Mercury: An Intimate Biography of Freddie Mercury (36 page)

Aware of the information coming out of New York, Barbara suspected that Freddie had been HIV positive when they became lovers.

“When we first met, he was either denying it to himself or he simply didn’t know,” she said. “After he made his first test eventually [in 1985, she believed, contrary to other reports, though she could not confirm what prompted him to get tested], it changed his life.”

Was she afraid for her own health? Was she angry that he had put her own life at risk? “No. I loved him. Simple as that. I took one test myself—negative—and that was it. Since there would be no more sex, and no further risk, I didn’t need any more tests. I discovered that he had AIDS by chance, after we’d been out one night. Freddie went to the toilet and cut his finger accidentally. There was a lot of blood. I was trying to help him and got blood all over my hands, and he was screaming “NO! Don’t touch me! Don’t touch me!” It was then that I realized. He never told me, but after that I knew. I had suspected for some time, of course. He had marks on his face, like dark blue bruises. I’d cover them up for him with my makeup whenever he did a TV show or a video shoot, before the makeup girl arrived.”

Barbara and Freddie never discussed the fact that he had AIDS.

“He knew that I knew, and I knew he knew that. He’d make casual remarks about maybe not living much longer, but that was it. I was aware, from things he said, that he never found out which of his lovers gave him AIDS. But when one of his very early American gay lovers died of AIDS, he said, ‘Oh my God, this is it,’ and got very worried. He knew from that moment that his days were numbered.”

Barbara and Freddie ceased sexual relations. With Winnie gone, the only person with whom Freddie would have sexual contact from then on was Jim.

Freddie’s departure from Munich towards the end of 1985 was abrupt, inexplicable, and unbearable for the woman he left behind.

“One minute we were inseparable, doing literally everything together. The next, he was gone,” she wept. “He just disappeared out of my life. I couldn’t understand it. I sent the birthday card, I wrote, I called. He was never there. It didn’t make sense. What he was doing was a lie. But OK, I thought, if he wants it over, then it’s over. It really was a break without a reason.”

*   *   *

Some months after Freddie left Munich “for good,” Barbara Valentin was at home late one afternoon, getting ready to go to the launch of a friend’s boutique, when she heard someone ringing on her doorbell.

“I was cursing, who the hell is that now,” she said, “then I realized it must be my taxi. I yelled into the intercom, ‘I’m coming! I’m coming!’ but there was no answer. I thought the street door was open, so I had to run down. There was a man standing there in front of me, and I was going, ‘Oh my God, someone’s brought me a dummy of Freddie Mercury.’ ”

She could barely believe her eyes.

“I was moaning to myself, oh no, oh yes . . . I thought I was hallucinating. The man had some little white flowers . . . and he said, ‘No, it’s
me!
’ ‘I know! I
know
!’ I said, but I didn’t want it to be. I went to shove him away, had to get to the boutique opening, I thought my mind was playing tricks, and then I touched him . . . I couldn’t stand it. I marched off to the boutique, made pictures with the owner and a few actors for the press . . . and walked back home. Freddie was still there, sitting quietly on the couch, playing with the TV remote control. It was then that it hit me. I fell into his arms and cried. He did, too. We cried and cried, and cried and cried, and cried.”

It took Freddie weeks to find words to explain himself. He had wanted to cut off completely when he left Germany, he told her. He had wanted to start a new life. Munich wasn’t allowed to be mentioned by anyone. Neither was Barbara’s name.

“About a hundred of our friends had died of AIDS by this time,” said Barbara, “and not even that could be discussed. He said that trying to forget about his life in Munich and giving me up was like trying to break a drug habit. If you are addicted to something and one day you decide that enough is enough, you say no, draw a line, and then you break the habit completely. ‘Barbara, I almost died,’ he told me. ‘How many times I had the phone in my hand, dialing your number, and then hung up.’

“Phoebe told me later, everything about me had disappeared. My photographs had gone from the house, my name was never spoken. Everything that would have reminded Freddie of me and Munich was thrown away. He’d wanted to break free from those crazy times. To live a calmer, different life, and to die, eventually, in beauty. But he couldn’t stay away from me. He said that one of the things that frightened him most was that he couldn’t be alone. He’d want to be, and he’d try to be, but whenever it happened he just couldn’t bear it.”

Barbara and Freddie renewed their relationship, though not their love life. She became a frequent visitor to Garden Lodge, and started traveling with Freddie again.

“Jim had replaced Winnie [after an on-off relationship spanning around four years], but it was complicated with Barbara,” remembered Peter Freestone.

“I think Freddie had simply had enough at the time. Stories about Freddie and Barbara were appearing in the German press with alarming regularity, and Freddie got it into his head that Barbara was the one leaking the information. I don’t believe she would do that, but Freddie was convinced. Could it be that the idea was put into his head, and rumors fueled by those who wanted rid of Barbara for good?

“Who knows?” sighed Peter. “All I know is that, from then on, his only partner was Jim. Soon after Freddie moved into Garden Lodge, Jim was evicted from his flat, so Freddie invited him in.”

*   *   *

“Freddie and I never talked about how long we’d be together,” said Jim. “We accepted that we were, and would be. Now and then he’d ask me
what I wanted from life. ‘Contentment and love,’ I’d say. I found both in Freddie.”

Not until 1987 would Freddie be officially diagnosed—a fact which neither he, the band, nor his entourage would admit publicly until the eve of his death in November 1991. He had confessed his diagnosis to Jim, offering him the opportunity to leave. Jim refused to desert Freddie. They resolved to stay together as “man and wife,” and the word
AIDS
was never mentioned in the house again. Jim tested HIV positive in 1990 but did not reveal this to Freddie until a year later, just before his partner died. Contrary to reports which would circulate at the time of Jim’s own death, he did not die from AIDS-related complications. Brian May confirmed this on his personal website, writing that Jim had been killed by a smoking-related illness.

As for the rest of the band, Freddie made no official confession. In May 1989, Jim thought he was going to: Freddie personally arranged a special meal for the band and their partners at Fredy Girardet’s at Crissier near Lausanne, Switzerland, which at the time was described as “the world’s greatest restaurant.” The finest wines and dishes on the menu were served, and the bill ran to thousands, which Freddie paid. About his illness, nothing was said: perhaps the majesty of the setting and its glorious views made him lose his nerve. A few days later, however, the same gang reconvened for a low-key supper in the Bavaria restaurant, near Mountain Studios, and Freddie took the plunge.

“Someone at the table was suffering from a cold, and conversation turned to the curse of illness,” remembered Jim. “Freddie still looked quite well at that point, but then suddenly he rolled up his right trouser leg and lifted his leg onto his chair. Everyone could see the open, weeping wound on his calf. It was shocking. ‘You think you’ve got problems!’ Freddie retorted, in his typical blasé fashion. No one said a word, and I think they were all shocked. But then he dismissed it, and we talked about something else.”

Brian confirmed the same moment in a recent television documentary.

“Looking back, I’m sure the band were all aware that Freddie was very ill, but didn’t want to know, because what could they say?” said Jim.

“When we got back to London, he did an interview on Radio One with DJ Mike Read. In it, Freddie said that he didn’t want to go out on tour again. He said he’d done his bit, and that anyway he was getting too old to strut his stuff any longer. In fact, he was far too weak by then to ever go on the road again. The press, of course, got the wrong end of the stick and made up stuff about Freddie refusing to tour and upsetting the rest of the band and so on. The usual nonsense.”

None of this made a scrap of difference to Jim’s feelings for Freddie. If anything, the tenderness between them grew.

“Freddie was the love of my life,” Jim told me, his words an eerie echo of Barbara’s. “There was no one like him.”

*   *   *

Although they lived together as a couple until Freddie’s death, Peter Freestone is certain that Freddie’s idea of the relationship was
not
“standard man and wife.”

“We were
all
so important to him,” he said. “But there was a different part of Freddie’s heart for Jim. Even to say that is strange, when I think about it: Freddie had had a relationship with Mary, and with Joe, but never with me. His capacity for guilt was enormous, which was why Joe and Mary were still around. He felt responsible for them. He felt he’d disrupted their lives by having relationships with them, and that it was down to him to take care of them—as if to compensate. When you think about it, that’s ridiculous. But that’s how Freddie was.”

Freddie’s permanent household now consisted of Peter, “Phoebe,” his personal assistant and valet; Jim, who gave up his hairdressing job at the Savoy to become Freddie’s gardener; and Joe Fanelli, aka “Liza,” Freddie’s former lover who came back to cook. Having met years earlier in the States, their extremely volatile relationship had been short-lived. Joe had stayed for a while with Freddie at the Stafford Terrace flat, acting as head cook and bottle-washer, and had assisted Peter Freestone in Munich from time to time. His relationship with Freddie boiled and
froze at random, and the pair fell out of touch for long periods. Joe had worked in any number of restaurants before returning to the fold, taking up the position of cook at Garden Lodge. The payroll also included two members of staff who did not live in: Terry Giddings, the chauffeur, and Mary Austin, the gofer, who had her own flat nearby.

Of all Freddie’s close friends and staff, Mary was the only one Jim had a problem with.

“Mary seemed to never really let go of Freddie,” said Jim.

This belief was echoed by Peter:

“I felt she never accepted that it was over between them. In many ways, she was a driving force for Freddie. She didn’t let him get away with anything. She was very strong, and in that sense absolutely what Freddie needed. In a way, she was like a mother to him. He trusted her for that, and he relied on her. She ran his life. That’s how their relationship lasted. Freddie used to say that even when they were a couple, they were more like brother and sister. It was a long time before he met me that he went public with his promise that he would be leaving most of his wealth and worldly goods to Mary. Freddie was one that, once he’d made a promise, he would stick to it. He didn’t go back on his word.”

19

Will my music stand the test of time? I don’t give a fuck! I won’t be around to worry about it. In twenty years’ time . . . I’ll be dead, darlings. Are you mad?

Freddie Mercury

Many people who make it in rock ’n’ roll are totally unprepared for the consequences. What usually happens is that you get rich, you separate yourself from normal people, and you then start using your money to buy people. You divorce yourself from reality, or you get into drink, drugs, or both. Queen happened to be very intelligent about it all. Even so, they made some big mistakes.

Dr. Cosmo Hallstrom

H
ad Freddie’s
personal life at long last taken precedence? Had he lost his way with the band? If his obsession with work was waning, the same could not be said for Brian, Roger, or John. The trio soldiered on, bringing in Freddie when necessary, and laughed off rumors that they were on the verge of separating. The press had a field day regardless, running “Queen Split” stories throughout 1983. The reality was that, wrung out by life on the road, they had agreed to a break from the circuit and each other, and were spending time on solo pursuits.