Jenny took a series of ever so slight sips at her drink one
after the other, conscious of her initial intention to make just the
one glass last the whole evening but desperately, desperately, bored.
Across the table Stuart talked on.
'&;#8230;Although flying is generally a fairly safe form of
transport if anything does go wrong the odds of surviving tend to be
very slim&;#8230;'
An idea had formed in her mind, he had always been like this,
he had always been a bore and that she was only now seeing clearly.
That the first flush of love had worn off and she was lowering him from
the pedestal she had placed him up on. That the fog was clearing from
her vision. That what sat across from her now rambling on was the real
Stuart.
'&;#8230;Then there was this guy in Pasadena I think, I'm
not sure, somewhere in America, is Pasadena in America? Anyway it was
somewhere beginning with a P...'
Admittedly she still found him attractive. She looked at him
to make sure, yes, still attractive. But previously his obvious
intelligence had been equally attractive. She had loved to hear him
espouse the science he worked with and the statistics that he
considered more of a hobby. She would be drawn in, amazed by the
conclusions even if she did not follow the method, loving the way the
long mysterious words fell from his lips with absolute confidence, and
always just wallowing in her own adoration, like a mother with a
successful child. And boy had he talked, he would go on into the night,
ever more enthusiastic as she got ever more tired until she had to drag
him to bed with a well chosen look or a direct, whispered, enticement.
But never before had she considered him a bore, not once, not until
this moment.
'&;#8230;Or there was that soldier that fell from a warship
somewhere in the med, the odds of him ever being found were
astronomical&;#8230;'
Her hand manipulated the wine glass automatically, raising it
to her lips again. Of course she had been bored when he talked to his
friends, when she was not the focus of his attention if she was going
to be honest. But when he talked to her, about anything, she had always
been completely enthralled.
He paused.
'Yes Stuart.' She said because it seemed to be what was
required.
'You wouldn't think so wouldn't you, but the point is that
these people, when you look into it, were not just lucky the
once&;#8230;'
Perhaps she was just tired. She was certainly tired. Perhaps
that and not nearly enough to drink. Perhaps any number of things and
best to assume the best for the moment. She put the thought from her
mind and resolved to pay more attention. Who knew. Perhaps he had
gotten interesting since she had tuned out.
'&;#8230;they just don't look for that sort of thing,
partly because it's not important to what they do but mostly because it
just isn't one of the things haematologists look
for&;#8230;'
Three weeks later.
Stuart looked at Mark. Mark looked at Stewart. Stewart smiled.
Mark looked back down at the paper and said. 'You're nuts, you can't
publish this.'
'Why not.'
'I mean... Lucky blood?'
'I keep telling people, it's not actually the blood but what's
in it.'
'Oh yes.' He leafed through the paper. 'Tiny quantities of
mutated plasma cells.'
'And what is wrong with that.'
'They're not useful, they're not genetic, they're not
obviously different to any other plasma cell.'
'This is big Mark, so big that people can't see it. In the
future those little cells are going to be considered more important as
DNA. This is the thing that gets named after me.'
'You can't call a plasma cell Stuart.'
'Don't be so asinine.'
'I might not if you had any proof, but there's
none.'
'I have statistical proof, however slight it is beyond the
margin of error and thus, certain.'
'Nothing is certain.'
'It is if you do the maths.'
'Not if the maths are statistics, statistics is all about
uncertainty.'
'Wrong. Statistics is all about breaking down uncertainty,
wringing knowledge from information, extracting the definite from the
indefinite, dissecting chaos and bringing forth order.'
'I stand by my previous statement.'
'Which one?'
'You're nuts.'
Two weeks after that.
Jenny hugged him gingerly, the anger in him a shock to her.
The rejection letter on the table, looking solid, looking
heavy.
'I'll show them.'
He didn't follow her to bed, when she came down later he was
gone.
Late that night.
Mark shivered outside the medical block. 'You are going to owe
me big time for this.'
Stuart unlocked the door. 'No my friend, you are going to owe
me.'
'So you want to tell me what we are doing.'
'You are going to give me a blood
transfusion.'
'Oh shit, what have you taken?'
'Nothing like that.'
'What then?'
Stuart grinned, a big toothy mischievous grin that did not
reach his eyes.
'Oh no.' Said Mark. 'Not all that crap again.'
They walked in silence to the lab, Mark always two steps
behind.
'I'll show them.' Said Stewart to himself.
Mark breathed deeply, rehearsing in his head what he was about
to say.
'You can't put that stuff in your veins, you'll kill
yourself.'
'There is a good chance I will survive.'
'You don't know that.'
'I did the maths.'
'Oh yeah, and what was the chance?'
Stuart did not reply.
'What was the chance?' Mark shouted, startling the empty
building into a sudden intense silence.
'There is a chance, that is enough.'
'I'm not going to help you put that crap in your
blood.'
Stuart turned, outside the room now. 'Not put in Mark.' He
said. 'Replace.' He walked in the door. 'It's the only way I'll
persuade my body to produce more.'
Mark stood outside. 'You haven't got enough.'
Stuart gestured to a rack of sealed flasks like a girl on a
game show revealing the star prize.
Mark said weakly, 'It's not even red.'
In the early hours of the following morning.
Inside the ambulance the sense of speed was acute yet the
violent buffeting and noise that Mark had expected strangely distant.
The siren like a siren far away, the engine noise almost not there,
easily overwhelmed by the shouts of the paramedic.
'Stuart. Can you hear me Stuart. Stuart. Look at me Stuart.
Stuart. Stuart. What the hell did you do to him.'
Mark said nothing and gripped a hand that did not grip back.
Automatically he felt for a pulse.
And then around lunch time.
'Well' Said the doctor, mulling over the word, spinning the
single syllable out longer than any innocent syllable should ever be
spun out. His bedside manner honed over years on the ward and now
encapsulated in one lonely word. As if by saying it with enough
conviction he could persuade his patients to be it. 'You my friend, are
lucky to be alive. You may be a candidate for the record books for the
longest anyone has ever spent without their heart beating and come
round without brain damage. I think the paramedic may just have found
religion because of you.'
Stuart smiled from the bed. Mark smiled from a chair beside
it. Both sheepish. On the other side of the bed Jenny did not raise her
head from her hands.
'But that crap you put in your veins.' Continued the doctor.
'It's a miracle you survived at all. I don't know what the hell that
was and god knows what you thought you were doing.' He raised an
eyebrow. 'Well?'
Mark kept studiously silent, avoiding eye contact. Stuart just
smiled.
'I despair of the pair of you.' Said the doctor and
left.
They watched him go.
'I'm just one lucky guy.' Said Stuart, an entirely different
grin plastered across his face. 'Luck lucky me.'
'I should phone the university, let them know what happened.'
Said Mark. 'Some of what happened at least but we're both going to get
chucked out for this however I tell it.'
'Okay man. I don't suppose you've got a dice or a deck of
cards or anything?'
'I've got a coin if that's any good.'
'Perfect.' Said Stuart grabbing it.
'Goodbye Jenny.' Said Mark awkwardly, she looked up and
nodded. Two wet, sticky lines of tears traced down from her eyes. He
walked out of the room feeling guilty as hell and miserable as a dog.
Behind him Stuart played with the coin.
'Heads. Win. Heads. Win. Heads. Win. Tails. Win. Heads.
Win.'
