negative.
Laugh? Mark almost smiled.
The conversation was a knot. Michael suddenly thought honesty might cut it. 'Is dying very hard?' he asked.
'It's tough,' Mark said in an even voice. 'Unbearable, in fact. It's the worst thing you can know. So you seem to view it from far away. And then you don't know anything at all.'
'Is it true what everyone tells you? You float outside your body, and there's a tunnel of light?'
Mark seemed to chew over his response as if it were a plug of tobacco. On television, the news had moved on to Camilla Parker Bowles showing up in public with Charles. Mark turned to look at Michael, and there was something broken and rugged about his face, like one of those cliff faces that look human in profile. The face like a tumble of rocks seemed to ask: You really want to know?
'That happens, yes. But it's just an illusion. You are psychologically distancing yourself from what is happening. The tunnel of light is just the optic nerve closing down.'
Mark had looked healthy up until the very end. A few days before he died, his hair went snowy white, and he finally told friends the truth. This was his second bout of pneumonia, and it was by now what they had all suspected.
Michael had to go away to a conference in America. All he could do was phone. 'I want you to know how much I've always respected you,' he said.
He didn't say: I loved you, once.
He didn't say: You see, Mark, I don't ask for things. I drift into things and let them hold me, instead of me taking a grip of them. Mark, something terrible happened to me that left me completely screwed up, which is why we were never lovers. And it makes me so angry that we never were, and now never will be. Would you have lived, if we had been lovers, Mark?
It was Phil not Michael who was with Mark when he died.
Now, in the waiting room, booming music announced the end of the news.
Mark said simply: 'The world moves on.'
He reached into his bag and pulled out the newspaper, and read it carefully, the paper crinkling like tin foil when he turned the pages.
Then he said, 'You miss everything.' Something terrible happened to his voice. It sounded like tape gone slurry from dirty tapeheads. 'You miss voices. You miss air. You try to breathe and there's no air. There's no taste, you're not hungry, you don't want to eat. You miss food. And colour. There's no colour. You miss having a life. You get so bored being yourself. A self just keeps asking: What do I think about next? What do I do next? And the answer always comes back: Nothing.'
They heard a door open. Margaret, Maggie came back. Michael could tell from her face: it was kept smooth and bland, but the smile was just a little fixed, and the eyes seemed to be saying no, not again, no not again, and they looked at Mark with sadness. Mark had tested positive. She would have done a T-cell count as well and would know: this is a dying man.
All she said was: 'All right, Mark, we're going to take the second sample now. Are you sure you want to go ahead?'
'I believe that is what Michael asked.'
Margaret glanced at Michael. 'Michael only wants to help you. Do you still want a second sample?'
'It's why I'm here,' replied Mark, detached.
You, commanded Michael to the Angel. You Mark are free from disease. You virus, commanded Michael, you the virus just seethe out of his blood.
I cast you out.
Maggie took Mark's arm as she led him to the cubicle, and her face was silently looking into his. Still everyone's mother, eh Bottles?
The telly battered on, booming about oven-ready chips. Jeez, thought Michael, all I want to do is sleep. What a leaden stupid unhelpful thought: life is strange.
Mark came back, and moved his chair away from Michael and the cushions made a squishy sound like a sigh. Mark reached into the plastic bag and pulled out an orange.
Mark's mouth lunged forward as he bit into the orange. Almost clear juice, with a bit of pulp, poured down his chin. Mark's eyes closed with pleasure.
Then he reached into a bag and pulled out a photograph. There hadn't been a photograph in the bag before.
It was an ordinary snap of a solid-looking middle-aged man with white hair.
'This is Robert,' Mark said. 'I never told you about him.' His thumb moved over the face. 'He was rather discreet. He was married, and a bit old-fashioned. RAF. When I got too ill, I told him I was fed up being his mistress.'
'Did he know you were HIV?'
There was a long pause. 'Yes.'
Michael looked at the face in the photo more closely. It was kindly, dignified, direct. That added up too.
Mark reached into the plastic bag and pulled out one of the very first Sony Walkmans, clunky and black, with the usual tangle of wires and earphones. Mark said nothing, but punched buttons.
From the distanced high singing, Michael knew. Mark's favourite opera:
Time passed. The cassette finished with a click.
Mark asked, 'Do I have to stay for the second result?'
Michael was surprised and slightly hurt that Mark didn't want to know. 'I'm afraid so. If you go, the samples will disappear.'
Mark rolled his eyes. 'Oh, God! That means she'll come out all worried and want to counsel me. And if the result is different then she'll want to take a third sample.' He put his head in his hands. 'I don't suppose it occurred to you that I've been through all this once before and that I never, ever wanted to go through it again?'
Mark's eyes glared up at him from under the bushy eyebrows. In life, Mark had never been this angry with Michael.
'It didn't really, no, I'm sorry.'
'If you want to have a fuckfest, you'll just have to take a few risks like everyone else, except that you never had the stomach for risk.'
Michael didn't know what to say. Mark turned the cassette over and went on listening to opera.
Finally, Margaret came back. Michael noticed that she had tiny feet. They gave her a delicate, slightly Chinese walk. Her face had gone splotchy. As she approached, she placed her hands either side of her mouth, as if to hold her face in place. 'Mark. I hardly know what to say.'
Mark stood up and began to wind the earphones around the Walkman. The opera kept playing.
Margaret reached out towards him and gripped his arm. 'Michael told me you are worried about inconsistent results. I'm afraid that the first test was positive and the second is negative. It's not usual, but it does happen. I'm so sorry. I'm afraid we'll need to take the test again.'
'That won't be necessary. That is all the result we need, thank you very much.' He jammed the singing Walkman into the bag.
'Mark, you can come in tomorrow, if you like.'
The tumble of rocks looked back at her. 'That won't happen. I am very, very sorry that Michael put you to all this trouble. I'm going to ask you not to worry me, or to try to rectify the situation. Thank you for your concern.' He turned and strode away on long legs.
Margaret followed. 'We might prove there is nothing wrong! There are treatments now, treatments that work!'
Thank you!' bellowed Mark and let the door fall shut after him.
Michael stood up to go, sick at heart.
Maggie intercepted him. 'Michael, the first test showed almost no T-cells at all. He is already very sick. Michael, I don't know what your relationship is, excuse me, but should you have the test too?'
