by Alec Birri
‘Anyway, how’s the trial going?’
The professor sighed. ‘Not as well as I’d hoped. We’ve already lost one test subject and another is expected to expire in the next week or so. Ms Salib is proving to be a challenge too.’
Tarquin became puzzled. ‘Why are you even bothering with her? If the initial results of the cure for Alzheimer’s are as promising as you say, then the health committee’s bound to agree to widen the trial. You don’t need her blessing for that.’
‘Just keeping our enemies close, Tarquin. And, anyway, I want to try and help her professionally.’
Tarquin sneered. ‘Well, she’s certainly not helping you. In fact, she appears to make it her business to do the exact opposite. Did I hear she tried to get you shut down for animal cruelty the other day?’
‘She’s principled, I’ll give her that. Ended our little agreement on the spot when she discovered the test subjects were unable to give personal consent to their treatment, for goodness’ sake.’
His friend was still perplexed. ‘Since when did you feel the need to be so generous with someone who openly despises everything you stand for?’
Savage glanced around the room. ‘Tarquin, I’m sorry to have to say, we live in times where clear majorities in the House of Commons are a thing of the past, so compromises with our enemies have to be made. Now, if that means pandering to individuals we would much rather ignore, then so be it. Extending the trial into care homes is not the issue, but getting approval for the next stage will prove ethically difficult for some, and cross-party support will be essential.’
He drew closer. ‘If the public thinks voluntary euthanasia is controversial, wait until they discover what the cure for Alzheimer’s disease really means.’
The steward placed two glasses of whisky and a jug of water on the table. The Business Secretary poured a few drops from it into each drink while pondering the professor’s share acquisitions. There had to be a connection with the clinical trial, but he was damned if he could think what it was.
Chapter Twelve
Dan reached for the teacup but collapsed back into his chair when he saw who was sitting opposite him. He grabbed at his chest. ‘Don’t do that! I almost had a heart attack!’
Brian looked at the picture of Claire on the iPad between them. ‘Isn’t that what you want?’
Dan tried putting the thought out of his head. At least the reappearance of his brother’s hallucination confirmed the treatment needed more time.
Brian perked up. ‘Ninety-six years of age, eh? Now, there’s a turn up for the books!’
Dan tilted his head towards the ceiling. ‘Well, let’s test my new memory, shall we? What were the words you used? Oh yes. “Your brain has conjured up a hallucination to help.” A fat lot of good you’ve been – couldn’t even get my age ri—’ He trailed off when he realised others in the conservatory were looking at him.
‘We couldn’t get our age right. One and the same – remember?’
Dan didn’t want to draw attention to himself again, so he asked Brian if it was possible to communicate by thought alone. The hallucination tutted.
‘Of course we can. I’m in your head – or have you forgotten that, too?’
Tracy approached and Dan realised it wasn’t just his spoken words they could all hear and see – Brian’s came out of his mouth, too. Dan just had time to tell his illusion to shut up, when she addressed him.
‘Brian?’
Dan tried to think of an excuse for the apparent relapse, but couldn’t. ‘It’s okay, Tracy, I’m just having a conversation with my brother, er, I mean my hallucination.’ Dan’s face flushed with embarrassment, but he couldn’t see how else to tackle it.
Her reply surprised him.
‘That’s okay; it means you’re well on the way to a full recovery.’ Tracy smiled and patted him on the shoulder.
Dan asked Brian what he thought she meant by that. The lips on his hallucination didn’t move as it replied.
‘Beats me. Maybe hallucinations are part of the treatment and not just a side-effect.’
Dan thought that was an interesting point, and pondered it while studying the other patients in the room. Alice no longer had her doll, but was clearly still in communication with what she thought was her mother. She, or it, had even spoken to him. Nadira had something similar going on, and there was Gary. He seemed happy with who he was, though – a bit too happy for Dan’s liking, but the apparent change in both his and Alice’s personalities implied something more than just illusion. Schizophrenia perhaps? Maybe it was that which caused the thoughts of suicide in Nadira and her plebeian boyfriend.
Brian made another one of his less helpful suggestions. ‘You know, up until now I’ve always assumed I was your hallucination. What if you were mine?’
Dan scoffed. ‘That’s nearly as good as the one about me being a factory worker. Nowhere near as funny, though.’
Brian persisted. ‘My words came out of your mouth just now – she even called you “Brian”.’
Dan was irritated by the nonsense. ‘That’s because my episodes with you are well-documented – all the staff know about my hallucinations of you.’
Brian looked down at the iPad again. ‘Lucy certainly did an excellent job with that slideshow. A complete history going right back.’ He stared at Dan. ‘Funny how I’m not in any of them.’
Chapter Thirteen
‘Try this – it’s my own special blend.’
Alex peered at it with suspicion. ‘Sunita, your straight stuff is good enough. No need to risk a bad trip caused by whatever you’ve concocted.’
Sunita spoke as if she were Alex’s GP. ‘Are you in pain?’
They both knew the answer to that.
‘Then smoke it.’
Alex had always known pain. Second only to championing the weak and vulnerable, her whole life was about the control of it. Ever since she could remember, hardly a year went by without being diagnosed with some new condition that either caused or added some further agony. Congenital paraplegia, quadriplegia, tetraplegia – they all seemed to form some kind of cruel promotion, just for her. Why did she have to suffer so much? It would make sense if her brain had a reason for choosing to interpret the signals it received in the way it did.
The mind inside was a different matter, however – cognitively unaffected, and razor sharp. She even surprised herself at the speed at which she could demolish her opponents, particularly on the floor of the House of Commons. She knew, of course, a significant part of that was down to her impairments – a collective pity for Alex’s condition made it difficult for even the most ardent of adversaries to triumph over her. They always ended up looking like bullies.
But this success came with what all impairees have to put up with – the frustration of the unimpaired regarding them with sympathy rather than mutual respect. Alex regarded it as a weakness in the so-called able-bodied and, as any politician knows, weaknesses are there to be exploited. Especially your own.
In any case, it was becoming evident that the combination of a useless body and brilliant mind produced a strength far greater than the sum of the parts and that made her potentially unstoppable in politics. It might be unethical to use impairment to one’s advantage, but plenty of other women used their so-called assets for similar purposes, and history was littered with men abusing positions they were born with, so why not her? As long as the cause was genuine, anything could be justified. She saw her condition as a metaphor for the suffering of a world that only she understood and knew how to save. Alex had little time for religion but, if someone were to say she was the chosen one, then perhaps her own physical challenges really would start to make sense.
Chronic pain was still a barrier to ambition, though, and when Alex’s legal prescriptions ceased giving her relief from it, she always turned to Sunita
for help. They had first met as patients during one of Alex’s many hospitalisations, and, when a shared interest in saving the Earth as well as the use of some of its more natural remedies became apparent, struck up a relationship. Alex knew Sunita could be relied upon to come up with something – all illegal, of course – and if her colleagues, and especially her enemies, were to find out, well, that would be that. She trusted her, though. She had to.
Alex took a long, slow draw. The effect was almost instant. The pain disappeared. She went to put the joint back to her lips, but ended up bumping fingers against them instead – Sunita had taken the spliff away as soon as the job was done. It would have been let go otherwise.
Alex touched her lips again and then looked at her hand. She rubbed the tips of her thumb and forefinger together and giggled when she realised she could no longer feel them – or anything else for that matter.
She extended one of the digits to Sunita while slurring her words.
‘You are a very bad person. What you are doing here is illegal, and I’m going to have to close you down.’ She put her head back and giggles turned to laughter. Sunita smiled, put the joint to her own lips and chuckled too. It made Alex laugh more.
The initial rush of the drug soon wore off and mellow contemplation replaced the uncontrolled humour. Sunita must have guessed Alex was referring to her recent failure at the neurological hospital.
‘There’s other ways of smashing the system, Al. You’ll find one.’
Alex was becoming sleepy, but wanted to enjoy the pain-free existence for as long as possible, so shook her head to try and stay awake. Sunita’s comment had registered and Alex tried to get angry about Savage, but the cannabis wouldn’t allow it.
She sighed. ‘I hate him, Suni. I detest everything about him. From his stuck-up accent to his posh friends, to his silly bow-tie, to his Frankenstein ideas of getting me walking.’ Alex peered at her friend. ‘He’s both a mad scientist and the monster he’s created. And, as everyone knows, all monsters must die.’
She put her head back and laughed again. Sunita manoeuvred her wheelchair closer.
‘Did he really say he could help you to walk?’
Alex stopped laughing and jolted her head back up. She sensed a weakening in her sister-sufferer’s resolve. ‘Don’t give in to propaganda, Suni. It’s all bullshit. Bullshit designed to make us conform to their dystopian ideas of the perfect state: a society of Little Lord Fauntleroys pampered by – guess who?’ Alex regarded her underdeveloped and deformed lower limbs. ‘Even if he could make these move by themselves, they never grew with me into adulthood, so how’s he going to fix that?’
She took the joint, drew another breath, and giggled again. Sunita looked at her own just as useless but fully adult legs.
Alex was becoming used to the cannabis and went to take a third puff, but gave the joint back to her friend instead. She became philosophical.
‘Suni, I’m going to do whatever it takes to save this world, and if that means having to get near to a monster before I can kill it, then…’
She broke off as her admirer drew nearer. Their lips met for a few seconds. Sunita offered Alex the spliff, but she just stared at it.
‘If the public thinks voluntary euthanasia is controversial, wait until they discover what the cure for Alzheimer’s disease really means.’
Chapter Fourteen
Tracy waited for Dan to stop her as she swiped through the photographs but he was no longer paying attention to them. He was staring at his hallucination, still sitting in the chair opposite. Brian raised an eyebrow. Dan addressed his nurse.
‘I want to see the medical records.’
Tracy paused before replying, which Dan took as yet another attempt to hide something.
‘All the files this time, with nothing removed or blanked out.’
Tracy explained what that would entail. ‘I’ll need to get permission from Doctor Adams first.’
‘Do whatever you have to, Tracy. I want to see them.’
She paged Adams and the next thing Dan knew, he was being wheeled to the ward office. He raised a hand as they passed his room on the way. Tracy stopped.
‘Did all the patients commence the trial at the same time?’
She confirmed it. He pointed at the door opposite his.
‘Then why did he go home early?’
Tracy hesitated again, and Dan jumped on it before she had a chance to reply. He mocked her words.
‘Did the lucky thing commit suicide instead?’
She responded to that immediately, which meant Tracy at least thought she was telling the truth. Maybe she was being lied to, too?
‘No, Dan, definitely not. It’s true he went through the same suicidal stage as you, but he was bedridden and couldn’t possibly have taken his own life. He died of natural causes, I’m afraid – old age.’ She knelt down in front of him. ‘I’m sorry I had to lie to you before, but your treatment relies on positive thinking just as much as the red pill and, for reasons which must now be obvious, knowledge of anything negative has to be avoided.’
Dan accepted the explanation, but still regarded her with suspicion. ‘And what about the patients I haven’t seen? What about Brian?’
Tracy didn’t answer and got up to continue pushing him towards the office. Adams was waiting when they arrived. Dan got out of the wheelchair.
‘You once asked me how I would feel if my brother died.’ He moved closer to the doctor. ‘I’ve never had a brother and you know it. I think my hallucination is of a patient who was also on the trial. I want to know what happened to him, along with any others no longer with us.’
Adams pulled open a drawer in the filing cabinet he was standing next to. It contained folders divided into alphabetical order.
‘What was Brian’s surname?’
Adams glanced at Tracy before replying: ‘Passen.’
Dan enjoyed a rare moment of satisfaction with his adversary before reaching for the one and only folder filed under the letter ‘P’. The meaning of it struck him.
‘Passen. My hallucination didn’t pick any random letter – I was trying to remember Brian’s surname. I can’t believe I thought it meant passengers.’
He pulled the folder out, but Adams put a hand on it.
‘You clearly don’t remember, but we’ve been here many times before, and each time you’ve left vowing never again to take the red pill. What you have to ask yourself is, if ignorance means you will live but the truth means you will die, should it really be known?’
Dan regarded him as if he were mad. ‘The truth should always be known.’
Dan withdrew the folder from the doctor’s hand and read Brian’s personal details on the front cover. He looked at the photograph of him.
A pain began in his jaw, passed down through the neck and into his left arm. A sudden tightening in the chest caused him to let go of the folder, which fell to the floor. He became nauseous and felt his legs buckling, so grabbed the open drawer. The cabinet started to topple, but Adams held on to it. The chest pressure merged with the pain in his arm, and he knew he was about to let go, but only needed to see one more thing to confirm what he’d just learned was indeed the truth. The heart attack reached the peak of its agony and he collapsed, but not before confirming there were no folders under the letter ‘S’.
Chapter Fifteen
‘Come on, Danny – wake up!’
‘Wake up, Dad.’ It was his daughter’s voice.
Someone took hold of his left hand. For a second, he thought both his wife and daughter must be with him.
‘Dad, can you hear me?’
His hand was being caressed. He opened his eyes. Not in the ward office any more. There was a beeping sound.
‘Dad, do you recognise me?’
He squinted at the shock of blon
de hair. It never ceased to amaze him how much Lucy looked like her mother. Or was it the other way around?
‘Where’s your mother?’ he croaked, before remembering why she couldn’t possibly be there.
Lucy didn’t answer. He focussed on her and tried to smile.
‘Boy, are you a sight for sore eyes. Where am I?’
He scanned the room and saw the hoist, the window, and the calendar. His frustrating iPad was still sitting on the side too – steadily going through Lucy’s slideshow, but it was something new that mainly caught his eye. The steady beeping sound came from it.
He answered his own question. ‘Back in my room. How did I get here?’
‘Try not to stress yourself, you’re still very weak.’
There was a knock on the door and Adams entered. He smiled at them both.
‘Awake, I see. Good morning. Do you know who I am?’
‘Doctor Adams.’
The doctor took his patient’s temperature, checked the heart monitor, the various tubes and wires, and then the bandages.
‘I’m afraid you’re going to be needing all this for a while. Mind if I ask you a few questions?’
Lucy’s father knew what was coming and would be answering the same queries in the same way. All except the first one. The answer to that question was going to be very different.
The doctor took out his notepad and poised a pen over it. ‘What’s your name?’
Brian looked at his daughter. ‘Brian Passen.’
Lucy jumped up and down in her seat and squeezed his hand. She apologised when he grimaced.
‘And how old are you?’
Brian correctly answered that too, and then all the other questions without even being asked. So that was why he had been lied to. That was why he had to restart the medication and why the red pill had to be given time to work because without it, the truth would have been too dreadful to contemplate.