Chapter 15
FIFTEEN
brIGHTON
The Realisation
Victoria sat on the bench where she and Danny Miller had first met, her eyes trained on the grey-skied horizon. Her thoughts turned to Nate and the fear and pain she had seen in his eyes before he had upped and left the night before. She had called him several times but in true Nate style, he didn’t want to talk – he needed space to think. So she had eventually left him an emotional message telling him it was highly likely Danny had given it to her and that, from what she had read, it was less likely that Nate had it, as woman-to-man transmission was possible, but rare. Then, after clearing up the mess of the smashed wine bottle, she had booked a room in Brighton for the night and headed to the train station.
She checked her watch for the second time.
‘Mind if I join you?’ She looked up, to find a red-eyed Danny standing in exactly the same place he had stood back in October. She gave him a weak smile, and he bent to kiss her on the cheek, then sat down and lit a cigarette.
‘If only we could rewind to that night, eh?’ Vic bit her lip .
‘Have you just got here?’
‘To the bench, yes, but once we’d arranged to meet, I got the train down last night. Stayed in a guesthouse just off The Lanes. I needed to be on my own with my thoughts.’ Vic’s eyes filled with tears. ‘Let me save you the trauma of coming out with it yourself. You’ve got HIV, haven’t you?’
The handsome blond took a long, hard drag of his cigarette and remained silent for a second. ‘Oh Vic, no, please tell me no, you’re not positive too, are you? You can’t be.’ He saw the pain etched on her face. ‘It would be so unlucky. No! It can’t be possible.’
‘I wish I had slept around more now; at least the law of averages would have made more sense.’
‘I can’t believe how upbeat you’re being.’
‘It’s that or slit my wrists, so I guess I have to stick with the first option.’
‘Vic. I’m so, so bloody sorry. I never thought for one minute you would have it. I just knew I had to talk to you about getting tested, just in case, but shit, I never ever thought that…’ He shook his head. ‘Oh, Jesus!’
‘We used a condom – I half remember the conversation.’ Vic sighed. ‘So I don’t understand.’
‘We did. I was adamant – it’s just the respectful and sensible thing to do. But, Vic, we had all sorts of wild sex, in many positions, and when I went to wrap the condom to throw it in the bin, I noticed that it had split.’
‘For fuck’s sake. And you didn’t think to mention it at the time?’ Vic grabbed the cigarette from Danny and took a drag. ‘Please tell me you’ve got more than one of these?’
‘I thought you only smoked when you were drunk.’
‘Spare me the lecture today, perlease.’
A large wave crashed on the shore ahead of them as a light drizzle began to fall. Vic rolled her hood up over her hair.
Danny took a packet of Marlboro Lights out of his jacket pocket. ‘My consultant said that I have to try and live a healthy lifestyle from now on.’
‘Danny, just give me a cigarette. If you tell me you knew you had it already, I will have to murder you, though, so get ready to run.’
Danny snapped. ‘What do you take me for, Vic? Of course I didn’t know. Jamie only told me three weeks ago. His open-relationship house had been entertaining visitors for a lot longer than he had made out.’
‘His?’
‘Yes, Vic, and sorry I omitted to tell you that. I just didn’t think it was relevant, as I figured we wouldn’t be running off into the sunset together. I liked you and I meant what I said about the gallery, but I think we both realised that that night was just what it was.’
‘It’s fine, I understand.’ She held her cigarette up to Danny’s offered light. ‘I accused Nate of giving it to me, too. Fuck! If only I’d listened to your message before I spoke to him. Nate, that’s my fella – ex fella, maybe. God knows what I call him now.’
Danny lit a cigarette for himself. ‘I didn’t contact you straight away as I was waiting for the results of my second test, which seemed to take forever. I didn’t want to believe it was true. Stuck my head up my arse, to be honest. And like I said, I honestly thought it would be impossible for you to have it. Nate will have to test now, anyway, so you had to tell him.’
‘Yes, I know that, thank you,’ she sighed, then shut her eyes and, taking a large drag of her cigarette, let the nicotine work its toxic magic. ‘But I’ve just scared the shit out of him, maybe for no reason. I blamed the poor bastard for giving it to me, and it wasn’t him.’
‘Let’s walk.’ Danny stood and took Vic’s hand to help her up.
They found themselves drawn to the sea’s edge. The melodic noise of the waves rushing up onto the shingle beach did nothing to calm their melancholy. The grey of the sea and the dull December morning just served to amplify their sadness.
‘I must call Nate.’
‘Does he know about me, and that you’re here?’
‘I told him I slept with someone, yes. He walked out of the flat and has gone completely AWOL, so he has no detail. What about Jamie?’
‘It’s over. I can’t even tell you how much I despise that man. I mean, there’s parting gifts, and then there’s parting gifts.’
Vic frowned. ‘I’m so sorry.’
‘I’m not. He’s a tosser.’ Danny’s voice lilted and he let out a little sarcastic laugh. He camply half-spoke, half-sang, ‘So, it’s just little ol’ me and the HIV.’ He sighed. ‘I can’t believe I’m being so upbeat now.’
‘What’s the alternative? Lie on the floor and pummel it with our fists, shouting “why me?” Saying that, I actually did that for a few days after I found out.’ Vic took a drag of her cigarette.
‘Oh, Vic.’ Danny reached for her hand and squeezed it. ‘I just got horrendously drunk, then ran down here and swam in the freezing-cold sea. Went a bit mad, if I’m honest.’
‘It’s a lot to take in.’ Vic sighed. ‘I have to call Nate again. Give me a sec.’ She walked ahead but turned back within seconds. ‘Voicemail.’
‘Did you leave a message?’
‘Yes. Another one trying to alleviate his fear, but I know him so well. He will be in such a state.’ Vic started to cry. ‘I’ve hurt him so much, Danny. We have hurt each other so much. What a mess! What a complete and utter mess.’
‘Yes. It really is. Please don’t cry, Vic.’ Danny coughed to clear his throat of emotion. ‘I don’t know how I’m ever going to get over what I’ve done to you.’
‘Well, you need to be brave, because what else can you do? We can’t change it. How are you feeling, anyway? Have you started any treatment or…’ The rain had stopped, so Vic pulled her hood back down.
‘No.’ Danny sighed. ‘It’s early days and it’s all about the CD4 and viral load, isn’t it? I’ve already forgotten which one has to be up and which one has to be down. I start treatment when one of them drops, I think.’
‘Yes, same for me.’ Vic yawned, throwing her cigarette butt into the sea. ‘If the viral load is high and the CD4 count drops then we’re in trouble.’ She took on a dramatic tone. ‘Then the ART begins!’ Her voice softened. ‘We’re never going to be free of this, even in our minds, are we?’
‘We will be. I hope. Like everything. In time,’ Danny replied sagely, in a staccato fashion.
Victoria stopped and looked up and down the beach. Granted, the weather wasn’t good, but it seemed eerily quiet considering it was that never-ending holiday period between Christmas and New Year. The pair walked along the water’s edge in silence for a while, until Danny spoke up. ‘Why are you not angrier with me, Vic? Being honest, I know I could never be as calm.’
‘Because we were having consensual sex, and you didn’t know. It’s just bad luck on my part. And what good would throwing anger in the mix do, when we are already feeling like shit and so full of fear?’
‘You are the coolest, strongest woman I think I have ever met, Victoria Sharpe.’ Danny threw his finished smoke into the water.
‘Maybe. But inside, there’s a whole disco of disaster going on with my immune system.’ They both laughed. ‘We are going to need each other, Danny Miller. To ride the stormy waters of this shit virus. Because I, for one, don’t think – even with all the best treatments in the world – this is going to be plain sailing.’
Danny stopped and clasped Victoria’s hand. He then clumsily pulled her towards him and brushed her lips with his .
Vic pulled away. ‘No… What are you doing?’
‘Maybe we should make a go of it.’ Danny became animated. ‘I’ve been thinking about it a lot.’
‘What, as in you and me together… as a couple?’
‘Why not? I mean, what’s the worst that can happen? And it means that we’ll never ever have the awful scenario of having to tell prospective partners. Because we will be partners.’
Vic shook her head. ‘Danny, stop it, you’re just knee-jerking…’
‘You can come and live with me down here. Sell your work in my gallery and…’ His voice tailed off. ‘We’ll never be alone, then, Vic. In sickness or in health.’
‘That all sounds like a very fucked-up happy ever after to me. When realistically you’ve never seen any of my work, and not forgetting I do still need to fathom what’s happening between me and Nate.’ Vic blew out a huge breath.
‘Come on, Vic, do you really think once Nate has thought this through, he will want to be with you?’
Vic opened her eyes wide with shock. ‘I can’t believe you just said that.’ Her voice turned into a wail. ‘Because if he doesn’t, that means that nobody probably will.’
‘But Vic, this is huge. Huge for anyone to take on. You could get ill; we don’t know what’s going to happen.’
Vic felt her stomach drop to her knees. ‘Stop! Danny Miller, just stop that right now.’
‘It’s the facts, Vic. We have to face them. We’re stuck with them.’
‘And each other? The ridiculous suggestion you just made about us being together… do we have to settle for that, too?’
‘Like you may be settling for Nate, you mean.’
‘I didn’t say that,’ Vic screamed. ‘And maybe I don’t want the facts right now, or ever, eh!’
The rain started tipping down again. Victoria strode forward towards the sea. ‘I could just walk into this ocean and keep going, and it would be done. My life’s fucking over anyway.’ She started to sob. Danny ran to the frothing sea’s edge after her and grabbed her shoulders.
‘Vic, listen to me. Don’t you ever think like that again, you hear me? Whatever happens, we always have each other, OK? I promise to do right by you forever. And I really mean that.’
Vic’s cheeks were strewn with tears that mingled with the rain. ‘I’m scared, Danny.’ She wiped her coat sleeve across her face.
‘So am I, but we’ve got this. We’ve got this together. The treatments are getting better. We are young and fit and, who knows, they might find a cure soon and all of this will just have been an awful nightmare.’
Leading her back to the shore, without a word, they turned to face each other. The rain plastered Vic’s hair to her face and soaked through their clothes, but in that moment, none of it mattered. All the fear and hurt that had built up suddenly dissipated. For in the vastness of a wild ocean, they sensed their own smallness, their shared humanity. They wrapped their arms around each other, gripping on as if just being together would make them strong enough to withstand any storm.
‘I’m so sorry,’ Danny whispered, his voice muffled against Vic’s neck.
‘Me too,’ Vic replied.
The rain fell harder, drenching them further, but they barely noticed. The world as they now knew it had narrowed down to the warmth of their embrace, the steady beat of each other’s hearts and the quiet acceptance that their chance meeting had led to a whole lot more than either of them had ever bargained for.