Me Before You: A Novel

old hog roast.’
    We ordered three buns with pork, crackling and apple sauce, and sheltered under the striped awning while we ate them. I sat down on a small dustbin, so that I could be at the same level as Will, and helped him to manageable bites of meat, shredding it with my fingers where necessary.The two women who served behind the counter pretended not to look at us. I could see them monitoring Will out of the corners of their eyes, periodically muttering to each other when they thought we weren’t looking.
Poor man
, I could practically hear them saying.
What a terrible way to live
. I gave them a hard stare, daring them to look at him like that. I tried not to think too hard about what Will must be feeling.
    The rain had stopped, but the windswept course felt suddenly bleak, its brown and green surface littered with discarded betting slips, its horizon flat and empty. The car park had thinned out with the rain, and in the distance we could just hear the distorted sound of the tannoy as some other race thundered past.
    ‘I think maybe we should head back,’ Nathan said, wiping his mouth. ‘I mean, it was nice and all, but best to miss the traffic, eh?’
    ‘Fine,’ I said. I screwed up my paper napkin, and threw it into the bin. Will waved away the last third of his roll.
    ‘Didn’t he like it?’ said the woman, as Nathan began to wheel him away across the grass.
    ‘I don’t know. Perhaps he would have liked it better if it hadn’t come with a side order of rubberneck,’ I said, and chucked the remnants hard into the bin.
    But getting to the car and back up the ramp was easier said than done. In the few hours that we had spent at the racecourse, the arrivals and departures meant that the car park had turned into a sea of mud. Even with Nathan’s impressive might, and my best shoulder, we couldn’t get the chair even halfway across the grass to the car. His wheels skidded and whined, unable to get the purchase tomake it up that last couple of inches. Mine and Nathan’s feet slithered in the mud, which worked its way up the sides of our shoes.
    ‘It’s not going to happen,’ said Will.
    I had refused to listen to him. I couldn’t bear the idea that this was how our day was going to end.
    ‘I think we’re going to need some help,’ Nathan said. ‘I can’t even get the chair back on to the path. It’s stuck.’
    Will let out an audible sigh. He looked about as fed up as I had ever seen him.
    ‘I could lift you into the front seat, Will, if I tilt it back a little. And then Louisa and I could see if we could get the chair in afterwards.’
    Will’s voice emerged through gritted teeth. ‘I am not ending today with a fireman’s lift.’
    ‘Sorry, mate,’ Nathan said. ‘But Lou and I are not going to manage this alone. Here, Lou, you’re prettier than I am. Go and collar a few extra pairs of arms, will you?’
    Will closed his eyes, set his jaw and I ran towards the stands.
    I would not have believed so many people could turn down a cry for help when it involved a wheelchair stuck in mud, especially as the cry did come from a girl in a miniskirt and flashing her most endearing smile. I am not usually good with strangers, but desperation made me fearless. I walked from group to group of racegoers in the grandstand, asking if they could just spare me a few minutes’ help. They looked at me and my clothes as if I were plotting some kind of trap.
    ‘It’s for a man in a wheelchair,’ I said. ‘He’s a bit stuck.’
    ‘We’re just waiting on the next race,’ they said. Or, ‘Sorry.’ Or, ‘It’ll have to wait till after the two thirty. We have a monkey on this one.’
    I even thought about collaring a jockey or two. But as I got close to the enclosure, I saw that they were even smaller than I was.
    By the time I got to the parade ring I was incandescent with suppressed rage. I suspect I was snarling at people then, not smiling. And there, finally, joy of joys, were the lads in striped polo shirts. The back of their shirts referred to ‘Marky’s Last Stand’ and they clutched cans of Pilsner and Tennent’s Extra. Their accents suggested they were from somewhere in the north-east, and I was pretty sure that they had not had any significant break from alcohol for the last twenty-four hours. They cheered as I approached, and I fought the urge to give them the finger again.
    ‘Gissa smile, sweetheart. It’s Marky’s stag weekend,’ one slurred, slamming a ham-sized hand on