Our Little Cruelties Read online

  A week later, I got a call from the clinic from a Dr Galvin. She told me the good news, that my results had all come back relatively normal, but she suggested I go and see a Dr Shabrath at the St James’s sexual health clinic as my symptoms might suggest something else.

  Syphilis.

  Christ. I hadn’t even heard of syphilis in years. The word made me feel sleazy, but a quick Google search told me I could be sorted with antibiotics. I was annoyed that Dr Galvin couldn’t just prescribe them herself.

  In the sexual health clinic waiting room, I looked around at the other patients. There were ordinary people there, middle-class couples my own age and older, young yummy-mummy types, but also obviously strung-out junkies and a preponderance of young men. I guessed nobody was immune to a dose of something.

  After the tests, another week later, Dr Shabrath told me as gently as he could that my tests had shown I was HIV positive. He continued to talk in a tone that was reassuring, but all I could think of was Tom Hanks in Philadelphia, film footage of emaciated gay men in 1980s San Francisco. We didn’t know – I didn’t know – anybody with AIDS. I wasn’t gay or an intravenous drug user. How was this even possible? But it was.

  I had been spending more and more time in LA, where the women, whether cosmetically enhanced or not, were both beautiful and desperate for work. And I took advantage of them. I saw it as an exchange. Sex in return for the promise of a day or two on a film. I should have been more careful. In the mid-noughties, I’d caught a dose of the clap in time to get it treated successfully and had promised the older judgemental female doctor then that I would practise safe sex thereafter. But I have never liked using condoms and had rejected several women when they insisted I use one.

  All the weird, wild and wonderful sexual encounters I’d had in the previous years crossed my mind as Dr Shabrath talked on. Which one of those bitches had infected me? There was one girl in particular who I’d really liked. She hadn’t been desperate, she was smart and educated. She was the one I’d seen the most. Was it her? I tried to tune in to what the doctor was saying.

  I got in my car to drive home, but instead of stopping at my house I drove past it and kept going. I pulled over to refuel the car and put my phone in the boot. I drove for another two hours, listening to classical music on Lyric FM because I just wanted the noise and the talk to stop. I wondered if I was having some kind of breakdown; I wondered if this was how Luke felt when he had an episode.

  I stopped at a hotel in Wexford. It was a country-house-type place. I checked into a room, took a long bath, redressed in the clothes I had worn to work that morning. I drank the two whiskey miniatures from the minibar in quick succession then went down to the hotel bar, where the barman recognized me and began quizzing me about actors and films. I didn’t answer his questions but went outside and walked to a nearby beach. It was still a bright summer evening and there were a small number of families, couples and bathers enjoying the slowly dropping sun. I took off my shoes and socks and rolled up my trousers then walked to the edge of the water. It was freezing and, though the day was mild, a cutting north wind was beginning to blow. The holidaymakers packed up and left, and I was glad. I didn’t even want to return a nod of acknowledgement.

  They say a bracing walk is good for you. I walked a mile and then a mile back towards the hotel, and still my head was full. Deals and finance and tricky actors, prima donna directors, Gemma, the girl I had been dating on and off, and Susan, and their increasing demands. Brian and his making money out of Daisy’s fleeting career needled me, and Luke’s new sobriety was unnerving because although he seemed normal, I was just waiting until the next time he fell apart and did something to mortify me. I thought about everything except what the doctor had told me. I put up a mental wall to that conversation.

  I went back into the hotel bar and bought a full bottle of Jameson for an exorbitant price then took it back to my sea-view room where I ordered room service and flicked from one news channel to the next until I fell into a drunken sleep.

  The next morning I threw up and paid the concierge to send someone for Solpadeine and Alka-Seltzer, a clean T-shirt, boxers and socks. I got the impression he’d had these kinds of requests before. I didn’t shower or get into my clean clothes. I sat on the balcony instead. I didn’t know what I wanted to eat so I ordered everything on the room-service menu. The kitchen rang back twice to check that I meant what I’d ordered. Three trolleys laden with food were delivered to my room and I wished I’d booked a suite because there wasn’t enough space to lay out all the food. Some of it was placed on the floor and on the bed, some on the vanity unit in the bathroom. I picked at bits of everything, but it all tasted like sawdust to me. Nothing made me feel good or satisfied, nothing at all.

  It rained the whole day and I sat on the balcony and watched the clouds scudding across the wide, open sky, shedding their burden of water across the deserted beach and the boatless sea. After the painkillers and food had kicked in, there still remained that weary muscle pain I’d been experiencing for months now. I ordered a glass of whiskey to take the edge off, and then I ordered another one. The servers took the mostly untouched trays of food away, trying to keep the looks of disgust from their faces. Then I rang down again and ordered another bottle of whiskey. I drank solidly and steadily, trying to numb the stress and pain I was feeling.

  At some stage, I went out to the car park with my car keys in hand. I was wearing only my hotel robe and slippers. A top-hatted doorman intercepted me as I weaved towards my car.

  ‘Sir? Sir. Perhaps not a good idea to drive right now? Please come back to the lobby and we’ll call a taxi for you. Sir?’

  I told him to fuck off and popped the boot of my car. I’d only gone out to retrieve my phone. I stumbled past him on my way back inside. He was embarrassed.

  ‘I’m sorry, I do apologize, it just looked like …’

  ‘Looked like what?’ I slurred.

  ‘Nothing, sir.’

  For the laugh, I stepped up to him and tipped his ridiculous top hat from his head and watched him scramble to retrieve it. I could see people staring at me. I gave them the finger and got in the lift, but I must have punched the wrong button because when I got to my end of the corridor my key card wouldn’t work and I realized I was outside 359 instead of 559. Furious, I kicked the door and walked away and found the stairs to the upper floors.

  Back in my room, I examined my phone. There were thirteen missed calls. From Susan, Gerald, my girlfriend Gemma and a few from other non-entities in my life. No call from Daisy. I wanted to call my mother. I missed her so much. There was nobody any more who really felt proud of me. What would she have said to me under these circumstances?

  I drained the end of the whiskey bottle into my glass. I felt sick and bizarrely hungry. I opened the minibar and ate all the Pringles and pretzels and then drank the wine and the miniature spirits. After the Bacardi and the vodka, I lay back on the bed as the room started to spin. I tried to close my eyes against the spiralling vortex but that made it worse and I sat up again. I could feel my stomach twisting and knew I was going to be sick, but I didn’t make it to the bathroom this time. I passed out.

  I woke up in the early hours of Sunday morning smothered in my own disgusting mess and knew that I needed help. I called the only person I thought might understand.

  ‘Hello?’ His voice was groggy; he was in bed.

  ‘Luke, it’s Will. I … I need your help.’

  ‘What, where are you?’

  I started to cry. I did not cry often though I had sobbed openly at my mother’s funeral two years previously, shaming myself. I remembered Mum saying proudly, ‘William was never a crier, never a whinger. William always gets on with things.’ And yet here I was, a millionaire with a hot young girlfriend, the most successful Irish film producer of all time with every material possession one could want within my grasp, crying and whining like a child.

  Luke arrived in a taxi a few hours later. ‘Wow, man, this is
some fucked-up shit.’

  You don’t say.

  He made me shower and change into a tracksuit that was too small for me then sent me out to my car to wait while he paid the bill with my credit card. He signed autographs and posed for a selfie with the middle-aged receptionist, possessed of a face like a bag of hammers. I was furious and impatient.

  Luke was in good shape. He had said after Mum’s funeral that he was glad he no longer had to try to please her. Whatever. He was now a non-drinking, non-smoking, healthy-living gardener and film buff. He had got into film studies in the previous years and asked me endless questions about the business whenever we met. He had grown into his looks. Now forty-five, he went to the gym three times a week and had stopped bleaching his hair. He wore respectable-looking jackets and jeans. I could have brought him anywhere knowing that he wouldn’t embarrass me, and yet I didn’t. I hadn’t spoken to him in a month or two before this weekend. I avoided him as much as possible because I couldn’t trust that he wasn’t going to freak out again.

  He drove me back to his suburban house, a rental in a Victorian street in Ranelagh. He showed me to his spare room. He gave me a sedative from his medicine cabinet and I slept for seven hours.

  When I woke later and came downstairs, Luke was making some wholemeal pasta vegetarian dish. He served me coconut water to drink. I asked him if he had anything stronger and he said he didn’t keep alcohol in the house. He asked me about Daisy and some film projects I had on the go. He asked if I’d got my bathroom redecorated as planned after the leaking boiler incident. He talked about Brian’s artist management agency and how he was glad to have left it and to be managing his own affairs, but he was desperate to get Brian and me talking to each other again. I had no interest in mending fences with Brian or talking about him or anything else. At the end of the meal, Luke took our plates away and told me I could stay as long as I wanted. He didn’t ask me anything about my mental state or why I’d called him. He merely gave me a card with his psychiatrist’s details on it.

  ‘Why are you giving me this?’

  ‘You were out of control, you might need to talk to someone. Professionally, I mean. I can listen but, to be honest, I don’t understand my own mind and I can’t take on someone else’s stuff, you know?’

  ‘I’m fine. Just a bit stressed, I think. Overworked, overtired.’

  ‘Whatever, but you know, you should see someone anyway.’

  I assured him that my weekend had been a momentary lapse and that I was ready to go home.

  As I was leaving the house, he stalled me for a few minutes on the doorstep and that’s when I realized his whole act was bullshit.

  ‘So, Will, I was thinking of getting into acting, you know, and that film you’re making based on Jane Casey’s book, I was thinking I could play the young detective girl’s dad? I mean, physically, I know I’m right for it and I think I could do a really good job, you know?’

  It was so unexpected that it took me a couple of seconds to respond. ‘Luke, when we are looking for actors, we generally go to agents of actual actors, who have experience and training and a good track record.’

  ‘Yeah, I get that, but I was just thinking, since I helped you out this morning, that you could, like, return the favour and pull a few strings …’

  I walked away while he was still talking and got into my car. He followed me, but I shut the door and turned up the radio to drown out his wheedling voice.

  In St James’s Hospital after the weekend, Dr Shabrath told me again all the things I hadn’t heard the first time. He assured me that HIV was no longer a death sentence, that antiretroviral drugs were available and free for everyone at his clinic. I would be okay. I decided on the spot to get the treatment and assessments done privately. Dr Shabrath wondered if I could have infected anyone and encouraged me to talk to my lover. I assured him I was straight. He looked at me as if I’d said I was wearing a pair of trousers. He said this was entirely irrelevant. Once I was on the drugs, my viral load would reduce to an undetectable level and I would be incapable of passing the virus on to anyone. I could go back to enjoying a full and normal sex life. I had no idea how long I’d had the virus. It could have been months, could have been years. It was impossible to pin down. I was clear about two things, though: I didn’t want to have sex with anyone yet and nobody must know about my condition.

  It was suggested that we both make speeches at the service, but I suggested that instead we read from established poems. I chose a much-loved poem by W. H. Auden that had been featured in a film, popular in our youth. My brother read an irrelevant inspirational quote, unattributed, found hastily on the internet that morning. We both received a warm round of applause.

  The autopsy recorded his shattered skull, broken hands and smashed kneecaps. I tried to get those images out of my mind. It had taken seven days to bring his body home with the help of the Irish Consulate.

  We had decided against a church funeral. The crematorium was full to capacity. The curtains closed on their electric rail to obscure the coffin as it was lowered into what I suspect was a furnace. My brother released a loud hypocritical sob at that moment. I kept a dignified silence. I did not want to attract any more attention to myself than was necessary. I did not want to look like the guilty party, but nor did I want to make a show of myself.

  In the face of our apparent grief, old grudges and resentments towards my brother and me dissipated. Ex-friends shook our hands and suggested drinks and dinners that we all knew would never happen.

  Afterwards, we hosted a finger-food buffet in a four-star hotel. It was what the undertakers recommended and we complied. We tried to encourage Daisy to eat a sandwich, which she declined, opting instead for a cup of mint tea. She spoke to nobody, ate nothing and smoked outdoors, seemingly unaware of the sleeting rain that lashed her shoulders.

  Luke

  14

  1977

  ‘What’s a runt, Dad?’

  ‘Where did you hear that word, Luke?’ he said.

  ‘Mum said I was the runt of the litter and litter means rubbish – what did she mean?’

  ‘Did she say it when she was cross with you?’

  ‘She’s always cross with me.’

  ‘No, she isn’t, she’s just a bit tired these days and we should try to be a little quieter around her.’

  ‘She said she was going to leave me with the old woman who lives in the woods.’

  ‘What old woman?’

  ‘I don’t know, the one who lives in the woods.’

  ‘Don’t you be worrying about that. Your mum can be a little dramatic sometimes, she doesn’t mean half of what she says. There’s no old woman living in the woods.’

  ‘You mean, she tells lies?’

  ‘No, she just exaggerates things. And she makes things up sometimes, to teach a lesson to little boys.’

  ‘I’m not little!’

  ‘Well, what age are you now? Seven? You’re my littlest boy.’

  Dad lifted me on to his shoulders and we continued our stroll down the pier. I don’t know where Brian and William were that day. I didn’t spend too much time alone with my dad. But when I did, I really loved it. Dad always made me feel special. I think he liked me as much as he liked William and Brian. Mum definitely didn’t. Mum didn’t have a mum and dad after she was about four years old. I couldn’t imagine not having parents. She and her older sister Peggy had grown up in a house with pretend parents who were poor.

  At night-time, I’d look out of my bedroom window at the woods behind our house and wonder about the old woman who lived there, even though Dad said she didn’t. I’d been through the woods in daytime when we went looking for conkers, but I never saw a house there and the only old lady I saw was Mrs Turner from next door walking her dog. I wanted Dad to be right. I was terrified of being sent to live in the woods. I could imagine the old woman really well. She was tall but crooked. She carried a large stick and wore a long black cloak. She mostly wore a hood to cover her face, bu
t I think when the hood was down she had long white hair and a thin mouth and a ghostly white face and I think her voice was screechy. I think she was probably a witch. Mum never went into details about her. She didn’t have to.

  One day in school, Father Martin visited our class and told us that God would protect us from evil. I loved Father Martin. He was funny and he could do magic tricks. I put my hand up and asked if God would protect us from witches. Father Martin smiled and said he surely would if I studied my Bible and prepared properly for my holy communion.

  Instead of bedtime stories, I asked Dad to read us stories from the Bible, but Brian and William complained. They said Jesus was boring and begged for Biggles again. I didn’t think Jesus was boring. I thought he was amazing and that feeding thousands of people with five loaves and some fish was a brilliant miracle. I really wanted to do miracles when I grew up. If I tried really hard, I could be Jesus. The Second Coming. All I had to do was be good and kind to everyone.

  When Mum was angry, and Dad wasn’t around, she slapped me. She said that I was stupid or useless. William and Brian were able to blame me for everything they did: missing biscuits, scuffed shoes, spilled milk. All they had to say was ‘Luke did it’ and she would believe them. At first, I tried to pray that Mum would believe me, and then later I prayed that God would forgive William and Brian so they wouldn’t go to hell, but nothing changed much. This was the cross I had to bear and it wasn’t half as bad as carrying an actual cross over Calvary.

  When I went to my first confession, I didn’t know what to confess, so I told the priest the sins that Brian and William had committed, kicking each other, stealing chocolate and letting others take the blame. I was told to repent and say two Hail Marys and an Our Father, and then when it was over I felt worse because lying to an actual priest must have been a mortal sin, but I couldn’t ask Father Martin because then he’d know.