Me Before You: After You Part 34

She snorted, and covered it up with a little coughing fit. 'He didn't believe I was going to. I told him about it when I brought him up his tea this morning, and he started to laugh, and if I'm honest with you it annoyed me so much I got dressed and I just went.'

My eyes widened. 'You didn't tell him?'

'I already had told him. He's been leaving messages on this phone thing all day, the eejit.' She peered at the screen, then tucked it neatly back into her pocket.

I sat and watched her fork another little scone delicately onto her plate. She closed her eyes in pleasure as she took a bite. 'This is just marvellous.'

I swallowed. 'Mum, you're not going to get divorced, are you?'

Her eyes shot open. 'Divorced? I'm a good Catholic girl, Louisa. We don't divorce. We just make our men suffer for all eternity!'

I paid the bill, and we disappeared to the Ladies, a cavernous room of walnut-coloured marble and expensive flowers, overseen by a silent attendant who stood by the basins. Mum washed her hands twice, thoroughly, then sniffed the various hand lotions lined up against the sink, pulling faces in the mirror depending on what she liked. 'I shouldn't say so, given my opposition to the patriarchy and all, but I do wish one of you girls had a nice man.'

'I've met someone,' I said, before I realized I'd said it.She turned to me, a lotion bottle in her hand. 'You haven't!'

'He's a paramedic.'

'Well, that's smas.h.i.+ng. A paramedic! That's almost as useful as a plumber. So when are we going to meet him?'

I faltered. 'Meet him? I'm not sure it's ...'

'It's what?'

'Well. I mean, it's early days. I'm not sure it's that kind of '

My mother unscrewed the lid of her lipstick and stared into the mirror. 'It's just for s.e.x, is that what you're saying?'

'Mum!' I glanced at the attendant.

'Well, what are you saying?'

'I'm not sure I'm ready for a real relations.h.i.+p just yet.'

'Why? What else have you got going on? Those ovaries won't go in the freezer, you know.'

'So why didn't Treena come?' I said, hurriedly changing the subject.

'She couldn't find a sitter for Thom.'

'You said she was busy.'

Mum's eyes darted across to my reflection. She pressed her lips together and snapped her lipstick back into her handbag. 'She seems to be a little cross with you right now, Louisa.' She activated Maternal X- ray Vision. 'Have you two had a falling out?'

'I don't know why she always has to have opinions about everything I do.' I heard my own voice, the sulky tones of a twelve-year-old.

She fixed me with a look.

So I told her. I sat up on the marble basin, and Mum took the easy chair, and I told her about the job offer and why I couldn't possibly take it, how we had lost Lily and found her again, and how she was finally beginning to come out of the other side. 'I've arranged for her to meet Mrs Traynor again. So we're moving forward. But Treena just won't listen, although if Thom were going through half the same thing she'd be the first person saying I couldn't walk away from him.'

I felt relieved telling my mother. She, of all people, would understand the ties of responsibility. 'So that's why she's not talking to me.'

My mother was staring at me.

'Jesus, Mary, and Joseph, have you lost your mind?'

'What?'

'A job in New York with all the tr.i.m.m.i.n.gs and you're sticking around here to work in that G.o.dawful place at the airport? Did you hear this?' She turned to the attendant. 'I can't believe she's my own daughter. Honest to G.o.d, I wonder what happened to the brains she was born with.'

The attendant shook her head slowly. 'No good,' she said.

'Mum! I'm doing the right thing!'

'For whom?'

'For Lily!'

'You think n.o.body other than you could have helped get that girl back on her feet? Well, did you speak to this chap in New York and ask him whether you could defer the job offer a few weeks?''It's not that kind of a job.'

'How would you know? You don't ask, you don't get. Isn't that right?'

The attendant nodded slowly.

'Oh, Jesus. When I think about it ...'

The attendant gave my mother a hand towel and she fanned her neck vigorously with it. 'Listen to me, Louisa. I've got one brilliant daughter stuck at home weighed down with responsibility because she made a bad choice early on not that I don't love Thom to bits, but I'll tell you, I want to cry my heart out when I think of what Treena could have become if she'd just had that boy a bit later. I'm stuck looking after your father and Granddad, and that's fine. I'm finding my way. But this should not be the most you have to look forward to in your life, you hear me? Not a bunch of half-price tickets and a fancy tea every now and then.

You should be out there! You're the one person in our family with an actual ruddy chance! And to hear you've just chucked it away for the sake of some girl you barely even know!'

'I did the right thing, Mum.'

'Maybe you did. Or maybe it wasn't actually an either/or situation.'

'You don't ask, you don't get,' said the attendant.

'There! This lady knows. You need to get back there and ask this American gentleman is there any way you can come along a bit later ... Don't you look at me like that, Louisa. I've been too soft on you. I haven't pushed you when I should have done. You need to get yourself out of that dead-end job of yours and start living.'

'The job is gone, Mum.'

'Gone my pearly-handled backside it is. Have you actually asked them?'

I shook my head.

Mum huffed and adjusted the scarf around her neck. She pulled two pound coins from her purse and pressed them into the hand of the attendant. 'Well, I have to say, haven't you done a grand job! You could eat your supper off this floor. And it all smells simply gorgeous.'

The attendant smiled at her warmly, and then, almost as an afterthought, held up a finger. She peered out of the door, then walked to her cupboard, unlocking it swiftly with a bunch of keys. She emerged and pressed a bar of floral soap into Mum's hands.

Mum sniffed it and sighed. 'Well, that is just heaven. Just a little piece of heaven.'

'For you.'

'For me?'

The woman closed Mum's hands around it.

'Well, aren't you the kindest? May I ask your name?'

'Maria.'

'Maria, I'm Josie. I'm going to make sure I come back to London and use your toilet the very next time I'm here. Do you see that, Louisa? Who knows what happens when you break out a little? How's that for an adventure? And I got the most gorgeous bar of soap from my lovely new friend Maria here!' They clasped hands with the fervency of old acquaintances about to be parted, and we left the hotel.

I couldn't tell her. I couldn't tell her that that job haunted me from the moment I woke until I went to sleep.

Whatever I said to anyone else, I knew I would always regret to my bones missing the chance to live andwork in New York. That no matter how much I told myself there would be other chances, other places, this would be the lost opportunity I carried, like a cheap handbag I regretted buying, wherever I went.

And sure enough, after I had waved her off on the train to my, no doubt, bemused and bl.u.s.tering father, and long after I had made a salad for Lily from bits that Sam had left in the fridge, when I checked my email that night there was a message from Nathan.

I can't say I agree, but I do get what you're doing. I guess Wi l l would have been proud of you. You're a good person, Clark x.

CHAPTER TWENTY-FOUR.

These are the things I learned about being a parent, while not actually being a parent. That whatever you did you would probably be wrong. If you were cruel or dismissive or neglectful, you would leave scars upon your charge. If you were supportive and loving, encouraging and praising them for even their smallest achievements getting out of bed on time, say, or managing not to smoke for a whole day it would ruin them in different ways. I learned that if you were a de facto parent all these things applied but you had none of the natural authority you might reasonably expect when feeding and looking after another person.

With all this in mind, I loaded Lily into the car on my day off and announced that we were going to lunch. It would probably go horribly wrong, I told myself, but at least there would be two of us there to shoulder it.

Because Lily was so busy staring at her phone, with her earphones plugged in, it was a good forty minutes before she looked out the car window. She frowned as we approached a signpost. 'This isn't the way to your mum and dad's.'

'I know.'

'Then where are we going?'

'I told you. To lunch.'

When she had stared at me long enough to accept that I wasn't going to elaborate, she squinted out the window for a while. 'G.o.d, you're annoying sometimes.'

Half an hour later we pulled up at the Crown and Garter, a red-brick hotel set in two acres of parkland, about twenty minutes south of Oxford. Neutral territory, I had decided, was the way forward. Lily climbed out and shut the door emphatically enough to send me the message that this was actually still quite annoying.

I ignored her, put on a slick of lipstick and walked into the restaurant, letting Lily follow.

Mrs Traynor was already at a table. When Lily saw her, she let out a little groan.

'Why are we doing this again?'

'Because things change,' I said, and propelled her forwards.

'Lily.' Mrs Traynor rose to her feet. She had evidently been to a hairdresser, and her hair was once again beautifully cut and blow-dried. She was wearing a little make-up, too, and those two things conspired to make her look like the Mrs Traynor of old: self-possessed, someone who understood that appearances were, if not everything, at least the foundation of something.

'h.e.l.lo, Mrs Traynor.'

'Hi,' Lily mumbled. She didn't reach out a hand, but positioned herself at the seat beside mine.

Mrs Traynor registered this, but gave a brief smile, sat down and summoned the waiter. 'This restaurant was one of your father's favourites,' she said, placing her napkin on her lap. 'On the rare occasions I could persuade him to leave London, this is where we would meet. It's rather good food. Michelin- starred.'I looked at the menu turbot quenelles with a frangipane of mussels and langoustine, smoked duck breast with cavalo nero and Israeli couscous and hoped very much that as Mrs Traynor had suggested this restaurant she would pay.

'It looks a bit fussy,' said Lily, not lifting her head from the menu.

I glanced at Mrs Traynor.

'That's exactly what Will said too. But it is very good. I think I'll have the quail.'

'I'll have the sea ba.s.s,' Lily said, and closed the leather-bound menu.

I stared at the list in front of me. There was nothing here I even recognized. What was rutabaga? What was ravioli of bone marrow and samphire? I wondered if I could ask for a sandwich.

'Are you ready to order?' The waiter appeared beside me. I waited as the others reeled off their choices. Then I spotted a word I recognized from my time in Paris. 'Can I have the joues de boeuf confites?'

'With the potato gnocchi and asparagus? Certainly, Madame.'

Beef, I thought. I can do beef.

We talked of small things while waiting for our starters. I told Mrs Traynor that I was still working at the airport but was being considered for a promotion and tried to make it sound like a positive career choice rather than a cry for help. I told her Lily had found a job, and when she heard what Lily was doing, Mrs Traynor didn't shudder, as I had secretly been afraid she might, but nodded. 'That sounds eminently sensible. It never hurts to get your hands dirty when you're starting out.'

'It's not got any prospects,' Lily said firmly. 'Unless you count being allowed to move onto the till.'

'Well, neither does having a paper round. But your father did that for two years before he left school. It instils a work ethic.'

'And people always need tins of frankfurters,' I observed.

'Do they really?' said Mrs Traynor, and looked briefly appalled.

We watched as another table was seated beside us, an elderly woman lowered with much fuss and exclamation into a chair by two male relatives.

'We got your photograph alb.u.m,' I said.

'Oh, you did! I had wondered. Did ... did you like it?'

Lily's eyes flickered towards her. 'It was nice, thank you,' she said.

Mrs Traynor took a sip of her water. 'I wanted to show you another side of Will. I feel sometimes as if his life has been rather taken over by what happened when he died. I just wanted to show that he was more than a wheelchair. More than the manner of his death.'

There was a brief silence.

'It was nice, thank you,' Lily repeated.

Our food arrived, and Lily grew silent again. The waiters hovered officiously, filling water gla.s.ses when their levels fell by a centimetre. A breadboard was offered, removed and re-offered five minutes later. The restaurant filled with people like Mrs Traynor: well-dressed, well-spoken, people for whom turbot quenelles was a standard lunch and not a conversational minefield. Mrs Traynor asked after my family, and spoke warmly of my father. 'He did such a very good job at the castle.'