Me Before You

6





The snow came so suddenly that I left home under a bright blue sky and not half an hour later I was headed past a castle that looked like a cake decoration, surrounded by a layer of thick white icing.

I trudged up the drive, my footsteps muffled and my toes already numb, shivering under my too-thin Chinese silk coat. A whirl of thick white flakes emerged from an iron-grey infinity, almost obscuring Granta House, blotting out sound, and slowing the world to an unnatural pace. Beyond the neatly trimmed hedge cars drove past with a newfound caution, pedestrians slipped and squealed on the pavements. I pulled my scarf up over my nose and wished I had worn something more suitable than ballet pumps and a velvet minidress.

To my surprise it wasn’t Nathan who opened the door, but Will’s father.

‘He’s in bed,’ he said, glancing up from under the porch. ‘He’s not too good. I was just wondering whether to call the doctor.’

‘Where’s Nathan?’

‘Morning off. Of course, it would be today. Bloody agency nurse came and went in six seconds flat. If this snow keeps on I’m not sure what we’ll do later.’ He shrugged, as if these things couldn’t be helped, and disappeared back down the corridor, apparently relieved that he no longer had to be responsible. ‘You know what he needs, yes?’ he called over his shoulder.

I took off my coat and shoes and, as I knew Mrs Traynor was in court (she marked her dates on a diary in Will’s kitchen), I put my wet socks over a radiator to dry. A pair of Will’s were in the clean-washing basket, so I put them on. They looked comically large on me but it was heaven to have warm, dry feet. Will didn’t respond when I called out, so after a while I made him up a drink, knocked quietly and poked my head round the door. In the dim light I could just make out the shape under the duvet. He was fast asleep.

I took a step backwards, closed the door behind me, and began working my way through the morning’s tasks.

My mother seemed to glean an almost physical satisfaction from a well-ordered house. I had been vacuuming and cleaning daily for a month now, and I still couldn’t see the attraction. I suspected there would never be a point in my life when I wouldn’t prefer somebody else to do it.

But on a day like today, when Will was confined to bed, and the world seemed to have stilled outside, I could also see there was a kind of meditative pleasure in working my way from one end of the annexe to the other. While I dusted and polished, I took the radio from room to room with me, keeping the volume low so that I didn’t disturb Will. Periodically I poked my head round the door, just to see that he was breathing, and it was only when we got to one o’clock and he still hadn’t woken up that I started to feel a little anxious.

I filled the log basket, noting that several inches of snow had now settled. I made Will a fresh drink, and then knocked. When I knocked again, I did so loudly.

‘Yes?’ His voice was hoarse, as if I had woken him.

‘It’s me.’ When he didn’t respond, I said, ‘Louisa. Am I okay to come in?’

‘I’m hardly doing the Dance of the Seven Veils.’

The room was shadowed, the curtains still drawn. I walked in, letting my eyes adjust to the light. Will was on one side, one arm bent in front of him as if to prop himself up, as he had been before when I looked in. Sometimes it was easy to forget he would not be able to turn over by himself. His hair stuck up on one side, and a duvet was tucked neatly around him. The smell of warm, unwashed male filled the room – not unpleasant, but still a little startling as part of a working day.

‘What can I do? Do you want your drink?’

‘I need to change position.’

I put the drink down on a chest of drawers, and walked over to the bed. ‘What … what do you want me to do?’
     



He swallowed carefully, as if it were painful. ‘Lift and turn me, then raise the back of the bed. Here … ’ He nodded for me to come closer. ‘Put your arms under mine, link your hands behind my back and then pull back. Keep your backside on the bed and that way you shouldn’t strain your lower back.’

I couldn’t pretend this wasn’t a bit weird. I reached around him, the scent of him filling my nostrils, his skin warm against mine. I could not have been in any closer unless I had begun nibbling on his ear. The thought made me mildly hysterical, and I struggled to keep myself together.

‘What?’

‘Nothing.’ I took a breath, linked my hands, and adjusted my position until I felt I had him securely. He was broader than I had expected, somehow heavier. And then, on a count of three, I pulled back.

‘Jesus,’ he exclaimed, into my shoulder.

‘What?’ I nearly dropped him.

‘Your hands are bloody freezing.’

‘Yes. Well, if you bothered to get out of bed, you’d know that it’s actually snowing outside.’

I was half joking, but now I realized his skin was hot under his T-shirt – an intense heat that seemed to come from deep within him. He groaned slightly as I adjusted him against the pillow, and I tried to make my movements as slow and gentle as possible. He pointed out the remote control device that would bring his head and shoulders up. ‘Not too much, though,’ he murmured. ‘A bit dizzy.’

I turned on the bedside light, ignoring his vague protest, so that I could see his face. ‘Will – are you okay?’ I had to say it twice before he answered me.

‘Not my best day.’

‘Do you need painkillers?’

‘Yes … strong ones.’

‘Maybe some paracetamol?’

He lay back against the cool pillow with a sigh.

I gave him the beaker, watched him swallow.

‘Thank you,’ he said afterwards, and I felt suddenly uneasy.

Will never thanked me for anything.

He closed his eyes, and for a while I just stood in the doorway and watched him, his chest rising and falling under his T-shirt, his mouth slightly open. His breathing was shallow, and perhaps a little more laboured than on other days. But I had never seen him out of his chair, and I wasn’t sure whether it was something to do with the pressure of lying down.

‘Go,’ he muttered.

I left.

I read my magazine, lifting my head only to watch the snow settle thickly around the house, creeping up the window sills in powdery landscapes. Mum sent me a text message at 12.30pm, telling me that my father couldn’t get the car down the road. ‘Don’t set out for home without ringing us first,’ she instructed. I wasn’t sure what she thought she was going to do – send Dad out with a sledge and a St Bernard?

I listened to the local news on the radio, the motorway snarl-ups, train stoppages and temporary school closures that the unexpected blizzard had brought with it. I went back into Will’s room, and looked at him again. I didn’t like his colour. He was pale, high points of something bright on each cheek.

‘Will?’ I said softly.

He didn’t stir.

‘Will?’

I began to feel the faint stirrings of panic. I said his name twice more, loudly. There was no response. Finally, I leant over him. There was no obvious movement in his face, nothing I could see in his chest. His breath. I should be able to feel his breath. I put my face down close to his, trying to detect an out breath. When I couldn’t, I reached out a hand and touched his face gently.

He flinched, his eyes snapping open, just inches from my own.

‘I’m sorry,’ I said, jumping back.

He blinked, glancing around the room, as if he had been somewhere far from home.

‘It’s Lou,’ I said, when I wasn’t sure if he had recognized me.

His expression was one of mild exasperation. ‘I know.’

‘Do you want some soup?’

‘No. Thank you.’ He closed his eyes.

‘More painkillers?’

There was a faint sheen of sweat on his cheekbone. I put my hand out, his duvet felt vaguely hot and sweaty. It made me nervous.

‘Is there something I should be doing? I mean, if Nathan can’t get here?’

‘No … I’m fine,’ he murmured, and closed his eyes again.

I went through the folder, trying to work out if I was missing something. I opened the medical cabinet, the boxes of rubber gloves and gauze dressings, and realized I had no idea at all what I should do with any of it. I rang the intercom to speak to Will’s father, but the ringing sound disappeared into an empty house. I could hear it echoing beyond the annexe door.

I was about to ring Mrs Traynor when the back door opened, and Nathan stepped in, wrapped in layers of bulky clothing, a woollen scarf and hat almost obscuring his head. He brought with him a whoosh of cold air and a light flurry of snow.

‘Hey,’ he said, shaking the snow off his boots and slamming the door behind him.

It felt like the house had suddenly woken from a dreamlike state.

‘Oh, thank God you’re here,’ I said. ‘He’s not well. He’s been asleep most of the morning and he’s hardly drunk anything. I didn’t know what to do.’

Nathan shrugged off his coat. ‘Had to walk all the way here. The buses have stopped running.’

I set about making him some tea, as he went to check on Will.

He reappeared before the kettle had even finished boiling. ‘He’s burning up,’ he said. ‘How long has he been like this?’

‘All morning. I did think he was hot, but he said he just wanted to sleep.’

‘Jesus. All morning? Didn’t you know he can’t regulate his own temperature?’ He pushed past me and began rummaging around in the medicine cabinet. ‘Antibiotics. The strong ones.’ He held up a jar and emptied one into the pestle and mortar, grinding it furiously.

I hovered behind him. ‘I gave him a paracetamol.’

‘Might as well have given him an Opal Fruit.’

‘I didn’t know. Nobody said. I’ve been wrapping him up.’

‘It’s in the bloody folder. Look, Will doesn’t sweat like we do. In fact he doesn’t sweat at all from the point of his injury downwards. It means if he gets a slight chill his temperature gauge goes haywire. Go find the fan. We’ll move that in there until he cools down. And a damp towel, to put around the back of his neck. We won’t be able to get him to a doctor until the snow stops. Bloody agency nurse. They should have picked this up in the morning.’
     



Nathan was crosser than I’d ever seen him. He was no longer really even talking to me.

I ran for the fan.

It took almost forty minutes for Will’s temperature to return to an acceptable level. While we waited for the extra-strong fever medication to take effect, I placed a towel over his forehead and another around his neck, as Nathan instructed. We stripped him down, covered his chest with a fine cotton sheet, and set the fan to play over it. Without sleeves, the scars on his arms were clearly exposed. We all pretended I couldn’t see them.

Will endured all this attention in near silence, answering Nathan’s questions with a yes or no, so indistinct sometimes that I wasn’t sure if he knew what he was saying. I realized, now I could see him in the light, that he looked really, properly ill and I felt terrible for having failed to grasp it. I said sorry until Nathan told me it had become irritating.

‘Right,’ he said. ‘You need to watch what I’m doing. It’s possible you may need to do this alone later.’

I didn’t feel I could protest. But I found it hard not to feel squeamish as Nathan peeled down the waist of Will’s pyjama bottoms, revealing a pale strip of bare stomach, and carefully removed the gauze dressing around the little tube in his abdomen, cleaning it gently and replacing the dressing. He showed me how to change the bag on the bed, explained why it must always be lower than Will’s body, and I was surprised at how matter-of-fact I was about walking out of the room with the pouch of warm fluid. I was glad that Will wasn’t really watching me – not just because he would have made some sharp comment, but because I felt that me witnessing some part of this intimate routine would in some way have embarrassed him too.

‘And that’s it,’ Nathan said. Finally, an hour later, Will lay dozing, lying on fresh cotton sheets and looking, if not exactly well, then not scarily ill.

‘Let him sleep. But wake him after a couple of hours and make sure you get the best part of a beaker of fluids into him. More fever meds at five, okay? His temperature will probably shoot up again in the last hour, but nothing more before five.’

I scribbled everything down on a notepad. I was afraid of getting anything wrong.

‘Now you’re going to need to repeat what we just did, this evening. You’re okay with that?’ Nathan wrapped himself up like an Inuit and headed out into the snow. ‘Just read the folder. And don’t panic. Any problems, you just call me. I’ll talk you through it all. I’ll get back here again if I really have to.’

I stayed in Will’s room after Nathan left. I was too afraid not to. In the corner was an old leather armchair with a reading light, perhaps dating from Will’s previous life, and I curled up on it with a book of short stories that I had pulled from the bookcase.

It was strangely peaceful in that room. Through the crack in the curtains I could see the outside world, blanketed in white, still and beautiful. Inside it was warm and silent, only the odd tick and hiss of the central heating to interrupt my thoughts. I read, and occasionally I glanced up and checked Will sleeping peacefully and I realized that there had never been a point in my life before where I had just sat in silence and done nothing. You don’t grow up used to silence in a house like mine, with its never-ending vacuuming, television blaring, and shrieking. During the rare moments that the television was off, Dad would put on his old Elvis records and play them at full blast. A cafe too is a constant buzz of noise and clatter.

Here, I could hear my thoughts. I could almost hear my heartbeat. I realized, to my surprise, that I quite liked it.

At five, my mobile phone signalled a text message. Will stirred, and I leapt out of the chair, anxious to get it before it disturbed him.

No trains. Is there any chance you could stay over tonight?

Nathan cannot do it. Camilla Traynor.

I didn’t really think about it before I typed back.

No problem.

I rang my parents and told them that I would stay over. My mother sounded relieved. When I told her I was going to get paid for sleeping over, she sounded overjoyed.

‘Did you hear that, Bernard?’ she said, her hand half over the phone. ‘They’re paying her to sleep now.’

I could hear my father’s exclamation. ‘Praise the Lord. She’s found her dream career.’

I sent a text message to Patrick, telling him that I had been asked to stay at work and I would ring him later. The message came back within seconds.

Going cross-country snow running tonight.

Good practice for Norway! X P.

I wondered how it was possible for someone to get so excited at the thought of jogging through sub-zero temperatures in a vest and pants.

Will slept. I cooked myself some food, and defrosted some soup in case he wanted some later. I got the log fire going in case he felt well enough to go into the living room. I read another of the short stories and wondered how long it was since I had bought myself a book. I had loved reading as a child, but I couldn’t remember reading anything except magazines since. Treen was the reader. It was almost as if by picking up a book I felt like I was invading her patch. I thought about her and Thomas disappearing to university and realized I still didn’t know whether it made me feel happy or sad – or something a bit complicated in between.

Nathan rang at seven. He seemed relieved that I was staying over.

‘I couldn’t raise Mr Traynor. I even rang their landline number, but it went straight through to answerphone.’

‘Yeah. Well. He’ll be gone.’

‘Gone?’

I felt a sudden instinctive panic at the idea that it would be just Will and me in the house all night. I was afraid of getting something fundamental wrong again, of jeopardizing Will’s health. ‘Should I call Mrs Traynor, then?’

There was a short silence on the other end of the phone. ‘No. Best not.’

‘But –’

‘Look, Lou, he often … he often goes somewhere else when Mrs T stays over in town.’

It took me a minute or two to grasp what he was saying.

‘Oh.’

‘It’s just good that you’re there, that’s all. If you’re sure Will’s looking better, I’ll be back first thing in the morning.’

There are normal hours, and then there are invalid hours, where time stalls and slips, where life – real life – seems to exist at one remove. I watched some television, ate, and cleared up the kitchen, drifting around the annexe in silence. Finally, I let myself back into Will’s room.

He stirred as I closed the door, half lifting his head. ‘What time is it, Clark?’ His voice was slightly muffled by the pillow.
     



‘Quarter past eight.’

He let his head drop, and digested this. ‘Can I have a drink?’

There was no sharpness to him now, no edge. It was as if being ill had finally made him vulnerable. I gave him a drink, and turned on the bedside light. I perched on the side of his bed, and felt his forehead, as my mother might have done when I was a child. He was still a little warm, but nothing like he had been.

‘Cool hands.’

‘You complained about them earlier.’

‘Did I?’ He sounded genuinely surprised.

‘Would you like some soup?’

‘No.’

‘Are you comfortable?’

I never knew how much discomfort he was in, but I suspected it was more than he let on.

‘The other side would be good. Just roll me. I don’t need to sit up.’

I climbed across the bed and moved him over, as gently as I could. He no longer radiated a sinister heat, just the ordinary warmth of a body that had spent time under a duvet.

‘Can I do anything else?’

‘Shouldn’t you be heading home?’

‘It’s okay,’ I said. ‘I’m staying over.’

Outside, the last of the light had long been extinguished. The snow was still falling. Where it caught the porch glow through the window it was bathed in a pale-gold, melancholy light. We sat there in peaceful silence, watching its hypnotic fall.

‘Can I ask you something?’ I said, finally. I could see his hands on top of the sheet. It seemed so strange that they should look so ordinary, so strong, and yet be so useless.

‘I suspect you’re going to.’

‘What happened?’ I kept wondering about the marks on his wrists. It was the one question I couldn’t ask directly.

He opened one eye. ‘How did I get like this?’

When I nodded, he closed his eyes again. ‘Motorbike accident. Not mine. I was an innocent pedestrian.’

‘I thought it would be skiing or bungee jumping or something.’

‘Everyone does. God’s little joke. I was crossing the road outside my home. Not this place,’ he said. ‘My London home.’

I stared at the books in his bookshelf. Among the novels, the well-thumbed Penguin paperbacks, were business titles: Corporate Law, TakeOver, directories of names I did not recognize.

‘And there was no way you could carry on with your job?’

‘No. Nor the apartment, the holidays, the life … I believe you met my ex-girlfriend.’ The break in his voice couldn’t disguise the bitterness. ‘But I should apparently be grateful, as for some time they didn’t think I was going to live at all.’

‘Do you hate it? Living here, I mean?’

‘Yes.’

‘Is there any way you might be able to live in London again?’

‘Not like this, no.’

‘But you might improve. I mean, Nathan said there are loads of advances in this kind of injury.’

Will closed his eyes again.

I waited, and then I adjusted the pillow behind his head, and the duvet around his chest. ‘Sorry,’ I said, sitting upright. ‘If I ask too many questions. Do you want me to leave?’

‘No. Stay for a bit. Talk to me.’ He swallowed. His eyes opened again and his gaze slid up to mine. He looked unbearably tired. ‘Tell me something good.’

I hesitated a moment, then I leant back against the pillows beside him. We sat there in the near dark, watching the briefly illuminated flakes of snow disappear into the black night.

‘You know … I used to say that to my Dad,’ I said, finally. ‘But if I told you what he used to say back, you’d think I was insane.’

‘More than I do?’

‘When I had a nightmare or was sad or frightened about something, he used to sing me … ’ I started to laugh. ‘Oh … I can’t.’

‘Go on.’

‘He used to sing me the “Molahonkey Song”.’

‘The what?’

‘The “Molahonkey Song”. I used to think everyone knew it.’

‘Trust me, Clark,’ he murmured, ‘I am a Molahonkey virgin.’

I took a deep breath, closed my eyes and began to sing.

I wi-li-lished I li-li-lived in Molahonkey la-la-land

The la-la-land where I-li-li was bo-lo-lo-lo-lo-lo-lorn

So I-li-li could play-la-lay my o-lo-lold banjo-lo-lo

My o-lo-lold ban-jo-lo-lo won’t go-lo-lo-lo-lo-lo-lo.

‘Jesus Christ.’

I took another breath.

I too-lo-look it to-lo-lo the me-le-lender’s sho-lo-lop to

See-lee-lee what they-le-ley could do-lo-lo-lo-lo-lo-lo

They sai-lai-laid to me-le-le your stri-li-lings are sho-lo-lot

They’re no-lo-lo more u-lu-luse to you-lo-lo-lo-lo-lo-loo.

There was a short silence.

‘You are insane. Your whole family is insane.’

‘But it worked.’

‘And you are a God-awful singer. I hope your dad was better.’

‘I think what you meant to say was, “Thank you, Miss Clark, for attempting to entertain me.”’

‘I suppose it makes about as much sense as most of the psychotherapeutic help I’ve received. Okay, Clark,’ he said, ‘tell me something else. Something that doesn’t involve singing.’

I thought for a bit.

‘Um … okay, well … you were looking at my shoes the other day?’

‘Hard not to.’

‘Well, my mum can date my unusual shoe thing back to when I was three. She bought me a pair of bright-turquoise glittery wellies – they were quite unusual back then – kids used to just have those green ones, or maybe red if you were lucky. And she said from the day she brought them home I refused to take them off. I wore them to bed, in the bath, to nursery all through the summer. My favourite outfit was those glitter boots and my bumblebee tights.’

‘Bumblebee tights?’

‘Black and yellow stripes.’

‘Gorgeous.’

‘That’s a bit harsh.’

‘Well, it’s true. They sound revolting.’

‘They might sound revolting to you, but astonishingly, Will Traynor, not all girls get dressed just to please men.’

‘Bullshit.’

‘No, it’s not.’

‘Everything women do is with men in mind. Everything anyone does is with sex in mind. Haven’t you read The Red Queen?’

‘I have no idea what you’re talking about. But I can assure you I’m not sitting on your bed singing the “Molahonkey Song” because I’m trying to get my leg over. And when I was three, I just really, really liked having stripy legs.’

I realized that the anxiety that had held me in its grip all day was slowly ebbing away with every one of Will’s comments. I was no longer in sole charge of a poorly quadriplegic. It was just me, sitting next to a particularly sarcastic bloke, having a chat.
     



‘So come on, then, what happened to these gorgeous glittery wellies?’

‘She had to throw them away. I got terrible athlete’s foot.’

‘Delightful.’

‘And she threw the tights away too.’

‘Why?’

‘I never found out. But it broke my heart. I have never found a pair of tights I loved like that again. They don’t do them any more. Or if they do, they don’t make them for grown women.’

‘Strange, that.’

‘Oh, you can mock. Didn’t you ever love anything that much?’

I could barely see him now, the room shrouded in the near dark. I could have turned the overhead light on, but something stopped me. And almost as soon as I realized what I had said, I wished I hadn’t.

‘Yes,’ he said, quietly. ‘Yes, I did.’

We talked a bit longer, and then Will nodded off. I lay there, watching him breathe, and occasionally wondering what he would say if he woke up and found me staring at him, at his too-long hair and tired eyes and scraggy beginnings of a beard. But I couldn’t move. The hours had become surreal, an island out of time. I was the only other person in the house, and I was still afraid to leave him.

Shortly after eleven, I saw he had begun to sweat again, his breathing becoming shallower, and I woke him and made him take some fever medication. He didn’t talk, except to murmur his thanks. I changed his top sheet and his pillowcase, and then, when he finally slept again, I lay down a foot away from him and, a long time later, I slept too.

I woke to the sound of my name. I was in a classroom, asleep on my desk, and the teacher was rapping a blackboard, repeating my name again and again. I knew I should be paying attention, knew that the teacher would see this slumber as an act of subversion, but I could not raise my head from the desk.

‘Louisa.’

‘Mmmhghh.’

‘Louisa.’

The desk was awfully soft. I opened my eyes. The words were being spoken over my head, hissed, but with great emphasis. Louisa.

I was in bed. I blinked, letting my eyes focus, then looked up to find Camilla Traynor standing over me. She wore a heavy wool coat and her handbag was slung over her shoulder.

‘Louisa.’

I pushed myself upright with a start. Beside me, Will was asleep under the covers, his mouth slightly open, his elbow bent at right angles in front of him. Light seeped in through the window; telling of a cold, bright morning.

‘Uh.’

‘What are you doing?’

I felt as if I had been caught doing something awful. I rubbed at my face, trying to gather my thoughts. Why was I in here? What could I tell her?

‘What are you doing in Will’s bed?’

‘Will … ’ I said, quietly. ‘Will wasn’t well … I just thought I should keep an eye –’

‘What do you mean, he wasn’t well? Look, come out into the hall.’ She strode out of the room, evidently waiting for me to catch her up.

I followed, trying to straighten my clothes. I had a horrible feeling my make-up was smeared all over my face.

She closed Will’s bedroom door behind me.

I stood in front of her, trying to smooth my hair as I gathered my thoughts. ‘Will had a temperature. Nathan got it down when he came, but I didn’t know about this regulating thing and I wanted to keep an eye on him … he said I should keep an eye on him … ’ My voice sounded thick, unformed. I wasn’t entirely sure I was making coherent sentences.





‘Why didn’t you call me? If he was ill you should have called me immediately. Or Mr Traynor.’

It was as if my synapses had suddenly snapped together. Mr Traynor. Oh Lord. I glanced up at the clock. It was a quarter to eight.

‘I didn’t … Nathan seemed to … ’

‘Look, Louisa. It’s really not rocket science. If Will was ill enough for you to sleep in his room then that is something you should have contacted me about.’

‘Yes.’

I blinked, staring at the ground.

‘I don’t understand why you didn’t call. Did you attempt to call Mr Traynor?’

Nathan said not to say anything.

‘I –’

At that moment the door to the annexe opened, and Mr Traynor stood there, a newspaper folded under his arm. ‘You made it back!’ he said to his wife, brushing snowflakes from his shoulders. ‘I’ve just fought my way up the road to get a newspaper and some milk. Roads are absolutely treacherous. I had to go the long way to Hansford Corner, to avoid the ice patches.’

She looked at him and I wondered for a moment whether she was registering the fact that he was wearing the same shirt and jumper as the previous day.

‘Did you know Will had been ill in the night?’

He looked straight at me. I dropped my gaze to my feet. I wasn’t sure I had ever felt more uncomfortable.

‘Did you try to call me, Louisa? I’m sorry – I didn’t hear a thing. I suspect that intercom’s on the blink. There have been a few occasions lately where I’ve missed it. And I wasn’t feeling too good myself last night. Out like a light.’

I was still wearing Will’s socks. I stared at them, wondering if Mrs Traynor was going to judge me for that too.

But she seemed distracted. ‘It’s been a long journey home. I think … I’ll leave you to it. But if anything like this happens again, you call me immediately. Do you understand?’

I didn’t want to look at Mr Traynor. ‘Yes,’ I said, and disappeared into the kitchen.