Meeting Derek

An uncompromising artist faces his future.

The Independent, August 1993

Waiting for the lift by his fourth-floor flat, Derek Jarman says he feels like an 80-year-old man, not only old, but lonely, missing all his friends.
Walking along Charing Cross Road towards Chinatown he holds a thin brown stick, too short for his needs. On this bright summer Sunday he wears black slippers, baggy blue trousers, a cardigan and a heavy wool jacket. His polo shirt is pink, his cardigan yellow – loose, lounging clothes that were hell to put on. Occasionally, Keith Collins, 27, his partner of seven years, will tuck in his shirt. As he reaches a crossing he asks Keith to hold his hand.

‘They’re always very kind to me in here,’ he says at the door of Poons, ‘they always say “Hello Derek”.’ And so they do. He orders duck, rice and mineral water. His new haircut means you can see more of his face, ruddy from drugs, dotted with small inflammations. At 51, he is a picture of wrecked beauty. One side of his mouth turns down, as if he’s had a small stroke.
Four days ago he was in hospital, one of several recent visits, this time to fight pneumonia. Three days ago he was with a specialist trying to save the sight in his left eye; at the moment he can’t read. Every morning and evening he is on a drip. He refers to his body as a walking lab, pills slushing against potions in his insides. One of his new eye drugs is called DHPG, which had the following potential side effects: rash, fever, coma, nausea, anorexia, bleeding and 33 others.

Aids has mapped out his life for about a year. He tested HIV positive in December 1986 and he has become increasingly ill as the years have passed. Now his days are measured out in medication, and the virus informs all his artistic endeavours. ‘I do feel I’ve got some puff in me still. At least I haven’t got cancer, because that’s a pretty lethal thing. I don’t know how long I’ve got. Every year I say, “Maybe I’ve got another year”, and it surprises me that I last long enough to say it again. I’m tough physically. I got that from my father.

Jarman distrusts the PC concept of ‘living with Aids’. ‘A lot of these slogans are ludicrous. I wish you were living with Aids, but it’s the opposite, only dying, dying with Aids. It’s much better to face the facts. I’m still surviving, but I don’t think I’m going to survive. It would be extraordinary if I did. God only knows what sort of state I’d be in. A sort of ruin. An Aids ruin.’ He laughs and chews his bony duck. He says it again: ‘Ha, an Aids ruin!’

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