JCRM

Adrienne

The hotel garden was beautiful. A tall hawthorn hedge with a row of rose bushes in front defined its borders, forming a barrier to the world outside. An intermittent gentle breeze carried the scent of both. Square wrought iron tables, four chairs to each, were neatly arranged and spaced far enough apart to ensure conversations remained private.

Relaxing and intimate, the garden was the perfect setting to enjoy lunch, a bottle of wine and conversation. Lunch had come and gone and we’d ordered yet another bottle of wine, our third. I felt very relaxed, pleasantly buzzed, not pissed as the English called being drunk. I’d definitely be spending the night in a hotel, though, rather than driving back to London.

I didn’t care. It was so rare either of us had an entire weekday afternoon free. To both have one free at the same time? Unheard of. I was determined to enjoy this afternoon to its fullest. Even the sun was cooperating, gloriously shining and elevating the temperature, the heat it generated allowing us to abandon our jackets. Its rays felt fantastic on my skin.

I was waiting on Jill to return from the loo. My puzzle looked absolutely beautiful today in an ink blue raw silk pantsuit with a white top, her hair done up in a knot. A titanium pin in the shape of a pitchfork with a devil’s tail, studded with rubies, was fastened to the lapel of her jacket. Seeing it brought a smile to my face. I’d given it to her as a birthday gift a couple of weeks ago, a physical manifestation of a long standing joke between us about her reputation in some circles as the devil incarnate with the titanium a reference to the thick skin needed to do her job.

I heard footsteps then felt a hand on my shoulder, a light squeeze then it was gone. Another symbol of our evolving…whatever. Her physical contact with me had changed over time.

Initially, we’d shaken hands as business colleagues do. Then she’d started covering my hand with her other. Now, we didn’t just shake hands when shaking hands was called for. She’d grasp mine with both her hands, holding on as we exchanged a few sentences.

Outside of meetings, we’d moved from a simple greeting or handshake to the faire la bise, the French custom of kissing both cheeks. No body contact involved. I’d been surprised the first time she’d done it at a dinner we’d both attended. I was already seated next to Victoria. Jill walked up, leaned over and presented one cheek then the other to me. What was I supposed to do? I kissed both.

It progressed to her hands clasping my arms as we kissed cheeks, our bodies moving closer. And if we met up outside of anything work-related, where it was just us, after the second kiss she’d press her cheek against mine as she whispered a greeting in my ear.

Then she’d started reaching out to touch me for no reason at all. Decidedly unlike Jill. I’d never seen her casually touch anyone. A hand on my forearm during a conversation. A squeeze to my shoulder.

A few weeks ago, we’d been at a cocktail party at The Royal Institution. She’d been standing in a small group which included Victoria, and I’d been speaking with someone else. I’d touched her shoulder to get her attention and her hand had gone up and covered mine, not removing it until she’d finished her conversation and started to turn towards me. I’m not sure she realised what she’d done.

Victoria’d looked at me and raised a brow. I’d ignored her. What was I supposed to say? I think your best friend, who’s straight and married, is attracted to me. And oh, by the way, I’m in love with her. But don’t worry, because I have a moral or two still left, one of which is I don’t sleep with married women.

As Jill sat, she said, “I’m back.” Then she chuckled, “Of course I am. How silly of me to state the obvious. I feel quite squiffy.”

“Squiffy?” Another distinctly British word I’d no clue what it meant.

“Slightly drunk.”

“Ah. Well, we are on our third bottle of wine.” I indicated the new bottle the waitress had just delivered.

“I hadn’t realised,” she said, her eyes widening. “Did you take the train this morning?”

“No, I drove.”

She glanced at the bottle of Malbec. “I suppose we shouldn’t order any more wine so you’re able to drive back.”

“It’s a bit late for that. I think I’ll need to stay overnight.”

“Will it be a problem?”

“No, not at all,” I said, shaking my head. “Do you need to get going? Catch the train back?”

“Actually, I’m staying here again tonight then going on to Cornwall in the morning to visit my sister and nephews. Richard’s off to Australia on one of his engineering projects.”

“That should be enjoyable.” Jill’s sister Sandra, several years younger, lived in Cornwall with her husband, Richard, and their teenage sons, Richard Jr. and John. Sandra and Richard were both engineers.

“I suppose,” she said, reaching for the bottle of wine and refilling both our glasses. “We could have dinner together tonight if you’d like.”

“Sure, that’d be great.”

“Splendid,” Jill smiled. “Now, where were we?”

“We were discussing your interview,” I answered, picking up my wine glass and taking a sip. Prior to her trip to the loo, we’d been speaking of the latest skirmish she’d had with animal rights activists in the press. I’d seen the television news interview she’d done Wednesday night.

“Oh, god yes, thank you. That damn interview. I couldn’t believe the intimations! No one wants to use animals for testing, Adrienne. No one! It’s ridiculous for anyone to even suggest it, as if we scientists are all serial killers in the making, intent on ‘torturing’ animals. How does one even respond?” she asked, her irritation plain in her tone of voice and the accompanying scowl. “It’s bloody insulting is what it is.”

“You were being baited. Any response to all the intimation would’ve required you to draw the conclusion first then argue against it. Then the headlines would read ‘Prominent Scientist Admits to Possibility of Serial Killers in Laboratories’.”

“Bloody hell, we make medicines for animals, too. How do these people think animal medicines are discovered?” She made a noise of disgust. “We’ve no choice but to use animals at this point. How do they expect us to meet our ethical and legal obligations to ensure the drugs we make for humans and animals are safe? Alternate technologies for some things simply don’t exist yet.”

“Do the animal rights groups offer any alternatives?”

“None that are viable. No animal testing, full stop. That’s it.”

“A bit idealistic, I’d say. It doesn’t leave any chance for compromise.”

“There is no compromise with them. We’re committed to the three Rs — replacement, reduction and refinement. Have been for years. Advances in in vitro and in silico testing occur constantly. Physiology-based pharmacokinetic modelling, quantitative systems pharmacology, induced pluripotent stem cell usage…I could list ad nauseam what we’ve evaluated and implemented since I’ve been at Landers, everything we’re considering now to reduce the use of animals in testing.”

“Hence the focus on technology transfer you were speaking of earlier,” I took a sip of wine before I continued. “Evaluate emerging technologies, find the practical uses and move it into commercial application as fast as possible.”

“Exactly. We’ve an entire department dedicated to working with universities and government on it. None of it’s good enough for these people. I spent the entirety of Wednesday doing interviews yet again around why it’s still necessary to use animals in testing.”

Handling interviews around animal rights was old hat for Jill. Nothing extraordinary had happened, nothing to cause the level of irritation I was seeing. My eyes narrowed a little as I observed her. The fingers of one hand drummed on the arm of her chair as the other lifted the glass of wine to her lips and she took a sip.

“What’s this sidetracked you from?” I asked, an educated guess on my part as to a possible reason for her irritation. Jill set her sights on a goal and when something she considered a distraction or nuisance got in her way, irritation and frustration usually resulted.

She chuckled a bit and gave me that look she gives me — fondness mixed with a bit of confusion and a hint of surprise accompanied by a soft smile — like she doesn’t quite know what to do with me. She’s looked at me like that for a while now.

“You know how I detest distractions, Ade…rienne.”

She must be drunker than she appears, I thought as she stumbled over my name. “So what’s this distracted you from?”

“I’m sorry, I…oh, the interview?”

“Yes,” I confirmed. It must be the alcohol.

“It’s not so much this particular interview,” she sighed and took a sip of wine. “I tire of it. Every time we’ve a skirmish, it’s a dog whistle to all the extremists to come out of the woodwork. The level of vitriol rises, the threats increase, and, well, it’s a very long war we’ve been fighting. Esther’s raising of the foeticide issue this morning reminded me of another front.”

“I’m not sure I understand the foeticide accusations or how it fits in with the animal rights extremists. And this morning, the situation Esther brought up? I found it confusing. Why would you handle it?”

“Where to start?” Jill sat back in her chair, putting her glass of wine down. “A favourite tactic of some of the animal rights groups is to target board members, employees’ families, and sometimes employees not directly involved in testing. They’re sent all manner of inflammatory propaganda — horrendous graphic photos of maimed animals, vile descriptions of abuse, even a recording of an animal supposedly screaming in pain once — none of which is true. We had the audio analysed in that case. It most assuredly was not an animal on the recording. As you might imagine, some find it highly upsetting. The aim is to cause dissension amongst the board and employees, loss of support, whatever negative effects they can manage to cause. In response, SEF developed a programme for organisations to use to educate anyone unfamiliar with animal testing. Landers donated the money for the programme and parts of it were filmed at the Folkestone facility. If the same tactics are now being used around stem cell research, well, we’ll need to address it.”

“So you hope a quick chat with Summers will take care of it,” I guessed.

“In a nutshell, yes,” she confirmed. “If not, then we’ll need to look into it further. Of all the SEF board members, I’m best placed to make the determination since I’ve the experience around animal rights. Esther has none.

“As to the foeticide accusations levelled at Landers specifically, it’s absolutely ludicrous,” Jill said, waving her hand. “These people accuse us of destroying babies by using frozen embryos to obtain embryonic stem cells. We don’t harvest ES cells from frozen embryos. Established lines exist. We purchase the lines from companies for use in screening and testing. We don’t utilise frozen embryos at all and we’re certainly not ‘killing babies’ as they claim.”

“So it’s an ethical objection then, I presume, based on the belief that life begins at conception since they refer to the embryo as a baby. I can see how it would be a very emotive issue for some, particularly those with religious objections,” I nodded my head as I thought about it. “Legally, it’s an attempt to elevate the frozen embryo to personhood status thereby according it legal rights and protections, which would then turn the harvesting of stem cells from embryos into an entirely different matter. Assault, murder if the embryo’s no longer viable after harvesting. All that comes with the attendant political ramifications as well, I imagine.”

“All of it,” Jill said, shaking her head. “Good god, can’t these people do a bit of research before they start protesting so they’d at least know what the bloody hell they’re protesting? And their arguments? Nonsensical. At least I understand the position of the animal rights groups. These stem cell protesters…I don’t understand it at all. Of course, we seem to attract all types of absolute nutters. The latest is someone sending letters threatening to take over the kingdom of science in God’s name and reclaim the Queen of Heaven which we’re supposedly hiding. What the bloody hell does that even mean? I’ve no idea what that’s related to. Security can’t even tell if it’s a threat it’s so indecipherable.”

“My offer still stands.” I wasn’t particularly fond of threats and I’d offered my services to Jill in the past. She’d always dismissed it.

“I may have security take you up on that.”

That got my full attention. I sat up straight, my brain hitting Mach 5. She’d never seemed particularly concerned about the threats before.

“Why is this different?” I questioned.

“Well, it’s not. In fact, compared to the rather vivid descriptions the animal rights extremists use to threaten us, it’s mild. I’m just frustrated and venting, Adrienne. Really, there’s no need to concern yourself with it.”

Too late. “When you say indecipherable, what do you mean? True gibberish, illogical statements or is it you’re just unfamiliar with the religious concepts? How is the….”

“Adrienne,” Jill interrupted. “What Mach number are you?”

“About a ten and climbing.” I tend to get very focused and in my head.

“A ten?” she said, dismayed. “I’m sorry. I didn’t mean to alarm you.”

“Jill, I’ve offered to look into the threats on several occasions. You’ve always dismissed it, said it was unnecessary. Today you didn’t. That’s a change in behaviour. Now you’re telling me not to be alarmed and not to worry about it. I don’t understand.”

Those blue eyes looked at me appraisingly for a long while. “Do you remember our first meeting?” she finally asked.

I experienced brain shear at the abrupt change in topic. Of course I remembered. I’d been asked to deal with an issue for the Women’s Scientific Association. It’s how I met Jill. She sat on the board. “At Céleste, the meeting with the WSA board where our discussion mortified everyone but you.”

“Bloody marvellous is what it was,” she laughed, the sound joyful. It brought a smile to my face. I loved to hear her laugh, not the polite laugh she did when it was called for, but a laugh from deep inside, one she actually felt. “You walked in, bold as brass, told what is, in essence, the female royalty of science in England we’d cocked it up, you’d fix it your way and if we didn’t like it, we could sod off. My god, that took balls,” she laughed again. “One or two of those women put the fear of god in me. I’d no idea what to think of you.”

“I imagine not.”

“Then in Leeds, the next time we met, you challenged my position on gender discrimination, the wage gap and the glass ceiling,” she said thoughtfully.

Where was she going with this and what did it have to do with threats? “I did.”

“I still hadn’t a handle on what to think of you. You really weren’t what I expected at all.”

“What had you expected?”

“Certainly not to be kept off balance at every turn,” she said softly, her eyes holding mine. There was so much emotion there.

“Ah,” I said. “I’m sure you’ve regained your balance by now.”

“I haven’t at all, Ade. I…I think I’m in love with you.”