Me Before You

We walked, watching the swans, smiling at the tourists splashing around in their boats in the early evening sun, and she chatted away about how this might all be actually rather wonderful for Will, and probably showed that he was really learning to adapt to his situation. It was a sweet thing for her to say as I knew that, in some respects, she might legitimately have hoped for an end to it all. It was Will’s accident that had so curtailed our plans for a life together, after all. She must have secretly hoped that my responsibilities towards Will would one day end so that I could be free.

And I walked along beside her, feeling her hand resting in the crook of my arm, listening to her sing-song voice. I couldn’t tell her the truth – the truth that just a handful of us knew. That if the girl failed with her ranches and her bungee jumping and hot tubs and what have you, she would paradoxically be setting me free. Because the only way I would ever be able to leave my family was if Will decided, after all, that he was still determined to go to this infernal place in Switzerland.

I knew it, and Camilla knew it. Even if neither of us would admit it to ourselves. Only on my son’s death would I be free to live the life of my choosing.

‘Don’t,’ she said, catching my expression.

Dear Della. She could tell what I was thinking, even when I didn’t know myself.

‘It’s good news, Steven. Really. You never know, this might be the start of a whole new independent life for Will.’

I placed my hand over hers. A braver man might have told her what I really thought. A braver man would have let her go long ago – her, and maybe even my wife too.

‘You’re right,’ I said, forcing a smile. ‘Let’s hope he comes back full of tales of bungee ropes or whatever horror it is the young people like to inflict upon each other.’

She nudged me. ‘He might make you put one up in the castle.’

‘White-water rafting in the moat?’ I said. ‘I shall file it away as a possible attraction for next summer’s season.’

Sustained by this unlikely picture, we walked, occasionally chuckling, all the way down to the boathouse.

And then Will got pneumonia.

22

I ran into Accident and Emergency. The sprawling layout of the hospital and my natural lack of any kind of internal compass meant that the critical-care ward took me forever to find. I had to ask three times before someone pointed me in the right direction. I finally swung open the doors to Ward C12, breathless and gasping, and there, in the corridor, was Nathan, sitting reading a newspaper. He looked up as I approached him.

‘How is he?’

‘On oxygen. Stable.’

‘I don’t understand. He was fine on Friday night. He had a bit of a cough Saturday morning, but … but this? What happened?’

My heart was racing. I sat down for a moment, trying to catch my breath. I had been running pretty much since I received Nathan’s text message an hour previously. He sat up, and folded his newspaper.

‘It’s not the first time, Lou. He gets a bit of bacteria in his lungs, his cough mechanism doesn’t work like it should, he goes down pretty fast. I tried to do some clearing techniques on him Saturday afternoon but he was in too much pain. He got a fever out of nowhere, then he got a stabbing pain in his chest. We had to call an ambulance Saturday night.’

‘Shit,’ I said, bending over. ‘Shit, shit, shit. Can I go in?’

‘He’s pretty groggy. Not sure you’ll get much out of him. And Mrs T is with him.’

I left my bag with Nathan, cleaned my hands with antibacterial lotion, then pushed at the door and entered.

Will was in the middle of the hospital bed, his body covered with a blue blanket, wired up to a drip and surrounded by various intermittently bleeping machines. His face was partially obscured by an oxygen mask and his eyes were closed. His skin looked grey, tinged with a blue-whiteness which made something in me constrict. Mrs Traynor sat next to him, one hand resting on his covered arm. She was staring, unseeing, at the wall opposite.

‘Mrs Traynor,’ I said.

She glanced up with a start. ‘Oh. Louisa.’

‘How … how is he doing?’ I wanted to go and take Will’s other hand, but I didn’t feel like I could sit down. I hovered there by the door. There was an expression of such dejection on her face that even to be in the room felt like intruding.

‘A bit better. They have him on some very strong antibiotics.’

‘Is there … anything I can do?’

‘I don’t think so, no. We … we just have to wait. The consultant will be making his rounds in an hour or so. He’ll be able to give us more information, hopefully.’

The world seemed to have stopped. I stood there a little longer, letting the steady beep of the machines burn a rhythm into my consciousness.

‘Would you like me to take over for a while? So you can have a break?’

‘No. I think I’ll stay, actually.’

A bit of me was hoping that Will would hear my voice. A bit of me was hoping his eyes would open above that clear plastic mask, and he would mutter, ‘Clark. Come and sit down for God’s sake. You’re making the place look untidy.’