By My Side (12 page)

Mum calls me most nights, around seven o’clock, when she’s returned from work, a drink is in her hand and there’s enough time to gossip before
EastEnders
. ‘The house seems quiet without you and Ticket,’ she says.

It’s the middle of August now, and Ticket and I have been living with Charlie for over two months.

‘Are you keeping busy? Not getting too depressed?’

‘I’m fine, Mum. Busy.’

‘Doing your exercises?’

‘I swim every other day, Mum.’

‘Good. You’ll be in the Paralympics next! And how’s Charlie?’

Charlie has taken me to a few nightclubs with his friends. Occasionally Dom, Miranda and Frankie come along too, but I haven’t seen Guy for weeks. He’s had a series of bladder infections that have set him back. He’s been screening his calls, understandably low and frustrated. When I spoke to his mum, Angie, she told me that he was struggling to keep up with the history degree that he’s studying part-time from home. I feel for him, wishing I could do more to help.

‘You’re eating properly?’ Mum goes on.

‘Too much,’ I say. ‘I’m getting fat.’ Charlie and I often eat out at our local Italian. The access is poor, but Charlie insists we eat there because not only is it cheap but they also serve the best spaghetti bolognese. As he carries me up the steps, huffing and puffing to make a point, he says, ‘Put on a few pounds, Brooks?’

‘Watch it, Bell.’

‘No gelato for you.’

It makes me recall how awkward we were that first night, when Charlie had carried me up his parents’ staircase. Now we seem like an old married couple who have known one another so long that it doesn’t matter if we eat our ice-cream in silence. I didn’t feel this sense of ease with Sean. In many ways all we did was jump in and out of bed in between living and breathing for medicine. It was fun, I was happy, and I loved the sex … but deep down I’m not sure if I really knew him that well. I’m not sure, in fact, that I knew him at all.

Charlie makes me laugh. When he walks into a room my heart lifts. When I’m with him I feel normal. The chair is an inconvenience, that’s all, and a minor one at that.

‘I can’t wait to meet him,’ Mum says. ‘Dad said he was charming. You’re happy, darling?’

I tell her I’m happy. Ticket is settling in too and getting used to the traffic, smoke and noise. He loves sniffing all the rubbish left out on the pavements and he’s making new friends all the time. The man in the red cap who works in the kebab shop always waves when we walk past. Ticket particularly likes the
Big Issue
man outside our local Sainsbury’s, ten minutes from the flat. He also enjoys his walks. He can’t wait to get his lead because he knows it might mean chasing squirrels in the park. ‘The only good thing about being in a chair,’ I say to Ticket when I park my car in a disabled slot inside the gates of Kensington Gardens, close to the Albert Memorial, ‘is free parking. And having you, of course.’

‘Any news on the job front?’ she asks at the end of our conversation, a question I know she dreads hearing the answer to.

*

The following morning, Ticket picks up the mail and brings it to me. Last week I had an interview for a marketing company in Fulham and they promised they’d let me know shortly. My heart stops when I clutch the pale yellow envelope. I need this job because A, I need the money to pay Charlie rent. B, I want to stop eating baked potatoes and budget cottage cheese. C, I don’t want to sign up with any more recruitment agencies. And D, I want Mum and Dad, even Charlie, to stop urging me to go back to medicine.

I open the envelope. I’ve had three interviews in the past month. I wore a cream lace jacket that I’d found in Reiss for half price in the summer sales, with navy trousers. I swept my hair into a ponytail so I couldn’t do that finger-coiling thing with it. Charlie tells me he knows when I’m going for a job interview because I look like an air hostess. Ticket accompanied me to each interview. I brushed his teeth and groomed his coat. Yet so far the feedback has been:

I rip open the envelope, Ticket sitting by my side, watching me. It’s as if he senses he was being interviewed too. ‘Have we got the job?’ he’s asking me with those deep brown eyes of his. The moment I read the word, ‘Unfortunately,’ my heart sinks. ‘I’m sorry,’ I tell Ticket as he places a paw on my knee. ‘They say I wasn’t experienced enough. But tell me, how do I get experience if I’m not given the chance?’

*

Charlie, Ticket and I go out that night to our local Italian. Charlie reassures me that the right job is out there, waiting for me.

‘It’s hiding very well.’

‘If something’s too easy, Cass, it’s never worth it.’

‘Easy would be great. I’m tired,’ I tell him, before we argue about who’s going to pay the bill.

‘Something will come up,’ he insists. In so many ways his optimism reminds me of Jamie.

My mobile vibrates. It’s Frankie. Just as I launch into why I didn’t get the job this time, she stops me. ‘What are you doing this Thursday?’

That’s three days’ time.

‘Nothing. Why?’

‘Back Up needs a Course Coordinator from the beginning of September.’

I reread my presentation. There’s something missing. ‘What does independence mean to you?’ I drum my fingers against my desk, waiting for inspiration.

‘They need someone to organise the courses,’ Frankie had told me that night, ‘recruit buddies, nurses and volunteers, talk to airlines, make sure the accommodation is booked. There’s a lot of admin, sorting out insurance and chasing application forms, but it’s really challenging too, especially trying to get people interested in signing up.’ Having spinal cord injury isn’t an advantage, she’d warned me; many people of all different backgrounds have applied. I’ll be judged purely on the person I am and on my skills and experience. Frankie did this job in her late twenties and had loved it so much that she’d decided to stay in the events management world. When I’d called Back Up to ask if I could apply for the role, they told me I needed to give a five-minute presentation on what independence means to me at the end of the interview.

‘Independence means freedom,’ I type. ‘To be free and able to make decisions on my own.’ Unoriginal, Cass. ‘What’s going to make my presentation stand out?’ I ask Ticket, wishing he could talk to me sometimes. Ticket yawns and stretches. ‘Exactly,’ I agree, pressing delete and starting all over again.

*

A couple of hours later there’s a knock on the door. Charlie enters. Ticket stirs from under my desk, immediately on guard.

‘How are you getting on?’ he asks, looking over my shoulder.

‘Not great.’

‘You’ve written loads. Want to read it out to me?’

‘I’m not done yet.’ I reread the last paragraph. It sounds clichéd. I realise I’m much happier in a science lab or lecture room than in front of a computer. It’s much easier examining a wounded knee or taking blood than writing a presentation for a job interview. Even our exams were multiple-choice. Rarely did I have to string a sentence together on paper.

‘D’you want anything? Cup of tea? Chocolate?’

‘Nope. Thanks,’ I add, aware of my impatient tone.

He still doesn’t take the hint. ‘Why don’t you take a break?’

‘Charlie! I don’t have time!’ I retrieve my first draft from my virtual waste-paper basket. I think I was on the right lines from the beginning.

I’m aware of Charlie watching me try to decipher what I’d originally typed.

‘Look, sometimes it helps giving it a rest, you know, coming back fresh? You’ve been cooped up in here for hours.’

He makes me sound like a battery hen. ‘Charlie, I’ve
got
to get this job.’

‘I know. Just take a break. We can brainstorm it over a glass of wine.’

‘No!’ I say feeling pressured. ‘Look, can you go? I don’t always need your help.’

Ticket barks when I raise my voice.

He heads for the door. ‘Fine. Sorry. I’ll leave you to it.’

Immediately I regret snapping.

He turns. ‘“What does independence mean?”’ he says. ‘Isn’t it about sometimes allowing people to help you out, rather than always turning them away?’

*

I clear my throat to read the final paragraph of my presentation. ‘Sometimes we think being independent is about doing it on our own. We let pride prevent us from seeing that, with help, we’re not giving up.’ I pause. ‘Oh God, do I sound like the Queen, Charlie?’

He tries not to smile. ‘Carry on. And stop fiddling with your hair.’

‘Without Ticket, I wouldn’t have moved to London. Without Charlie’s help, I wouldn’t have skied down a mountain, or ever believed I could live in London again. Until I came across Back Up, I thought spinal cord injury meant the end. There will always be things I need to do on my own. I won’t hide behind my injury and expect everything to be done for me. But I do now understand that it’s stupid being too stubborn. Asking for help when you need it is the key to enabling you to remain independent.’ I pause. ‘Well?’

He claps. ‘You’re hired,’ he says, impersonating Lord Sugar. ‘I particularly liked the Charlie part.’

Charlie and I stay up for a while, chatting and drinking tea in his sitting room. It’s a small room with wooden floors, silvery-grey painted walls and two ancient red sofas; his old boarding school trunk is used as a coffee table and the shelves are crammed with design books and old CDs. Charlie’s style is the opposite of minimalism. Throughout the flat are photographs, camera equipment, tennis rackets, furniture he’s either found on eBay or in antique markets, and pictures – lots of them, some modern, some not. In his bedroom he has a drawing of a nude woman lying on a bed. In the bathroom are prints of birds his father gave to him. Both of them have a love of wild life. When we’re out dog walking, he’s always stopping to take photographs.

I glance at my presentation, thinking about the stress it caused. ‘I don’t know how I ever took an exam, Charlie,’ I say, sipping my tea. I tell Charlie about our OSCEs.

‘Your what skis?’

I laugh. ‘Objective Structured Clinical Exams. At the end of each year we had a twenty-station OSCE, each station seven minutes, where we’d be tested on some kind of practical skill.’

‘Like what?’

‘Oh I don’t know. It could be something like, “Take a genito-urinary medicine history”.’

‘I don’t like the sound of that.’

Or, “Examine his knee”, “Suture a wound” …’

‘Ouch.’

‘Or “Carry out advanced life support with a defibrillator”.’

‘Fucking hell.’

‘Exactly.’

‘You don’t miss it, Cass?’

‘Sometimes,’ I admit. I miss Sarah. I tell Charlie about our friendship at King’s, Charlie curious as to why he hasn’t met her yet. I explain that I didn’t see her over the summer. ‘She was revising for her finals and then she went travelling with friends,’ I say. I sent her a congratulations card after she’d called with the news that she had passed with a 2:1. I could hear her toning down her excitement. I miss our carefree friendship. Perhaps things can never be the same between us.

‘I don’t know. Maybe it takes time,’ he says.

‘What about you, Charlie? Do you love your job?’ I ask, changing the subject.

‘Love is a strong word. It pays my mortgage. I’ve always been interested in branding and design but work and bills and demanding clients knock the charm out of it. Still –’ he shrugs – ‘I do enjoy it, though it can be a little soulless at times.’

‘Soulless? What do you mean?’

He takes off his glasses. ‘Clients don’t understand it’s important to market and invest in proper communications and branding. They don’t get that if you put the money into your business, you’ll get it back. If you do a website on the cheap, you’re chucking money down the drain. Your website is the shop window of your business. No one’s going to come in if … Oh, listen to me. It’s boring.’

‘No it’s not.’

He looks at me. ‘You’re going to blow them away tomorrow, Cass.’

‘You think?’

‘I know.’

‘Charlie?’

‘Hmm?’

‘Thank you, and I’m really sorry for snapping earlier.’

‘Listen, it’s my fault too.’ He runs a hand through his hair. ‘Sometimes I don’t know when to back off. What?’ he asks, noticing me gazing at him.

‘Why didn’t you get a normal flatmate?’

‘What?’

‘You heard.’

‘Normal? Just because they can walk they’re
normal
? Christ, Cass, you talk a load of bollocks sometimes.’ Without thinking, Charlie lifts my legs and swings them across his lap. ‘My last flatmate was called Euan, right. He was Scottish,’ Charlie warns me, in a heavy Scots accent. ‘“Charlie, the rolls you put in the bin the other day are perfectly all right if you just put a wee bit of water on them.” Cass, even the ducks would have turned up their noses at them.’

I smile.

‘I love having you around,’ he says, reinforcing that message by tapping my legs.

‘Well, I love being here.’

I don’t notice Ticket coming into the room until he drops a pair of knickers on to my lap. ‘Ticket!’ I grab them, secretly delighted that they are my new lacy pink ones. Ticket jumps up now and nuzzles into my arm. I give him a kiss. ‘I love you too,’ I reassure him. ‘Don’t worry, there’s no need to be jealous, I love you too.’

‘Too?’

Oh fuck. ‘You know what I mean.’

Charlie coughs. ‘Cass?’

‘Yes?’

I wait.

‘What? Charlie?’

He leans towards me, grabs my hand to stop me playing with my hair. ‘Don’t be nervous, tomorrow. Whoever interviews you, think of them naked, and if you don’t get the job, set Ticket on them.’ I laugh, saying that’s not such a bad idea. There’s a further pause. ‘Right. Bedtime. I’m tired,’ he says.

‘Me too.’ I orchestrate a yawn. ‘Ticket and I need an early night.’ Reluctantly I transfer myself from the sofa into my chair. As Ticket pulls open the door for me, I look over my shoulder and see Charlie hasn’t budged an inch. He’s looking right at me. ‘If I get this job, I’m cooking you a special meal,’ I promise. ‘
My
treat. Deal?’

‘Deal,’ he says.