Me Before You: a novel

part, and say, “If I’m going to try all these things you keep saying I
should, then you have to do them with me.”
I have to admit, I was secretly rather impressed by her. She was
a resourceful little thing.
Will listened to her, and I could see him reading the documents
she laid out in front of him.
“Where did you find all this information?” he said finally.
She raised her eyebrows at him. “Knowledge is power, Will,” she
said.
And my son smiled, as if she had said something particularly
clever.
“So,” Louisa said, when all the questions had been asked, “we
will be leaving in eight days’ time. Are you happy, Mrs. Traynor?”
There was a faint air of defiance in the way she said it, as if she were
daring Camilla to say no.
“If that’s what you all want to do, then it’s quite all right by me,”
Camilla said.
“Nathan? Are you still up for it?”
“You bet.”
“And…Will?”
We all looked at him. There was a time, not that long ago, when
any one of these activities would have been unthinkable. There was
a time when Will would have taken pleasure in saying no just to
upset his mother. He had always been like that, our son—quite
capable of doing the opposite of what was right, simply because he
didn’t want to be seen to be complying in some way. I don’t know
where it came from, this urge to subvert. Perhaps it was what made
him such a brilliant negotiator.
He looked up at me, his eyes unreadable, and I felt my jaw tense.
And then he looked at the girl, and smiled.
“Why not?” he said. “I’m quite looking forward to seeing Clark
throw herself into some rapids.”
The girl seemed to physically deflate a little—with relief—as if she
had half expected him to say no.
It’s funny. I admit that when she first wound her way into our lives
I was a little suspicious of her. Will, despite all his bluster, had been

---

vulnerable. I was rather afraid that he could be manipulated. He’s a
wealthy young man, despite it all, and that wretched Alicia running
off with his friend had made him feel about as worthless as anyone
in his position could feel.
But I saw the way Louisa looked at him that day she presented
the trip, a strange mixture of pride and gratitude on her face, and I
was suddenly immensely glad that she was there. My son, although
we never said as much, was in the most untenable of situations.
Whatever it was she was doing, it seemed to be giving him just a
small respite from that.
There was, for a few days, a faint but definitely celebratory air in
the house. Camilla seemed quietly hopeful, although she refused to
admit to me that that was what it was. I knew her subtext: what did
we really have to celebrate, when all was said and done? I heard her
on the telephone to Georgina late at night, justifying what she had
agreed to. Her mother’s daughter, Georgina was already looking for
any way in which Louisa might have used Will’s situation to
advantage herself.
“She offered to pay for herself, Georgina,” Camilla said. And, “No,
darling. I don’t really think we have a choice. We have very little time
and Will has agreed to it, so I’m just going to hope for the best. I
think you really have to do the same now.”
I knew what it cost her to defend Louisa, to even be nice to her.
But she tolerated that girl because she knew, as I did, that Louisa
was our only chance of keeping our son even halfway happy.
Louisa Clark had become, although neither of us said it, our only
chance of keeping him alive.
I went for a drink with Della last night. Camilla was visiting her sister,
so we went for a walk down by the river on the way back.
“Will’s going to take a holiday,” I said.
“How wonderful,” she replied.
Poor Della. I could see her fighting her instinctive urge to ask me
about our future—to consider how this unexpected development
might affect it—but I didn’t suppose she ever would. Not until this
was all resolved.

---

We walked, watching the swans, smiling at the tourists splashing
around in their boats in the early evening sun, and she chatted away
about how this might all be actually rather wonderful for Will, and
probably showed that he was really learning to adapt to his situation.
It was a sweet thing for her to say, as I knew that, in some respects,
she might legitimately have hoped for an end to it all. It was Will’s
accident that had curtailed our plans for a life together, after all. She
must have secretly hoped that my responsibilities toward Will would
one day end so that I could be free.
And I walked along beside her, feeling her hand resting in the
crook of my arm, listening to her singsong voice. I couldn’t tell her
the truth—the truth that just a handful of us knew. That if the girl
failed with her ranches and her bungee jumping and hot tubs and
what have you, she would paradoxically be setting me free. Because
the only way I would ever be able to leave my family was if Will
decided, after all, that he was still determined to go to this infernal
place in Switzerland.
I knew it, and Camilla knew it. Even if neither of us would admit it
to ourselves. Only on my son’s death would I be free to live the life of
my choosing.
“Don’t,” she said, catching my expression.
Dear Della. She could tell what I was thinking, even when I didn’t
know myself.
“It’s good news, Steven. Really. You never know, this might be
the start of a whole new independent life for Will.”
I placed my hand over hers. A braver man might have told her
what I really thought. A braver man would have let her go long ago—
her, and maybe even my wife too.
“You’re right,” I said, forcing a smile. “Let’s hope he comes back
full of tales of bungee ropes or whatever horror it is the young people
like to inflict upon each other.”
She nudged me. “He might make you put one up in the castle.”
“White-water rafting in the moat?” I said. “I shall file it away as a
possible attraction for next summer’s season.”
Sustained by this unlikely picture, we walked, occasionally
chuckling, all the way down to the boathouse.

---

And then Will got pneumonia.

---

22
I ran into Accident and Emergency. I had to ask three times before
someone pointed me in the right direction. I finally swung open the
doors to Ward C12, breathless and gasping, and there, in the
corridor, was Nathan, sitting reading a newspaper. He looked up as I
approached him.
“How is he?”
“On oxygen. Stable.”
“I don’t understand. He was fine on Friday night. He had a bit of a
cough Saturday morning, but…but this? What happened?”
My heart was racing. I sat down for a moment, trying to catch my
breath. I had been running pretty much since I received Nathan’s
text message an hour earlier. He sat up, and folded his newspaper.
“It’s not the first time, Lou. He gets a bit of bacteria in his lungs,
his cough mechanism doesn’t work like it should, he goes down
pretty fast. I tried to do some clearing techniques on him Saturday
afternoon but he was in too much pain. He got a fever out of
nowhere, then he got a stabbing pain in his chest. We had to call an
ambulance Saturday night. Sorry—should have called you, but Will
was insistent that we shouldn’t bother you.”
“Shit,” I said, bending over. “Shit, shit, shit. Can I go in?”
“He’s pretty groggy. Not sure you’ll get much out of him. And Mrs.
T is with him.”
I left my bag with Nathan, cleaned my hands with antibacterial
lotion, then pushed at the door and entered.
Will was in the middle of the hospital bed, his body covered with
a blue blanket, wired up to a drip and surrounded by various
intermittently bleeping machines. His face was partially obscured by
an oxygen mask and his eyes were closed. His skin looked gray,
tinged with a blue-whiteness that made something in me constrict.
Mrs. Traynor sat next to him, one hand resting on his covered arm.
She was staring, unseeing, at the wall opposite.

---

“Mrs. Traynor,” I said.
She glanced up with a start. “Oh. Louisa.”
“How…how is he doing?” I wanted to go and take Will’s other
hand, but I didn’t feel like I could sit down. I hovered there by the
door. There was an expression of such dejection on her face that
even to be in the room felt like intruding.
“A bit better. They have him on some very strong antibiotics.”
“Is there…anything I can do?”
“I don’t think so, no. We…we just have to wait. The consultant will
be making his rounds in an hour or so. He’ll be able to give us more
information, hopefully.”
The world seemed to have stopped. I stood there a little longer,
letting the steady beep of the machines burn a rhythm into my
consciousness.
“Would you like me to take over for a while? So you can have a
break?”
“No. I think I’ll stay, actually.”
A bit of me was hoping that Will would hear my voice. A bit of me
was hoping his eyes would open above that clear plastic mask, and
he would mutter, “Clark. Come and sit down, for God’s sake. You’re
making the place look untidy.”
But he just lay there.
I wiped at my face. “Would…would you like me to get you a
drink?”
Mrs. Traynor looked up. “What time is it?”
“A quarter to ten.”
“Is it really?” She shook her head, as if she found that hard to
believe. “Thank you, Louisa. That would be…that would be very
kind. I seem to have been here rather a long time.”
I had been off on Friday—in part because the Traynors insisted I
was owed a day off, but mostly because there was no way I could
get a passport other than by heading to London on the train and
queuing up at Petty France. I had popped by their house on Friday
night, on my return, to show Will my spoils and to make sure his own
passport was still valid. I thought he had been a little quiet, but there
had been nothing particularly unusual in that. Some days he was in

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more discomfort than others. I had assumed it was one of those
days. If I’m honest, my mind was so full of our travel plans that I
didn’t have a lot of room to think about anything else.
I spent Saturday morning picking up my belongings from Patrick’s
house with Dad, and then I went shopping in the high street with
Mum in the afternoon to pick up a swimsuit and some holiday
necessities, and I stayed over at my parents’ house Saturday and
Sunday nights. It was a tight squeeze, with Treena and Thomas
there as well. On Monday morning I got up at seven, ready to be at
the Traynors’ by eight. I arrived there to find the whole place closed
up, the front and back doors locked. There was no note. I stood on
the front porch and rang Nathan’s phone three times without an
answer. Mrs. Traynor’s phone was set to voice mail. Finally, as I sat
on the steps for forty-five minutes, Nathan’s text arrived.