Miss Carter's War (40 page)

Then ensued the horror of finding an undertaker that would handle his body. Eventually Donald was cremated in a bleak chapel, with a rudimentary service, conducted by a vicar who did not know him. They were both too consumed by despair to arrange the funeral. His family had disowned him years ago and it seemed unfair to ask the beleaguered members of the company to put their minds to the funeral of someone who had died of the disease of which they were all living in dread, so they left it to the vicar.

It proved a challenge to the poor man. Coming from the James Anderton religious standpoint, his chosen readings tended towards ominous warnings about sin and the difficulty of entering the kingdom of heaven. As Marguerite and Tony and a few members of the ballet company were the only people there, none of them was particularly worried about that likelihood.

The vicar did make one misguided attempt to be tolerant with a passage from the Gospel of St Matthew, ‘ “Jesus said not everyone can accept this word, but only those to whom it has been given. For there are eunuchs, who are born that way, and there are eunuchs who have been made eunuchs by others, and there are those that choose to live like eunuchs for the sake of the kingdom of heaven. The one who can accept this should accept it.” ’

Marguerite and Tony listened open-mouthed. Their exhaustion got the better of them, and they collapsed into helpless giggles as the coffin slid bumpily through a grubby purple curtain, accompanied by some unidentifiable organ musak. The vicar strode out without a word, and they were left clinging to one another sobbing and laughing.

‘Donald would have loved that. What a farce.’

Then as suddenly as it had started the laughter died. Tony gripped her shoulder, wiping her tears with his other hand.

‘I killed him you know, Mags, I killed him.’

Judging them both to be in no state to talk seriously Marguerite decided to wait until they were home before she asked Tony what he meant. They went into her flat, neither of them able to deal with Donald’s gaping absence upstairs. Marguerite cooked Welsh rarebit. They finished a bottle of wine and then settled in front of the fire with large brandies.

For a long while they were silent staring into the flames, trying to comprehend the finality of Donald’s death and not daring to articulate the horror that had preceded it. As she poured more brandy into their glasses Marguerite remarked, ‘Thank Christ that’s over,’ meaning the funeral.

Tony stared at the flickering light of the fire on his glass.

‘No, it isn’t. It never will be. Even if one day I get over this wrenching loss, which I doubt, the guilt will never leave me.’

‘What are you talking about, Tony? You were his life. You gave him love and support. He adored you.’

‘But I killed him.’

‘Stop it, Tony. This is nonsense.’

‘How do you suppose he contracted HIV?’

‘Nobody knows why people get it.’

‘They are pretty certain now that one way is promiscuous sex. Now which of us, Donald or me, fitted that category?’

‘But not recently.’

‘The virus can be undetected for years and years, but you’re still a carrier. Besides—’

‘Tony, I don’t want to hear this, do I?’

‘And I don’t want to admit it. But I need to. When Donald was away on that tour of America, God forgive me, one night I went cottaging. Force of habit. It didn’t mean a thing. Only once. I was ashamed of betraying him, but could never have imagined what the consequences would be. A mindless, empty adventure, and I killed our beautiful boy.’

It was pointless trying to argue with Tony. He would not even agree to be tested to see if he was actually carrying the virus.

‘What’s the point? If it wasn’t me, then it opens other unthinkable possibilities, and what would I personally gain by knowing? There’s no cure, and I’m not likely to infect anyone else. There will never be anyone else. Anyway, I want to get it. I want to die. Who knows, that vicar and his gang may be right. There may be an afterlife. Donald will be in paradise but he’ll put in a word for me and we’ll be together again. Or there will be nothing. Nothing would be good. Better than this.’

‘Come to bed, Tony. Let’s have a cuddle.’

‘Aren’t you afraid—? Remember the advert, “There’s a new danger that’s a threat to us all.” ’

‘Listen, I’ve tried for years to seduce you, I’m not likely to succeed now.’

All night they clung together as they used to do, gently kissing, stroking, comforting, sincerely loving.

Chapter 41

A few days after the funeral Marguerite forced Tony to go with her to work. The febrile atmosphere caused by the leaflets warning against AIDS delivered to every household, and the doom-laden adverts on the television, as well as ignorance as to the cause and means of transmission, made it dangerous to reveal that their friend had died of the disease. Feeling like traitors, they did not mention the cause of his death, merely that they had attended the funeral of a mutual friend. Neither had ever become close to other staff members at the school so no one was particularly interested anyway. An assumption had been made that Marguerite and Tony were in some sort of relationship, which successfully covered any questions about Tony’s sexuality. Thanks to the innuendoes of some outrageously camp comics on television, people were more aware of homosexuality; as a joke though, not, certainly since the AIDS scare, with much more tolerance. Such was the public confusion, linking homosexuality with paedophilia, that it would have been impossible for Tony to work as a sports master if it had been known that he was gay.

Over the next few months they struggled to come to terms with their loss of Donald. It felt as if all the joy had gone from their lives. His exquisite taste, his gentle concern for them both, and his indefatigable sense of fun had brought enjoyment to the everyday. He supervised what they wore, what they ate, and had taken over from Tony as ‘treats’ organiser. It was impossible to be bored with him around. He made the ordinary exciting: a walk on Hampstead Heath, a visit to the Zoo, shopping in the food hall at Harrods, a Gilbert & George exhibition at the Whitechapel Gallery, old-time music hall at the Players’ Theatre, ham, egg and chips at Pellicci’s Café in the East End.

‘Hurry up, you slowcoaches, you’ve just got to see/hear/do this.’ Donald’s eyes aglow as he danced ahead of them. His chortle of pleasure when they shared his relish.

That someone who cherished all that was lovely should have died such an ugly death erased for ever any possibility of a benign God. Marguerite could not be bothered to try and reconcile her Catholic conditioning, which still lurked in the recesses of her mind, with the unutterable cruelty of what had happened to Donald.

The incense, the candles, the soaring choir, knees on hairy hassocks, I believe in God, the Father Almighty, creator of heaven and earth and my lovely new dress and shoes, my Sunday best. Forgive me, Father, for I have sinned.

She was sure some priest, or the funeral vicar, or years ago, her mother, would have come up with a platitude about suffering or free will but she just wasn’t interested. Better to veto any possibility of help from above, and get on with it yourself. She was relieved.

‘Tony, I want you to know. I am now a fully paid-up atheist.’

‘Welcome to the club, petal.’

As the months went by, she tried to restore in Tony his old zest for life, but any enquiry as to what he would like to do in their spare time was greeted by a shrug.

‘Whatever you like.’

There were so many places that were out of bounds because of their association with Donald, practically the whole of London in fact, and some more, like Soho and Brighton, because of the scars from her relationship with Jimmy.

‘This is ridiculous, Tony. We can’t spend the rest of our lives avoiding.’

‘You’re a fine one to talk.’

‘Touché. But we are lucky to be alive. So let’s try and live, Tony. We’ve still got each other. We were blessed to have Donald. He was so completely and joyously alive. It’s a betrayal of all he was if we allow this loss to make us sad for evermore.’

The first year passed agonisingly slowly for them both. To mark the first anniversary of Donald’s death, with Tony’s reluctant agreement, Marguerite organised a trip to Venice. Neither of them had ever been there. Marguerite hoped that they could recapture the pleasure of their
Good Food Guide
expeditions, before Donald came into their lives.

Although it was February, and cold, the trip in the water taxi from the airport to their hotel was exhilarating. They stood at the back as the boat roared and crashed through the waves of the grey lagoon, the wind and spray lashing their faces. When it turned into a small inlet between decaying houses with their doors facing the canal, Tony shouted, ‘Good heavens, the streets really are full of water.’

Both of them cried out when they turned into the Grand Canal. The faded colours, the crumbling grandeur of the palaces lining the water, the gondoliers actually wearing boaters and striped shirts were like all the pictures, but animated and quite noisy and ten times more beautiful than they had ever imagined. Like nothing, anywhere, either of them had ever seen before. Unique. Glorious. The taxi turned into another narrow canal; all was silent apart from the slowing engine. They drew up at the steps of their small hotel.

They had decided to share a room as they had in the past. Their bedroom was the bridal suite. Frescoes on the ceiling, peachy ochred walls, a four-poster bed and terracotta-tiled floor, with a balcony, from where they could see people in the opposite windows sitting down to supper. They hugged each other with delight.

‘It’s as good as they say.’

‘Better.’

Armed with their Links guide, which mapped out walks that took them into backwaters away from the tourists, Tony and Marguerite greedily devoured Venice. It seemed that every corner they turned offered new delights. Marguerite would barely allow Tony to stop for a coffee.

‘Hold on, Mags. I’m not as young as I used to be, you know. Venice may be sinking but it won’t go before we leave.’

In her new role as militant atheist, Marguerite was unsettled by the plethora of Madonnas and dying Jesuses the artists had been obliged to paint.

Tony was fascinated.

‘They were sort of interior decorators, weren’t they? It must have been fiendishly competitive. I bet they were well pissed off when Tintoretto got the whole of that scuola to do.’

Marguerite could not help wondering what they would have painted had they not been forced to earn a living pleasing doges and rich merchants. They both began to notice what they decided were jokes in the paintings. Carpaccio managed to get a cheeky white pet dog in the centre of several of his pictures, even in one supposed to be a holy miracle by the Rialto Bridge. Cherubs were often quite larky, one even exposing his bum in the corner of a very solemn crucifixion scene.

Their favourite angels were in the Frari at the foot of a breathtaking triptych by Giovanni Bellini of the Madonna and Child. Marguerite allowed Tony to sit with her in the chapel for a while and look at it. They were alone. It was breathtaking. So real was it, Marguerite would not have been surprised if Mary had stood up and handed her the naked baby to hold. Or the two cherub musicians had danced a jig.

She risked saying out loud what both had been privately thinking.

‘How Donald would have loved her.’

‘Yes. But we’re loving her for him.’

A change had happened. The picture had rid them of their fear of talking about their pain. They went to a nearby café and shared a shift in perception; an awareness that Donald lived on through the way he had taught them to see the world. They doubted if before they met him they would have sat looking at the Bellini for so long, or found the fun in the sacred art. He was there in their eyes and they welcomed him back.

For the rest of their trip their conversation was peppered with ‘Donald would have’s.’ A running joke was that Tony was Dirk Bogarde in
Death in Venice
and Donald would have pirouetted around being that beautiful object of his desire. Marguerite was uneasy that Tony still harboured this image of himself as a sad raddled homosexual who was losing his looks, but she laughed on cue, and claimed the role of the red-coated dwarf in
Don’t Look Now
.

On their last night, in high spirits, they went to a nearby campo, and had Venetian spritzers, a delicious ruby-red concoction of Campari and Prosecco, with a slice of orange and an olive. They sat watching the locals, out for an evening stroll, and only then did Marguerite dare to raise her glass.

‘To our absent friend.’

Tony took her hand, and kissed the palm.

‘And to my dear, dear present one.’

Chapter 42

Returning to their separate flats, after Venice, was not easy. Tony insisted on keeping his exactly as it had been when Donald died. Marguerite had cleaned out the medicines and oxygen cylinders, but Donald’s clothes, pictures and books had to be left exactly as if he were still there. Nevertheless, Tony seemed in a more accepting frame of mind. He also appeared less concerned that his sexuality would be revealed.