1983 – aged 28 #3
‘Bertie, you’re scaring me.’ She breathed deeply and, returning to him, dropped to her knees on the floor by his chair and placed her hands on his jeans, understanding that contact might be good.
It was some minutes before he garnered the strength to talk and, when he did, it was through a mouth contorted with sorrow, his eyes red and swollen, heartbreaking for her to witness.
‘Jack died.’ He shook his head as if even saying the words out loud could not help make sense of them.
‘Jack?’ She struggled for a second, trying to place Jack among Bertie’s vast, varied, exotic and ever-changing crowd.
‘Beautiful Jack.’ He nodded, letting his head drop to his chest.
‘No!’ Beautiful Jack was a name she hadn’t heard in a while, Bertie’s ex, but she understood that he had always carried a candle for him, the beautiful, beautiful man.
‘Oh no!’ The two sat for a while, and she was sure that Bertie, like her, was picturing him in his denim shirt undone to the waist, and that face, that perfect, movie-star face.
‘How old was he?’ she asked softly, aware that to pick over detail might be difficult.
‘Thirty-six.’
‘No age.’
‘Nope.’ Bertie wiped his face and sniffed.
‘How did he die?’ She stared up into the face of her friend, boss and mentor, noting the dark shadows of fatigue beneath his eyes, the hollow cheekbones, his thinned hair, his grey pallor and the lesion on his scalp, a reddened crust. The seconds ticked by, and the weight of his pause pushed down on her bones.
‘That’s the thing,’ he said, and just like that his face crumpled again.
And she knew.
Before he said another word, she knew. Her heart fell heavily and clumsily into her monkey boots, and the air left her lungs as surely as if she’d been punched in the stomach.
Winded and shocked, she laid her head on his lap and sat for a while, letting the tornado of thoughts and realisation swirl around them.
Too stunned to cry, too sad to speak, as she understood that Beautiful Jack had gone, and that Bertie most likely cried because he, too, was suffering from that same terrible disease, the word they had avoided for the longest while.
A word that ate up beautiful young men. A word too fearful to voice in these turbulent times, when the stigma and fear of such a disease was rife.
‘Bertie, no . . .’
‘’Fraid so, Bob old chap. I think we might have to cancel any future dates for our music-hall act. I’m packing away my fishnets and top hat.’
She had quite forgotten this, and her whole body rippled in horror at the thought of losing him.
He placed the flat of his palm on her hair and she closed her eyes, taking comfort from the contact, feeling the warmth flow from his hand to her.
It was maternal, it was kindness, it was love and it was the start of goodbye.
‘What are we going to do?’ She could barely stand to ask.
‘I’ve found a place that offers some marvellous treatment and complementary therapies, in Cornwall, actually. So I’m going to head down there for a bit . . .’
‘Cornwall?’ She lifted her head, unable to imagine Bertie, the toast of London, in a place like Cornwall.
‘Don’t look like that! It’s not the other side of the world!’
‘Might as well be.’ She reached out and ran her fingertips over the thin wrist of her lovely friend. ‘Cornwall? I shall miss you.’
This was the mealy-mouthed phrase that popped from her mouth, when what she wanted to say was, My heart is broken!
I am utterly petrified! I can see now that you look ill!
You’ve lost your verve! You look like you might die, and I can’t bear the thought of it, Bertie Barnes!
I absolutely cannot bear the thought of it!
What in the world does my life look like without you in it!
Sitting up straight, he stared at her now, as he placed his cupped palm over her fingers and held on tightly as his eyes misted. ‘Tell you the truth, Bob, I’m going to miss me too. I’m going to miss all of it.’
‘I . . .’ Her lips moved, but still she struggled to find the eloquence that sadness had robbed her of. What could she possibly say to this man who had shown her another wonderful facet of the world, had given her a chance, and had always shown her love? And oh, how she loved him in return!
‘I know, Bob. I know. The feeling, darling one, is entirely mutual.’
She let her head hang forward, doing her best not to give in to the tears that threatened.
‘There is one thing I need to tell you—’
‘Tell me when you get back.’ She cut him short. Holding his eyeline. Her voice unwavering. ‘Tell me all about it when you get back.’
Bertie nodded. ‘Okay, I’ll tell you all about it when I get back.’ They shared a long, lingering look of pure love. ‘I’ve never been to Cornwall.’ He rallied as best as he could, his voice as bold as he could make it.
Lilly sniffed. ‘I’ve heard it’s all knitted loo-roll holders, pampas grass and Viennese Whirls.’
‘Urgh!’ He rolled his eyes and pulled a face. ‘Shoot me now!’ He laughed, but quickly this laughter turned to tears. ‘Beautiful Jack!’ he howled.
‘I know,’ she wept with him. ‘Beautiful Beautiful Jack . . .’