Graeme Archer: Common People

Monday 12 November, 7pm

So. I’m sat on this bus, heading up the Kingsland Road, the No. 242. I’ve never been on this bus before and I’ve never been so far up the Kingsland Road either: we’re about to go through Clapton, or so the very annoying, omnipresent Machine Voice keeps informing me. I’m going to the Homerton hospital, to visit John.

*
About twenty minutes ago I was sat outside Caffe Nero on Bishopsgate, finishing off some “urgent” memo and then emailing it to my boss in Italy. One of the very few good aspects of modern life: wifi. Two years ago I’d have had to stay in Harlow until I’d finished work, and I’d not have had time to get to the hospital. Now I can draw my graphs and conclusions on the train, then email them from nearly every café in the City. When I was negotiating for my current position at work, I demanded: a huge pay rise; and –  I wanna be a vice-president; and – I want the smallest laptop money can buy. Well. I got the laptop. Two gay men sit down at the table behind me and instantly irritate me. Their conversation is about parties in New York and the emails they’d just sent each other from their iPhones. I want to shout Why don’t I get asked to parties? Why am I sat here drawing ****ing graphs? What happened to that youthful promise? Then I remember Mr Keith waiting at home for me, and where I’m going in a minute, and feel bad.

*
So the bus is nudging its way through Clapton now, a part of Hackney I’ve never been to before. I’m peering through the window at the shops and the people on the street, but discreet-like, cos everybody hates a tourist, in the fine words of Mr Cocker. My amazing General Election 2005 fact! Fact! Jasper Cocker lives next to the pub we used as campaign HQ (the George and Vulture) and – fact! – he said hello to me one afternoon! Finally the 242 gets to the Homerton – back in E9 – I’m sort of glad. I go into the hospital and find Michael.

Michael’s waiting for me in reception and is excited to tell me that John has been moved from Intensive Care to a general ward. We take this as good news. Last weekend, when I last saw John, he wasn’t able to speak or move, and had three lines of various substances going into and out of him. Renal failure, compounded by various bruises and fractures as he’d flailed around his flat in confusion, before passing out, further compounded by the hospital-acquired infection he’d picked up from the respirator. Initial event most likely brought on by toxicity as a response to the lithium he takes to control his mood disorder. He would have died, except that Michael phones him every day to check up on him, and, when none of his calls were answered, went round to the flat, from where he phoned an ambulance, which came in slightly less than three hours. Well. It came. Michael went to the hospital with John (“don’t take him to the London, he’ll be dead by teatime tomorrow”) and sat with him until the dialysis was over and it was established that his kidneys were recovering.

So, Michael is John’s boyfriend, right? Wrong. Michael is John’s family.

*
Remember “pretended family relationships”, a phrase we used to hear a lot of in the late 1980s? It was that phrase – from the infamous Section 28 – which made my blood pressure rise, rather than any rubbish about the “promotion” of homosexuality. Back then I knew in theory that which I know now empirically: neither backbench Tory MPs, nor the occasional commentator on Conservative Home, are well-equipped to tell the rest of us what is, and what is not, a family.

*
John is sitting up, fussing with his gown. I can tell from the irritated look on his face that he’s back, that the John whom we feared had left for ever is back in possession of his poor, injured body. His speech is a bit slurred, but that’s from the bruising on his mouth where he cut it, falling onto a radiator as he passed out. No neurological damage and his kidneys are pumping out urine by the gallon. So what next. What next.

John tells us “you can only visit here from 5 till 8pm, so you’ll need to come straight from work Michael, maybe get something to eat in the canteen here, otherwise I’ll only see you for half an hour”. His eyes are bulging with fear which belies the selfishness of the demand. I recognise the look. The last time I saw it was on my grandfather’s face, the last time I visited him in hospital, the last time. Michael meekly acquiesces and later I upbraid him: he won’t help John by making himself ill. I know, says Michael, I know, but what can I do?

*
John does have a real family, the sort the church would recognise, the sort the church would prefer to place him with, were he a child waiting for adoption, not the pretend sort that is Michael. It’s just that –  while Michael is willing to look after John, to visit him daily in hospital, to have John practically live in his home, to take him shopping, to make sure he eats properly, to provide some form of external stimulus (the sort of stimulus which a clinical depressive’s anhedonia makes him shy away from), and to do all this despite the impact it has had on Michael’s ability to live the sort of life that you or I take for granted – it’s just that his real family have no intention of maintaining any form of contact with John. They know he’s in hospital, by the way (Michael phoned them); so what? They know he might have died at any point in the last two weeks; so what? They don’t care enough to phone John, let alone visit him, let alone suggest he might care to recuperate with them. There’s no terrible background to John, by the way – no off-the-rails youthful acts of folly or indiscretion. His sin – his irredeemable, cast-ye-unto-the-darkness, you’re-no-son-of-mine sin – was just the prosaic and dull one of fancying blokes rather than women. Well. At least his parents know they’ve done the right thing. That must comfort them through the long winter nights. Imagine – I cannot – try to imagine what it must be to exist and to know that your parents do not love you.

*
Before we leave I am pleased to watch Michael become firm with John. He cannot be discharged until at least a physiotherapy plan is in place, until at least he can walk around and fend for himself a bit again. John protests at first but falls silent in agreement, and in the pause, in the infinitesimal pause before I speak, I can almost hear the humming of the wires of the love-machine which binds these two together.

*
Later that night I wake up in a cold sweat, the fear of the nightmare which roused me remaining, though the nightmare itself had passed. I look over and see Keith’s form lying peaceably. It’s alright, it’s alright. Not alone. He’s there.

Comments

[Sally Roberts]

Thank God for the Michael's of this world!!!

[activist]

A terrible story, because parental love should be unconditional to mean anything.

Like all Graeme's columns, it's exceptionally well written. a newspaper should give him a column.

[Eileen Holmes]

A quote from Archbishop Tutu in the BBC today: "If God, as they say, is homophobic, I wouldn't worship that God." I agree.

[Afleitch]

A wonderful piece. I'm lucky enough to have my family as well as my partner. Through him I have a whole new 'family' that I'm part of and that I mean something to while I'm still loved greatly by my own family. I think, in the 1980's the Conservative Party simply didn't 'get it.' It was too easily driven by tabloid populism and non existant threats. But we learned.

People ask me why I am a Conservative considering Section 28 etc. I say because they represent me - they respect who I am; a taxpayer who happens to be gay they respect that I want to keep more of what I earn and that I don't want government interference with a hand in my wallet and a nose in my bedroom. I am lucky to be in my early twenties, I'm a sort of 'post Section 28' person and while things are much better, while being gay is becoming a political 'non-issue', I can only be in awe of those men who lived through the worst, for years or even decades with their partner, lost family and friends because they closed their minds, but got through it all.

[Ted]

Thank you Graeme, great article.

[Wendy]

I don't think God is homophobic!! My daughter would be mortified if she heard this.

Parental love is unconditional in the Pannell household, as it should be everywhere. We are what we are and should not be moulded into anything else!

PS. Were you just irritated because they had managed to actually buy an i-phone?

[Alexander Ellis]

How you can hate someone for being something that they are as a result of the genetic code that you've given them yourselves? Bizarre - human beings are wierd and wonderful, but in this case rather less of the wonderful.

[Serf]

As someone lucky enough to know the joys of fatherhood, I cannot believe that parents are capable of disowning their children.

I was once a homophobe of the unthinking type (it just seemed strange) until I shared a house with someone whose idea of dressing up was somewhat different to mine ;) When faced with the stupid reality of your prejudice, a normal person accepts that they are wrong.

I agree with the comment that Graeme deserves a wider (and more profitable audience). He brings home his point in a very enjoyable and meaningful way.

On the point about Gays or any other minority being Conservative, it is only our party that is willing to see people as individuals and not as members of groups. Lefties decide for you that one aspect of your life is so important that only it matters.

[nobody]

FYI - Jasper Cocker may be Jarvis Cocker.

[Graeme]

FYI - Jasper Cocker may be Jarvis Cocker.

Posted by: nobody | November 21, 2007 at 06:17 PM

Oh God! Sorry! [beams bright red]

[Comstock]

Excellent piece

Firstly, I hope your friend is on the mend by now.

( I paused for a moment before typing this comment, reluctant to say anything political after such a story..... but this is after all a political blog)

Graeme, how do you feel about sharing a party with Leigh, Brazier, Carswell, Winterton etc etc?