The Hunger

by Ryan Casey

  This time, it was Stuart who was silent.

  Shit. That meant Sarah must really have opened up.

  “I can relate to that,” Stuart said. “Well, the age thing anyway. Not that you’re showing it. If you… If you don’t mind me saying.”

  Sarah’s stomach tingled. She didn’t know why. She wasn’t attracted to this man in any way. Suppose it was just that addiction to affirmations. That craving for approval.

  Besides, he wasn’t that bad-looking. Not really.

  “Sarah—just follow your heart in life, really.” His speech slurred, and his eyes wandered. His friends had gone, long moved on to some other place. “Just… just do what you want. Make sure before you get yourself tied down, you’ve done everything in life you really want to do. Because believe me, once you commit—once you commit for good—you don’t just walk away. Not so easily.”

  “You seem to be doing a pretty decent job of having fun.”

  Stuart smiled. Puffed his lips out. “If I drink enough, I do. I forget. But… but not really. My wife. My… my boy. Jonny. At home, they’ll be. At home, thinking I’m in some… some dingy hotel getting some sleep. I can’t enjoy myself knowing I’m being unfaithful to them. I just can’t.”

  “Well, you aren’t technically doing anything unfaithful, are you? Why don’t you just talk to your wife? She’ll… she’ll understand. You work hard, and you’re away from home. Deserve a bit of play at the end of it.”

  “No, I’m not on about being unfaithful to my wife. Not right now, anyway. But my son…” He shook his head and took another large sip of his drink.

  Sarah moved closer to Stuart. Wasn’t sure why, really. Just felt like the right thing to do. “Tell me about your son. Seems like you two have an… an interesting relationship.”

  “Well, what can I say? He’s a good lad, really. A real good lad. Not his fault that he’s…” He cleared his throat. Straightened out his back. “My Jonny. He has… Last August, he was diagnosed HIV-positive. Since then, I dunno. He’s just gone into himself. Lives in his room. We don’t get on anymore, and I don’t blame him. I’m a shitty dad. And that’s what I mean, about the unfaithfulness. I’m failing my boy by putting Denise and my marriage in jeopardy. He deserves… He deserves stability. And maybe that’s why I… why I’m short with him sometimes. Maybe I’m trying to cast myself out. I dunno.”

  Sarah watched Stuart take another large gulp of his drink. His eyes were more watery than ever now. He wiped them with the edge of his blazer sleeve.

  His son was HIV-positive.

  At that moment, she went tense inside. What force of fate—what force of nature—had brought the pair of them together? Only earlier that day, she’d had her HIV/AIDS counter-drug slapped down by the chief executive of TCorps. She’d given up. She came home to escape any talk of medicine or illness for a day, to find the time to rethink before taking her next step.

  “Your… your son has HIV? I’m sorry to hear that. Very sorry.”

  Stuart raised his eyebrows. “Well, you know. These things happen. I try to be good to him. Try to give him a kick up the arse to get up and out. Promised I’d bring him along to London some day to get a feel for the place, but I dunno. I can hardly see him sat in a bar like this, not anymore.”

  The room blurred around Sarah. The sound of the bartenders clinking drinks glasses together, of the chefs frying sizzling food, drifted away, over her, through her.

  “How far… how far has it developed, if you don’t mind me—”

  “Just the primary infection. So, very early days still. Which is what frustrates me. He should be living his life still. He should be out with his friends. He’s twenty-three years old, dammit. He shouldn’t be worrying about this. He doesn’t deserve to be… Anyway. I’m sorry.”

  Primary infection. Very early. CD4 levels would still be going strong.

  What was she thinking? In her mind, what was she considering? To test out this new formula on this stranger’s son? A formula that might not be safe? What was the logic in that?

  “No, it’s okay,” she said. “I… Well, if anything happens at TCorps with regards to HIV/AIDS, I promise you’ll be the first to know. Between you and me.”

  Stuart looked at her right in her eyes. He smiled the most genuine smile he’d smiled all night. A defeated smile. “Thank you,” he said. “I appreciate that.”

  A part of her wanted to tell him, right there. I can help you, she wanted to say. I can help you and I can help your son and I can help you all.

  But she couldn’t make promises like that. Again, she was putting herself in serious danger if she even considered testing that formula outside of TCorps Labs.

  And if something negative happened to Stuart’s son as a result of her negligence… she’d be in serious trouble. Not only would she lose her job, she could end up in prison for taking a life.

  Sarah looked at her watch. One a.m. “I should go back now, anyway. I… I don’t want my boyfriend going too apeshit about where I’ve been.”

  Stuart shook his head and forced a smile—that same forced smile he’d had all the time he’d been chatting her up. “Sure. Sure. I should… Yeah. I should go back. Get some rest, anyway.”

  “I know those two suits were your friends, Stuart. Don’t have to pretend you were here on your own to me. I’m not a complete idiot.”

  His cheeks went red. “Well, good on you for figuring that out. I suppose I should catch them up, anyway, God help me.”

  Sarah put her black leather bag over her shoulder and got up from the stool. She took a couple of steps in the direction of the large, glass door, and the artificially lit street outside. Stuart was already preoccupied with his drink again. He wasn’t even going to bother asking for her number. Then again, why would he? They were both in relationships. They both had lives of their own. And from Stuart’s perspective, he probably thought there was little chance of them hanging out again.

  But his son. The HIV. That couldn’t just be a coincidence. It had to be a sign. Something dropped down from whatever forces there were above.

  “Do you mind if I… if I take your number?” Sarah asked. She felt like a clumsy schoolgirl hitting on the sports-jock crush. “Just. Well. It was good chatting to you. Maybe again some time, if you’re ever at a loose end and fancy drinking those god-awful cocktails.”

  Stuart turned to her. Smiled. He pulled out his phone and gave her his number.

  “See you around,” he said.

  “Have a good night.”

  She walked out of the glass doors, out into the cold embrace of the winter air, and went to the Bakerloo tube station.

  On the tube, which comprised seven stops and took around fifteen minutes, she couldn’t get the image of Stuart out of her head. The image of him, confidence dropped, as he sat there supping on his drink. He was suffering because of his son’s suffering. He was a family man—an unhappy family man—trapped in a life he never signed up for. Well, “in sickness and in health,” perhaps, but nobody really meant that, did they?

  Once the tube stopped at Queen’s Park, she got off and walked the short distance to her apartment complex. It was cold, and she could see her breath frosting out from her mouth. She saw nobody on this walk back—one or two people keeping themselves to themselves on the tube, and that was it.

  When she got into the car park, she noticed Harry’s car was still gone. She keyed the number into the system and ascended the steps to her flat on the second floor. Where was he? He couldn’t still be at the gym, could he?

  She opened the door. The television was still on the QVC channel, which she’d left on before she’d left. His shoes weren’t in the wooden rack beside the door.

  The fucker hadn’t even come home. Her futile attempts at winding him up—driving him mad—had failed.

  She opened up her phone. Hovered her thumb over Stuart’s name. No. She couldn’t, could she?

  She hit the name and waited. His son with HIV. The desperation he’d emitted.
>
  Besides, he wasn’t all that bad. He was actually kind of attractive, when she thought about it.

  When she thought about it very hard, anyway.

  8.

  Wednesday started off like every day for Jonny until his mum stormed in his room and told him to get up because his latest CD4 count results were being released today.

  And now here he was, sitting in a cream chair much like all the chairs in all the doctor’s offices in all of the surgeries, opposite this balding, greying old man who had the latest instalment in Jonny’s life ready to deliver.

  Jonny’s mother sat beside him on another cream chair. She was holding his hand, squeezing it tight, but he could barely feel it. Being in this room felt like a dream. It took him right back to August 29th, 2013—the moment his life ended. It made him remember that day all over again in all its lucid detail. The dull smell of medicine. The taste of mucus in his throat, interspersed with alcohol from the night before. The feel of the chair, hard and posture-altering, digging into his back.

  “Okay, it’s good to see you again, Mr. Ainsthwaite,” the doctor said, even though Jonny knew he’d never seen him before.

  Or maybe he had. His memory wasn’t the best these days.

  “I’m Doctor Barry, by the way.” He held out his hand, which Jonny shook. The doctor’s hand was warm. Clammy. Sticky.

  Doctor Barry slid a series of documents out onto the table in front of him. He mumbled and nodded to himself, the occasional “Okay” and “Yeah, okay” every now and then.

  “How’s it looking?” Denise asked. She gripped tighter hold of her son’s hand, as if it was her waiting for the results, not him.

  Doctor Barry looked up. His eyes met Jonny’s first, but only for a brief moment. Just long enough to say, Well it isn’t good news, anyway.

  “Well, the good news is, you’re still healthy, which is great progress since your first test in August.”

  Denise gasped, letting out a loud breath. “Oh, thank God,” she said. “Thank God.”

  Doctor Barry frowned. “Yeah. Thank God. Right.” Jonny could tell he was still stalling on something. His eyes were on the paper. He was holding something back.

  “Unfortunately—and this really isn’t much cause for concern—the CD4 depletion seems to have been a little more rapid in these past two months when compared to the depletion between August and November. The depletion between August and November, as you know, was from 709—quite a high level, I might say—to 700.”

  “What has it fallen by?”

  Doctor Barry stalled and stared at the papers once again. “Well, enough to suggest that we might have to consider classifying this infection as Stage I.”

  “Just tell me,” Denise said. Her eyes were heavy with tears. “What are my son’s CD4 levels?”

  Doctor Barry looked away from the paper and stared Jonny directly in his eyes. “597 cells/mm³. Which, again, is nothing to worry about just yet, but—”

  Denise rose to her feet. “Damn it,” she said. “Damn it.” Her eyes were filled with fear and grief. She hadn’t once asked Jonny how he felt about it.

  Good job, really, because he couldn’t tell her. His CD4 cells had fallen by over a hundred in the last two months. That was a lot, he knew that much.

  “Mr. Ainsthwaite and… and Mrs. Ainsthwaite. I assure you that you do not need to worry just yet. Although we are going to classify your son as having Stage I of the infection, I assure you that it is only so we can start moving forward with the necessary treatment. I’m almost certain that as soon as we get you on some good medical help, the depletion of your CD4 cells will slow down and you will live a very full and prosperous life for years.”

  Denise leaned on the desk. She stared right into the eyes of Doctor Barry. “Years? Full and prosperous? Doctor, my son has Stage I HIV. He’s…” Tears dripped down her cheeks. “He’s dying. And you’re telling me he will live a full and prosperous life?”

  Doctor Barry looked from Denise to Jonny again. He was struggling to hold his neutral, emotionless expression.

  Jonny just sat there, taking it all in, but not judging, not really absorbing what he was hearing. It just washed over him like a painless wave, frothing between his toes.

  “Both of you—I’ll tell you what I want you to do. And this is me talking to you as… not as a doctor, but as a man. I want you to take these results, I want you to go home, and I want you to talk. Just sit down and talk. Get… get whatever’s on your chest out in the open. Are you married?”

  “Yes,” Denise said. “Yes. But his dad works away. He… He’s not going to be back for another couple of days.”

  “Then… Jonny? Do you have any friends you could invite round? Just somebody else to… to air your feelings with? We have some good counsellors here. If you’re struggling taking it all in…”

  “No, Doctor,” Jonny said. He pushed his chair back and smiled at the doctor, offering him a hand. “I’m okay. I have HIV and it has progressed from the primary infection to Stage I. I’m going to be put on medication to slow the spread. I’ll likely live for many more years before I start even showing symptoms. What else is there to discuss?”

  Doctor Barry was speechless. He slowly let the results papers in his hand go loose as Jonny tugged them away. His mum wasn’t saying anything either. Just wiping her tears with a tissue. Jonny was used to seeing her sad, now. Even when she pretended she wasn’t, he was used to that over-sympathetic look in her eyes.

  “Stay healthy,” Doctor Rogers said, as Jonny and his mum left the doctor’s office. “We’ll be in touch with regards to the next step.”

  “Thanks, Doctor,” Jonny said.

  The door to the doctor’s office slammed shut.

  Denise and Jonny sat in the car for a short while, still in the tree-covered car park. She couldn’t drive yet, not in this state. Jonny’s HIV was progressing, she knew that anyway. But the speed of it… it just drilled home the reality of it all. The reality that not just her son’s life was ticking away like a time bomb, but everybody’s was. Mortality was a progressive thing. Everybody was rotting away.

  “Are you okay?” Jonny asked.

  The sound of her son’s voice took her by surprise. She looked at him—looked at his pale face, his narrow cheekbones, his greasy hair—and she wanted to tell him, No, I’m not okay. But she couldn’t put that on him. She couldn’t weigh him down with something like that. No burdening those CD4 cells, not today.

  “I’m okay,” she said. “I… What the doctor said. About sitting down. Talking. I think that’s a good idea.”

  Jonny shrugged. “While Dad’s at work? That’s… that’s going to be hard.”

  Denise pulled her mobile phone out of her pocket. Stuart was at work, that was right. But this was his son. Their son. The one thing he needed was his family around him. Not mollycoddling—she didn’t want to do that. But just one hour, around the table, just clearing the air. That’s what she wanted. Needed.

  She knew that was what Stuart wanted too, really.

  She scrolled down to his name and pressed her finger against it.

  “We’re here for you, Jon,” Denise said, as the dialling tone rang and rang. “We’re here for you.”

  9.

  Stuart felt a familiar twinge of guilt running through his body when he woke up.

  The same twinge he always felt upon waking in another woman’s bed.

  He looked around the room. White walls, white curtains, white bedsheets. Almost too bright a set of surroundings to be waking up hungover in. Outside, the sky was a thick, cloudy shade of grey. The distant sound of traffic passed by. The whole world would be involved in its normal, everyday routines, and nobody would ever have to know about his and Sarah’s little secret.

  Sarah.

  He rolled over, hoping to touch her soft, tender skin, but he realised her side of the bed was vacant. As a matter of fact, he couldn’t hear anybody in the house. No footsteps. No food frying. Nothing.

  He eased
himself upright. His head spun and seared with pain. What time even was it? Shit. He was much more hungover than he’d first thought. He’d have to knock back some tablets, fight through the pain at his desk.

  He looked at his phone and his heart sank.

  Quarter past one. Quarter past one in the frigging afternoon.

  He jumped out of bed and scoured the floor for his clothes. Fuck. Where were they? He’d definitely left them on the floor beside Sarah’s bed before they’d slept together last night.

  Or had he ditched them in the bathroom? He wasn’t even sure anymore.

  “Looking for something?”

  Sarah was standing by the door. She was holding a cup of coffee, and was fully dressed and made up. Under her arm, she had his trousers and a white, crinkled shirt.

  “I… er…” Stuart paused, suddenly feeling rather embarrassed at being butt-naked in the middle of the room.

  In daylight.

  While Sarah was sober.

  Sarah tossed the clothes at him. “I was going to wake you but… well, I’ve always struggled waking people. Don’t quite have it in myself to wake a dreamer up to reality.”

  “The reality is that I started work at nine today. Fuck. Fuck.” He struggled to get his trousers on and button his shirt at the same time.

  Both attempts were failing miserably.

  “Like I said,” Sarah said, walking into the room. “Reality is hard. Couldn’t bring myself to disturb you.”

  “Don’t you have work yourself?”

  Sarah shrugged. She sipped her coffee. “My hours are… well, they’re different. They aren’t as—”

  Sarah’s speech was interrupted by the ringing of a phone.