Me Before You (10 page)

It was an old film, about a hunchback who inherits a house in the French countryside, and Will said it was based on a famous book, but I can’t say I’d ever heard of it. I spent the first twenty minutes feeling a bit fidgety, irritated by the subtitles and wondering if Will was going to get shirty if I told him I needed the loo.

And then something happened. I stopped thinking about how hard it was listening and reading at the same time, forgot Will’s pill timetable, and whether Mrs Traynor would think I was slacking, and I started to get anxious about the poor man and his family, who were being tricked by unscrupulous neighbours. By the time Hunchback Man died, I was sobbing silently, snot running into my sleeve.

‘So,’ Will said, appearing at my side. He glanced at me slyly. ‘You didn’t enjoy that at all.’

I looked up and found to my surprise that it was dark outside. ‘You’re going to gloat now, aren’t you?’ I muttered, reaching for the box of tissues.

‘A bit. I’m just amazed that you can have reached the ripe old age of – what was it?’

‘Twenty-six.’

‘Twenty-six, and never have watched a film with subtitles.’ He watched me mop my eyes.

I glanced down at the tissue and realized I had no mascara left. ‘I hadn’t realized it was compulsory,’ I grumbled.

‘Okay. So what do you do with yourself, Louisa Clark, if you don’t watch films?’

I balled my tissue in my fist. ‘You want to know what I do when I’m not here?’

‘You were the one who wanted us to get to know each other. So come on, tell me about yourself.’

He had this way of talking where you could never quite be sure that he wasn’t mocking you. I was waiting for the pay-off. ‘Why?’ I said. ‘Why do you want to know all of a sudden?’

‘Oh, for Christ’s sake. It’s hardly a state secret, your social life, is it?’ He had begun to look irritated.

‘I don’t know … ’ I said. ‘I go for a drink at the pub. I watch a bit of telly. I go and watch my boyfriend when he does his running. Nothing unusual.’

‘You watch your boyfriend running.’

‘Yes.’

‘But you don’t run yourself.’

‘No. I’m not really –’ I glanced down at my chest ‘– built for it.’

That made him smile.

‘And what else?’

‘What do you mean, what else?’

‘Hobbies? Travelling? Places you like to go?’

He was beginning to sound like my old careers teacher.

I tried to think. ‘I don’t really have any hobbies. I read a bit. I like clothes.’

‘Handy,’ he said, dryly.

‘You asked. I’m not really a hobby person.’ My voice had become strangely defensive. ‘I don’t do much, okay? I work and then I go home.’

‘Where do you live?’

‘On the other side of the castle. Renfrew Road.’

He looked blank. Of course he did. There was little human traffic between the two sides of the castle. ‘It’s off the dual carriageway. Near the McDonald’s.’

He nodded, although I’m not sure he really knew where I was talking about.

‘Holidays?’

‘I’ve been to Spain, with Patrick. My boyfriend,’ I added. ‘When I was a kid we only really went to Dorset. Or Tenby. My aunt lives in Tenby.’

‘And what do you want?’

‘What do I want what?’

‘From your life?’

I blinked. ‘That’s a bit deep, isn’t it?’

‘Only generally. I’m not asking you to psychoanalyse yourself. I’m just asking, what do you want? Get married? Pop out some ankle biters? Dream career? Travel the world?’

There was a long pause.

I think I knew my answer would disappoint him even before I said the words aloud. ‘I don’t know. I’ve never really thought about it.’

On Friday we went to the hospital. I’m glad I hadn’t known about Will’s appointment before I arrived that morning, as I would have lain awake all night fretting about having to drive him there. I can drive, yes. But I say I can drive in the same way that I say I can speak French. Yes, I took the relevant exam and passed. But I haven’t used that particular skill more than once a year since I did so. The thought of loading Will and his chair into the adapted minivan and carting him safely to and from the next town filled me with utter terror.

For weeks I had wished that my working day involved some escape from that house. Now I would have done anything just to stay indoors. I located his hospital card amongst the folders of stuff to do with his health – great fat binders divided into ‘transport’, ‘insurance’, ‘living with disability’ and ‘appointments’. I grabbed the card and checked that it had today’s date. A little bit of me was hoping that Will had been wrong.

‘Is your mother coming?’

‘No. She doesn’t come to my appointments.’

I couldn’t hide my surprise. I had thought she would want to oversee every aspect of his treatment.

‘She used to,’ Will said. ‘Now we have an agreement.’

‘Is Nathan coming?’

I was kneeling in front of him. I had been so nervous that I had dropped some of his lunch down his lap and was now trying in vain to mop it up, so that a good patch of his trousers was sopping wet. Will hadn’t said anything, except to tell me to please stop apologizing, but it hadn’t helped my general sense of jitteriness.

‘Why?’

‘No reason.’ I didn’t want him to know how fearful I felt. I had spent much of that morning – time I usually spent cleaning – reading and rereading the instruction manual for the chairlift but I was still dreading the moment when I was solely responsible for lifting him two feet into the air.

‘Come on, Clark. What’s the problem?’

‘Okay. I just … I just thought it would be easier first time if there was someone else there who knew the ropes.’

‘As opposed to me,’ he said.

‘That’s not what I meant.’

‘Because I can’t possibly be expected to know anything about my own care?’

‘Do you operate the chairlift?’ I said, baldly. ‘You can tell me exactly what to do, can you?’

He watched me, his gaze level. If he had been spoiling for a fight, he appeared to change his mind. ‘Fair point. Yes, he’s coming. He’s a useful extra pair of hands. Plus I thought you’d work yourself into less of a state if you had him there.’

‘I’m not in a state,’ I protested.

‘Evidently.’ He glanced down at his lap, which I was still mopping with a cloth. I had got the pasta sauce off, but he was soaked. ‘So, am I going as an incontinent?’

‘I’m not finished.’ I plugged in the hairdryer and directed the nozzle towards his crotch.

As the hot air blasted on to his trousers he raised his eyebrows.

‘Yes, well,’ I said. ‘It’s not exactly what I expected to be doing on a Friday afternoon either.’

‘You really are tense, aren’t you?’

I could feel him studying me.

‘Oh, lighten up, Clark. I’m the one having scalding hot air directed at my genitals.’

I didn’t respond. I heard his voice over the roar of the hairdryer.

‘Come on, what’s the worst that could happen – I end up in a wheelchair?’

It may sound stupid, but I couldn’t help but laugh. It was the closest Will had come to actually trying to make me feel better.

The car looked like a normal people carrier from outside, but when the rear passenger door was unlocked a ramp descended from the side and lowered to the ground. With Nathan looking on, I guided Will’s outside chair (he had a separate one for travelling) squarely on to the ramp, checked the electrical lock-down brake, and programmed it to slowly lift him up into the car. Nathan slid into the other passenger seat, belted him and secured the wheels. Trying to stop my hands from trembling, I released the handbrake and drove slowly down the drive towards the hospital.

Away from home, Will appeared to shrink a little. It was chilly outside, and Nathan and I had bundled him up into his scarf and thick coat, but still he grew quieter, his jaw set, somehow diminished by the greater space of his surroundings. Every time I looked into my rear-view mirror (which was often – I was terrified even with Nathan there that somehow the chair would break loose from its moorings) he was gazing out of the window, his expression impenetrable. Even when I stalled or braked too hard, which I did several times, he just winced a little and waited while I sorted myself out.

By the time we reached the hospital I had actually broken out into a fine sweat. I drove around the hospital car park three times, too afraid to reverse into any but the largest of spaces, until I could sense that the two men were beginning to lose patience. Then, finally, I lowered the ramp and Nathan helped Will’s chair out on to the tarmac.

‘Good job,’ Nathan said, clapping me on the back as he let himself out, but I found it hard to believe it had been.

There are things you don’t notice until you accompany someone with a wheelchair. One is how rubbish most pavements are, pockmarked with badly patched holes, or just plain uneven. Walking slowly next to Will as he wheeled himself along, I noticed how every uneven slab caused him to jolt painfully, or how often he had to steer carefully round some potential obstacle. Nathan pretended not to notice, but I saw him watching too. Will just looked grim-faced and resolute.

The other thing is how inconsiderate most drivers are. They park up against the cutouts on the pavement, or so close together that there is no way for a wheelchair to actually cross the road. I was shocked, a couple of times even tempted to leave some rude note tucked into a windscreen wiper, but Nathan and Will seemed used to it. Nathan pointed out a suitable crossing place and, each of us flanking Will, we finally crossed.

Will had not said a single word since leaving the house.

The hospital itself was a gleaming low-rise building, the immaculate reception area more like that of some modernistic hotel, perhaps testament to private insurance. I held back as Will told the receptionist his name, and then followed him and Nathan down a long corridor. Nathan was carrying a huge backpack that contained anything that Will might be likely to need during his short visit, from beakers to spare clothes. He had packed it in front of me that morning, detailing every possible eventuality. ‘I guess it’s a good thing we don’t have to do this too often,’ he had said, catching my appalled expression.

I didn’t follow him into the appointment. Nathan and I sat on the comfortable chairs outside the consultant’s room. There was no hospital smell, and there were fresh flowers in a vase on the windowsill. Not just any old flowers, either. Huge exotic things that I didn’t know the name of, artfully arranged in minimalist clumps.

‘What are they doing in there?’ I said after we had been there half an hour.

Nathan looked up from his book. ‘It’s just his six-month check-up.’

‘What, to see if he’s getting any better?’

Nathan put his book down. ‘He’s not getting any better. It’s a spinal cord injury.’

‘But you do physio and stuff with him.’

‘That’s to try and keep his physical condition up – to stop him atrophying and his bones demineralizing, his legs pooling, that kind of thing.’

When he spoke again, his voice was gentle, as if he thought he might disappoint me. ‘He’s not going to walk again, Louisa. That only happens in Hollywood movies. All we’re doing is trying to keep him out of pain, and keep up whatever range of movement he has.’

‘Does he do this stuff for you? The physio stuff? He doesn’t seem to want to do anything that I suggest.’

Nathan wrinkled his nose. ‘He does it, but I don’t think his heart’s in it. When I first came, he was pretty determined. He’d come pretty far in rehab, but after a year with no improvement I think he found it pretty tough to keep believing it was worth it.’

‘Do you think he should keep trying?’

Nathan stared at the floor. ‘Honestly? He’s a C5/6 quadriplegic. That means nothing works below about here …’ He placed a hand on the upper part of his chest. ‘They haven’t worked out how to fix a spinal cord yet.’

I stared at the door, thinking about Will’s face as we drove along in the winter sunshine, the beaming face of the man on the skiing holiday. ‘There are all sorts of medical advances taking place, though, right? I mean … somewhere like this … they must be working on stuff all the time.’

‘It’s a pretty good hospital,’ he said evenly.

‘Where there’s life, and all that?’

Nathan looked at me, then back at his book. ‘Sure,’ he said.

I went to get a coffee at a quarter to three, on Nathan’s say so. He said these appointments could go on for some time, and that he would hold the fort until I got back. I dawdled a little in the reception area, flicking through the magazines in the newsagent’s, lingering over chocolate bars.

Perhaps predictably, I got lost trying to find my way back to the corridor and had to ask several nurses where I should go, two of whom didn’t even know. When I got there, the coffee cooling in my hand, the corridor was empty. As I drew closer, I could see the consultant’s door was ajar. I hesitated outside, but I could hear Mrs Traynor’s voice in my ears all the time now, criticizing me for leaving him. I had done it again.

‘So we’ll see you in three months’ time, Mr Traynor,’ a voice was saying. ‘I’ve adjusted those anti-spasm meds and I’ll make sure someone calls you with the results of the tests. Probably Monday.’

I heard Will’s voice. ‘Can I get these from the pharmacy downstairs?’

‘Yes. Here. They should be able to give you some more of those too.’

A woman’s voice. ‘Shall I take that folder?’

I realized they must be about to leave. I knocked, and someone called for me to come in. Two sets of eyes swivelled towards me.

‘I’m sorry,’ said the consultant, rising from his chair. ‘I thought you were the physio.’

‘I’m Will’s … helper,’ I said, hanging on to the door. Will was braced forward in his chair as Nathan pulled down his shirt. ‘Sorry – I thought you were done.’

‘Just give us a minute, will you, Louisa?’ Will’s voice cut into the room.

Muttering my apologies I backed out, my face burning.

It wasn’t the sight of Will’s uncovered body that had shocked me, slim and scarred as it was. It wasn’t the vaguely irritated look of the consultant, the same sort of look as Mrs Traynor gave me day after day – a look that made me realize I was still the same blundering eejit, even if I did earn a higher hourly rate.