- •I was starting to lag behind. I hate running. I hated him for not slowing down.
- •I stared at him.
- •I tried to peer round at the screen.
- •In our street ‘posh’ could mean anyone who hadn’t got a family member in possession of an asbo.
- •I helped myself to green beans, trying to look more sanguine than I felt.
- •I wondered briefly how many carers there had been before me.
- •I picked up one of the labels. I wasn’t sure I had ever seen so many drugs outside a pharmacy.
- •I blushed. ‘I’m sorry. I was just –’
- •I slid my legs sideways down the wall and pushed myself up to a seated position.
- •I tried to think. ‘I don’t really have any hobbies. I read a bit. I like clothes.’
- •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.
- •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.
- •I thought for a bit.
- •I’m not sure I moved for half an hour.
- •It was not, they observed with exquisite understatement, a cry for help.
- •I slowed my pace, pushing my way through the small crowd until I was able to get to our gate, watching as Richard ducked to avoid a dvd player. Next came a pair of shoes.
- •I took a deep breath. ‘I overheard you. You and your daughter. Last night. And I don’t want to … I don’t want to be part of it.’
- •I made to get out of the car. Her hand shot out. It sat there on my arm, strange and radioactive. We both stared at it.
- •I checked the list. ‘Quadriplegic basketball? I’m not even sure if he likes basketball.’
- •I wrinkled my nose. ‘I don’t know, Treen –’
- •I ignored him. ‘Right. We’ve made it. Now for the fun bit.’
- •I felt my eyes suddenly brim with tears. ‘No,’ I said. ‘This is ridiculous. We’ve come all this way. You stay here and I’ll go and get us all Premier Area badges. And then we will have our meal.’
- •I grabbed my bag and thrust it under my arm.
- •I had refused to listen to him. I couldn’t bear the idea that this was how our day was going to end.
- •It seemed to take a minute or two for them to digest what I’d said. But then they looked at each other in amazement.
- •It was about half an hour before I realized the other girls had gone.
- •I was about to say no, and then I realized I didn’t really know why I was refusing. ‘All right. I’ll bring them back as soon as I’ve finished.’
- •I realized he was looking for an excuse not to go. ‘I’ll do it,’ I said. ‘If Will tells me what to do. I don’t mind staying to help.’ I said it almost before I realized what I was agreeing to.
- •I leant over and ran my finger around the inside of it; a nylon tag had been left inside. I pulled at it, hoping to snap it, but it proved stubbornly resistant.
- •I couldn’t help but notice that his leg was becoming weirdly sinewy.
- •It broke the ice. Nathan left with a wave and a wink, and I wheeled Will through to the kitchen. Mum, luckily, was holding a casserole dish, which absolved her of the same anxiety.
- •If it was Dad, I told Will, he would have had an adapted beer cup before he had a wheelchair.
- •I leant back and reached my hand downwards into his bag. I pulled it up again, retrieving a bottle of Laurent-Perrier champagne.
- •I stood up and bowed. I was wearing a 1960s yellow a-line minidress I had got from the charity shop. The woman had thought it might be Biba, although someone had cut the label out.
- •I got up to clear the plates, wanting to escape the table. But Mum scolded me, telling me to sit down.
- •I turned away, pretending to peer into a shop window, unsure if I wanted him to know that I had seen them, and tried very hard not to think about it again.
- •I pulled a tendril from the honeysuckle and began picking off its leaves. ‘I don’t know. I think I’m going to need to up my game.’ I told her what Mrs Traynor had said to me about going abroad.
- •I poured some soup from a flask and held it up to his lips. ‘Tomato.’
- •I put down my peeler. ‘I suspect you’re going to tell me.’
- •I slid off the table. I wasn’t entirely sure how, but I felt, yet again, like I’d somehow been argued into a corner. I reached for the chopping board on the drainer.
- •I glanced down the street, then turned and peeled a little of the dressing down from my hip.
- •I put the last peg back in the peg bag. I rolled it up, and placed it in the empty laundry basket. I turned to him.
- •I began to compile a new list – things you cannot do with a quadriplegic.
- •I could hardly believe what I was hearing. I felt the colour rise to my face, and took a deep breath before I spoke again.
- •I just wanted to make it better.
- •I put Will’s glass in his holder and shook the younger man’s hand.
- •I watched Will drain two glasses of Pimm’s and was secretly glad.
- •I blinked.
- •I couldn’t really blame the guy. I wouldn’t have wanted my missus staying out all night with some bloke, even if he was a quad. And he hadn’t seen the way Will looked at her.
- •I hesitated, just a moment too long. ‘That’s not true.’
- •I understood what she was saying. There was no time for anything else.
- •It was a quarter to ten by the time I got back to Patrick’s.
- •I stared at him.
- •I sat down and looked at the table.
- •I sank my face into my hands and let it rest there for a minute. Out in the corridor I heard a fire door swing, and the voices of people swallowed up as a door was unlocked and closed behind them.
- •I would have said to Camilla that she brightened the place up. But I couldn’t make that sort of remark to Camilla any more.
- •I left my bag with Nathan, cleaned my hands with antibacterial lotion, then pushed at the door and entered.
- •I was about to protest, and tell them they should not have moved him. But Will had closed his eyes and lay there with a look of such unexpected contentment that I just closed my mouth and nodded.
- •I felt his fingers tighten a fraction around mine, and it gave me courage.
- •I had begun to cry. ‘Please, Will. Please don’t say this. Just give me a chance. Give us a chance.’
- •I felt frozen, my hand clutching my passport like I was about to go somewhere else. I had to remind myself to breathe.
- •I couldn’t speak. I stared at her, and the most I could manage was a small shake of my head.
- •I am the one in the family who knows everything. I read more than anyone else. I go to university. I am the one who is supposed to have all the answers.
- •I had been hoping it was extra grant money.
- •I gave a tiny shrug. ‘Just okay? They must have given you some idea how you did.’
- •I’m not sure I ever saw Dad look so shocked.
- •I glanced up at Granddad, but he had eyes only for the racing. I think Dad was still putting on a sneaky bet each way for him, even though he denied it to Mum.
- •I turned towards the bed. ‘So,’ I said, my bag over my shoulder, ‘I’m guessing the room service isn’t up to much?’
I put down my peeler. ‘I suspect you’re going to tell me.’
‘Yes. And I’m completely unembarrassed about telling you. I’d be doing night school. I’d be training as a seamstress or a fashion designer or whatever it is that taps into what you really love.’ He gestured at my minidress, a Sixties-inspired Pucci-type dress, made with fabric that had once been a pair of Granddad’s curtains.
The first time Dad had seen it he had pointed at me and yelled, ‘Hey, Lou, pull yourself together!’ It had taken him a full five minutes to stop laughing.
‘I’d be finding out what I could do that didn’t cost much – keep-fit classes, swimming, volunteering, whatever. I’d be teaching myself music or going for long walks with somebody else’s dog, or –’
‘Okay, okay, I get the message,’ I said, irritably. ‘But I’m not you, Will.’
‘Luckily for you.’
We sat there for a bit. Will wheeled himself in, and raised the height of his chair so that we faced each other over the table.
‘Okay,’ I said. ‘So what did you do after work? That was so valuable?’
‘Well, there wasn’t much time left after work, but I tried to do something every day. I did rock climbing at an indoor centre, and squash, and I went to concerts, and tried new restaurants –’
‘It’s easy to do those things if you have money,’ I protested.
‘And I went running. Yes, really,’ he said, as I raised an eyebrow.
‘And I tried to learn new languages for places I thought I might visit one day. And I saw my friends – or people I thought were my friends … ’ He hesitated for a moment. ‘And I planned trips. I looked for places I’d never been, things that would frighten me or push me to my limit. I swam the Channel once. I went paragliding. I walked up mountains and skied down them again. Yes –’ he said, as I made to interrupt ‘– I know a lot of these need money, but a lot of them don’t. And besides, how do you think I made money?’
‘Ripping people off in the City?’
‘I worked out what would make me happy, and I worked out what I wanted to do, and I trained myself to do the job that would make those two things happen.’
‘You make it sound so simple.’
‘It is simple,’ he said. ‘The thing is, it’s also a lot of hard work. And people don’t want to put in a lot of work.’
I had finished the potatoes. I threw the peel into the bin, and put the pan on to the stove ready for later. I turned and lifted myself on my arms so that I was sitting on the table facing him, my legs dangling.
‘You had a big life, didn’t you?’
‘Yeah, I did.’ He moved a bit closer, and raised his chair so that he was almost at eye level. ‘That’s why you piss me off, Clark. Because I see all this talent, all this … ’ He shrugged. ‘This energy and brightness, and –’
‘Don’t say potential …’
‘ … potential. Yes. Potential. And I cannot for the life of me see how you can be content to live this tiny life. This life that will take place almost entirely within a five-mile radius and contain nobody who will ever surprise you or push you or show you things that will leave your head spinning and unable to sleep at night.’
‘This is your way of telling me I should be doing something far more worthwhile than peeling your potatoes.’
‘I’m telling you there’s a whole world out there. But that I’d be very grateful if you’d do me some potatoes first.’ He smiled at me, and I couldn’t help but smile back.
‘Don’t you think –’ I started, and then broke off.
‘Go on.’
‘Don’t you think it’s actually harder for you … to adapt, I mean? Because you’ve done all that stuff?’
‘Are you asking me if I wish I’d never done it?’
‘I’m just wondering if it would have been easier for you. If you’d led a smaller life. To live like this, I mean.’
‘I will never, ever regret the things I’ve done. Because most days, if you’re stuck in one of these, all you have are the places in your memory that you can go to.’ He smiled. It was tight, as if it cost him. ‘So if you’re asking me would I rather be reminiscing about the view of the castle from the minimart, or that lovely row of shops down off the roundabout, then, no. My life was just fine, thanks.’