* * *

In July the vacation began, and they moved out of halls. The summer was not upsetting – they spent it together, working, hoping that they would save enough for a holiday. Andrew knew he was happy. They lived in a rented student house. Just two people, a set of rooms within four damp walls and lots of time. Andrew developed so many habits, myriad routines that made it impossible for him not to look back upon that summer fondly. The house was shared with two friends – James and Catherine. Catherine did not arrive until the day before term started – she had spent the summer months in a Kibbutz. James had a huge amount of life in London, choosing to stay only the days made essential by his course, in the house.

For Andrew, the second year at university became married life. They shopped together, ate breakfast opposite each other. Their clothes were always washed in the same load. Gradually they became more of a single entity than a couple. One nagging fear existed. It was the single barrier to completely relaxing into life together. They knew their world had a best before date. That date was 6th July. They knew that neither of them could afford to rent the house for a second summer and that they would have to live with their parents.

* * *

It was late June. Andrew sat staring at his A4 pad. He realised that he had drawn a map of the London Underground. He sniffed a chuckle to himself and showed it to James; who just stared. Andrew drew a black circle on one of the lines on the circuit diagram and wrote ‘Mornington Crescent’ beneath. James was caught unaware and laughed out loud. The lecturer looked up from his notes for this first time in almost half an hour.

‘I suppose this would be a good place to finish, as I see that some of you’, staring at Andrew and James, ‘are loosing the, er, finer points of Bessel circuit filters.’

The bearded man paused - which was unusual as it normally only happened in the middle of sentences. He snorted - a sound remarkably similar to how Andrew imagined a bronchial walrus might sound, then after a couple of seconds defeatedly closed his folder. His comments were greeted by the brittle snapping of Lever Arch files being closed, not the tumultuous belly laughs he had hoped for.

Three rows in front, it slipped in. That thought. A girl Andrew knew called Rebecca was putting away her raspberry-pink folder. That same folder that Heather had.

Her words. ‘We can’t. It’s too sad’, gurgled through an almost comically miserable face, beset with tears. They repeated; circulated; throbbed in his head. It was now only a week until the unthinkable would happen. On Saturday, Heather had grappled with the travel agent for a ticket on the Stornoway ferry. That had really brought it home.

Somehow they had failed to satisfactorily sort out the summer. Heather’s family were insistent on her staying on the island for the summer - her mother had organised a job with a local pharmaceutical's company. Sometimes her family seemed like real bastards. Andrew would get temporary work in Barrowbury - it was never a problem. At school the holidays had been so much fun, but now by one of life’s cruel jokes they were twice as long, only to be regarded as a focus for Heather and Andrew’s collective misery. They would only be able to see each other twice during the fourteen weeks. Twice. Less than 100 hours over the whole break. 100 hours together; Andrew found it hard to think of a time that they had spent that long apart - now that was all they would have together. For fourteen weeks.

Heather snapped Andrew to life. ‘I thought I’d come and see you at work. And I brought a friend.’ Heather was smiling a painful amount as she secretly showed Andrew 'Sean', her cuddly sheep, who was lodged in the waistband of her jeans. Andrew, in an unusually public display of affection kissed Heather on the lips and gave her a big hug.

‘I’m going to miss you so much, sweetheart.’ Andrew’s sad words contrasted Heather’s bubbly appearance. They were standing in the main concourse of the engineering building - Heather must have been waiting for his lecture to finish. It was only just gone 11am, but as the end of term approached the days got shorter and shorter.

Heather’s lips drooped, ‘You haven’t been having sad thoughts, I hope.’ She was talking in her childish voice - stretching the word ‘sad’ and emphasising it by opening her eyes wider as she tilted her head.

Andrew took Heather’s hand. Outside he turned to her, ‘Coffee?’

‘Do you remember the first time?’, she replied cockily.

They walked across the bridge to Wadsworth College. Wadsworth was one of the perimeter colleges - a geographical feature that was somehow reflected in the character of its ‘alternative’ residents. Being on the edge it also had some of the best views of the lake - views which were particularly serene through the picture windows that surrounded its small cafe area. It was where they had first met, but being on the far side of campus - about a mile from Rievaulx they hardly ever returned during their first year. Now, in their second year their walk in to their departments took them both through Wadsworth which was equi-distant from the lofty engineering building and the functional Chemistry faculty. The college was now a natural choice for coffee, lunch, afternoon tea or a drink after lectures, and ‘Do you remember the first time?’ had developed into a cheeky catchphrase.

Andrew was still sad as they sat in the refectory. He knew it was silly; being sad before the event it was irrational and was pointless. But still it felt unbearably awful. Usually Heather took these things a lot tougher than Andrew. Heather was capable of spending hours leaking water. Dee would repeat cliched comforting things to her. He would be trivial and silly. He would embarrass her into happiness. Yet sometimes he lost his strength. Sometimes all of the pennies dropped from the arcade machine and a gaping distraught void was created. It was quite simply horrid. At that moment in time there was no way he could reconcile his mind to the prospect of the summer. Utterly inconceivable. They could not spend so long apart. They would both perish. Andrew collapsed forward onto the table.

* * *

Four days on; three to go. They were leaving a steady wake behind as they ploughed upstream. In an attempt to suspend reality, Andrew had hired a small boat for the day, taking Heather on the tourist trip up to the manor house in Haventhorpe. He hoped that by pretending he was someone else they might be transported into someone else’s life. Abandon the nightmare they had dug themselves into - for it was their personal nightmare, leave behind their churned emotions and surge elsewhere. Andrew didn’t care where. Anywhere would do. The white water disrupted by their propeller held Andrew.

‘Hey, I thought you came here with me!’. Heather poked Andrew - she knew how to irritate him into paying attention to her. He pulled her lips to his and kissed. She giggled.

‘We’re not in a film, Dee.’ Heather spoke in a warm affectionate way. ‘Anyway, it’s your turn to drive.’

‘Now, you’re just being plain rude’, replied Andrew as her body slid down into the bottom of the boat, beneath him. The boat slowly stopped making progress, until eventually it was caught by the current and started drifting back downstream.

* * *

One day to go. Scarborough Castle.

‘Apparently it’s meant to be haunted by an insane monk who fell from the ramparts in the 14th century. He now upsets tourists by falling onto them as they explore the ruins.’

It was a grim July day. Drizzle hung in the air, heavily scented with wet moss. They were the only two people in the ruined caste, overlooking a blurred, depressed sea, their feet traipsing through sodden grass, their minds seeking paths through an unprecedented swamp.

Later they sat in a café eating fish and chips. The large soggy lumps of potato were heaped onto a mottled piece of paper between them. Extravagant dollops of ketchup clustered over the expanse of food. Heather’s face was opposite. Andrew wished this could be forever. Why did they have to separate? Never an answer. Three months apart was such a long time. Time which he really did not want to waste. Heather’s parents had to be so insistent. They were selfish beyond words.

She was offering him a drooping chip. He lunged forward and bit at it, decorating his lips in a thin coat of sauce. She leant across and kissed him. It was all so silly. It was all so nice. Why did it have to be spoiled?

* * *

That night Heather cried. She could not stop. She desperately wanted needed Dee. He was there now but tomorrow the world would not be theirs. She wanted to open her eyes, to blink, and for him to say, ‘Relax Heather. You were dreaming.’ Or for him to hand her a winning lottery ticket. Or for some barrier to separate her from Lewis. Anything. She did not want to be, could not be, without Dee.

In the morning Andrew had the rental car packed up with his clutter of possessions. He was wearing his watch; his keys and wallet were a bulge in his pocket. His jacket lay crumpled, emphasising the fact that the passenger seat was empty. He ached and felt sick. They had not slept at all during the night. Getting ready, dressing had all seemed rather pointless and self-defeating. They had both tried breakfast – he had not even managed a complete slice of toast, Heather sipped coffee but did not drink. They had decided he would leave at 11am. He would not linger on good-byes. They had spent a fortnight doing that.

At noon they were sitting on the stairs hugging each other. The phone rang. It was his parents – had he left they enquired. He was just about to leave.

A hug. A kiss. Then I’m going.

He kissed Heather. He would not look back. Their lips parted. He focused on the car. Away from the pounding in his head. He felt like his legs might refuse to carry him, but they did not. He sat inside the car, window open, all of the doors shut firmly. Now, he looked at the house. Heather stood, straight; looking detached, on the doorstep where he had left her. He turned the key. He revved the engine into life. He looked over his shoulder, engaged first gear and drove off. And that was it. He changed gear. He saw a mother with children. He saw the road and the other cars. Other thought was not allowed. In his head he chanted a mantra, ‘Drive carefully.’ Then, three hours later, he was back in Barrowbury with his parents. They did not know what had happened. Barrowbury was a different existence to Heather and university. She would now only appear in her other forms – the apprehensive, yet eager telephone voice; gushing repetitive words in a letter. That was how she would exist for the next three weeks.

* * *

Everyone must think I’m mad. Andrew was very conscious of the smile that kept curling higher into his cheeks. Everytime he felt it, he straightened his lips, yet, like a drop of wallpaper that refused to lie flat, Andrew’s lips kept popping into a semi-circular shape.

He was standing in Terminal One, Heathrow, waiting for Heather to appear. Her flight was shown as ‘Baggage in Hall’. They had survived! It appeared bizarre, yet Andrew had really found it inconceivable that they would both still be alive to see this day. A small pink circle marked it on his wallplanner.

His bedroom had become a place of routine. Each night before sleeping he would draw a line – sometimes blue, sometimes pink, always strong and defined, through the square on the calendar. Sleeping was a luxury. At first the bed seemed too small, too constricting but later, sadly, he became used to it. Last night he had drawn a line through the day marked '–1'. Today he knew he had made it. He held a rectangular piece of card, printed in block capitals with the words, ‘Dr. Strawley, Institute of Animal Behaviour, Stornoway University’

He tried to read the baggage labels of people arriving. He looked at their clothing, trying to decide if they had just come from the arctic reaches of the kingdom. Then he saw her. Walking straight towards him. His toes curled in excitement. They ached trying to hold him to the spot, until she emerged through the glass doors. Now he could see her face in detail. She looked tired, her eyes were sad – not deluged in tears, just strangely, painfully sad. Her lips, her cheeks, her face, her walk all were alive and so deliciously familiar. He saw her eyes flicker and brighten as she saw him. She ran forward into him.

He threw his arms around her torso, hugging her. She hugged back, tightly. She buried her face in his neck. He felt warm tears dripping down his chest into his armpits. It felt unreal to have her back again. He released her to look into her face. She was crying. Lots. He gave her another hug; she tried to say something. He lifted her bag onto his shoulder and took her hand.

They walked from the efficient functional terminal, along a corridor and into the car park. The smell of damp concrete seemed more intense after the sterility of the arrival's hall. It was a smell that would always remind Andrew of that day. Andrew kept looking at her, saying jolly things. He told her of his plans for the weekend. He asked her about the holiday they had planned. She would not answer. She just held his arm, painfully tightly, and sobbed quietly. Andrew felt awkward.

As they walked past rows of neatly parked cars, Andrew tried to comfort her. He asked what on earth was wrong. She gripped his hand. He felt very anxious.

When they reached the car, she would not let go of his hand. He faced her.

He said, ‘Please Het. Please tell me what it is Heather. Something’s very wrong.’

She motioned for him to open the door. He pressed the button on the keyring and the car unlocked itself. They sat down. He turned to her. She was crying more now. She took a small folded blue piece of cardboard from her blouse pocket and passed it to Andrew. It was her boarding card. Andrew looked at her blankly. He smiled nervously. He turned it over. Seat 12A. Flight no MX 132. Nothing strange. He unfolded it. Inside were three words. Written in thick red felt-tip ink. Heather nodded slowly as he looked at her. The words read :

‘I’ve got AIDS.’