The acclaim of your peers. Part 2 (of 2)

The classic Hollywood rousing-climax speech.

[Part 1]

Before he retired, Miguel Gonzalez was Maitlin's right-hand man. He had worked with Maitlin for almost three decades. He knew Maitlin so well that he was perhaps the only person alive who could identify visible signs that Maitlin was lying when he said he didn't care about awards. So he was particularly happy tonight, sitting next to Maitlin quaffing wine and enduring over-cooked beef, secure in the knowledge that finally an award was imminent.

He felt less secure when he saw Clare Ruskin return to the dining room, completely pale and shaking. She headed straight for Maitlin, but Miguel intercepted her.

“What is it?”

“We have to leave. We have to stop this. I have to talk to Maitlin.”

“First you talk to me. But not here.”

He ushered her out of the room.

Clare really was shaking badly. “Is it true?” she hissed. She sputtered out what Howell had told her, garbled and in fits and starts. She was too upset to make herself clear, and she must have thought that Miguel completely misunderstood her when his face lit up with pleasure in the midst of her panicked gibbering and he burst into laughter.

“How can you laugh! This is serious!” He just kept laughing. It was such a pure, joyous laugh that it sparked some hope in her. “You mean it's not true? It's all a lie? Oh thank God, they had me fooled with all the documents they waved in my face.”

Miguel wiped tears from his eyes and finally suppressed his mirth.

“Oh no, it's all true.”

Clare shook like a geyser about to erupt. The first jets of steam came hissing out: “Maitlin is a fraud!?” They were followed by little bursts: “How? How?”

Miguel waved away her concerns. “Ho ho ho!” he chortled. “What is a fraud anyway?”

Clare's pre-eruption spurts were rising in volume. “What is a fraud? What is a fraud! Someone who has absolutely no credentials! Someone who fucking pretends that they do have fucking credentials! Someone who lies about having a fucking PhD when in fact they do not have a fucking PhD!”

As amused as Miguel was, he realised that he should move Clare away from the door to the dining room. In a few minutes she was likely to be screaming. He also realised that he was missing the presentation of the award. There was no longer a buzz of conversation from the dining room, and instead a single voice broadcast through speakers. Never mind. There would be a ten-minute speech before the winner was announced.

He put his arm around Clare's shaking shoulders and turned her away from the dining room and began to walk.

From her look of sudden horror it was clear that it had dawned on her that Maitlin was indeed a fraud, and Miguel was his evil henchman, and she was about to be silenced.

“Don't be ridiculous,” Miguel said, but she had already erupted. She wrung herself free and sprinted away down the corridor.

Miguel sighed. He wanted to go after her, but he had to warn Maitlin.

When his old friend heard what had happened he became immediately sober.

“Which way did she go?”

“You have to stay here. They're about to announce the award.”

Maitlin fixed Miguel with a furious glare. “Which? Way?”

“Out that door, to the right.”

Maitlin excused himself and quietly walked to the door. Miguel could see that once he was in the corridor he burst into a run.

Miguel had no idea why Maitlin wanted to find Clare. What was she going to do? Crash the stage and make a scene? Perfect — finally someone would actually remember an awards dinner. It didn't matter. Maitlin's instincts were always right, and that was why Miguel had hired him all those years ago. He poured himself another glass of good wine, and tried to enjoy the pre-announcement speech.

Five minutes later Maitlin had not returned.

Two minutes after that the speech wound up. Still no Maitlin.

“And now the moment you've all been waiting for,” announced the chair of the awards panel, even though that was not Miguel's sentiment at all, nor, as the minutes had dragged on, of all the other people at the table, who had noticed a significant absence.

Then it came: “The lifetime achievement awards goes to... Professor Jonathan Maitlin.”

Applause, and all heads turned to Maitlin's table.

Miguel sighed, once again. He put down his glass and stood up and walked to the stage.

The chair of the awards panel mouthed a series of “wh” words at him.

Miguel walked onto the stage. “I'm receiving it for him.”

The chair shrugged and handed Miguel the award, to scattered and confused applause. Miguel had no idea what he was going to do next, but he stepped up to the microphone anyway.

He looked over at the chair. The chair gave him a look that said, “This had better be good.”

Beyond the chair he could see a side door to the dining room, and through the side door Maitlin and Clare. From the look of them they had been arguing, and Clare had periodically tried to make a dash through the door and Maitlin had held her back. Now they stood silent, waiting to see what Miguel would do.

Miguel discovered that his head contained a speech that he had been burning to give to a crowd just like this for over twenty years. He smiled at Maitlin, and Clare, and then turned to face the crowd.

“I am honoured to collect this award on behalf of my old friend and colleague, and one of the greatest scientists I have ever known. In fact, this gives me the opportunity to say things about Jon that he would never stoop to saying himself.”

He glanced quickly at Maitlin and Clare. Clare's earlier look of panic had been transferred to Maitlin.

“Great science requires many talents. The most obvious and celebrated are depth and breadth of training, technical skill and brilliance, and of course creativity and innovation and intuition. But that is not enough. Most of the people in this room have all or some of those talents. But few of you — let's face it, none of you — are great scientists.”

Stony silence.

“The other talent, which we all alternatively ridicule and pay lip service to, is management and organisation and leadership. It is the talent to understand people, and to see their strengths, and to mitigate their weaknesses, and to inspire them, and to conquer their fears and insecurities, and their jealousies and rivalries, and their pettiness and small-mindedness, and an infinity of distractions, and to clear a path for them to do the best work they can.”

The audience started to relax. This was more familiar territory. This was just the kind of sanctimonious fluff they expected.

“When I became a faculty member, 32 years ago, I realised that I did not have that talent. I was technically very good. No, I shouldn't be modest. I was brilliant!”

A small titter.

“On its own, that was no use. I couldn't spot talent. I couldn't make decisions. I couldn't resolve disputes. I couldn't be strong without starting a fight, and I couldn't negotiate without getting screwed. So for my first postdoc, I hired someone who I knew could. Jonathan Maitlin.”

Applause. Finally the hero enters the story!

“Even though...” Miguel glanced again to the door. Now it was Clare who was blocking Maitlin from entering. It clearly wasn't easy. “Even though he had absolutely no scientific qualifications. He didn't then, and he doesn't now. But don't worry, I'm sure a flood of honorary degrees are on the way.”

There was much murmuring and disquiet amongst the audience. There was no loud dissent — academics are meek and cowardly — but amidst the loud hubbub of chatter it was unlikely that anyone heard the details of how Miguel let Maitlin run his group while he provided all the technical expertise, and how it was so gloriously successful, and unleashed such an avalanche of incredible results and funding support, that it was child's play to have him hired as a full professor, and how Maitlin quickly picked up enough implicit understanding that he could soon teach classes, then write sections of papers, then entire grant proposals and now, decades later, regularly had brilliant research ideas of his own, even if it was always someone else who carried them out.

As the volume of the noise rose, Maitlin tried ever harder to get to the stage, and Clare was joined by several others in restraining him. Finally, as Miguel harangued the audience that all types of genius were rare, and so perhaps all the scientific geniuses in the room should admit that it was ludicrous for them to presume that they were also leadership geniuses, and that was why all of their research groups and labs and institutes and vast billion-dollar experimental collaborations always ultimately fell into disarray and futility, somewhere in there Maitlin managed to break through and run onto the stage, with Clare close behind.

He strode towards the microphone, but the chair of the awards panel was between him and Miguel. The chair held up a hand for Maitlin to stop, and Maitlin stopped. There was now a line of figures on the stage: Miguel, the chair, Maitlin, and Clare. The audience had fallen utterly silent.

Finding himself in a perfect setup for a Hollywood moment, Miguel knew what to say next. “Here is Jon, and here is our illustration of his character. Tonight was to be a celebration of his many achievements. Tonight was to be Jon's night. He should have been up here before, not me, receiving this award. Instead of enjoying your acclaim, and basking in his glory, as he had every right to do, he left the room ten minutes ago. Why? Because one of his group was in distress. He cares more about his people than he does about awards. That is why I am proud and honoured to hand this award to him now.”

The audience remained silent, except for one table at the back, which produced a roar of applause.

Perhaps Maitlin had been right to want to prevent Miguel speaking, because when Miguel handed the award to the awards chair, to hand to Maitlin, the awards chair did not. The awards chair tightly clutched the award and stepped between Miguel and the microphone.

“After what we have just heard, I have no choice but to announce that this year's award has been put on hold, pending an enquiry. On behalf of the entire awards panel, I apologise for the confusion. Please enjoy your desert.”

The chair walked from the stage, leaving Miguel, Maitlin and Clare to endure thunderous applause from all but one table. Which started a brawl.