Maggie Gee - Where are the Snows

‘Do you mind if I tell you something? Something important? Have you got time?’

— Why did he tell me first? He told me first because he loved me least.

‘Well yes, I’m honoured, but Chris is swimming — if it’s important, don’t you want to tell us both?’

‘This isn’t going to be fun to tell. It’s something important. Bad.’ His voice was not entirely steady.

My neck felt cold in the breeze from above; I gathered myself; I knew. I helped him by guessing what was wrong. It helped because it made him furious.

‘Go on.’

‘This isn’t easy to say.’

‘It’s not about money?’ I prayed it was.

‘No.’

‘I think I know what you’re trying to tell me. Are you ill —?’

‘Yes —’

‘Very ill.’

‘Well…’

‘You’ve got AIDS, haven’t you. Oh God, Isaac…’ My stomach twisted; I felt I was choking. I stared at the glossy tropical greenery outside the open window, so vigorously healthy, bursting with sap and shine and life, its veins and stems more insanely detailed the longer I looked, the harder I stared, the more I tried to avoid his eyes, till the sharpness suddenly dissolved and blurred and everything turned to a mess of tears. A bird sang a brilliant, liquid song. I hated it; I hated this. I wiped my eyes and looked at Isaac; he was staring venomously at me.

‘How dare you assume that, just because I’m gay? As if it’s natural. As if you knew. As if all gays die of AIDS. Well, I haven’t the least intention of dying. I haven’t got AIDS, in any case. I’m HIV-positive, that’s all, but you’re probably too ignorant to know the difference. I intend to live till I’m eighty at least… You might be HIV-positive too. How many men have you slept with, Alex?’

For once I didn’t mind the injustice to myself. ‘Thank God. You haven’t actually got AIDS. Look, you don’t have to get it, do you? Your father would pay for the very best treatment, anything at all to keep you well…’

Looming above us the fan sighed on, pale and heavy as an albatross.

‘You and Dad always thought you could buy anything. You can’t buy life, you know.’

I let the cheap philosophy pass. ‘Can you explain a bit more to me? Do you have to stop doing things? Do you have to rest? Do you have to tell the people you’re working for?’

‘— I’ve told you before, Alex, I don’t work for anyone, they work for me. I have three galleries, you understand. My galleries. The Isaac Court Galleries. I have twelve employees. I pay them money. I don’t have to tell them I’m positive, I don’t have sexual relationships with them. I’m telling you because you’re married to Dad and I thought my family might take an interest.’

I hated the aggrieved, complaining tone that both of the children tended to adopt when they got a chance to remind us of our sins. It was in the past, all that; it was over. We were all grown-ups; they would just have to get on with it. And Isaac, as he kept on reminding me, had been very successful in life. He had galleries in London, San Francisco, Amsterdam. I knew the art circuit from long ago; I knew he must be making serious money. He was well-respected; he had several good artists… — so why play the whining child with us?

‘Drop the irony. What do you want from me?’

There was a sudden harsh outburst of shrieks and screams from somewhere outside the window, bloodcurdling, hysterical. Both of us turned, to see a large peacock come barrelling across the hotel lawn as if there was a tiger behind him; he skidded to a halt a few yards from us and strutted up and down, squawking, indignant, slowly settling to a pompous pacing which seemed to say ‘How dare they? How the hell dare they try it on with me?’ I found myself smiling. Isaac didn’t smile back.

‘I want you to tell Dad. I can’t face it.’

‘I can’t.’ My response was immediate, unthinking, accompanied by a new gut-twist of fear.

‘Why not? I don’t mean anything to you, so why should you mind telling him?’

‘Curiously enough, you do mean something. Why do you think I was in tears? I think of you and Susy as young. You were children, after all, when we lived together. I’m frightened, appalled, to think of you… ill. And your father… your father… you know how he’ll feel.’ I didn’t say I’m frightened to think of you dying, but that was what I meant.

‘So you won’t even do one thing for me.’

‘You’re going to have to face him in the end. You can’t run away —’ I saw his face, very white, suddenly, nostrils pinched, lips pulled back from his teeth in a frightful rictus, lost for words. His hand was a fist; he wanted to hit me. Then speech came spitting out, shaking with fury.

‘You bitch. How dare you say that to me? It was you who ran away, remember? It was you who took my father away.’

I couldn’t bear to look at his ugly face. I locked beyond the crowns of the coconut palms which waved regally above the rubber trees at the edge of the lawn, the edge of pain, beyond the pain there was clear blue sky, the innocent blue of holidays, baby blue, I wanted a baby, and as I looked back the peacock stopped, preened in the sunlight, spread its tail, performed the everyday miracle for me; the cone of turquoise became a fountain, the fountain spread out its jewelled eyes, the jewelled eyes stared into my future, I’d call my baby Emerald or Sapphire… This hideousness would quickly pass. Isaac wasn’t my child; it didn’t matter.

‘You can’t go on dragging that up for ever.’ I sounded cool; I felt calm again. ‘You’ll have to tell him, I’m afraid. I can’t do your dirty work for you.’

‘I know you think that gays are dirty.’

‘I don’t have to sit here and listen to this shit. Having AIDS doesn’t give you the right to abuse me.’ I was talking too loudly; people stared, alarmed.

‘I haven’t got AIDS! You don’t fucking listen!’

‘OK! If I don’t listen, don’t waste your time talking to me.’ I pushed back my chair, which squealed angrily, and walked out into the tactile heat of the garden, solid, fecund, animal heat, the heat of a womb, the heat of life. His pale face stared from the dark window. How glorious to get away from him. I mustn’t get upset; it was bad for the baby, the minuscule life I was sure I was carrying, gradually unfurling in this bath of warm light. I nodded to the peacock, which stared back narrowly, lay down on a horizontal bamboo chair, closed my eyes and stroked my stomach.

The sun through my eyelids was terracotta red. Perhaps the tiny baby saw the selfsame colour as the sunlight poured through my thin cotton dress and the walls of my belly… perhaps, perhaps. If I wanted it enough…

I used to think everything came down to wanting; what I had wanted I’d always got — I just hadn’t wanted a baby enough. Now I knew what I wanted, I could make it happen.

I wanted to give myself up to the heat. I had known for years that sunlight was dangerous but just for a minute I indulged myself, I pushed my sleeves right up to my shoulder and pulled my skirt right up to my thighs. I wanted the sun to sink into my bones, I wanted to be sure it warmed the baby, I wanted to say I am with the living, I love my life, I love all this, I say yes to life and yes to a baby…

Perhaps I fell asleep for a moment; I know I wasn’t thinking about Isaac, I had consciously decided not to think, yet the next thing I remember is starting up as the peacock gently pecked my arm, someone was dying, the world was ending, the tears were running down my cheeks, I expected to see the blue crown of the peacock but in fact a muscular brown waiter stood beside me and his eyes were appraising, tender. And a little disappointed as I opened my eyes, or perhaps I imagined it… everyone looks younger, sleeping in the sunlight, but I wasn’t even fifty then, how young must we be not to disappoint them?