The Swan Song of Doctor Malloy (20 page)

I hesitate. On an international flight the odds of a tiresome companion against a welcome one are about even. And with a thirteen-hour journey in the offing, I am in no mood for gambling. In any event, the young man's crisp white shirt and tie set alarm bells ringing.

‘Anthony,' I say shortly, hoping that might be the end of it.

‘Well, good to meet you, Anthony.'

I sip my drink and chew my nuts as Rich launches into a monologue about his work in Thailand. He speaks of being a minister back in Virginia, of his hope of missionary work in South-East Asia. Knowing I might regret it, but prompted by the keen expression on his face, I ask him what denomination he belongs to.

The young man smiles, shaking his head.

‘No denomination, sir. I am a Minister of the Church of the Latter-Day Saints.'

Almost choking on my peanut, I resist the momentary temptation to say I once attended a gathering in England. Rich looks on, smiling expectantly. Instead of embarking on a debate around the dream imagery in the Old Testament book of Daniel, and before we get on to unfolding prophecies, I silently curse the ghouls of coincidence and ask to be excused.

‘Deep vein thrombosis,' I say, tapping a leg and standing up. ‘A big worry these days.'

I wobble my way to the rear of the cabin, the Brighton meeting under the Mormon banner once again at the forefront of my mind. Before then I knew where I was headed, who I was. Now what am I? A drug mule in business class; a deceiver and a drunk. This is life post-Mary Foster.

After a stroll up and down the aisle I settle back in my seat, avoiding eye contact with Rich. I look out the window at clouds and close my eyes to it all. Between dozing, sleeping and the hum of the engines, my thoughts drift towards Caitlin. Even here, in my sanctuary miles above the earth, there seems to be little respite.

‘Mother, it is dark.'

Caitlin wakes with these words in her ears. She looks around.

‘Who speaks in this silence?' she thinks.

She listens. She is alone. Realizing where she is, she turns on her lumpy mattress and faces the wall. Staring at the brickwork six inches from her face, she raises a finger, scratches at a piece of plaster protruding from between the bricks. Some breaks away. It falls onto the mattress like a baby avalanche. A small piece sticks under her fingernail. She examines it closely; then puts it in her mouth. It has a new texture and taste. She is not hungry, it is not food, but she swallows it.

The door opens, a man enters. She can tell who it is by the weight of the footsteps. It is the One without Eyebrows. Caitlin stays where she is, her back to the room, her face to the wall, brick dust between her teeth.

‘Go away, man,' she thinks inside her head.

He stops. She stares ahead until she takes herself to sleep and the detail in the brickwork recedes and merges with her dream.

I arouse with a start, the image of my manacled and blood-soaked sister scorching my mind.

The credits to a movie scroll on the screen in front of me. I turn my head. The earnest young minister is beside me. He reads from a plain-covered book, a beatific smile scythed across his face. The movie finishes with a cello piece. It is from my daughter's favourite symphony. The chords reverberate through my body. As I drift back into sleep I remind myself to call her as soon as I hit the ground.

10

Sweet music and Lucifer's elixir

At O'Hare airport I am welcomed by Billy Priss, eminent psychiatrist and maverick medic. He has been a key player in HIV prevention in the States from the beginning of the epidemic and is a passionate champion of needle syringe programs.

Priss is a long thin man who wears cowboy boots, a Stetson hat and clearly doesn't give a damn. This is, after all, Chicago and not San Antonio. He slaps me hard on the back and asks about the flight and the brothels of Patpong.

‘You'll stay at my place, of course. Richard wrote and told me all about you,' says the gangling American, as he loads my luggage into the back of his car. ‘We need people like Richard Pryce. But we need people like you more. Hard-nosed scientists that the politicians will listen to. Charlene just can't wait to meet you. She loves English accents. The den's all set up,' he adds with a wink. ‘The pool table's waiting. You do play pool?'

Before I can answer, or tell him I'm anything but English, the American slaps me on the shoulder and replies for me. ‘Why, of course you play pool, you'd hardly be a friend of Richard's if you didn't. But it's American rules here, okay?'

As the car speeds along Lakeshore Drive, the vast expanse of Lake Michigan tilting over the horizon, Priss fills me in on the Federal government's resistance to syringe exchange programs.

‘What with the black pressure groups saying it's genocide to get the blacks hooked on shooting heroin, and then the moral Right sticking to the “just say no” crap, we're still a long way from providing free needles to drug users. But don't worry,' he looks at me longer than I think wise given the sharp curve in the road, ‘I've got the right local politicians on our side and we've got plenty of guys prepared to set up pirate syringe schemes all over the city. If you can talk about your invention we'll use it as a hook to get some political leverage. You rely on the science and leave the rest to us.'

Priss is a good man, clearly one who's ready to stick his neck out and is not frightened of being unpopular. He cares. What Richard told me about him rings true and I feel good to be part of his company. Warren would approve.

‘Have you heard about the black issue?' he says. ‘I want you to meet with them and explain the shape of this epidemic. Stress the need to get syringes onto the streets. Tell them what the Brits are planning. Get them to realize getting hooked on heroin is one thing, dying from AIDS is another.'

As we move through the streets of the city I pick out the panhandlers, hustlers, drug users and prostitutes amongst the everyday citizens. Those on the margins. Those who stumble and fall in this business of meeting life. Maybe this is it. Maybe I can live with myself. On balance I will still do more good than bad. Contribute to saving more lives than are destroyed. The seeds will get to Colombia whether they are in my WHO bag or in condoms inside the stomachs of a hundred couriers. The only real difference is the WHO consignment will be in bulk with delivery guaranteed.

When I was told the Medical School and Taneffe would take care of logistics I had hoped for a downtown hotel where I could come and go as I pleased. Standing outside the suburban house with the carefully manicured lawn, Charlene, and a large German Shepherd dog waiting to greet us, I begin to wish I'd made my own bookings. But later that night, after dinner, when Priss and I retire to the den and the pool table, and the generous American chops out some fine white powder on a small mirror, I forget all about my need to be alone and drift into a heady pleasure of lightness and camaraderie. Nothing seems so wonderful as the colour of the pool balls, the sound as they clunk together and swish across the blue baize. Between games, before the night gets away from me, I use the phone in Priss's study to call Lottie. Thankfully, it is she, rather than her mother who answers.

‘Lottie.'

‘Dad.'

‘Hello, sweetheart. What's new?'

‘I did it!' she shrieks. ‘Only one more step to the finals!'

My heart swells with pride as she tells me all the little details and I forget about everything else, at least for a while.

During the following days we meet with City and State health officials, police officers, community leaders and all manner of other parties to promote the value and viability of the single-use syringe. The press takes great interest. I seem to have arrived in the middle of a heated debate about illicit drug use and needle distribution and it seems the story of my invention has hit a nerve. My status as an outsider allows me to side-step the political and moral minefields. This means I can focus on the need and demand for my invention in the face of a fatal epidemic.

‘We know, Dr Malloy,' asks one reporter at a press conference in the Marriott Hotel, his mini tape recorder poised like an assassin's gun, ‘that your invention will have great benefit in hospitals and vaccination programs. Some are arguing it could be used in the fight against AIDS. So what do you say to the parents of the city of Chicago who worry syringe exchange will encourage more drug use, more injecting?'

‘And,' interrupts a voice from the back, ‘kill off the blacks in the city. Leave them to rot away in the alleyways, dying from drugs and overdoses.'

‘Thank you for your questions,' I reply. ‘I am a scientist and no expert on social issues, but I have listened to my colleagues in public health and appreciate the issues involved. Also, I understand your concern and do not wish to minimise it. Drug use, cocaine, heroin, amphetamines, can cause havoc to the user and their family. But it is a part of life. Always has been. The coca leaf has been chewed for centuries in Central and South America. Opium is part and parcel of the fabric of life in the East. Alcohol, tea, coffee, chocolate are used every hour in the modern world. People look for fixes. I'm not denying we need to do something for people who get into trouble, that's what treatment is about. But we also have to keep them healthy and alive until they are ready to change.'

My amateurish paraphrasing of Richard's notes and articles seem to have hit the right note, as an air of interest buzzes around the room.

A flashbulb from a camera takes me by surprise. I notice a man in an expensive-looking suit whispering to his neighbour. He might be anyone: State official, CIA, DEA, Taneffe's public relations chief. For the moment it is not important, and I continue.

‘Think of the prohibition here in the US in the nineteen-thirties. It caused untold chaos, misery and death, but people still drank booze, drank themselves blind. In the same way, the more we push drug users underground, away from services, away from help, marginalised and stigmatised, then the more harm will befall them. The greater the consequences for society as a whole.' I pause, remembering the way Richard so clearly explained it all to me back in London.

‘Now, turning to the question of HIV and AIDS. The facts are simple. Most of the infection amongst drug users comes from sharing dirty needles. In other words, if one injector is infected and he lets another use his needle and syringe, then it's likely some of this first man's blood will be left in it. When the second man injects with the used syringe then the infected blood passes into his body. HIV is the blood-borne virus that causes AIDS. Simple. Nature could not herself have constructed a more efficient means of transmitting the disease than through passing contaminated needles from one body to another.'

I look around, sensing the audience is absorbing something of what I say.

‘Let me just say two things more. First, and I will not be so arrogant as to pretend to understand all the issues here in the US, but there is no evidence to uphold the view that providing syringes will lead to more drug use or injecting. Second, AIDS is a greater threat to the individual and to society than is drug use. Without proper measures, and the best is early intervention providing clean syringes, then you'll have an epidemic of disastrous proportions. And just remember this: HIV is mainly a sexually transmitted infection. Drug injectors might get infected using dirty needles, but they have sex, like all of us in this hall. And like all of us in this hall, they won't always use a condom.'

I pause for a second, knowing the next point touches a nerve, a point Richard urged me to stress. ‘Some, in desperation, will sell their bodies to get money for drugs. But they all live in our community. They are us,' I continue, with a measured pace to my voice. ‘They're the friends of our sons and daughters. Some are our sons and daughters. They'll all get together at clubs and parties, at school and on the beach. Some will have sex together, some will inject drugs and some will contract the HIV virus. And on it will go unless we take immediate and remedial action. As a health scientist my goal is to contribute to saving lives. That can be the lives of the poor and neglected through vaccination programs, or drug users through safe sterile needles. If my simple invention can contribute to this laudable aim, then that will be marvellous.'

It is the day after their return from Macaroni Wood. Matilda is in the kitchen preparing supper when she hears the familiar sound of Lottie's flute. But something is unusual. It sounds close by, not muffled from the distance of the loft, where Lottie so often hides away. Matilda wipes her hands on the tea towel and peeps through the open door of the sitting room. Lottie is sitting in the bay window, her music stand in front of her. Matilda smiles. It's been a long time since her daughter practised her music downstairs. Maybe not since Christine moved in.

‘Don't stop,' she says, smiling, as Lottie turns and realizes she is not alone. ‘It's so lovely to see you there. To hear how beautifully you play.'

Lottie raises the flute back to her lips and continues her rendition. Matilda recognizes the slow building movement of Janacek's composition. It is the piece she played at the recital and has entered for the upcoming regional competition at the Town Hall. As the music wafts through the room Matilda is beguiled by the sight of her young daughter. She is so proud of this young woman, of her talents, her ability to face the difficulties of her fractured relationships. ‘How I have tried to do right by her,' thinks Matilda, ‘how I cried when I had no choice but to push her father away. For us both, for our sanity, when it became too unmanageable, too frightening.'

‘We've got lasagne for supper,' says Matilda, and turns back to the kitchen.

Lottie smiles, but does not stop playing.

I hit the Chicago press big time. AIDS and drug use are hot news and all the papers run the story of the Aussie scientist from London and the one-use syringe. The focus is all about the use of my syringe for drug users and not immunisation or hospital injections, but that's okay. One of the right-wing tabloids uses a banner headline: ‘The Scientist Who Pushes Drugs.' I resist keeping it for posterity, but cringe at the irony of it. The following day a Miss Kwaterski, an intern from Idaho, claims to have been sexually assaulted by the mayor. Suddenly I'm yesterday's news. Which is just fine by me.