One by one, Quin found us. He taught us to drink, he taught us to dress; some of us, at least, he taught to cook. Not really the way he cooked, or not the way he wanted to: we might aspire to the Quin cuisine, but he always pined for the food of his childhood. Faggots and kidneys, liver and onion, lambs' tongues and hearts and sweetbreads. He'd have cooked that way for us if he'd only been allowed to, but we were young, we were hungry for food we could understand. The best he could do for us was a proper Sunday roast, veg fresh from the allotment and an old-fashioned rice pudding to follow. When he was alone - well, one time I found him boiling up a pint of bread sauce for supper, and grilling just a couple of sausages for excuse. But how often was Quin alone, how often would we leave him be? How often would he let us?
And then, once he was sick, of course, it all turned around. We couldn't leave him alone then. We couldn't get enough of him, there wasn't enough to get, less Quin by the day; we tried every trick we knew to keep him eating, only that we didn't know too much. He did help, he ate all that he could manage, as often as he could bear to. He'd lost his love of the thing, though, it was just survival to him then. Like a pied piper who'd missed his tune, he was past troubling to teach us, just at the time we most needed lessons. Young men are creatures of habit in the kitchen; he had to eat our versions of his versions of what he used to think we'd eat.
Mostly, he did. There's always an exception, in any group. We had Micky, bold with a book in his hand, willing to spend a morning in the market to find the last best butcher in town. Micky discovered offal on his own, a solo adventurer. Health scares had taken brains and oxtail off the shelves, but he could still fetch treasure home. Those nights he cooked, there'd be tripe à la mode or calves'-marrow risotto; he and Quin would huddle on the bed together, a rare spark of vitality as they shared a bowlful. Whoever else of us was there, we'd order a pizza in.
That was Micky's best trick, one small bowl between the two of them, nothing daunting, easy to refill. Little and often, he used to say, planning dishes that could sit on the stove all night or taste just as good cold in the morning. If he wants to eat at teatime and at midnight and a little more for breakfast, we've got to be ready for him. And you know he doesn't like to eat alone... There was always the question of how much Quin was really eating, how much Micky was helping him out. No way to measure, except that we had hoped to put the weight on Quin and most of it went on Micky. It didn't matter, it couldn't ever matter in the end.
In the end, of course, Micky lost it too. Off on his own again, following Quin; blaming Quin, when he wasn't blaming us. Amateur nurses, sloppy hygiene, careless where you should have been so cautious - perhaps he was even right, but none of us ever believed him. So much blood sometimes, Quin gouting like a broken pipe: like rancour, like guilt, it could never have been contained. And I could never shift that image, the two of them sharing. One bowl, one fork. Feeding each other, here, take, try this... It was primal, almost, a sacramental mystery. Maybe they did share too much, or too closely. Virus is as virus does.
More likely, though, Micky just got drunk in a club one night and forgot his condoms. I prefer to think so, anyway. Who wouldn't?