And then he pulled back. ‘I … I’m sorry. No –’
My eyes opened. I lifted a hand to his face and let it trace his beautiful bones. I felt the faint grit of salt under my fingertips. ‘Will … ’ I began. ‘You can. You –’
‘No.’ It held a hint of metal, that word. ‘I can’t.’
‘I don’t understand.’
‘I don’t want to go into it.’
‘Um … I think you have to go into it.’
‘I can’t do this because I can’t … ’ he swallowed. ‘I can’t be the man I want to be with you. And that means that this –’ he looked up into my face ‘– this just becomes … another reminder of what I am not.’
I didn’t let go of his face. I tipped my forehead forward so that it touched his, so that our breath mingled, and I said, quietly, so that only he could have heard me, ‘I don’t care what you … what you think you can and can’t do. It’s not black and white. Honestly … I’ve talked to other people in the same situation and … and there are things that are possible. Ways that we can both be happy … ’ I had begun to stammer a little. I felt weird even having this conversation. I looked up and into his eyes. ‘Will Traynor,’ I said, softly. ‘Here’s the thing. I think we can do –’
‘No, Clark –’ he began.
‘I think we can do all sorts of things. I know this isn’t a conventional love story. I know there are all sorts of reasons I shouldn’t even be saying what I am. But I love you. I do. I knew it when I left Patrick. And I think you might even love me a little bit.’
He didn’t speak. His eyes searched my own, and there was this huge weight of sadness within them. I stroked the hair away from his temples, as if I could somehow lift his sorrow, and he tilted his head to meet the palm of my hand, so that it rested there.
He swallowed. ‘I have to tell you something.’
‘I know,’ I whispered. ‘I know everything.’
Will’s mouth closed on his words. The air seemed to still around us.
‘I know about Switzerland. I know … why I was employed on a six-month contract.’
He lifted his head away from my hand. He looked at me, then gazed upwards at the skies. His shoulders sagged.
‘I know it all, Will. I’ve known for months. And, Will, please listen to me …’ I took his right hand in mine, and I brought it up close to my chest. ‘I know we can do this. I know it’s not how you would have chosen it, but I know I can make you happy. And all I can say is that you make me … you make me into someone I couldn’t even imagine. You make me happy, even when you’re awful. I would rather be with you – even the you that you seem to think is diminished – than with anyone else in the world.’
I felt his fingers tighten a fraction around mine, and it gave me courage.
‘If you think it’s too weird with me being employed by you, then I’ll leave and I’ll work somewhere else. I wanted to tell you – I’ve applied for a college course. I’ve done loads of research on the internet, talking to other quads and carers of quads, and I have learnt so much, so much about how to make this work. So I can do that, and just be with you. You see? I’ve thought of everything, researched everything. This is how I am now. This is your fault. You changed me.’ I was half laughing. ‘You’ve turned me into my sister. But with better dress sense.’
He had closed his eyes. I placed both my hands around his, lifted his knuckles to my mouth, and I kissed them. I felt his skin against mine, and knew as I had never known anything that I could not let him go.
‘What do you say?’ I whispered.
I could have looked into his eyes forever.
He said it so quietly, that for a minute I could not be sure I had heard him correctly.
‘What?’
‘No, Clark.’
‘No?’
‘I’m sorry. It’s not enough.’
I lowered his hand. ‘I don’t understand.’
He waited before he spoke, as if he were struggling, for once, to find the right words. ‘It’s not enough for me. This – my world – even with you in it. And believe me, Clark, my whole life has changed for the better since you came. But it’s not enough for me. It’s not the life I want.’
Now it was my turn to pull away.
‘The thing is, I get that this could be a good life. I get that with you around, perhaps it could even be a very good life. But it’s not my life. I am not the same as these people you speak to. It’s nothing like the life I want. Not even close.’ His voice was halting, broken. His expression frightened me.
I swallowed, shaking my head. ‘You … you once told me that the night in the maze didn’t have to be the thing that defined me. You said I could choose what it was that defined me. Well, you don’t have to let that … that chair define you.’
‘But it does define me, Clark. You don’t know me, not really. You never saw me before this thing. I loved my life, Clark. Really loved it. I loved my job, my travels, the things I was. I loved being a physical person. I liked riding my motorbike, hurling myself off buildings. I liked crushing people in business deals. I liked h**ing s*x. Lots of sex. I led a big life.’ His voice had lifted now. ‘I am not designed to exist in this thing – and yet for all intents and purposes it is now the thing that defines me. It is the only thing that defines me.’
‘But you’re not even giving it a chance,’ I whispered. My voice didn’t seem to want to emerge from my chest. ‘You’re not giving me a chance.’
‘It’s not a matter of giving you a chance. I’ve watched you these six months becoming a whole different person, someone who is only just beginning to see her possibilities. You have no idea how happy that has made me. I don’t want you to be tied to me, to my hospital appointments, to the restrictions on my life. I don’t want you to miss out on all the things someone else could give you. And, selfishly, I don’t want you to look at me one day and feel even the tiniest bit of regret or pity that –’
‘I would never think that!’
‘You don’t know that, Clark. You have no idea how this would play out. You have no idea how you’re going to feel even six months from now. And I don’t want to look at you every day, to see you naked, to watch you wandering around the annexe in your crazy dresses and not … not be able to do what I want with you. Oh, Clark, if you had any idea what I want to do to you right now. And I … I can’t live with that knowledge. I can’t. It’s not who I am. I can’t be the kind of man who just … accepts.’
He glanced down at his chair, his voice breaking. ‘I will never accept this.’
I had begun to cry. ‘Please, Will. Please don’t say this. Just give me a chance. Give us a chance.’
‘Sshhh. Just listen. You, of all people. Listen to what I’m saying. This … tonight … is the most wonderful thing you could have done for me. What you have told me, what you have done in bringing me here … knowing that, somehow, from that complete arse I was at the start of this, you managed to salvage something to love is astonishing to me. But –’ I felt his fingers close on mine ‘– I need it to end here. No more chair. No more pneumonia. No more burning limbs. No more pain and tiredness and waking up every morning already wishing it was over. When we get back, I am still going to go to Switzerland. And if you do love me, Clark, as you say you do, the thing that would make me happier than anything is if you would come with me.’
My head whipped back.
‘What?’
‘It’s not going to get any better than this. The odds are I’m only going to get increasingly unwell and my life, reduced as it is, is going to get smaller. The doctors have said as much. There are a host of conditions encroaching on me. I can feel it. I don’t want to be in pain any more, or trapped in this thing, or dependent on everyone, or afraid. So I’m asking you – if you feel the things you say you feel – then do it. Be with me. Give me the end I’m hoping for.’
I looked at him in horror, my blood thumping in my ears. I could barely take it in.
‘How can you ask me that?’
‘I know, it’s –’
‘I tell you I love you and I want to build a future with you, and you ask me to come and watch you kill yourself?’
‘I’m sorry. I don’t mean it to sound blunt. But I haven’t got the luxury of time.’
‘Wha– what? Why, are you actually booked in? Is there some appointment you’re afraid of missing?’
I could see people at the hotel stopping, perhaps hearing our raised voices, but I didn’t care.
‘Yes,’ Will said, after a pause. ‘Yes, there is. I’ve had the consultations. The clinic agreed that I am a suitable case for them. And my parents agreed to the thirteenth of August. We’re due to fly out the day before.’
My head had begun to spin. It was less than a week away.
‘I don’t believe this.’
‘Louisa –’
‘I thought … I thought I was changing your mind.’
He tilted his head sideways and gazed at me. His voice was soft, his eyes gentle. ‘Louisa, nothing was ever going to change my mind. I promised my parents six months, and that’s what I’ve given them. You have made that time more precious than you can imagine. You stopped it being an endurance test –’
‘Don’t!’
‘What?’
‘Don’t say another word.’ I was choking. ‘You are so selfish, Will. So stupid. Even if there was the remotest possibility of me coming with you to Switzerland … even if you thought I might, after all I’ve done for you, be someone who could do that, is that all you can say to me? I tore my heart out in front of you. And all you can say is, “No, you’re not enough for me. And now I want you to come watch the worst thing you can possibly imagine.” The thing I have dreaded ever since I first found out about it. Do you have any idea what you are asking of me?’
I was raging now. Standing in front of him, shouting like a madwoman. ‘Fuck you, Will Traynor. Fuck you. I wish I’d never taken this stupid job. I wish I’d never met you.’ I burst into tears, ran up the beach and back to my hotel room, away from him.
His voice, calling my name, rang in my ears long after I had closed the door.
24
There is nothing more disconcerting to passers-by than to see a man in a wheelchair pleading with a woman who is meant to be looking after him. It’s apparently not really the done thing to be angry with your disabled charge.
Especially when he is plainly unable to move, and is saying, gently, ‘Clark. Please. Just come over here. Please.’
But I couldn’t. I couldn’t look at him. Nathan had packed up Will’s stuff, and I had met them both in the lobby the following morning – Nathan still groggy from his hangover – and from the moment we had to be in each other’s company again, I refused to have anything to do with him. I was furious and miserable. There was an insistent, raging voice inside my head, which demanded to be as far as possible from Will. To go home. To never see him again.
‘You okay?’ Nathan said, appearing at my shoulder.
As soon as we arrived at the airport, I had marched away from them to the check-in desk.
‘No,’ I said. ‘And I don’t want to talk about it.’
‘Hungover?’
‘No.’
There was a short silence.
‘This mean what I think it does?’ He was suddenly sombre.
I couldn’t speak. I nodded, and I watched Nathan’s jaw stiffen briefly. He was stronger than I was, though. He was, after all, a professional. Within minutes he was back with Will, showing him something he had seen in a magazine, wondering aloud about the prospects for some football team they both knew of. Watching them, you would know nothing of the momentousness of the news I had just imparted.