Tin Man

Michael is in the south of France, hiking along a trail. He ducks into a seemingly abandoned monastery and falls asleep, but when he wakes up, he is met by a silent priest who brings him food. That night, the priest brings Michael food again, and Michael asks the man to stay and eat with him. As a storm rages outside, Michael feels desire and a need for someone else. The priest holds Michael, and Michael lets go, feeling as though he is broken. When Michael wakes the next morning, he leaves some money on the table before departing.

As Michael walks, he remembers telling G about cicadas, and how they would spend most of their life underground, developing. Only when they reached maturity would they come out to sing. G and Michael decided that cicadas were an apt metaphor for gay men. The day grows hot, and Michael stumbles upon a mas, a farmhouse with rooms for rent. He likes that the mas is close to town but far enough away for peace, and he sees a vacancy sign. Michael rents a small room, and as he changes into a bathing suit, he finds that he is afraid to look at his naked body because he is worried that he may find the telltale lesions that are a sign of his AIDS infection.

Michael remembers the day when he and Annie went to pick out her wedding dress in Soho in 1977. She wanted to know what he and Ellis talked about, and Michael skirted around the answer. Annie then revealed that when she asked Ellis if he and Michael had ever kissed, Ellis told her that they may have. She assured Michael that she was fine with this; she wanted to be a part of their love. She knew that first loves have a legacy. She asked Michael if he would take her out to a gay bar, and he did. They danced and drank, and Annie even tried poppers. They eventually went back to the room they had rented for the night. Annie told Michael that if he ever met anyone, he could tell her, but Michael did not want to think of that.

While staying at the mas, Michael takes to swimming in the pool, working off his anger and grief. He remembers his mother, who left him and his father when he was eight. One afternoon, when he was home alone as a boy, he emptied a bag of his mother’s clothes and put them on, admiring himself in the mirror. When Michael’s father returned home, he was disgusted and demanded that Michael take everything off, then left him naked. Afterwards, his father rarely spoke with him or spent time with him. Michael liked one of his mother’s purses, and one day, he pulled out a thread of its lining and found a photo of his mother with another woman. As he grew older, Michael understood that his mother left him to be with this woman.

Michael visits St. Paul asylum, where Van Gogh spent time during the year leading up to his death. As Michael looks out over the French landscape, he recognizes Ellis in the roll of the mountains. He remembers Ellis and Annie’s wedding day, and how nervous Ellis was. When Michael helped Ellis to dress for the wedding, Ellis asked if Michael remembered the time when Ellis had come over after being forced to punch his father’s fists. He recalled how Michael had comforted him and iced his hands. Recalling this, Ellis was so nervous that he could not button his buttons, so Michael had to dress him.

In Michael’s present, he is due to leave the mas, but as he walks away, he realizes that he does not want to leave, so he returns and asks for a job. After some persuasion on Michael’s part, the manager hires him and gives him a shed behind the mas. It is small and overlooks a field of sunflowers, giving Michael a lovely view. Though he still obsesses over his health, Michael feels himself grow calmer, and he settles into his job of cleaning the rooms of the mas.

When Michael gets two days off, he goes to Arles and tours the area where Van Gogh lived, drank, and was inspired to paint. He takes in the town but only stays one night. The next day, he returns to the mas and stands in the field of sunflowers, facing the sun just as they do. When he opens his eyes, he sees a woman watching him from the edge of the field. She and her boyfriend recently began working at the mas as well. When she asks what he was doing, he tells her that he had a friend who owned a copy of one of Van Gogh’s sunflower paintings and would sometimes look at it, searching for an answer. He wanted to do the same. When the woman asks what his friend searched for, Michael says acceptance. She invites him to dinner with her boyfriend, and he is glad of the company.

As the summer ends, Michael realizes that he misses Annie and Ellis, and that if he is to leave, he wants to return to them. He books his tickets and makes the journey by train back to Oxford. On the way, he watches in the reflection of his window as two men sit close together, their legs touching. He sees himself and Ellis in the couple and is excited for the two to have a future together.