The Lost Child of Philomena Lee (Original Edition)

by Sixsmith, Martin

  ‘OK, let’s go upstairs now,’ he mumbled with his eyes fixed on the tablecloth. ‘Let’s go, OK?’

  Pete stared at him.

  ‘I thought we were just coming for a drink, Mike. I thought we said we weren’t going to do anything.’

  ‘Well, maybe you said that,’ Mike hissed. ‘What’s the point of coming here if we don’t go upstairs?’

  Pete sighed and stood up.

  The upstairs room was much smaller, warm and dark, the air fetid with testosterone. The men crowded in there were from the leather and kink crowd, many of them hairy and tattooed, wearing Levi’s and metal-studded biker jackets with coloured bandannas. In a corner a group of four or five guys wearing only the briefest of leather jockstraps and military-style leather caps were making out, feeling each other’s bodies. The atmosphere was hostile. Pete began to say he felt uncomfortable, that he would like to leave, but Mike motioned him to be quiet.

  On a small raised dais a pale, slim man in a fluorescent thong was tied to a wall and two burly guys in black executioner masks were pouring molten candle wax onto his naked body; another was whipping him with a leather cat-o’-nine-tails. It was crowded, dark and hot.

  Pete began to feel faint. He took Mike’s arm. ‘I need to go, Mike. Will you come now – please?’

  But Mike pushed him away. ‘You go if you like. I’m staying.’

  ‘But you’ll be home soon, Mike, won’t you? Remember what we said.’

  Mike grunted but did not turn to look – did not even notice – as Pete slipped out down the stairs.

  In their elegant apartment Pete lay awake. Around six he heard Mike come in and go straight to the bathroom. He pulled on his robe and went through. When Mike emerged, he was dressed for work and wearing sunglasses.

  ‘Thank God you’re back, Mike. I’ve been so worried.’ Pete went to give him a hug, but Mike winced and pushed him away. As he left, Mike pulled up his shirt collar, but Pete caught a glimpse of the bruises on his neck.

  SIXTEEN

  1991–2

  In the months that followed, Mike seemed to unravel. He would get home from work, make a show of casual normality for an hour, then slip out for the rest of the evening while Pete was in the shower, leaving a non-committal note taped to the fridge. It was the same sly, evasive behaviour that had destroyed his relationship with Mark, but he simply couldn’t make himself stop – you might as well have asked an alcoholic why he couldn’t stop drinking. Mike’s addiction was secrecy and the rush of being in the wrong – of proving he was the flawed being he always knew he was. He drank heavily and was picked up twice for driving while drunk. He awoke from stupors steeped in self-loathing, comforted not by the thought of redemption and recovery but by the promise of another secret, guilty evening to come.

  Pete tried pleading with him and Mike promised to change, but nothing happened. Pete opened the chest in Mike’s closet and found it full of sadomasochistic pornography, bondage magazines and pictures of leather and rubber sex. This was not the usual gay porn but stories of torture and cruelty, men roped or tied in slings, then abused and violated. Pete was at loss, and finally called Susan Kavanagh and asked if they could meet.

  ‘Susan, Mike’s in a bad way, and it’s not something that’s easy for me to speak about.’ He glanced around the bar. ‘It’s to do with how he’s behaving . . .’

  Susan nodded, ‘It’s OK, Pete. It’s not the first time.’

  ‘Yeah, I know. It’s that whole disappearing thing again, like when he split up from Mark O’Connor, but I think it’s even worse this time. He’s spending so much time in leather bars and I never know where he is or who he’s with. The kind of thing he gets up to, Susan – it’s a whole different level, and it’s not a level I’m happy accepting. It’s not about being gay; it’s about being depraved . . .’

  ‘And what does he say when you tackle him about it?’ Susan asked.

  ‘That’s the problem: he won’t say anything – I find things out by chance . . . like the money that goes missing from the bank account or the stuff he leaves lying around. I found another drinking while driving citation that he’d never told me about and it looks like he was thrown in jail this time, because the release form that got him out of there . . . I noticed the signature on it was Bobby Burchfield, Susan – George Bush’s personal lawyer, the guy who’s running the Bush re-election campaign. The White House sent Bobby Burchfield to get Mike out of jail!’

  ‘So the big boys know?’ Susan mused. ‘Isn’t that enough to get him worried – to make him do something about it?’

  Pete shook his head.

  ‘He bought a book on being an alcoholic and how to deal with it, but he’s never opened it. And when he comes back from his lost weekends, I find drugs in his pockets. I can hardly recognize the guy I fell in love with any more: it’s like he wants to throw himself into the dirt . . . because he hates himself so much.’

  ‘Well, you know, that thought crossed my mind,’ Susan said. ‘I know he depends pretty badly on what people think about him. When he got fired from NIMLO, he was so down on himself it was like his whole world had collapsed. He doesn’t look it, but I think he’s fragile, Pete. It only takes a little knock – some withdrawal of love – for him to fall apart.’

  Pete frowned.

  ‘It’s just all happened so fast. It’s like he’s had all those years of conforming and repressing his identity, then suddenly he can’t do it any more and there’s this huge explosion . . . like he’s just letting go of everything all at once.’ He thought for a moment and picked up the thought that Susan had begun. ‘It’s like he’s always lived this compartmentalized life where he has to deny his sexuality at work and then defend his work to his friends . . . And he was able to cope with all that as long as things were going well, as long as he was being promoted and praised, but as soon as something went wrong – when he thought the White House didn’t love him enough – that’s when it all collapsed.’

  Susan took Pete’s hand.

  ‘I know it’s hard for you, Pete. I know you love him . . . and he loves you too – I’m sure of that. It seems to me the only thing you can do is just keep on being there for him. If you keep loving him, if you can be the constant in his life when the rest of the world turns against him, I’m sure you can make the difference.’

  Pete stayed constant. Through all the lost nights and lost weekends he refused to answer excess with anger. He stayed kind and solicitous when Mike was surly and dismissive, and eventually his devotion worked the miracle. In the spring of 1992 Mike came back from the blackness and into the light of the love that had always been there for him. The Easter vigil at Shepherdstown that year was a special one.

  ‘This is my welcome home party,’ Mike announced to the guests. It was midnight and he was standing glass in hand.

  ‘This is a celebration of Easter, of friendship and of love’– a cheer rose around the table – ‘and for me it’s a personal celebration . . . a celebration of the man who—’ His breath caught in his throat as his gaze settled on Pete. ‘I’d like to propose a toast to Pete Nilsson, the man I love – the man who saved me from myself.’

  ‘Thank you,’ he whispered into Pete’s ear, then, turning to the guests around the table, ‘This is a poem by a man who meant a lot to me as a child . . . and it’s for the man who means the most to me as an adult.

  Wine comes in at the mouth

  And love comes in at the eye;

  That’s all we shall know for truth

  Before we grow old and die.

  I lift the glass to my mouth,

  I look at you, and I sigh.’

  In church the following morning Mike took Pete’s hand as the priest offered the Peace of Christ and did not let go until the Mass was over. When the guests had left on Sunday evening he lay in bed with his lover and whispered in his ear, ‘I love you so much, Pete. I’ve been selfish and unkind but you never let me down, even when I was trying to hurt you. Now I want to be with you forever. I
want to grow old with you, and if you’re with me I won’t be scared or lonely any more. When old age comes we’ll welcome it together. You’ve rescued me, and now we can live forever.’

  In the early summer Mike fell ill with pneumonia. The doctors said it was a strange time of year to get it, but maybe there was a bug going round and Mike had just been unlucky.

  SEVENTEEN

  1992–3

  Fate has a curious way of crossing – or nearly crossing – the paths of those whose lives it will one day bring together. I remember the Republican convention of 1992 quite clearly. Arriving in Houston on 16 August, I had the strong presentiment that George Bush and his party were in trouble. I had come from the Democrats’ convention in New York, where Bill Clinton had been acclaimed in an eruption of rock music and misty evocations of JFK’s Camelot, and walked into a Houston Astrodome packed with tight-lipped sour-faced men in cheap suits with walkie-talkies and badges proclaiming God, Family, America. Bush had been riding high – the Soviet Union had collapsed and US forces had freed Kuwait – but now the country had slid into recession, and Clinton kept saying, ‘It’s the economy, stupid.’

  Michael Hess had arrived in Houston a week earlier. This was his third convention representing the RNC and by now he had figured out most of the pitfalls – and most of the ways to have fun. Pete had come down for a couple of days on a business trip and they spent the evening before the convention in a restaurant with other gay men who worked for the party. They spoke of the gloomy political outlook and how Bush had been forced to make a sharp turn to the right by the powerful conservative lobby.

  ‘And guess who’s been nominated as the keynote speaker?’ Mike said. ‘It’s your friend and mine, Patrick J. Buchanan. It’ll be a good time for you guys to get out of the hall and go find somewhere to get drunk!’

  ‘And what about you, Mike?’ Pete asked. ‘Do you have to be up on the podium while he speaks?’

  ‘Uh-uh.’ Mike smiled. ‘The minute he starts I’ll be heading out of there. I’ll come back once he’s finished – I need to be there for the president – then it’ll be time to hit the beer and drown a few sorrows.’

  Pat Buchanan did not disappoint. His speech was a bullying, tub-thumping assault on liberals, radicals and destroyers of American family values, and the theme running through it was that homosexuality was bringing the country to its knees.

  ‘So we stand against the amoral idea that gay and lesbian couples should have the same standing in law as married men and women. We stand in favour of the right of communities to control the raw sewage of pornography that pollutes our popular culture. We stand for right to life and voluntary prayer in public schools. My friends, this election is about much more than who gets what. It is about who we are, what we believe in and what we stand for as Americans. There is a war going on in our country . . . a cultural war . . . a struggle for the soul of America!’

  The cheers from the floor shook the Astrodome, but the party was torn. Mary Fisher, adopted daughter of a wealthy Republican fundraiser, took to the podium on the penultimate night to reveal that she was HIV positive and to make an impassioned plea on behalf of all AIDS victims.

  ‘I ask the Republican Party to lift the shroud of silence which has been draped over the issue of HIV and AIDS! I bear a message of challenge . . . I want your attention, not your applause! The reality of AIDS is brutally clear. Two hundred thousand Americans are dead or dying; a million more are infected. And I represent an AIDS community whose members have been reluctantly drafted from every segment of American society . . . Though I am white and a mother and contracted this disease in marriage and enjoy the warm support of my family, I am one with the lonely gay man sheltering a flickering candle from the cold wind of his family’s rejection . . .’

  There was a smattering of applause in the hall, but the effect of Mary Fisher’s words was to highlight the Republicans’ failure to act on AIDS and the party’s ingrained homophobia. In the November election George Bush was defeated by Bill Clinton, and on 20 January 1993 the Grand Old Party vacated the White House for the first time in twelve years.

  In the spring the pneumonia came back. This time Mike recognized the symptoms and went at once to see his doctor, but after two weeks on antibiotics he was still coughing and running a 104-degree fever. Out in Shepherdstown for the weekend, Pete put him to bed and sat with him as shaking chills gripped his body and pain stabbed his chest with every breath. On Sunday morning, when Mike’s skin had turned a dusky purple, Pete dressed him and drove the fifteen miles to City Hospital in Martinsburg.

  The medics who examined Mike were assiduous: they ordered a chest X-ray and blood tests and nodded when the results came through.

  ‘Well, Mr Hess, it’s as classic a case of lobar pneumonia as ever I saw. Your white blood cells are all over the place – you got a high count of neutrophils and a real low count of lymphocytes, and that means you got yourself a humdinger of a virus there.’

  Mike smiled wanly. Pete spoke for him.

  ‘He’s hardly ever been sick in his life, Doctor; hardly even a cold. This is all a shock. Will you need to keep him here for long? He has FEHB insurance from his job with the Republican Party.’

  ‘Well, good, that’s fine and dandy. And we’ll definitely do our best for a Republican.’ The doctor’s laugh was inscrutable.

  Mike was in hospital in Martinsburg for five days, attached to a drip as he slowly recovered. On the third day Pete broached the subject that was in both of their minds.

  ‘Mike, I’m not saying this to upset you – and it’s probably nothing – but have you thought maybe this could be . . . AIDS related?’

  Mike did not respond immediately.

  ‘I don’t think so,’ he said at last, making himself believe it. ‘I had the test last time and it was negative, and now the doctors have done all these new tests . . . I’m pretty sure it’s just pneumonia.’

  Pete let the matter drop. That evening, alone in the house in Shepherdstown, the thought occurred to him that Martinsburg, and West Virginia as a whole, probably had little experience of AIDS and maybe the medics did not automatically test for it, but then he put the thought out of his head.

  Susan Kavanagh came to visit. She leaned over and kissed Mike’s unshaven cheek. Her lips felt so smooth and cold – like an ice cube, he thought, on his feverish skin.

  ‘You know, Mike,’ Susan said, ‘you got us all a bit worried there. Pete says you’re getting better, but I . . . I have to say you still don’t look too good.’

  ‘Yeah, I know, ’ he said with an effort. ‘I don’t feel too good, either. But they’ve promised to get me back on my feet and out of here . . . and I need to get back to work. I’m kind of worried what they’ll all be thinking . . .’

  Susan guessed from the tone of his voice what was concerning him.

  ‘What do you mean, Mike? What should they be thinking?’

  ‘Well, let me ask you: if you worked where I work and somebody got sick with pneumonia a year ago and now they’re out sick with pneumonia again in the hospital, what would you think?’

  Mike watched her. She was weighing something up, her eyes on his.

  ‘I would think they had AIDS,’ she said at last.

  Mike sought for a last straw to grasp.

  ‘OK, but you’re from New York, right? And you guys have seen so much of this AIDS stuff that maybe you just jump to conclusions.’

  Before she could reply, he had turned away to adjust the flowers she had placed at his bedside.

  Mike was released from hospital and returned to his work at the RNC. With the Republicans out of the White House the mood was less ebullient, but there was a lot of work still to be done on redistricting litigation across the nation. The defeat in California had been a setback, but other suits in other states were hitting the courts and the party was winning enough of them to keep alive the target of a Republican House in 1994.

  The defeat of Bush and Quayle had shaken the leadership, and t
he Republican National Committee called for a complete rethink of the party’s platform. There was something of a backlash against the conservatives who had hijacked the Houston convention and whose bulging-eyed intolerance was blamed for sending moderate Republican voters running to the Democrats. Pat Buchanan, Jerry Falwell and Pat Robertson found themselves temporarily out of favour; Gerry Hauer and Bill Bennett lost much of their influence. As chief counsel, Mike had his say in the RNC’s policy debates and argued for greater flexibility on social issues, but his thoughts were elsewhere.

  He still had a racking cough that gave him no peace, and at the end of May asked Pete if he would come with him to see a pulmonary specialist. They held hands surreptitiously as they sat in the waiting room.

  When he had sounded Mike’s chest and listened to the description of his symptoms, the doctor said he would send him for a lung X-ray. As he was filling in a form on his desk, and without looking up, he said, ‘Are there any other tests you would like me to carry out at the same time?’

  Mike coughed and cleared his throat. ‘Oh, yeah. I guess you should also do an AIDS test . . . If you don’t mind.’

  He was struck by the calmness of his voice – he had just requested a pronouncement on his own life or death in a tone so offhand he might have been asking for a pound of apples. As the doctor wrote another line on his form, Mike felt Pete squeezing his hand under the table and returned the pressure with a rush of gratitude.

  The doctor had said they could expect the results by the end of the week. The days became a zone in which thought seemed suspended: they would start to say something and stop in mid-sentence – whatever they said, whatever they decided, might soon have to be recast, rethought and possibly countermanded by the news that would soon be with them.