Me Before You (47 page)

It might sound a bit selfish, but I don’t like getting behind with my coursework, and it was a bit of a relief to have a break from Lou’s misery. Being around someone that depressed is a bit of a drain. You might feel sorry for them, but you can’t help wanting to tell them to pull themselves together too. I shoved my family, my sister, the epic mess she had got herself into, into a mental file, shut the drawer, and focused my attention on VAT exemptions. I got the second-highest marks in my year for Accountancy 1 and there was no way on earth I was dropping back just because of the vagaries of HMRC’s flat rate system.

I got home around a quarter to six, put my files on the hall chair, and they were all lurking around the kitchen table already, while Mum began to serve up. Thomas jumped on me, winding his legs around my waist, and I kissed him, breathing in his lovely yeasty little-boy smell.

‘Sit down, sit down,’ Mum said. ‘Dad’s only just in.’

‘How’d you get on with your books?’ Dad said, hanging his jacket on the back of the chair. He always referred to them as ‘my books’. Like they had a life of their own and had to be wrangled into order.

‘Good, thanks. I’m three-quarters of the way through my Accountancy 2 module. And then tomorrow I’m on corporate law.’ I peeled Thomas from me and put him down on the chair next to me, one hand resting in his soft hair.

‘Hear that, Josie? Corporate law.’ Dad stole a potato from the dish and stuffed it into his mouth before Mum could see. He said it like he relished the sound of it. I suppose he probably did. We chatted for a bit about the kinds of things my module involved. Then we talked about Dad’s job – mostly about how the tourists broke everything. You wouldn’t believe the maintenance, apparently. Even the wooden posts at the car park gateway needed replacing every few weeks because the eejits couldn’t drive a car through a twelve-foot gap. Personally, I would have put a surcharge on the ticket price to cover it – but that’s just me.

Mum finished serving up, and finally sat down. Thomas ate with his fingers while he thought nobody noticed and said
bum
under his breath with a secret smile, and Granddad ate with his gaze tilted upwards, as if he were actually thinking about something else entirely. I glanced over at Lou. She was gazing at her plate, pushing the roast chicken around as if trying to disguise it.
Uh-oh
, I thought.

‘You not hungry, love?’ said Mum, following the line of my gaze.

‘Not very,’ she said.

‘It is very warm for chicken,’ Mum conceded. ‘I just thought you needed perking up a bit.’

‘So … you going to tell us how you got on at this interview?’ Dad’s fork stopped halfway to his mouth.

‘Oh, that.’ She looked distracted, as if he had just dredged up something she did five years ago.

‘Yes, that.’

She speared a tiny piece of chicken. ‘It was okay.’

Dad glanced at me.

I gave a tiny shrug. ‘Just okay? They must have given you some idea how you did.’

‘I got it.’

‘What?’

She was still looking down at her plate. I stopped chewing.

‘They said I was exactly the kind of applicant they were looking for. I’ve got to do some kind of foundation course, which takes a year, and then I can convert it.’

Dad sat back in his chair. ‘That’s fantastic news.’

Mum reached over and patted her shoulder. ‘Oh, well done, love. That’s brilliant.’

‘Not really. I don’t think I can afford four years of study.’

‘Don’t you worry about that just now. Really. Look how well Treena’s managing. Hey –’ he nudged her ‘– we’ll find a way. We always find a way, don’t we?’ Dad beamed at us both. ‘I think everything’s turning around for us, now, girls. I think this is going to be a good time for this family.’

And then, out of nowhere, she burst into tears. Real tears. She cried like Thomas cries, wailing, all snot and tears and not caring who hears, her sobs breaking through the silence of the little room like a knife.

Thomas stared at her, open-mouthed, so that I had to haul him on to my lap and distract him so that he didn’t get upset too. And while I fiddled with bits of potato and talking peas and made silly voices, she told them.

She told them everything – about Will and the six-month contract and what had happened when they went to Mauritius. As she spoke, Mum’s hands went to her mouth. Granddad looked solemn. The chicken grew cold, the gravy congealing in its boat.

Dad shook his head in disbelief. And then, as my sister detailed her flight home from the Indian Ocean, her voice dropping to a whisper as she spoke of her last words to Mrs Traynor, he pushed his chair back and stood up. He walked slowly around the table and he took her in his arms, like he had when we were little. He stood there and held her really, really tightly to him.

‘Oh Jesus Christ, the poor fella. And poor you. Oh Jesus.’

I’m not sure I ever saw Dad look so shocked.

‘What a bloody mess.’

‘You went through all this? Without saying anything? And all we got was a postcard about scuba diving?’ My mother was incredulous. ‘We thought you were having the holiday of a lifetime.’

‘I wasn’t alone. Treena knew,’ she said, looking at me. ‘Treena was great.’

‘I didn’t do anything,’ I said, hugging Thomas. He had lost interest in the conversation now that Mum had put an open tin of Celebrations in front of him. ‘I was just an ear. You did the lot. You came up with all the ideas.’

‘And some ideas they turned out to be.’ She leant against Dad, sounding bereft.

Dad tilted her chin so that she had to look at him. ‘But you did everything you could.’

‘And I failed.’

‘Who says you failed?’ Dad stroked her hair back from her face. His expression was tender. ‘I’m just thinking of what I know about Will Traynor, what I know about men like him. And I’ll say one thing to you. I’m not sure anyone in the world was ever going to persuade that man once he’d set his mind to something. He’s who he is. You can’t make people change who they are.’

‘But his parents! They can’t let him kill himself,’ said Mum. ‘What kind of people are they?’

‘They’re normal people, Mum. Mrs Traynor just doesn’t know what else she can do.’

‘Well, not bloody taking him to this clinic would be a start.’ Mum was angry. Two points of colour had risen to her cheekbones. ‘I would fight for you two, for Thomas, until my dying breath.’

‘Even if he’d already tried to kill himself?’ I said. ‘In really grim ways?’

‘He’s ill, Katrina. He’s depressed. People who are vulnerable should not be given the chance to do something that they’ll … ’ She tailed off in mute fury and dabbed at her eyes with a napkin. ‘That woman must be heartless.
Heartless
. And to think they got Louisa involved in all this. She’s a magistrate, for goodness’ sake. You’d think a magistrate would know what was right or wrong. Of all people. I’ve a good mind to head down there now and bring him back here.’

‘It’s complicated, Mum.’

‘No. It’s not. He’s vulnerable and there is no way on earth she should entertain the thought of it. I’m shocked. That poor man. That
poor
man.’ She got up from the table, taking the remains of the chicken with her, and stalked out to the kitchen.

Louisa watched her go, her expression a little stunned. Mum was never angry. I think the last time we heard her raise her voice was 1993.

Dad shook his head, his mind apparently elsewhere. ‘I’ve just thought – no wonder I haven’t seen Mr Traynor. I wondered where he was. I assumed they were all off on some family holiday.’

‘They’ve … they’ve gone?’

‘He’s not been in these last two days.’

Lou sat back down and slumped in her chair.

‘Oh shit,’ I said, and then clamped my hands around Thomas’s ears.

‘It’s tomorrow.’

Lou looked at me, and I glanced up at the calendar on the wall.

‘The thirteenth of August. It’s tomorrow.’

Lou did nothing that last day. She was up before me, staring out of the kitchen window. It rained, and then it cleared, and then it rained again. She lay on the sofa with Granddad, and she drank the tea that Mum made her, and every half an hour or so I watched her gaze slide silently towards the mantelpiece and check the clock. It was awful to watch. I took Thomas swimming and I tried to make her come with us. I said Mum would mind him if she wanted to go to the shops with me later. I said I’d take her to the pub, just the two of us, but she refused every offer.

‘What if I made a mistake, Treen?’ she said, so quietly that only I could hear it.

I glanced up at Granddad, but he had eyes only for the racing. I think Dad was still putting on a sneaky bet each way for him, even though he denied it to Mum.

‘What do you mean?’

‘What if I should have gone with him?’

‘But … you said you couldn’t.’

Outside, the skies were grey. She stared through our immaculate windows at the miserable day beyond.

‘I know what I said. But I just can’t bear not knowing what’s happening.’ Her face crumpled a little. ‘I can’t bear not knowing how he’s feeling. I can’t bear the fact that I never even got to say goodbye.’

‘Couldn’t you go now? Maybe try and get a flight?’

‘It’s too late,’ she said. And then she closed her eyes. ‘I’d never get there in time. There’s only two hours left until … until it stops for the day. I looked it up. On the internet.’

I waited.

‘They don’t … do … it … after five thirty.’ She shook her head in bemusement. ‘Something to do with the Swiss officials who have to be there. They don’t like … certifying … things outside office hours.’

I almost laughed. But I didn’t know what to say to her. I couldn’t imagine having to wait, as she was waiting, knowing what might be happening in some far-off place. I had never loved a man like she seemed to love Will. I had liked men, sure, and wanted to sleep with them, but sometimes I wondered if I was missing some sensitivity chip. I couldn’t imagine crying over anyone I’d been with. The only equivalent was if I thought about Thomas, waiting to die in some strange country, and as soon as that thought came to mind it made something inside me actually flip over, it was so hideous. So I stuck that in the back of my mental filing cabinet too, under the drawer labelled:
Unthinkable
.

I sat down beside my sister on the sofa and we stared in silence at the three thirty Maiden Stakes, then the four o’clock handicap stakes, and the four races that followed it, with the fixed intensity of people who might actually have all the money in the world on the winner.

And then the doorbell rang.

Louisa was off the sofa and in the hallway in seconds. She opened the door and the way she wrenched it open made even my heart stop.

But it wasn’t Will there on the doorstep. It was a young woman, her make-up thick and perfectly applied, her hair cut in a neat bob around her chin. She folded her umbrella and smiled, reaching round towards the large bag she had over her shoulder. I wondered briefly if this was Will Traynor’s sister.

‘Louisa Clark?’

‘Yes?’

‘I’m from
The Globe
. I wondered if I could have a quick word?’

‘
The Globe
?’

I could hear the confusion in Lou’s voice.

‘The newspaper?’ I stepped behind my sister. I saw then the notepad in the woman’s hand.

‘Can I come in? I’d just like to have a little chat with you about William Traynor. You do work for William Traynor, don’t you?’

‘No comment,’ I said. And before the woman had a chance to say anything else, I slammed the door in her face.

My sister stood stunned in the hallway. She flinched as the doorbell rang again.

‘Don’t answer it,’ I hissed.

‘But how – ?’

I began to push her up the stairs. God, she was impossibly slow. It was like she was half asleep. ‘Granddad, don’t answer the door!’ I yelled. ‘Who have you told?’ I said, when we reached the landing. ‘Someone must have told them. Who knows?’

‘Miss Clark,’ the woman’s voice came through the letter box. ‘If you just give me ten minutes … we do understand this is a very sensitive issue. We’d like you to put your side of the story … ’

‘Does this mean he’s dead?’ Her eyes had filled with tears.

‘No, it just means some arse is trying to cash in.’ I thought for a minute.

‘Who was that, girls?’ Mum’s voice came up the stairwell.

‘No one, Mum. Just don’t answer the door.’

I peered over the banister. Mum was holding a tea towel in her hands and gazing at the shadowy figure visible through the glass panels of the front door.

‘Don’t answer the door?’

I took my sister’s elbow. ‘Lou … you didn’t say anything to Patrick, did you?’

She didn’t need to say anything. Her stricken face said it all.

‘Okay. Don’t have a baby. Just don’t go near the door. Don’t answer the phone. Don’t say a word to them, okay?’

Mum was not amused. She was even less amused after the phone started ringing. After the fifth call we put all calls through to the answerphone, but we still had to listen to them, their voices invading our little hallway. There were four or five of them, all the same. All offering Lou the chance to put her side of ‘the story’, as they called it. Like Will Traynor was now some commodity that they were all scrabbling over. The telephone rang and the doorbell rang. We sat with the curtains closed, listening to the reporters on the pavement just outside our gate, chatting to each other and speaking on their mobile phones.

It was like being under siege. Mum wrung her hands and shouted through the letter box for them to get the hell out of our front garden, whenever one of them ventured past the gate. Thomas gazed out of the upstairs bathroom window and wanted to know why there were people in our garden. Four of our neighbours rang, wanting to know what was going on. Dad parked in Ivy Street and came home via the back garden, and we had a fairly serious talk about castles and boiling oil.

Then, after I’d thought a bit longer, I rang Patrick and asked him how much he had got for his sordid little tip. The slight delay before he denied everything told me all I needed to know.

‘You shitbag,’ I yelled. ‘I’m going to kick your stupid marathon-running shins so hard you’re going to think 157th was actually a good result.’