“What’s he like?”
“He’s like his mother. Although everyone says he looks like me. But his personality is very different. He’s shy. He’s quiet. He’s more like you in that way.”
“Were you close to him?”
“He’s the closest thing I ever had to a son,” he said, starting to cry. “Which is ironic, really.”
“Is he happy?” I asked. “Does he have adventures like we had?”
“We had some, didn’t we?” he said, smiling.
“We did,” I replied.
“Remember when you got kidnapped by the IRA?” he said. “That was some afternoon.”
I shook my head. “No, Julian,” I said. “That wasn’t me, that was you.”
“Me?”
“Yes.”
“I got kidnapped?”
“Yes.”
“Why? What had I done to them?”
“Nothing,” I told him. “They hated your father. They wanted him to pay a ransom.”
“And did he pay it?”
“No.”
“Typical Max. They cut off my ear,” he said, reaching a hand up to his face, but the effort was too much and he put it back above the sheets.
“They did,” I told him. “Fucking animals.”
“I remember now,” he said. “They were very nice to me most of the time. Except when they were cutting bits of me off. I told them I liked Mars Bars and one of them went out and got me a whole box of them. He put them in the fridge to keep them cold. I grew friendly with him, I think. I can’t remember his name.”
“You visited him in prison,” I said. “I thought you were crazy.”
“Did I ever tell you that they nearly cut my dick off?”
“No,” I said, uncertain whether this was something that had really happened or something he was misremembering in his delirium.
“It’s true,” he said. “The night before the Gardaí found me. They said that I had a choice. That they’d either pop one of my eyes out or cut my dick off. They told me I could choose which.”
“Jesus,” I said.
“I mean I would have said my eye, of course. Probably the one on the other side to the missing ear, just to balance things out. But can you imagine if they had cut my dick off? I wouldn’t be lying here right now, would I? None of this would have happened.”
“That’s one way of looking at it,” I said.
“They would have saved my life.”
“Maybe.”
“No, you’re right. I’d be dead already because I’d probably have killed myself if they’d cut my dick off. There’s no way I would have gone through my life dickless. It’s amazing, isn’t it, how one small part of our anatomy completely controls our lives?”
“Small?” I said, raising an eyebrow. “Speak for yourself.”
He laughed and nodded. “That first day we met,” he said. “You took me up to your bedroom and asked to look at mine. Remember that? I should have known then. I should have guessed your dirty little secret.”
“I didn’t,” I insisted. “All these years you’ve been saying that but it never happened. It was you who wanted to look at mine.”
“No,” he said. “I can’t imagine that. I wouldn’t have been interested.”
“You were obsessed with sex right from the start.”
“Well, that’s true. I used to fancy your mother, you know.”
“You never knew my mother. Neither did I.”
“Of course I did. Maude.”
“She was my adoptive mother.”
“Oh that’s right,” he said, waving the distinction away. “You always insisted on that.”
“It was them who insisted on it. From the day they brought me home. And you didn’t really fancy her, did you? She was old enough to be your adoptive mother too.”
“I did. Older women were never really my thing, but Maude was something else. And she fancied me too. She once told me that I was the most beautiful boy she’d ever seen in her life.”
“She did not. That doesn’t even sound like her.”
“Believe what you like.”
“You were seven.”
“That’s what she told me.”
“Jesus,” I said, shaking my head. “Sometimes I think my life would have been a lot better if I had never felt any sexual desire at all.”
“You can’t live like a eunuch. No one can. If the IRA had cut my dick off, I’d have put a bullet in my head. Do you think this is a punishment for all the things I’ve done?”
“Not for a moment,” I said.
“I was watching the news,” he said. “There were people on, congressmen, saying that people who developed AIDS were—”
“Don’t even pay attention to those fuckers,” I said. “They know nothing. They’re despicable human beings. You were unlucky, that’s all. Everyone who passes through this floor has been unlucky. There’s nothing more to it than that.”
“I suppose,” he said with a sigh, before letting out a cry of pain.
“Julian!” I said, leaping to my feet.
“I’m OK,” he said.
But then, before he could relax again, he let out another cry and I jumped up, making for the door to get Bastiaan.
“Don’t,” he said. “Don’t leave me, Cyril, please.”
“But if I call a doctor—”
“Don’t leave me. There’s nothing they can do.”
I nodded and came back around to the chair, sitting down and taking his hand in mine again.
“I’m sorry,” I said. “For everything I ever did to you and Alice that you thought was deceitful. I’m truly sorry. If I could go back, if I could be the man I am now but be young again—”
“It’s in the past,” he said, his eyes starting to close. “And what would it have helped Alice to have spent her life married to you? At least she’s got laid occasionally over the years.”
I smiled.
“I’m going,” he whispered after a moment. “Cyril, I’m going. I can feel myself going.”
It was on the tip of my tongue to say Don’t, to say Fight it, to say Stay, but I said nothing. The disease was finally winning.
“I loved you,” I said, leaning in to him. “You were my best friend.”
“I loved you too,” he whispered and then, a startled expression on his face, he said, “I can’t see you.”
“I’m here.”
“I can’t see you. It’s just darkness.”
“I’m here, Julian. I’m here. Can you hear me?”
“I hear you. But I can’t see you. Will you hold me?”
I was already holding his hand and squeezed it a little to make sure he knew that I was there.
“No,” he said. “Hold me. I want to be held again. Just one more time.”
I hesitated, uncertain what he meant, and then released his hand and walked around to the other side of the bed, lying down next to him, my arms wrapping themselves around his thin, trembling frame. How many times throughout my youth had I dreamed of such a moment and now all I could do was bury my face in his back and weep.
“Cyril…” whispered Julian.