Me Before You: a novel

Best before: 19 March 2007
I stared at it. I half laughed, and then my eyes filled with tears. “Is
that the—”

---

“Date of my accident. Yes.” He raised his eyes to the heavens.
“Oh, for Christ’s sake, don’t get maudlin, Clark. It was meant to be
funny.”
“It is funny. In a crappy sort of way.”
“Nathan will enjoy it. Oh, come on, don’t look like that. It’s not as
if I’m ruining my perfect body, is it?”
I pulled Will’s shirt back down and then turned and fired up the
ignition. I had no idea what to say. I didn’t know what any of this
meant. Was this him coming to terms with his state? Or just another
way of showing his contempt for his own body?
“Hey, Clark, do me a favor,” he said, just as I was about to pull
away. “Reach into the backpack for me. The zipped pocket.”
I glanced into the rearview mirror, and put the hand brake on
again. I leaned through the front seats and put my hand in the bag,
rummaging around according to his instructions.
“You want painkillers?” I was inches from his face. He had more
color in his skin than at any time since he’d come back from the
hospital. “I’ve got some in my—”
“No. Keep looking.”
I pulled out a piece of paper and sat back. It was a folded ten-
pound note.
“There you go. The emergency tenner.”
“So?”
“It’s yours.”
“For what?”
“That tattoo.” He grinned at me. “Right up until you were in that
chair, I didn’t think for a minute you were going to actually do it.”

---

16
There was no way around it. The sleeping arrangements just weren’t
working. Every weekend that Treena came home, the Clark family
began a lengthy nocturnal game of musical beds. After supper on
Friday night Mum and Dad would offer up their bedroom, and Treena
would accept it, after they had reassured her that no, they were not
in the least bit put out, and how much better Thomas was at sleeping
in a room he knew. It would mean, they said, that everyone got a
good night’s sleep.
But Mum sleeping downstairs also involved her and Dad needing
their own quilt, their own pillows and even undersheet, as Mum
couldn’t sleep properly unless her bed was just as she liked it. So
after supper she and Treena would strip Mum and Dad’s bed and put
on a new set of sheets, together with a mattress protector, just in
case Thomas had an accident. Mum and Dad’s bedding, meanwhile,
would be folded and placed in the corner of the living room, where
Thomas would dive into it and onto it and string the sheet across the
dining chairs to turn it into a tent.
Granddad offered his room, but nobody took it. It smelled of
yellowing copies of the Racing Post and Old Holborn, and it would
have taken all weekend to clear out. I would alternately feel guilty—
all this was my fault, after all—while knowing I would not offer to
return to the box room. It had become a kind of specter for me, that
airless little room with no windows. The thought of sleeping in there
again made my chest feel tight. I was twenty-seven years old. I was
the main earner of the family. I could not sleep in what was
essentially a cupboard.
One weekend I offered to sleep at Patrick’s, and everyone looked
secretly relieved. But then, while I was away, Thomas put sticky
fingers all over my new blinds and drew on my new duvet cover in
permanent pen, at which point Mum and Dad decided it would be

---

best if they slept in my room, while Treena and Thomas went into
theirs, where the odd bit of felt tip apparently didn’t matter.
Once you had accounted for all the extra bed stripping and
laundry, me spending Friday and Saturday nights at Pat’s, Mum
admitted, wasn’t actually much help at all.
And then there was Patrick. Patrick was now a man obsessed.
He ate, drank, lived, and breathed the Xtreme Viking. His flat,
normally sparsely furnished and immaculate, was strung with training
schedules and dietary sheets. He had a new lightweight bike which
lived in the hallway and which I wasn’t allowed to touch, in case I
interfered with its finely balanced lightweight racing capabilities.
And he was rarely home, even on a Friday or Saturday night.
What with his training and my work hours we seemed to have
become used to spending less time together. I could follow him down
to the track and watch him push himself around and around in circles
until he had completed the requisite number of miles, or I could stay
home and watch television by myself, curled up in a corner of his
vast leather settee. There was no food in the fridge, apart from strips
of turkey breast and vile energy drinks the consistency of frog
spawn. Treena and I had tried one once and spat it out, gagging
theatrically, like children.
The truth of it was I didn’t like Patrick’s flat. He had bought it a
year ago, when he finally felt his mother would be okay by herself.
His business had done well, and he had told me it was important that
one of us get on the property ladder. I suppose that would have been
the cue for us to have a conversation about whether we were going
to live together, but somehow it didn’t happen, and neither of us is
the type to bring up subjects that make us feel a bit uncomfortable.
As a result, there was nothing of me in that flat, despite our years
together. I had never quite been able to tell him, but I would rather
live in my house, with all its noise and clutter, than in that soulless,
featureless bachelor pad, with its allocated parking spaces and
executive view of the castle.
And besides, it was a bit lonely.
“Got to stick to the schedule, babe,” he would say, if I told him. “If
I do any fewer than twenty-three miles at this stage of the game, I’ll

---

never make it back on schedule.” Then he would give me the latest
update on his shin splints or ask me to pass him the heat spray.
When he wasn’t training, he was at endless meetings with other
members of his team, comparing equipment and finalizing travel
arrangements. Sitting among them was like being with a bunch of
Korean speakers. I had no idea what any of it meant, and no great
desire to immerse myself.
And I was supposed to be going with them to Norway in seven
weeks’ time. I hadn’t yet worked out how to tell Patrick that I hadn’t
asked the Traynors for the time off. How could I? By the time the
Xtreme Viking took place, there would be less than one week of my
contract left to run. I suppose I was childishly refusing to deal with it
all, but truthfully, all I could see was Will and a ticking clock. Not a lot
else seemed to register.
The great irony of all this was that I didn’t even sleep well at
Patrick’s flat. I don’t know what it was, but I came to work from there
feeling like I was speaking through a glass jar, and looking like I had
been punched in both eyes. I began painting concealer on my dark
shadows with slapdash abandon.
“What’s going on, Clark?” Will said.
I opened my eyes. He was right beside me, his head cocked to
one side, watching me. I got the feeling he might have been there for
some time. My hand went automatically for my mouth in case I had
been dribbling.
The film I was supposed to have been watching was now a series
of slow-moving credits.
“Nothing. Sorry. It’s just warm in here.” I pushed myself upright.
“It’s the second time you’ve fallen asleep in three days.” He
studied my face. “And you look bloody awful.”
So I told him. I told him about my sister, and our sleeping
arrangements, and how I didn’t want to make a fuss because every
time I looked at Dad’s face I saw his barely concealed despair that
he could not even provide his family with a house we could all sleep
in.
“He’s still not found anything?”

---

“No. I think it’s his age. But we don’t talk about it. It’s…” I
shrugged. “It’s too uncomfortable for everyone.”
It felt somehow wrong, telling Will my problems. They seemed
embarrassingly trivial next to his.
“I’ll get used to it,” I said. “It’ll be fine. Really.”
Will seemed preoccupied for the rest of the afternoon. I washed
up, then came through and set up his computer for him. When I
brought him a drink, he swiveled his chair toward me.
“It’s quite simple,” he said, as if we had been in conversation.
“You can sleep here on weekends. There’s a room going spare—it
might as well get some use.”
I stopped, the beaker in my hand. “I can’t do that.”
“Why not? I’m not going to pay you for the extra hours you’re
here.”
I placed the beaker in his holder. “But what would your mum
think?”
“I have no idea.”
I must have looked troubled, because he added, “It’s okay. I’m
safe in taxis.”
“What?”
“If you’re worried I have some devious secret plan to seduce you,
you can just pull my plug out.”
“Funny.”
“Seriously. Think about it. You could have it as your backup
option. Things might change faster than you think. Your sister might
decide she doesn’t want to spend every weekend at home after all.
Or she might meet someone. A million things might change.”