Me Before You: After You Part 5

I took a breath before I spoke. 'I fell off a building. Perhaps I could show you my surgery scars. So, you know, you can be rea.s.sured that I'm unlikely to want to do it again.'

He stared at me. 'There's no need to be sarcastic. I'm not saying you're about to have other accidents, but your sick leave is, pro rata, at an unusually high level for someone who has worked for this company a relatively short time. That's all I wanted to point out. That it has been noted.'

He wore cufflinks with racing cars on them.

'Message received, Mr Percival.' I said. 'I'll do my best to avoid further near-fatal accidents.'

'You'll need a uniform. If you give me five minutes I'll get one out of the stockroom. What size are you? Twelve? Fourteen?'

I stared at him. 'Ten.'

He raised an eyebrow. I raised one back. As he walked to his office, Carly leaned over from the coffee machine and smiled sweetly in his direction. 'Utter, utter b.e.l.l.e.n.d,' she said, from the side of her mouth.

She wasn't wrong. From the moment I returned, Richard Percival was, in the words of my father, all over me like a bad suit. He measured my measures, checked every corner of the bar for molecular peanut crumbs, was in and out of the loos checking on hygiene and wouldn't let us leave until he had stood over us cas.h.i.+ng up and ensuring each till roll matched takings to the last penny.

I no longer had time to chat to the customers, to look up departure times, hand over lost pa.s.sports, contemplate the planes we could see taking off through the great gla.s.s window. I didn't even have time to be irritated by Celtic Pan Pipes, Vol. III. If a customer was left waiting to be served for more than ten seconds Richard would magically appear from his office, sighing ostentatiously, then apologize loudly and repeatedly because they had been kept waiting so long. Carly and I, usually busy with other customers, would exchange secret glances of resignation and contempt.

He spent half the day meeting reps, the rest on the phone to Head Office, bleating about Footfall and Spend Per Head. We were encouraged to upsell with every transaction, and taken to one side for a talking-to if we forgot. All that was bad enough.

But then there was the uniform.

Carly came into the Ladies as I was finis.h.i.+ng getting changed and stood beside me in front of the mirror. 'We look like a pair of eejits,' she said.

Not content with dark skirts and white s.h.i.+rts, some marketing genius high up the corporate ladder had decided that the atmosphere of the Shamrock and Clover chain would benefit from genuine Irish clothing.

This genuine Irish clothing had evidently been thought up by someone who believed that across Dublin, right this minute, businesswomen and checkout girls were pirouetting across their workplaces dressed in embroidered tabards, knee-high socks and laced-up dancing shoes, all in glittering emerald green. With accompanying ringlet wigs.'Jesus. If my boyfriend saw me dressed like this he'd dump me.' Carly lit a cigarette, and climbed up on the sink to disable the smoke alarm on the ceiling. 'Mind you, he'd probably want to do me first. The perv.'

'What do the men have to wear?' I pulled my short skirt out at the sides and eyed Carly's lighter nervously, wondering how flammable I was.

'Look outside. There's only Richard. And he has to wear that s.h.i.+rt with a green logo. The poor thing.'

'That's it? No pixie shoes? Or little leprechaun hat?'

'Surprise, surprise. It's only us girls who have to work looking like p.o.r.no Munchkins.'

'I look like Dolly Parton: The Early Years in this wig.'

'Grab a red one. Lucky us, we have a choice of three colours.'

From somewhere outside we could hear Richard calling. My stomach had begun to clench reflexively when I heard his voice.

'Anyway, I'm not staying. I'm going to Riverdance my way out of this place and into another job,'

Carly said. 'He can stick his b.l.o.o.d.y shamrocks up his tight little corporate a.r.s.e.' She had given what I could only describe as a sarcastic skip, and left the Ladies. I spent the rest of the day getting little electric shocks from the static.

The Moving On Circle ended at half past nine. I walked out into the humid summer evening, exhausted by the twin trials of work and the evening's events. I took off my jacket, too hot, feeling suddenly that, having laid myself bare in front of a room full of strangers, being seen in a faux-Irish dancer uniform, which was, in truth, ever so slightly too small, didn't really make much difference.

I hadn't been able to talk about Will not the way they talked, as if their loved ones were still part of their lives, perhaps in the next room.

Oh yes, my Jilly used to do that all the time.

I can't delete my brother' s voicemail message. I have a little listen to his voice when I feel like I'm going to forget what he sounded like.

Sometimes I can hear him in the next room.

I could barely even say Will's name. And listening to their tales of family relations.h.i.+ps, of thirty-year marriages, shared houses, lives, children, I felt like a fraud. I had been a carer for someone for six months. I'd loved him, and watched him end his life. How could these strangers possibly understand what Will and I had been to each other during that time? How could I explain the way we had so swiftly understood each other, the shorthand jokes, the blunt truths and raw secrets? How could I convey the way those short months had changed the way I felt about everything? The way he had skewed my world so totally that it made no sense without him in it?

And when it came down to it, what was the point in re-examining your sadness all the time anyway? It was like picking at a wound and refusing to let it heal. I knew what I had been part of. I knew what my role was. What was the point in going over and over it?

I wouldn't come next week, I knew now. I would find an excuse for Dad.

I walked slowly across the car park, rummaging in my bag for my keys, telling myself it had at least meant that I hadn't had to spend another evening alone in front of my television, dreading the pa.s.sing of the twelve hours until I had to return to work.

'His name wasn't really Bill, right?'Jake fell into step alongside me.

'Nope.'

'Daphne's like a one-woman broadcasting corporation. She means well, but your personal story will be all over her social club before you can say Rodent Reincarnation.'

'Thanks for that.'

He grinned at me, and nodded towards my Lurex skirt. 'Nice threads, by the way. It's a good look for a grief-counselling session.' He stopped briefly to retie a shoelace.

I stopped with him. I hesitated, then said: 'I'm sorry about your mum.'

His face was sombre. 'You can't say that. It's like prison you can't ask someone what they're in for.'

'Really? Oh, I'm sorry. I didn't '

'I'm joking. See you next week.'

A man leaning against a motorbike lifted a hand in greeting. He stepped forward as Jake crossed the car park and enveloped him in a bear hug, kissing his cheek. I stopped to watch, mostly because it was rare to see a man hug his son like that in public, once they were over satchel-carrying age.

'How was it?'

'Okay. The usual.' Jake gestured to me. 'Oh, this is ... Louisa. She's new.'

The man squinted at me. He was tall and broad-shouldered. A nose that might once have been broken gave him the faintly bruising appearance of a former boxer.

I nodded a polite greeting. 'It was nice to meet you, Jake. Bye then.' I lifted a hand, and began to make my way to my car. But as I pa.s.sed the man he kept staring at me, and I felt myself colour under the intensity of his gaze. 'You're that girl,' he said.

Oh, no, I thought, slowing suddenly. Not here too.

I stared at the ground for a moment and took a breath. Then I turned back to face them both. 'Okay. As I've just made clear in the group, my friend made his own decisions. All I ever did was support them. Not that, if I'm honest, I really want to get into this right here and with a complete stranger.'

Jake's father continued to squint at me. He lifted his hand to his head.

'I understand that not everybody will get it. But that's the way it was. I don't feel I have to debate my choices. And I'm really tired and it's been a bit of a day, and I think I'm going to go home now.'

He c.o.c.ked his head to one side. And then he said, 'I have no idea what you're talking about.'

I frowned.

'The limp. I noticed you have a limp. You live near that ma.s.sive new development, right? You're the girl who fell off the roof. March. April.'

And suddenly I recognized him. 'Oh you were '

'The paramedic. We were the team who picked you up. I'd been wondering what happened to you.'

I almost buckled with relief. I let my gaze run over his face, his hair, his arms, suddenly recalling with Pavlovian accuracy his rea.s.suring manner, the sound of the siren, the faint scent of lemons. And I let out a breath. 'I'm good. Well. Not good exactly. I have a shot hip and a new boss who's an utter a.r.s.e and you know I'm at a grief-counselling club in a damp church hall with people who are just really, really ...'

'Sad,' said Jake, helpfully.

'The hip will get better. It's plainly not hindering your dance career.'

My laugh emerged as a honk.'Oh. No. This is ... The outfit is related to the boss who is an a.r.s.e. Not my normal mode of dress.

Anyway. Thank you. Wow ...' I put my hand to my head. 'This is weird. You saved me.'

'It's good to see you. We don't often get to see what happens afterwards.'

'You did a great job. It was ... Well, you were really kind. I remember that much.'

'De nada.'

I stared at him.

'De nada. Spanish. "It was nothing." '

'Oh, okay, then. I take it all back. Thanks for nothing.'

He smiled and raised a paddle-sized hand.

Afterwards, I didn't know what made me do it. 'Hey.'

He looked back towards me. 'It's Sam, actually.'

'Sam. I didn't jump.'

'Okay.'

'No. Really. I mean, I know you've just seen me coming out of a grief-counselling group and everything but it's well, I just I wouldn't jump.'

He gave me a look that seemed to suggest he had seen and heard everything.

'Good to know.'

We gazed at each other for a minute. Then he lifted his hand again. 'Nice to see you, Louisa.'

He pulled on a helmet and Jake slid onto the bike behind him. I found myself watching as they pulled out of the car park. And because I was still watching I caught Jake's exaggerated eye roll as he pulled on his own helmet. And then I remembered what he had said in the session.

The compulsive s.h.a.gger.

'Idiot,' I told myself, and limped across the rest of the tarmac to where my car was boiling gently in the evening heat.

CHAPTER FIVE.

I lived on the edge of the City. In case I was in any doubt, across the road stood a huge office-block-sized crater, surrounded by a developer's h.o.a.rding, upon which was written: FARTHINGATE WHERE THE CITY BEGINS. We existed at the exact point where the glossy gla.s.s temples to finance b.u.t.ted up against the grubby old brick and sash-windows of curry shops and twenty-four-hour grocers, of stripper pubs and minicab offices that resolutely refused to die. My block sat among those architectural refuseniks, a lead- stained, warehouse-style building staring at the steady onslaught of gla.s.s and steel and wondering how long it could survive, perhaps rescued by a hipster juice bar or pop-up retail experience. I knew n.o.body except Samir who ran the convenience store and the woman in the bagel bakery, who smiled at me in greeting but didn't seem to speak any English.

Mostly this anonymity suited me. I had come here, after all, to escape my history, from feeling as if everyone knew every thing there was to know about me. And the City had begun to alter me. I had come to know my little corner of it, its rhythms and its danger points. I learned that if you gave money to the drunk at the bus station he would come and sit outside your flat for the next eight weeks; that if I had to walk through the estate at night it was wise to do it with my keys lodged between my fingers; that if I was walking out to get a late-night bottle of wine it was probably better not to glance at the group of young men huddled outside Kebab Korner. I was no longer disturbed by the persistent whump whump whump of the police helicopter overhead.

I could survive. Besides, I knew, more than anyone, that worse things could happen.

'Hey.'

'Hey, Lou. Can't sleep again?'

'It's just gone ten o'clock here.'

'So, what's up?'

Nathan, Will's former physio, had spent the last nine months working in New York for a middle-aged CEO with a Wall Street reputation, a four-storey townhouse and a muscular condition. Calling him in my sleepless small hours had become something of a habit. It was good to know there was someone who understood, out there in the dark, even if sometimes his news felt tinged with a series of small blows everyone else has moved on. Everyone else has achieved something.

'So how's the Big Apple?'

'Not bad?' His Antipodean drawl made every answer a question.

I lay down on the sofa, pus.h.i.+ng my feet up on the armrest. 'Yeah. That doesn't tell me a whole lot.'

'Okay. Well, got a pay rise, so that was cool. Booked myself a flight home in a couple of weeks to see the olds. So that'll be good. They're over the moon because my sister's having a baby. Oh, and I met a really fit bird in a bar down on Sixth Avenue and we were getting on real well so I asked her out, and when I told her what I did, she said sorry but she only went out with guys who wore suits to work.' He laughed.

I found I was smiling. 'So scrubs don't count?''Apparently not. Though she did say she might have changed her mind if I was an actual doctor.' He laughed again. Nathan was made of equanimity. 'It's cool. Girls like that get all picky if you don't take them to the right restaurants and stuff. Better to know sooner, right? How about you?'

I shrugged. 'Getting there. Sort of.'

'You still sleeping in his T-s.h.i.+rt?'

'No. It stopped smelling of him. And it had started to get a bit unsavoury, if I'm honest. I washed it and I've packed it in tissue. But I've got his jumper for bad days.'

'Good to have back-up.'

'Oh, and I went to the grief-counselling group.'

'How was it?'