The Skeleton Cupboard (27 page)

She looked up at me, one eye wide, the other slowly swelling shut. “Help? Help, you say?” Mo started to laugh. “Help from where? Who's going to help the likes of us?”

“I want to help you, Mo, so there's a start.”

She stopped gulping her tea, and, with her head down, in a small, angry voice asked me, “How can you help me?”

Good question. How can I?

“How do you want to be helped, Mo?”

Head still down, Mo wiped the tears pouring from her eyes; she winced as she rubbed the now-almost-shut eye too hard.

“I want your life. I want to do good at school and have a job. I want to live in a nice place and make money for the family. I want to have a bank account with money in it. I want to be somebody.”

The way she looked at me as she laid out what she wished for in her life touched me to my core and evoked in me deep maternal feelings toward this fragile young woman even though we were of similar age. She was asking for my life, and I momentarily felt guilty that I was the one who had it while she didn't.

“Why don't we start by getting you out of this abusive relationship, help you get clean and then take it from there?”

The sexy shrink came back from seeing other patients and together we tried to persuade Mo that she needed to leave the man responsible for her injuries, past and present, and go into a shelter until we could work out a longer-term plan. Many people had failed to convince Mo to do this before, but we were determined to get her to see reason.

We almost managed it. It was all going well—a shelter placement was found, and the police were coming to hear her evidence of assault. And then the perpetrator turned up and all our hard work unraveled. Mo fell into his track-mark-scarred arms, sobbing as he, also sobbing, thrust a cheap and tatty bunch of flowers at her, alongside all the remorse he could muster. Love was declared, vows renewed and then they were off, armed with clean needles and a few milliliters of the local brew: methadone.

So, what do you do when the plan fails but the pulse is still racing, the engine revved? You get passionate in the dispensary, of course. Or at least the sexy shrink and I did, and it was awful. Not just because he asked in a tiny toddler voice whether he could kiss me, or because when he did, his tongue felt like a motorized food processor in my mouth, but because I suddenly saw what a pathetic, needy, undignified idiot I was.

The shrink had played me using my vanity and my need to be his “top girl.” I had demeaned my professional status by being sucked into the idea that psychology was somehow second best to psychiatry and I could have been a member of the elite squad, if only I'd done a little bit better at school. Of course, a really bad kiss can kill attraction in an instant, but actually it wasn't a real attraction in the first place, just a fantasy fueled by my own immature narcissism.

As much as I hated to admit it to myself, my mother was right.

I left the DDU after my half-day shift and walked down Tottenham Court Road to the new HIV/AIDS specialist center. While the virus united these two patient populations—one infected by sharing dirty needles, the other by having unprotected sexual intercourse—they couldn't have been more different.

Having spent a couple of weeks settling into the DDU, I was now, for the first time, about to meet one unique group of palliative-care patients I would come to know well. In those days, once someone was diagnosed with AIDS, that was it. There was no cure. There was no chance they'd get better. These patients were outdying everyone else on our watch. They were dying but alive; emaciated but often incredibly beautiful and well groomed; covered in skin cancer and cashmere. The boys with AIDS had come to town.

Working with gay men in the early 1990s, when the explosion of HIV/AIDS hit the gay community like a sledgehammer, was a strange, sad era. The time from diagnosis to death was often rapid and ruthless, while the virus was latched on to by those looking to fuel their homophobia and cruelly vent their prejudices as they rejoiced in the deaths of so many gay men.

Palliative care changed a lot: Suddenly there was a disproportionate number of glamorous young men among our patients.

Every time I left the dismal, dirty, hopeless world of the DDU and entered the HIV unit, I felt like I was on a completely different planet—a world of beautiful, emotional people crackling with the energy and the anger that came with fighting discrimination and watching their friends and lovers drop around them.

At the time, to get a diagnosis of HIV was a death sentence. Nowadays you die with the virus; then you died because of it.

As I entered the unit, on my first day there, I was greeted warmly by a small, effeminate man in green nursing scrubs. He was multiply pierced, had a crew cut reminiscent of an American GI and the most wonderful smile, revealing glittering white teeth.

“Well, hello, gorgeous. I'm Nurse Pete. Welcome to our happy home.” Spreading his arms expansively, he turned three hundred and sixty degrees.

I felt very welcome and very much at home.

Pete took me to my small office at the end of the health advisers' corridor. It was the best office I'd had yet—wooden floor, a cream rug, pale walls and a matching desk, filing cabinet and chair combo.

“Everything to your liking, madam?”

“Beyond expectations, Pete!”

“Yes, you lot who have come from psychiatric services always react this way. Thing is, we feel that if we are going to value our patients, we need to value ourselves as staff. Anyway, you'll be talking to men who are dying in this room and they deserve a nice place to prepare for their death in. Don't you agree?”

I wanted to kiss that man.

A couple of health advisers came over with a cup of coffee and, because there was no other clinical psychologist there, told me about the place. In those days you had to wait an interminably long time between being tested for HIV and getting the results, and so the health advisers' role was to offer support before, during and after that hellish wait, while also providing condoms and safe-sex advice to the more vulnerable service users.

“More vulnerable?” I asked them.

“Those new to the scene, fucking everything they can and holding that ‘it will never happen to me' attitude. Plus the rent boys.”

“Rent boys?”

“Yeah—they get paid double if they allow themselves to be fucked without a condom.”

*   *   *

Later that day Pete walked me across the road to the main hospital, where the wards were. He told me that more than a third of his friends were dead, another third dying. He wasn't infected, but had a test every three months.

“Do you ever have to nurse someone you know?”

Pete laughed. “Oh, sweetheart, you've got a lot to learn about the scene. Everyone knows everyone, and almost everyone
knows
everyone.”

Yep, a nice serially monogamous girl like me had a lot to learn.

Walking onto the ward was as welcoming as walking into the clinic had been. Reception staff greeted me warmly, and Pete introduced me to the nursing team. Again a cup of coffee and an induction chat before Pete offered to get me acquainted with some patients. I couldn't wait to meet them.

There was no open ward—every patient had his or her own room and bathroom—but there was a communal space with sofas, magazines and a drinks machine so those who fancied company could come out and mingle. The communal space was empty, so Pete knocked on a door.

“Let's see if Tom is home!”

“Enter if you are naked.”

We weren't, but we entered anyway.

Walking through that door into that room was like walking through the cupboard into Narnia. The room was dark but glittered with fairy lights strung across the walls; the air smelled of mimosa.

It took a while for my eyes to adjust to the dark. I could barely make out the outline of a body in a bed. Pete took my hand and we walked toward Tom.

“Hello and welcome,” said the softest, smoothest voice I had ever heard. “Sorry for the lack of light, but I seem to have a degree of photosensitivity.” If it's possible to fall in love with a voice, then in that moment I was smitten.

My eyes were adjusting and so I took the hand attached to the thin arm extended toward me; I shook it.

“Well, well, Pete, she's a formal one.”

“Oh no, sorry!” I felt like such a klutz. I squeezed Tom's hand.

Pete chuckled. “I think this one could be a bit of a minx, Tom.”

“Excellent. Thank you for bringing her to me. You may now leave us, Pete.”

“Yes, my liege.” Pete dipped into a deep bow and left the room with a flourish.

I was confused.

“Sweetheart, my mouth is dry.”

I found the water jug, poured some into the tumbler with the straw and directed it to his mouth.

As Tom drank and my eyes finally fully adjusted, I was able to see his face—what a beautiful face. He had been sculpted in the most perfect way, his cheekbones hewn into dramatic ridges on a face that held the most perfectly almond-shaped green eyes. His hair was short and dark, tousled without effort into spikes; his mouth was a Cupid's bow and fleshy—entirely a mouth to be kissed and kissed. His neck was slim.

“I was actually once much more beautiful, you know.”

What do you say to that?

“You look pretty bloody beautiful to me, Tom.”

“Back atcha.” Tom took a long drink from the straw. “So, what are you doing here?”

Good question.

“Well. Crikey, where do I start?”

“Name, rank and serial number will do.”

So I told Tom who I was and about my training and what I hoped to do when I qualified.

“You want to make the world a more beautifully happy place?”

“Does it sound trite if I agree with you?”

Tom smiled gorgeously, and then with several grunts he shuffled himself up the bed. “No, not at all. Why not make the world beautiful? That's what I have spent my life doing.”

Tom was a fashion designer of huge talent who, as he put it, “was now contaminated and rotting from the outside in and the inside out.”

I knew his label; in my mind I could visualize iconic photographs shot by Mario Testino, Peter Lindbergh, Annie Leibovitz and Ellen von Unwerth in which Cindy, Linda and Naomi wore his clothes. This man was a fashion legend.

“I know who you are! I love your clothes!”

“Do you own any?”

I laughed. “Are you kidding? On my salary?”

Tom leaned forward with a small grunt and began to look me up and down. “Would you mind standing up?”

In the semidark room I hoped he wouldn't notice me blush.

“Don't be uncomfortable. Please stand.”

I stood.

“Hmm. Tall. Check. Broad shoulders. Check.”

That comes with having a Germanic father, Tom. You should see my sister—we were always called the Amazonian twins.

“Style. Oh, I'm sorry, darling. No check there.”

I sat down, deflated. “What's the problem?”

“The man suit—vintage charity shop, right?”

“Yes. But a charity shop off Carnaby Street!”

“I've no doubt. It's a great suit, but it does nothing for you.”

He stretched his head downward. “Oooh. Doc Marten shoes. Why?”

“Why not? I don't have to dress as defined by my gender.”

Tom laughed. “No, I agree. But you don't suit the butch asexual look, and besides, this is your cover-my-body uniform. It would sit well if you were happy with the body hanging it.”

I felt slightly crushed, but Tom was right, of course—I was dressing to disguise the many pounds gained on my last placement. However, I was also massively elated that this man was giving me fashion advice; I couldn't wait to tell Ali, Rosie and Megan.

“OK, sweetheart, here's the deal. You spend time with me getting my head around this fucking horror of a disease and I'll teach you how to dress.”

Our contract was sealed with a less formal handshake and I left the room.

Pete met me on the other side. I blinked like a mole thrust into sunlight.

“Well?” he asked me.

“I think Tom wants to meet me again.”

Pete hugged me. “Well done, gorgeous girl! You passed!”

I realized that Tom had been auditioning me to be his psychological support as he prepared to die. He wasn't in immediate danger, as his Pneumocystis pneumonia was responding well to treatment, but he knew it was only a matter of time. In return I would get a life-changing style makeover. While I wanted it, I wasn't sure if this was a contract I could honor. Was I experienced enough to support a man who was confronting his mortality so intimately? I had no idea what that would take.

*   *   *

The placement was busy. I flitted between the DDU and the HIV clinic.

Mo continued to make her regular pilgrimage to get her methadone. I found myself looking out for her and wanting to talk to her, to check in with her, as often as I could. To begin with there were no new bruises, and that made me hopeful. Unfortunately, I later found out that was due to the postapocalyptic honeymoon period so common in sadomasochistic relationships.

I began to get to know the DDU regulars and enjoyed the banter in the waiting room; it's funny how a place like hell can soon begin to feel familiar and almost normal. As well as the heroin users, there were those hard-core benzodiazepine “jelly” injectors—including a couple of regulars who had had to have a leg amputated due to chronic injecting. Also there were a few coke and stimulant users—they were easier to spot: cleaner, better fed, more functional, and, because prescribing pharmaceutical cocaine was not common practice, these patients were usually referred to me for work to untangle the psychological dependency they had on the white powder.

Charlie was a cheeky, nasty drug. An expert at tricking the brain, charlie would mimic dopamine and flood the happy centers so that life became one big pleasure cruise. Loads of people I knew used coke recreationally in the 1990s—it was
the
party drug. What was interesting was why the people who came to the DDU couldn't pick it up and then put it down again for a while, the way most of the people I knew who took it seemed to be able to.