owt against your bill—yet. But unless you can give me some o’ my sort of real solid reasons to support you, I’ll
‘ave to stand against you. You see that? I’m not one for abstainin’ on important issues, and this is important, I’ll grant you. You find some ugly facts—if there are any—an’ I’ll stand be’ind you. But wi’out ’em, no go.”