by Roddy Murray
understanding all of what he said but it was clear that was in part, his plan. All she wanted to know was that Blaine would have a chance of surviving and he seemed very confident on this point. As a result she let the rest of what he said wash over her to a large extent.
Bobby gave her a tour of the plant, including part of what he described as the most sensitive area of research where Blaine would come for treatment. When he did, Blaine would need her support. He would have to stay in the plant and she would travel daily from her flat in Edinburgh. There might be times when she could remain with him but the priority was preparing Blaine for the medical procedure. She nodded and was genuinely impressed with the sophistication of the facility. "Money no object," she thought. Dan certainly hadn't scrimped with this place.
By the end of her visit she felt considerably reassured. Bobby had asked if everything was okay with her accommodation and whether she was bored or not. She had enthused sufficiently about the delights and history of Edinburgh to put his mind at rest.
As she shook his hand before leaving he held it for a second and said: "The Blaine you know will come out of the other side fine but you will both have to adapt and work closely together for him to make a full recovery and return to work. You have to commit to this body and soul."
He looked at her with a penetrating stare and she realised it was a question.
"Whatever is necessary," she said, “you can count on me."
She had no idea exactly what that might require but she meant what she said as she said it.
Back at the flat she felt both reassured by her visit and unsettled at the same time, if that was possible. The facility was as good as anything she could imagine and she knew that Dan and Bobby would provide whatever was needed to help Blaine, with no limit on cost. The staff she had met she knew would be the best in their fields. None of that worried her. It was just that... There was something intangible about what lay ahead. As if there was something that Bobby and maybe Dan too, weren't telling her. If they knew something that she didn't there was a strong chance that Blaine was aware of it too but had chosen not to confide in her. If that was the case then she had to be concerned. None of them had ever gone into detail about the procedures which were planned to give Blaine a chance of living. She had vaguely thought along the lines of advanced or targeted Chemotherapy but had never dwelt on the details. Maybe it was a magic pill, bone marrow transplant or some new form of radiation. In a way she didn't care as long as it worked and Blaine was saved, but the fact that nobody had confided in her what was actually involved, not even Blaine, was starting to annoy her.
Whatever was planned she could do nothing about it except keep her promise to support Blaine in whatever lay ahead. He wouldn't be back for another ten or twelve days at least so for now she had to stay calm and fill her days. The day before her meeting with Bobby she had trawled the internet and all the leaflets in the flat and decided a quiet afternoon of reflection on the thoughts of others each day might be a useful diversion. She had therefore planned a visit to the Scottish Poetry Library just off the Royal Mile where she hoped to rekindle a passion she had enjoyed in her teens, but had shelved in her drive to escape the grinding poverty her parents had endured. Sitting reading Blake or Wordsworth and Tennyson with someone ready to hush any noisy interruptions sounded a good option to take her mind off things. If nothing else it would help fill the days till Blaine came over to Edinburgh for his treatment.
Her days began to take on a structure after that. With the exception of the day she visited Nebus she would fill the days with brisk walks, a museum or gallery every day in the afternoon and enjoy some quiet poetry after her visit to the gym. She became less bored with these diversions but could not stop the growing feeling of anxiety as the date loomed for Blaine to arrive. She badly wanted to see him but at the same time she knew there were huge risks involved and subconsciously wanted to delay the danger as long as possible. Whichever feeling was on the ascendancy, she realised that Edinburgh provided as good a chance of diversions as anywhere she had previously visited.
One day she found herself visiting the National Museum of Scotland in Chamber Street. It was a vast collection of galleries with objects and displays covering every part of the globe and every era in history. Not a whiff of creationism in sight, she'd laughed to herself. After a tiring morning touring the first two floors she had gone for lunch in the main cafeteria. At the table next to her was a mother with three young children aged from about five to ten, she guessed. The mother was one of the many who had brought her children here that day out of the rain. The museum was free and had plenty to occupy children of all ages. It represented a low cost but exciting outing for families. The kids all had a cake and a soft drink in front of them and were chatting away excitedly about all the things they had seen and tried out during the visit so far.
After a few minutes the youngest turned to her mother and asked, "When’s Daddy coming? He promised he would be here."
The mother looked slightly concerned and replied, "He didn't exactly promise. He said he would try to get away from work and join us but he wasn't 100% certain he would make it."
"But he did promise. I heard him say it last night."
There was a bit of toing and froing along these lines with the mother trying to soften the blow if her husband (no doubt as usual) didn't make it to the museum. After ten minutes though, a man of about 40 sneaked up behind the children and with a wink at his wife tapped the children on the shoulders.
They turned round giving Delores a full view of their faces as they lit up.
"It's Daddy," they all shouted in unison. "You're here!”
The man managed somehow to pick up all three of them as they rushed to his arms without hurting or crushing any of them. Delores found that alone an impressive feat.
"I promised I would join you," he said. "I've taken a half day so I am all yours this afternoon. After the museum I thought we could go to the cinema and then have a meal."
The children squealed with joy and kept hugging him. Eventually they let him go and he walked over to his wife and kissed her on the lips.
"Thank you," she mouthed to him. "I love you."
When the kids had finished their cakes and drinks they headed off as a happy family group to explore the delights of the museum together, leaving Delores deep in thought. She had never wanted to be a mother. Not simply because she was ambitious about her career. No, for her, parenthood was the struggle of raising children in poverty and discrimination. Worrying about feeding them every minute of every day. She had watched the worry and stress age and wear down her own parents, destroying the days of happiness they should have spent together as a couple and then as a family. They had both died a few years earlier within six months of each other and these struggles had been a huge factor. That was Delores’ view of being a child and of raising children. She had come a long way from that and would never risk enduring what her parents had gone through. And yet something in the scene she had just witnessed stayed with her. It hadn't made her broody in any way shape or form. Hell no! But it had made her think of what it must be like for Blaine’s wife and children whenever he made it home. It must be better than Christmas for them each time. "It's Daddy" would ring in her ears for the rest of the day she reckoned. Could she really take that away from Blaine’s children? Could she be the one who ruined Christmas forever? She shivered a little but knew it wasn't from the cold.
Chapter Thirteen
Frank breezed into Nebus Bioscience, smiled and winked at Fiona as he passed reception and headed straight for the Penicuik Suite. On arrival he noticed everyone was there from the team. He smiled and winked at Bernie as he passed her and made his way to where David was sitting. He made a point of saying hello to everyone by name as he passed them and they all looked up and said hello back. "Oh yes," he thought, "Life is good."
Last night had been great if more than a little tiring. He had avoided an embarrassing moment with Jennifer and
had spent a very pleasant breakfast with Charlotte, something he hoped to do every now and again in the future. The banter with Jim on the journey over had been fun. He was sure Fiona was now smiling back at him and knew for a fact that Bernie had returned both his smile and his wink when he had arrived this morning. Life is indeed good.
The plan for the day was to wire Frank up to the remote version of the monitor equipment and test it out with a series of basic movements. Once that had been achieved he would spend most days wearing it while going through a programme of tests and generally going about his daily life. He would have to spend several nights sleeping in the plant to monitor his brain activity whilst resting, but nothing else in the way of a challenge lay ahead for the rest of his stay there. The main difficulty he faced that day was staying awake whenever he sat down or lay down while the team adjusted the set up. It even got to the point that David had quietly asked if he needed anything to help him get enough sleep at the hotel.
Frank promised to get a good night's rest before the following day’s activities and then remembered his possible dinner date with Bernie. As it turned out they had to quietly agree a rain-check on that as David wanted everyone to work into the evening on the early results so that they could maximise the progress the following day.
Frank looked as disappointed as he could whilst rearranging things with Bernie but was secretly relieved to be able to look forward to an early night. At 3.30 David and the team agreed that they had enough data to work on and Frank could head back to the hotel whenever he liked. He wished them all good luck and headed up to the canteen. Despite his fatigue from recent nocturnal activities he still hoped to see the American beauty again. He was out of luck though and, when the catering assistant brought him the Pasta Carbonara he had ordered, he ate alone. The chef had again excelled himself, Frank had to admit. He loitered in the canteen for a while but nobody else appeared and eventually he called it a day and headed off to Jim's waiting MPV. After the usual banter on the journey back, Frank thanked Jim for the lift even though it was his job to drive him back and forward and headed in to the hotel. The young man on duty at reception looked up at Frank and shook his head signifying no messages that day. Frank gave him the thumbs up and went straight to his room and lay down on the bed. He dosed for about an hour or so then showered, dressed and went for an early meal without giving a thought to the gym or pool. Afterwards he went back to his room, watched part of a documentary about red squirrels and hit the sack before he could fall asleep in the chair.
He slept the sleep of the dead and was still drowsy when the alarm woke him at seven the next morning. As the room-brewed coffee revived him he felt better and more energised than he had for days, but then, it had been a busy spell, he thought. He ate a leisurely breakfast alone and was waiting in the lobby of the hotel when Jim arrived at 8.30 to drive him to Nebus. The day followed a similar pattern to the day before, except Frank managed to stay awake throughout the testing and recording sessions.
During a break from specific tests but still wearing the portable scanner on his head and with the pack on his back he took a walk round the different desks where the members of the team were working. He had intended to slowly gravitate to Bernie's desk but she left soon afterwards for her own office. At David's desk his attention was caught by a coloured display on the screen. It was a rectangular box with most of the space displayed as red. In amongst the red were a few isolated dots of green.
David looked round and saw Frank scanning the computer screen.
"This represents the entirety of your brain activity," he began. "The green dots are the parts which we have recorded and stored so far. Over the next two weeks we have to turn all the red areas green by recording every possible function within your brain. It's a rather simplified representation, however, it is useful for the team to keep a track of progress to date. Any areas which are currently red are thrown up in far more detail on Jon and Bernie's computers so that we can keep covering new ground but it will give you an idea of where we are at."
"When it all turns green I can go home?" asked Frank.
"Essentially that's right. We will need to double check every area has been recorded afterwards but hopefully that will only take a day or two. If we need to redo anything it's easier if you are still here. Incidentally, Bobby is running an identical scan on one of their American test subjects as part of the work being done in D Section. With a bit of luck we can compare notes as a precursor to recording more subjects here. Either way he has insisted on a complete recording of your brain function to the standards they use there, so we have to get it spot-on. It's also important that you don't meet their test subject during the recording process apparently, though I can't think how it would affect anything we are recording."
"Their subject isn't a gorgeous black woman in her midthirties by any chance?" asked Frank.
"No, some business guy roughly ages with yourself," replied David absently. "Bobby said that was why you were selected. They needed to compare like with like for the work they are doing and it seems you and their Yank were a match in that respect. It wouldn't matter so much for our purposes here. Anyone would have done."
David quickly added: "Although we are very pleased with your help and co-operation."
He looked round to make sure he hadn't offended Frank and was relieved to see he hadn't before adding: "I take it you slept better last night?"
"Yes, much better thanks."
Frank was staring at the screen when all of sudden a few more areas turned green.
David noticed the surprise on Frank's face.
"Bernie must have verified what we did this afternoon and uploaded it to the computer in the States. All your details are stored there so that D Section can confer with their associated departments over there. Not ideal from our point of view but we need to use some pretty big computers and we simply don't have access to them in this country yet."
Frank seemed fascinated by his graph. To be honest, he had never credited his brain as being so interesting till now or realised how big a computer would be needed to store its functions. He took it all as a compliment somehow. "I must be brighter than I thought," he thought to himself and watched to see if this realisation fired up some more green areas on the screen. He was
disappointed to note that it didn't.
After some further bending stretching and lifting he was dismissed for the day and headed for the canteen again. He knew in advance that all the members of his team were fully engaged in assessing his massive brain power, but again hoped to see the American woman of his dreams. Again he was disappointed. He ate the smoked salmon and scrambled egg he had ordered when it arrived and after loitering again over his glass of fruit juice headed back to the hotel once more.
He was still full of energy from his unusually good night's sleep and immediately changed in his room ready for the gym. After a vigorous workout he swam lengths of the small pool for 30 minutes and headed for the sauna. "Will luck be a lady again tonight he wondered," checking the door every now and again hoping to make yet another new acquaintance in the sweltering heat. After 20 minutes or so the door of the sauna opened and two very overweight businessmen came in. They nodded at him and continued their previous conversation in German. One of them was obviously German but the other spoke the language more slowly and hesitantly with a hint of a Scottish accent peeping through every now and again.
Frank had a thing about fat people and left before his appetite could be ruined. He showered and dressed then headed back to his room. The night was yet young he decided and spruced himself up for dinner. With his recent luck, he was bound to find some lonely lady in "The Space" who would welcome his company and join him to eat or for drinks afterwards.
As he arrived at the restaurant though and looked around he was disappointed. A few couples, groups and pairs of business men but no single women. Even the serving staff were all guys that night although one of them seemed particularly keen to please Frank. The night being a
write-off was confirmed when the two fat German speakers arrived and sat at the next table.
The bar area proved as barren an area as the leisure centre and dining area had been and after more glasses of fresh orange than Frank could actually enjoy he headed for his room. When he phoned her, Bernie was busy again with his records and doubted whether she would have much free time while they were still at the recording phase.
Frank channel-hopped on his TV for a while before settling on a war film. Steve McQueen as a psychotic bomber pilot competing with Robert Wagner for the affections of the film's love interest seemed to be the gist of it. Frank was something of a Steve McQueen fan but hadn't seen this old black and white film before. He had watched "The Great Escape" and the "Magnificent Seven" two dozen times each, always seeing himself as McQueen but this was a new one. As McQueen refused to bail out of the stricken aircraft at the end and smashed into the white cliffs of Dover, he felt let down and vowed not to watch it again.
Although not really tired he brushed his teeth, put on his new pyjamas for the first time and got into bed. Sleep came slowly and in fits. He had to admit he had felt a bit deflated when David had told him he was there as a match for some Yank rather than because of his supreme fitness and abilities in the gym. He didn't entirely understand why it made a difference but it did. Each time he closed his eyes though, he saw the box with the red and green areas and found it somehow disturbing, as if his personality was being taken away from him one piece at a time and shared with strangers who didn't appreciate him.
Chapter Fourteen
Two days later Delores was dressed to impress and stood in Edinburgh airport with Bobby and another of his doctors waiting for Blaine to arrive. She desperately wanted to see him and spend time with him but the doubts about splitting up his family had remained with her from the day at the museum.