[2003] LOSS & PORPHYRY the novels  

0023 – Part 10 - Hospital Lab

It took me nearly ten minutes, and once more a number of false starts, to find my way through the labyrinth to the laboratory where Bill Howell would now meet me. In the event my delays didn't matter, for my target still hadn't returned.

The environment in the laboratory block was different again from that of the main hospital. It was much more like that of a university. The smell was of unknown chemicals and the hot oil of overheated machinery. It had none of the studied antisepsis that characterised the hospital itself. Instead there was clutter everywhere. It was almost as if its occupants were determined to live up to their own stereotype, that of the absent-minded professor.

Despite his being one of the leading consultants, Bill Howell's office was poky and located in the corner of the main laboratory. Inside, it carried on the almost studied theme of disorder. There were mounds of papers everywhere; on the shelves lining the walls, on top of the filing cabinets and all over the desk. I even had to move a pile of them so that I could sit on the visitor's chair. Waiting for my contact to return, I had plenty of time to study my surroundings; and try to judge the character of the man. The office had a determinedly academic air. The few books were either copies of theses or the proceedings of abstruse conferences. Most of the rest of the clutter comprised copies of journals; but scattered across the desk, apparently at random, were the sets of purple stained microscope slides which were so much the tool of the haematologist - and which so irrevocably determined the fate of their patients. On the pin-board above the desk were photographs and cards from some of the youngest of these patients. I hoped that they had been the successful ones.

I used the time to relax, to forget the frustrating temptations offered by Janice. It was part of my sales style that I was relaxed, but it didn't come naturally; I had to work on it continuously, as any actor works on his performance. In reality I was a bundle of nervous energy in every call. It was a feat of acting worthy of a graduate of RADA to appear so relaxed. It was fortunate that so much of any industrial salesman's time was taken up with waiting for calls. The image of the salesman racing from one call to another was a myth, at least amongst all the salesmen I knew. The longeurs of waiting, in a steamed up car, between the few calls that could be arranged were much more typical than the excitements of the call itself. But I found these periods of inaction almost essential; where I needed to relax before each meeting.

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