CHAPTER NINETEEN
I am ashamed to say that, during those few seconds when I believed Maggie Dillon to be HIV positive, my overwhelming feeling was one of relief. I was not alone in this nightmare. Someone else was going through what I was going through.
“I’m clear,” she said and such was my disappointment that I got angry again.
“What are you trying to do here, wind me up? Well, you’re succeeding! I don’t need this, Maggie, and I don’t need you! Just…GO, will you? Go and fuck someone else’s head up, but LEAVE ME ALONE.” I was on my feet now, grappling with so many feelings at once that I couldn’t have described a single one.
But Maggie just sat there, stock still, watching me with eyes filled with tears. (Are they for me, I wondered?) “I want to help,” she said with such directness and simplicity that my anger dissolved on the spot. I promptly sat down again. “I thought it might help to understand that gays don’t have a monopoly on HIV or AIDS.” I opened my mouth to protest, but she forestalled me. “Oh, I know it’s no secret. But when it happens to you, like I thought it had happened to me, it feels like you’re the only one.”
“So why wait until now to tell me?”
“I don’t know. Like you, I was scared stiff of finding out. Then I got to thinking maybe I should start practising what I preach. You found the courage, so why not me?”
“Did someone go with you?” She shook her head. “I’d have come.”
“I didn’t like to ask. It seemed so unfair to put you through all that again. Besides…”
“Besides…?” I prompted.
She tossed her head and let her red hair fly in all directions. “I’m really a very private person. It was my business, no one else’s.”
“I’m a very private person too,” I pointed out.
She smiled. “True. But we’re different, you and I, Rob, very different.”
There was no arguing with that so I tried a different approach. “Why are you telling me now then?”
“I needed to get the load off my chest. Well, shift it anyway. Perhaps now it won’t hurt so much. You, of all people, can appreciate that surely?”
“Be my guest.” I hadn’t meant to sound facetious. Even so, I felt more at ease when she glared at me. I still wasn’t used to this new Maggie. Incredible as it would have seemed not so long ago, I found myself warming to her. I was also beginning to understand what it was about her that Billy Mack had found so irresistible. I couldn’t help smiling inwardly. Until very recently, that was a word I’d have been least likely to come up with to describe the fiery Maggie Dillon. (Hadn’t I always thought of her as something of an alley cat?)
“Huh, men...! Gay or straight, you’re all the same. All you care about is beating the birds and the bees at their own game!” I began to relax and sensed we were about to enter familiar territory. “What is it about men and macho, eh? Or should I say, what’s so un-macho about using a condom?”
Her voice remained quiet, unnervingly so. In spite of a pleasant lilt, her tone was deadly serious, every word pure venom. “God rot macho men, I say!” She continued, and laughed in my face, but for once I had the commonsense to keep quiet. “Show a straight man a bit of skirt and all he sees is a one way ego trip. I imagine it’s much the same for gay men, right? Except for the skirt of course...” She laughed again, and I was reminded of old Marge’s ironic cackle. Maggie must have read my thoughts because she leaned across and gave me a dazzling smile. “Don’t look so worried. I haven’t got it in for the whole male species. Nothing so drastic, believe me. It’s only the bastards I get paranoid about.” We laughed together if uneasily. “Don’t you want to know why?”
“I get the feeling you’re going to tell me anyway,” I parried lightly.
“True, but strictly between you and me, okay? I nodded. You can tell Matt if you like, but let on to another living soul and I’ll scratch your eyes out.” She smiled sweetly. Her voice dropped to a whisper again. It’s Nick. I’m pretty sure he’s HIV positive.”
I wasn’t even mildly shocked. “But you don’t know for certain.” It was not a question.
Maggie shook her head. “He won’t have the test. He doesn’t want to know.”
“So how…?”
“His father died of AIDS,” she interrupted sharply and went on, “Oh, it may say the cause of death was pneumonia on the death certificate because it was pneumonia that finished him off. But it was AIDS that killed him as sure as I’m sitting here now.” Tears filled her eyes. Were they meant for the likes of Nick Crolley? I was confused, to say the least. “Ed told me”, she went on, “Apparently, it was common knowledge among the other prisoners. But Nick never knew. Not until I threw it in his face during a recent bust-up. I assumed he knew, I swear, or I’d never have…”
She gave a shudder. “He went berserk. I thought he’d kill me for sure this time. God knows how I managed to get away. I remember lashing out, and then nothing except running for dear life. Somehow I ended up in the park. Ed found me there. I was in such a state, I can’t tell you. But you know that, you saw us, remember?”
I did, vaguely. “But that was ages ago! How come you’ve never said anything before?”
She shrugged. “Since when did anyone rush to wash their dirty laundry in public?” She sighed. “Ed was so kind. He fixed it for me to stay at the bed-sit of a mate of his doing time for burglary. The rent was all paid up to cover his being away so the landlord couldn’t re-let.” The grey-green eyes flashed warningly. “It’s not what you’re thinking either. Ed is okay. He just wanted to help, that’s all.”
“People are saying…”
“I know what they’re saying,” she said quietly, “but it wasn’t like that, not at first...” Her voice trailed off, and I resisted asking what had changed since. “Ed’s okay,” she repeated, “Nothing happened between us…Well, not until we were both good and ready.”
“And now…?” I probed gently.
“We love each other.”
The letters of Clive Rider’s name performed a colourful war dance in my mind’s eye. “So what was Paris all about?” I wanted to ask but judged it inadvisable. “So Tom Crolley had AIDS, so what? I mean, what has that to do with Nick? It’s not like it’s genetic. I can understand Nick being upset, but it’s not as if Tom and he were especially close if the stories I’ve heard are even half true. It’s certainly no excuse for slamming into you like that. And what has any of this to do with your having an HIV test anyway? Tom may have been a real bastard but you can’t blame everything on the parents.”
Maggie’s expression was grim. “You must have been a fly on the wall when I told Lou. That’s what she said, almost word for word.
“You told Lou?”
“Not intentionally, it just came out. Not the way I’m telling you now. Not for the same reason either. I was in a state and, well, it just came out,” she repeated and fell silent for a while.
“You were saying?” I prompted. By now I was feeing increasingly irritable and fervently wished she’s just get on and say what she felt she had to say and leave me alone.
“Before I moved into the bed-sit, I had to go back to the flat and collect some things. It was the middle of the afternoon so I assumed Nick would be working.”
“But he wasn’t…”
Maggie shook her head. “He came out of the bathroom and surprised me. I must have looked as scared as I felt because he couldn’t have been nicer. He can be nice, you know…sometimes. I suppose that’s why I stayed with him, always went back after…”
She gave another shudder. “...but not this time, no way.” She paused and ran both hands through her hair. “It was all very civilized. He even apologized. I half expected him to beg me to stay like he always did, but he must have realized he’d gone too far this time. We said out goodbyes and I turned to leave when it happened. I heard this awful sound, like someone moaning in pain, despair, you name it. I looked round, and he was just standing there, crying like baby. It was pathetic. I’d never seen him cry before. I didn’t know what to do. Part of me wanted to give him a hug and part of me wanted to tell him to grow up. Then he just blurted it out. I couldn’t believe what I was hearing. In the end I couldn’t bear it any longer and left….”
“Nick told you he might be HIV positive?”
She shook her head. “He told me how he and Ed had rowed about me and how Ed had thrown it up at him that Tom Crolley died of AIDS-related pneumonia.” She read my disapproving expression correctly. “Yes, yes, I know. Ed should have kept his big mouth shut, but you know how it is when someone provokes you. You lash out with whatever comes to mind. Of course, Nick refused to believe it at first. Apparently, though, it played on his mind so much, he threatened one of Tom’s old cronies with all sorts until the poor geezer confirmed.” She paused again, but not for effect. I got impression she was not only upset but also nervous. “It was awful, Rob. He couldn’t stop crying, and kept making horrible sobbing noises. I felt physically sick. At the same time I was thinking how no one ever gave a toss about Tom Crolley, including Nick, so why the histrionics? Even so, I had a bad feeling about it. Call it feminine intuition if you like. Whatever, gut instinct told me I really did not want to know the answer to that question, and should beat it while I still could.”
“Nick has had sex unprotected with someone who is HIV positive, is that what you’re saying?”
Again, she shook her head until red sparks flew everywhere. “He told me his father had abused him.”
I could only stare in wide-eyed disbelief. “You mean…?”
“Tom Crolley sexually abused his kids, all of them.”
“So…” I gulped.
Maggie nodded. Her eyes were bright with unshed tears. “I wanted to stay. I wanted to help him or at least comfort him. But it wouldn’t have done any good. So I understood more now, so what? It would always come between us. We’d probably end up hating one another, and I didn’t want that.” She winced under my quizzical gaze. “Believe it or not, I did love him after a fashion.” Nor was she being defensive, but so matter-of-fact I believed her.
There’s no accounting for taste, I thought bitterly. Hadn’t I loved Matthew? I watched Maggie finish her tea. It must have been stone cold, but she drained the lot. I began to feel resentful. Oh, I felt sorry for her. I even had a sneaking sympathy for Nick. But I had problems of my own. It wasn’t fair to land this on me too. Besides, it was none of my business.
I found my voice. “I really don’t need this Maggie,” I said calmly. But anger wasn’t far away and began to take over. “If it’s true, I’m sorry. What else can I say? What do you want from me? Why are you telling me all this? I can’t handle it. Why should I have to? What are the Crolleys to me, for fuck’s sake? Haven’t I got enough on my plate? How dare you come here and expect me to…what? What do you want from me Maggie?”
Maggie met my accusing blast with a steady, unblinking gaze. “You haven’t read it have you? Billy’s diary, you haven’t bloody read it have you? I think I knew you wouldn’t. I suppose I hoped it would save me having to...” She bit her lower lip and looked away with uncharacteristic embarrassment.
“What has Billy’s diary got to do with anything?” I had a sudden, frightening premonition.
She turned to face me. “Nick and Billy were lovers,” she said clearly without the slightest inflection in her voice.
“Lovers…?” I repeated hoarsely. She nodded. I shook my head. “It can’t be true, no way. It’s a lie, a nasty vicious, horrible lie!” Shock waves tore through my entire body. I opened my mouth to protest further. No sound came out. Maggie’s mask-like features swelled and caved in like grotesque images in a Hall of Mirrors. Gradually, they resumed a semblance of normality just as the shock waves subsided to a nauseous gripe in my belly.
Slowly, the full significance of Maggie’s revelation dawned. It was only a flicker at first, like tongues of fire licking at the edge of an appalling darkness.
It was Maggie who broke the awful silence, speaking with a new urgency. She leaned across the table and tried to take my hand, but I snatched it away. “Billy loved you, Rob. He told me so himself. Please don’t hate him. He felt bad about Nick. It was a one-off, that’s all. He was so confused about his sexuality. I suppose they both were. Nick was available. There was nothing more to it than that. Oh, Billy never talked about it. I only know it happened at a party when they were drunk because…” she hesitated, “I caught them at it in one of the bedrooms. I was looking for the loo and…there they were. I think I was more fascinated than shocked.” She gave a strange laugh. “They had no idea I was there and I never told either of them. When I shut the door, it was as if it had never happened. A few days later, Billy told me he was gay.”
“But you and Nick... How could you after…?”
“Like I said, it was as if it never happened. Besides, there’s no way Nick is gay. They do say there’s an element of bisexuality in all of us and, well, Billy was very beautiful.”
I saw red. “You’re jealous! You were jealous that Billy loved me, not you. You’re still jealous, you foul-mouthed bitch!” I roared. Maggie shook her head, a deep sadness in the grey-green eyes that infuriated me even more. I didn’t need her pity, the lying cow. “Liar, liar, LIAR,” I yelled.
“Would I lie about something like this?” she countered tearfully.
“Too right, you would,” I seethed, “It’s called getting your own back. Billy would never, NEVER have had sex with the likes of Nick Crolley.”
“I did,” she responded coolly.
“Yes, well, you would,” I sneered, “you’re the type.”
Maggie scrambled to her feet, eyed blazing. “Oh, and what type would that be? You can clutch at straws as much as you damn well like, Rob, but it doesn’t change a thing. Billy was HIV positive.”
“You don’t know that for sure.”
I didn’t, no. But I do now. I’ve read his diary. It’s all there, Rob, in his own words.”
“So?” I yelled.
“So did you and he use a condom?” she yelled back at me.
“It’s all lies!” I could only repeat, “Lies, lies, lies...”
“He tested positive, Rob. It’s all in the diary.” She ran both hands through her hair. “I knew I shouldn’t have come. But Lou said I should. She thought you had a right to know.”
“You told Lou?” I groaned.
“I had to tell someone. I didn’t know what to do. After I read the diary, I didn’t know what to do,” she repeated miserably. “She won’t blab. I doubt whether she’ll even tell Shaun.”
The prospect of Shaun knowing made me want to throw up. I had already begun to accept that Maggie was telling the truth. My head started to throb and turned as if of its own accord to stare at the wall. Green paint and white cracks conspired to dump me between a rock and a hard place.
“Read the diary, Rob,” I heard her say, but preoccupied as I was with a maelstrom in my head, I was not aware of her leaving either the room or the house.
The next thing I knew, I was in my bedroom. I had no recollection of climbing the stairs. It was as if some quirk of fate had plucked me from the kitchen and sat me in a chair by the window, looking down into a drab backyard, empty but for a solitary sparrow perched on a dustbin lid. I wished it would fly away but it didn’t. I got angry. It had wings to fly so let it use them, I fumed. I heaved open the window, the better to let rip with my feelings. Something fell to the floor with a clatter. I looked down at what I had dropped, unaware until then that I had been holding anything.
It was Billy’s diary. I must have fetched it from the drawer where I had left it, but had no recollection of doing so.
By the time I had bent and picked it up, the sparrow had flown away, but I only half noticed out of the corner of one eye. My gaze was riveted on a book bound in red leather with the word D-I-A-R-Y spelt it in gold letters on the front. It was compact and fairly thick. A tiny key protruded from a brass lock. I tried in vain to imagine Billy writing down his thoughts. He wasn’t the sort of person to write a diary. Yet here it was, proof that I was wrong. What else had I been wrong about, I found myself wondering with a heavy heart? I went and sat on the edge of my bed and opened the diary with trembling fingers. Instantly, I shut it again. For several minutes I kept opening and shutting it, opening and shutting it. Suddenly, grasping the nettle, I began to read.
Words, and more words, all shaped in Billy’s familiar scrawl and curiously legible for all their haziness, leapt up at me from every page. It was all there; love, hate, fear and much, much more. I ran the whole gamut of human emotions with a dead man, someone I’d loved and thought I knew but hadn’t really known at all. It was more poetry than prose. If anyone had told me Billy Mack was a poet, I’d probably have laughed aloud. On the contrary, he’d never had a lot to say for himself. Yet, here was my biker lover expressing himself as well as any poet. A lump came to my throat as I read about our first meeting and subsequent lovemaking. He had written: He is so different to anyone I have ever met. What he sees in me, heaven only knows. But I think he loves me. He won’t say so but his body tells me he does. Oh, but such love is sheer bloody poetry. How could I have ever thought I was in love with Nick? Rob is everything Nick isn’t, all I have ever wanted to be…
I read on and Billy became more real, more alive, with every page I turned. At the same time, Nick’s name kept coming back to haunt me along with the same question running through my head like an express train. How can I ever face Matthew with this?
I hadn’t reached the part where Billy finds out he’s HIV positive. I didn’t need to. Instead, I slammed the diary shut. One day I would read it to the end, but not now, not yet. I couldn’t handle any more home truths.
Every word I had read proceeded to give me a savage going-over. I felt myself crumbling under the emotional battering. Don’t hate him. Maggie’s words came back to haunt me. Of course I don’t hate Billy. How could I? I love him. But Billy was dead. Billy was past tense. Billy didn’t matter in the same way any more. “Only the living really matter...,” I told a beer stain on the duvet and gave a start, as if discovering that particular philosophy for the first time, “...because life matters, every precious second of it...”
Suddenly, I needed to see Matthew.
So how would I face Matthew? I had no idea, but face him I knew I must. He was all that mattered. I jumped to my feet, filled with excitement and…hope? Yes, hope. Oh, but how I hoped…
I dashed to the door, grabbed my jacket from a hook, tore into the upstairs landing and all but tumbled down the stairs in my haste. At the front door, I slithered to a halt. I was in no doubt that Mathew mattered to me. But did I, could I still matter to him?
Outside, I looked up. Could it be there’s a God somewhere after all? But if I was even half-expecting a row of pigeons on telegraph wires to provide any of the answers I so desperately sought, I was in for a big disappointment.
