I call Lucy in the shop, and luckily I do sound terrible, and she thinks I’m ill before I even have a chance to deliver a made-up excuse. She tells me to tuck up in bed and not to worry about anything, which is what I wanted to hear, as I need to spend the rest of the day with Si, but it nevertheless strikes me as slightly ironic, given that I’m the one who is absolutely fine. In shock, certainly, but fine.
But Si is fine too. Or should that be too fine. After we leave the rose garden he tells me he really feels okay about this; he says that, bizarre as it may seem, it somehow already feels a part of him, feels like his destiny, and it’s not the worst thing in the world that can happen, and he really can deal with it.
I don’t know what to do with Si today. He is too calm, too quiet, and I suggest lunch, even offering to treat him at the Ivy, which would normally be his idea of heaven (although God knows how we’d ever get in at such short notice), and he just says no, he’s fine.
I drag him down to Marylebone High Street and we find a small café and tuck ourselves away in the corner, ordering cappuccinos and baguettes, but as soon as the food arrives I know that I have no appetite, that I couldn’t eat this if you forced me, and of course Si pushes it away as soon as it arrives.
So we sit and drink our coffee, and I pull out the lettuce from the baguette and shred it slowly on to the tabletop, and then Si draws out the leaflets again and this time we really look at them, read them, read about courses for the recently diagnosed, the importance of regular check-ups, the life expectancy growing longer and longer.
And when we have finished the leaflets I pull my diary from my bag and rip out a clean page, and we write down the places Si is going to contact this afternoon when he leaves me, the support centres he will visit, the places he will turn to for help.
‘Doubtless the doctor at the clinic will go through all of this with me next week,’ he sighs at one point, but I ignore him because I can see that this is helping, to actually do something practical, to make a list, and even if it is not helping Si, it is helping me.
Eventually we leave and Si drops me off. I practically beg him to let me come over in the evening, but he says he will be fine.
‘You won’t do… well… you know…’ I can’t help but ask the question.
‘Anything stupid?’ he says, grinning. ‘No, Cath. I’m fine. Well, I’m not, but I’m certainly not unfine enough to down a bottle of paracetamol, if that’s what you’re thinking.’
‘Will you ring me later?’
He nods. ‘And sweets? I don’t know how to tell Josh and Lucy. I know I have to, but I need to do it in my own time, in my own way. Is that okay?’
‘God, yes!’ I’m mortified that he thinks I would take it upon myself to tell them, almost as if this were mere gossip.
‘I’m sorry,’ he says. ‘I didn’t mean to offend you, my love. Listen, I’m going to go home and run a nice hot bath, and I promise I’ll ring you afterwards.’
He does ring, and he says that after he dropped me off he took the long route home, via a bookshop – not, obviously Bookends, as he couldn’t face seeing Lucy – and picked up some books about HIV and AIDS, and is planning to curl up for the rest of the afternoon and read them.
I do the same thing in my flat. I curl up on the sofa and open a novel I’ve been meaning to read for weeks. I scan the first page, desperate for some form of escapism, desperate for something to take me out of myself, but every time I reach the bottom of page four I realize I haven’t got a clue what I’ve just read, and I have to start all over again.
Eventually I put the book down and run a bath myself, wondering how I’m going to kill the hours before bedtime, wishing today had never happened, wishing I could have a Groundhog Day experience, relive today, make everything normal again.
I do manage to kill some of the hours before bedtime. Some, but not all. I speak to Si a couple more times and he sounds fine, says he’s going to have an early night, a quiet night, give himself time to digest everything.
But I can’t sleep, and when, at twenty past one in the morning, the phone rings, it doesn’t surprise me in the slightest, and I pick up the phone to hear jagged sobs at the other end.
‘Ssh, ssh.’ I try to soothe, feeling Si’s pain as if it were my own.
‘I don’t want this to be happening,’ he sobs, his voice blurred with alcohol. ‘Why is this happening to me? What have I ever done? Why me?’
‘I’m coming over,’ I say, and, without giving him the time to say no, I pull a coat over my pyjamas, shove my feet into boots, grab my car keys, and I’m out the door.
Six minutes later I’m on his doorstep, and he opens the door, his T-shirt wet with tears, his face puffy and blotchy, hiccuping as he tries to stop crying, and I put my arms around him and start crying too.
I stay the night, although we don’t really sleep. We sit up, still talking, still trying to make sense of it all, and eventually, at around seven, we both fall asleep on the sofa.
Obviously I can’t go into work the next day. Lucy offers to come round in the evening with home-made tomato soup and Lemsips, but I tell her that whatever this flu-thing is, it’s probably contagious and I’ll be fine.
I spend the morning with Si, and he phones the hospital and makes an appointment with a counsellor for that afternoon. This time, he says, he wants to go alone.
I manage to make some headway with my novel, but by early afternoon I feel so guilty about leaving Lucy in the lurch, that I consider walking up to Bookends.
Then again, how on earth would I have made a miraculous recovery in so short a time? I decide to phone instead, and when Lucy comes to the phone I’m astonished by the exuberance in her voice.
‘Darling Cath! We are worried about you. Rachel says take lots of echinacea. Tell me you’re feeling better? Have you dosed yourself up with lots of ghastly lotions and potions?’
‘Yes, and I’m feeling much better, even though I hardly slept last night. How is everything in the shop today? You sound positively ecstatic.’
And Lucy, bless her, drops her voice and I can almost see her bringing the phone up to her mouth as she checks that no one’s listening. ‘Actually, I didn’t sleep much myself last night,’ and her voice is positively purring.
‘Lucy! You didn’t! You and Josh? SEX?’, at which Lucy giggles.
‘God, Lucy! That’s amazing! No wonder you sound ecstatic. How was it, or need I ask?’
Lucy sighs with pleasure at the memory. ‘Oh, Cath, it was so lovely. So unexpected and so, so lovely.’
She tells me that Josh had been just like his old self all day yesterday. That getting together as a gang to have our regular Sunday lunch seemed to have somehow brought them back together again, reminded them of how things used to be before she opened the shop.
They went home last night and Ingrid went out, as she always does these days, and Max went to bed, as he rarely ever does, and, instead of burying himself in a pile of paperwork in his study, Josh opened a bottle of wine and sat down at the kitchen table to talk.
And they found themselves laughing together over some silly story Lucy was telling, and Josh put the dishes in the dishwasher after supper and then stood behind Lucy as she finished clearing the table, put his arms around her and gently kissed the nape of her neck, ‘Which,’ she said guiltily, ‘always turns me to jelly.’
And that, as they say, was that, but God, what a pleasure it is to hear Lucy laughing again. It is a welcome and uplifting distraction, and what a relief to know that whatever was going on between Josh and Portia must surely now be over.
‘Oh, Cath,’ Lucy sighs. ‘I feel that everything’s back to normal. It’s all been so upside down for so long, but now I’ve got this lovely feeling that life is back on track. Now, sweet Cath, to change the subject entirely, or rather to get back to the original subject, what is happening with the lovely James?’
I don’t know where to start. ‘You know how some things are just meant to be?’
‘Yes?’ She is eager, expectant.
‘This, unfortunately, isn’t one of them.’
‘But that can’t be true. What on earth makes you say that?’
‘Every time we try and get it together, something happens to pull us apart, and I can’t help but feel that this just isn’t meant to be. And God knows I’m happy enough on my own, so maybe this is how I’m supposed to carry on.’
‘Nope.’ She is determined. ‘I refuse to accept that as a reasonable answer. If things keep going horribly wrong when James invites you for dinner, why don’t you try to reverse your luck by inviting him?’
‘What?’
‘Make dinner for him. Every man adores a home-cooked meal.’
‘Even when it’s burnt scrambled eggs?’ The thought of cooking fills me with horror.
Lucy laughs. ‘No, my sweet, I shall cook for you both and he’ll never have to know. I’ll make a delicious meal and drop it off at your house. You can pass it off as your own. And who knows, if you get lucky I won’t even have to worry about afters.’ This last word said with a chuckle and probably a leer.
‘Dinner? At my place?’ God, now there’s something I haven’t done for at least five years.
‘Yes. It’s perfect. If I were you, I’d drop in and ask him just as soon as you’re back on your feet. He’ll be over the moon.’
By Friday I figure Si is doing just about okay, or at least okay enough not to need me on permanent standby, but I still feel incredibly fragile. I know I should be going back to the shop, but if Lucy starts being all warm and maternal towards me, I’ll probably just lose it.
But by Friday afternoon the guilt takes over, and I do go in to Bookends, and everything’s fine. Lucy’s fine. Bill and Rachel have been working like demons, and Lucy’s so busy chatting up the regulars she doesn’t really have time to fuss over me as she normally would, which is truly something of a relief.
But then the shop suddenly empties, and Lucy puts down a teapot and flings her arms around me, and I bite my lip to stop the full flood of emotion. ‘What are you doing here? I told you not to come in until Monday.’ She peers at me closely. ‘Cath, my love, you look terrible, you ought to be in bed. You’re all pale and slight.’
Pale and slight. Why is Lucy the only person who could get away with calling me pale and slight? It brings a smile to my face and Lucy says, ‘That’s better. Why don’t you sit down, I’ll make a fresh pot of tea, and then I think it’s back to bed for you, young lady.’
Half an hour later, I push open the door of the estate agent’s and, much like a Wild West saloon, the room goes quiet as five pairs of eyes eye me up and down, presumably assessing how much I would be willing to spend.
The silence lasts a second. A second that is evidently enough for them to realize I won’t be buying that eight-bedroom house in Aberdare. Nor even the three-bedroom conversion in Greencroft. Nope. I am not a buyer to get excited about.
I have never seen the office this busy before. Five men seated behind five large, trendy beech desks, all talking into their phones, some of them managing to conduct conversations into their mobiles at the same time. And these men all look identical. All short, young and dark, neatly packaged in slick dark suits, their eyes constantly roaming, their voices filled with a confidence their age would not suggest.
And then I see James, right at the back, looking completely out of place, with his laid-back manner, lazy smile and tousled light brown hair.
‘Can I help you?’ the bimbo-esque receptionist inquires. I smile and shake my head. James wipes the smile from his face and looks at me sternly as I walk towards the back of the office to talk to him, trying to ignore the eyes that appear to be watching my every move.
‘Hello.’ His voice is guarded. ‘What can I do for you, Cath?’ Oh God. Have I blown it? Have I been so completely stupid and blown it? I look at his arm where the sleeve is rolled up, exposing strong muscles and light brown hair, and my stomach lurches as I realize that I do, in fact, desire this man.
That I have not felt desire for anyone for a very long time. And that I cannot blow it again. I bite my lip as I start to speak.
‘Well…’ I’m nervous, and I don’t want to blurt out a dinner invitation in front of the receptionist, who has left her desk at the front and is hovering near by, pretending to look for something.
Thankfully James picks up on my discomfort, and he ushers me into a room at the back of the office, where there’s a large sofa, and I sit down as he stands in front of me and raises an eyebrow, still as cold as before.
‘James,’ I say. ‘I have to apologize. I don’t know why things come up every time we try to get together, but I feel terrible about it and I was just passing and…’ I am about to ask him for dinner, but I can’t quite manage it. ‘… and I just wanted to come in and say how sorry I am.’
‘Yes?’ James looks up sternly as the receptionist hovers by the sofa, all pretence having gone out the window.
‘Just wondering if you wanted coffee?’ she says brightly, and I say no, because there is something very disconcerting about the way she just appeared when something interesting was being said. Reluctantly she walks back to the front of the office, and James waits until she’s safely ensconced behind her desk and out of earshot before continuing.
‘God, Cath,’ he sighs. ‘This is just so exhausting. All I’m trying to do is take you out for dinner and you’re just making it so bloody difficult for me.’
‘I… er…’ I’m floored. I don’t know what to say, and the emotion that I’ve been suppressing is suddenly threatening to spill out all over this lovely white sofa. I try to blink back the tears that well up out of nowhere, but they don’t go away.
‘Cath?’ James looks concerned, and sits down next to me, trying to look into my eyes, which are busy failing to stop the tears trickling down my cheek. ‘Jesus, Cath. You’re not okay, are you?’ And his voice is so gentle, so caring, that I find myself doing an enormous hiccup and then the hiccup turns into sobbing, and I’m reduced to a wailing heap on the sofa.
I’m aware that this is the most exciting thing everyone in the office has ever seen at work, but he stands up and pulls the door closed, and when he comes back he sits next to me and rubs my back, just as I did with Si.
And it works. It is soothing and calming, and after a while, when the sobbing has gone back to being merely hiccuping, I take a deep breath and James says, ‘Can you talk about it?’
I start to shake my head, but then the tears start rolling down my cheeks, and I know that I can’t keep this to myself any more. And I know it’s selfish, I know it isn’t about me, but there is nobody I can confide in, and I need someone to support me.
I wouldn’t tell Lucy. Nor Josh. They are our closest friends, and it is up to Si to tell them, but I trust James, I don’t know why. Perhaps because that night we saw Josh and Portia together he never asked about it, was so obviously not interested in the potential for gossip. I’m sure that whatever I say to him will go no further, and that I just cannot keep this to myself any longer.
And slowly the story comes out. I don’t refer to Si by name. A friend is what I say, because it makes me feel as if I am still protecting Si, although it is clear from what I say, from the closeness of our friendship, that it could only ever be Si.
I talk about the helplessness I feel; about the fact that this is not supposed to happen to someone like him, not supposed to happen to one of my best friends. I tell him what I told Si, about it being a virus, about people living with it for years and years, but then I tell him that I’ve also seen the films, seen the photographs, and that however far we have come, is AIDS not the inevitable outcome?
And as I talk about it, I picture Si, frail, skinny, hollowed-out cheeks, and I start to cry all over again.
‘Can I make a suggestion?’ James says gently, quietly, still rubbing my back until I am calm again. ‘I think that first of all you should also go to see someone. I don’t know what exists for friends and family of people with HIV, but there are bound to be groups, counsellors, people who can talk to you, help you, because your friend isn’t the only one who’s suffering, and you need to learn to deal with it as well.’
I nod mutely.
‘But you’re the only one who knows right now, is that right?’ I nod. ‘Do you think your friend is planning to tell more people? Because it’s a hell of a burden to shoulder on your own.’
‘I don’t know. I don’t think he’s thought that far ahead.’
‘Where is he now?’
‘Oh shit.’ I check my watch and stand up, grabbing my bag. ‘He must be home from the hospital. I’ve got to go.’
‘You’re sure you’re okay?’
I nod, heading for the door.
‘Cath?’ I turn just as I’m stepping out. ‘You know that if you ever need to talk, you can just pick up the phone or come over.’
‘You know, James, you’re amazing. I don’t know what to say, thank you just doesn’t seem enough.’
He smiles. ‘Don’t be silly, that’s what friends are for,’ and he leans forward and kisses my cheek, squeezing my arm at the same time. I walk into the street and go home to phone Si, having completely forgotten that I was supposed to have proposed dinner.