when one becomes available. You’re both obviously quite capable of dealing with its demands.’
Sandy raised his right hand slightly. It was a gesture designed to slow Grayson down. He was reeling from the onslaught. ‘You said, “foreseeable future”,’ he said. ‘What exactly does that mean?’
‘It means that Amanda will need dialysis until such time as a kidney transplant becomes available for her.’
The word ‘transplant’ seemed to have put Kate into shock. She sat with her eyes wide, staring at Grayson as he spoke.
‘A transplant,’ repeated Sandy slowly.
‘Yes.’
‘It’s that serious? But how? When? I mean, how long?’
‘Far too soon to start talking about that,’ replied Grayson. ‘We’ve lots more tests to do.’ He looked distracted, and almost before they could respond he had made his excuses and left, leaving them alone with Clive Turner.
Turner seemed more sensitive to their feelings and almost embarrassed at Grayson’s manner. ‘I know what you must be thinking,’ he said softly, ‘but these days kidney transplants are very common and very successful.’
‘But you need a suitable donor,’ said Sandy.
Turner nodded. ‘True, and that’s where the waiting comes in. Amanda will be tissue-typed and her details entered on an international register. As soon as a match comes up we can get the organ and do the surgery.’
‘How long?’ asked Kate. Sandy barely recognized her voice.
Turner shrugged uncomfortably. ‘It could be some time,’ he said.
‘Weeks? Months? Years?’ Kate persisted.
‘It could be a year or so,’ admitted Turner.
Sandy looked at Kate. He couldn’t remember ever having seen her look so unhappy. Her world was collapsing around her.
TWO
The convoy of three official vehicles accompanied by a police car swung through the gates of the Medic Ecosse Hospital in Glasgow and came to a halt at the entrance. Their drivers opened passenger doors and stood by respectfully as the eight occupants got out and waited around like camels at an oasis. They orientated themselves with their surroundings, straightened their ties and fidgeted with the buttons of their jackets until the official welcoming party emerged through sliding glass doors to greet them. The smiles were all on the welcoming side.
Leo Giordano, administrative secretary of the Medic Ecosse Hospital, part of the Medic International Health group, stepped forward and shook the hand of the junior minister from the Scottish Office, Neil Bannon. Giordano was tall, dark and good-looking with an olive skin that implied Mediterranean ancestry, although he himself was second-generation American. Bannon was short, ginger-haired and running to fat. He had recently grown a moustache in the mistaken belief that this would lend gravitas to his presence. Unkind observers thought it made him look more like a second-hand-car salesman than ever.
Bannon and Giordano had met on several occasions during the planning stages of the hospital and now exchanged a few pleasantries before Giordano commenced the formal introductions. These were dealt with quickly in deference to the drizzling rain and icy wind and the bowed huddle moved inside.
‘I thought we might have coffee first before getting down to business. It’ll give people a chance to get to know each other.’
Bannon nodded his assent without enthusiasm or comment and followed Giordano across the carpeted entrance hall to a long, low-ceilinged room with large picture windows looking out on to a formal garden. At this time of year the garden displayed all the starkness of winter in northern climes. Bare branches criss-crossed a grey sky and moss crept along stone paths, flourishing as nothing else could in the damp and cold. As a centrepiece, it boasted a lily pond with, at its head, a sculpture clearly influenced by ancient Greece. The hunting figure seemed pathetically far from home.
Coffee was brought in by waitresses carrying silver trays and wearing pale pink uniforms with the Medic Ecosse logo on them.
‘It’s no bloody wonder they’re in financial straits,’ whispered one of the visiting party, a local Labour councillor. ‘This isn’t a hospital, it’s a bloody gin palace. Look at it! Carpets everywhere, air-conditioning, tailored staff uniforms. Hospitals shouldn’t be like this.’
‘On the contrary,’ replied his colleague. ‘You may prefer Victorian slums smelling of disinfectant and echoing to the profanity of Saturday-night drunks, but frankly I happen to believe that all hospitals should look exactly like this, and the sooner they do the better.’
‘Privatization, you mean,’ sneered the councillor. ‘Fine for the rich, but what about the rest of us? Tell me that. And what about the chronic sick and the mentally ill? Who’s gonna look after them?’
The second man clearly had no heart to enter an old argument all over again, particularly one there would be no resolving. He put a stop to the tack they were on with a raise of his hand. ‘All right, I know the words of the song. Let’s not sing it this morning.’
‘I’ll tell you one thing,’ said the councillor. ‘If they think I’m going along with any plan to sink any more taxpayers’ money into this monument to privilege unconditionally, they’ve got another think coming. We were promised that this place would be self-sufficient within twelve months and making a handsome profit within eighteen. We were promised jobs and rates money to improve the district and here we are, three years down the line, and they’re looking for handouts again. It’s offensive. The public just won’t bloody well stand for it.’
The councillor moved off, to be replaced by a member of Bannon’s personal staff who had overheard what had been said.
‘I don’t know about you but I’m not sure I can see an alternative,’ said the newcomer. ‘Having committed twenty-seven million to the project already, we can hardly write it off and walk away. Apart from anything else, the opposition would have a field day.’
‘Quite so, but I remember the noise they made at the planning stage. They said it would never happen. They said there was more chance of setting up a distillery in Riyadh or a pork-pie factory in Tel Aviv, but up it went, an exclusive private hospital in the very heartland of the Glasgow Labour Party. Ye gods.’ The man smiled at the recollection.
‘It was only high unemployment in the building trade that swung it in the end. The prospect of losing a major building project was just too high a price to pay for the sake of anyone’s prejudice,’ said the official.
‘Principles have a habit of becoming “prejudices” when there’s money involved,’ said the man.
The official smiled. It was a worldly-wise little smile. The smile of someone who knew the game and how to play it.
‘How bad is the trouble they’re in?’
‘If you ask me, it’s nothing that couldn’t be solved with a bit of judicious marketing. Business has been a bit slower in appearing than anticipated and there’s a good chance that Medic International the parent company, are trying it on. They think the government can’t afford to let the hospital go to the wall with all the attendant publicity and loss of jobs, so they’re making a play for more public investment instead of underwriting the problem themselves. Rumour has it that Bannon’s hopping mad.’
‘So why has business been slow? Why didn’t all these rich folk and their families materialize to receive the best medical treatment money could buy?’
‘Hard to say. Maybe they prefer to go to London for their triple by-passes and hip replacements,’ said the official. ‘Down there they can always have their food sent over from the Dorchester and nip out to Annabelle’s for the odd alcohol-free lager when they start to feel better.’
The man smiled at the allusion to religious abstinence. ‘But I understand it’s different when it comes to transplants,’ he said. ‘Medic Ecosse has already built a reputation as one of the finest transplant hospitals in the country.’
‘No question,’ agreed the official. ‘And James Ross is acknowledged as one of the best transplant surgeons.’
