All in one piece…? Good. The traffic never stops, even this early on a Sunday morning. It would be particularly ironic if the village which survived the devastation of the plague should succumb to destruction by motor car. So let’s return to a more tranquil age as we stand at the entrance to the Delph and resume our acquaintance with Emmot Siddal.
In the heroic annals of Eyam, Emmot and her fiancé Rowland Torre supply a subsidiary strand of romance. He was the son of the miller from the neighbouring village of Stoney Middleton – a name which as you’ll soon learn proved an apt reflection of its nature. But not Rowland’s; and theirs is a classic Romeo and Juliet variant… so much so that I for one could wish that Shakespeare had been born a hundred years later and ninety miles further north. And yet Emmot and Rowland were separated not by the bitterness of feuding families but the impersonal poison of plague.
As her family dwindled around her that fearful October the young girl remained alone with her distracted mother, her sole sustenance being Rowland’s visits, until the danger became too great and she forbade him to return; although, in the face of his grief-stricken pleas, she later relented and agreed to meet him behind the village in the safer surroundings of the Delph.
Throughout the spring Rowland maintained his vigil, even though Emmot had long since failed to appear. He refused to give up hope; and legend has it that when the threat of infection was finally lifted he was among the very first to enter the village, rushing from house to house desperate to recover his love. On the way he was stopped by a little lad who, intimate with their story, blurted out that Emmot was dead and had been buried in April in the Delph. And therefore all the time, without knowing, he’d been keeping his tryst by her grave…
So we’ve glimpsed, in the inhabitants of four cottages, the relentless advance of the infection; clearly someone had to bury the victims. And if you’ll continue with me down to the Town Head, we’ll discover who that was.
You weigh your wizened words so sparingly. You smile your smug smile, exuding your air of unfathomable wisdom whilst never giving a thing away. Why didn’t you warn me? Even little children at a pantomime shout, ‘Behind you.’ And this was right in front of me; and I walked straight into the trap.
Did you enjoy it? Have you been sharing a huge joke at my expense: you and God? Were the angels weeping with mirth as they watched me take a pratfall? That’s the real fall: not Adam and Eve’s greed in the garden, but our eternal gullibility as we fall for the myth of an all-loving God.
And you’re his perfect representative: therapist… the rapist: that’s Mark’s philology or at any rate his pun. And if you allege to have seen nothing, then you should change your profession. I was a prisoner of my own story; but you’re supposed to put it in perspective. Adrian’s curry bottom was a symptom, not a euphemism: he has AIDS.
I’m sorry, I’ve no right to insult you; you don’t claim to be a mind-reader. Your task is to read between the lines, not to supply the missing page. I’m the one who’s to blame. You trusted me to tell you whatever I considered important, which I’ve used as a pretext for the most shameless self-importance. I’ve diverted you with trivia whilst Adrian… But what about Mark? He’s supposed to be an expert. He deals with HIV problems all day long and then mans a helpline every other evening. Shouldn’t charity begin at home? And what about self-awareness?
But then there was always an easy explanation. Adrian’s been under intense pressure at work. He’s permanently fighting for funds. So it’s little wonder he’s exhausted. And he lives on his nerves and junk food – which is why he looks increasingly drawn. And as for his chronic cough: on his own admission he’s been trying to give up smoking for years. Though with the very survival of LID in the balance it seemed inopportune to insist.
And the cough goes on; but life goes on; so he goes on a week’s holiday. And he comes back looking worse than before. But then he’s been laid low by a severe dose of holiday tummy… to add to the curry bottom. And surely even such a seasoned traveller can react badly to such highly seasoned food? And his skin has become very dry and chapped and crumbly; but that’s obviously because he’s lazed too long in the sun and not used a powerful enough lotion… And why shouldn’t the blind lead the blind when the sighted see only what we want to see?
But no one could have wanted to see him as he looked after his first day back at work: his shoulders hunched and his face haggard and his eyes cracked with crimson; whilst the pupils had dilated into pleas for reassurance which even Mark found himself unable to give. Instead he suggested calling a doctor, at which Adrian grew quite abusive, shouting that they had more than enough bona fide patients without his adding to their load. And Mark put his finger to his lips… and we all put our hands over our eyes, ears and mouths.
The next evening he didn’t come home at all, although the real surprise was that he failed to send a message. But even that seemed a good sign to Mark, who was convinced he must have felt so much better he’d stayed over with a friend. So we took ourselves early to bed with a candlelit supper. And whilst we lay giggling with a tray across our stomachs, he lay gasping with a tube down his throat. The crippling fatigue since his return hadn’t simply been jet-lag, nor the pains in his chest heartburn. He was diagnosed with AIDS, or more specifically thrush. But although it’s possible to have thrush in the mouth and not to have AIDS, there’s no ambiguity in the oesophagus. And it’d grabbed him right in the jugular: the new all-purpose four-letter word.
He had to spend the night in hospital. They wanted to perform an immediate endoscopy – that’s… but of course, I’m sorry; I don’t have to tell you. And he didn’t have a chance to tell us; but then I’m not sure he’d have done so anyway. He preferred a little time alone with the verdict, before we all began to lodge our loud appeals. They also gave him an HIV test, even though the thrush was in itself conclusive. Since then he’s had tests for syphilis and hepatitis B; they’ve checked his liver, X-rayed his chest and counted his blood cells. He feels so bruised that he’s convinced they must have counted each one individually. And, like a defeated candidate, I clamour for a recount; although the result will never change.
He said that his immediate thought on hearing the news and then that they wanted to admit him straight into hospital was of pyjamas: not of the test nor the tubes nor the prognosis, but that he hadn’t worn a pair since he was seventeen. It’d been his first act of defiance: a small but telling gesture against his mother and her straight-faced, straight-laced conventionality. What do you like next to your skin, Adrian? Nylon? Cotton? Satin? Silk? I like sweat, he said. I want to feel the touch of sweat against my skin… And he’ll sweat now. Dear God, he’ll sweat his life away.
But they provided him with a pair of regulation flannelette pyjama bottoms. Although there was no erotic return to be gained from speculating who might have worn them last: simply the sinking realisation that this was the beginning of the end, if not of his life, then at least of his own control over it. He was in other people’s pyjamas and other people’s hands.
They discharged him the following afternoon, which was when he told Mark. I wasn’t there; I don’t know… perhaps I was here? Yes, of course; it was last Wednesday: a week ago – a lifetime ago last Wednesday. What fascinating bit of myself was I regaling you with then whilst they were confronting their own mortality? I can’t bear it! I love him… I love him so much.
For five days they kept it to themselves. I could sense an atmosphere, but I thought… you won’t believe… to self-importance you must add self-obsession… it was my birthday last Monday, and I was convinced they were planning a surprise party… Have you ever given up a client in sheer disgust? Professional detachment may not be sufficient safeguard. How can you even bear to have me in the room?
In the event the date had slipped their minds; although there was a small pile of cards to greet me in Little Venice: from my solicitor, my trustees and my father. And Mrs Trewitt had baked a cake. I took it back to the flat where, if there’s any justice, it’ll already be iced with mould. But then I know now that there’s none; for later that evening they told me the truth.
I screamed – no, don’t worry; my protest was entirely internal. I have the small satisfaction of knowing that I didn’t reveal my pain by so much as the flicker of an eyelid or the tremor of a lip. But inside I let rip, and I shall never let up until I’ve pierced the heart of God himself and a trickle of blood issues from the stone… Whilst my mind has become a livid jumble of lurid letters: Adrian has AIDS and Mark has HIV.
Oh, did I forget to mention that? That’s because it’s not of the least significance. He’s totally asymptomatic; it’s a mere technicality. Only thirty percent of people with HIV go on to develop… And I’m aware that the figures are constantly changing, but why must we assume that they’ll change the wrong way? We have to think positive… I’d like to cut out my tongue.
He said his piece; I was stunned. It was my birthday; I was bereft. I shall never be young again. But I knew that I had to make my position clear, so I put my arms around his waist and hugged him. I kissed him longer and fuller than ever before. But he brushed me aside and asked if I were trying to give him the kiss of life. Was it part of my training: first aid… last rites? I was about to object when I pictured St Francis Xavier sucking the pus from a beggar.
And I was afraid I might choke. But then he relented and returned my hug, although not my kiss.
I asked him how long he’d known; and he said since Friday. The tests usually took ten days; but through the good offices of the Health Advisers, who’d referred patients to him in the past, they’d pushed the results through in one. And I felt absurdly grateful that, whatever else, he still had his professional standing. I couldn’t understand why he’d waited until then to tell me. But apparently they’d advised him to tell no one straight away: the first twenty-four hours were the worst… He only hoped that they were right.
Though it was the preceding twenty-four which had proved the real pain. I desperately cast back my mind but I’d noticed nothing, and I felt deeply ashamed… As I already knew, he’d long decided against taking the test, not from fear so much as scepticism, but Adrian’s diagnosis had left him little choice. And yet it’d come as no great shock; in a way he’d been preparing himself for the result since the day that the first of his friends died, while his total immersion in AIDS issues was essentially self-preservation, a vain bid to inoculate himself with information: to plea-bargain with God. And yet, as he watched the nurse squirt his blood into a phial marked ‘Infectious’, he’d have defied a Mother Superior not to lose heart.
He returned for the result the following lunchtime; but it was only once he was out in the street that the reality began to register. And much to his disgust he found himself hoping against hope that some white-coated technician would follow him out, a sheaf of papers in one hand and in the other a test-tube probably bubbling with blood, shouting at the top of his voice: I’m most terribly sorry, but there are two Mark Gregsons; we’ve unaccountably muddled the results; yours was the negative one. Please accept our apologies for any distress or inconvenience you may have been caused… Until he realised he was simply paraphrasing the notice on the building site he was walking past.
I wanted to hold him. And yet any gesture felt inadequate or, even worse, inauthentic; and besides, all at once his body seemed to keep me at bay. Too late I understood how lonely he must have felt in the past when he’d complained that I cut him out. While to add to my sense of guilt he appeared so much more alert to my plight than I was to his. He stroked my cheek and told me his one consolation was that I had no cause for concern. Every expert in the world would have to have been wrong for me to have tasted the slightest danger. And I was suddenly mortally afraid.
Please don’t misunderstand; I wasn’t at all frightened for him. Any fears on his account would be quite superfluous. I only wish you had a chance to see him, then you’d realise straightaway that he’s the picture of health. He ought to be put on a poster to bolster morale. That would – Oh! Oh no, I’ve suddenly remembered sitting next to him that first evening at Aldgate East Station, opposite a giant poster for War on Want. The thick-ribbed, thin-bodied, skin-tight skeletons of starving children are blotting out his image. I can’t even ward them off with words…
And yet I mustn’t despair; after all, he hasn’t. Not only does he refuse to say die; but he won’t even say disease. On the contrary, he seems set to turn being positive into a positive virtue. Which may sound like a play on words; but if so, then it’s one from which I draw real hope. Although it should have come as no surprise. He’s always been so positive about life in every other respect; this is just one more. Whereas I’ve simply been confirmed in my negativity: which is an equally double-edged word.
No, my fear is that he’ll come to regard my love as a liability; since I know I pose a far more serious threat to him than he to me. Oh, of course I can protect him from my colds and coughs and catarrh, just as he can me from his blood and sweat and tears; but we’d both be betrayed by my doubts. For no matter how hard I try, I can never share his unshakable faith that all he need do is stick a brave smile on his face and a defiant poster on his door and the angel of death will pass him over.
Yesterday I tore the poster down; its ironies had hit too close to home. I was trying to spare them pain; although the effect was the exact opposite. He insisted I replace it right away… And yet what he sees as scorning fatalism, I see as tempting fate.
And is that the greatest irony of all: that his self-acceptance is so assured that he can even accept the virus, whilst it’s my lack of infection that stands in the way of mine? I remember how last year I proposed to contract it because I hated who I was and it seemed the most appropriate means to an end. Whereas now it’s become almost a means of identification, without which I can never be a fully paid-up gay man.
I’m convinced that when the crunch comes that’s where we’ll part company, as he denounces those who pass as negative with the same scorn he once reserved for those who passed as straight and dismisses the rest of us as fellow-travellers. I feel so helpless. It’s as though he’s fighting for his life at the front whilst I’ve failed my medical. And yet I’m determined to play a part, even if only by carrying a stretcher – no, I’m betrayed by my own metaphor! He is not going to die.
Once again I’ve no one to talk to but you; I can hardly impose my worries on him. He has to save all his strength for himself and for Adrian, who’s neither so well nor so well-informed. But as I watched them together on the night of my abortive birthday, all gripes and grievances swept aside, my grief was shot through with the most shameful jealousy. And perverse as it might seem, at that moment there was nothing I wanted more than to stand in the firing-line alongside them or, better still, in Adrian’s place.
Though you needn’t be alarmed that I’ll take matters into my own hands. At a time when death has become a contagion not a choice, suicide wouldn’t only be an unforgivable sin – who gives a damn about sin? – but a truly unpardonable self-indulgence. And yet, if nothing else, let me revel in the irony of having found myself at the time of such universal loss: of once again being both out of step and on a limb. As a child I used to dream and so I was afraid of sleep and of nightmares, and the greatest nightmare of all was death. But now I never dream and so I’m afraid only of insomnia and of remaining forever alive and alone.
And while I may not dream, I do have visions; and as I close my eyes, I can see myself the last man left on earth: the one priest to celebrate in a world full of chantries; the one scribe to record the names in the Book of the Dead.