“One day he shouted at one of the reps who had failed to make a deal. I thought he was wrong and I phoned his office from mine in the afternoon to say that he should apologize, that he had no right to be so short-tempered. He asked me if I was busy and I said that I had work to do but if he wanted to talk I was here. He came into my office and shut the door and told me that he had taken the test. He would get the results after work. I said that I would go there with him, and I was sure there was no problem. He looked awful, and I suppose I knew that he was going to die. We drove to this doctor who lived close to us. He said he would keep his office open and see us as his last patients. We sat in the waiting room for a while and then the doctor summoned us in. I knew by his attitude, but I still thought it might be an ulcer or even cancer. ‘I’m afraid I have bad news.’ I remember him saying that. And then ‘I’m afraid it’s positive.’ Frank started to cry and rock back and forth. He said ‘Tell me it isn’t’ over and over. At the time people still believed that only a percentage of those who were positive would go on to get full-blown AIDS, but the doctor said that he probably had an AIDS-related illness in his stomach, and he would need to go into the hospital for tests. And I sat there watching this, wondering how we were going to go home with this information.

“Frank asked the doctor how long he had to live. The doctor said he could not say, but Frank insisted on some prognosis. The doctor said he had also drawn blood for a full blood count test, including a CD4 count—at the time we did not know what this was—and that was low, it suggested that Frank did not have much time. ‘How long?’ he asked again. The doctor said it was always hard to judge, and it depended on the person, but he thought a year, maybe two. Frank said nothing. He asked no more questions, even though the doctor had a counselor who was ready to come over. He said he wanted to go home. The doctor said he would make an appointment at the hospital for him, he hoped there would be a bed free in the next couple of days, and Frank nodded and shook the doctor’s hand, and we drove home once more in silence. I told him that I would stay with him, but he was locked up in his own mind all that night and for days and nights afterward. He did not want me to come too close to him, he did not want me to contact his family who lived in New Mexico. He was on his own in a way which I did not believe it was possible for anyone to be. He would have given anything, I think, to have lived. He would have given the disease to me or to anyone, he would have paid any money, or moved anywhere, or promised anything for this not to happen.