Me Before You (34 page)

‘I want to get out now,’ I had told them, my voice slurring and unsteady. ‘I’ve had enough, guys.’

And they had all vanished. The maze was silent, just the distant whispers that might have been them on the other side of the hedge – or might have been the wind dislodging the leaves.

‘I want to go out now,’ I had said, my voice sounding
uncertain even to me. I had gazed up at the sky, briefly unbalanced by the vast, studded black of the space above me. And then I jumped as someone caught me around my waist – the dark-haired one. The one who had been to Africa.

‘You can’t go yet,’ he said. ‘You’ll spoil the game.’

I had known then, just from the feel of his hands on my waist. I had realized that some balance had shifted, that some restraint on behaviour had begun to evaporate. And I had laughed, pushed at his hands as if they were a joke, unwilling to let him know that I knew. I heard him shout for his friends. And I broke away from him, running suddenly, trying to fight my way to the exit, my feet sinking into the damp grass. I heard them all around me, their raised voices, their bodies unseen, and felt my throat constrict in panic. I was too disorientated to work out where I was. The tall hedges kept swaying, pitching towards me. I kept going, pushing my way around corners, stumbling, ducking into openings, trying to get away from their voices. But the exit never came. Everywhere I turned there was just another expanse of hedge, another mocking voice.

I stumbled into an opening, briefly exultant that I was near freedom. But then I saw I was back at the centre again, back where I had started. I reeled as I saw them all standing there, as if they had simply been waiting for me.

‘There you go,’ one of them said, as his hand grabbed my arm. ‘I told you she was up for it. Come on, Lou-lou, give me a kiss and I’ll show you the way out.’ His voice was soft and drawling.

‘Give us all a kiss and we’ll all show you the way out.’

Their faces were a blur.

‘I just … I just want you to –’

‘Come on, Lou. You like me, don’t you? You’ve been sitting on my lap all evening. One kiss. How hard is that?’

I heard a snigger.

‘And you’ll show me how to get out?’ My voice sounded pathetic, even to me.

‘Just one.’ He moved closer.

I felt his mouth on mine, a hand squeezing my thigh.

He broke away, and I heard the tenor of his breathing change. ‘And now Jake’s turn.’

I don’t know what I said then. Someone had my arm. I heard the laughter, felt a hand in my hair, another mouth on mine, insistent, invasive, and then –

‘
Will
 … ’

I was sobbing now, crouched over myself. ‘
Will
,’ I was saying his name, over and over again, my voice ragged, emerging somewhere from my chest. I heard him somewhere far off, beyond the hedge.

‘Louisa? Louisa, where are you? What’s the matter?’

I was in the corner, as far under the hedge as I could get. Tears blurred my eyes, my arms wrapped tightly around me. I couldn’t get out. I would be stuck here forever. Nobody would find me.

‘Will … ’

‘Where are – ?’

And there he was, in front of me.

‘I’m sorry,’ I said, looking up, my face contorted. ‘I’m sorry. I can’t … do it.’

He lifted his arm a couple of inches – the maximum he could manage. ‘Oh Jesus, what the – ? Come here, Clark. He moved forward, then glanced down at his arm in frustration.
‘Bloody useless thing … It’s okay. Just breathe. Come here. Just breathe. Slowly.’

I wiped my eyes. At the sight of him, the panic had begun to subside. I stood up, unsteadily, and tried to straighten my face. ‘I’m sorry. I … don’t know what happened.’

‘Are you claustrophobic?’ His face, inches from mine, was etched with worry. ‘I could see you didn’t want to go in. I just … I just thought you were being –’

I shut my eyes. ‘I just want to go now.’

‘Hold on to my hand. We’ll go out.’

He had me out of there within minutes. He knew the maze backwards, he told me as we walked, his voice calm, reassuring. It had been a challenge for him as a boy to learn his way through. I entwined my fingers with his and felt the warmth of his hand as something comforting. I felt foolish when I realized how close to the entrance I had been all along.

We stopped at a bench just outside, and I rummaged in the back of his chair for a tissue. We sat there in silence, me on the end of the bench beside him, both of us waiting for my hiccoughing to subside.

He sat, sneaking sideways glances at me.

‘So … ?’ he said, finally, when I must have looked as if I could speak without falling apart again. ‘You want to tell me what’s going on?’

I twisted the tissue in my hands. ‘I can’t.’

He closed his mouth.

I swallowed. ‘It’s not you,’ I said, hurriedly. ‘I haven’t talked to anyone about … It’s … it’s stupid. And a long time ago. I didn’t think … I would … ’

I felt his eyes on me, and wished he wouldn’t look. My hands wouldn’t stop trembling, and my stomach felt as if it were made of a million knots.

I shook my head, trying to tell him that there were things I couldn’t say. I wanted to reach for his hand again, but I didn’t feel I could. I was conscious of his gaze, could almost hear his unspoken questions.

Below us, two cars had pulled up near the gates. Two figures got out – from here it was impossible to see who – and embraced. They stood there for a few minutes, perhaps talking, and then got back into their cars and drove off in the opposite direction. I watched them but I couldn’t think. My mind felt frozen. I didn’t know what to say about anything any more.

‘Okay. Here’s a thing,’ he said, finally. I turned around, but he wasn’t looking at me. ‘I’ll tell you something that I never tell anyone. All right?’

‘All right.’ I screwed the tissue into a ball in my hands, waiting.

He took a deep breath.

‘I get really, really scared of how this is going to go.’ He let that settle in the air between us, and then, in a low, calm voice, he carried on. ‘I know most people think living like me is about the worst thing that could happen. But it could get worse. I could end up not being able to breathe by myself, not being able to talk. I could get circulatory problems that mean my limbs have to be amputated. I could be hospitalized indefinitely. This isn’t much of a life, Clark. But when I think about how much worse it could get – some nights I lie in my bed and I can’t actually breathe.’

He swallowed. ‘And you know what? Nobody wants to hear that stuff. Nobody wants you to talk about being afraid, or in pain, or being scared of dying through some stupid, random infection. Nobody wants to know how it feels to know you will never have sex again, never eat food you’ve made with your own hands again, never hold your own child. Nobody wants to know that sometimes I feel so claustrophobic, being in this chair, I just want to scream like a madman at the thought of spending another day in it. My mother is hanging on by a thread and can’t forgive me for still loving my father. My sister resents me for the fact that yet again I have overshadowed her – and because my injuries mean she can’t properly hate me, like she has since we were children. My father just wants it all to go away. Ultimately, they want to look on the bright side. They need me to look on the bright side.’

He paused. ‘They need to believe there
is
a bright side.’

I blinked into the darkness. ‘Do I do that?’ I said, quietly.

‘You, Clark,’ he looked down at his hands, ‘are the only person I have felt able to talk to since I ended up in this bloody thing.’

And so I told him.

I reached for his hand, the same one that had led me out of the maze, and I looked straight down at my feet and I took a breath and I told him about the whole night, and how they had laughed at me and made fun of how drunk and stoned I was, and how I had passed out and later my sister had said it might actually be a good thing, the not remembering all of what they had done, but how that half-hour of not knowing had haunted me ever since. I filled it, you see. I filled it with their laughter, their bodies
and their words. I filled it with my own humiliation. I told him how I saw their faces every time I went anywhere beyond the town, and how Patrick and Mum and Dad and my small life had been just fine for me, with all their problems and limitations. They had let me feel safe.

By the time we finished talking the sky had grown dark, and there were fourteen messages on my mobile phone wondering where we were.

‘You don’t need me to tell you it wasn’t your fault,’ he said, quietly.

Above us the sky had become endless and infinite.

I twisted the handkerchief in my hand. ‘Yes. Well. I still feel … responsible. I drank too much to show off. I was a terrible flirt. I was –’

‘No. They were responsible.’

Nobody had ever said those words aloud to me. Even Treena’s look of sympathy had held some mute accusation.
Well, if you will get drunk and silly with men you don’t know
 … 

His fingers squeezed mine. A faint movement, but there it was.

‘Louisa. It wasn’t your fault.’

I cried then. Not sobbing, this time. The tears left me silently, and told me something else was leaving me. Guilt. Fear. A few other things I hadn’t yet found words for. I leant my head gently on his shoulder and he tilted his head until it rested against mine.

‘Right. Are you listening to me?’

I murmured a yes.

‘Then I’ll tell you something good,’ he said, and then he waited, as if he wanted to be sure he had my attention.
‘Some mistakes … just have greater consequences than others. But you don’t have to let that night be the thing that defines you.’

I felt his head tilt against mine.

‘You, Clark, have the choice not to let that happen.’

The sigh that left me then was long, and shuddering. We sat there in silence, letting his words sink in. I could have stayed there all night, above the rest of the world, the warmth of Will’s hand in mine, feeling the worst of myself slowly begin to ebb away.

‘We’d better get back,’ he said, eventually. ‘Before they call out a search party.’

I released his hand and stood, a little reluctantly, feeling the cool breezes on my skin. And then, almost luxuriously, I stretched my arms high above my head. I let my fingers straighten in the evening air, the tension of weeks, months, perhaps years, easing a little, and let out a deep breath.

Below me the lights of the town winked, a circle of light amid the black countryside below us. I turned back towards him. ‘Will?’

‘Yes?’

I could barely see him in the dim light, but I knew he was watching me. ‘Thank you. Thank you for coming to get me.’

He shook his head, and turned his chair back towards the path.

‘Disneyland is good.’

‘I told you, no theme parks.’

‘I know you said that, but it’s not just roller coasters and whirling teacups. At Florida you’ve got the film studios and the science centre. It’s actually quite educational.’

‘I don’t think a 35-year-old former company head needs educating.’

‘There are disabled loos on every corner. And the members of staff are incredibly caring. Nothing is too much trouble.’

‘You’re going to say there are rides specially for handicapped people next, aren’t you?’

‘They accommodate everyone. Why don’t you try Florida, Miss Clark? If you don’t like it you could go on to SeaWorld. And the weather is lovely.’

‘In Will versus killer whale I think I know who would come off worst.’

He didn’t seem to hear me. ‘And they are one of the top-rated companies for dealing with disability. You know they do a lot of Make-A-Wish Foundation stuff for people who are dying?’

‘He is
not
dying.’ I put the phone down on the travel agent just as Will came in. I fumbled with the receiver, trying to set it back in its cradle, and snapped my notepad shut.

‘Everything all right, Clark?’

‘Fine.’ I smiled brightly.

‘Good. Got a nice frock?’

‘What?’

‘What are you doing on Saturday?’

He was waiting expectantly. My brain was still stalled on killer whale versus travel agent.

‘Um … nothing. Patrick’s away all day training. Why?’

He waited just a few seconds before he said it, as if it actually gave him some pleasure to surprise me.

‘We’re going to a wedding.’

Afterwards, I was never entirely sure why Will changed his mind about Alicia and Rupert’s nuptials. I suspected there was probably a large dose of natural contrariness in his decision – nobody expected him to go, probably least of all Alicia and Rupert themselves. Perhaps it was about finally getting closure. But I think in the last couple of months she had lost the power to wound him.

We decided we could manage without Nathan’s help. I called up to make sure the marquee was suitable for Will’s wheelchair, and Alicia sounded so flustered when she realized we weren’t actually declining the invitation that it dawned on me her embossed correspondence really had been for appearance’s sake.

‘Um … well … there is a very small step up into the marquee, but I suppose the people who are putting it up did say they could provide a ramp … ’ She tailed off.

‘That will be lovely, then. Thank you,’ I said. ‘We’ll see you on the day.’

We went online and picked out a wedding present. Will spent £120 on a silver picture frame, and a vase that he
said was ‘absolutely vile’ for another £60. I was shocked that he would spend that much money on someone he didn’t even really like, but I had worked out within weeks of being employed by the Traynors that they had different ideas about money. They wrote four-figure cheques without giving it a thought. I had seen Will’s bank statement once, when it had been left on the kitchen table for him to look at. It contained enough money to buy our house twice over – and that was only his current account.

I decided to wear my red dress – partly because I knew Will liked it (and I figured today he was going to need all the minor boosts he could get) – but also because I didn’t actually have any other dresses which I felt brave enough to wear at such a gathering. Will had no idea of the fear I felt at the thought of going to a society wedding, let alone as ‘the help’. Every time I thought of the braying voices, the assessing glances in our direction, I wanted to spend the day watching Patrick run in circles instead. Perhaps it was shallow of me to even care, but I couldn’t help it. The thought of those guests looking down on both of us was already tying my stomach in knots.