The Kennedy Moment

by Peter Adamson

  Stephen took a patient inward breath, implying that there was much he had to say, but this time it was Hélène who interrupted in support. ‘You can see it, Stephen, you can see it everywhere. All these symptoms, as you call them – they sap people’s lives. They undermine learning at school, getting a job, earning an income, supporting a family, bouncing back from life’s setbacks. They are symptoms. Of course they are. But they’re causes as well.’

  ‘Heraclitus,’ said Toby suddenly, as if coming awake. The others looked at him, startled. Toby lifted his chin and looked into the far distance, raising his left hand and placing his right arm solemnly across his chest. ‘When health is absent, wisdom cannot become manifest, strength cannot fight, wealth becomes useless and intelligence cannot be applied.’ Fifth century BC. Same point really. Said it even better than Michael.’

  Hélène gave him a smile. ‘Very apt, Tobe. Don’t let anyone ever tell you the classics aren’t useful.’

  Stephen coughed, obviously wanting to get back to the point. ‘Nonetheless—’ he began, but was stopped by Toby again holding up a hand as if conducting traffic. ‘Excuse me, I believe Michael still has some more fingers left?’

  ‘And third, Stephen,’ continued Michael, smiling ruefully and enclosing the next finger, ‘No one’s saying this is an “either or”. No one’s saying you shouldn’t be trying to fight injustice and poverty. All we’re saying is you don’t have to wait for the arrival of some political utopia before kids can get five cents’ worth of vaccine.’

  Finally allowed to speak, Stephen began a long account of what had apparently been seminal debates in the Soviet Politburo about the dangers of short-term fixes distracting from the work of long-term structural change. Toby leaned back on stiff arms, the heels of his hands pressing into the grass, contemplating the contrast with the conversations that filled his days in Berkeley Square as he looked up into the vault of the copper beech, torn through by sunlight like some magnificent stained-glass window. Opposite, Hélène’s attention was divided between wanting to support Michael and concern for Toby. She had noticed that at one point, head bowed, he had again seemed close to tears.

  All afternoon Michael had entertained a hope of strolling back to the hotel with Seema and perhaps inviting her to join him at the Rose and Crown. Did she still drink Pimm’s No.1, ‘last remnant of the Raj’, as she had called it? But as they left Stephen’s college in the late-afternoon light he had failed to make a move and, seeing her deep in conversation with Hélène, had instead fallen in with Toby as he crossed Radcliffe Square.

  Between Michael and Toby there had always been a settled bond of friendship that others had sometimes found hard to understand. And it was true that two more different people would be difficult to imagine. Yet they had always made a point of getting together on Michael’s visits to London, and more than once over the years Toby had motored down to spend a couple of days in Nyon, often at times when the other relationships in his life had been at their most difficult. The help that Michael had given had never been overt. They had lingered in the cafés by the harbour, done a little fishing out on the lake, talked politics, played chess, and in the evenings explored the restaurants of the old town. But the help had been there nonetheless. For Toby, Michael was one of the few people with whom he could be something close to himself. Michael, for his part, valued the fact that Toby moved in a world different from his own, and knew that, no matter what, he could call on Toby and Toby would be there.

  And so it was that Toby, who had hardly spoken since lunch, turned to Michael as they headed up Parks Road towards the Pitt Rivers Museum. ‘Can that really be right, mate? Five million kids a year?’

  ‘Give or take a few thousand.’

  ‘And the whatnots are cheap as chips?’

  ‘Vaccines? A few cents a shot. Of course that’s not the only cost.’

  ‘No, but, you know …’

  Up ahead, Stephen, who had decided to accompany the others back to the hotel, had caught up with Seema and Hélène.

  Toby appeared to be working something out, slowing his pace. ‘So if I’ve got this right, it’s like we’ve got this cheap cure for cancer but nobody’s bothered to do much about it?’

  Hélène had fallen behind to hear what Toby was saying. Michael also slowed his pace as he processed the figures in his head: eight million or so cancer deaths every year worldwide, well over half in the developing world. He had not thought of the comparison, but it was pretty much on the money. ‘I guess you could say that. In fact you might want to argue that it’s worse. Vaccine-preventable diseases kill similar numbers to cancer, but most of them are kids under five with all their lives in front of them. Plus which, unlike cancer, we know how to prevent it all for next to nothing.’

  Hélène was alongside now as the little group approached the ornate Victorian brick of Keble College. Toby puffed out his cheeks and thought for a moment. ‘So we’ve got all this brouhaha about the right to life, all the episcopal head scratching, all these anti-abortionists fire-bombing clinics, all the papal bulls, if you’ll forgive the expression, Hel, and all the while we’re letting five million kids a year die because nobody’s quite got around to giving them five cents’ worth of vaccine?’ Michael stopped at the kerb as a group of cyclists pushed off from the traffic lights. ‘Well, that’s not quite how we express the official WHO position, but that’s about the size of it, yes.’

  Toby gently took Hélène’s arm to steer her across the road. ‘Well, far be it from me to take a view, but that can’t be right, can it?’

  5 | Not really cricket

  In 1882, when Benjamin Jowett assumed the vice-chancellorship of the university, he drew up what would today be called a ‘to-do’ list. Number four on his list was the building of a cricket pavilion. The resulting structure, in the Queen Anne revival style, had remained virtually unaltered from the date of its completion to the afternoon, almost exactly one hundred years later, when Seema Mir, Toby Jenks, Hélène Hevré, Michael Lowell and Stephen Walsh stepped up on to its terraces.

  The others had by now caught up with the discussion, Stephen having taken over the lead. ‘So would I be right in thinking,’ he was saying in the manner of one seeking to establish firm foundations before proceeding, ‘that variola major was selected for eradication because it also posed a threat to the middle class?’

  Michael joined the others in seating himself on one of the slatted wooden benches. ‘Not at all. It was targeted because it was a major killer that can’t survive without a human host. Stop transmission in humans and it’s gone. That’s not true of most viruses. Polio can survive a good while in the environment—’

  ‘In water, or sewage, for example,’ said Hélène, looking out towards the cricket strip that was still immaculate although the season had finished a month ago. Stephen sat, elbows on knees, cheekbones lodged on the heels of his hands, unaware of the late-afternoon sun that was casting long shadows across the park or of the graceful pavilion from which so many famous names had gone out to bat.

  ‘But now it’s been eradicated, absolutely eradicated, am I correct?’

  ‘Ye-es,’ said Michael. ‘By the technical definition.’

  Stephen looked up sharply, as if this might do for the lay person but not for him. ‘Which is?’

  Michael just stopped himself from grasping the first finger of his left hand. ‘Interruption of transmission certified worldwide. Zero incidence of the disease. No further need for routine immunization.’

  ‘But the virus itself exists or it does not?’ said Stephen, patiently seeking precision.

  ‘Not in the wild, only in the two reference laboratories.’

  ‘Reference laboratories?’

  ‘One at my old stomping ground, the Centers for Disease Control in Atlanta, and one at the Research Institute for Viral Preparations in Moscow. The Porton Down centre here in the UK still has the virus at the moment, and there’s one lab in South Africa that has it, but they’re both just about to des
troy their stocks.’

  ‘Nowhere else?’

  Michael hesitated. ‘It’s been rumoured the North Koreans might have hung on to it, and maybe even the French, the Iraqis, the Israelis.’

  Stephen looked surprised. ‘Rumoured? No independent verification?’

  Michael shook his head. ‘The WHO doesn’t have that kind of authority. We just have to accept formal declarations from each country that had a smallpox lab.’

  ‘Is there a bigpox?’ Toby was sitting astride one of the lower benches, looking up at the swaying trees.

  Michael smiled. ‘The big pox was syphilis.’

  Stephen ignored this exchange and held up a hand. ‘But what we do know for certain is that both superpowers have held on to it?’

  Michael nodded, resigned to where he knew Stephen was going.

  Seema spoke quietly from the top step. ‘Wasn’t there some big debate about that earlier this year?

  ‘There still is,’ said Michael, turning to look up towards her.

  ‘The World Health Assembly debates it every year.’

  ‘You bet it does.’

  ‘And what might the case for keeping it be?’ Stephen said, ignoring Hélène’s sarcasm.

  Michael kept his hands still. ‘Research. Vaccine production. A possibility that genetically modified versions might one day be useful as a carrier for something beneficial.’

  Toby stretched his arms wide, vaguely recalling that the distance between the pavilion and the wicket had been planned to be exactly the same as at Lords cricket ground. ‘Seems to me, possums, the obvious thing to do here is to get hold of a little test tube of the stuff and threaten to blow bubbles with it in Times Square unless the world gets off its butt and immunizes every last kiddie.’

  Hélène leaned across the steps to give him a playful kiss on the cheek. ‘Great idea, Toby. Beats the hell out of another WHO resolution.’ She pulled away before Toby could react, blushing faintly.

  ‘Makes perfect sense to me.’ Stephen rose to his feet, attempting to join in the banter.

  Toby waited for Michael at the foot of the pavilion steps. When they were both on level ground he placed a hand on his friend’s shoulder in mock solemnity. ‘Down to you then, mate.’

  Michael bumped Toby’s ribs gently with his fist. ‘Consider it done.’

  ‘Great,’ said Toby, doing a little preliminary skip and taking two or three half-running steps onto the grass, swinging his arm over as if bowling an off-break. ‘Spot of bio-terrorism never did anybody any harm.’

  Seema also stood up from the bird-spattered steps, preparing to go, suppressing a jet-lagged yawn. ‘Not really cricket though is it, Tobe?’

  Skirting the pitch, the little group set off towards the mansards and multiple brick chimneys of Norham Gardens, just visible above the line of trees that marks the beginning of prosperous North Oxford.

  6 | Next year in New York

  Seema had switched on the reading lamp in the lounge of the Cotswold Lodge Hotel, hoping that Michael might come down before dinner. A copy of the University Gazette lay open on the table, but she found little of interest in the list of appointments and departures, the schedule of viva voce examinations, the classified ads for writing retreats in Cornwall and Tuscany. He had hardly spoken a word to her all day.

  All summer long she had wondered how she would feel on seeing him again. And all summer too she had resolved, at all costs, to avoid the slightest carelessness with his feelings. She had known he would still be the intelligent, kind, sensitive and slightly awkward man she had shared a year of her life with twenty years ago. But the years had added something. A mellowness. A self-deprecation to his seriousness. A confidence that rounded the edges of awkwardness. And, if she was honest with herself, all the old attractiveness as well.

  She looked up from the Gazette to the window and the line of trees that screened the hotel from the Banbury Road. This was not the way to go. Twenty years ago she had forfeited any right to spontaneity. It would be unforgivable to risk hurting him a second time.

  Stephen arrived before the others came downstairs, taking the other armchair and immediately picking up the earlier conversation.

  ‘So, you were saying, about New York, Seema. You don’t find it uncongenial?’

  ‘Seems to suit me.’

  She waited for him to get to the point, feeling sure he was working his way around to something.

  ‘Know Myron Lee?’ he asked, with deliberate casualness, looking out of the window.

  ‘Should I?’

  ‘Historian. University of Chicago. The man on class structure in the States. Of course I knew him at Cambridge. Just heard he might be going to the New School.’

  As no reply seemed required, Seema looked back towards the lobby where Hélène and Michael were at that moment descending the stairs together. She turned away and focused again on the almost bare rose bushes just outside the window.

  ‘What with Hobsbawm popping in and out these days as well,’ Stephen was saying, ‘it just might be starting to look promising. Thought I might check it out. Pop over to New York after the Michaelmas vac. Chat to Myron. You’ll be there?’

  ‘In term time? Yes, I expect so. Are they advertising?’

  ‘Wouldn’t know. I imagine they might have something for, err …’ He raised a modest hand.

  ‘A much-published Fellow of an Oxford college?’

  They exchanged smiles, Seema’s amusement having a more inward quality, being less sure that a position at the New School was there for the asking, even for Dr Stephen Walsh.

  Toby Jenks sat on the end of his bed in vest and underpants and stared at himself in the full-length wardrobe mirror. He should definitely not have come. There had been no need to expose himself to the slings and arrows of outrageous contrasts. And now it might be weeks before his cognitive dissonance was working properly again, weeks of struggling to regain a false perspective within which to see his life as being remotely acceptable. He wondered about taking a shower. Worst of all, this would be his last evening with Hélène, unless he could somehow persuade her to stay with him in London for a night or two before she left for Canada. He closed his eyes, shutting out the unwelcome visitor in the mirror, only to find his own image replaced by hers. He had always carried a powerful memory of her, occasionally straying into fantasy, and had not in truth hesitated for very long before deciding to accept Stephen’s little invitation. But he had anticipated perhaps a little pleasurable flirtation, not being smacked for six, as he put it to himself, opening his eyes again and contemplating the less-than-prepossessing figure that stared back at him.

  He had looked in vain for a mini-bar, not wanting to go downstairs too early. Hélène had agreed to a drink before dinner but had immediately turned to include the others in the invitation. He opened the wardrobe, deciding he would defy them all by wearing his usual lightweight black woollen suit and classic white shirt, accessorized with acid green braces and matching silk tie. For a few moments he stood in front of the mirror, pulling in his stomach and drawing himself up to his full six feet. ‘Now listen, possums,’ he said to the wardrobe, ‘you might as well know that what you have here is a fully paid-up member of the Guardian-reading, Waitrose-shopping, Mercedes-driving, hesitantly left-wing North Ealing branch of the vaguely discontented middle class.’ His shoulders slumped again as he relaxed back to his normal, rather portly five foot ten. Of course she couldn’t take him seriously. Who would? He checked his pockets for wallet and credit cards and began hunting around for his room key. Maybe he had time to pop out and find a bottle shop.

  ‘… not much in the way of blood chemistries, and nothing reliable on bacterial cultures …’

  Hélène had led Michael to one of the tables set slightly apart. She had intended to ask if he was okay with seeing Seema again, but he had begun asking about her work at the children’s hospital. She stopped in mid-stream. ‘Sorry I was so hard on you today, Michael. It was the disillusionment talking.’


  ‘You were telling it like it is.’

  She gave him a sad smile, wondering whether to mention the strange bouts of tiredness that had become such an unwelcome part of her life these past few months. ‘Don’t you ever get disillusioned?’

  ‘Can’t. I’m paid too much.’

  ‘Well, just so you know what I really think, I think if anyone can achieve anything in that job you can.’

  Michael looked unconvinced. ‘You know Kabré is on his way out?’

  Hélène put the menu down on the table. ‘And the guy slated to replace him is likely worse. And I hate to remind you of this, Michael, but he’ll love going to Geneva each spring so he can fine-tune his banking arrangements while pontificating about primary health care.’

  Michael looked at her steadily over his coffee. ‘And his wife will fly to Paris to have her babies …’

  Hélène nodded. ‘While women in the villages are dying after two days of agony because there’s not even basic EOC.’

  Michael remained silent. Eventually Hélène reached across the table to cover his hand with her own. ‘I know what’s going through your mind, Michael. I know you could make excuses. And I love you for not making them.’

  Michael smiled and put his cup down, catching sight of Seema sitting in the bay window with Stephen. After thinking for a moment, lips pursed, holding his breath, he looked up again at Hélène. ‘I want to invite you to a meeting. In New York.’

  ‘Me?’

  ‘Beginning of February. About three hundred people. Thirty or forty countries. It’s a kind of a follow-up to Alma Ata on financing primary health care. Health ministers. Donor governments. A few of the big NGOs. A whole bunch of high-level government people. All the specialized agencies. I want you to speak.’

  ‘They wouldn’t want to listen to me.’

  His face had taken on a determined look. ‘It’s you they need to hear.’