Me Before You: A Novel

at school had taken a round-the-world trip and come back somehow removed and unknowable, like he wasn’t the same scuffed eleven-year-old who used to blow spit bubbles during double French. I had booked a cheap flight to Australia on a whim, and was trying to find someone who might come with me. I liked the exoticism his travels gave him, the unknownness. He had blown in with the soft breezes of a wider world, and it was weirdly seductive. Everyone here knew everything about me, after all. And with a sister like mine, I was never allowed to forget any of it.
    It was a Friday, and I had spent the day working as a car park attendant with a group of girls I had known at school, steering visitors to a craft fair held in the grounds of the castle. The whole day was punctuated with laughter, with fizzy drinks guzzled under a hot sun, the sky blue, light glinting off the battlements. I don’t think there was a single tourist who didn’t smile at me that day. People find it very hard not to smile at a group of cheerful, giggling girls. We were paid £30, and the organizers were so pleased with the turnout that they gave us an extra fiver each. We celebrated by getting drunk with some boys who had been working on the far car park by the visitor centre. They were well spoken, sporting rugby shirts and floppyhair. One was called Ed, two of them were at university – I still can’t remember where – and they were working for holiday money too. They were
flush with cash at the end of a whole week of stewarding, and when our money ran out they were happy to buy drinks for giddy local girls who flicked their hair and sat on each other’s laps and shrieked and joked and called them posh. They spoke a different language; they talked of gap years and summers spent in South America, and the backpacker trail in Thailand and who was going to try for an internship abroad. While we listened, and drank, I remember my sister stopping by the beer garden where we lay sprawled on the grass. She was wearing the world’s oldest hoody and no make-up, and I’d forgotten I was meant to be meeting her. I told her to tell Mum and Dad I’d be back sometime after I was thirty. For some reason I found this hysterically funny. She had lifted her eyebrows, and stalked off like I was the most irritating person ever born.
    When the Red Lion closed we all went and sat in the centre of the castle maze. Someone managed to scramble over the gates and, after much colliding and giggling, we all found our way to the middle and drank strong cider while someone passed around a joint. I remember staring up at the stars, feeling myself disappear into their infinite depths, as the ground gently swayed and lurched around me like the deck of a huge ship. Someone was playing a guitar, and I had a pair of pink satin high heels on which I kicked into the long grass and never went back for. I thought I probably ruled the universe.
    It was about half an hour before I realized the other girls had gone.
    My sister found me, there in the centre of the maze, sometime later, long after the stars had been obscured by the night clouds. As I said, she’s pretty smart. Smarter than me, anyway.
    She’s the only person I ever knew who could find her way out of the maze safely.
    ‘This will make you laugh. I’ve joined the library.’
    Will was over by his CD collection. He swivelled the chair round, and waited while I put his drink in his cup holder. ‘Really? What are you reading?’
    ‘Oh, nothing sensible. You wouldn’t like it. Just boy-meets-girl stuff. But I’m enjoying it.’
    ‘You were reading my Flannery O’Connor the other day.’ He took a sip of his drink. ‘When I was ill.’
    ‘The short stories? I can’t believe you noticed that.’
    ‘I couldn’t help but notice. You left the book out on the side. I can’t pick it up.’
    ‘Ah.’
    ‘So don’t read rubbish. Take the O’Connor stories home. Read them instead.’
    I was about to say no, and then I realized I didn’t really know why I was refusing. ‘All right. I’ll bring them back as soon as I’ve finished.’
    ‘Put some music on for me, Clark?’
    ‘What do you want?’
    He told me, nodding at its rough location, and I flicked through until I found it.
    ‘I have a friend who plays lead violin in the Albert Symphonia. He called to say he’s playing near here next week. This piece of music. Do you know it?’
    ‘I don’t know anything about classical music. I mean, sometimes my dad