Tin Man(24)

Summer light shone in. Pollen dust diffused the scene, the scent of flowers, smells of linseed and coffee, brushes standing in olive cans, wildflowers too. A paint-splattered bed in the corner and me making Martinis naked, as G painted an abstract aberration of light across a field. It was everything Ellis and I had once planned. It was beautiful and, occasionally, it hurt. I told G that, and he laughed and the fantasy ended.

Did I love him? Yes, although I hesitate to use the word, because it turned very parental after a while, and after a while I encouraged him to see other men. I think he was grateful, certainly the bohemian in his soul was. But I wasn’t being generous or open-minded. It was a friend I needed then, nothing more. Eventually, we became the two ends of a telephone line, same time every week. Yes? I’d say. What now? I’d say. What grubby adventure have you got up to this week?

Eighteen months ago, the phone rang. Yes? I said. What now? I said. What—

But there was silence.

G?

Silence. He began to cry.

Talk to me, I said. Silence.

I’ve got it, he said. It: the shorthand we all understood. I said I’d never leave his side.

He’s awake now and he’s shouting and it’s three in the morning. What’s happened to us, G? I can’t cope any more.

I telephone Barts and they’ll have a bed ready for him, they say. I strap him into the chair and cover him with blankets and he shits two minutes after leaving the flat. The lift stinks and I know there’ll be another anonymous note put through the door. Outside, fresh air and no rain. I hurry down Long Lane past the hum of refrigerated lorries into the smoke and chat of the meat porters. I put my hand on G’s shoulder for reassurance. He’s quiet now and calm. I see our reflection in the restaurant window. We are a Still Life. Me and Old Man. Fuck.

The ward is kind and they know us. We’re on first-name terms with the doctors and nurses, which is good but also bad because it shows how many times we’ve been here.

The rooms are private with private bathrooms, thank God. There are no masks, no gloves, no rules, no visiting hours because this is a ward of palliative care. Temperatures are meticulously read, every two, four hours, to monitor the progression of infections, and days are measured out in the monotony of medication. Many contemplate suicide and refuse to eat. They’re not force-fed, but are allowed to drift off slowly to that sought-after end. Our dead are placed in body bags, as any blood-borne virus would be, and are whisked off pretty sharpish to the morgue, where a sympathetic funeral director comes by and looks on with unprejudiced care. Many of the nurses are male and many are gay. They’ve volunteered to work this ward specifically. I can’t imagine what they must be thinking, the young ones especially.

I used to wonder how it would be if I left G here and never came back. Didn’t have to strip a soiled bed again, or flush out a chest port again, just left him here for good. Be done with it all, for good. I could never do it, though, could I? Once, in the throes of passion, I’d declared I’d do anything for him. So this now, this is my anything for him. How shy our bodies are now, G. How sad we are. He likes me to comb his hair because he remembers when he was still handsome. I do it. And I tell him he’s still handsome.

I turn off his light and tell him I’ll see him tomorrow. I leave the telephone number of his parents for the ward to deal with because I’ve never been able to get through to them. Metaphorically speaking, that is. I go home and sleep for hours.

Two days ago, just along the corridor from G’s room, I met a young man. He heard me outside his room and called me in. I hesitated in the doorway, taken aback, momentarily, by the yellow autumn light that had fallen across his bed. He was full blown with a sarcoma down the side of his nose and he was losing his hair from the chemo. He smiled.

He told me his name was Chris and that he was twenty-one years old and that his parents believed he was still backpacking around Asia. In the quiet space that followed that declaration, I picked up a chair and sat next to his bed. I asked him where his two friends were, the young man and woman I’d seen hovering by the door a couple of days before.

Gone back to Bristol, he said. Is that where you’re from? I said. Yes, he said. I said I liked Bristol and he said he would’ve liked it better if he’d met me there. I laughed. I asked him if he was flirting with me and his eyes became bright. I’ll take that as a yes, I said.

He asked me why I was here and I told him about G. The shortened version, of course. Everyone’s story is the same.

He told me he’d been encouraged by a doctor to write a letter to his parents. He lifted his right hand and it was red and swollen and he asked me if I’d help him do it. I said I would. I asked if he wanted to start the letter right away, but he said no. Tomorrow would be fine.

Tomorrow came and we got no further than ‘Dear Mum and Dad’.

Today, though, we have made better progress and when the sadness overwhelms him, I put down the pen, and begin to rub his feet. Reflexology is the new sex, I say. He looks at me incredulously. Humour me, I say. His feet are cold and he smiles as I touch him. Does this mean we’re going steady? he says, and I say, Oh, yes, you’re all mine, and his smile leads to a not-so-distant boyhood, which completely disarms me.

Hand me my wallet, he says, and I do what he asks. Open it, he says. There’s a passport photograph just inside. It’s not very good, he says.

They never are, I say, as I take out the picture.