Drum crushed the plastic cup in his hand. “They didn’t have bad experiences, they died.”
“George?”
“Yes, that’s true, but before you go crazy, Helen, those people might’ve taken a wrong dose or combined it with other meds. The drug is safe. I was prescribing it before I sold the practice and I know the new doc prescribes it too. Never saw any problems.”
“You should make them stop. You should all stop.” He stood up. He needed to get out of the seat, away from these people.
“You seem to have some experience with this,” said George.
“I—” How did he explain it? He’d made himself the focus of attention. “I used to work for the company.” He sat again. Both women in the seat in front were kneeling up to look at him.
“If it’s that bad, why are they still in business?” said Helen.
He squeezed the broken plastic tight in his fist. “It’s legal, it’s all legal, but it’s not acceptable. Not one death is acceptable because someone tried to get a good night’s sleep.”
“It’s not acceptable that I have a face full of wrinkles but that’s apparently legal too,” said Helen.
“My father drank himself to death and that wasn’t much good but it was legal,” said the other woman. She turned to Helen. “You know Alberto from the deli. He drove his car into a pole because he had insomnia. Did it deliberately, said he’d do anything to sleep. He wore a neck brace for years after that.”
“Sleep is critical to health,” said George. “Our systems are severely compromised without it. That’s the reason sleep deprivation has been used as torture.”
“People who used it died,” Drum said. Why couldn’t they see it like he did? Foley hadn’t seen it either.
“That’s terribly sad,” said Helen’s friend.
“All drugs have risks. I’d be dead without my blood pressure pills but they’ve made me fat,” said Helen.
“That’s right. All drugs have side effects and risks,” said George. He laughed. “With my arthritis, getting out of bed is a risk. The drugs that stay on the market are the ones that do the best job for the majority of people.”
“It’s not enough.”
“When you look at it like that, it’s not, but it’s the best we’ve been able to come up with as human beings, and really, it’s a lot better than the alternative.”
“I’d be dead, half of us in this carriage would be dead,” said Helen.
“Riding backwards is making me sick,” said her friend. She sat around in her seat, facing the way the train was going, and all Drum could see of her was her sparse hair.
“I can see this affects you badly, son. Absolutes are always the hardest to deal with.”
“Absolutes?” He turned back to George. Death was an absolute. So was failing to prevent it.
“The black or white of things. It’s rarely that simple, even though we’d like to think it is. The older I’ve gotten the more I realise it’s really all about the shades in between and how we navigate them.”
Helen said. “I think we all deserve a cup of tea. Because the older I get the more I believe it’s about doing the best you can and being kind to each other. That’s all anyone can do.”
They gave him tea and sandwiches. He talked more to George about the things he’d seen in his practice, the trust he had that on the whole, modern drugs did good work, made people’s lives better.
When he got off the train it was with a piece of fruitcake in his hand. He had a quiet notion, small and uncertain, about accepting more grey, about being kind to people instead of shutting himself off from them.
He’d once collected strays. Maybe he could collect them again. It would mean a new edge, a new set of rules. It scared the piss out of him. He didn’t know if it was possible to fight his way to somewhere different, somewhere he might be worthy of Foley, all he knew was he was on the wrong train, going in the wrong direction from the chance to.
33: High Road
Foley’s email pinged. Adro: Coffee.
She looked over at his workstation; he made his eyebrows dance. She typed back: Half an hour.
Can’t wait that long.