me before you, 07.1

me before you, 07
7


Spring arrived overnight, as if winter, like some unwanted guest, had abruptly
shrugged its way into its coat and vanished, without saying goodbye. Everything
became greener, the roads bathed in watery sunshine, the air suddenly balmy.
There were hints of something floral and welcoming in the air, birdsong the
gentle backdrop to the day.

I didn’t notice any of it. I had stayed at Patrick’s house the evening before. It
was the first time I had seen him for almost a week due to his enhanced training
schedule, but having spent forty minutes in the bath with half a pack of bath
salts, he was so exhausted he could barely talk to me. I had begun stroking his
back, in a rare attempt at seduction, and he had murmured that he was really too
tired, his hand flicking as if he were swatting me away. I was still awake and
staring at his ceiling discontentedly four hours later.

Patrick and I had met while I was doing the only other job I have ever held,
that of trainee at The Cutting Edge, Hailsbury’s only unisex hairdresser’s. He
walked in while Samantha, the proprietor, was busy, asking for a number four. I
gave him what he described afterwards as the worst haircut not only that he had
ever had, but the worst haircut in the history of mankind. Three months later,
realizing that a love of fiddling with my own hair did not necessarily mean that I
was cut out to do anyone else’s, I left and got the job at the cafe with Frank.

When we started going out, Patrick had been working in sales and his
favourite things could have been listed as beer, garage chocolate, talking about
sport and sex (doing, not talking about), in that order. A good night out for us
would probably comprise all four. He was ordinary-looking rather than
handsome, and his bum was podgier than mine, but I liked it. I liked the solidity
of him, the way he felt when I wrapped myself around him. His dad was dead
and I liked the way he acted towards his mother; protective and solicitous. And



his four brothers and sisters were like the Waltons. They actually seemed to like
each other. The first time we went out on a date, a little voice in my head said:
This man will never hurt you, and nothing he had done in the seven years since
had led me to doubt it.

And then he turned into Marathon Man.

Patrick’s stomach no longer gave when I nestled into him; it was a hard,
unforgiving thing, like a sideboard, and he was prone to pulling up his shirt and
hitting it with things, to prove quite how hard it was. His face was planed, and
weathered from his time spent constantly outdoors. His thighs were solid
muscle. That would have been quite sexy in itself, had he actually wanted to
have sex. But we were down to about twice a month, and I wasn’t the kind to
ask.

It was as if the fitter he got, the more obsessed by his own shape he became,
the less interested he was in mine. I asked him a couple of times if he didn’t
fancy me any more, but he seemed pretty definite. ‘You’re gorgeous,’ he would
say. ‘I’m just shattered. Anyway, I don’t want you to lose weight. The girls at the
club - you couldn’t make one decent boob out of all of theirs put together.’ I
wanted to ask how exactly he had come to work out this complex equation, but it
was basically a nice thing to say so I let it go.

I wanted to be interested in what he did, I really did. I went to the triathlon
club nights, I tried to chat to the other girls. But I soon realized I was an anomaly
- there were no girlfriends like me - everyone else in the club was single, or
involved with someone equally physically impressive. The couples pushed each
other on workouts, planned weekends in spandex shorts and carried pictures of
each other in their wallets completing triathlons hand in hand, or smugly
comparing joint medals. It was unspeakable.

‘I don’t know what you’re complaining about,’ my sister said when I told her.
‘I’ve had sex once since I had Thomas.’

‘What? Who with?’

‘Oh, some bloke who came in for a Vibrant Hand-Tied,’ she said. ‘I just
wanted to make sure I still could.’

And then, when my jaw dropped, ‘Oh, don’t look like that. It wasn’t during
working hours. And they were funeral flowers. If they had been wife flowers, of
course I wouldn’t have touched him with a gladioli.’



It’s not that I was some kind of sex maniac - we’d been together a long time,
after all. It’s just that some perverse bit of me had begun to question my own
attractiveness.

Patrick had never minded the fact that I dressed ‘inventively’, as he put it. But
what if he hadn’t been entirely tmthful? Patrick’s job, his whole social life now
revolved around the control of flesh - taming it, reducing it, honing it. What if,
faced with those tight little tracksuited bottoms, my own suddenly seemed
wanting? What if my curves, which I had always thought of as pleasantly
voluptuous, now seemed doughy to his exacting eyes?

These were the thoughts that were still humming messily around my head as
Mrs Traynor came in and pretty much ordered Will and me to go outside. ‘I’ve
asked the cleaners to come and do a special spring clean, so I thought perhaps
you could enjoy the nice weather while they’re all in there.’

Will’s eyes met mine with the faintest lift of his eyebrows. ‘It’s not really a
request, is it, Mother?’

‘I just think it would be good if you took some air,’ she said. ‘The ramp is in
place. Perhaps, Louisa, you might take some tea out there with you?’

It wasn’t an entirely unreasonable suggestion. The garden was beautiful. It
was as if with the slight lifting of temperatures everything had suddenly decided
to look a little bit greener. Daffodils had emerged as if from nowhere, their
yellowing bulbs hinting at the flowers to come. Buds burst from brown branches,
perennials forcing their way tentatively through the dark, claggy soil. I opened
the doors and we went outside, Will keeping his chair on the York stone path. He
gestured towards a cast-iron bench with a cushion on it, and I sat there for some
time, our faces lifted to the weak sunshine, listening to the sparrows squabbling
in the hedgerow.

‘What’s up with you?’

‘What do you mean?’

‘You’re quiet.’

‘You said you wanted me to be quiet.’

‘Not this quiet. It alarms me.’

‘I’m all right,’ I said. And then, ‘It’s just boyfriend stuff, if you really want to
know.’

‘Ah,’ he said. ‘Running Man.’



I opened my eyes, just to see if he was mocking me.

‘What’s the matter?’ he said. ‘Come on, tell Uncle Will.’

‘No.’

‘My mother is going to have the cleaners running around like lunatics in there
for at least another hour. You’re going to have to talk about something.’

I pushed myself upright, and turned to face him. His house chair had a control
button that elevated his seat so that he could address people at head height. He
didn’t often use it, as it frequently made him dizzy, but it was working now. I
actually had to look up at him.

I pulled my coat around me, and squinted at him. ‘Go on, then, what do you
want to know?’

‘How long have you two been together?’ he said.

‘Bit over six years.’

He looked surprised. ‘That’s a long time.’

‘Yes,’ I said. ‘Well.’

I leant over and adjusted a rug across him. It was deceptive, the sunshine - it
promised more than it could actually deliver. I thought of Patrick, up at 6.30
sharp this morning to go for his morning run. Perhaps I should take up running,
so that we would become one of those Lycra-clad couples. Perhaps I should buy
frilly underwear and look up sex tips online. I knew I would do neither.

‘What does he do?’

‘He’s a personal trainer.’

‘Hence the running.’

‘Hence the running.’

‘What’s he like? In three words, if it makes you uncomfortable.’

I thought about it. ‘Positive. Loyal. Obsessed with body fat ratios.’

‘That’s seven words.’

‘Then you got four for free. So what was she like?’

‘Who?’

‘Alicia?’ I looked at him like he had looked at me, directly. He took a deep
breath and gazed upwards to a large plane tree. His hair fell down into his eyes
and I fought the urge to push it to one side for him.

‘Gorgeous. Sexy. High maintenance. Surprisingly insecure.’



‘What does she have to be insecure about?’ The words left my mouth before I
could help myself.

He looked almost amused. ‘You’d be surprised,’ he said. ‘Girls like Lissa
trade on their looks for so long they don’t think they have anything else.

Actually, I’m being unfair. She’s good with stuff. Things - clothes, interiors. She
can make things look beautiful.’

I fought the urge to say anyone could make things look beautiful if they had a
wallet as deep as a diamond mine.

‘She could move a few things around in a room, and it would look completely
different. I never could work out how she did it.’ He nodded towards the house.
‘She did this annexe, when I first moved in.’

I found myself reviewing the perfectly designed living room. I realized my
admiration of it was suddenly slightly less uncomplicated than it had been.

‘How long were you with her?’

‘Eight, nine months.’

‘Not that long.’

‘Long for me.’

‘How did you meet?’

‘Dinner party. Areally awful dinner party. You?’

‘Hairdresser’s. I was one. He was my client.’

‘Hah. You were his something extra for the weekend.’

I must have looked blank because he shook his head and said softly, ‘Never
mind.’

Inside, we could hear the dull drone of the vacuum cleaner. There were four
women in the cleaning company, all wearing matching housecoats. I had
wondered what they would find to do for two hours in the little annexe.

‘Do you miss her?’

I could hear them talking amongst themselves. Someone had opened a
window, and occasional bursts of laughter filtered out into the thin air.

Will seemed to be watching something in the far-off distance. ‘I used to.’ He
turned to me, his voice matter-of-fact. ‘But I’ve been thinking about it, and I’ve
decided that she and Rupert are a good match.’

I nodded. ‘They’ll have a ridiculous wedding, pop out an ankle biter or two, as
you put it, buy a place in the country, and he’ll be shagging his secretary within



five years/ I said.

‘You’re probably right.’

I was warming to my theme now. ‘And she will be a little bit cross with him
all the time without really knowing why and bitch about him at really awful
dinner parties to the embarrassment of their friends, and he won’t want to leave
because he’ll be scared of all the alimony.’

Will turned to look at me.

‘And they will have sex once every six weeks and he will adore his children
while doing bugger all to actually help look after them. And she will have
perfect hair but get this kind of pinched face -’ I narrowed my mouth ‘- through
never saying what she actually means, and start an insane Pilates habit or maybe
buy a dog or a horse and develop a crush on her riding instructor. And he will
take up jogging when he hits forty, and maybe buy a Harley-Davidson, which
she will despise, and every day he will go to work and look at all the young men
in his office and listen in bars to who they pulled at the weekend or where they
went on a jolly and feel like somehow - and he will never be quite sure how - he
got suckered.’

I turned.

Will was staring at me.

‘Sorry,’ I said, after a moment. ‘I don’t really know where that came from.’

‘I’m starting to feel just the tiniest bit sorry for Running Man.’

‘Oh, it’s not him,’ I said. ‘It’s working at a cafe for years. You see and hear
everything. Patterns, in people’s behaviour. You’d be amazed at what goes on.’

‘Is that why you’ve never got married?’

I blinked. ‘I suppose so.’

I didn’t want to say I had never actually been asked.

It may sound as though we didn’t do much. But, in truth, the days with Will were
subtly different - depending on his mood and, more importantly, how much pain
he was in. Some days I would arrive and I could see from the set of his jaw that
he didn’t want to talk to me - or to anyone - and, noting this, I would busy
myself around the annexe, trying to anticipate his needs so that I didn’t have to
bother him by asking.



There were all sorts of things that caused him pain. There were the general
aches that came with loss of muscle - there was so much less holding him up,
despite Nathan’s best attempts at physio. There was stomach pain from digestive
problems, shoulder pain, pain from bladder infections - an inevitability,
apparently, despite everyone’s best efforts. He had a stomach ulcer from taking
too many painkillers early on in his recovery, when he apparently popped them
like Tic Tacs.

Occasionally, there were pressure sores, from being seated in the same
position for too long. A couple of times Will was confined to bed, just to let them
heal, but he hated being prone. He would lie there listening to the radio, his eyes
glittering with barely suppressed rage. Will also got headaches - a side effect, I
thought, of his anger and frustration. He had so much mental energy, and nothing
to take it out on. It had to build up somewhere.

But the most debilitating was a burning sensation in his hands and feet;
relentless, pulsing, it would leave him unable to focus on anything else. I would
prepare a bowl of cold water and soak them, or wrap cold flannels around them,
hoping to ease his discomfort. A stringy muscle would flicker in his jaw and
occasionally he would just seem to disappear, as if the only way he could cope
with the sensation was to absent himself from his own body. I had become
surprisingly used to the physical requirements of Will’s life. It seemed unfair that
despite the fact he could not use them, or feel them, his extremities should cause
him so much discomfort.

Despite all this, Will did not complain. This was why it had taken me weeks to
notice he suffered at all. Now, I could decipher the strained look around his eyes,
the silences, the way he seemed to retreat inside his own skin. He would ask,
simply, ‘Could you get the cold water, Louisa?’ or ‘I think it might be time for
some painkillers.’ Sometimes he was in so much pain that his face actually
leached colour, turning to pale putty. Those were the worst days.

But on other days we tolerated each other quite well. He didn’t seem mortally
offended when I talked to him, as he had at the start. Today appeared to be a
pain-free day. When Mrs Traynor came out to tell us that the cleaners would be
another twenty minutes, I made us both another drink and we took a slow stroll
around the garden, Will sticking to the path and me watching my satin pumps
darken in the damp grass.



‘Interesting choice of footwear/ Will said.

They were emerald green. I had found them in a charity shop. Patrick said
they made me look like a leprechaun drag queen.

‘You know, you don’t dress like someone from round here. I quite look
forward to seeing what insane combination you’re going to turn up in next.’

‘So how should “someone from round here” dress?’

He steered a little to the left to avoid a bit of branch on the path. ‘Fleece. Or, if
you’re my mother’s set, something from Jaeger or Whistles.’ He looked at me.
‘So where did you pick up your exotic tastes? Where else have you lived?’

‘I haven’t.’

‘What, you’ve only ever lived here? Where have you worked?’

‘Only here.’ I turned and looked at him, crossing my arms over my chest
defensively. ‘So? What’s so weird about that?’

‘It’s such a small town. So limiting. And it’s all about the castle.’ We paused
on the path and stared at it, rising up in the distance on its weird, dome-like hill,
as perfect as if it had been drawn by a child. ‘I always think this is the kind of
place that people come back to. When they’ve got tired of everything else. Or
when they don’t have enough imagination to go anywhere else.’

‘Thanks.’

‘There’s nothing wrong with it per se. But... Christ. It’s not exactly dynamic,
is it? Not exactly full of ideas or interesting people or opportunities. Round here
they think it’s subversive if the tourist shop starts selling place mats with a
different view of the miniature railway.’

I couldn’t help but laugh. There had been an article in the local newspaper the
previous week on exactly that topic.