The Swan Song of Doctor Malloy by Robert Power Page B

naturally.’ Doreale is a huge player in the world of medicines and innovation.
    â€˜Well, one of Taneffe’s remits is to raise its profile by using some profit to encourage and facilitate the dissemination of good ideas. Our public relations department suggested we went into high-profile developments which would have far-reaching benefits, especially those with an impact on the resource-poor nations. It’s a straightforward matter, altruism being relative. Good publicity for us. Activities to help the scientific and research world to get its new technology piloted.’
    I am impressed. Pharmaceutical companies have millions to spare for research and development. Better to channel some of it my way, rather than it all being wasted on perfume and fabric conditioner.
    â€˜This all sounds very promising,’ I restrain myself from sounding too excited, as if I’m offered such gifts from the gods every day. ‘It would be good to meet up and talk this through.’
    â€˜How soon can you make it?’ she says. ‘I’m in the country all this week and maybe a bit of next.’
    â€˜Well,’ I say, flicking the pages of my lusciously empty diary, ‘you tell me.’
    â€˜How about Thursday. I can meet you in Brighton at the Conference Centre. I’m on a scoping mission. We’re looking at sites for a laboratory complex. How does that suit? We’ll book you in at the Metropole.’
    â€˜That’s just great. A couple of days at the seaside will suit me fine.’
    â€˜Okay, I’ll get back to you with the details. I look forward to meeting you. Bye for now.’
    â€˜Yes, bye for now.’
    I lie back on the sofa, tired and satisfied. Everything seems to be going too well. I avoid the temptation to project into the future. Instead, I decide to go to bed. It’s been another twenty-four hours without a drink or a drug. Just get your head on the pillow without drinking, they said, and you’re a success. Let tomorrow take care of itself.
    â€˜Okay,’ I say to myself, ‘enough fun for one day.’
    Lottie’s bedroom is now at the top of the house. Matilda, her mother, suggested the change when the talk of Christine moving in became a reality. Lottie protested, but her mother said they needed to make Christine welcome, to help her feel part of the family, and besides, Lottie’s bedroom was the best place for Christine to finish her thesis in peace and quiet.
    Lottie loved her old room. It had been ‘hers’ even when the family rented it out through the Melbourne years, and she remembered it especially for the times her mum and dad were together and happy. It was the nicest room in the house: big and airy, overlooking the garden. The builders took an eternity to convert the loft to make her a new bedroom.
    â€˜Makedo and Son’, Mum had called them, and complained endlessly about the work at the time. But she had nothing but praise for the loft when she wanted Lottie to move out of her own room. There was only one small window opening onto the busy street, with its traffic and noise outside. So Lottie painted the walls mauve and hung up dark drapes as a kind of subconscious protest.
    Her best and only school friend, Trixie, is a Goth and she approves the colour scheme. The two girls sit on the floor, drink cider and listen to music.
    â€˜I like it up here,’ says Trixie, passing the bottle to her friend.
    Trixie loves Lottie. She is the only person she feels comfortable with, the only person she feels she can trust. Trixie hates most people she meets. The teachers who tell her she’ll never get a job ‘looking like that’; the girls on her housing estate who call her a freak; but most of all she hates the men her mother gets involved with. Trixie’s mum is an artiste who works the club and pub circuit. Mother and daughter live alone, except for the unsavoury boyfriends that hurtle through their lives,