When Jack came into the room he jumped on top of Mart and began to lick his face.

“Call him off,” Mart shrieked, “this man is an animal.”

Jack then lay on his side, quietly holding him, making sure he did not fall off the edge of the sofa.

“This is not the sort of treatment Doctor Cawley had in mind. He said I needed peace and quiet, no hunks trying to jump on me. Those days are over, he said.” He put his hands to his face and closed his eyes.

“He was really cute, even Pablo thought that he was cute, but he still had that dry doctor look which sort of put me off. I really wanted to toss his hair, but I held back. Usually, I sit there wishing the doctor was sick and I was fine, but today it was fifty-fifty. I wanted both of us to be fine.”

“What did you think of him, Pablo?” Jack asked. His tone was serious, as though he were asking about Mart’s illness.

“I wanted to toss his hair too,” Pablo said.

“Maybe we should invite him out for a hair-tossing session,” Jack said.

We had dinner, and then Mart said he wanted to go to bed. He took some drugs from the fridge and went upstairs. Jack did the washing-up, while Pablo and I sat at the table drinking wine.

“Maybe we’ll go into the city tomorrow if Mart is okay,” Jack said. “Take a look around, check out the talent.”

“I’ll drive you in,” I said. “You’re probably best to take a taxi back.”

“Mart doesn’t have to go to the hospital. He just has to phone,” Pablo said.

When Jack went to bed Pablo poured another glass of wine for each of us.

“I didn’t know that you had a lover in San Francisco who died of AIDS,” I said.

“Jack told you?”

“Yeah, Jack told me.”

“I meant to ask him not to, and then I realized I would have to explain to him why, and I wasn’t sure why. Anyway, I didn’t get much chance to see him alone. I thought he might talk about it while I was out.”

“You have to tell me things. You can’t let me find out things casually like that.”

“I want to pretend that it never happened. I want to pretend that we separated amicably and he went to live in New York or Seattle. I know that’s stupid.”

“Let’s go to bed,” I said.

We put our glasses in the sink and left the empty bottle on the kitchen table. As we went quietly up the stairs we could hear Mart and Jack talking in their bedroom. We stripped and got into bed and turned off the light. We did not go to the toilet or brush our teeth.

“So tell me about it,” I reached out and held his hand.

“Tell you what?”

“Everything. How you met. Everything.”