TW: Mentions of illness and blood
Roger, how is your wife?
That is the question I am prepared for as I propel a weakened Freddie out of the car into Zurich airport, bright cameras flashing in our faces. An enfeebled Freddie leans on my arm, his eyes shielded from the worst of the glow by thick sunglasses. A well-paid, well-prepared steward hurries before us, a trolley balanced with mine and Freddie's luggage. I urge the singer forward, ignoring the shouts behind me, pushing my way through the crowd, recklessly elbowing a few of the more persistent photographers out of the way. I try to let their questions fly over my head and dissolve into the swirling snowstorm. The water fails to swill them away.
Freddie, are you okay?
Freddie, is it true that you are ill?
Roger, what can you tell us about the state of Freddie's illness?
Roger, is this the end of Queen?
Roger, what is your wife's reaction to the illness of her bestfriend?
For once, I am praying for the onslaught of questions about the state of my marriage, that which they always demand to hear about in the press. Beautiful and charismatic, my wife never fails to captivate audiences. Captivating headlines are taglines about her nightmare husband, the one who hasn't said a positive word about her in years, who hasn't written a song about her since 1980. To hear the press relay it, I am cold and uncaring, the one who always fails to say the correct words to the swarm of demanding paparazzi. Perhaps that is how my wife views me.
Our lives revolve around the sun, yet we cannot on the spot think up the words the express our gratitude and adoration for the burning star. Why should it be any different for a wife?
My life revolves around Victoria. The timeline is compromised, events only existing if she is somehow intrinsically linked with them. I cannot recall which years Queen released their albums, in what order we entered the studio; the years are based around her, the colour she had dyed her hair that season, the exact shade of her eyes, the faintness of the laugh lines around her irises.
It has been years since I saw those lines. I have barely seen them since my mother passed, forcing us back together, even less so since Freddie's diagnosis, not at all since our loss in the winter of 1982. Her laughter died in her throat.
Freddie was diagnosed with HIV in 1982. I had accompanied him by unhappy accident to the GP in January 1982 when he demanded to know why he felt so shockingly drained all the time. He insisted on a blood test, suspecting anaemia for his sudden lethargy. Instead, the results showed a positive HIV infection. Freddie was stunned into tearful silence. It had been me who jumped into action, asking all the questions that needed to be asked; how long did he have left? were there any drugs he could take? what were his chances of survival? Hard to know, there's some experimental drugs in the final stages of human testing, and hard to know for certain, but not good. It wasn't until several hours later, when they took more blood, that I finally cracked. It was though all the colour drained from the world, like washed-out paint swirling down the drain. The only vivid impression was the blood bubbling from a pinprick on Freddie's finger, the same shade as Victoria's thighs in subsequent difficult pregnancies.
I waited until Freddie was in the care of the nurses and then I rushed to the toilets, heaving until all the food had left my system. All I could think about was her. About how she was finally lost to me. About how, in keeping this secret from her, I would lose her forever. How I started losing her the day she was diagnosed with severe post-natal depression, because all I did was take from this family, without giving her a chance to shine. That thought induced a second wave of nausea. Because now I knew just how fragile life was, I knew how much I'd stolen from her in my insistence that we focus solely on my career. How many years I was going to steal from her by concealing the truth of Freddie's diagnosis.
