‘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.
‘You’re twenty-six years old, Clark. You should be out there, claiming the world as your own, getting in trouble in bars, showing off your strange wardrobe to dodgy men … ’
‘I’m happy here,’ I said.
‘Well, you shouldn’t be.’
‘You like telling people what they should be doing, don’t you?’
‘Only when I know I’m right,’ he said. ‘Can you adjust my drink? I can’t quite reach it.’
I twisted his straw round so that he could reach it more easily and waited while he took a drink. The faint cold had turned the tips of his ears pink.
He grimaced. ‘Jesus, for a girl who made tea for a living you make a terrible cup.’
‘You’re just used to lesbian tea,’ I said. ‘All that lapsang souchong herbal stuff.’
‘Lesbian tea!’ He almost choked. ‘Well, it’s better than this stair varnish. Christ. You could stand a spoon up in that.’
‘So even my tea is wrong.’ I sat down on the bench in front of him. ‘So how is it okay for you to offer an opinion on every single thing I say or do, and yet nobody else gets to say anything at all?’
‘Go on, then, Louisa Clark. Give me your opinions.’
‘On you?’
He gave a theatrical sigh. ‘Do I have a choice?’
‘You could cut your hair. It makes you look like some kind of vagrant.’
‘Now you sound like my mother.’
‘Well, you do look bloody awful. You could shave, at least. Isn’t all that facial hair starting to get itchy?’
He gave me a sideways look.
‘It is, isn’t it? I knew it. Okay – this afternoon I am going to take it all off.’
‘Oh no.’
‘Yes. You asked me for my opinion. This is my answer. You don’t have to do anything.’
‘What if I say no?’
‘I might do it anyway. If it gets any longer I’ll be picking bits of food out of it. And, frankly, if that happens I’ll have to sue you for undue distress in the workplace.’
He smiled then, as if I had amused him. It might sound a bit sad, but Will’s smiles were so rare that prompting one made me feel a bit light-headed with pride.
‘Here, Clark,’ he said. ‘Do me a favour?’
‘What?’
‘Scratch my ear for me, will you? It’s driving me nuts.’
‘If I do you’ll let me cut your hair? Just a bit of a trim?’
‘Don’t push your luck.’
‘Shush. Don’t make me nervous. I’m not great with scissors.’
I found the razors and some shaving foam in the bathroom cabinet, tucked well back behind the packets of wipes and cotton wool, as if they hadn’t been used in some time. I made him come into the bathroom, filled a sink with warm water, got him to tilt his headrest back a little and then placed a hot flannel over his chin.
‘What is this? You’re going to be a barbershop? What’s the flannel for?’
‘I don’t know,’ I confessed. ‘It’s what they do in the films. It’s like the hot water and towels when someone has a baby.’
I couldn’t see his mouth, but his eyes creased with faint mirth. I wanted to keep them like that. I wanted him to be happy – for his face to lose that haunted, watchful look. I gabbled. I told jokes. I started to hum. Anything to prolong the moment before he looked grim again.
I rolled up my sleeves and began to lather the shaving foam over his chin, all the way up to his ears. Then I hesitated, the blade over his chin. ‘Is this the moment to tell you I’ve only ever done legs before?’
He closed his eyes, and settled back. I began to scrape gently at his skin with the blade, the silence broken only by the splash as I rinsed the razor in the basinful of water. I worked in silence, studying Will Traynor’s face as I went, the lines that ran to the corners of his mouth, lines that seemed prematurely deep for his age. I smoothed his hair from the side of his face and saw the telltale tracks of stitches, perhaps from his accident. I saw the mauve shadows that told of nights and nights of lost sleep, the furrow between his brows that spoke of silent pain. A warm sweetness rose from his skin, the scent of the shaving cream, and something that was peculiar to Will himself, discreet and expensive. His face began to emerge and I could see how easy it must have been for him to attract someone like Alicia.
I worked slowly and carefully, encouraged by the fact that he seemed briefly at peace. The thought flashed by that the only time anyone ever touched Will was for some medical or therapeutic procedure, and so I let my fingers rest lightly upon his skin, trying to make the movements as far from the dehumanized briskness that characterized Nathan’s and the doctor’s interactions with him as possible.
It was a curiously intimate thing, this shaving of Will. I realized as I continued that I had assumed his wheelchair would be a barrier; that his disability would prevent any kind of sensual aspect from creeping in. Weirdly, it wasn’t working like that. It was impossible to be this close to someone, to feel their skin tauten under your fingertips, to breathe in the air that they breathed out, to have their face only inches from yours, without feeling a little unbalanced. By the time I reached his other ear I had begun to feel awkward, as if I had overstepped an invisible mark.
Perhaps Will was able to read the subtle changes in my pressure on his skin; perhaps he was just more attuned to the moods of the people around him. But he opened his eyes, and I found them looking into mine.
There was a short pause, and then he said, straight-faced, ‘Please don’t tell me you’ve shaved off my eyebrows.’
‘Only the one,’ I said. I rinsed the blade, hoping that the colour would have drained from my cheeks by the time I turned round. ‘Right,’ I said, finally. ‘Have you had enough? Won’t Nathan be here in a bit?’
‘What about my hair?’ he said.
‘You really want me to cut it?’
‘You might as well.’
‘I thought you didn’t trust me.’
He shrugged, as far as he could. It was the smallest movement of his shoulders. ‘If it will stop you moaning at me for a couple of weeks I figure it’s a small price to pay.’
‘Oh my God, your mum is going to be so delighted,’ I said, wiping a stray dob of shaving cream.
‘Yes, well, we won’t let that put us off.’
We cut his hair in the living room. I lit the fire, we put on a film – an American thriller – and I placed a towel around his shoulders. I had warned Will that I was a bit rusty, but added that it couldn’t look worse than it did already.
‘Thanks for that,’ he said.
I set to work, letting his hair slide through my fingers, trying to remember the few basics I had learnt. Will, watching the film, seemed relaxed and almost content. Occasionally he told me something about the film – what else the lead actor had starred in, where he had first seen it – and I made a vaguely interested noise (like I do with Thomas when he presents me with his toys), even though all my attention was actually focused on not mucking up his hair. Finally, I had the worst of it off, and whipped round in front of him to see how he looked.
‘Well?’ Will paused the DVD.
I straightened up. ‘I’m not sure I like seeing this much of your face. It’s a bit unnerving.’
‘Feels cold,’ he observed, moving his head from left to right, as if testing the feel of it.
‘Hold on,’ I said. ‘I’ll get two mirrors. Then you can see it properly. But don’t move. There’s still a bit of tidying up to be done. Possibly an ear to slice.’
I was in the bedroom, going through his drawers in search of a small mirror, when I heard the door. Two sets of brisk footsteps, Mrs Traynor’s voice, lifted, anxious.
‘Georgina, please don’t.’
The door to the living room was wrenched open. I grabbed the mirror and ran out of the room. I had no intention of being found absent again. Mrs Traynor was standing in the living-room doorway, both hands raised to her mouth, apparently witnessing some unseen confrontation.
‘You are the most selfish man I ever met!’ a young woman was shouting. ‘I can’t believe this, Will. You were selfish then and you’re worse now.’
‘Georgina.’ Mrs Traynor’s gazed flicked towards me as I approached. ‘Please, stop.’
I walked into the room behind her. Will, the towel around his shoulders, hair in soft brown fronds at the wheels of his chair, was facing a young woman. She had long dark hair, pinned into a messy knot at the back of her head. Her skin was tanned, and she was wearing expensively distressed jeans and suede boots. Like Alicia, her features were beautiful and regular, her teeth the astonishing white of a toothpaste commercial. I knew they were because, her face puce with anger, she was still hissing at him. ‘I can’t believe it. I can’t believe you would even think of it. What do you –’
‘Please. Georgina.’ Mrs Traynor’s voice lifted sharply. ‘This is not the time.’
Will, his face impassive, was staring straight ahead of him at some unseen point.
‘Um … Will? Do you need any help?’ I said, quietly.
‘Who are you?’ she said, whipping round. It was then that I saw her eyes were filled with tears.
‘Georgina,’ Will said. ‘Meet Louisa Clark, my paid companion and shockingly inventive hairdresser. Louisa, meet my sister, Georgina. She appears to have flown all the way from Australia to shriek at me.’
‘Don’t be facile,’ Georgina said. ‘Mummy told me. She’s told me everything.’
Nobody moved.
‘Shall I give you a minute?’ I said.
‘That would be a good idea.’ Mrs Traynor’s knuckles were white on the arm of the sofa.
I slid out of the room.
‘In fact, Louisa, perhaps now would be a good time to take your lunch break.’
It was going to be a bus shelter kind of a day. I grabbed my sandwiches from the kitchen, climbed into my coat and set off down the back path.
As I left, I could hear Georgina Traynor’s voice lifting inside the house. ‘Has it ever occurred to you, Will, that believe it or not, this might not be just about you?’
When I returned, exactly half an hour later, the house was silent. Nathan was washing up a mug in the kitchen sink.
He turned as he saw me. ‘How you doing?’
‘Has she gone?’
‘Who?’
‘The sister?’
He glanced behind him. ‘Ah. That who it was? Yeah, she’s gone. Just skidding off in her car when I got here. Some sort of family row, was it?’
‘I don’t know,’ I said. ‘I was in the middle of cutting Will’s hair and this woman came in and just started having a go at him. I assumed it was another girlfriend.’
Nathan shrugged.
I realized he would not be interested in the personal minutiae of Will’s life, even if he knew.
‘He’s a bit quiet, though. Nice work with the shave, by the way. Good to get him out from behind all that shrubbery.’
I walked back into the living room. Will was sitting staring at the television, which was still paused at the exact moment I had left it.
‘Do you want me to turn this back on?’ I said.
He didn’t seem to hear me for a minute. His head was sunk in his shoulders, the earlier relaxed expression replaced by a veil. Will was closed off again, locked behind something I couldn’t penetrate.
He blinked, as if he had only just noticed me there. ‘Sure,’ he said.
I was carrying a basket of washing down the hall when I heard them. The annexe door was slightly ajar and the voices of Mrs Traynor and her daughter carried down the long corridor, the sound coming in muted waves. Will’s sister was sobbing quietly, all fury gone from her voice now. She sounded almost childlike.
‘There must be something they can do. Some medical advance. Can’t you take him to America? Things are always improving in America.’
‘Your father keeps a very close eye on all the developments. But no, darling, there is nothing … concrete.’
‘He’s so … different now. It’s like he’s determined not to see the good in anything.’
‘He’s been like that since the start, George. I think it’s just that you didn’t see him apart from when you flew home. Back then, I think he was still … determined. Back then, he was sure that something would change.’
I felt a little uncomfortable listening in on such a private conversation. But the odd tenor drew me closer. I found myself walking softly towards the door, my socked feet making no sound on the floor.
‘Look, Daddy and I didn’t tell you. We didn’t want to upset you. But he tried … ’ she struggled over the words. ‘Will tried to … he tried to kill himself.’
‘What?’
‘Daddy found him. Back in December. It was … it was terrible.’
Even though this only really confirmed what I had guessed, I felt all the blood drain from me. I heard a muffled cry, a whispered reassurance. There was another long silence. And then Georgina, her voice thick with grief, spoke again.
‘The girl … ?’
‘Yes. Louisa is here to make sure nothing like that happens again.’
I stopped. At the other end of the corridor, from the bathroom, I could hear Nathan and Will talking in a low murmur, comfortably oblivious to the conversation that was going on just a few feet away. I took a step closer to the door. I suppose I had known it since I caught sight of the scars on his wrists. It made sense of everything, after all – Mrs Traynor’s anxiety that I shouldn’t leave Will alone for very long, his antipathy to having me there, the fact that for large stretches of time I didn’t feel like I was doing anything useful at all. I had been babysitting. I hadn’t known it, but Will had, and he had hated me for it.
I reached for the handle of the door, preparing to close it gently. I wondered what Nathan knew. I wondered whether Will was happier now. I realized I felt, selfishly, a faint relief that it hadn’t been me Will objected to, just the fact that I – that anyone – had been employed to watch over him. My thoughts hummed so busily that I almost missed the next snatch of conversation.
‘You can’t let him do this, Mum. You have to stop him.’
‘It’s not our choice, darling.’
‘But it is. It is – if he’s asking you to be part of it,’ Georgina protested.