I met Ann Marie and her partner Benjie for the first time in the late 1980s when I volunteered at the Sussex AIDS Centre & Helpline. The pair were inseparable and generally nocturnal, but sometimes they’d be seen strolling along St James’s Street making eyes turn as they passed. Benjie clearly modelled himself on Jimi Hendrix whilst Ann Marie was pure Goth with a slim figure and translucent porcelain skin. You could be sure they'd be the first at the chemist for their Methadone script. Their basement flat on Elm Grove was an Aladdin’s cave festooned with trinkets and fabric, shrouded by curtains which rarely opened. A chaotic space which echoed their lives. It’s no secret that the pair struggled with addiction but they were devoted to each other and somehow managed to survive for a while at least. Due to their vulnerability and poor health, Ann Marie and Benjie were rehoused in a flat on Tyson Place in Kemptown where Avee Isofa Holmes also lived at the time. She remembers Ann Marie as a ‘lovely serene quiet soul’ who was rarely seen unless she needed to borrow shampoo. Ann Marie’s family often visited from Ireland but despaired at her circumstances and lifestyle. Her ravaged immune system struggled with injection related wounds and as a result she was plagued by infections which would eventually prove too much for her. Ann Marie died in hospital in October 1991. Wolf Impala - a poem by Ann Marie published in the the Sussex AIDS Centre Newsletter (1991) In the cave of my brain where pulps a green throbbing light edges stretching bursting at my lovers contact and precious heart in the centre gold shafts oozing juice lubricating my hard strong magical thoughts idealism strikes but pain remains in the cave of my brain singing a sweet backward ballad I feel as many as every human living as mirrored pupiled eyes stare as the globe throws itself smashing against my brains walls a fucking elegant unpolish bang as different countrys continents races feel the impact of the cacophony of billions united inside the cave of my brain I ache an orgasm of love for all

I met Benjie at the care home I was working at on Sillwood Street when he was about 18 years old. He apparently came from a good family in Jamaica and wanted to study to be a vet, but because of his drug problem he’d ended up in the care home. I didn’t see him again for many years until he walked into the Sussex AIDS Centre and Helpline on Cavendish Street announcing his presence with ‘hello pea pod’ when he saw me. It turned out he was also living in the same block as me at Tyson Place! I started training to be a volunteer at the Sussex AIDS Centre when it was based in just one room near London Road. Years later when Princess Diana officially opened the place on the 12th of July 1990, Benjie was there too. When he said ‘how's Charlie boy then’ to her I nearly died, but she took it all in her stride and smiled. When Our House Body Positive was up and running, I organised a trip to Arundel Castle. There were eight of us with my dear friend James Etheridge driving. Benjie asked me if we could go to the Castle café for some hot chocolate. When I turned my head at the counter, I saw Benjie tipping sugar sachets into his hippy bag, and I was horrified. He just grinned and said, ‘we've paid for them.’ He was so beautifully dressed that day in an Edwardian green velvet frock jacket with lacy cuffs and black trousers tucked into high leather boots. One Christmas Eve (his last) I came home at 1 in the morning to be greeted by four fire engines. Thick smoke was billowing from his bedsit and the fire was so bad they had sealed off the entire 3rd floor. I think Benjie stayed at the hospital that night. He came back in the morning and asked me to go upstairs because he thought his cat was still in the flat, but I couldn't find it, or any remains. The fire started because he’d been drinking with a friend and using drugs by candlelight because they’d run out of electricity. Benjie was rehoused, but he sadly passed away the following Easter after a three-day Methadone binge. It was an electric heater that caused a blaze this time, and he died in hospital soon after from smoke inhalation. Words by Avee Tsofa Holmes