When I rang for an appointment, the receptionist said, ‘Can you be here within the hour?’ I arrived with ten minutes to spare and presented myself before her. ‘Have you been here before, Mr Clarke?’ she said. ‘I have, yes,’ I said. ‘Ah, yes,’ she said, studying her computer screen with interest. She wrote a six-figure number at the top of an appointments card in black Biro and pushed it across the counter. On this visit and on any subsequent visit, she said, I would always be referred to by this number instead of by my name.
I took a seat in the waiting area. In the past I’ve always been perfectly happy to have my surname yelled out when it was my turn to go in. But it is a wonderful thing to live in an Age of Progress and I am not complaining. Two minutes and three paragraphs into a fascinating magazine piece about Kate Middleton’s exciting new hairstyle, a young male nurse was standing at the door and calling my number. He led me down a corridor to a side room. ‘You’ll be happy to know that we no longer require a cotton-bud swab from you,’ said this nurse, closing the door behind us with a bizarrely overacted air of secrecy. I was about to agree with him that it was the part of the process I was looking forward to the least, but he was in a bit of a hurry so we cut to the chase. He had a form to fill in. He took me through the questions at a gallop.
As well as being tested for HIV, did I object to being tested for syphilis, gonorrhea and chlamydia and inoculated against hepatitis B? I languidly waved away any possible objection from my exalted position as a man of the world, boulevardier, and all-round good egg. He ticked a box savagely and reeled off further questions. Was I on medication? When had I last been to the toilet? When had I last had sex? Had I used a condom? Had I been recommended by anyone to come here today? I felt like a game-show contestant in a tie-break against the clock.
The last question was, why had I come to be tested for HIV today? I ruminated for a second or two on this one, a terrible waste of his valuable time, so he gave me a clue. ‘Peace of mind?’ he offered brightly. ‘That’ll do,’ I said. He leapt to his feet, stabbed at the ‘peace of mind’ box with his Biro, snatching up the form from the table, and herded me back outside.
Showing me the door of a patients’ lavatory, he shoved a small plastic beaker into my hand and said I was to half-fill it with urine. When I’d done that, he said, I should sit over there with those people and wait for my number to be called for the blood test. He pointed to a small seating area set aside for patients in transit between urine test and blood test. The results will be sent by text message in seven days, he said over his shoulder as he sped off.
Two minutes later, clutching a cup of my greenish urine, I joined three teenagers on the row of five orange chairs. I was old enough to be their grandfather. Well wrapped up against the cold in a Crombie overcoat and scarf, I looked it. All three had their chins on their chests and were calmly texting. At the end of the corridor I could see two nurses on small stepladders pinning up Yuletide garlands of imitation evergreen. Music from the Steve Wright in the Afternoon show was playing through a good-quality speaker attached to the wall above our heads.
Beside me a bloke in a tracksuit aged about 19 belatedly looked up from his texting and gave me a pleasant ‘welcome to the clap clinic transit seating area’ type smile. Then he nodded at my beaker of urine and said, ‘Aids test?’ I toasted him with it. ‘Peace of mind, mate,’ I said. ‘Peace of mind.’ He politely nodded enthusiastic approbation of my circumspect approach to life and went back to his texting. Now Steve was playing ‘Respect’ by Aretha Franklin. Away at the end of the corridor, the nurses putting up the evergreen garland had found something irresistibly funny. They were both bent double, helpless with laughter, their hands on their knees for support. Suddenly, sitting there clutching my cup of warm piss, I felt come over me a surge of gladness. Say what you like about the sorry state of Britain’s public services, but ring up for an Aids test and they have you in so quickly your feet hardly touch the ground.
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