The Second Cure Read online

  ‘Two things. First, they’re tiny. And they don’t seem to grow any larger than that, not in any of the people we’ve looked at. We’re not seeing any of the gross motor defects traditionally caused by Toxo infections in immune-compromised individuals.’

  Charlie nodded. She’d seen images of massive Toxoplasmosis gondii cysts in the brains of AIDS patients. Cysts that had overwhelmed them in a horrible death.

  ‘So it seems,’ continued Shadrack, ‘that the human immune system manages to limit the growth of Toxoplasmosis pestis cysts. And that’s good news. It’s something I’m hoping we’ll investigate in my lab. Something I hope you’ll investigate …’

  Charlie wasn’t in the mood to discuss his job offer. ‘And the second thing? You said there were two.’

  ‘That disgust you feel? I’ll put money on Richard not feeling it. Even if we showed him this scan.’

  ‘You reckon?’ She was more than dubious.

  ‘It’s like I said at the seminar. Infected people have decreased sensitivity in the amygdala and orbitofrontal cortex. So … increased recklessness, decreased fear, decreased disgust.’

  Charlie took this in. ‘Hence your idea about decreased political conservatism.’

  ‘Exactly. Heightened disgust responses are well established as more likely to occur in conservative individuals. It explains a lot, like responses to sexual freedoms, sexual behaviours beyond heterosexuality and conformity. What more progressive people take in their stride affects the brain that is prone to disgust in a very different way. They are repulsed and fearful, and that fear is expressed in repressive responses. So what happens when that response is mediated by a parasite that alters brain function?’

  Charlie mulled on that. ‘This could have an impact on society generally. You’re right. A huge impact.’

  Shadrack was watching her intently, his eyes gleaming. ‘Fascinating, isn’t it?’ He put a hand on her shoulder. ‘How can you not want to come up to my lab and work on this, Charlie? This is science at its best.’

  She looked at him and she was transported back to their early years together as PhD students. They’d spent hours at night talking science, drinking cheap red wine from a cask, playing what-ifs, speculating on theories and pushing their edges, imagining their own professional futures, and being thrilled by each other’s minds. The years peeled back, the betrayals were shed, and she recalled what it was to be young, unsullied by cynicism, and in love.

  And then she remembered Richard. Richard, straightforward and trusting. Richard who loved her and whom she loved. The past must stay where it was.

  Over coffee, Shadrack talked him through the results of the fMRI, explaining how the machine picked up increased blood flow in his visual cortex when he was hearing the music.

  ‘That is so cool,’ said Richard. ‘Those high strings in the Mozart, they were swooping, beautiful, shimmering crimsons. And you saw me seeing it! That’s mind-blowing.’

  ‘We saw signs of infection too. Toxoplasmosis, probably pestis,’ said Charlie. ‘But not a tumour, nothing like that.’

  ‘See?’ said Richard. ‘I told you you didn’t need to worry!’ His insouciance was beginning to irk her. She’d had damned good reason to worry.

  ‘There’s another test I’d like to do, Richard,’ said Shadrack. ‘If you’re agreeable. Trans-cranial magnetic stimulation. I think you’ll find it interesting.’

  ‘Sure,’ said Richard. ‘No worries. I’m loving this stuff, Shadrack.’

  Gawd, Charlie thought. They’re going to become besties.

  In the lab, Shadrack had fitted the helmet over Richard’s head and was plugging in the electrodes as he talked to Charlie about his research.

  ‘So, you’re familiar, obviously, with the research on the correlation between Toxoplasmosis gondii infection and schizophrenia?’

  ‘Moderately. It’s thought astrocytes are implicated, right?’ Astrocytes were the most abundant cell in the brain, a glial cell with a range of roles in brain function.

  ‘Right. In genetically predisposed individuals it’s thought that T. gondii induces astrocytes to produce elevated levels of proteins that adversely affect cognition and perception. You comfortable, Richard?’

  ‘Ready for lift-off, mission control.’

  Charlie ignored that. ‘And you’re thinking that in T. pestis the astrocytes are also activated, causing synaesthesia?’

  Shadrack nodded. ‘Specifically in the right parietal occipital region. I’m theorising that because it’s a region that inhibits cross-talk, increased astrocyte activity there inhibits the inhibition, so to speak, so we have leakage from, say, the part of the brain that hears music to the part of the brain that sees colours and shapes.’

  ‘Sounds plausible.’

  ‘And that’s what we’re going to play with now, Richard. I’m going to turn off your right parietal occipital region …’

  ‘Beam me up, Scotty.’ Richard grinned. Charlie sighed. She shouldn’t care that Richard was behaving like a goose in front of Shadrack, but she did.

  Shadrack walked over to a sound system and hit play. A bass and a piano began playing, softly.

  ‘“Kind of Blue”! Miles Davis. Good taste there, Shadrack.’

  ‘Tell me what you’re seeing.’

  ‘Oh, golden orbs – that’s the bass – popping in and out of existence. Fantastic. And the piano, they’re green and yellow, sharp lines, like arrows.’ He closed his eyes, a look of bliss on his face. ‘So beautiful. Hang on … This is where the trumpet – Miles – comes in. Oh yes, oh yes. Shards of clear, shining glass …’

  Shadrack, back at his computer, hit some keys.

  The joy on Richard’s face vanished. ‘What the fuck have you done?!’

  ‘I’ve inhibited your parietal occipital –’

  ‘You’ve killed it! You’ve killed the colour! You’ve fucking killed it!’

  Richard started clawing at the helmet, pulling out electrodes.

  ‘Careful, that’s expensive equipment,’ Shadrack yelled. ‘It’s only temporary, the effect, you’ll be fine –’

  Richard wrenched the helmet off and threw it across the room. The wires attached to the computer pulled it off the desk, it crashed onto the floor and Miles Davis was silenced. ‘You bastard! How could you do that?’

  ‘Richard!’ cried Charlie.

  Shadrack tried to calm him. ‘I did warn you, I told you it would suppress –’

  ‘You were talking gibberish! I’d never have let you … I’m out of here.’ He pulled open the door and slammed it behind him.

  ‘Oh, I’m sorry,’ said Charlie. ‘I’d better go with – oh god, I’m sorry, Shadrack. We’ll pay – any damage – I’m sorry.’

  She found him in the car park, fastening his bike helmet.

  ‘What the hell was that about?’ she demanded.

  ‘Pretty obvious, I’d have thought. Great idea, bringing me to see Doctor Mengele in there, Charlie.’

  ‘Oh, don’t be ridiculous.’

  ‘You weren’t the one with his hands inside your head.’

  ‘We thought you understood what was going to happen …’

  ‘Well, sorry. Humble artist here. I don’t do geekspeak.’

  ‘You must have realised it was only a temporary effect.’

  ‘It didn’t feel temporary. The best thing that’s happened to me since forever and it was gone. He was playing games with me …’

  ‘You’ve humiliated me, Richard. In front of a colleague –’

  ‘He’s not just a colleague, though, is he? He’s your ex-husband. And a bit unhappy about the ex bit, by the look of things.’

  ‘That’s rubbish.’

  ‘You might be a scientific star, Charlie, but you’re hopeless at reading people. He wants you back.’

  ‘He wants me, yes, but as a collaborator, not in any other way. He wants me to move to Zinn Neurotechnologies in Townsville.’ Charlie hadn’t intended to tell Richard about the offer. Not unless she decided to say yes. A
ssuming Shadrack would still have her after her boyfriend had just destroyed thousands of dollars’ worth of his equipment. She saw the hurt in Richard’s eyes and immediately regretted it.

  ‘Right,’ he said. He straddled the bike and kicked up its stand.

  ‘Where are you going?’

  ‘Not sure. But don’t expect me home for dinner.’

  She watched him roar off. This wasn’t the first argument they’d had, but it was easily the worst. She felt a tightness in her chest, anger at both Richard and herself. Charlie turned back to the hospital building to see if the equipment, at least, could be rescued.

  15.

  She’d known it wasn’t going to be a problem to wake before dawn. Most days, she did that anyway. Winnie stirred ahead of the first chortles of kookaburras disturbing the darkness, and well before the morning static began floating in from the traffic on Pennant Hills Road.

  She’d laid out her clothes the night before: dark-blue jeans, an old black sloppy joe, black runners and socks. She’d wondered whether she should try to buy a balaclava, but the only place she could think of sourcing one was in the mall, in the upmarket adventure-wear shop that sold overpriced sleeping bags and tents apparently designed for the Antarctic. Drawing attention to herself was exactly what she was trying to avoid, and she thought a middle-aged matron asking for a ski mask might be memorable. Instead, she’d dug up an old black baseball cap from the garbage bag of clothes she kept forgetting to donate to charity, gathering spider webs in the corner of the garage. The cap had an embroidered patch sewn above the brim, a golden, grinning banana proclaiming, ‘Welcome to Coffs Harbour!’ A permanent marker had sorted that out. She stuffed her hair into the hat, picked up the Qantas duffel bag of tools, and quietly opened the back door, careful not to let the flyscreen slam.

  The sky was clear, as it had been for weeks, but there was no moon. All the neighbouring houses were in darkness. It was easy to make her way through the shadows thrown by the grevilleas along the footpath, avoiding the streetlights. The first difficulty came when she reached Denman Parade and was crossing over to the high school side of the street. The newsagent’s van appeared before her, its side door open so newspapers could be flung onto lawns. She was caught in its headlights, and hurriedly retreated behind a hedge. She didn’t think she’d been seen, but it increased her caution.

  Three minutes later, she reached her target. The house had a white wooden fence, and the gate was garlanded with an archway over which were draped yellow climbing roses. Despite herself, Winnie couldn’t help but approve. Unzipping her bag, she extracted the can of WD40 and sprayed the hinges of the gate. She lifted the latch and tested it. Blessedly silent. The path was gravel, so she stepped across onto the flawless couch lawn, and made her way to the front porch, where a row of geraniums sat in terracotta pots on the ledge. She crouched down and took out her gloves, torch and tools. She was ready.

  Winnie was impressed by her own efficiency: she was out the gate again within ten minutes. A strong believer in gut feelings, she decided not to retrace her steps, but to take another route home. Dawn was starting to paint a diffuse glow to the east, and she knew she had no time to waste. Explaining her appearance and her now bulging duffel bag to a neighbour on an early morning jog would be tricky.

  She realised, belatedly, that the way she’d chosen to return along Denman Parade was overly exposed, with few trees to hide her. She increased her pace and suddenly was hit by noise and blinding light. A large dog was loping across the fenced garden beside her, barking frantically, and a floodlight above the garage was glaring. A motion sensor, she hoped, not a human turning it on. She climbed over the low wall of the garden next door, threw herself onto the ground and crawled between a Chinese box shrub and the wooden fence dividing the yards. She could hear the dog on the other side of the palings, barking and snuffling. While it was there, its big tail flailing about, the light would stay on, and she was trapped. It got worse. She heard a door open and a male voice yelling, ‘Rufus, you bloody idiot, shut up!’ The dog ignored its owner, continuing to yelp and snort through the fence. ‘Rufus, get inside!’ Rufus was unpersuaded and began a low growling. Winnie tried to control her breathing. What if the owner decided to come over to see what was going on? Then another voice, this one female and cheery. ‘Rufus, breakfast time!’ With that, Rufus went quiet, and bounded into the house. A moment later, the floodlight turned off. Winnie subsided onto the leaf litter, her face against the dirt, and breathed deeply. As her heartbeat returned to normal, she realised she’d never felt so exhilarated in her life.

  What she was doing was risky, maybe a little crazy, but it felt right. Like she was a botanical Robin Hood, stealing from the Tricias and giving to the Audreys. Putting the world to rights, in her own small way.

  It was fully light by the time she had returned home, showered, changed, and set off with the duffel bag to her shed in the back garden. She laid her booty on the bench. Twelve cuttings, three of each variety of Tricia’s rare and prize-winning fuchsias. She wondered how Tricia Townsend would react when she saw that so many of her beloved plants had been pruned. She might imagine, briefly, that it was possums, but no possum ate with the sheer cut of Winnie’s perfectly maintained secateurs, or carefully chewed just above the node of a stem. (Winnie was no vandal. She wanted the plants to reshoot as soon as possible.) Tricia would know, then, that the culprit was a gardener, but had no reason to suspect Winnie. Or, if she did suspect, she wouldn’t believe it something Winnie was capable of. Winnie hardly believed herself capable of it, and the thrill of the escapade returned. And it was so justified. Tricia Townsend’s blunt refusal had exposed a selfish and wizened soul. Winnie, my fuchsias are collectors’ items. I’ve spent years sourcing them. I can’t just give them away to anyone.

  Well you should, Winnie had thought. You should do it for Audrey. It would mean a lot to her, and that would be the Christian thing to do. Her resentment had lingered and grown in the days that followed. Finally, the time had come to act.

  But was it Christian to steal? It wasn’t really stealing, not really, Winnie told herself, as she sprinkled a teaspoon of hormone rooting powder onto a saucer. She’d even checked the definitions of ‘theft’ online. Some suggested that you had to intend to deprive the rightful owner of what you took. Well, yes, she’d taken a few inches from a few plants, but it wasn’t as though she was depriving Tricia of anything. It was just pruning and it’d lead to better growth. So, really, she was giving something to Tricia, not taking it away. And she wasn’t taking them for herself. It was for the gardening club, it was to help the dear old folk at St Anne’s …

  But even as she trimmed the first fuchsia stem, angled immediately below a node, she knew she was lying to herself, rationalising her behaviour. If these varieties lost their rarity, then Tricia lost. Besides … thou shalt not steal. That wasn’t open to much interpretation. And what of the twelfth commandment? Thou shalt not covet thy neighbour’s house, thou shalt not covet thy neighbour’s wife, nor his manservant, nor his maid-servant, nor his ox, nor his ass, nor any thing that is thy neighbour’s, including her prize-winning fuchsias. Even if you were coveting them for dear old Audrey.

  What was happening to her? How could she act so stupidly, so wrongly? So riskily? What if she’d been caught?

  She picked up all the cuttings and carried them to the compost bin. They would never give her pleasure, no matter how beautifully they bloomed. She was ashamed. As she lifted the lid of the bin, her eye was caught by movement in the new buds. She peered closely, frowning, disbelieving.

  Aphids. Tricia Townsend had aphids. Instead of into the compost bin, Winnie dumped the cuttings in the garbage.

  Tricia Townsend had aphids. Despite herself, Winnie laughed.

  Roman Road Rage

  Italian car enthusiasts have taken to the streets of Rome to demonstrate against new speed limits that bring Italy into line with recent changes in Germany and France. Maximum speeds on motorways have been
reduced from one hundred and thirty kilometres per hour to one hundred, and on urban roads from fifty to forty. The measures have been taken to combat the increased rate of car accidents due to careless driving among those infected by Toxoplasmosis pestis, but there is resistance from uninfected drivers. A spokesperson for the lobby group Unione di Automobilisti non Infetti, Mercurio Caspari, said, ‘We aren’t infected and we aren’t the problem, so why should we have to slow down? Beginner drivers have P-plates, so why don’t we have a special plate for the infected, and they can have the slower limits. It’s only fair.’

  The Effenberg government has announced no plans for similar limits to be established in Queensland.

  – Brisbane Chronicle

  16.

  They left the bike in the Domain car park and strode along the moving footway towards Hyde Park. There was something about the bouncing texture of the walkway that, along with the illusion of taking larger steps, always made Charlie feel like she was walking under low gravity. Not underground in Sydney, but on the surface of the Moon.

  There was nothing jaunty in her gait that evening, though. After their fight the day before, she and Richard had scarcely spoken. He’d come home late, after she’d gone to sleep. She’d left for work before he’d awoken. In the morning, he’d texted her simply to confirm he would pick her up at the university to ride into the city together. Neither had suggested cancelling going to the concert. To do so might give their argument a significance it didn’t warrant and escalate it further. That’s how she felt, anyway. It was like a foreign land, this new territory of their relationship, unfamiliar and confusing. The way there had been easy – bracing, thrilling, but essentially uncomplicated – and while there was no dispute between them, now they needed to find a way back and she wasn’t sure how.

  Some couples, she knew, would argue heatedly, but in a way that burnt out the anger, and she wondered if that might be healthier than her own tendency to withdraw into chilly détente, letting the antagonism slowly dwindle. At least, she hoped it would dwindle, hoped that Richard’s response to conflict mirrored her own. It occurred to her, not for the first time, how little she really knew him. Perhaps you could only ever understand someone else through disagreements with them, when the differences in interests and attitudes increased in contrast. A bleak thought. As they emerged beside St Mary’s Cathedral, she glanced at Richard and wondered if he was thinking the same. If he, like her, was seeking a way to undo the breach. Was she right in seeing a change in his body language? Probably not. She feared his accusation yesterday was right; maybe she was hopeless at reading other people.