The Meddlers (11 page)

He stopped at the foot of the stairs and stared at her. “What possible reason would that be for disliking you? Really, Marjorie, you do take great leaps when you jump to your conclusions.”

“So you always say. But I’m right,” she said insistently. “She was scared I’d interfere with her baby. And once she was sure I wouldn’t—because I did make it clear, you know, that I had no intention of doing more than agreeing to the legal business—she felt safe again.”

“Marjorie, you must stop seeing things in terms of—like a play! Such subtleties are hardly within her grasp. She was selected most carefully, you know. Most carefully indeed. She has a job to do, and she’s doing it quite well. And that’s as far as it goes.”

“I wouldn’t be too sure. The job consists of giving him loving care, doesn’t it? And she loves him, I promise you. She was like a threatened mother bear up there.”

“If the child were a little older, you might have a point. But he’s only just over a week, remember. But I’ll talk to Saxby. There may be a case for replacing her with someone else later, having a series of nurses rather than a permanent one, in case she becomes over-emotionally involved. As long as that doesn’t disturb him. But I needn’t worry about it yet, I’m quite sure.”

“Well, it’s up to you. If you’re sure. But I’m glad to have worked out why she was so—” She gave a little shrug of distaste. “I know it’s vanity, but I need to know why people react to me in different ways. I need to be liked. Not that you’d know about that sort of feeling, would you? You never have it.”

“Marjorie, I really must go.” He looked at his watch. “I hope to get home at a reasonable time tonight, but it rather depends on what Kegan wants. More newspaper problems, I imagine, which are a bloody nuisance, but I’ll have to deal with him. You want the car, you say?”

“Yes, please. And I’ll expect you when I see you. As usual. May I have my coat?”

He went into the monitoring room, and as the door swung open she could see Mr. Kegan and Miss Hervey talking over the banks of monitor screens, and she stepped back out of their sight. She wasn’t in the mood to cope with Kegan’s heavy playfulness, the sort of labored gallantry he produced whenever they met at official hospital functions. And as for Barbara Hervey—she was a bore of the first water.

George came back with her coat, and as she put it on, grimacing at the discomfort of its dampness, he said a little awkwardly, “Anyway, thank you, Marjorie. You can see now how important your cooperation is on this adoption question? Without control of the baby, the whole Unit is wasted. And it took a great deal of effort to set up, a lot of work already done. I… I really don’t think I could tolerate the loss of it all.”

“It was the least I could do, I suppose. I could hardly refuse,
could I? Though I wish you’d given him a different name. I suppose it’s too late to alter that now.”

“It was worth doing, or so I thought at the time. I’d hoped to gain sympathy from those idiotic journalists. They go in for the emotional point of view, and I thought it would help them see me in a fatherly light, giving him my own name. Anyway, he’s got to be called something.”

“Yes. But all those reports about Baby George Briant—they made me feel, oh, I don’t know. I didn’t like it. But I’ll get used to it. One gets used to everything sooner or later.”

He kissed her cheek and put one arm around her shoulders and hugged her. “You’d better hurry home and out of that damp coat. Goodbye, my dear, and thank you again. Do you mind seeing yourself out? The keys are in the ignition.” And he went, the door swinging behind him, leaving her pulling on her gloves in the narrow hallway.

  “Television? Tonight? Oh, for Christ’s sake, Kegan, leave me alone, will you? You got your press conference, and much good it’s done! You have seen this morning’s papers, I imagine?”

“I told you last night when I brought the evenings over how it would be. And you’ll have to admit you… well, you lost your temper, and you put their backs up. I can’t be blamed for that. All I know is that I’m almost at my wits’ ends trying to cope with the demands for access to you—the television people, radio, and there’s all the foreign press agency people too. I’ve done nothing but deal with the Briant project for days, it seems to me! And I have a responsibility to the Committee, you know, and they have to the Regional Board, even though you’re working in a section of the hospital that’s outside the NHS establishment, and not using Ministry money. Because you are using some hospital staff, remember.”

He moved agitatedly across the room and then turned and came back to stand over Briant’s chair. “Look, Dr. Briant, I’ve been with you on this from the word go, you know I have. Who first got the use of this building for you? Who soothed the finance people when you annexed the equipment you needed? Who keeps on trying to
raise money for you, got you your first grant? I know I wasn’t the only one who saw your work was important enough to be worth backing, but you must admit you owe me something! And all I’m asking of you now is your cooperation in dealing with all this publicity, that’s all.”

“My dear Kegan, you know as well as I do that you came in on my side of the fence not out of some great disinterested love of science—you don’t know what science is all about!—but because you saw a hope of personal glory in it! And something more, I suspect. I haven’t forgotten the way you talked about taking out patents on some of the techniques I developed here. That was an obscenity, if you like. Oh, no, Kegan. Don’t try the gratitude line with me. Whatever you’ve done you’ve done for science and not for me personally, whether you see it that way or not. I owe nothing to anybody, not gratitude or anything else, do you understand me? I’m a scientist, a
scientist
, God damn it all! Do you have any conception of what that means? Science is entitled to all the support it can get, to all it needs. It
demands
, it doesn’t come cap in hand asking for favors and groveling its gratitude!”

He stood up and in his turn moved sharply from one side of the room to the other. His face was red, and his shoulders hunched over his chest as he marched, hands in pockets. “When will you get it into your head that this project is what matters, not me, not you, not the bloody hospital, or the newspapers, or your bleating television people! The
project
and nothing else!”

“And when will you get it into
your
head that it’s the project I’m trying to keep in mind? Though you’re doing your best to make me forget it! I’ve got some power in this place, Dr. Briant, even though I’m not a doctor or a great scientist! And if you push me much harder, I’ll wash my hands of the whole thing and tell the Committee I can’t cope, and make it clear I want you out—out, do you understand? And out you’ll go, take it from me, especially after the fiasco you made of the press conference and the results of it spread all over the papers this morning!”

Kegan breathed deeply, suddenly aware that he was shouting, and went on more quietly. “You may see science as the great God we’ve all got to worship, but if we don’t see it that way, and not
many do, take it from me, you’ll have nothing to do your worshiping with. I don’t understand you, I really don’t. You say this project is the only thing that matters, and yet you do your best to scuttle it by refusing to cooperate with what is necessary to keep it going!”

Briant stood still, staring at him from under his brows, and Kegan stared back, his heavy face gleaming slightly with sweat.

“George.” Barbara Hervey stirred nervously. “George, may I?”

“What?” He turned to look at her.

She took a deep and slightly tremulous breath. “Look, I know it isn’t really my business, but I know what you mean. Better than anyone else could. I’m your senior assistant, and I do understand, you know? But he’s right. He really is.”

She leaned forward on her elbows and looked up at Briant with an expression of almost ludicrous earnestness on her face. “People outside our field, they can’t understand. They haven’t the training, the intellectual equipment. And it’s all been thrown at them so suddenly, hasn’t it? I mean, we’ve been working towards all this for years, you know? Haven’t we? So we’re accustomed to the idea of what we’re doing. But the newspaper people—and the people who read them, which is pretty well everybody—they’ve had no chance to think the thing through. All they see is a baby, a newborn baby, a symbol of all people care about. And he’s in a special unit, you know, had a very unusual start to his life. It’s perfectly reasonable that they can’t understand.”

“It’s a valid point,” Briant said after a moment. “I suppose it’s a valid point. But what can
I
do about it? Ever since… since before Galileo scientists have had to accept that the idiot mass doesn’t comprehend, can’t see what good science can do. So they vilify it. And I’m no politician, Barbara—no politician! I’ve got vital work to do, absolutely vital work to do, and I know it if they don’t. I tried to explain at that press conference and the only one who understood was Bridges, the only one. He wrote the only intelligent thing that appeared this morning. All I ask is to be left to get on with my work, and enough support to make it possible. Is it so much to ask?”

“No, of course it isn’t. But you’ve got to convince everybody, not
just me and people like Bridges, people who’ve had a scientific training. You’re preaching to the converted in us, but you’ve got to get at everyone else. So Mr. Kegan is right. You’ll
have
to cooperate and answer their questions and explain. Even if it wastes your time. It won’t really be wasting it, you know. And I can hold things here, really I can. The work will get done, even if you miss the doing of it. And I know that’s miserable for you, but what else can you do?”

“I seem to have been here so often before,” Briant said heavily and moved wearily back to his chair. “First trying to convince you, Kegan, and then those journalists, and Marjorie—and now again. And you beat me every time, don’t you, you and all the people like you, Kegan? The blind ones.”

He rubbed his face then. “Oh, God, I’m sorry. That was bloody offensive, and I didn’t mean it to be. But you are blind, you know.”

“You certainly make me feel so,” Kegan said, and anger was still simmering in him. “And stupid into the bargain. And I know I’m
not
stupid, any more than the next person is. I care about what you’re doing, even if I’m not as head over ears in love with it as you are. But you do your best to make me stop caring. I’ll tell you something, Dr. Briant, I don’t know why I put up with you and your arrogant ways, that I don’t! It says a lot for me, it really does.”

“Yes. Yes. I’m sorry, Kegan. You’re right, of course. I was abominably ill-mannered, and I apologize. I’ve had—it hasn’t been easy, this past week. And the papers this morning—I say I don’t care, but I suppose I do. It stung, that eruption of uncomprehending idiocy. It shouldn’t, but—”

“Of course it stung!” Barbara said and leaned over to rest a hand on Briant’s arm. “It hurt me, I know that! I could have wept this morning when I opened the papers, I really could. But you can make it different, George, if you’ll only cooperate with this television thing. It’s an important program, you know. Virtually everyone watches
Probe
and that Gerrard man—even I do! You could make them see it so clearly if only you’d try.”

“And manage to avoid losing your temper,” Kegan said. “If you can. Because I promise you, if you do that, on a live transmission
like this has to be, you really will scupper yourself. And then I’ll be past caring. It’s up to you now. I’m certainly not going to say another word about it. Just make up your mind, one way or the other, and let me know your decision. And within the next half-hour, because I can’t and won’t hold these people off any longer than that. You’ll find me in
my
office, trying to get on with
my
job, when you’re ready to talk. Good morning!”

And the door slammed behind him.

“In many ways, I remain a child at heart, Graham,” Sir Daniel said. “No, not whisky. A most uncivilized drink at this hour. Brandy, if you have it? Thank you. Yes, indeed, a child at heart. I still find the ability of television to enter the minds of millions a remarkable thing. What? Oh. Let me see the label. Hmm. Yes, perhaps a little soda would be as well. Yes, millions. With the Eurovision linkup, and the satellite feeding the United States and Canada, the mind boggles. And J. J. told me there will be tape recordings of the program going out in Australia and New Zealand. Quite a remarkable degree of coverage, remarkable. Indeed a pervasive medium.”

He drank some brandy and then added sharply, “I take it young Bridges has been well briefed?”

“He’ll mention the
Echo
as often as he possibly can,” Graham said dryly, and defiantly filled his glass with whisky for the second time. “Of course, if you’d accepted the invitation to take part yourself—”

“Oh, no, no, my dear chap, no. I’m only a proprietor, after all. People know that the real power in a newspaper lies with the editorial staff. I would have had no value at all. None at all. No, no more brandy, thank you. I try to be a reasonably abstemious individual. Perhaps you had better switch the set on? It’s almost nine o’clock, and I don’t think we should miss any of the program. And the other members of the staff who are joining us had better put in an appearance soon, don’t you think?”