Me Before You: A Novel

almost too much, but I didn’t want it to stop. I wanted to sit there forever. I stole a look at Will. He was rapt, suddenly unselfconscious. I turned away, unexpectedly afraid tolook at him. I was afraid of what he might be feeling, the depth of his loss, the extent of his fears. Will Traynor’s life had been so far beyond the experiences of mine. Who was I to tell him how he should want to live it?
    Will’s friend left a note asking us to go backstage and see him afterwards, but Will didn’t want to. I urged him once, but I could see from the set of his jaw that he would not be budged. I couldn’t blame him. I remembered how his former workmates had looked at him that day – that mixture of pity, revulsion and, somewhere, deep relief that they themselves had somehow escaped this particular stroke of fate. I suspected there were only so many of those sorts of meetings he could stomach.
    We waited until the auditorium was empty, then I wheeled him out, down to the car park in the lift, and loaded Will up without incident. I didn’t say much; my head was still ringing with the music, and I didn’t want it to fade. I kept thinking back to it, the way that Will’s friend had been so lost in what he was playing. I hadn’t realized that music could unlock things in you, could transport you to somewhere even the composer hadn’t predicted. It left an imprint in the air around you, as if you carried its remnants with you when you went. For some time, as we sat there in the audience, I had completely forgotten Will was even beside me.
    We pulled up outside the annexe. In front of us, just visible above the wall, the castle sat, floodlit under the full moon, gazing serenely down from its position on the top of the hill.
    ‘So you’re not a classical music person.’
    I looked into the rear-view mirror. Will was smiling.
    ‘I didn’t enjoy that in the slightest.’
    ‘I could tell.’
    ‘I especially didn’t enjoy that bit near the end, the bit where the violin was singing by itself.’
    ‘I could see you didn’t like that bit. In fact, I think you had tears in your eyes you hated it so much.’
    I grinned back at him. ‘I really loved it,’ I said. ‘I’m not sure I’d like
all
classical music, but I thought that was amazing.’ I rubbed my nose. ‘Thank you. Thank you for taking me.’
    We sat in silence, gazing at the castle. Normally, at night, it was bathed in a kind of orange glow from the lights dotted around the fortress wall. But tonight, under a full moon, it seemed flooded in an ethereal blue.
    ‘What kind of music would they have played there, do you think?’ I said. ‘They must have listened to something.’
    ‘The castle? Medieval stuff. Lutes, strings. Not my cup of tea, but I’ve got some I can lend you, if you like. You should walk around the castle with it on earphones, if you really wanted the full experience.’
    ‘Nah. I don’t really go to the castle.’
    ‘It’s always the way, when you live close by somewhere.’
    My answer was non-committal. We sat there a moment longer, listening to the engine tick its way to silence.
    ‘Right,’ I said, unfastening my belt. ‘We’d better get you in. The evening routine awaits.’
    ‘Just wait a minute, Clark.’
    I turned in my seat. Will’s face was in shadow and I couldn’t quite make it out.
    ‘Just hold on. Just for a minute.’
    ‘Are you all right?’ I found my gaze dropping towardshis chair, afraid some part of him was pinched, or trapped, that I had got something wrong.
    ‘I’m fine. I just … ’
    I could see his pale collar, his dark suit jacket a contrast against it.
    ‘I don’t want to go in just yet. I just want to sit and not have to think about … ’ He swallowed.
    Even in the half-dark it seemed effortful.
    ‘I just … want to be a man who has been to a concert with a girl in a red dress. Just for a few minutes more.’
    I released the door handle.
    ‘Sure.’
    I closed my eyes and lay my head against the headrest, and we sat there together for a while longer, two people lost in remembered music, half hidden in the shadow of a castle on a moonlit hill.
    My sister and I never really talked about what happened that night at the maze. I’m not entirely sure we had the words. She held me for a bit, then spent some time helping me find my clothes, and then searched in vain in the long grass for my shoes until I told her that it really didn’t matter. I wouldn’t have worn them again, anyway.