III

The York bus arrived at the station by the Roman wall at ten-thirty. Trevor walked along the wall, passed the railway station, then crossed the Ouse over Lendal Bridge by the ruins of St. Mary's Abbey and the Yorkshire Museum. After that, he wandered in a daze around the busy city until he felt hungry. Just after opening time, he found a pub on Stonegate-with his height and out-of-school dress he certainly looked over eighteen-where he ate a steak-and-mushroom pie along with his pint of keg beer.

He lingered there for almost two hours, nursing his pint and reading every word (including the "Musicians Wanted" column) in his Melody Maker, before venturing out into the streets again. Everywhere he walked he seemed to stumble across pairs of American tourists, most of them complaining because they were inadequately dressed for the cool weather.

"Goddamn sun's out," he heard one fat man in thin cotton slacks and a blazer grumble. "You'd think there'd be some goddamn heat, for Christ's sake."

"Oh, Elmer," his wife said. "We've been in Yoorp for a month now. You oughtta know it never gets hot north of Athens."

Trevor sneered. Silly sods, he thought. Why even bother to come here and litter up the streets if they were too soft to take a bit of autumn chill. He imagined America as a vast continent baking in the sun-pavements you could fry eggs on; people stripped to the waist all the time having barbecues; enormous, uninhabitable stretches of desert and jungle.

About an hour later, he knew he was lost. He seemed to have wandered outside the city walls. This was no tourist area he was in; it was too working-class. The long straight rows of tiny back-to-backs built of dusty pink bricks seemed endless. Washing flapped on lines hung across the narrow streets. Trevor turned back, and at the end of the street saw the Minster's bright towers in the distance. He started walking in their direction.

He'd put it off for long enough, he decided. If he didn't want his penis to shrivel up and drop off, he'd better go for treatment, however frightening the prospect seemed.

In a newsagent's, he found time to look up the location of the clinic in a street guide before the suspicious owner told him to clear off if he wasn't going to buy anything.

"Bleeding Paki," Trevor muttered under his breath as he found himself being ushered out. But he'd got what he'd come for.

The clinic, not very far from the hub of the city, was a squat, modern building of windowless concrete with a fiat, asphalt roof. Trevor presented himself at reception, where he was told to take a seat and wait until a doctor became available. There were two other people before him, a middle-aged man and a scruffy female student, and both of them looked embarrassed. As they waited, nobody spoke and they all avoided even accidental eye contact.

About an hour later, it was Trevor's turn. A bald, long-faced doctor led him into a small room and bid him sit in front of the desk. Trevor shifted anxiously, wishing to God the whole thing was over and done with. The place smelled of Dettol and carbolic; it reminded him of the dentist's.

"Right," the doctor said brightly, after scribbling a few notes on a form. "What can we do for you, young man?"

What a stupid question, Trevor thought. What the hell does he think I'm here for, to have my bunions seen to?

"I've got a problem," he mumbled, and gave the doctor the details.

"What's your name?" the doctor asked, after umming and ahing over Trevor's description of his symptoms.

"Peter Upshaw," Trevor answered smartly. It was something he'd had the foresight to work out in advance, a name he had picked out from the columns of Melody Maker.

"Address?"

" Forty-two Arrowsmith Drive."

The doctor glanced at him sharply: "Is that here, in York?"

"Yes."

"Whereabouts?" He scratched his shiny pate with his ballpoint pen. "I don't believe I know it."

"It's by the Minster," Trevor blurted out, reddening. He hadn't anticipated that the quack would be so inquisitive.

"The Minster? Ah, yes…"The doctor made an entry on the form. "All right, Peter," he said, putting down his pen. "We'll have some tests to do, of course, but first I have to ask you where you caught this disease, who you caught it from."

Trevor certainly hadn't bargained for this. He couldn't tell the truth, he couldn't name anyone he knew, and he certainly couldn't answer, "Nobody."

"A prostitute," he replied quickly. It was the first thing that came into his mind.

The doctor raised his thin eyebrows. "A prostitute? Where was this, Peter?"

"Here."

"In York?"

"Yes."

"When?"

"About a week ago."

"What was her name?"

"Jane."

"Where does she live?"

It was all going too fast for Trevor. He began to stumble over his answers. "I… I… don't know. I was with some other boys. We'd had a bit too much to drink, then we walked around and she just came up to us."

"In the street?"

"Yes."

"But you must have gone somewhere."

"No. I mean yes."

The doctor stared at him.

"In an alley," Trevor went on. "We went in an alley. There was nobody around. We stood up, leaning against a wall."

"What about your friends? Did they… er?"

"No," Trevor assured him hastily. He realized that he would be asked to name anybody else he implicated.

The doctor frowned. "Are you sure?"

"Yes. It was only me. It was my birthday."

"Ah," the doctor said, smiling benignly. "I understand. But you don't know where this woman lived?"

"No."

"Have you been with anyone else since it happened?"

"No."

"Very well, Peter. If you'll just walk down the corridor to the room at the end, you'll find a nurse there. She'll take a blood sample-just to make sure. After that, come back here and we'll get on with it."

The room was like the school chemistry laboratory, with glass-fronted cupboards full of labelled jars and long tables covered with retorts, bunsen burners, pipettes and racks of test tubes. It made Trevor nervous.

The nurse was quite pretty. "Relax," she said, rolling up his sleeve. "It won't hurt."

And it didn't. He couldn't feel the needle going in at all, but he turned his head away so he wouldn't see the blood running into the syringe. He felt a slight prick as it came out.

"There," the nurse said, smiling and wiping the spot with cotton-wool soaked in alcohol. "All done. You can go back to Doctor Willis now."

Trevor went back to the small examination room, where Doctor Willis greeted him.

"I want you to sit back on that chair over there and relax, Peter," he said in a soft hypnotic voice. "This won't take very long. Just another little test."

Willis turned his back to Trevor and picked up something shiny from a white kidney-shaped tray.

"Just remove your trousers, Peter. Underpants, too. That's right," the doctor said, and came toward him. Willis held in his hand what looked like a sewing-needle. He seemed to be holding it by the point, though, and the angled eye was larger than normal.

Trevor tensed as Willis came closer. For a moment the doctor seemed to be wearing a dirty smock, and his National Health glasses were held together at the bridge by Elastoplast.

"Now, relax, Peter," he said, bending forward. "I'm just going to insert this gently inside…"