Tin Man(25)

Two years ago, he says. I was nineteen.

I’ve seen that sort of change before and my face no longer registers shock. Clear skin, thick blond hair, downy chin. Glasses.

You’re lovely, I say.

Not really, he says. But my hair’ll grow back, and—

Shall I get us some tea? I say, a sudden need to leave the room.

I wasn’t promiscuous, he declares.

I stop. Ambushed by his quiet defence against the disease, the bigots, the press, the Church.

I think I know the person, he says. You do, don’t you? Looking back. That’s what someone told me. Do you believe that?

I’m not sure what I believe, I say, sharply. No one deserves to go through this. That’s all I know. You’re lovely.

I leave the room. I take my rage out on the kettle and cutlery drawer. The nurses can hear me make the tea, fucking London can hear me make the tea. On to a plate, I pile biscuits that I don’t even feel like eating, and return to his room.

How are you with food? I ask him.

Not too good right now, he says.

These are mine then, I say, and I sit down and place the chocolate bourbons on my lap.

You’ll get fat, he says.

I am fat, and I lift up my jumper. This wasn’t here yesterday, I say. This is trespassing.

He laughs. Have you ever been in love? he asks.

I look at him and roll my eyes and immediately wish I hadn’t.

I haven’t, he says. I would’ve liked to.

It’s overrated, I say, stuffing biscuits into my mouth. I eat through the silence, stuffing and eating, because I know I’ve done something wrong.

Don’t do that to me, he says.

Do what? I say.

Make out things are nothing. Things that I’m not going to experience. That’s fucked up. Pity you if you thought it was overrated. I would’ve fucking revelled in it.

I stand up, admonished, my feelings disengaged. A pathetic creature with biscuit crumbs stuck to his jumper.

You can go now, he says, turning away from me. And close the door, will you?

I do as he asks. I go to G’s room and need him to comfort me, but he’s asleep and dying. I’m fucked up. I leave.

Home. I’ve opened the windows and the cold London air streams in, and with it comes the incessant sound of sirens and traffic, sounds I’ve grown to love. Candles burn on table tops and the scent of tuberose surrounds me. Sometimes in this perfumed haze, I forget hospitals. Just sometimes, with a glass in my hand, I walk past a flame and its goodness replenishes me. I don’t want to be defined by all this. We were all so much more than this once.

I pour out the wine. I think about Chris and how I behaved with him. I try hard to be liked, I always have. I try hard to lessen people’s pain. I try hard because I can’t face my own.

I sit wrapped up in a blanket on the balcony. I feel cold but cold is good because the ward is hot. Propped up on my knees is a black-and-white photograph. Me and Ellis in a bar in Saint-Rapha?l in 1969, drinking pastis. We were nineteen. I remember how the photographer went around bars at night and handed out his card. You could go and look at the photographs in his studio the next day, and I did. Ellis thought it was a con so I went by myself. I saw this photograph as soon as I walked in, my sight completely drawn to where it was pinned amidst dozens of others. It’s agonising how beautiful we are.

Tanned faces and Breton tops, we’d been in France for five days already, and felt like locals. We went to the same bar each night down on the beach. A broken-down shack that sold sandwiches during the day and dreams at night. Well, that’s what I used to say, and Ellis would squirm but he liked it really, I know he did. The bit about dreams. Who wouldn’t?

In the captured moment, we say Salut! Salut! and touch glasses, and the smell of aniseed rises sweet and inviting. Hey! a man’s voice makes us turn. FLASH! Eyes blinded momentarily, our backs against the bar. We squint. A business card is thrust into my hand. The photographer says, Demain, oui? I smile. Merci, I say. It’s a con, whispers Ellis. You’re a bloody con, I say.

The smell of grilled octopus lured us out on to the terrace, an area of hessian matting that gave way to the sand. We stood looking out over an unstirring black sea that merged seamlessly with night. Lights from fishing boats swayed elegantly on the swell, and Fran?oise Hardy sang in the background ‘Tous les gar?ons et les filles’. I lit a cigarette and felt as if I was in a film. The air fizzed.

I remember telling all this to Annie once, and Ellis couldn’t remember a bloody thing. He’s so disappointing at times. Couldn’t remember the fishing boats, or Fran?oise Hardy, or how warm the evening was, and how the air fizzed— ‘Fizzed’? he said.

Yes, I said. Fizzed with possibility or maybe excitement. I said to him that just because you can’t remember, doesn’t mean the past isn’t out there. All those precious moments are still there somewhere.

I think he’s embarrassed by the word precious, said Annie.

Maybe, I said, looking at him.

I pour out more wine and stand up. Look out across the cityscape and think London is so pretty. Music rises from a car below, its windows are down. David Bowie, ‘Starman’. The car drives off and the night fades to silence.

Back at the hospital in G’s room. I hold his hand and I whisper to him, Cadmium Orange, Cerulean Blue, Cobalt Violet. He stirs. I stroke his head. Oxide of Chromium, Naples Yellow Light. This is my lullaby of colour to him. I sense someone standing in the doorway and I turn round.