and the two girls on the far side of the table – who professed themselves ‘wheat intolerant’ – nearly threw their rolls at him.
The more anxious I grew about how I was going to sober up, the more upbeat and carefree Will became. The elderly woman on his right turned out to be a former MP who had campaigned on the rights of the disabled, and she was one of the few people I had seen talk to Will without the slightest discomfort. At one point I watched her feed him a slice of roulade. When she briefly got up to leave the table, he muttered that she had once climbed Kilimanjaro. ‘I love old birds like that,’ he said. ‘I could just picture her with a mule and a pack of sandwiches. Tough as old boots.’
I was less fortunate with the man on my left. He took about four minutes – the briefest of quizzes about who I was, where I lived, who I knew there – to work out that there was nothing I had to say that might be of interest to him. He turned back to the woman on his left, leaving me to plough silently through what remained of my lunch. At one point, when I started to feel properly awkward, I felt Will’s arm slide off the chair beside me, and his hand landed on my arm. I glanced up and he winked at me. I took his hand and squeezed it, grateful that he could see it. And then he moved his chair back six inches, and brought me into the conversation with Mary Rawlinson.
‘So Will tells me you’re in charge of him,’ she said. She had piercing blue eyes, and wrinkles that told of a life impervious to skincare routines.
‘I try,’ I said, glancing at him.
‘And have you always worked in this field?’
‘No. I used to … work in a cafe.’ I’m not sure I would have told anybody else at this wedding that fact, but Mary Rawlinson nodded approvingly.
‘I always thought that might be rather an interesting job. If you like people, and are rather nosy, which I am.’ She beamed.
Will moved his arm back on to his chair. ‘I’m trying to encourage Louisa to do something else, to widen her horizons a bit.’
‘What did you have in mind?’ she asked me.
‘She doesn’t know,’ Will said. ‘Louisa is one of the smartest people I know, but I can’t make her see her own possibilities.’
Mary Rawlinson gave him a sharp look. ‘Don’t patronize her, dear. She’s quite capable of answering for herself.’
I blinked.
‘I rather think that you of all people should know that,’ she added.
Will looked as if he were about to say something, and then closed his mouth. He stared at the table and shook his head a little, but he was smiling.
‘Well, Louisa, I imagine your job at the moment takes up an awful lot of mental energy. And I don’t suppose this young man is the easiest of clients.’
‘You can say that again.’
‘But Will is quite right about seeing possibilities. Here’s my card. I’m on the board of a charitable organization that encourages retraining. Perhaps you would like to consider something different in the future?’
‘I’m very happy working with Will, thank you.’
I took the card that she proffered regardless, a little stunned that this woman would have the slightest interest in what I did with my life. But even as I took it, I felt like an imposter. There was no way I would be able to give up work, even if I knew what I wanted to learn. I wasn’t convinced I was the kind of person who would suit retraining. And besides, keeping Will alive was my priority. I was so lost in my thoughts that I briefly stopped listening to the two of them beside me.
‘ … it’s very good that you’ve got over the hump, so to speak. I know it can be crushing to have to readjust your life so dramatically around new expectations.’
I stared at the remains of my poached salmon. I had never heard anyone speak to Will like that.
He frowned at the table, and then turned back to her. ‘I’m not sure I am over the hump,’ he said, quietly.
She eyed him for a moment, and glanced over at me.
I wondered if my face betrayed me.
‘Everything takes time, Will,’ she said, placing her hand briefly on his arm. ‘And that’s something that your generation find it a lot harder to adjust to. You have all grown up expecting things to go your way almost instantaneously. You all expect to live the lives you chose. Especially a successful young man like yourself. But it takes time.’
‘Mrs Rawlinson – Mary – I’m not expecting to recover,’ he said.
‘I’m not talking about physically,’ she said. ‘I’m talking about learning to embrace a new life.’
And then, just as I waited to hear what Will was going to say next, there was a loud tapping of a spoon on a glass, and the room hushed for the speeches.
I barely heard what they said. It seemed to me to be one puffed-up penguin-suited man after another, referring to people and places I didn’t know, provoking polite laughter. I sat and chewed my way through the dark-chocolate truffles that had arrived in silver baskets on the table, and drank three cups of coffee in quick succession so that as well as feeling drunk I felt jittery and wired. Will, on the other hand, was a picture of stillness. He sat and watched the guests applaud his ex-girlfriend, and listened to Rupert drone on about what a perfectly wonderful woman she was. Nobody acknowledged him. I don’t know if that was because they wanted to spare his feelings, or because his presence there was actually a bit of an embarrassment. Occasionally Mary Rawlinson leant in and muttered something into his ear and he nodded slightly, as if in agreement.
When the speeches finally ended, an army of staff appeared and began clearing the centre of the room for dancing. Will leant in to me. ‘Mary reminded me there is a very good hotel up the road. Ring them and see if we can stay there.’
‘What?’
Mary handed me a name and a telephone number scribbled on a napkin.
‘It’s okay, Clark,’ he said, quietly, so that she couldn’t hear. ‘I’ll pay. Go on, and then you can stop worrying about how much you’ve drunk. Grab my credit card from my bag. They’ll probably want to take the number.’
I took it, reached for my mobile phone and walked off into the further reaches of the garden. They had two rooms available, they said – a single, and a double on the ground floor. Yes, it was suitable for disabled access. ‘Perfect,’ I said, and then had to swallow a small yelp when they told me the price. I gave them Will’s credit card number, feeling slightly sick as I read the numbers.
‘So?’ he said, when I reappeared.
‘I’ve done it, but … ’ I told him how much the two rooms had come to.
‘That’s fine,’ he said. ‘Now ring that bloke of yours to tell him you’re staying out all night, then have another drink. In fact, have six. It would please me no end to see you get hammered on Alicia’s father’s bill.’
And so I did.
Something happened that evening. The lights dropped, so that our little table was less conspicuous, the overpowering fragrance of the flowers was tempered by the evening breezes, and the music and the wine and the dancing meant that in the most unlikely of places, we all began to actually enjoy ourselves. Will was the most relaxed I had seen him. Sandwiched between me and Mary, he talked and smiled at her, and there was something about the sight of him being briefly happy that repelled those people who might otherwise have looked at him askance, or offered pitying glances. He made me lose my wrap and sit up straight. I took off his jacket and loosened his tie, and we both tried not to giggle at the sight of the dancing. I cannot tell you how much better I felt once I saw the way posh people danced. The men looked as if they had been electrocuted, the women did little pointy fingers at the stars and looked horribly self-conscious even as they twirled.
Mary Rawlinson muttered, ‘Dear God,’ several times. She glanced over at me. Her language had got fruitier with every drink. ‘You don’t want to go and strut your stuff, Louisa?’
‘God, no.’
‘Jolly sensible of you. I’ve seen better dancing at a bloody Young Farmers Club disco.’
At nine, I got a text from Nathan.
All okay?
Yes. Lovely, believe it or not. Will having great time.
And he was. I watched him laughing hard at something Mary had said, and something in me grew strange and tight. This had shown me it could work. He could be happy, if surrounded by the right people, if allowed to be Will, instead of The Man in the Wheelchair, the list of symptoms, the object of pity.
And then, at 10pm, the slow dances began. We watched Rupert wheel Alicia around the dance floor, applauded politely by onlookers. Her hair had begun to droop, and she wrapped her arms around his neck as if she needed the support. Rupert’s arms linked around her, resting on the small of her back. Beautiful and wealthy as she was, I felt a little sorry for her. I thought she probably wouldn’t realize what she had lost until it was much too late.
Halfway through the song, other couples joined them so that they were partially obscured from view, and I got distracted by Mary talking about carers’ allowances, until suddenly I looked up and there she was, standing right in front of us, the supermodel in her white silk dress. My heart lodged in my throat.
Alicia nodded a greeting to Mary, and dipped a little from her waist so that Will could hear her over the music. Her face was a little tense, as if she had had to prime herself to come over.
‘Thank you for coming, Will. Really.’ She glanced sideways at me but said nothing.
‘Pleasure,’ Will said, smoothly. ‘You look lovely, Alicia. It was a great day.’
A flicker of surprise passed across her face. And then a faint wistfulness. ‘Really? You really think so? I do think … I mean, there’s so much I want to say –’
‘Really,’ Will said. ‘There’s no need. You remember Louisa?’
‘I do.’
There was a brief silence.
I could see Rupert hovering in the background, eyeing us all warily. She glanced back at him, and then held out a hand in a half-wave. ‘Well, thank you anyway, Will. You are a superstar for coming. And thank you for the … ’
‘Mirror.’
‘Of course. I absolutely loved the mirror.’ She stood up and walked back to her husband, who turned away, already clasping her arm.
We watched them cross the dance floor.
‘You didn’t buy her a mirror.’
‘I know.’
They were still talking, Rupert’s gaze flickering back to us. It was as if he couldn’t believe Will had simply been nice. Mind you, neither could I.
‘Does it … did it bother you?’ I said to him.
He looked away from them. ‘No,’ he said, and he smiled at me. His smile had gone a bit lopsided with drink and his eyes were sad and contemplative at the same time.
And then, as the dance floor briefly emptied for the next dance, I found myself saying, ‘What do you say, Will? Going to give me a whirl?’
‘What?’
‘Come on. Let’s give these fuckers something to talk about.’
‘Oh good,’ Mary said, raising a glass. ‘Fucking marvellous.’
‘Come on. While the music is slow. Because I don’t think you can pogo in that thing.’
I didn’t give him any choice. I sat down carefully on Will’s lap, draped my arms around his neck to hold myself in place. He looked into my eyes for a minute, as if working out whether he could refuse me. Then, astonishingly, Will wheeled us out on to the dance floor, and began moving in small circles under the sparkling lights of the mirrorballs.
I felt simultaneously acutely self-conscious and mildly hysterical. I was sitting at an angle that meant my dress had risen halfway up my thighs.
‘Leave it,’ Will murmured into my ear.
‘This is … ’
‘Come on, Clark. Don’t let me down now.’
I closed my eyes and wrapped my arms around his neck, letting my cheek rest against his, breathing in the citrus smell of his aftershave. I could feel him humming along with the music.
‘Are they all appalled yet?’ he said. I opened one eye, and glanced out into the dim light.
A couple of people were smiling encouragingly, but most seemed not to know what to make of it. Mary saluted me with her drink. And then I saw Alicia staring at us, her face briefly falling. When she saw me looking, she turned away and muttered something to Rupert. He shook his head, as if we were doing something disgraceful.
I felt a mischievous smile creeping across my face. ‘Oh yes,’ I said.
‘Hah. Move in closer. You smell fantastic.’
‘So do you. Although, if you keep turning in left-hand circles I may throw up.’
Will changed direction. My arms looped around his neck, I pulled back a little to look at him, no longer self-conscious. He glanced down at my chest. To be fair, with me positioned where I was, there wasn’t anywhere else he could really look. He lifted his gaze from my cleavage and raised an eyebrow. ‘You know, you would never have let those breasts so close to me if I weren’t in a wheelchair,’ he murmured.
I looked back at him steadily. ‘You would never have looked at my breasts if you hadn’t been in a wheelchair.’
‘What? Of course I would.’
‘Nope. You would have been far too busy looking at the tall blonde girls with the endless legs and the big hair, the ones who can smell an expense account at forty paces. And anyway, I wouldn’t have been here. I would have been serving the drinks over there. One of the invisibles.’
He blinked.
‘Well? I’m right, aren’t I?’
Will glanced over at the bar, then back at me. ‘Yes. But in my defence, Clark, I was an arse.’
I burst out laughing so hard that even more people looked over in our direction.
I tried to straighten my face. ‘Sorry,’ I mumbled. ‘I think I’m getting hysterical.’
‘Do you know something?’
I could have looked at his face all night. The way his eyes wrinkled at the corners. That place where his neck met his shoulder. ‘What?’
‘Sometimes, Clark, you are pretty much the only thing that makes me want to get up in the morning.’
‘Then let’s go somewhere.’ The words were out almost before I knew what I wanted to say.
‘What?’
‘Let’s go somewhere. Let’s have a week where we just have fun. You and me. None of these … ’
He waited. ‘Arses?’
‘… arses. Say yes, Will. Go on.’
His eyes didn’t leave mine.
I don’t know what I was telling him. I don’t know where it all came from. I just knew if I didn’t get him to say yes tonight, with the stars and the freesias and the laughter and Mary, then I had no chance at all.
‘Please.’
The seconds before he answered me seemed to take forever.
‘Okay,’ he said.
19
Nathan
They thought we couldn’t tell. They finally got back from the wedding around lunchtime the following day and Mrs Traynor was so mad she could barely even speak.
‘You could have rung,’ she said.
She had stayed in just to make sure they arrived back okay. I had listened to her pacing up and down the tiled corridor next door since I got there at 8am.
‘I must have called or texted you both eighteen times. It was only when I managed to call the Dewars’ house and somebody told me “the man in the wheelchair” had gone to a hotel that I could be sure you hadn’t both had some terrible accident on the motorway.’
‘“The man in the wheelchair”. Nice,’ Will observed.
But you could see he wasn’t bothered. He was all loose and relaxed, carried his hangover with humour, even though I had the feeling he was in some pain. It was only when his mum started to have a go at Louisa that he stopped smiling. He jumped in and just said that if she had anything to say she should say it to him, as it had been his decision to stay overnight, and Louisa had simply gone along with it.
‘And as far as I can see, Mother, as a 35-year-old man I’m not strictly answerable to anybody when it comes to choosing to spend a night at a hotel. Even to my parents.’
She had stared at them both, muttered something about ‘common courtesy’ and then left the room.
Louisa looked a bit shaken but he had gone over and murmured something to her, and that was the point at which I saw it. She went kind of pink and laughed, the kind of laugh you do when you know you shouldn’t be laughing. The kind of laugh that spoke of a conspiracy. And then Will turned to her and told her to take it easy for the rest of the day. Go home, get changed, maybe catch forty winks.
‘I can’t be walking around the castle with someone who has so clearly just done the walk of shame,’ he said.
‘Walk of shame?’ I couldn’t keep the surprise from my voice.
‘Not that walk of shame,’ Louisa said, flicking me with her scarf, and grabbed her coat to leave.
‘Take the car,’ he called out. ‘It’ll be easier for you to get back.’
I watched Will’s eyes follow her all the way to the back door.
I would have offered you seven to four just on the basis of that look alone.
He deflated a little after she left. It was as if he had been holding on until both his mum and Louisa had left the annexe. I had been watching him carefully now, and once his smile left his face I realized I didn’t like the look of him. His skin held a faint blotchiness, he had winced twice when he thought no one was looking, and I could see even from here that he had goosebumps. A little alarm bell had started to sound, distant but shrill, inside my head.
‘You feeling okay, Will?’
‘I’m fine. Don’t fuss.’
‘You want to tell me where it hurts?’
He looked a bit resigned then, as if he knew I saw straight through him. We had worked together a long time.
‘Okay. Bit of a headache. And … um … I need my tubes changed. Probably quite sharpish.’
I had transferred him from his chair on to his bed and now I began getting the equipment together. ‘What time did Lou do them this morning?’
‘She didn’t.’ He winced. And he looked a little guilty. ‘Or last night.’
‘What?’
I took his pulse, and grabbed the blood pressure equipment. Sure enough, it was sky high. When I put my hand on his forehead it came away with a faint sheen of sweat. I went for the medicine cabinet, and crushed some vasodilator drugs. I gave them to him in water, making sure he drank every last bit. Then I propped him up, placing his legs over the side of the bed, and I changed his tubes swiftly, watching him all the while.
‘AD?’
‘Yeah. Not your most sensible move, Will.’
Autonomic dysreflexia was pretty much our worst nightmare. It was Will’s body’s massive overreaction against pain, discomfort – or, say, an un-emptied catheter – his damaged nervous system’s vain and misguided attempt to stay in control. It could come out of nowhere and send his body into meltdown. He looked pale, his breathing laboured.
‘How’s your skin?’
‘Bit prickly.’
‘Sight?’
‘Fine.’
‘Aw, man. You think we need help?’