Me Before You (25 page)

‘Patrick,’ I said loudly. ‘You know nothing about it.’

‘I was just trying to –’

‘Well
don’t
. Really.’

The table fell silent. Dad coughed, and excused himself for it. Granddad peered around the table in wary silence.

Mum made as if to offer everyone more bread, and then seemed to change her mind.

When Patrick spoke again, there was a faint air of martyrdom in his tone. ‘It’s just research that I thought might be helpful. But I’ll say no more about it.’

Will looked up and smiled, his face blank, polite. ‘I’ll certainly bear it in mind.’

I got up to clear the plates, wanting to escape the table. But Mum scolded me, telling me to sit down.

‘You’re the birthday girl,’ she said – as if she ever let anyone else do anything, anyway. ‘Bernard. Why don’t you go and get the chicken?’

‘Ha-ha. Let’s hope it’s stopped flapping around now, eh?’ Dad smiled, his teeth bared in a kind of grimace.

The rest of the meal passed off without incident. My parents, I could see, were completely charmed by Will. Patrick, less so. He and Will barely exchanged another word. Somewhere around the point where Mum served up the roast potatoes – Dad doing his usual thing of trying to steal extras – I stopped worrying. Dad was asking Will all sorts, about his life before, even about the accident, and he seemed comfortable enough to answer him
directly. In fact, I learnt a fair bit that he’d never told me. His job, for example, sounded pretty important, even if he played it down. He bought and sold companies and made sure he turned a profit while doing so. It took Dad a few attempts to prise out of him that his idea of profit ran into six or seven figures. I found myself staring at Will, trying to reconcile the man I knew with this ruthless City suit that he now described. Dad told him about the company that was about to take over the furniture factory, and when he said the name Will nodded almost apologetically, and said that yes, he knew of them. Yes, he would probably have gone for it too. The way he said it didn’t sound promising for Dad’s job.

Mum just cooed at Will, and made a huge fuss of him. I realized, watching her smile, that at some stage during the meal he had just become a smart young man at her table. No wonder Patrick was pissed off.

‘Birthday cake?’ Granddad said, as she began to clear the dishes.

It was so distinct, so surprising, that Dad and I stared at each other in shock. The whole table went quiet.

‘No,’ I walked around the table and kissed him. ‘No, Granddad. Sorry. But it is chocolate mousse. You like that.’

He nodded in approval. My mother was beaming. I don’t think any of us could have had a better present.

The mousse arrived on the table, and with it a large, square present, about the size of a telephone directory, wrapped in tissue.

‘Presents, is it?’ Patrick said. ‘Here. Here’s mine.’ He smiled at me as he placed it in the middle of the table.

I raised a smile back. This was no time to argue, after all.

‘Go on,’ said Dad. ‘Open it.’

I opened theirs first, peeling the paper carefully away so that I didn’t tear it. It was a photograph album, and on every page there was a picture from a year in my life. Me as a baby; me and Treena as solemn, chubby-faced girls; me on my first day at secondary school, all hairclips and oversized skirt. More recently, there was a picture of me and Patrick, the one where I was actually telling him to piss off. And me, dressed in a grey skirt, my first day in my new job. In between the pages were pictures of our family by Thomas, letters that Mum had kept from school trips, my childish handwriting telling of days on the beach, lost ice creams and thieving gulls. I flicked through, and only hesitated briefly when I saw the girl with the long, dark flicked-back hair. I turned the page.

‘Can I see?’ Will said.

‘It’s not been … the best year,’ Mum told him, as I flicked through the pages in front of him. ‘I mean, we’re fine and everything. But, you know, things being what they are. And then Granddad saw something on the daytime telly about making your own presents, and I thought that was something that would … you know … really mean something.’

‘It does, Mum.’ My eyes had filled with tears. ‘I love it. Thank you.’

‘Granddad picked out some of the pictures,’ she said.

‘It’s beautiful,’ said Will.

‘I love it,’ I said again.

The look of utter relief she and Dad exchanged was the saddest thing I have ever seen.

‘Mine next.’ Patrick pushed the little box across the
table. I opened it slowly, feeling vaguely panicked for a moment that it might be an engagement ring. I wasn’t ready. I had barely got my head around having my own bedroom. I opened the little box, and there, against the dark-blue velvet, was a thin gold chain with a little star pendant. It was sweet, delicate, and not remotely me. I didn’t wear that kind of jewellery, never had.

I let my eyes rest on it while I worked out what to say. ‘It’s lovely,’ I said, as he leant across the table and fastened it around my neck.

‘Glad you like it,’ Patrick said, and kissed me on the mouth. I swear he’d never kissed me like that in front of my parents before.

Will watched me, his face impassive.

‘Well, I think we should eat pudding now,’ Dad said. ‘Before it gets too hot.’ He laughed out loud at his own joke. The champagne had boosted his spirits immeasurably.

‘There’s something in my bag for you too,’ Will said, quietly. ‘The one on the back of my chair. It’s in orange wrapping.’

I pulled the present from Will’s backpack.

My mother paused, the serving spoon in her hand. ‘You got Lou a present, Will? That’s ever so kind of you. Isn’t that kind of him, Bernard?’

‘It certainly is.’

The wrapping paper had brightly coloured Chinese kimonos on it. I didn’t have to look at it to know I would save it. Perhaps even create something to wear based on it. I removed the ribbon, putting it to one side for later. I opened the paper, and then the tissue paper within it, and
there, staring at me was a strangely familiar black and yellow stripe.

I pulled the fabric from the parcel, and in my hands were two pairs of black and yellow tights. Adult-sized, opaque, in a wool so soft that they almost slid through my fingers.

‘I don’t believe it,’ I said. I had started to laugh – a joyous, unexpected thing. ‘Oh my God! Where did you get these?’

‘I had them made. You’ll be happy to know I instructed the woman via my brand-new voice recognition software.’

‘Tights?’ Dad and Patrick said in unison.

‘Only the best pair of tights ever.’

My mother peered at them. ‘You know, Louisa, I’m pretty sure you had a pair just like that when you were very little.’

Will and I exchanged a look.

I couldn’t stop beaming. ‘I want to put them on now,’ I said.

‘Jesus Christ, she’ll look like Max Wall in a beehive,’ my father said, shaking his head.

‘Ah Bernard, it’s her birthday. Sure, she can wear what she wants.’

I ran outside and pulled on a pair in the hallway. I pointed a toe, admiring the silliness of them. I don’t think a present had ever made me so happy in my life.

I walked back in. Will let out a small cheer. Granddad banged his hands on the table. Mum and Dad burst out laughing. Patrick just stared.

‘I can’t even begin to tell you how much I love these,’ I said. ‘Thank you. Thank you.’ I reached out a hand and touched the back of his shoulder. ‘Really.’

‘There’s a card in there too,’ he said. ‘Open it some other time.’

My parents made a huge fuss of Will when he left.

Dad, who was drunk, kept thanking him for employing me, and made him promise to come back. ‘If I lose my job, maybe I’ll come over and watch the footie with you one day,’ he said.

‘I’d like that,’ said Will, even though I’d never seen him watch a football match.

My mum pressed some leftover mousse on him, wrapping it in a Tupperware container, ‘Seeing as you liked it so much.’

What a gentleman, they would say, for a good hour after he had gone. A real gentleman.

Patrick came out to the hallway, his hands shoved deep in his pockets, as if perhaps to stop the urge to shake Will’s own. That was my more generous conclusion.

‘Good to meet you, Patrick,’ Will said. ‘And thank you for the … advice.’

‘Oh, just trying to help my girlfriend get the best out of her job,’ he said. ‘That’s all.’ There was a definite emphasis on the word
my
.

‘Well, you’re a lucky man,’ Will said, as Nathan began to steer him out. ‘She certainly gives a good bed bath.’ He said it so quickly that the door was closed before Patrick even realized what he had said.

‘You never told me you were giving him bed baths.’

We had gone back to Patrick’s house, a new-build flat on the edge of town. It had been marketed as ‘loft living’,
even though it overlooked the retail park, and was no more than three floors high.

‘What does that mean – you wash his dick?’

‘I don’t wash his dick.’ I picked up the cleanser that was one of the few things I was allowed to keep at Patrick’s place, and began to clean off my make-up with sweeping strokes.

‘He just said you did.’

‘He’s teasing you. And after you going on and on about how he
used
to be an action man, I don’t blame him.’

‘So what is it you do for him? You’ve obviously not been giving me the full story.’

‘I do wash him, sometimes, but only down to his underwear.’

Patrick’s stare spoke volumes. Finally, he looked away from me, pulled off his socks and hurled them into the laundry basket. ‘Your job isn’t meant to be about this. No medical stuff, it said. No intimate stuff. It wasn’t part of your job description.’ A sudden thought occurred to him. ‘You could sue. Constructive dismissal, I think it is, when they change the terms of your job?’

‘Don’t be ridiculous. And I do it because Nathan can’t always be there, and it’s horrible for Will to have some complete stranger from an agency handling him. And besides, I’m used to it now. It really doesn’t bother me.’

How could I explain to him – how a body can become so familiar to you? I could change Will’s tubes with a deft professionalism, sponge bathe his naked top half without a break in our conversation. I didn’t even balk at Will’s scars now. For a while, all I had been able to see was a potential suicide. Now he was just Will – maddening,
mercurial, clever, funny Will – who patronized me and liked to play Professor Higgins to my Eliza Doolittle. His body was just part of the whole package, a thing to be dealt with, at intervals, before we got back to the talking. It had become, I supposed, the least interesting part of him.

‘I just can’t believe … after all we went through … how long it took you to let me come anywhere near you … and here’s some stranger who you’re quite happy to get up close and personal with –’

‘Can we not talk about this tonight, Patrick? It’s my birthday.’

‘I wasn’t the one who started it, with talk of bed baths and whatnot.’

‘Is it because he’s good looking?’ I demanded. ‘Is that it? Would it all be so much easier for you if he looked like – you know – a
proper
vegetable?’

‘So you
do
think he’s good looking.’

I pulled my dress over my head, and began peeling my tights carefully from my legs, the dregs of my good mood finally evaporating. ‘I can’t believe you’re doing this. I can’t believe you’re jealous of him.’

‘I’m not jealous of him.’ His tone was dismissive. ‘How could I be jealous of a cripple?’

Patrick made love to me that night. Perhaps ‘made love’ is stretching it a bit. We had sex, a marathon session in which he seemed determined to show off his athleticism, his strength and vigour. It lasted for hours. If he could have swung me from a chandelier I think he would have done so. It was nice to feel so wanted, to find myself the focus of Patrick’s attention after months of semi-detachment. But a little part of me stayed aloof during
the whole thing. I suspected it wasn’t for me, after all. I had worked that out pretty quickly. This little show was for Will’s benefit.

‘How was that, eh?’ He wrapped himself around me afterwards, our skin sticking slightly with perspiration, and kissed my forehead.

‘Great,’ I said.

‘I love you, babe.’

And, satisfied, he rolled off, threw an arm back over his head, and was asleep within minutes.

When sleep still didn’t come, I got out of bed and went downstairs to my bag. I rifled through it, looking for the book of Flannery O’Connor short stories. It was as I pulled them from my bag that the envelope fell out.

I stared at it. Will’s card. I hadn’t opened it at the table. I did so now, feeling an unlikely sponginess at its centre. I slid the card carefully from its envelope, and opened it. Inside were ten crisp £50 notes. I counted them twice, unable to believe what I was seeing. Inside, it read:

Birthday bonus. Don’t fuss. It’s a legal requirement. W.

May was a strange month. The newspapers and television were full of headlines about what they termed ‘the right to die’. A woman suffering from a degenerative disease had asked that the law be clarified to protect her husband, should he accompany her to Dignitas when her suffering became too much. A young football player had committed suicide after persuading his parents to take him there. The police were involved. There was to be a debate in the House of Lords.

I watched the news reports and listened to the legal arguments from pro-lifers and esteemed moral philosophers, and didn’t quite know where I stood on any of it. It all seemed weirdly unrelated to Will.

We, in the meantime, had gradually been increasing Will’s outings – and the distance that he was prepared to travel. We had been to the theatre, down the road to see the morris dancers (Will kept a straight face at their bells and hankies, but he had gone slightly pink with the effort), driven one evening to an open-air concert at a nearby stately home (more his thing than mine), and once to the multiplex where, due to inadequate research on my part, we ended up watching a film about a girl with a terminal illness.