Me Before You: A Novel

go?’
    ‘Then you owe me forty pounds,’ I said.
    ‘Forty pounds? How do you work that out?’
    ‘My winnings. Five pounds each way at eight to one.’ I shrugged. ‘Man Oh Man’s a sure thing.’
    I seemed to have got him off balance.
    Nathan clapped his hands on to his knees. ‘Sounds great. Nice day for it too,’ he said. ‘You want me to pack some lunch?’
    ‘Nah,’ I said. ‘There’s a nice restaurant. When my horse comes in, lunch is on me.’
    ‘You’ve been racing often, then?’ Will said.
    And then before he could say anything else, we had bundled him into his coat and I ran outside to reverse the car.
    I had it all planned, you see. We would arrive at the racecourse on a beautiful sunny day. There would be burnished, stick-legged thoroughbreds, their jockeys in billowingbright silks, careening past. Perhaps a brass band or two. The stands would be full of cheering people, and we would find a space from which to wave our winning betting slips. Will’s competitive streak would kick in and he would be unable to resist calculating the odds and making sure he won more than either Nathan or me. I had worked it all out. And then, when we had had enough of watching the horses, we would go to the well-reviewed racecourse restaurant and have a slap-up meal.
    I should have listened to my father. ‘Want to know the true definition of the triumph of hope over experience?’ he would say. ‘Plan a fun family day out.’
    It started with the car park. We drove there without incident, me now a little more confident that I wasn’t going to tip Will over if I went faster than 15 mph. I had looked up the directions at the library, and kept up a cheerful banter almost the whole way there, commenting on the beautiful blue sky, the countryside, the lack of traffic. There were no queues to enter the racecourse, which was, admittedly, a little less grand than I had expected, and the car park was clearly marked.
    But nobody had warned me it was on grass, and grass that had been driven over for much of a wet winter at that. We backed into a space (not hard, as it was only half full) and almost as soon as the ramp was down Nathan looked worried.
    ‘It’s too soft,’ he said. ‘He’s going to sink.’
    I glanced over at the stands. ‘Surely, if we can get him on to that pathway we’ll be okay?’
    ‘It weighs a ton, this chair,’ he said. ‘And that’s forty feet away.’
    ‘Oh, come on. They must build these chairs to withstand a bit of soft ground.’
    I backed Will’s chair down carefully and then watched as the wheels sank several inches into the mud.
    Will said nothing. He looked uncomfortable, and had been silent for much of the half-hour drive. We stood beside him, fiddling with his controls. A breeze had picked up, and Will’s cheeks grew pink.
    ‘Come on,’ I said. ‘We’ll do it manually. I’m sure we can manage to get there between us.’
    We tilted Will backwards. I took one handle and Nathan took the other and we dragged the chair towards the path. It was slow progress, not least because I had to keep stopping because my arms hurt and my pristine boots grew thick with dirt. When we finally made it to the pathway, Will’s blanket had half slipped off him and had somehow got caught up in his wheels, leaving one corner torn and muddy.
    ‘Don’t worry,’ Will said, dryly. ‘It’s only cashmere.’
    I ignored him. ‘
Right
. We’ve made it. Now for the fun bit.’
    Ah yes. The fun bit. Who thought it would be a good idea for racecourses to have turnstiles? It was hardly as if they needed crowd control, surely? It’s not as if there were crowds of chanting racehorse fans, threatening riots if Charlie’s Darling didn’t make it back in third, rioting stable-girls who needed penning in and keeping out. We looked at the turnstile, and then back at Will’s chair, and then Nathan and I looked at each other.
    Nathan stepped over to the ticket office and explained our plight to the woman inside. She tilted her head to look at Will, then pointed us towards the far end of the stand.
    ‘The disabled entrance is over there,’ she said.
    She said
disabled
like someone entering a diction contest. It was a good 200 yards away. By the time we finally made it over there the blue skies had disappeared abruptly, replaced by a sudden squall. Naturally, I hadn’t brought an umbrella. I kept up a relentless, cheerful commentary about how funny this was and how ridiculous, and even to my ears I