Chapter 7
ALARIC
One day, this coffee room in the hospital will be renamed The Alaric Alvin Memorial Annex, seeing as I’ve added a few personal touches to it over the years.
Very discreetly. Such as a framed poster showing a grumpy, fat frog sitting with his arms folded and the surgeon waiting for the anaesthetist written underneath.
It needles them, especially as they are invariably the ones waiting for us.
When a disgruntled gasser tore it down, I replaced it with another.
I have at least twenty or so printed out.
On that note, they should employ the clever folks who do airport signage to resign all hospitals, because ours is a fucking maze.
Not a day goes by when I don’t come across someone frantically searching for the exit.
While they’re at it, they could remove Latin terms from all outgoing patient correspondence, too.
Relabel it the Brain Department (not Neurology), Cancer Care (not Oncology), Eye (not Ophthalmology).
It’s pompous and unnecessary. I don't go to a supermarket looking to buy brassica oleracea.
No, I give a respectful nod to the cabbage on route to the shelves housing cherry Coke.
“If you don’t open the window soon, the smoke alarm will go off,” Luke advises.
He’s deliberately curtailing my five-minute diatribe on the pictures of mums and new-born babies lining the walls of the corridor outside the maternity unit.
They’re cute enough, but where are the brown babies?
The babies born with a cleft lip? The lesbians and gay dads?
Not long ago, courtesy of some pretty severe mental health issues, Luke took a year out of medicine.
But now he’s back, and thankfully on a much more even keel.
He’s side-stepped into dermatology (or, as I prefer, skin medicine.) It suits his retiring personality more than the cut and thrust of the big surgical specialties while still letting him chop nasty things out of people.
“Nah, the alarms don’t trigger if I sit over four metres and thirty centimetres away from them.” Not that I’ve spent my night shifts conducting controlled trials or anything. “If I use the vanilla-flavour vape juice, I can get to within three metres sixty.”
Isaac doesn’t work with us anymore, though we still meet up a lot.
He’s moved out to the sticks to live with Ezra, the hot brother-boyfriend, and got himself a part-time position in an ED the other side of the river.
I miss him, and Luke does too. Isaac was a steadying fulcrum in the middle of both of us. Me pivoting high, Luke pivoting low.
“How’s the new place?” Luke asks.
“Hey, I’m at work!” I protest. “Don’t spoil it.”
Waiting for a proper answer, he says nothing.
I offer him a shrug. Truth is I don’t know.
After our Wolf Hall spat, I half expected Gerald to ask me to leave.
Things have settled down since, though only because I’ve largely kept out of his way.
I find myself watching him out of the corner of my eye, or at least minding where he is in the flat.
Not wanting to engage him, merely… analysing.
Is he attractive under that stiff, tense shell, or just blessed with being tall and broad?
Is he an utter dickhead or simply a nerdy introvert?
Is my mild fascination with him down to a lack of sleep, growing dislike, or utter boredom?
“It’s temporary and cheap,” is the best I can offer.
“And company. Sort of. You know how I hate being by myself.” That’s what was so awesome about living at Stefan’s.
Something was always happening, even if it was only him and Marcus having a barney over whose turn it was to put the bins out and why Stefan wants a quick drink with his tennis club mates after a game, instead of rushing back to Marcus.
(Marcus thinks emotional maturity is a frigging cocktail).
If I ever felt lonely, there was always the guy behind the counter in the corner shop to have a chinwag with, or I could watch the world go by while seated in the café two doors down, drinking an awesome latte with a chocolate sprinkle heart swirled into the foam.
Luke, on the other hand, loves solitude.
He lives alone in a very nice two-bed apartment in Hackney he bought with a loan from his parents.
Like me, he’s got an active mind, too active for his own good.
Over the years, it’s gone to some fairly dark places.
But since he’s had his own space, his sanctuary, he’s much happier.
I envy him.
Even if Gerald is a cultural snob and creeps about like a wraith, I still prefer having him skulking around over having no one. Perhaps his non-existent dog is a wraith.
“Did you ever watch that Wolf Hall thing the BBC did?” I ask Luke.
Luke is used to my random questions. “I started to, then gave up. Dreary as fuck.”
Yes! I knew it. “Needed a few actual wolves to spice it up, yeah?”
He huffs a laugh. “Probably.”
I take a long, satisfied drag on my vape. “I’m only living with Gerald until I’ve banked some money. Or if Stefan falls out with Marcus.”
More of a when than an if. It’s simply a matter of biding my time until the blinkers come off.
“And then I’ll be back in the thick of it.
Drinking, dancing, Ubers at five a.m., and falling into work at eight.
” I throw him a radiant smile because everyone expects cheeriness from me.
I even do a finger-clicking seated rave with my skinny arms above my head, as if vibing to a tune only I can hear.
“Great.” Luke smirks. “Lucky Gerald.”
“Oh, Gerald’s cool.” If I say it enough times it might come true. “Quiet, weird, reclusive, but cool. It’s all good.”
Perceptive as ever, Luke picks up on my lack of conviction, but oddly, not the right part. “Do you really want to be back in the thick of it? Haven’t you got that out of your system by now?”
“Well…yeah, obvs.” Now I sound even more forced. “But since I turned thirty, there’s no law saying I’ve got to stay in watching Strictly on Saturday nights, is there? I enjoy going out and meeting people. I need to. I haven’t had sex for, like, over a fortnight.”
Luke nods, pondering my answer. Sucking on my vape, I scroll through my phone. The first night I was in Sutton Common, I swiped through Grindr; I had to download three updates before the app allowed me on, indicating how little I’d needed to rely on it before.
Anyhow, I shouldn’t have bothered. No one within a couple of miles or so grabbed me.
Inconveniently, despite being horny 24/7, I’m not one of those gays for whom a transactional dick pic is enough.
Even though I position myself at the very relaxed end of the fussiness scale, I still need a presentable face and a vague personality to go with my manhandling, even for a quick one-nighter.
“I haven’t had sex for over two years,” says Luke. “Except with myself.”
Oh my god, how is he still alive?
“And that’s super, super cool, too.” It absolutely is.
As is the image of Luke giving himself a desperate hand shandy.
Which I absolutely erase from my mental wank bank the second I picture it.
As sharply as I erase the second image too, of me giving him a helping hand.
I don’t think he’s gay anyhow. Isaac isn’t so sure, but then Isaac didn’t clock that his own brother was gay, so he’s no reliable barometer.
“It’s healthy that you’re wanking regularly.
” No wonder I have a diminishing circle of friends.
“Though the research linking masturbation to a reduced prostate cancer risk is actually more controversial than popular media would have you believe. Men probably need to ejaculate over twenty times a month for it to make a significant difference.”
Safe to say, based on that data, my bespoke cancer risk is subterranean.
“Do you keep a record?” As if maintaining a wanking spreadsheet is normal.
Mind you, I know a urologist who charts his daily urine output.
“One of the most extensive studies published in 2016 in European Urology followed more than 31,000 men for nineteen years and showed a reduced incidence, but more recently a study in Urologic Oncology showed a—”
“I don’t count how many times. I just do it to make me feel better. Or when I’m bored. Like most blokes, I guess.” Luke stands, brushing sandwich crumbs from his shirt. “Sutton Common might be good for you, Alaric. Calm you down a bit.”