Me Before You: A Novel

there.’
    ‘What?’
    Mary handed me a name and a telephone number scribbled on a napkin.
    ‘It’s okay, Clark,’ he said, quietly, so that she couldn’t hear. ‘I’ll pay. Go on, and then you can stop worrying about how much you’ve drunk. Grab my credit card from my bag. They’ll probably want to take the number.’
    I took it, reached for my mobile phone and walked off into the further reaches of the garden. They had two rooms available, they said – a single, and a double on the ground floor. Yes, it was suitable for disabled access. ‘Perfect,’ I said, and then had to swallow a small yelp when they told me the price. I gave them Will’s credit card number, feeling slightly sick as I read the numbers.
    ‘So?’ he said, when I reappeared.
    ‘I’ve done it, but … ’ I told him how much the two rooms had come to.
    ‘That’s fine,’ he said. ‘Now ring that bloke of yours to tell him you’re staying out all night, then have another drink. In fact, have six. It would please me no end to see you get hammered on Alicia’s father’s bill.’
    And so I did.
    Something happened that evening. The lights dropped, so that our little table was less conspicuous, the overpowering fragrance of the flowers was tempered by the evening breezes, and the music and the wine and the dancing meant that in the most unlikely of places, we all began to actually enjoy ourselves. Will was the most relaxed I had seen him. Sandwiched between me and Mary, he talked and smiled at her, and there was something about the sight of him being briefly happy that repelled thosepeople who might otherwise have looked at him askance, or offered pitying glances. He made me lose my wrap and sit up straight. I took off his jacket and loosened his tie, and we both tried not to giggle at the sight of the dancing. I cannot tell you how much better I felt once I saw the way posh people danced. The men looked as if they had been electrocuted, the women did little pointy fingers at the stars and looked
horribly self-conscious even as they twirled.
    Mary Rawlinson muttered, ‘Dear God,’ several times. She glanced over at me. Her language had got fruitier with every drink. ‘You don’t want to go and strut your stuff, Louisa?’
    ‘God, no.’
    ‘Jolly sensible of you. I’ve seen better dancing at a bloody Young Farmers Club disco.’
    At nine, I got a text from Nathan.
All okay?
    Yes. Lovely, believe it or not. Will having great time.
    And he was. I watched him laughing hard at something Mary had said, and something in me grew strange and tight. This had shown me it could work. He could be happy, if surrounded by the right people, if allowed to be Will, instead of The Man in the Wheelchair, the list of symptoms, the object of pity.
    And then, at 10pm, the slow dances began. We watched Rupert wheel Alicia around the dance floor, applauded politely by onlookers. Her hair had begun to droop, and she wrapped her arms around his neck as if she needed the support. Rupert’s arms linked around her, resting onthe small of her back. Beautiful and wealthy as she was, I felt a little sorry for her. I thought she probably wouldn’t realize what she had lost until it was much too late.
    Halfway through the song, other couples joined them so that they were partially obscured from view, and I got distracted by Mary talking about carers’ allowances, until suddenly I looked up and there she was, standing right in front of us, the supermodel in her white silk dress. My heart lodged in my throat.
    Alicia nodded a greeting to Mary, and dipped a little from her waist so that Will could hear her over the music. Her face was a little tense, as if she had had to prime herself to come over.
    ‘Thank you for coming, Will. Really.’ She glanced sideways at me but said nothing.
    ‘Pleasure,’ Will said, smoothly. ‘You look lovely, Alicia. It was a great day.’
    A flicker of surprise passed across her face. And then a faint wistfulness. ‘Really? You really think so? I do think … I mean, there’s so much I want to say –’
    ‘Really,’ Will said. ‘There’s no need. You remember Louisa?’
    ‘I do.’
    There was a brief silence.
    I could see Rupert hovering in the background, eyeing us all warily. She glanced back at him, and then held out a hand in a half-wave. ‘Well, thank you anyway, Will. You are a superstar for coming. And thank you for the … ’
    ‘Mirror.’
    ‘Of course. I absolutely loved the mirror.’ She stood