Holding the Man

by Timothy Conigrave

  The first meal we had was delicious: Beef Burgundy and rice, a green salad and coconut apricot pie. ‘Should be able to put some weight on in here, Johnny.’

  I had been put on steroids so that I could take a sulphur drug to which I was allergic. My appetite had increased enormously. I couldn’t get food down my throat fast enough, and if there wasn’t food around I would get anxious. I got a thick neck and a moon face, and began to look like a renal patient.

  The phone in our room rang. I jumped up and answered it. It was Peter Craig, in Melbourne. He was now working in the AIDS ward at Fairfield Hospital and was about to take annual leave. ‘I thought I’d come up and see you guys.’

  ‘There’s an eager puppy here who wants to talk to you. I’ll put him on.’

  ‘Pete! You can stay in our flat, while we’re in here. It’ll be great. I can’t wait to see you.’

  When Peter arrived he asked when we thought we’d be going home. ‘Will you need someone to help you? If you like, I could stay. I’ve got three weeks of leave left.’

  ‘I want to go somewhere warm,’ John said. ‘Noosa.’

  Peter sucked air through his teeth. ‘The airlines won’t take you if you’ve had a pneumothorax in the last six months. The change in air pressure can cause it to happen again. Maybe you should think about somewhere closer? Coffs Harbour?’

  ‘I want warmth.’

  When it was time to go home, we put John in the front seat of Peter’s car and loaded the plastic bags in the back with me. On my lap I nursed a drip-stand that the hospice had lent us for John’s naso-gastric feeds. The car was struggling with the extra weight. We took off, stalled and started again. We must have looked like the Beverly Hillbillies.

  As if to welcome us home, the sun came out as we pulled up outside our block. Our neighbour, old John, was sitting on the fence where he spent most of his afternoons. He and his wife Merna had been collecting our mail, even remembering us in their prayers. ‘Hello, boys. Home again? Nothing better.’

  Peter put my John’s arm around his shoulder to support him as they climbed the stairs. I struggled behind carrying some of the bags and the drip-stand. He used to be so physical, playing footy, tennis and jogging. Now he’s just an old man.

  Arriving home was like crawling under a crisp cotton doona. The old familiar smells, the plants on the balcony, and a bunch of flowers with a note: ‘Welcome home boys, Love Morna.’

  Peter had washed our bedding and done our laundry and filled our fridge. He unpacked while John and I sat on the bed. ‘I’ll make you some dinner and then I’ll go.’ He had arranged to stay with a friend in Bondi.

  When he’d left, we lay down on the bed beside each other, the first time we’d been alone for months. ‘Hello,’ John said shyly.

  ‘This crew-cut is pretty sexy.’ I ran my fingers over his fuzzy head. I moved closer to him and kissed him gently on the lips. He kissed me back, his mouth lightly opened. I could smell the vanilla of the drip-feed as our tongues mingled. I put my hand under his T-shirt and was struck by how thin he was. I could feel the outline of his ribs, and my spine tingled.

  John rolled over on top of me. I placed my hand on his hard-on through his tracksuit pants and then ventured inside. He was groaning in my ear, his warm breath against my neck. ‘I want you to screw me,’ he whispered. I was shocked. We hadn’t had anal sex since we had found out we were positive. I could still hear John’s angry cry: ‘That’s how we got into this mess in the first place.’

  John flicked his eyebrows up and down, smiling seductively. He started undressing me and kissing my hard-on. I undressed him, revealing his skeletal body, his skin hanging loose. I tried hard not to let him see that I was shocked. I hugged him and we rolled around the bed naked, his tube swinging and getting caught up in our bodies.

  I reached over to the bedside table and pulled out a condom and lube. I undid the packet, squeezed the teat and rolled it on; John ripped open the packet of lube and smeared it on. He then climbed over me, reached behind him and grabbed my cock and attempted to push it past his sphincter. He wasn’t having much luck, but he kept trying. My cock was starting to bend. ‘We don’t have to do this if you don’t want to,’ I said.

  ‘I want to.’ We persisted and eventually he opened and took me inside him. He leant back and pulled his cock and slid up and down on me. When he came there was very little fluid, another reminder of how unwell he was.

  I withdrew, pulled the condom off and brought myself to orgasm, my come splashing onto my belly. John smeared it and then licked his fingers clean. ‘Mmm.’ We lay there. I felt sad. That was such a gift, giving of himself. I love him for it. We drifted off to sleep, content.

  The next day John wanted to go for a drive. When we got downstairs I went to open the passenger door for him. ‘No, I want to drive.’

  ‘Are you up to it?’

  ‘Think so.’

  He started the car but found the clutch difficult and stalled it. I didn’t say anything. He tried again and this time he was able to back us out, but when he attempted to take off we kangaroo-hopped until John disengaged and put on the handbrake. ‘Bloody hell.’ We were sitting in the middle of the road, the engine still running. I offered to drive. ‘No!’

  We started up and drove out to the Gap, a place famous for its suicides, a high cliff with rocks below to crush the life out of you. We walked over the rocky outcrop with its little windblown ti-trees to the fence on the edge of the cliff. The exertion started John coughing. He recovered his breath and we stood watching huge waves crash against the rocky wall.

  The dome of the blue sky above and the dark green horizon made me aware that we were standing on a large rock hurtling through space. I walked to the edge. Being up this high was making me charged. I had a strong desire to run off the cliff and freefall through space. Perhaps vertigo is not fear of falling but the desire to jump?

  John drove back along the clifftop and I could see a police breathalysing station ahead. A cop flagged us onto the side of the road. ‘Good evening, driver. Have you been drinking this afternoon? I require you to undergo a breath test for the purpose of indicating the concentration of alcohol in your blood, and I instruct you to exhale deeply in one single breath from your lungs into this approved device.’

  This should be fun. John took a deep breath and exhaled as best he could, but he only wheezed until a cough broke through.

  ‘I’m sorry, driver, I’m going to have to ask you to do it again.’ John took another breath and blew very hard, venting his anger. Then he started coughing again. The policeman looked at the meter. ‘Thank you, you may proceed.’ John pulled over to let the cough run its course.

  ‘What a bastard. Couldn’t he see that you were unwell? Let me drive, got to get you home.’ When we arrived John went to his codeine linctus like an alcoholic to vodka.

  In the morning we were sitting on the lounge watching mindless morning television. I started playing with the wrist weights he had used in hospital to keep up his strength: dayglo green with a black velcro stripe. They were sensual, squishy, sand-filled. I rolled one of them up tightly and secured it with the velcro, making an hourglass shape. Looks like a little hat. ‘Put it on.’

  He looked amazing, his bald head topped by the little green hat – like a clown from a thirties film.

  ‘You look so cute,’ I laughed. ‘Have we got some film in the camera?’ I found the camera but there was no film.

  I walked down to the shops, sticking my head in at the laundry and saying hello to Rosa. ‘You been away?’

  ‘You could say that.’ Living here had a wonderful community feel about it. Bruce the chemist always greeted me by name. And old John was like a grandfather to John and me. I went to the camera shop and bought film. In the shopping centre I found other things that I could stick to John’s head.

  John sat at the dining-table. ‘Put the little hat on.’ John did so with a grudging smile. Click. I dug into the shopping bag and pulled out a stick-on bow, the ki
nd that you put on presents, and put it to one side of his forehead. ‘You look like a drag queen.’

  ‘Great.’

  ‘Next trick.’ I pulled an icecream cone out of the bag. I stuck it to his forehead with Blutack. It looked like a unicorn’s horn. He was so beautiful; his big brown eyes and their heavy-duty eyelashes made him look like a baby seal.

  ‘And now for the grand finale.’ I pulled out a packet of plastic farm animals and proceeded to fasten them to his head. Two cows, a sheep, a pig and a piece of fencing. It looked hilarious and I couldn’t stop laughing while I tried to take the photo. John was irritated.

  ‘You’re making fun of me.’

  ‘I’m not. It’s because I love you.’

  The next day when I returned with the prints, John slowly went through them, cracking a smile and even chuckling. ‘You are such a dag.’

  Peter and I had managed to argue John down from Noosa to Byron Bay, only eight hours away. We decided to break the journey at Coffs Harbour. Peter was driving, John in the passenger seat, and I was in the back seat behind him as we hurtled along the freeway. John’s little ears looked so cute, I couldn’t resist gently flicking them with my fingers. He would reach up and play with my hand, rub rub rub, pat pat pat, and then kiss it.

  We reached Coffs Harbour mid-afternoon and drove through industrial estates looking for the motel John had chosen from the NRMA accommodation guide. When we found it we realised why it was called the Aqua-jet. In front of it loomed a blue plastic mountain of waterslides.

  ‘Oh, wow, can we go please Dad, please please?’ I said.

  ‘Yeah, yeah, after lunch.’

  In the changing-shed I caught sight of a chubby white body. Nice fat white bum? I was looking in the mirror. Oh God, it’s me. I stood there appalled by the spare tyre I was carrying. Can’t wait to get off the cortisone. It was so ridiculous. John’s body was starved for fat and here I was piling it on.

  John had decided not to try the slides. Peter and I grabbed rubber mats and ran up the stairs like twelve-year-olds. Halfway up I ran out of breath. I hadn’t realised how unfit I was. At the top, the gaping mouths of the slides greeted us. We raced each other, turning nearly 360 degrees, speeding downwards and slamming into the pool. Peter crashed into the water beside me.

  As we made our way back to the stairs John called, ‘Smile!’ He had the camera up to his face.

  ‘No, I’m too fat.’ Click. ‘Thanks.’

  Peter said, ‘It’s good to have some fat. At John’s stage the body is cannibalising its muscle to get the energy it needs. Look how hard it is for him to put weight on.’

  Next day at Byron Bay there were lots of alternative types walking along the main street among the rural folk, and a community centre painted with a large rainbow and dolphins. We found the Lord Byron Motel, an attractive building, mid-eighties with vari-coloured brickwork. Our room was very large, with exposed brickwork, a double bed and a single. Peter and I unpacked the boxes of drip-feed, the drip-stand and our bags. Then he headed off to Belongil Beach House where he was staying, promising to return to take us for dinner.

  We had a pleasant meal and after dinner John was asleep within minutes. Having asked us down to the Beach House for lunch the next day, Peter left. I turned on the television and sat on the bed next to John. He started mumbling, his eyes half open, then began to twitch. This doesn’t feel good. It’s like the spirit of a troubled soul has possessed him. Maybe the lymphoma has gone to his brain. Jesus! Steve Vizard was doing his Top Ten on the screen. I lay beside John. I love you.

  Belongil Beach House was built around a large courtyard, with an open café on one side. The place looked pleasant enough, but Peter’s accommodation was a fibro lean-to with holes punched in the wall and a mattress covered in stains. John pressed it. ‘Bit soft. You might need a chiropractor after sleeping on this.’ The common-room held the sweet smell of dope and a bunch of young hippies. We waved at them and made our way to the café. Halfway through the meal John stood up abruptly. ‘I’ve got to go to the toilet.’ He was moving from leg to leg, holding his penis through his jeans.

  In the toilet John anxiously fumbled with his fly and pulled out his squirting penis. He was ashamed of wetting himself.

  I took him back to the table. After lunch I asked him to let me walk back alone along the beach.

  At the end of the bush track a beautiful white sandy beach opened up before me. Bright azure water pulsed at the shore. It was low tide. I took my shoes and socks off and walked at the water’s edge. Warm breezes played over me as the waves rippled to shore and the water flowed around my ankles. Water is so accommodating, it moves around me and continues on its way.

  I sat below the dunes and rubbed the sand off my feet, watching the cloud shadows move along the beach. If John’s going mad, where does his soul go? Trapped inside his madness, or maybe floating free? My eyes filled with tears. One ran down my cheek and into my mouth. Before I knew it my face was tightly screwed up, as if I were trying to squeeze out the tears and the pain. I don’t want him to go. I don’t want him to die. He’s slipping through my fingers like wet spaghetti.

  I walked back to the motel, feeling a little unburdened after having a good cry. Peter sat on the single bed reading the paper. John was asleep again, hooked up to his drip-feed. He was twitching, his eyes half open.

  A couple of days later a friend, Beth, whom I had met when I was at TNT Couriers doing shit work to pay the rent, drove down from Brisbane. She was a striking woman, large with short hair bleached white. We had become good friends, sitting in cafés, laughing and ripping up the latest films and plays. She had also been a great support when things with John got heavy. A believer in the New Age, she was able to see things from an ‘own your own life’ perspective.

  As we wandered through the scrub to the beach I told Beth about my fears. ‘I think he’s getting demented. He’s very vague and he sleeps all night with his eyes half open. I’m not coping very well.’

  ‘You’re going through a very difficult time, you’re about to lose your boyfriend of fifteen years. It’s okay not to cope.’ She put her arms around me and I was pressed against her breast in warmth, comfort, safety.

  ‘Sorry, I’ve cried all over your shirt.’

  ‘It’ll dry.’

  ‘I love this place. I get a lot of comfort from walking along these beaches. I’ve been coming down here and crying. There’s something healing about it.’ A movement out beyond the waves caught my eye. I saw a group of three dolphins, their fins breaking the water, revolving. ‘So beautiful.’

  ‘It augurs well, they’re a powerful healing symbol.’

  ‘I’d love to be out there swimming with them. They look such sensual animals.’ I stood on the rocks and thanked the beach for its solace.

  All along the Pacific Highway back to Sydney, John kept needing to go to the toilet. We would pull over to a petrol station, John would run and get the key from the manager and then rush to the toilet. We’d head off again only to be stopped half an hour later. Once we pulled up on the gravel shoulder as semitrailers hurtled down the hill, rocking the car. John stumbled across the rocky ground to a tree and marked its trunk.

  We decided to break our journey at Port Macquarie and checked into Sails Resort on the Hastings River. I went for a drive around the cliffs. I spotted a beach, parked the car and climbed down a dirt track. It was like walking into a tourism ad, families picnicking, playing French cricket, boys floating on surf mats in the mouth of the river, riding the small waves. A large fishing trawler passed and the boys rode the wake.

  I sat on a rock, looking across the mouth of the river, listening to the sound of the waves. I wanted to cry but didn’t feel safe enough; there were too many people. I feel the earth is shifting beneath my feet. Nothing feels stable. A year ago John had been strong, playing tennis. Now he was dying and I was thinking of resigning from Fun and Esteem. It was too hard to work with AIDS during the day and come home to it. I started thinking about
the moment of John’s death. What will that be like? A flash? A clang? Will I feel angels descending and whisking his spirit away? I don’t want him to die. Who will look after me when I get sick?

  Back at the hotel John was sitting up on the bed reading a pamphlet for the Port Macquarie Koala Hospital. ‘Sick koalis,’ he said in a baby voice. ‘Koalis in wheelchairs with oxygen masks.’

  The reality was far more devastating. The hospital’s display area showed photos of koalas with severed arms and smashed-in faces. Underneath each was a small piece of text: ‘Polly was hit by a truck on the Pacific Highway. She was brought in with one arm and one leg broken and internal injuries. She was carrying a baby who survived, but Polly didn’t.’

  John and I stood looking at the photos, me leaning on his shoulder, reading the gruesome stories. In the yards we saw the same devastation in the flesh: koalas with amputated limbs, missing eyes, legs in plaster. I found myself talking to one, apologising on behalf of the human race. Driving back to the hotel, we were silent.

  That night we had dinner at the hotel restaurant. It was quite swanky, its patrons dressed up. We were wearing T-shirts and track pants. John had his naso-gastric tube in and was carrying his Big John bag. I noticed that people were mumbling to each other and secretly looking at us. I caught the eye of a woman with a very tight perm, smiled at her and waved. She waved back, embarrassed. I wanted to say, ‘This is what someone looks like when he’s dying.’ But instead I called, ‘Hi, love your hair.’

  ‘Tim!’ said Peter under his breath.

  ‘I’m sick to death of people staring at him.’

  Chapter ELEVEN

  Reality Check

  Back home in Sydney I was in the lounge-room reading about Neneh Cherry in The Face. John called to me from the bedroom. I rushed in to him.