Saturday, July 13, 2019

me before you, 10.2

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.

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