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there is a question he simply has to ask: ‘Forgive me, but I don’t understand. I mean I didn’t even know you know Paolo.’
    Jack makes the same wounded pause before replying, which makes James begin to doubt himself, and when Jack speaks, he is made to feel guilty for having doubted him: ‘But of course I do. From Woody’s Bar – a whole lotta times.’ He insists, faintly wounded but noble with it. Even so, James cannot remember ever having seen Jack outside of work. ‘Such a great, great guy,’ he adds, piling on the agony. ‘Ah,’ says James, faintly apologetic now and prepared to put the mystery down to the chaos that has reigned in his head for so long.
    ‘No, no, it’s me,’ adds Jack hastily. ‘Put me in a crowd – parties, weddings and the like – I just go invisible. Plain shy, I guess.’ He visibly wriggles, doubly self-conscious in the contemplation of his own gaucheness. He holds out the flowers again. ‘Could you maybe just give these to him for me?’ And with this he turns and rushes for the elevator.
    James turns back, shaking his head, then smooths himself down, ready to stand before the dreaded door again. First, though, he looks right then left and gently places Jack’s flowers on the windowsill for someone else to find.
    ■ ♦ ■
    Paolo lies on the bed, stark and symmetrical as a jewel. His two arms extended from his sides, palms raised, like a saint beatified. Beneath the sheet, the sculpted outline of his legs is arranged into the same religious iconography. There seem to be fewer cables and tubes than yesterday, as if they have fallen away, their cycle completed, the sacrificial object sanitized and ready for the final offering. Steeling himself, James inches towards the bed. Never has he seen Paolo’s pale face look so spare. The sight stirs compassion in him, restoring some warmth to his spirit. He leans over and says softly, ‘Sweetheart.’ He imprints a kiss on Paolo’s desert-dry lips and draws back, expecting more of the empty silence. But, wonderfully, Paolo’s eyelids unmesh an instant, giving the faintest glint of grey. James is ecstatic; it is as if Paolo has just sat up in bed and smiled. He holds out the flowers, saying, ‘White roses . . .’
    Paolo’s breathing is faraway, infinitesimal, but James has read somewhere that the dying have heightened sensory awareness. Convinced that his lover is alive to the scent of roses, James’s voice takes on a breezy note: ‘I ran into the Parade on the way here. It was so . . . fine and dandy. It was like I was five years old!’ He sits waiting, longing to see life in Paolo’s eyes again. But then a voice hisses out of the dead space behind him: ‘Sir . . . Sir . . .
Sir!’
He jerks around to see a white-frocked nurse – short, plump and middle-aged, but somehow childish, with her tiny cap perched on big strawberry-blonde hair and lipstick smeared crimson. Her eyes are wild as she stomps over and snatches the flowers from his hand. ‘You can’t bring these in here! This is Intensive Care!’ It doesn’t take much to make James feel foolish. ‘I’m sorry, I didn’t—’
    ‘That’s no excuse! Intensive Care – you can’t read? There’s sick people here!’ she hisses, firing off a last poisonous barb, not knowing how close to his heart it passes, then stomps off. James reels; he’s so easily thrown right now, and this stupid woman has violated their intimacy, bringing the world in all flat-footed. He doesn’t know whether to laugh or cry, until the absurdity of it strikes him: sick people in a hospital? Well, that’s news! It prompts him to share the joke: ‘D’you hear that, Paolo? These flowers could make you very sick indeed; I could’ve . . .’ The words die in his throat as he sees a tiny movement ripple across Paolo’s sealed mouth! Instantly, his face is next to Paolo’s, his fingers wrapped around the broken bird of his hand. James leans over, astonished to see lips that were rusted shut