The Swan Song of Doctor Malloy

by Robert Power

  I look into my empty glass and then shake my head. She looks surprised.

  ‘Then you’ll pay me four hundred baht. I’m not losing money,’ she says defiantly.

  I open my wallet and hand her the money.

  ‘Thank you, Dr AIDS,’ she says, laughing. ‘Maybe see you around.’

  With that she smiles, stands up, and leaves the bar without turning around. The night, though late, is still young and every baht moves her a step closer to home. I watch her cross the street and climb into a tuk-tuk. Its engine rumbles, it lurches off and is swallowed up in the stream of traffic. Something of our conversation is left at the table. Her presence, her strength and courage. I pick up the cigarette she has stubbed in the ashtray. I straighten it, light it and inhale deeply. The nicotine hits my brain like an express train. It is almost like that first hit, which all smokers, drinkers, drug takers, try to relive. To revive. Like lost love. The boys stop playing football and wander away in twos and threes, arms slung over each other’s shoulders in an easy intimacy.

  I return to who I am, to what I am doing. A month ago I saw myself as making my mark. Making a difference. Now I find myself on a cargo ship halfway to hell. The seeds sit in the airport transit compound waiting for me to shift them on. And all for Caitlin. For one life. Countless thousand lives, the misery of friends and families, for my flesh and blood. One body of flesh and blood. The waiter is standing by me, expectant.

  ‘Sir, do you want another Singha beer, please?’

  I look up at him. He is tall and there is a large beige stain on the front of his white shirt.

  ‘Another beer?’ I repeat. ‘What else is there to do?’

  He doesn’t seem to have the answer, so I order another drink and begin the familiar journey to another drunk.

  Hours later, back in my hotel bed, I wake to a dry parched mouth and the fragments of a dream about thick emerald vines and monkeys shrieking their distress. The starkly illuminated digits on the radio clock tell me it will soon be time to pack my bags and move on.

  By early afternoon I find myself in another taxi heading towards another departure lounge. The flight is delayed. WAIT IN LOUNGE resonates: my life is on hold. I find a seat opposite an elderly Thai man. He is dressed in a cream-coloured checked suit, with a straw boater on his head. He opens a small silver case and takes out a pair of tweezers and a mirror. Carefully undoing the red and black scarf from around his neck, he proceeds to clean out his exposed voice box. He uses the mirror to guide the tweezers in this delicate operation. He catches my eye then examines an interesting find between the tweezers. I look up at the monitor in desperate need of a distraction.

  Presently I become aware of the crying of babies. Not one or two, but a host of tiny people, like a ripple, a Mexican wave, each one taking its cue from its neighbour. The mothers are flapping, over-anxious. It is then I realize all the babies are Thai and the mothers are European. The women speak in French, the babies cry as frightened babies do. The women do not seem comfortable with motherhood. A middle-aged Thai woman stares at the scene. She looks shocked, uncomprehending. She walks up to the line of flustered mothers, each trying frantically to soothe their charges. The babies seem to sense the uncertainty of their adoptive mothers and cry with renewed vigour. The Thai woman stands still for a moment, mesmerised by her own emotions. Then she turns her back on the line of French mothers and Thai babies and lets out a tirade to the assembled crowd. Her words are foreign to me, but forceful and impassioned. I don’t understand what she says, but I think I know what she means.

  Lottie lies on her bed reading the first poem Trixie has ever shown another person. It came in the post this morning. The stamp on the envelope is beautiful. It shows a robin in winter, standing on a frost-coated garden fence. The poem is written on a postcard of Chagall’s picture of a couple kissing in a kitchen. Trixie’s poem is about a mother who sets fire to their house so she can save her daughter from the flames and prove her maternal love.

  Lottie rereads the last line, whispering it so she can hear the sound of her own voice speaking Trixie’s words: ‘Crystal shattering, absorbed by the moon, that down upon me shone.’

  She dozes off to sleep and drifts into a dream where the robin flies from the stamp and perches on the shelf where Lottie keeps her childhood dolls. The words ‘crystal’ and ‘moon’ drift up from the card and float above Lottie. She rises from the bed, stretching to touch the words, as the robin swoops down and swallows them whole. The bird chirps a merry chirp and returns to the top of the wardrobe to watch over the drama unfolding below.

  The dreaming Lottie looks down at her arm. The scars she has carved are transformed into the holes of her flute. In her left hand she holds the shepherd boy. It has trebled in size and the sharpened point is serrated like a saw. She feels no pain as she rhythmically cuts through the flesh and bone by her elbow. From above, the robin sings an accompaniment. The cut is clean and the flute-arm falls to the floor. The shepherd boy sprouts wings and flies away through the open window. Lottie leans down and picks up her amputated flute-arm. She moves it to her lips and begins to play the sweetest, most serene music. By the open window stands Trixie. Her hair is blowing in the gentle breeze and she smiles a broad, tender smile. Lottie continues to play as Trixie dances to the music, silently mouthing the words to the most wonderful poem ever written. Up on top of the wardrobe the robin opens his beak wide and swallows the dream whole, so it will never be forgotten.

  When Lottie wakes she knows for a certainty that Trixie will be the most important person in her life. The person she never knew she was looking for. She feels more secure and warm than ever before. She looks over the card. The words are still there. ‘Crystal,’ she whispers to herself. ‘Moon.’ She makes a claw of her right hand and blows across her knuckles. Then she runs the little finger of her left hand over the smooth line of scars on the soft flesh of her forearm. She makes a sound, somewhere between music and poetry, somewhere between her new self and her old self.

  Later on she invites Trixie for supper. When she sees her strolling up the pathway to her front door Lottie almost swoons at the sight. It is as if Trixie has walked out of her dream and onto her doorstep. The bell chimes. Lottie checks her reflection in the hallway mirror, bobs her hair, then heads off to open the door.

  Looking back over the cityscape of Bangkok as the plane arches away into the sky, I feel a mixture of relief and regret. Relief that everything is still going to plan, that in spite of my misgivings and doubts, there is still hope for my sister’s safety. Regret that I will have to deceive and manipulate so many trusting people along the way. My melancholy is broken by the air steward and her offer of orange juice and peanuts.

  ‘Hi, I’m Rich,’ says the earnest young man sitting next to me, our eyes meeting as the drinks pass by.

  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 th
rombosis,’ 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 k
eep 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.’