You and Me—forever—Anne.

You and Me—forever—Anne.

Anne kept her eyes shut and waited for her number to be called. A whiff of cigarettes made her grimace, even though it was a NO SMOKING designated area. She’d passed them coming in, huddled around the door. Mostly, young men wearing denims and grungy T-shirts, looking hungover with two-day’s growth and haircuts that she supposed were trendy. Two women stood under the canopy, out of the rain, both of them peroxide blonde, but they weren’t young. No they weren’t young. She wanted to be first to get in and out, but you couldn’t book an appointment at the Sandyford. And it was near Sauchiehall Street. Parking was impossible, and she’d circled and circled until she was weeping, before swooping into a disabled bay near a cheap-looking hotel only immigrants would stay in. She’d abandoned her Fiat 500, clutching her bag and keys and sniffling into her hanky, waiting for a traffic warden to accost her and ask her what she thought she was doing. And telling her he’d have to ticket her. Her heels tapped on the pavement as her pace quickened. She’d tell him—go ahead, that’ll teach the bastard. Her face reddened.

She apologised to those waiting outside the Clinic, but she wasn’t sure anyone was listening, it was just habit. Nobody met her gaze. They looked through or past her as they flicked their douts towards the road and filed in together in ones and twos, the young and the old, the crazy looking with jerky movements, elbows and bared teeth making sure they were first, and the sane, a man in a suit, a girl in pig-tails and training gear and running shoes as if she was waiting to start a marathon. Ann followed her through the waiting area because she seemed to know where she was going, and there was safety in numbers.

Her greatest fear was that somebody would know her. A neighbour perhaps, or somebody on the School Board. She’d already rehearsed a cover story, well, more than one. She decided on something simple, about an itch that wouldn’t go away. But their faces were thankfully dreary and self-contained.

The nurse that came to greet them in the lobby was grey-haired. She droned on in a bored way about what to expect and how to register—and to wait for their number to get called—everybody would get seen, but to be patient. She made a joke about it, patients are rarely patient, but even the girl that was running a marathon, sighed, and sucked in her breath.

Bucket seats and piped music, with a whiff of cleaning fluid, it was just what she expected of an NHS facility. She rubbed at her eyes. Leafed through all the bumf about the Sandyford being for young people, offering free condoms and abortions. Services for those living with HIV. The kind of pick-and-mix her husband rallied against at home. She skated over the bit about it being a service for Gay and Bisexual men. That leaflet was in purple for some reason. She didn’t look at that. She’d sniffed and reached into her bag, she’d enough to think about. Her number was barked out like a bureaucratic question only she could answer.

’14?... Number 14!’.

Anne rose from her seat and brushed down the front of her frock. Her fair hair darkening the shoulders of her white silk shirt as she walked.

She was glad to see it was a young girl clutching a folder under her arm that was calling her number. Even gladder when she smiled and cocked her head.

‘Just call me Ally.’  Her hair was pinkish and looked damp. She was stocky built, perhaps a lesbian. That was trendy. She might have been pretty if she tried a little makeup and got her eyebrows plucked. Her right arm up to the elbow was tattooed with a rose. ‘If you can just follow me, Ms Taylor.’ Another conspiratorial, half-smile as she turned her head and made sure Anne was following her up the flight of steps.

Ally held open the fire-door and let Anne pass through in front of her before catching up. ‘My room’s on the right…well, it’s not my room—exactly.’ But she breezed past and held open a door.

Strip lightening, grey walls, grey desk with a boxy computer and keyboard, twenty years out of date on it. Two metal tubed chairs facing each other across the desk with a zipped bag of medical kit on it. A leather couch with green paper towelling covering its length squeezed into the room, easy to wipe and replace. No pictures of dogs, cats or children, a sterile environment but musty smelling cabinet shelves with a few pharmacological textbooks decades out of date.

Ally sat on the edge of the desk and rifled through the medical notes. Anne hovered beside her, not sure whether to sit down.

Ally’s dark eye met hers. That half-smile again and her neck rolled into her shoulders as she spoke. ‘That address you gave us—?’

She left it hanging.

‘Yes?’

‘That’s not your real address is it? We need to check against the electoral roll. And there’s no Margaret Smith registered at that address.’

She clutched her handbag and her mouth tightened. She managed to blurt out, ‘But I’m a taxpayer—or at least I was—my husband is.’

This seemed to amuse her. She slid her bum off the table and straightened her face before she replied. ‘Then you’ll fully understand—as a taxpayer—that this government demands we exclude certain poor people, especially black people, but that’s me just being bolshie, even though it’s counterproductive for them and us. For everyone, really.’  She let the last part hang in the air.

Anne’s head dropped to her chest and she began bubbling and crying, even though she’d told herself she wouldn’t. ‘No, I don’t understand. I don’t understand anything anymore.’ She turned to go.

‘Wait,’ Ally placed a hand on her shoulder and handed her a tissue. ‘I’m sure we can sort this. Sit down and we’ll go through the paperwork, together?’

Anne did as was instructed and took the seat facing the wall. Ally squeezed in beside the desk and smiled as she once more looked at the file, but was apologetic in her tone. ‘Look, it’s nothing personal. Sure, we’ve become more bureaucratic. What gets measured nowadays seems to be all that matters. But listen, we’ve had cases, men with AIDs who’ve gave us dodgy addresses—they’ve been infecting people, and there’s no way of contacting them.’

‘I wouldn’t do that.’

‘I’m sure you wouldn’t.’ Ally licked her lips. ‘But we need some way of confirming who you are and contacting you.’

Her hand went up to her chest and Anne shook her head. ‘I can’t, I can’t tell you where I stay…My husband will find out. Everyone will know.’    

‘OK, I understand that. These things can be difficult.’ She wrote something down. ‘But you understand when you get tested for an STD, we won’t send you a letter. You phone in for the results over the phone. And it’s automated. You won’t need to speak to anybody, or contact us unless you tested positive—we won’t phone or write to you—but we do need to be able to contact you. What about an old email address only you have access to?’

‘It’s just, um, my husband—you know, I seen him with another man.’

‘What? Having sex with him?’

A long withering shake of the head. Her jaw clenched and she tutted. ‘No, it wasn’t anything like that. ‘He’s quite prudish. He hates poofs. I think it was a mistake. Some kind of prank.’ She corrected herself, ‘I mean gay men, he’s always joking about them taking over the world.’  

Ally pretends to make further notes to give her space to continue, peaking over the file.

‘I mean he was my rock…And I felt such a fool. Such an old fool. I was in ASDA, of all places, getting a few things.’

‘I shop in ASDA,’ Ally said.

‘Well, you know what’s it’s like then. Well, this one at Bearsden had its own food hall. And I thought I’d try it out for a change. And that’s when I see him, my Donnie, in the café. With a younger man he worked with—one of them.’

‘You mean gay men?’

‘Yes, absolutely. I mean he was the same age as my son.’ She screwed her face up. ‘And they were kissing—in public!’ Her face hardened, and the tone of her voice got shriller. ‘My legs went and I had to clutch at the trolley to keep from falling, I might have screamed. I told myself it couldn’t have been him. I rushed outside. And they were strolling towards his Mercedes, personalised number plates. No mistake there.  Arm in arm. He’d his hand tucked into the young man’s back pocket, feeling his bum. It was absolutely disgusting—and I had to come here.’

‘You did confront him?’ Ally blinked rapidly and shook her head. ‘I mean, your husband.’

‘Oh, no I couldn’t do that.’