‘A word about the atmosphere in which we work. Emergency departments are traditionally seen as centres of chaos. People pour through the entrance, paramedics swoop through double doors yelling vital signs over patients expiring on gurneys, phones ring incessantly, bleeps are bleeping, pages are paging, the Tannoy system never stops.’
There was a tremendous crack as the sound system packed up and simultaneously the lights went out, leaving only the background illumination of gummata on PowerPoint. The last flurry of activity from the photographers resembled the Blitz. I tried to get my closing comments in but they were pretty well drowned out in a gale of laughter followed by the steady rumble of an audience conversing amongst itself just prior to a coffee break.
I had a paragraph to go, but I gave up. The IT may have ended with a bang, but I ended with a whimper. ‘We need to work in quietude.’
I resumed my seat. There was no applause.
‘Questions? No?’ MacTaggart didn’t even afford me the courtesy of casting one up himself. ‘Well, there’s a first. We break for coffee. Plenary again at eleven sharp, thank you.’
In retrospect, I think it was from this point that my behaviour became slightly erratic. I date it from that terrible sinking feeling of emptiness.
I skipped coffee. I went for an aimless walk amid the stands of the conference trade exhibition. A girl from AstraZeneca in a smart blue pin-striped trouser suit collared me and gave me her five minute spiel about why Nexium was the best proton pump inhibitor and why Crestor was the best statin, while I gazed at her blankly and thought about that moment between the twelfth and the thirteenth revolution of the spin in the Slingsby, when – I forced myself to admit – it had crossed my mind not to release the rudder pedals from their full left deflection.
‘Thank you, Conference.’ (Fancy addressing the conference with the vocative ‘Conference’. I felt as if I was attending a party political event, at Brighton or Bournemouth.) ‘Break out groups! Pass these around please.’ Trish Campbell the facilitator was a slim blond woman, late forties, underweight and overexposed to the sun. She might have been an aerobics instructor. In a way she was, putting us through our paces. ‘Groups of six. Elect a spokesperson. Delegates report back at –’ she glanced at her wrist watch ‘– 11.30 sharp.’
Kerry Donaldson, an anaesthetist on my left, muttered ‘Jolly hockey sticks.’ I glanced at the handout. It was to be an exercise in communal decision making. The scenario depicted a disparate group of people, trapped at the foot of a mine shaft that was rapidly flooding. Rescue was hazardous and only one person per hour could be retrieved. The mine would be totally flooded within six hours.
It seemed a highly unlikely situation. What were all these people doing down there? Was it a day trip for Rotarians? The group demographics were odd, in a Chaucerian way. There was a Nobel laureate, an MP, an ophthalmologist who had worked for peanuts in the developing world, a home help, a drug addict, a man with a criminal record, a child with severe developmental delay … There was even a paedophile who also happened to be morbidly obese. Donaldson said, ‘Well let’s drown the fat-arse nonce for a start!’ He addressed the chair.
‘Have you ever been trapped underground, Ms Campbell?’
‘No, thank goodness.’
He sniffed. ‘I have.’ I remembered Donaldson was in the TA. He had done a couple of tours in Afghanistan. ‘One thing I can assure you. Decisions like this are not made in committee.’
Somebody else from the floor was making the laborious point, in a rather heavy weathered way, that moral judgments had never impinged on medical decision making. (Was that really true?) It sounded pompous and Hippocratic. For me, it all rested on the integrity of the rope and the bucket.
We broke out. I said to Kerry, ‘This is rubbish. I’m gonna split. See you tomorrow.’
‘It cost a grand a head to get us out of hospital. That’s before you factor in the conference rooms and the catering. You’ll be in trouble.’
‘I couldn’t care less.’
I emerged into the haar and took a deep breath of harsh saturated air. It had occurred to me that I would pay a call on the Vice-Chancellor. It was a short walk to the administrative offices in the Joseph Black Building. I got directions at the front desk and took the lift to the eighth floor. The plush Axminster beneath my feet verified that I had identified the right level. And here was the double door to the imperial suite. The plaque said, ‘Professor Sir Douglas Horton, Vice-Chancellor.’ I knocked and went in.
This was an anteroom to the inner sanctum. The secretary glared at me severely over her gold rimmed spectacles.
‘Yes?’
I adopted the pose of one who is habituated to getting his own way. ‘My name is Dr Alastair Cameron-Strange. May I see Professor Horton.’ I kept the question mark, the Antipodean up-speak, out of my voice.
‘You’re late.’
‘I beg your pardon?’
She lifted the phone and tapped in a four digit extension number without diverting her fixed gaze of disapproval.
‘Brian. The external’s here … Yes I know. Horton’ll go ballistic. Where are they holding the exam board? Will you? Thanks.’ She hung up.
‘The reader is coming to collect you. Take a seat Professor Strang.’
She thought I was somebody else. A little devil sitting on my shoulder holding a trident whispered, ‘What the hell! Run with it.’
Brian came in all in a lather, breathing heavily from his sprint up the stairs, a flurry of navy jumper, jeans, and suede shoes. He grabbed me by the wrist.
‘Quick!’
We pelted along the corridor. He glanced back at me to make sure I was keeping up. ‘Train trouble I suppose? You might just get away with it. They’ve got a ton of special factors to wade through.’
The reader was on tenterhooks. I thought about Professor Horton. What sort of man is so intimidating that the messengers think they are going to be shot? Brian tapped nervously on the board room door and led me into the middle of a conference.
‘… felt he needed more time because of his dyslexia.’
‘Is there a doctor’s certificate?’
The conspicuously handsome man at the head of the grand boardroom table gave me a pained expression and waved me exasperatedly into the one vacant chair. If I hadn’t the courtesy to be on time, he wasn’t about to interrupt the proceedings to effect the introductions. I would just have to wait.
‘Here it is.’ Somebody produced the chit.
‘Can I see that?’
It was passed round.
‘It’s from the Consulate. Dr Duncan. MB Cantab. I can’t read his writing.’ There was laughter.
‘Look. Irrespective’ – I recognised a Melbourne accent – ‘of whether or not the guy can read, he’s got 37%. He hasn’t exactly covered himself in glory.’
‘He’s only three marks off a pass.’
‘Yeah, well –’
‘Are there any more marks to be garnered, here and there?’ This from Horton. He rested his elbows on the table, formed a Norman arch with his opposing fingertips and rested them against his pursed lips. ‘If we can get him up to 38, 39 …’
‘Great, but what about the people sitting on 37 who haven’t put in a special factors form?’
‘If you don’t ask, you don’t get.’
‘I guess it helps if you’ve got a letter from His Excellency the ambassador.’
‘Be careful. That’s prejudicial language. Don’t minute that Ms Foye. It might do in Wagga Wagga land but not here.’
The unobtrusive secretary at the corner of the room stopped writing. Her face was expressionless. She was an attractive woman, sexy in a severe way, slipping imperceptibly into middle age. I thought, funny how an indelible impression can be struck on a single utterance, even a single word. It was the Wagga Wagga remark that did it for me.
‘We’d better hear from the external.’
All eyes turned on me.
‘Professor Strang? We haven’t met.’
I know I ought to have owned up at this point. But the little demon with the trident was still whispering in my ear. And besides, I had an opinion.
‘I think that if the candidate only managed 37% in the exam, then he has failed it.’
The man from Melbourne stared at me, wide eyed. He hadn’t expected this. I went on. ‘You’re offering him a poisoned chalice. It may be convenient for him now, and for you, but it will undo him in the end, and you, and us all. What sort of a society will we have if its leaders have received a pat in the back for achieving 37%? Would you like your surgeon to have got 37%? Your airline pilot? Your teacher? Your banker, God help us! Tell him the truth. Tell him he’s failed. It’s not the end of the world. Nobody died. He can take the next diet.’
There was a stunned silence.
The board room door opened and Professor Strang, the external examiner from Manchester, hurried in. ‘Professor Horton I am so sorry. Points jammed at Berwick.’
Later on, I had to ask myself why I had been crazy enough to walk into a room full of academics who were perfect strangers and impersonate a visiting VIP. It was just a chain of adverse circumstances. Being on retreat at Clerk Maxwell was like being back at school. I was fed up to the back teeth with ELSCOMF, I had just given a disastrous presentation, I took an instant dislike to Professor Horton, and frankly I was just pissing around. It was the sort of thing I used to do at school through sheer boredom.
I didn’t like Professor Horton one little bit. I had a sense about him, a sense of a steel fist concealed inside a velvet glove. He reminded me of a type of senior consultant I occasionally come across in medicine. I call them ‘The Incandescent Lights of Medicine’. No doubt such incandescences rise to the top in every profession. These men are extraordinarily focused. They are single minded; they are driven. They are totally inconsiderate. They cut a swathe through the minor inconveniences of daily life. They live like Pashas. They tend to organise their affairs the way they want them without noticing the zone of disruption that surrounds them as they plough on remorselessly like a Dreadnought through the rough seas of life. They take pains to have at their side a lieutenant who can deal with the tiresome minutiae of business so that they can concentrate on The Big Picture. They will drive on regardless and leave the lieutenant to clear up the mess they leave behind them. They have no idea of the trouble they cause other people. Horton was such an Incandescent Light. I had rather that our respective universes never impinged, but I had a sinking suspicion – more, I was absolutely convinced – that I would have to deal with him, would have to confront him. There was no point in trying to wheedle out of it. I might pray, ‘Heavenly Father, let this cup pass from me …’ but it would be no bloody good. I’d better get on with it. I’d better blag my way into his office.
Two hours later I was on a mission. I was going to leave no stone unturned. I was encouraged by the fact that, although I had been exposed as an impostor, miraculously, I had gotten away with it. It might have been a crushingly embarrassing exposé, me floundering at the boardroom table trying to explain myself. He might have summoned security, had me detained, even got the police. But I was saved by Horton’s abiding self-confidence. He had me sussed. I was a media man. Some sort of investigative reporter. A paparazzo. That I should wish to infiltrate his meeting he regarded as de rigueur. He almost treated me with indulgence, raising his eyes to the ceiling.
‘Good try, but no dice. Off you go! Any recording equipment, mikes, cameras, leave them at the door please.’ Hence I had brass neck enough to have another go. Back up to the eighth floor. Another walk with destiny on the seductive shag pile.
‘You have an appointment?’
Here was another stroke of luck. She was a different receptionist.
‘No I do not. This concerns a health and safety matter relating to the University.’ I smeared on the pomposity with a trowel. I could feel a crazy mirthfulness churning away in my bowels. Health and Safety. I’d pressed the right button.
‘One moment.’
She slipped silently into the inner sanctum. The connecting door had frosted glass and I was vaguely aware of a blur of human shapes behind. I glanced around idly at the accoutrements of the outer office, the desk top VDUs and the telephones and the fax machines. Would I be stone-walled? Perhaps asked to make an appointment, put it in writing.
‘Sir Douglas will see you.’ At that moment the Vice-Chancellor himself appeared, ushering out a black man and a black woman of striking appearance. The secretary, Ms Foye, who had been present at the exam board, stood discreetly behind them. The black man was of slim build and had aquiline features. He was very cultivated. As he emerged into the anteroom he was addressing the Vice-Chancellor and I caught the tail end of his conversation. It had a slightly anachronistic idiomatic flavour. Empire English. ‘It’s all grist to the mill, manna from heaven, and what have you.’ Damn sight better than saying it was ‘win win’, whatever it was. He was dressed in an expensively tailored three-piece suit of exquisite fit. The shirt and the flashing teeth were of dazzling white. The woman was incredibly beautiful. High cheek bones, shoulder length dark ringlets, another expensive suit, camel, tight fitting and mid-calf length. Taupe patent leather courts. She carried a gunpowder Mulberry bag, Alexa Hobo, over her shoulder. They seemed to be sharing a joke as they said their farewells. Horton was being gallant, exuding boundless charm. The men shook hands.
‘So sorry you can’t make Conversazione on the 24th.’
‘Perhaps next year.’ The voice was silken.
Horton took the woman’s beautifully manicured hand and raised it to his lips. The atmosphere was thick with sycophantic, meretricious concupiscence. The woman walked past me with the feline gait of a supermodel. The man gazed at me with cold eyes. I had the odd sensation that I was having my photograph taken. Then they were gone, to the airport I presumed. In two hours they would be back in cream stucco land – diplomat territory in Belgravia.
I studied Sir Douglas with curiosity. Early fifties, tall with short fair hair and no trace of grey. He carried himself with a certain stiffness. He too was superbly and immaculately dressed in a beautifully tailored suit of old-fashioned cut, light grey, with a pattern I think called Urquhart. (I began to feel quite shabby.) He was vaguely reminiscent of somebody. I couldn’t decide whether it was the Duke of Windsor or Douglas Fairbanks Junior. I recognised him. Hadn’t there been a picture of him last week in the papers, emerging from No. 10 with the PM? I didn’t know the first thing about him, beyond the fact that he was a man on the up, a mover and shaker, with the ear of government. But I had no idea what his own academic discipline was, far less what inner lights propelled him. I had a vague recollection of Jeremy Paxman interviewing him in an aggressive way. Horton had been totally unfazed. Hard as nails. But I couldn’t remember anything about it.
One thing. Just a sound bite. ‘Jeremy – there are two sorts of people, there are winners, and there are losers …’
Anyway here he was. He cast a vaguely curious glance in my direction. It was another stroke of luck no doubt thanks to his crammed agenda and punishing schedule – he had forgotten all about me.
‘I only need five minutes of your time, professor. Literally five. It’s very important.’
‘To you or to me? Enter.’ He addressed Ms Foye without looking at her. ‘Come back in with us, Muir.’ Whatever this was about, he wanted a witness.
We entered the inner sanctum. I was taken aback by its spaciousness. This was a reception room, resembling more a lounge than an office. It was decorated in rich reds and golds. In the foreground was a long, low glass coffee table surrounded by deep red-brown, studded leather armchairs. Round the room’s periphery, the furniture was in dark oak. There were gilt-framed paintings by the Glasgow boys, and the Scottish colourists, liberally festooned all around the walls. Guthrie and Hornel and Lavery; Fergusson, Cadell, and Peploe. I don’t think they were reproductions. I found it all a bit much. Beyond, a desk of Bismarckian proport
ions sat before a huge triptych picture window occupying the entire south-facing wall and substantial segments of the east and west walls. When the haar lifted this would surely afford stunning near 360 views of the Firth. Just to the left of the triptych window stood a finely preserved old grandfather clock, with its quiet, somnolent, bradycardic tick.
‘Sit.’ He indicated a severe high-backed chair. Charles Rennie Mackintosh. He took his own seat behind the desk. Muir Foye took her backstage seat with her notepad in the corner of the room, and crossed her legs demurely. She was considerably older than I was. I found her very attractive. I had a notion she had abjured passion, a husband, and family, to devote herself to being Douglas Horton’s secretary. She had not yet left it too late. I was contemplating her page-boy dark hair, for the moment tied back, the intelligent eyes, the rather strong chin, when my attention was diverted back to the huge desk top by a small piece of theatricality. Professor Horton had produced from his top drawer a small sandglass perhaps slightly larger than an egg timer. He placed it between us on the expanse of the dark red leather and inverted it. The shocking pink sands of time began to trickle away. He made a rather discouraging open-handed gesture. I thought, I bet the sophisticated African couple didn’t get the egg timer treatment.
‘Thank you very much for fitting me in. I happened to be attending a meeting in the Maclaurin Conference Centre this morning –’
‘Ah! You are with Forbes Pearson’s group! Splendid chap. Sutured my daughter when she took a tumble out riding. Cut forehead. Lovely job.’
‘He’s very neat.’
‘I trust the conference venue is fit for purpose?’
‘It is an excellent facility.’ I didn’t tell him about the lousy sound system.
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