Me Before You

10





They looked a bit surprised. Actually, that’s an understatement. Mrs Traynor looked stunned, and then a bit disconcerted, and then her whole face closed off. Her daughter, curled up next to her on the sofa, just glowered – the kind of face Mum used to warn me would stick in place if the wind changed. It wasn’t quite the enthusiastic response I’d been hoping for.

‘But what is it you actually want to do?’

‘I don’t know yet. My sister is good at researching stuff. She’s trying to find out what’s possible for quadriplegics. But I really wanted to find out from you whether you would be willing to go with it.’

We were in their drawing room. It was the same room I had been interviewed in, except this time Mrs Traynor and her daughter were perched on the sofa, their slobbery old dog between them. Mr Traynor was standing by the fire. I was wearing my French peasant’s jacket in indigo denim, a minidress and a pair of army boots. With hindsight, I realized, I could have picked a more professional-looking uniform in which to outline my plan.
     



‘Let me get this straight.’ Camilla Traynor leant forward. ‘You want to take Will away from this house.’

‘Yes.’

‘And take him on a series of “adventures”.’ She said it like I was suggesting performing amateur keyhole surgery on him.

‘Yes. Like I said, I’m not sure what’s possible yet. But it’s about just getting him out and about, widening his horizons. There may be some local things we could do at first, and then hopefully something further afield before too long.’

‘Are you talking about going abroad?’

‘Abroad … ?’ I blinked. ‘I was thinking more about maybe getting him to the pub. Or to a show, just for starters.’

‘Will has barely left this house in two years, apart from hospital appointments.’

‘Well, yes … I thought I’d try and persuade him otherwise.’

‘And you would, of course, go on all these adventures with him,’ Georgina Traynor said.

‘Look. It’s nothing extraordinary. I’m really talking about just getting him out of the house, to start with. A walk around the castle, or a visit to the pub. If we end up swimming with dolphins in Florida, then that’s lovely. But really I just wanted to get him out of the house and thinking about something else.’ I didn’t add that the mere thought of driving to the hospital in sole charge of Will was still enough to bring me out in a cold sweat. The thought of taking him abroad felt as likely as me running a marathon.

‘I think it’s a splendid idea,’ Mr Traynor said. ‘I think it would be marvellous to get Will out and about. You know it can’t have been good for him staring at the four walls day in and day out.’

‘We have tried to get him out, Steven,’ Mrs Traynor said. ‘It’s not as if we’ve left him in there to rot. I’ve tried again and again.’

‘I know that, darling, but we haven’t been terribly successful, have we? If Louisa here can think up things that Will is prepared to try, then that can only be a good thing, surely?’

‘Yes, well, “prepared to try” being the operative phrase.’

‘It’s just an idea,’ I said. I felt suddenly irritated. I could see what she was thinking. ‘If you don’t want me to do it … ’

‘ … you’ll leave?’ She looked straight at me.

I didn’t look away. She didn’t frighten me any more. Because I knew now she was no better than me. She was a woman who could sit back and let her son die right in front of her.

‘Yes, I probably will.’

‘So it’s blackmail.’

‘Georgina!’

‘Well, let’s not beat around the bush here, Daddy.’

I sat up a little straighter. ‘No. Not blackmail. It’s about what I’m prepared to be part of. I can’t sit by and just quietly wait out the time until … Will … well … ’ My voice tailed off.

We all stared at our cups of tea.

‘Like I said,’ Mr Traynor said firmly. ‘I think it’s a very good idea. If you can get Will to agree to it, I can’t see that there’s any harm at all. I’d love the idea of him going on holiday. Just … just let us know what you need us to do.’

‘I’ve got an idea.’ Mrs Traynor put a hand on her daughter’s shoulder. ‘Perhaps you could go on holiday with them, Georgina.’

‘Fine by me,’ I said. It was. Because my chances of getting Will away on holiday were about the same as me competing on Mastermind.

Georgina Traynor shifted uncomfortably in her seat. ‘I can’t. You know I start my new job in two weeks. I won’t be able to come over to England again for a bit once I’ve started.’

‘You’re going back to Australia?’

‘Don’t sound so surprised. I did tell you this was just a visit.’

‘I just thought that … given … given recent events, you might want to stay here a bit longer.’ Camilla Traynor stared at her daughter in a way she never stared at Will, no matter how rude he was to her.

‘It’s a really good job, Mummy. It’s the one I’ve been working towards for the last two years.’ She glanced over at her father. ‘I can’t put my whole life on hold just because of Will’s mental state.’

There was a long silence.

‘This isn’t fair. If it was me in the chair, would you have asked Will to put all his plans on hold?’

Mrs Traynor didn’t look at her daughter. I glanced down at my list, reading and rereading the first paragraph.

‘I have a life too, you know.’ It came out like a protest.

‘Let’s discuss this some other time.’ Mr Traynor’s hand landed on his daughter’s shoulder and squeezed it gently.

‘Yes, let’s.’ Mrs Traynor began to shuffle the papers in front of her. ‘Right, then. I propose we do it like this. I want to know everything you are planning,’ she said, looking up at me. ‘I want to do the costings and, if possible, I’d like a schedule so that I can try and plan some time off to come along with you. I have some unused holiday entitlement left that I can –’

‘No.’

We all turned to look at Mr Traynor. He was stroking the dog’s head and his expression was gentle, but his voice was firm. ‘No. I don’t think you should go, Camilla. Will should be allowed to do this by himself.’

‘Will can’t do it by himself, Steven. There is an awful lot that needs to be considered when Will goes anywhere. It’s complicated. I don’t think we can really leave it to –’

‘No, darling,’ he repeated. ‘Nathan can help, and Louisa can manage just fine.’

‘But –’

‘Will needs to be allowed to feel like a man. That is not going to be possible if his mother – or his sister, for that matter – is always on hand.’

I felt briefly sorry for Mrs Traynor then. She still wore that haughty look of hers, but I could see underneath that she seemed a little lost, as if she couldn’t quite understand what her husband was doing. Her hand went to her necklace.

‘I will make sure he’s safe,’ I said. ‘And I will let you know everything we’re planning on doing, well in advance.’

Her jaw was so rigid that a little muscle was visible just underneath her cheekbone. I wondered if she actually hated me then.

‘I want Will to want to live too,’ I said, finally.
     


‘We do understand that,’ Mr Traynor said. ‘And we do appreciate your determination. And discretion.’ I wondered whether that word was in relation to Will, or something else entirely, and then he stood up and I realized that it was my signal to leave. Georgina and her mother still sat on the sofa, saying nothing. I got the feeling there was going to be a whole lot more conversation once I was out of the room.

‘Right, then,’ I said. ‘I’ll draw you up the paperwork as soon as I’ve worked it all out in my head. It will be soon. We haven’t much … ’

Mr Traynor patted my shoulder.

‘I know. Just let us know what you come up with,’ he said.

Treena was blowing on her hands, her feet moving involuntarily up and down, as if marching on the spot. She was wearing my dark-green beret, which, annoyingly, looked much better on her than it did on me. She leant over and pointed at the list she had just pulled from her pocket, and handed it to me.

‘You’re probably going to have to scratch number three, or at least put that off until it gets warmer.’

I checked the list. ‘Quadriplegic basketball? I’m not even sure if he likes basketball.’

‘That’s not the point. Bloody hell, it’s cold up here.’ She pulled the beret lower over her ears. ‘The point is, it will give him a chance to see what’s possible. He can see that there are other people just as badly off as him who are doing sports and things.’

‘I’m not sure. He can’t even lift a cup. I think these people must be paraplegic. I can’t see that you could throw a ball without the use of your arms.’

‘You’re missing the point. He doesn’t have to actually do anything, but it’s about widening his horizons, right? We’re letting him see what other handicapped people are doing.’

‘If you say so.’

A low murmur rose in the crowd. The runners had been sighted, some distance away. If I went on to tiptoes, I could just make them out, probably two miles away, down in the valley, a small block of bobbing white dots forcing their way through the cold along a damp, grey road. I glanced at my watch. We had been standing here on the brow of the aptly named Windy Hill for almost forty minutes, and I could no longer feel my feet.

‘I’ve looked up what’s local and, if you didn’t want to drive too far, there’s a match at the sports centre in a couple of weeks. He could even have a bet on the result.’

‘Betting?’

‘That way he could get a bit involved without even having to play. Oh look, there they are. How long do you think they’ll take to get to us?’

We stood by the finish. Above our heads a tarpaulin banner announcing the ‘Spring Triathlon Finish Line’ flapped wanly in the stiff breeze.

‘Dunno. Twenty minutes? Longer? I’ve got an emergency Mars Bar if you want to share.’ I reached into my pocket. It was impossible to stop the list flapping with only one hand. ‘So what else did you come up with?’

‘You said you wanted to go further afield, right?’ She pointed at my fingers. ‘You’ve given yourself the bigger bit.’

‘Take this bit then. I think the family think I’m free-loading.’

‘What, because you want to take him on a few crummy days out? Jesus. They should be grateful someone’s making the effort. It’s not like they are.’

Treena took the other piece of Mars Bar. ‘Anyway. Number five, I think it is. There’s a computer course that he could do. They put a thing on their head with, like, a stick on it, and they nod their head to touch the keyboard. There are loads of quadriplegic groups online. He could make lots of new friends that way. It would mean he doesn’t always have to actually leave the house. I even spoke to a couple on the chatrooms. They seemed nice. Quite –’ she shrugged ‘– normal.’

We ate our Mars Bar halves in silence, watching as the group of miserable-looking runners drew closer. I couldn’t see Patrick. I never could. He had the kind of face that became instantly invisible in crowds.

She pointed at the bit of paper.

‘Anyway, head for the cultural section. There’s a concert specially for people with disabilities here. You said he’s cultured, right? Well, he could just sit there and be transported by the music. That’s meant to take you out of yourself, right? Derek with the moustache, at work, told me about it. He said it can get noisy because of the really disabled people who yell a bit, but I’m sure he’d still enjoy it.’

I wrinkled my nose. ‘I don’t know, Treen –’

‘You’re just frightened because I said “culture”. You only have to sit there with him. And not rustle your crisp packet. Or, if you fancied something a bit saucier … ’ She grinned at me. ‘There’s a strip club. You could take him to London for that.’

‘Take my employer to watch a stripper?’

‘Well, you say you do everything else for him – all the cleaning and feeding and stuff. I can’t see why you wouldn’t just sit by him while he gets a stiffy.’

‘Treena!’

‘Well, he must miss it. You could even buy him a lap dance.’

Several people around us in the crowd swivelled their heads. My sister was laughing. She could talk about sex like that. Like it was some kind of recreational activity. Like it didn’t matter.

‘And then on the other side, there are the bigger trips. Don’t know what you fancied, but you could do wine tasting in the Loire … that’s not too far for starters.’

‘Can quadriplegics get drunk?’

‘I don’t know. Ask him.’

I frowned at the list. ‘So … I’ll go back and tell the Traynors that I’m going to get their suicidal quadriplegic son drunk, spend their money on strippers and lap dancers, and then trundle him off to the Disability Olympics –’

Treena snatched the list back from me. ‘Well, I don’t see you coming up with anything more bloody inspirational.’

‘I just thought … I don’t know.’ I rubbed at my nose. ‘I’m feeling a bit daunted, to be honest. I have trouble even persuading him to go into the garden.’

‘Well, that’s hardly the attitude, is it? Oh, look. Here they come. We’d better smile.’

We pushed our way through to the front of the crowd and began to cheer. It was quite hard coming up with the required amount of motivating noise when you could barely move your lips with cold.
     



I saw Patrick then, his head down in a sea of straining bodies, his face glistening with sweat, every sinew of his neck stretched and his face anguished as if he were enduring some kind of torture. That same face would be completely illuminated as soon as he crossed the finish, as if it were only by plumbing some personal depths that he could achieve a high. He didn’t see me.

‘Go, Patrick!’ I yelled, weakly.

And he flashed by, towards the finishing line.

Treena didn’t talk to me for two days after I failed to show the required enthusiasm for her ‘To Do’ list. My parents didn’t notice; they were just overjoyed to hear that I had decided not to leave my job. Management had called a series of meetings at the furniture factory for the end of that week, and Dad was convinced that he would be among those made redundant. Nobody had yet survived the cull over the age of forty.

‘We’re very grateful for your housekeeping, love,’ Mum said, so often that it made me feel a bit uncomfortable.

It was a funny week. Treena began packing for her course, and each day I had to sneak upstairs to go through the bags she had already packed to see which of my possessions she planned to take with her. Most of my clothes were safe, but so far I had recovered a hairdryer, my fake Prada sunglasses and my favourite washbag with the lemons on it. If I confronted her over any of it, she would just shrug and say, ‘Well, you never use it,’ as if that were entirely the point.

That was Treena all over. She felt entitled. Even though Thomas had come along, she had never quite lost that sense of being the baby of the family – the deep-rooted feeling that the whole world actually did revolve around her. When we had been little and she had thrown a huge strop because she wanted something of mine, Mum would plead with me to ‘just let her have it’, if only for some peace in the house. Nearly twenty years on, nothing had really changed. We had to babysit Thomas so that Treena could still go out, feed him so that Treena didn’t have to worry, buy her extra-nice presents at birthdays and Christmas ‘because Thomas means she often goes without’. Well, she could go without my bloody lemons washbag. I stuck a note on my door which read: ‘My stuff is MINE. GO AWAY.’ Treena ripped it off and told Mum I was the biggest child she had ever met and that Thomas had more maturity in his little finger than I did.

But it got me thinking. One evening, after Treena had gone out to her night class, I sat in the kitchen while Mum sorted Dad’s shirts ready for ironing.

‘Mum … ’

‘Yes, love.’

‘Do you think I could move into Treena’s room once she’s gone?’

Mum paused, a half-folded shirt pressed to her chest. ‘I don’t know. I hadn’t really thought about it.’

‘I mean, if she and Thomas are not going to be here, it’s only fair that I should be allowed a proper-sized bedroom. It seems silly, it sitting empty, if they’re going off to college.’

Mum nodded, and placed the shirt carefully in the laundry basket. ‘I suppose you’re right.’

‘And by rights, that room should have been mine, what with me being the elder and all. It’s only because she had Thomas that she got it at all.’

She could see the sense in it. ‘That’s true. I’ll talk to Treena about it,’ she said.

I suppose with hindsight it would have been a good idea to mention it to my sister first.

Three hours later she came bursting into the living room with a face like thunder.

‘Would you jump in my grave so quickly?’

Granddad jerked awake in his chair, his hand reflexively clasped to his chest.

I looked up from the television. ‘What are you talking about?’

‘Where are me and Thomas supposed to go at weekends? We can’t both fit in the box room. There’s not even enough room in there for two beds.’

‘Exactly. And I’ve been stuck in there for five years.’ The knowledge that I was ever so slightly in the wrong made me sound pricklier than I had intended.

‘You can’t take my room. It’s not fair.’

‘You’re not even going to be in it!’

‘But I need it! There’s no way me and Thomas can fit in the box room. Dad, tell her!’

Dad’s chin descended to somewhere deep in his collar, his arms folded across his chest. He hated it when we fought, and tended to leave it to Mum to sort out. ‘Turn it down a bit, girls,’ he said.

Granddad shook his head, as if we were all incomprehensible to him. Granddad shook his head at an awful lot these days.

‘I don’t believe you. No wonder you were so keen to help me leave.’

‘What? So you begging me to keep my job so that I can help you out financially is now part of my sinister plan, is it?’

‘You’re so two-faced.’

‘Katrina, calm down.’ Mum appeared in the doorway, her rubber gloves dripping foamy water on to the living-room carpet. ‘We can talk about this calmly. I don’t want you getting Granddad all wound up.’

Katrina’s face had gone blotchy, the way it did when she was small and she didn’t get what she wanted. ‘She actually wants me to go. That’s what this is. She can’t wait for me to go, because she’s jealous that I’m actually doing something with my life. So she just wants to make it difficult for me to come home again.’

‘There’s no guarantee you’re even going to be coming home at the weekends,’ I yelled, stung. ‘I need a bedroom, not a cupboard, and you’ve had the best room the whole time, just because you were dumb enough to get yourself up the duff.’

‘Louisa!’ said Mum.

‘Yes, well, if you weren’t so thick that you can’t even get a proper job, you could have got your own bloody place. You’re old enough. Or what’s the matter? You’ve finally figured out that Patrick is never going to ask you?’

‘That’s it!’ Dad’s roar broke into the silence. ‘I’ve heard enough! Treena, go into the kitchen. Lou, sit down and shut up. I’ve got enough stress in my life without having to listen to you caterwauling at each other.’

‘If you think I’m helping you now with your stupid list, you’ve got another thing coming,’ Treena hissed at me, as Mum manhandled her out of the door.

‘Good. I didn’t want your help anyway, freeloader,’ I said, and then ducked as Dad threw a copy of the Radio Times at my head.

On Saturday morning I went to the library. I think I probably hadn’t been in there since I was at school – quite possibly out of fear that they would remember the Judy Blume I had lost in Year 7, and that a clammy, official hand would reach out as I passed through its Victorian pillared doors, demanding ￡3,853 in fines.
     



It wasn’t what I remembered. Half the books seemed to have been replaced by CDs and DVDs, great bookshelves full of audiobooks, and even stands of greetings cards. And it was not silent. The sound of singing and clapping filtered through from the children’s book corner, where some kind of mother and baby group was in full swing. People read magazines and chatted quietly. The section where old men used to fall asleep over the free newspapers had disappeared, replaced by a large oval table with computers dotted around the perimeter. I sat down gingerly at one of these, hoping that nobody was watching. Computers, like books, are my sister’s thing. Luckily, they seemed to have anticipated the sheer terror felt by people like me. A librarian stopped by my table, and handed me a card and a laminated sheet with instructions on it. She didn’t stand over my shoulder, just murmured that she would be at the desk if I needed any further help, and then it was just me and a chair with a wonky castor and the blank screen.

The only computer I have had any contact with in years is Patrick’s. He only really uses it to download fitness plans, or to order sports technique books from Amazon. If there is other stuff he does on there, I don’t really want to know about it. But I followed the librarian’s instructions, double-checking every stage as I completed it. And, astonishingly, it worked. It didn’t just work, but it was easy.

Four hours later I had the beginnings of my list.

And nobody mentioned the Judy Blume. Mind you, that was probably because I had used my sister’s library card.

On the way home I nipped in to the stationer’s and bought a calendar. It wasn’t one of the month-to-view kind, the ones you flip over to reveal a fresh picture of Justin Timberlake or mountain ponies. It was a wall calendar – the sort you might find in an office, with staff holiday entitlement marked on it in permanent pen. I bought it with the brisk efficiency of someone who liked nothing better than to immerse herself in administrative tasks.

In my little room at home, I opened it out, pinned it carefully to the back of my door and marked the date when I had started at the Traynors’, way back at the beginning of February. Then I counted forward, and marked the date – 12 August – now barely four months ahead. I took a step back and stared at it for a while, trying to make the little black ring bear some of the weight of what it heralded. And as I stared, I began to realize what I was taking on.

I would have to fill those little white rectangles with a lifetime of things that could generate happiness, contentment, satisfaction or pleasure. I would have to fill them with every good experience I could summon up for a man whose powerless arms and legs meant he could no longer make them happen by himself. I had just under four months’ worth of printed rectangles to pack out with days out, trips away, visitors, lunches and concerts. I had to come up with all the practical ways to make them happen, and do enough research to make sure that they didn’t fail.

And then I had to convince Will to actually do them.

I stared at my calendar, the pen stilled in my hand. This little patch of laminated paper suddenly bore a whole heap of responsibility.

I had a hundred and seventeen days in which to convince Will Traynor that he had a reason to live.