Me Before You: a novel

No trains. Is there any chance you could stay over tonight?
Nathan cannot do it. Camilla Traynor.

---

I didn’t really think about it before I typed back.
No problem.
I rang my parents and told them that I would stay over. My
mother sounded relieved. When I told her I was going to get paid for
sleeping over, she sounded overjoyed.
“Did you hear that, Bernard?” she said, her hand half over the
phone. “They’re paying her to sleep now.”
I could hear my father’s exclamation. “Praise the Lord. She’s
found her dream career.”
I sent a text message to Patrick, telling him that I had been asked
to stay at work and I would ring him later. The message came back
within seconds.
Going cross-country snow running tonight.
Good practice for Norway! X P.
I wondered how it was possible for someone to get so excited at
the thought of jogging through subzero temperatures in a vest and
pants.
Will slept. I cooked myself some food, and defrosted some soup
in case he wanted some later. I got the log fire going in case he felt
well enough to go into the living room. I read another of the short
stories and wondered how long it had been since I had bought
myself a book. I had loved reading as a child, but I couldn’t
remember reading anything except magazines since. Treena was
the reader. It was almost as if by picking up a book I felt like I was
invading her patch. I thought about her and Thomas disappearing to
the university and realized I still didn’t know whether it made me feel
happy or sad—or something a bit complicated in between.
Nathan rang at seven. He seemed relieved that I was staying
over.
“I couldn’t reach Mr. Traynor,” I told him. “I even rang their
landline number, but it went straight through to answerphone.”
“Yeah. Well. He’ll be gone.”
“Gone?”

---

I felt a sudden instinctive panic at the idea that it would be just
Will and me in the house all night. I was afraid of getting something
fundamental wrong again, of jeopardizing Will’s health. “Should I call
Mrs. Traynor, then?”
There was a short silence on the other end of the phone. “No.
Best not.”
“But—”
“Look, Lou, he often…he often goes somewhere else when Mrs.
T stays over in town.”
It took me a minute or two to grasp what he was saying.
“Oh.”
“It’s just good that you’re there, that’s all. If you’re sure Will’s
looking better, I’ll be back first thing in the morning.”
There are normal hours, and then there are invalid hours, when time
stalls and slips, when life—real life—seems to exist at one remove. I
watched some television, ate, and cleared up the kitchen, drifting
around the annex in silence. Finally, I let myself back into Will’s
room.
He stirred as I closed the door, half lifting his head. “What time is
it, Clark?” His voice was slightly muffled by the pillow.
“Quarter past eight.”
He let his head drop, and digested this. “Can I have a drink?”
There was no sharpness to him now, no edge. It was as if being
ill had finally made him vulnerable. I gave him a drink and turned on
the bedside light. I perched on the side of his bed and felt his
forehead, as my mother might have done when I was a child. He
was still a little warm, but nothing like he had been.
“Cool hands.”
“You complained about them earlier.”
“Did I?” He sounded genuinely surprised.
“Would you like some soup?”
“No.”
“Are you comfortable?”

---

I never knew how much discomfort he was in, but I suspected it
was more than he let on.
“The other side would be good. Just roll me. I don’t need to sit
up.”
I climbed across the bed and moved him over, as gently as I
could. He no longer radiated a sinister heat, just the ordinary warmth
of a body that had spent time under a duvet.
“Can I do anything else?”
“Shouldn’t you be heading home?”
“It’s okay,” I said. “I’m staying over.”
Outside, the last of the light had long been extinguished. The
snow was still falling. Where it caught the porch glow through the
window it was bathed in a pale-gold, melancholy light. We sat there
in peaceful silence, watching its hypnotic descent.
“Can I ask you something?” I said, finally. I could see his hands
on top of the sheet. It seemed so strange that they should look so
ordinary, so strong, and yet be so useless.
“I suspect you’re going to.”
“What happened?” I kept wondering about the marks on his
wrists. It was the one question I couldn’t ask directly.
He opened one eye. “How did I get like this?”
When I nodded, he closed his eyes again. “Motorbike accident.
Not mine. I was an innocent pedestrian.”
“I thought it would be skiing or bungee jumping or something.”
“Everyone does. God’s little joke. I was crossing the road outside
my home. Not this place,” he said. “My London home.”
I stared at the books in his bookshelf. Among the novels, the
well-thumbed Penguin paperbacks, were business titles: Corporate