The Mushroom Man (24 page)

There was a scrunch of gravel under tyres from the road outside. A look of panic flickered across her face and the gun steadied, pointing at my head. ‘Neighbours,’ I said. ‘They come and go all the time.’ I eased myself up slightly. ‘So what about the second one? Did you do him?’

‘No, he just fell down the tower. That’s when I got the idea, though. I liked the thought of some religious nut knocking off priests.’ Her shoulders bobbed up and down with amusement.

They’d surround the house; listen at the windows; then try to make contact, probably by ringing the doorbell. ‘But the next two were all your own work,’ I said.

‘All my own work,’ she boasted. ‘And now it’s your turn.’

‘Where did you get the name, Destroying Angel?’

‘I know all about mushrooms. Which are good, which are bad. I’ve always liked that one.’

‘I thought they were poisonous?’

‘No more talking.’ She levelled the gun. ‘Kiss your arse goodbye, Charlie Priest—’

TRIIIING! The doorbell!

I went in hard and curving. First to the right, towards her but away from the gun, then up for it. Her eyes had flickered towards the sound of the bell, and for a tenth of a second she couldn’t decide whether to swing the gun away from my grasping hand or try to blast me with it. It was all I needed. My body hit hers and bounced her back against the wall. The fingers of my left hand curled round her wrist, thin as a robin’s leg, and lifted it and the gun towards the ceiling. She went for my eyes with her free hand, clawing ribbons of skin from my cheek. I jerked my head back and managed to grasp her other wrist. I was a foot taller than her and a few stones heavier. I stretched her arms apart and pinned her to the wall as if she were a petulant child. She was still holding the shotgun.

‘In here! I’ve got her!’ I shouted.

Then her knee hit me in the balls.

Forget childbirth – the knee in the balls is the most excruciating pain known to mankind. A
fireball exploded in my stomach and my knees buckled, as if a scythe had gone through them. I was blinded by agony, but the threat of a
twelve-bore
is a powerful anaesthetic. Teetering on the edge of blacking out, I concentrated with all the power I possessed on gripping that right wrist. Outside, the door glass was shattering and wood splintering. With a desperate effort I swung her away from the wall and kicked her legs from under her. She fell over backwards. As she hit the floor I collapsed my legs so that my entire weight fell mercilessly on top or her. Our faces were touching as I did so, and her breath erupted in a volcanic torrent into my face. I turned my head sideways to escape it, and she sank her teeth deep into my ear.

The cavalry rushed in. They found us on the floor, as if crucified face to face, with my blood and her saliva intermingling and dribbling down her cheek, onto the carpet.

Sparky prised her jaws open with a spoon handle. Once she was off me she allowed the boys in blue to take her away. Sparky cleaned up my ear with a wet cloth whilst I put a tentative hand down my
Y-fronts
and gingerly explored the contents. He handed me a tea towel and told me to keep it pressed against the side of my head.

‘Well, at least we know what to call you from now on,’ he said.

‘What?’I groaned.

‘Van Gogh,’ he replied.

‘I’d have thought Goebbels,’ suggested Nigel.

‘It’s not funny,’ I snapped, somewhere between laughing and crying. ‘And if you’ve knackered my front door you can bloody well pay for a new one.’

‘You’re right, Charlie, it’s not funny,’ Sparky admitted, hooking his hands under my shoulders. ‘C’mon, let’s get you to hospital. Can you stand up?’

They did some nifty microsurgery on my ear and told me it would soon be as good as new. When they learnt that the person who’d bitten me had advanced AIDS they handled me with rubber gloves and spoke in whispers. My right testicle looked reasonably normal, but its partner resembled a ripe aubergine. No treatment was offered. ‘We’ll just see how it goes,’ the doctor said, adding that he’d have another look at the ear in a week. Two nurses, female, said they’d check my goolies again tomorrow morning.

In the afternoon a woman in civilian clothes with a comfortable face came to visit me. She had a permanent smile, as if she were dosing her HRT patch with cocaine. She introduced herself and told me she was an AIDS counsellor.

The gist of it was that I should think carefully before I decided to have a test. Even if it proved negative the fact that I had been tested might lead to difficulties with life insurance or obtaining a mortgage. I should ask myself if I really needed to know.

‘Of course I bloody well need to know,’ I growled at her.

In which case, she reassured me, the news was not all bleak – it was possible to be HIV positive and not develop the disease for as long as twenty years. As nobody had heard of AIDS that long ago I took this information with a pinch of scepticism.
When she went into the bit about anal and oral intercourse I told her I was tired and pulled the blankets over my head. Her parting shot was that everything we had said was confidential. Who told you? I thought. She scared the willies out of me.

Modern NHS hospitals have a menu system for mealtimes. Everyday you are given a list of the following day’s dishes, upon which you tick your selections. Unfortunately this means that on your first day you have to have what the previous occupant of the bed chose on his last day. I was following a diabetic rabbit on hunger strike. I vowed revenge on the next hapless soul to lie here.

Sam Evans came in the evening, bearing a magazine on trout fishing. He looked tired.

‘How did you know I was interested in trout fishing, Sam?’ I asked.

‘I didn’t. Are you?’

‘Not especially. Wouldn’t mind having a go, though.’

‘That’s what I thought, so it’s what I’m prescribing for you. How are you feeling?’

‘Worried.’

‘I guessed you might be, so I’ve been doing some swatting.’

‘Just make me one little promise, please,’ I begged.

‘What’s that, Charlie?’

‘To be honest with me.’

He nodded. ‘OK. Well, the news is not too bad, although it could be better. The basic facts are that if she infected you it will take about eight weeks for you to make sufficient antibodies to be detected by a blood test. That’s what we look for, antibodies.’

‘So I won’t know for another eight weeks?’

‘Afraid not. Plus another week for the test. However, the bright side is that there is no documented case anywhere in the world of AIDS being contracted through a bite. As you know from your work with DNA, there are blood cells in saliva, but the quantity of virus present is infinitesimal, and there is also an agent present that inactivates it. That’s the good news.’

‘However…’

‘However…I’ve just examined her, Charlie. She’s in the hospital wing at Filton Green.’

‘You have been busy.’

‘It’s in a good cause. I can’t say I’m happy about what I saw. The disease has affected her brain – dementia – although I suspect she was on the way before she caught it. You saw the lesions on her face; well, the inside of her mouth is just as bad. Her gums are ulcerated and bleeding. The truth is, Charlie, we know so little about it. Up to today I knew next to nothing. I’d be a liar if I said I thought you were in the clear.’

I pursed my lips and focused on the big paper clip holding my notes at the foot of the bed. ‘So we sit
tight and take the tests in eight weeks,’ I said.

‘That’s right. The risk is slim, extremely slim, but in my judgement it’s there.’

He told me that the incidence of HIV and AIDS was relatively low in Yorkshire, and I might receive a more educated assessment from a London doctor, but my brief experience with the counsellor had taught me that peddling optimism was part of the treatment. The biggest part. I trusted Sam.

There were other illnesses she could have passed on to me, some serious, but they faded into insignificance compared with the big A. As a precautionary measure a cocktail of exotic chemicals was injected into my bloodstream.

I asked the nurse for something to make me sleep, and it worked. It was only a pill, unfortunately. After breakfast I made it to the toilet without too much discomfort and removed the bandage from around my head. The ear didn’t look too bad, so I put my clothes on and inched my way to the front entrance. I saw a sign pointing to Ward 4B, where Annabelle was, but didn’t follow it. In the foyer is a bank of payphones, with the numbers of taxi firms prominently displayed. I rang one, and asked him to take me home. The two nurses were due for a disappointment when they came to make their examination. One of them was black, the other white. How appropriate, I’d thought at the time.

I locked my door, pulled the phone out and went to bed for nearly two days. Gilbert came round and gave me a telling off and progress reports on my two murderers. Dewhurst was pulling round but not saying anything, Rhoda was sinking fast and doubtful for standing trial.

‘He came out of jail and passed it on to her. Can you believe it?’ I asked.

Gilbert shook his head.

‘And she still loved him. He did that to her and she still loved him.’

It’s affected her brain,’ he said. ‘Apparently it can do that, in a few cases. I don’t think she was all there to begin with. And what about you? How do you intend spending your enforced rest?’

‘I think I’ll go away for a few days, as soon as I can get about OK. Have a change of scenery’

‘Good idea, but what about Annabelle?’

‘Annabelle? She’s making good progress. I rang about an hour ago.’ I didn’t tell him that I hadn’t asked to be put through to her.

‘What about seeing her? I’ll take you, if you want.’

I sat and inspected my fingernails for a couple of minutes, before saying: ‘Gilbert, there’s an outside chance that I’ve been infected. It’ll take eight, nine weeks before we know, one way or the other. I’ve…I’ve decided not to see Annabelle again until it’s all over.’

He sat up, looking shocked.

I was quite calm. I said: ‘I’ll never let it affect me like it did Rhoda. If I’ve got it, it’s better we finish right now.’

‘Does she know?’ he asked.

I shook my head. ‘When Sam came to see me I asked him to deliver a message. That the woman who shot her was in custody and I was safe, but I’d gone down with this flu bug that’s going round, so I was staying away from her. It didn’t sound so cheap at the time.’

‘You’re right, it sounds cheap.’

‘Don’t give me a hard time, Gilbert. I’m doing my best.’ After a silence I went on: ‘My dad died of cancer, as you know. In the two years that he had it my mother never once said the word. She’d never admit that he had cancer. In her eyes there was a stigma attached to it that I couldn’t understand. Cancer didn’t happen to nice people. I don’t understand now, but I’m closer. Annabelle nearly died because of me. AIDS is a sordid disease, Gilbert, and I’ll never inflict any part of it on her.’

He stood up to leave and I walked with him to the newly repaired door. As he went out he turned and said: ‘You’re a selfish bastard, Charlie.’ I knew he was wrong – it was the toughest decision I’d ever made.

At the motorway I made a snap decision and turned right. Two and a bit hours later I booked into the Balmoral Guest House at one of the smaller east coast resorts. It would be unfair to say which one. The chief amenity of the town was a golden beach, criss-crossed with groynes to stop the tide washing the sand away, and blessed with a half-mile sewage outlet to keep things sanitary. A First World War defensive position was preserved for the children to play on through the day and for their slightly older brothers and sisters to screw each other goggle-eyed in during the evenings, while their parents played bingo. The morning tide washed the discarded condoms out to sea, where they choked the occasional passing cod.

Breakfasts were full English, but most mornings I settled for toast and cornflakes. Afterwards I wandered up and down the beach, keeping my left ear to the wall, although anyone who saw it probably assumed I was an injured rugby union player. I drank a lot of tea, seated at formica tables, and pecked at some respectable fish and chips. The Salvation Army band gave concerts from a bandstand in the middle of a grassy area. The girl with the collection box had blonde hair tied severely back and hidden beneath her hat. She reminded me of Grace Kelly in
High Noon
.

I spent a lot of time sitting on benches. It was the most popular pastime in town. One evening a girl of
about fourteen with a Bardotesque pout came to sit alongside me. She was wearing an indecently short skirt and an unzipped biker jacket, revealing a
T-shirt
that looked as if it were concealing two bottles of Tia Maria. When she asked me for a light I told her to go away. She called me a fucking wanker and went. Later I saw her getting into someone’s car. There wasn’t a lot there for the kids to do.

They play bingo at the Balmoral in the evenings. I fell into the role of mystery guest and avoided everyone. I would have done so whatever the circumstances. People were enjoying themselves in a way that was incomprehensible to me, but I couldn’t condemn them for that. Maybe I’m a snob. I sneaked past the laughing faces and went up to bed. The sheets were crisp and the pillows stuffed with feathers. If I’d had the odd pint I fell asleep reasonably well; any more and I lay awake, thinking about Annabelle.

I stuck it for a week then went home. The goolies were a matching pair again and appeared to be functioning properly. I saw Sam and he removed the stitches from my ear, so I was back to normal – if you ignored the time bomb ticking away inside me.

The weather was good, as predicted, so I did a lot of walking and visited art galleries and museums that I’d been meaning to see for years. I had afternoon tea in country cafes and chatted to shop girls and people in the street. The weeks crept by.

I rang the hospital almost everyday. Annabelle was still making very good progress, they said. Halfway through the fifth week they told me that she had been discharged, and a few days later a letter arrived in a long white envelope. It carried a Guildford address and was very brief. It said:

Sparky called now and again, and Nigel came a couple of times. ‘When are you coming back?’ Sparky asked one day, as he sat consuming my chocolate digestives.

‘I might not,’ I replied.

He froze in mid-dunk. ‘Seriously?’ he said.

‘Yeah. Doc Evans says he’ll swing it for me, if I want. There’s still a couple of shotgun pellets floating about inside me from way back, or I can jump on the stress wagon. Post something-or-other trauma. Take your pick.’

I didn’t want to tell him about the AIDS risk. I had no objection to him knowing, but I couldn’t face the shocked expression or the stumbled words of support. I assumed Gilbert would have
told him, but it didn’t look as if he had.

‘I don’t blame you for getting out, Charlie, but it doesn’t sound like your style.’

‘It’s not, Dave, but I’ve had enough.’

‘Why not go for promotion, cruise through the next couple of years like Mr Wood does?’

‘Gilbert would be delighted to hear you say that,’ I chuckled.

‘There’s one good thing. If you do go, the community charge should come down.’

‘How do you make that out?’ I asked.

‘Well, there’ll be a lot less work for the prisons and hospitals to do. Without your regular contributions they’ll be able to close one of each.’

‘Yes, we do seem to have been keeping them busy recently, don’t we?’

Dave looked thoughtful and said: ‘If you’re about to become a pensioner I feel embarrassed about asking you for that tenner. Call it my contribution to the collection.’

‘Gee, thanks, Dave.’

A ferry capsized in the Far East, drowning a hundred and thirteen souls. A dog in Essex had a heart valve replaced and a Pro-Life supporter shot dead three doctors in Arkansas. On the fifty-sixth morning I presented myself at Sam Evans’s surgery to give a blood sample.

‘Where would you like me to take it from?’ he asked.

‘You,’ I replied.

‘The choice is left arm or right arm.’

‘Oh. Left, then.’

I looked away. When it’s my blood, I’m squeamish.

‘We’ll take a couple of samples,’ Sam was saying as I studied the pattern on the curtains. ‘They do a test called ELISA to detect the presence of any antibodies, then a more specific one called WBT, which is really a confirmatory test, but I’ve persuaded them to do it, anyway.’

I flinched as the needle went in.

‘Sorry,’ Sam said. ‘Did I hurt you?’