Greed

Rian has been fretting.

Early, early this morning, yes? Rian took a friend on a walk. She is a good creature, a Professor of Sociology, sweet and thoughtful and stubborn mixed into one tilted smile. She is also very wise to the unfortunate twists of life.

At 23 she lost her young husband of two years. At 25, her mother to cancer. At 30, her best friend to a Hodgkins. At 42, one of her four sisters to, again, cancer.

And now her husband, also an academic, is having a crisis of Self after a chance appointment to Deanship slipped through his fingers.

She was in tears often as we rambled through the rain and along sleeping houses. Even when her elderly dog decided to jump into the duck pond and 'race' the mallards, Rebecca was more angry than amused. Whilst unfair Rian bent in hilarity on the shore.

She has had a hard year. But the sadness in her eyes is not what has fretted Rian all day, yes?

We were discussing Chemo.

Rian (rather heartbroken): "Should not they have a cure by now? Years and years..."

Rebecca: "Yes. But. And I do not mean to sound cynical, but, maybe it's like AIDS."

Rian: "Like AIDS?"

Rebecca: "Yes. Maybe it's more prosperous, for Some People, not to find a cure."

Rian (silence)

Rebecca: "Not the doctors, necessarily. But the pharmaceutical companies."

This has been bothering me all day. Does she have a point?

Is there such greed in the world?