16. THE LAST WEEK TOGETHER.

 

I think it was that night George ate his last proper meal, which I believe was cod-in-butter-sauce, one of his favorites. We went to bed, and sometime after midnight he woke up. I was also awake as he sat bolt upright and said to me:

 

‘I’m better now’, nodding his head to reassure me.

 

He kept saying it:

 

‘I’m better now. All the poison has gone, I’m better now.’

 

It was heartbreaking, since he so obviously was not better, and was still having breathing difficulties. But he said he felt as though someone had ‘touched him under the arms’ and left a sort of ‘golden glow’ which had cleared all the poison out of his body and made him better. While I hoped for such a miracle, I was determined to call the doctor in the morning, and was not going to be put off by this claim that he was now better. At night he made strange noises in his sleep - almost talking, but not quite. As long as these continued I knew he was still very ill. I have thought since that the experience he described was probably a psychic one - that indeed someone had touched him under the arms and that he was better, but in his spirit body, not his physical one. He must have had an out-of-the-body experience, and perhaps someone had greeted him by reaching out and grabbing him under the arms, giving him a preview of how he would feel when he finally passed over - better, with all the HIV virus gone.

 

Next morning I told him I was going to call the doctor, as agreed when we were in Jersey, but he wanted a particular woman doctor at the surgery where several doctors were in practice, and he wanted an appointment to go and see her. He did not want to go without an appointment and have to wait in the surgery for hours, nor did he want her coming to the house. The earliest appointment this particular doctor could make was on the Friday, which was ridiculous in his condition. I therefore made an appointment for the Wednesday with another doctor. However, he got irritated when I told him and insisted the Friday appointment with his own doctor would be ideal. He thought he had caught flu on the coach journey home, and said he wanted to get rid of the symptoms or the doctor might confuse the flu symptoms with the underlying illness. He felt that by Friday the flu symptoms would have gone. Of course he was just stalling for time. But I altered the appointment to Friday, but later rang his doctor and spoke to her personally, describing his symptoms over the phone. She diagnosed a chest complaint of some kind and prescribed some antibiotics, and said if I came along to the surgery that day I could collect the prescription. So I went along and returned home much happier, as I had some medication which I could give him right away. I told him what I had done, and he seemed quite pleased, and took the medication quite happily.

 

The next day, however, he was no better - worse if anything. I felt I had to tell someone, so I shut the door to the bedroom and phoned my mother. We had already agreed that she should come over to see us the following Saturday, but when I broke down on the phone and said I thought George was dying, she wanted to come over right away. She tried to reassure me that George was going to be all right, and I told her not to come over today but wait till Saturday.

 

George and I were sitting in the living-room watching TV when the entry-phone rang. I went to answer it and it was my mother, who had come over despite my telling her not to. I was in a panic and did not know what to do. I knew George hated people coming without warning, particularly in his state of health. I thought, well if I tell him she is here he will panic and want to go to bed - the best thing is bring her straight in and then it will be all right. So this is what I did, but I regretted it afterwards. She had brought a plant (a Busy Lizzy which only survived a few weeks), and George was obviously shocked and surprised but tried to appear amiable. His cold, accusing glances at me, however, showed how angry and upset he was with me for doing this to him. Nevertheless, he tried to put on a front and even promised to come down with me next time I went to Welwyn Garden City to see her (he hated the town and had only come with me a few times.)

 

My mother stayed an hour or so then left, and I walked her to the station. She agreed he looked very ill and had lost a lot of weight, but said she thought he would be OK. However, I should call a doctor whether he wanted one or not, he could not wait till the Friday. I said I would continue giving him the medication and see how he was in the morning.

 

Back at the flat George told me what I already knew: that I had done the wrong thing. He said it had set him back considerably and made him feel much worse. It would have been better if I had invited her into the kitchen and let her have a cigarette, and then came into the living-room and broke the news to him gently, instead of bringing her straight in and not giving him time to adjust to the shock/upset of someone arriving unexpectedly and seeing him in this condition.

 

He had sent my mother details of a Japanese Festival in London which was on while we were in Jersey, thinking she might like to go along to some of the free events in Hyde Park, and was disappointed she had not mentioned this but had gone on about her clubs, buses and other mundane subjects. Still, he appreciated the plant she had brought and the fact that she had only come over because she was worried (I admitted I became upset on the phone when telling her how ill he was).

 

That evening I had to go and collect our cat from the people who were looking after her. We had already rung them and left her an extra day, and felt we could not impose any longer. George said he felt so ill he wanted to go to bed, but he could not manage it. Every time he started to get up he got palpitations and became short of breath. The shock of my mother arriving unexpectedly had made him so upset he kept panicking. I racked my brains, and in the end thought of the rocking chair we had in our music/writing room. We were going to sell it, but I was so glad we had not actually done so as this proved a godsend to us that week. I brought it into the living-room padded with plenty of cushions, and George was able to get off the couch and sit in the chair. I then was able to maneuver it along the passage into the bedroom and alongside the bed, and George was able to climb into bed. It was the next best thing to a wheelchair - a chair on runners. I left George in bed, and rushed over to southeast London, cursing myself for letting my mother in like that and apparently bringing about this setback in George’s condition.

 

I collected Tibby, our cat, and told Kate, who was looking after her, that George was not well, but did not tell her how ill he was. I rushed back as fast as I could, worried all the time about George. We had agreed to keep the cat in a separate room from George, as sometimes she got very boisterous and ran around like a mad thing, and he felt he could not cope with that in his condition. I think he was also worried about the emotional effect of seeing Tibby, whom he loved so much.

 

When I got in I locked the cat in the kitchen, but was very pleased to see George was back in the living-room. He had remembered ‘Making Out’ was on, a comedy serial we were watching (he was also reading the book when he fell ill and died before finishing it). He knew I had promised to record it on the VCR, but was worried I might have forgotten. Anyway, the fact that he got out of bed and walked back to the living-room (or got back there somehow) reassured me that whatever set-back he had suffered, he had recovered sufficiently to do this. That night, however, I again had to get the rocking chair and maneuver him back to the bedroom.

 

The next morning (Wednesday) he was so much worse I was really frightened. He just lay there in bed and could not even talk. I told him again I thought I should call the doctor. By this time it was obvious he would never be able to get down to the surgery on Friday to see the doctor, if he lived that long. He shook his head when I mentioned calling the doctor, but I asked him to listen to what I had to say. I told him if I did not call the doctor and something happened, I would have to live with it for the rest of my life, ‘so will you please let me call the doctor?’ Finally, in response to this emotional blackmail, he nodded his head and I went to call her.

 

It was not his GP but another woman doctor who arrived. I explained the situation to her, and she came in and examined him. I don’t know what she thought of the state of the place as suitcases still lay in the hall not yet unpacked, and I had not done any housework, being so worried about George. She did not seem to notice, however, and using her stethoscope she gave George an examination. She then said she did not know what was wrong, but he was obviously in a very serious condition with a severe chest complaint of some kind. He would have to go to hospital for an X-ray and tests to find out what was wrong, but George shook his head vigorously at this suggestion.

 

A long session followed. I went out of the room with the doctor and she explained that she did not know what was wrong, but it could be a growth (cancer) since he had obviously lost so much weight. Whatever it was it could only be diagnosed by an X-ray. The equipment could be brought to the flat, but the results would not be known for a day or so, whereas if he went to hospital they would get the results straight away. We went back into the bedroom and she explained all this to him (obviously not mentioning the possibility of cancer). She added that if he just lay there he would die from starvation if nothing else.

 

Somewhere along the line I felt it necessary to explain to the doctor that, whatever was wrong with George and although we were a gay couple, it could not be AIDS as we were always careful about safer sex. One of George’s fears about hospitals, apart from the memory of seeing his father dying in one under intensive care with tubes in his nose and throat, was prompted by several press stories about gays admitted into hospital for broken bones, etc. and being immediately isolated and only treated by staff wearing masks and rubber gloves because, in these early days of ignorance, they thought all gay people were likely to be carrying the HIV virus, and seemed to think they could catch it by touching the patient or breathing the air near them. After the doctor had gone I told George why I had mentioned AIDS, and he agreed with me that I had to tell her there was no possibility of this diagnosis being correct as this would be the first conclusion the hospital would jump to once they realized we were a gay couple. On the other hand, if we did not tell the hospital of our relationship I would be denied access to him as next of kin. Even so gay partners of 21 years standing and more had no legal rights to be at their dying partner’s bedside, or even to attend the funeral. This was the terrible dilemma which added to his fear of hospitals and made it all so complicated.

 

In the end the doctor explained that no-one could force him to stay in hospital and although she would strongly advise against it, he could sign himself out once the X-ray was done and come home. On that basis, he finally nodded his head in agreement that he would go to hospital for the X-ray. Like me, the doctor must have inwardly sighed with relief, and she called an ambulance to take him to St George’s hospital in Tooting before she left. She had also mentioned St Thomas’s, where George had been before for his deafness, and I curse myself for not insisting on St Thomas’s.  In the light of what happened it might have made all the difference.

 

The ambulance arrived, and the crew, a man and a woman in green paramedic overalls, were so kind. They told George to stop panicking, and said his heart was ‘pumping like a steam-engine. Calm down George, calm down for goodness sake’. He told me afterwards this ambulance crew really built up his confidence and helped overcome his fear of hospitals. At the hospital we were immediately split up and I was put in the waiting room. I had brought a bag with some pajamas and his medication, including Cordosyl mouthwash for his mouth ulcers. Somehow the contents of the bottle leaked out and I had to go in the toilet and clean up the mess.

 

George told me afterwards they took him for an X-ray, and the staff there were also very kind and further boosted his confidence, and at that stage he would not have minded going into hospital as an in-patient. Then they put him in a cubicle to await the results. As his partner of 21 years, I should have been with him, and I suppose I should have made a big fuss, asked what was happening and explained the situation. But in the back of my mind I was thinking if I told them we were gay at this stage, they’d get out the masks and rubber gloves assuming we both had AIDS, like in those horror stories we’d read in the press. Finally a doctor came to see George and his abrupt, aggressive and hostile attitude undid all the good work of the GP, the ambulance crew and the X-ray and nursing staff. I don’t know exactly what the doctor said to George, but his whole manner was brusque and unsympathetic. He confirmed George’s worst suspicions by asking for further tests such as a sample of blood, which George refused. Finally George got so mad he actually spoke for the first time that awful day and told the doctor to: ‘Piss off!’

 

At that stage they called for me in desperation, but the damage had already been done. The doctor wanted to admit George into hospital, but George insisted on going home, claiming there was nothing wrong with him. I told the doctor it was up to George, and if he wanted to go home I was not going to stop him. The doctor then took me aside into another cubicle, and started asking me if I knew what the illness was. He said it was a kind of pneumonia, and kept dropping strong hints that there was more to it than that. I still did not know what he meant, but had an idea what he might be leading up to. Sure enough he said this type of pneumonia only occurs in people whose immune system is damaged, and he asked if I knew what he meant now. Was he talking about the HIV virus I asked him, and he said he was. I told him there was no way George could have that, and the doctor admitted they could not be 100% certain since George had not allowed them to do a blood test.

 

In retrospect it all seems so silly, since if George and I were right and the hospital were just jumping to conclusions because we were gay, a blood test could prove he was HIV negative. But of course we must have both known in our hearts they were probably right, and didn’t want these suspicions confirmed. We were both in denial.

 

This is where the hospital doctor was so wrong in how he handled the situation. I later discovered that there were proper trained HIV counselers in a ward above where we were sitting, and one of those could have been brought down to break the news to us. This doctor was not trained to do this, or cope with the reaction, and it was quite wrong of him to practically accuse me of infecting George with a deadly virus, but this was how the message came across to me due to his aggressive, hostile manner. There was no need to even mention HIV at that stage - all the doctor had to say was that George had a type of pneumonia. If he’d done this, and been more sympathetic like the X-ray and ambulance staff, George would probably have agreed to be admitted, and might even have recovered, though at this late stage it was doubtful anything could have saved him. However, trained HIV counselors could have broken the news about his HIV status and exactly what kind of pneumonia he had afterwards, perhaps even a day or so later. It was just too much to take in all at once - that George was HIV+, had full blown AIDS and would probably die within days.

 

The doctor then took me back to George’s cubicle, and in a state of shock I blurted out what the doctor had told me: ‘He says it’s AIDS’. I’m sure George had already gathered this from what the doctor had said to him, but he still insisted there was nothing wrong with him and he wanted to go home. We both felt the doctor had jumped to the AIDS conclusion when he realized George was gay and hadn’t considered any other diseases. George claimed he had even sent a ‘young good-looking doctor’ or registrar to try and persuade George to have a blood test and to stay in hospital as an in-patient, but George had still refused.

 

The hostile doctor came back in with the release form for George to sign, disclaiming the hospital of any responsibility for what might happen if George discharged himself against medical advice. They were saying there was some hope if George was admitted as they could give him medication intravenously and monitor him, but any drugs they gave him at home would be less effective.

 

The appalling insensitivity of this doctor became quite apparent when George was holding the form ready to sign and I told him it was up to him whether he stayed in hospital or went home, and George confirmed he wanted to go home. The doctor was standing right next to me and George at this point, but he turned to me and said: ‘Of course you understand that with this condition he’s got not enough oxygen gets to the brain, and he may not realize what he is saying.’

 

That clinched it for both of us. No way would George stay in now, and I knew it. This fool of a doctor had signed George’s death warrant as soon as he hinted at HIV infection instead of calling a trained counselor to break the news, and by now suggesting George was not in a fit state of mind to make decisions he had finally destroyed all hope that George might agree to treatment. They wanted to put him on an intravenous drip, but this was the very thing George’s father had been on and which George most feared. All George’s worst nightmares about hospitals were coming true, and he just could not get out of there fast enough. He signed the form, and as we waited for the ambulance to take us home I cheered him up a bit by describing how the Cordosyl bottle had leaked in the bag and made the kind of mess which was so typical of me. Then the doctor came and gave me two lots of tablets for George to take at home, but made it quite clear his only real hope was to be admitted and have antibiotics administered intravenously.

 

In the ambulance, as on the journey to the hospital, George stared out of the window all the time. It was his last ride, and he later mentioned that we had passed ‘The Hole In The Wall’ café in Clapham Junction where we sometimes ate, and where I believe he had sometimes eaten with Rose in the 1960s before meeting me. He said that on the outward journey he had a warm feeling as he looked out of the ambulance window, so it seems he had some kind of mystical experience which calmed him. The ambulance windows were smoked glass, which may have enhanced the surreal effect he experienced.

 

Back home the ambulance crew put him on the couch in the living-room, and when they had gone George told me to throw away the pills the hospital doctor had given us. I was heartbroken, since I knew this was the last slim hope that George would survive. Having finally gotten him to hospital he was now refusing to take the medication they had given him. That wretched doctor had so destroyed George’s confidence he would not take anything he had prescribed. It might have all been so different had we gone to St Thomas’s and seen a more sympathetic doctor, and been offered counseling before, during and after the process of breaking the bad news of HIV infection to us. We were offered no counseling whatsoever, and I was left with no support when George died. It is an absolute disgrace - neither of us really knew anything about HIV or its symptoms, and there was nobody to enlighten us and answer our many questions. We were left completely in the dark - all we knew was George had some kind of pneumonia we’d never heard of, PCP. Since we were not even told how they’d diagnosed that, we thought they’d jumped to the wrong conclusion. That was why George refused to take the medication, we’d not been offered any trained counseling to explain the situation. To us it seemed it was a case of hospitals assuming if you’re ill and you’re gay you most probably have AIDS, and handing out pills which might or might not help.

 

At least they’d organized a community nurse to come round and help me with the care of George at home. Unknown to either of us she only worked with HIV+ patients. As soon as I saw Louise I knew she was the right person for George, she was so sympathetic. After a little talk with me in the spare bedroom (our music/work room decorated with George’s music collage) where she tried to comfort me, I went into George and told her she was here, and then introduced her. I will never forget the wonderful smile which lit up George’s whole features as he saw her and she told him she was Louise and she had come to help us. It was the first time he had smiled for days, and I had never seen him smile like that ever before. It was a look of almost ecstasy and sheer relief after the dreadful experience of the hospital and the Doctor from Hell. George shook her hand and kept saying:

 

‘You’re an angel.’

 

Louise helped me get the spare bed down in the living room and made it up with a special, thick waterproof mattress she had brought with her. She put it alongside the couch so we could lie next to each other, and George could see the TV. She then promised to make arrangements for all sorts of disposable pads and tissues, a bottle and bedpan and all the other paraphernalia very sick bedridden patients need. She also promised to arrange a home help for me, and for nurses to come every day and stay overnight in the case of an emergency. I told her I could manage without a night nurse, but would be grateful for a nurse to come in every day and help wash and shave George.

 

After she had gone George kept saying what an angel she was - he obviously felt she was a very special person sent to help us in our greatest time of need. He was an excellent judge of character, and I am sure he was right.

 

We watched TV that night lying beside each other, him on the bed and me on the sofa. By this time he was only drinking water and sometimes a little milk, but no solids. I did try and give him scrambled egg once, but he could not manage it. I felt guilty earlier in the week when he asked for a shelled boiled egg and I made a mess of it, not knowing how to get the complete shell off an egg which was still hot. I did not eat properly all week either - I think I just grabbed pieces of cold steak and kidney pie.

 

That night I was afraid to go to sleep in case he died. He seemed so weak, and at one point that look of sheer ecstasy came back into his face as he looked up at the ceiling as though seeing something. It is impossible to describe the look on his face, but it was obvious he was having some marvelous experience of some kind. Like a fool I kept asking him what he could see, and making guesses, till he said to me through clenched teeth: ‘Shut up.’

 

Trust me to say the wrong thing at the wrong time, so I was quiet after that and just watched him. I knew he was very near death, but I had never actually seen anyone die before and wanted to stay awake. I had to know he had passed from this world into the next, and I kept thinking of my mother’s Uncle Jack who, just before he died, gave a wonderful smile and said: ‘Oh, Bess’, the name of his long dead wife whom he obviously saw coming to greet him as he passed over. I wondered whether George would see his mother and father, but as I lay beside him looking at him, quite unable to sleep, he kept looking at me. We looked deep into each other’s eyes, and I could see a concerned look in his. He kept looking up, then back at me, and I am sure my deep love for him and his for me brought him back from the brink of death. Something I was to regret later. It was as if he had seen the wonderful world which was awaiting him the other side, hence the look of ecstasy, but I was holding him back and he felt he couldn’t leave me because it would hurt me so much.

 

That night he was incontinent both ways, and I had to clean him up and change the sheet several times. I put them in the bath, thinking a nurse would collect them and take them to be washed in the hospital laundry, certainly I was in no fit emotional state to do anything but lay by George and see to his immediate needs. I later found out the nurse would not collect the dirty laundry, and in the end just soaked them in the bath. We soon ran out of sheets and had to manage with just blankets. If I had been better organized I could have gone down the laundrette for a service wash, but I hated leaving him even for a few minutes in case something happened whilst I was out of the room, and I was often expecting the doctor or nurse to call in person or phone, so I never managed it. I just couldn’t put my mind to housework of any kind - all I wanted to do was grab every precious second next to George before he left me forever. I’d never have forgiven myself if I was washing sheets or something equally mundane when he slipped away into the next world without me next to him.

 

The first time I cleaned him up he said: ‘I wondered when you would notice. Remember, I had to do the same for you that time?’ He was referring to when I came back very drunk from a party at work, staggered into the toilet and collapsed whining: ‘Help me, help me, I want to die....’. I was incontinent and he cleaned me up and got me to bed.

 

Next day his GP, or at least the woman doctor he had seen the day before, came round and I took her in the spare bedroom and explained that he would not touch the hospital doctor’s medication. I asked if she could prescribe something different, but she said she could not overrule the hospital doctor or alter his prescription. George had already told me he would take anything his GP prescribed, so she agreed to take the hospital doctor’s pills into George and say she recommended them, which she then did.

 

George was obviously too ill or confused to realize they were the same pills. I felt a bit guilty about this mild deception, but what else could we do? Later he did ask what happened to the hospital medication, and I just said I had given them to his GP. This was quite true, but I did not then add these were the same pills she recommended and which he was now taking when he could manage them. In actual fact, he never managed to take anything like the full daily dose. Some small pills which just had to be swallowed were OK, but four big pills which had to be dissolved in water 4 times a day were too difficult for him. Someone else on the same medication later told me they made you feel very sick and were horrible to swallow. George took some of them, but nothing like the full daily dose.

 

However, that Thursday he did seem much better even without much medication, and was talking quite lively. Both the doctor and Louise seemed quite amazed at the improvement. A nurse came to wash George, but she called at a particularly awkward moment when George was using a bowl as an improvised bedpan (we were still waiting for the proper one Louise had promised). George had made a tremendous effort to get out of bed on to the floor in order to use it. He made the supreme effort, which caused him many palpitations, because he did not want to create more mess for me to clean up. Anyway, the nurse had to leave in the end without seeing him, but Louise had arranged for a night nurse to call about 10pm and stay till morning in case George was taken worse, or had another incontinent night.

 

That evening the night nurse arrived and I sat her in the spare bedroom and said I would call her if I needed her. She sat and read a book, and I was not at all impressed with her. She was not a bit sympathetic, and seemed to me like a yuppy on a cushy number. Even when I went in to ask her advice about giving George his medication, something I thought she was meant to assist me with, she was most unhelpful, and just seemed to be enjoying drinking my coffee and being paid for sitting reading a book. In the end I had to tell her to go because her presence in the house was worrying George, even though he had not even met her. Imagine my surprise when she asked for the taxi fare to Earls Court, claiming she had come by public transport without the taxi fare to get home again. I had to give her £10, and after George died received a bill addressed to George for her ‘services’. Louise said it was a mistake and got the Health Authority to pay for it eventually, but such insensitivity is incredible. I never got the £10 taxi fare back. I do think she should have come with enough money to get home again anytime during the night - for all she knew George could have taken a turn for the worse and an ambulance could have whisked us both to hospital.

 

At this stage my memory gets a bit confused as to the exact sequence of events, but sometime early Friday George became very animated, obviously trying to cheer me up and take our minds off things. We re-told many humorous personal jokes and performed sketches we had done years earlier, and he even asked me to tell him a new humorous story using my funny voices. I made one up about a yuppy night nurse who was on to a good thing sitting drinking coffee in someone else’s house, listening to her Walkman and reading, and not doing a stroke of work all night. George started singing to me, and one song in particular over and over. It was a camp song about giving ‘the performance of my life’, which is of course exactly what he was doing for my benefit that day. It sounded like a Shirley Bassey song, or possibly Dorothy Squires, but so far I have been unable to identify it from George’s records. He made me learn the words of the verses he was singing over and over, and it went like this:

 

‘Tonight I gave the performance of my life,

All the roles I played, I knew the parts so well

They could never tell

That I was lying.

And yet, if they had looked behind that final curtain as it fell

They’d have seen this actress, dying.’

 

Occasionally he mixed up the words, substituting ‘lying’ in the first verse for ‘dying’ in the second and vice versa. I did this back, thinking perhaps he was saying he was not really dying, but he pretended to get annoyed with me, quoting Marc Fleming the acid-tongued drag queen who was always saying to her inebriated co-partner, Mrs Shufflewick: ‘Trust you to fuck it up.’

 

But it was a happy day, and when the nurse came to wash and shave him he again would not see her, but then let me invite her in whereupon we explained we were on a sort of ‘high’ laughing and joking together and having a great time, and George sang his song to her, doing Shirley Bassey type hand movements to illustrate he was an ‘actress’ giving the ‘performance of his life’. The young nurse went away rather bemused, and perhaps rather annoyed at wasting her time, but we were happy together that day for the last time in our lives together. At one point he was so high he even stood or knelt up and pissed on the bed, saying it didn’t matter. Bizarre behavior, but we both laughed as at that moment it seemed nothing mattered and we didn’t have a care in the world. In any case he was not drinking much so the bed did not get very wet.

 

We sang each other songs - another one he kept singing was John Lennon’s ‘Give Peace A Chance’. As he also kept saying the word ‘love’ over and over again, I altered the words sometimes when I sung it back to him to ‘Give Love A Chance’. I also sung him some of his favorite songs, such as ‘Kathleen So Fair and Bright’ (his father’s favorite) and ‘Mammy’ which always reminded him of his mother. Normally these songs made him cry, but he was so close to death and being reunited with his long-dead parents I felt they were appropriate, and he seemed to appreciate them. It was all part of saying goodbye to each other, letting go and preparing to move on.

 

Here I get more confused, but I think it was later that day he started to become delirious, talking nonsense and making repetitive movements (such as enacting taking real and imaginary rings off his fingers.) Louise called round, and by this time George had agreed to let our cat into the room and she was lying peacefully on his bed. He kept talking to Louise and me about the world being destroyed by environmental damage, a thing he was very concerned about in recent years, but this had an hysterical urgency about it. He also kept pointing at a cupboard and shouting to us:

 

‘Get the drip, the drip. Get the drip for the cat.’

 

I tried to make a joke of it, saying:

 

‘Why should we put a drip on the poor cat, when you don’t want one yourself?’

 

In the kitchen I told Louise I felt I had lost him already, since his mind was obviously very confused.

 

Later that afternoon the nurse returned to wash and shave him, and he let her do it, saying: ‘If you don’t mind shaving away four or five day’s stubble.’ He was quite calm while she shaved him, however after she had given him a bed bath he would not let her put his pajama trousers on. He kicked violently with his legs and actually ripped them. Then he asked for a glass of water and threw it over himself.

 

It was scary, and I was very distressed at this behavior. I took the nurse outside the room and said I did not know if I could cope with this latest turn of events. I felt I needed trained people around in case he tried to injure himself or me, and asked not for the first time if there was anywhere we could go and be together all the time with trained staff on hand should they be needed, but where they would not give him medical treatment if he did not want it. I now know there are hospices, but this was never offered to us. All they could suggest, after phone calls to his GP and Louise, was a room in St George’s hospital where we could be together 24 hours a day (it had two beds) and where they promised not to give him any treatment unless he wanted it.

 

Thinking this would be better than nothing if he was going to get increasingly disturbed and start destroying things and throwing water over himself, I said I would talk it over with him and see what he thought. Before I had a chance the phone rang, and it was his GP to say an ambulance was on its way and I had about 30 minutes before they arrived.

 

I flew into a blind panic. There were so many things to do. I had to hide stuff away I did not want my family and people to see (thinking George might well die and goodness knows who might have to come into the flat), and I had to search round for pajamas, toilet things, etc. for both of us. Before I have even had a chance to discuss anything with George the ambulance arrived, and I had to make the crew sit in the kitchen while I went and spoke to George (at least I had learned that lesson from my mother’s unexpected arrival.)  I repeated the sentiments to the ambulance crew I had already expressed to the GP over the phone when she said the ambulance was already on its way:

 

‘You’re much too quick. It’s all happening too fast. I haven’t had a chance to even discuss it with him yet. It was just an idea, and I don’t know if he’ll agree. You should have waited and come much later, after we’d had a chance to talk it over.’

 

I went in and spoke to him, but as soon as I mentioned an ambulance and St George’s Hospital he would not even consider the idea.

 

‘No, it’s a trap’, he said. ‘They say they won’t give me any medical treatment, but once they get me there they will.’

 

On reflection I have to admit to myself that he was probably right. Why else would they treat it as an emergency admission and rush over an ambulance if they were not going to give him any treatment? Once a person is in hospital it is considered unethical to just let them die, so I think they would have given him treatment unless he signed himself out again. At the time, however, I took them at their word.

 

I went in the kitchen and told the ambulance crew to go back to the hospital as it was all a mistake. They came before we had even discussed the idea, and the patient did not want to go into hospital. They would not take my word for it, and put their head in the door to ask George, who insisted he did not wish to be admitted into hospital, and so they left. I think the shock of the ambulance arriving unannounced had an effect on George because his behavior returned to normal from then on and he had no more delirium at all.  I was thankful for that at least. I had lost him when his mind went and felt it wouldn’t matter where he was since he seemed confused or unaware of his surroundings, but now he was very definitely aware and knew where he wanted to be, home with me and our cat. I had him back again for a few precious days.

 

That night he nearly died again. He kept telling me to ‘let go’ and this confirmed to me that he had indeed nearly died two nights ago but that my love for him had brought him back.  I therefore did my best to do as he said. I did say ‘I love you’ and say his name several times, but he said ‘don’t’. So I turned round with my back towards him as we lay side by side and told him I was letting go. Still he hung on, and in the end, to relieve the awful tension I suppose and to try to urge him on his way, since I did not know how much longer I could refrain from turning and hugging him, I said: ‘For God’s sake go!’

 

It was the wrong thing to say I know, and he rebuked me for saying it. I explained I was sorry, but I could not stand much more of this. He then kept asking for a drink of water, and I told him he knew I could not refuse him that. I gave it to him, he drank it and once again came back from the brink. We loved each other so much he was finding it just as difficult to let go and move on as I was.

 

Next morning, Saturday, Louise came and I told her in the kitchen that, like an old actress, George was making ‘more comebacks than Marlene Dietrich’ or something to that effect. I just kept hoping for a miracle, or a wrong diagnosis, and at least he was taking some of the pills. In fact his original GP, a man who had prescribed amphetamines for him for years, was on duty that weekend and came to see him, and told me over the phone later that the pills were ‘his only hope’ and for me to try to see he took the full dose. It was an impossible task, but I did my very best.

 

Later that day the nurse came, but it was not the young nurse he had let shave him the previous day. She was off duty or on holiday, and instead there was a fierce-looking black woman who reeked of garlic. I should have turned her away then and there but I did not want to offend her. Any strange nurse would have been too traumatic for him, but this one looked so hostile and George could never stand the smell of garlic anyway. Louise had told me these nurses had a fairly tight schedule and other patients to see, so I should just show them straight in whether George was ready or not, and so this is what I did. I should have known better after the episode with my mother. I went out of the room for something, and when I got back George was in a terrible state. The nurse was sitting in a chair at the end of his bed looking at him fiercely and telling him to ‘drink your medicine’ while George looked furiously back at her, but with a frightened look in his eye. He spoke to her accusingly:

 

‘I asked you to open the curtains. Why did you ignore me?’

 

I thought I had better let her wash him quickly and get her out of the flat as she was clearly upsetting him badly, but as I pulled open the curtains I realized that the neighbors across the street could see her giving him a bed bath, so I closed them again.

 

‘That was why I didn’t open them,’ the nurse explained to him.

 

She washed him quickly but did not attempt to help me make him comfortable in bed. He did not want her to shave him, so I ushered her out as quickly as I could, and went back and opened the door and windows to get rid of the reek of garlic.

 

‘Oh she was horrible, horrible’, he kept saying. ‘You shouldn’t have let her in. She just kept staring at me and telling me to drink my medicine. She wouldn’t open the curtains when I asked her.’

 

I tried to calm him down and apologized, especially for the reek of garlic. Then George got it into his head that she was the same woman who had shouted at him a year or so ago when we had been on our way to Clapham Junction railway station to catch a train to Hastings. I had popped into the newsagents to get a paper while he waited outside, and a black woman sweeping up in the street had told him:

 

‘Don’t hang around here. There’s no little boys for you round here.’

 

This completely unprovoked verbal abuse upset George so much he was in tears, which was very unusual for him. When I came out of the newsagents he explained what had happened and I shouted at the woman, telling her not to make libelous accusations of that sort. As George said on his way to the station:

 

‘Why did she say that to me? I’m not interested in little boys. I’m not even interested in sex at all.’

 

This was quite true. Unless he had taken the stimulants prescribed by his doctor he had absolutely no sex drive whatsoever, and could not even talk about it. Moreover, he had no interest at all in boys or teenagers. When he was in the mood macho men over 40 were his ideal type. The whole thing was just so unfair and cruel, and she could only have guessed he was gay from seeing us both together or from some hunch. Anyway, poor George thought this nurse was the same woman, and I tried to reassure him she was not, though he did not believe me. I then promised I would not let any other nurses come in (apart from Louise, the community nurse whom he trusted) and that I would wash and look after him myself. I went straight away and canceled all the nursing visits. I still had not gotten any home help because, although I had spoken to the person who organized it and signed the necessary forms, it took a week to organize. By the time I could have had it George had died and I no longer needed it. I still feel bitter that George had to die without clean sheets in a dirty flat because there was no emergency provision for home helps, and I was in no fit emotional state to do housework. It has to be said, though, that refusing to go into hospital and not wanting any visitors meant George brought the situation largely on himself because I just couldn’t cope on my own, I was emotionally and physically shattered.

 

Louise on previous visits had broken up ice from our fridge and given it to George to soothe his dry lips and mouth. Later that day it broke my heart when he asked her for more ice, and I told her how upset I was.

 

‘Why, just because he asked for ice?’

 

Yes, because I then knew he was not getting better after the upturn the previous day when he had been in such high spirits. I still feel guilty that I had not made fresh ice, that I had not bought fresh Vaseline for his dry lips but used the remnants of an old jar and most of all that I completely forgot there was ice-cream in the freezer which would have been ideal for his dry lips and mouth. I only discovered it weeks later. Yet I did do my best, I was just in no fit emotional state to be looking after a dying lover on my own.

 

Since he found it very difficult to drink from a glass, I had improvised with little bottles from which he was able to drink more easily. I felt so ashamed when he sheepishly pointed out to me the muck around the inside screw-neck of a plastic yogurt-drink bottle I was using for his drinking water, and I rushed to the bathroom to scrub it clean with a toothbrush. Looking back though, I really did my best in a terrible emotional state, suffering from lack of food and lack of sleep, and I am sure he understood. After all, it was his choice not to have any trained professional care, friends or relatives around him as he was dying. There were loads of people who would have helped us, but George was adamant would not have any of them in the flat.

 

That Saturday afternoon we watched Pavarotti’s 30^th anniversary concert (plus guests) recorded in Italy some months previously. We had it on videotape but had not gotten around to watching it before. All the way through he was hoping Pavarotti would sing an aria from ‘La Boheme’ which he had been reminded of when the music was used in an episode of the sitcom ‘Bread’ earlier in the week. I remember how moving the music was, though it only lasted a few seconds. Near the end of the Pavarotti concert I had to answer the phone. By the time I got back Pavarotti was singing the aria he had been waiting and hoping for. This was one of the last TV programs we saw together.

 

George did not want people to know he was ill, and certainly did not want them coming around, but he agreed to me telling some of our closest friends that he was ill. On the Friday I phoned his cousin in Scotland and told her to tell the rest of the family. He was not on speaking terms with his sister Betty since her fateful visit in August, but I knew they all had to be told or I would be blamed if he died and had not even told them he was ill. His cousin rang back to tell me she had told the family, and his sister Betty would be ringing back next day to see how he was. She never rang since she was away at her caravan, but she got her daughter to ring on the Saturday. I told her George was lying in bed watching TV, but certainly did not give the impression he was anything but very ill. I was disappointed Betty had not even rung herself, but really thought she could have driven down in her car and made it up with George before he died. There was plenty of time from when she was told he was ill Friday night to late Sunday when he died. I could have done with the presence of one of his family both when he died and afterwards, to help arrange the funeral and everything. But they did not attempt to come near for a week, leaving me to do it all by myself. I know George would have said he didn’t want Betty to come down and see him before he died, yet I think if she had done he would have seen her and they would have made it up before he died, because deep down he was really fond of her. The fact that she had rushed down to see him would have probably made him realize she did have feelings for him and that she was sorry for her thoughtless actions in the past. Sadly, her failure to even ring let alone visit him confirms George’s analysis that she was completely wrapped up in her children and grandchildren and that her brother was ‘out of sight, out of mind’ even as he lay dying. She couldn’t say she wasn’t warned. There was the letter from George saying he was seriously ill and would die soon, and I wouldn’t have rung and said he was very ill unless it was extremely serious.

 

We did watch some more TV after the Pavarotti tape. I believe we watched the comedy series ‘Birds Of A Feather’ with its poignant signature tune containing the line ‘what will I do when you are far away and I’m alone, what will I do?’ Later we started to watch a strange satirical play about South Africa, but it was too weird and we turned it off.

 

Later that night George had fallen asleep with me beside him, and I put my arm gently across to hold him. I have regretted it ever since because he woke up and was unable to sleep ever again. The room we were in was scaring him. He seemed to be almost hallucinating, seeing strange faces in familiar objects like the standard lamp. It had a big white globe with decorative metal leaves surrounding the bottom. George kept seeing it as the bald domed head, white make-up and big painted eyes and mouth of Lindsay Kemp. I could see what he meant - two leaves formed the eyes and a third the mouth. ‘Why is Lindsay Kemp looking at me like that?’ he said. So I removed the lamp from the room, but still he was disturbed. I moved a brightly colored blanket but it was no good, so in the end I had to get the rocking chair and maneuver him back into the bedroom for the last time. Once in bed, however, he still could not sleep.

 

On the last day of George’s life, Sunday September 29^th 1991, neither of us had slept. I cannot remember the details of that awful day, except he was very ill and frightened. I think it was early afternoon when, for the first time in his illness, he started getting chest pains down his left side. They grew worse, and he asked me to call the doctor. Louise and his GP came, and after talking with George and getting his agreement, they arranged for oxygen and some morphine, which would be administered intravenously via a pump syringe. The fact that George had agreed to the two things, apart from hospitals, that he feared most - an oxygen mask and intravenous medication - conveyed to me that he was indeed on his deathbed and must be suffering badly, or be very scared of the pain he feared might come.

 

When the equipment finally arrived, after several hours during which George asked me over and over why it was taking so long, the oxygen tubes up his nose were of no help, so he agreed to a plastic mask. This did not help much either, nor did the morphine from the pump syringe. He kept asking me:

 

‘Why isn’t it working?’ All I could say was that even aspirin takes half-an-hour or so to have an effect. However, about an hour passed and still he kept asking why it was not working.

 

When they had brought the equipment my hopes had been raised because I thought George had finally agreed to the treatment which could save him, but Louise had disillusioned me immediately:

 

‘You do realize he is going to die don’t you? This treatment won’t save him, it will just ease the pain and help him breathe more easily.’ She had also told me he might turn quite blue, particularly his lips.

 

As I looked at him it was obvious he was dying. Indeed his lips were turning bluish. Most of the time he did not bother with the oxygen mask, since the pain seemed to be worrying him more than the breathing problems. In retrospect I now believe he was suffering from heart failure. I later questioned Louise about this possibility, and she said the pains in the left side of his chest could have been either the pneumonia or heart failure. However, there is a history of heart problems in his family. His mother died of a heart attack at an early age, and his sister Betty had a heart by-pass operation. George himself had a history of minor heart trouble and suffered from palpitations in times of stress, and was regularly attending a heart hospital when I met him. However, his palpitations subsided once we settled into a steady relationship and he was not so stressed. These palpitations returned with a vengeance during the final two weeks of his life, in Jersey and the last week at home.

 

I asked him if the pain was very bad or just average, and he said it was average though I’m not sure what that meant. Obviously it was quite bad, or he was scared it would get worse, but I hope the morphine did help.

 

He said several times: ‘Why am I going through all this?’ I understood what he meant. Twice he had nearly died peacefully without any pain, and yet he had come back from the brink to suffer this final agony. I felt guilty and told him that I had tried to ‘let go’ the other night, but he did not seem to blame me.

 

It seems that apart from the physical pain he was suffering and the emotional pain of leaving me, he was worried about his cousin’s husband who had been ill. George told me he was worried about his cousin and had to stay around to look after her. He felt her husband was ill and would die next year. I went and rang Margaret, explaining that George was worried about her husband John, but she assured me he was fine. I told George and promised that if he got bad again I would go up to Scotland and look after his cousin. That seemed to reassure him a bit. (I felt guilty when Margaret’s husband did die some years later, and I only found out about it months later. I did offer to go up, but it was really too late by then.)

 

A little while after this exchange about his cousin and her husband, George looked at me with a frightened look and said something which, in the light of things he had said in the past week, seemed very strange. It was also heartbreaking: ‘I’m not going to die, am I?’

 

What could I say? I could have lied and said: ‘No, you’ll be fine.’ Then a deliberate lie would have been one of the last things I said to him. I just muttered something about ‘I don’t know’, yet we both really knew he was dying. Had we not been talking about it all week? I had even asked whether he wanted me to keep his collages up-to-date, and he had said that he preferred me to leave them as they were. When he was delirious and had taken off the ring I gave him 21 years before, I put it on my finger next to the one with the ring he’d given me at the same time, held my hand up for him to approve, and he had said it did not look right on that finger. He was right and months later I changed it to a finger on my other hand. So he definitely knew he was dying, and yet he asked me that dreadful question right near the end, and in a heart-rending last-minute panic and determination to live he insisted on drinking a full glass of the dissolved tablets, that awful medicine he found so difficult to swallow. This was literally minutes before he died, and I can only think he was scared of the pain he was suffering, and that it would get worse as he approached death.

 

I therefore tried to take his mind off things. He could not sleep, so I suggested reading to him. I gave him a last cuddle, but he asked me to do it very gently in view of his chest pains. It was a nightmare, I couldn’t even cuddle and comfort him at the end. As I lay there beside him in the bed I said a little prayer (I don’t know who to, just Spirit) ‘to cut short his suffering by letting him go quickly’. That prayer was the hardest and most unselfish thing I have ever done in my life, and it was answered very quickly because I had finally ‘let go’ releasing him from his agony.

 

Since he was still in pain and could not sleep, I suggested taking him back into the living-room so he could watch TV, which might take his mind off the pain. He agreed this would be a good idea, so I went to get the rocking chair and maneuvered it next to the bed. I then removed the bedclothes, and he must have exerted an enormous effort in order to sit up with his legs on the floor over the side of the bed. His last words to me were: ‘What shall I do with this?’

 

He was indicating the pump syringe still attached to his arm. I told him to place it on his lap and hold it as I helped him up and into the chair. This he did, and I held him as he stood up, twisted round and sat in the chair. However, as we performed this maneuver I noticed a change in his breathing pattern and as I looked at him sitting in the chair I knew he had already gone.

 

That is to say his spirit had left his body, yet he was still breathing albeit in a very irregular manner. His eyes were staring and his mouth was open, but he was still breathing. Yet I knew he was no longer there. I stood for a moment relieved it was all over, yet shocked - and puzzled as to why he was still breathing. Presently the breathing stopped, and as a last desperate measure I slipped the oxygen mask over his face and turned the oxygen on high, while I went to phone the doctor. This seems an illogical thing to have done in the circumstances, but I felt I had to give him every last chance to live even though I had asked for his suffering to be cut short.

 

Of course the oxygen had no effect, so I removed the oxygen mask. I seemed to be remarkably calm because I had asked either the doctor or Louise over the phone (I can’t remember which) whether I should lift George out of the chair on to the bed before rigor mortis set in, and this is what I did. I looked at his body in a completely detached manner, because I knew this ‘thing’ was not my George. He had departed even before his body had stopped breathing. This to me is convincing evidence that it was not imagination. Had he stopped breathing when I felt his spirit had left his body that could arguably be an explanation, but even though signs of life were still there I knew he had gone irretrievably. The human body is not just something which moves and breathes, it has a vital spark, a personality, a spirit, and when that is gone you are left with just an uninhabited shell, even if breathing and other signs of life are present for a few more minutes. His spirit had left his body and moved on, and that George continues to exist in spirit form was proven to me many times in the next days, weeks, months, and indeed years afterwards.

 

Before finishing this chapter, I should mention some other things that happened during this last week. He told me to write down his instructions that, using hair gel, I should comb his hair into a fantastic Dali-esque style rocker’s quiff. When I asked when I was to do this he said whenever I felt like it, but I knew he meant after he died. Of course, it was impossible for me to do this. His hair was not long enough, and I have trouble trying to form my own hair into even a modest quiff. I think he said that to give me something to distract me and occupy my mind after he died. It was also a sort of tribute to me who liked that era of pop music and had a modest quiff which he often teased me about. He’d encouraged me to have a more modern style several times, but I always reverted to the rocker’s quiff I felt most comfortable with. So at the end it was as if he was trying to say he really liked it too.

 

The last thing he ever gave me, some pieces of paper, was one night that last week when we were lying in bed in our bedroom, before he moved into the living room. He looked at me and saw I was crying quietly to myself, and said gently: