By My Side (9 page)

Our group is eating out in one of the restaurants within the hotel complex. We’re tired in a happy way after another day’s skiing. Charlie took me out this afternoon. I tried to disguise my delirious pleasure when he’d approached me with the news that he was my buddy again. I am still on the training reins and often fall down on the slopes. However, I am no longer gripped with fear every time I look down a steep slope and realise that the only way to get down it is to ski. I’m beginning to master the ski lift too and now that I’m more confident, I can take in the scenery. It is beautiful. The sky is bright blue; looking up into it is like an adrenalin shot in the arm. The snow glistens and the colours of everyone’s clothes sparkle like jewels on the mountain.

Charlie took me on a red run this afternoon to show me the views. He took some shots with his flashy camera. He says there’s nothing more peaceful or levelling than being out in the mountains. ‘They’re incredible, don’t you think? They put us in our place,’ he said. ‘You can never be complacent when you’re out here.’

We didn’t ski for as long today because he wanted to take me round the Rocky Mountain National Park. We hired a scooter and to keep me safe Charlie had to hold my feet down with his own. As we picked up speed, I found myself laughing out loud from sheer joy at being outside and discovering a new and magical world. The mountain peaks soared above us; they must have been thousands of feet high, and I understood what Charlie had meant earlier. Their grandeur did make me feel small. We must look like mere dots on the landscape. But what I loved most about today was being with him and feeling his arms around me. I haven’t allowed myself to think I could meet someone else, but since meeting Charlie, hope has crept into my heart.

It’s been fun watching the others ski too. Some wheelchair users are experienced skiers who don’t need qualified instructors or buddies with them all the time. Others are more like me; we fall down like skittles but pick ourselves up again with a few more bruises on our arms but strength in our soul.

Over the course of the trip everyone has opened up about their experiences. There’s Jeremy. He tells us he was shot in the back in Guatemala by a group of bandits. His life was saved because he was wearing a rucksack and in it was a hardback reference book that protected him from the bullet. The bullet went through the spine but not the organs.

There’s Miles who had a rugby accident. Andrew was involved in a car crash when he was seventeen. He was in the back seat, telling his friend, who had only just passed his driving test, to slow down and stop messing with the tape player. Melissa, the mother of the group, apologises. ‘All I did was fall off a ladder, gardening. Pruning the climbing rose.’ I notice Charlie watching me when I tell everyone my accident was my fault. I wasn’t concentrating, stepped out into the road, was hit, but luckily the driver wasn’t injured.

I notice, as I did in hospital too, there is a certain hierarchy of people in terms of the level of our injury. Being a T12 I am a mere scratch. My injury pales into insignificance compared to Frankie’s. Frankie is a C7, paralysed just under the collarbone. At first they’d thought she had whiplash; it’s a classic mistake to miss the C7 fracture on x-ray. She has worked so hard at being independent and says she’s lucky in that she has movement in her hands, which is unusual for her level of injury. It makes her able to do much more than she’d imagined.

Most of the other stories we share are about travel. I tell them about my first train journey to London, when a passenger had lifted me out of my chair, and what’s funny is we all laugh, especially me. Jeremy, the expert traveller, tells us that one time when he was flying, the plane had to do a crash landing at Nairobi. They missed the next connection and all the passengers were deposited in the departure lounge with a stale apricot Danish pastry. When everyone else was moved into a five-star hotel for the night, he was left behind, in his uncomfortable airport wheelchair.

Andrew tells us about his first night at home after being in hospital. He lives in a council bungalow, and friends had come round to watch the football and drink a few beers. They left him stuck on the sofa with his wheelchair on the other side of the room. ‘I had to ring and ask them to come back, luckily the front door wasn’t locked.’

Melissa tells us how her husband had taken her to France under false pretences. ‘Suddenly I found myself on some religious week, people laying hands on my head, telling me to release the devil inside and I’ll be cured. I’ll tell you something! The miracle is we are still married!’

We all laugh at that.

The boys talk about the make of their wheelchairs as if they were racing cars and how fast they can go, and the fact that they have two sets of wheels for indoors and outdoors. We’re all relieved that heavy wheelchairs made out of steel are a thing of the past. Mine is a lightweight sporty manual model made of titanium with detachable wheels.

At the end of the evening everyone heads back to their room.

‘I can open the door myself,’ one of the guys says pointedly to Charlie, before barging on ahead of him.

I catch up with Charlie.

‘I don’t patronise you, do I? Be honest,’ he says to me.

‘No. Look, just because someone’s in a wheelchair doesn’t make them an angel. He’s probably tired. Don’t take it personally.’

We reach my bedroom door. ‘Well, this is me. ’Night then,’ I say, wishing my bedroom were further away. Why can’t it be right at the other end of the building? Or in another place, far away, that would take us all night to reach.

‘’Night, Brooks.’ He leans down to kiss my cheek. I wish somebody could press pause, to keep his face close to mine.

Frankie and I are getting ready for a night out.

‘Do you think you’ll move back to London soon?’ she asks, brushing her thick, dark brown hair.

Both Dom and Guy have asked the same. ‘We could sit in bars and put the world to rights,’ Guy suggested.

I nod. ‘But I need to find a job first, and a place to live.’

Frankie works for a corporate events company, but also does a lot of work for a charity that helps those with spinal cord injuries in developing countries like Uganda, India and Tanzania, where there is little support and few services available.

I confide that the idea’s daunting.

‘The only way you’re going to get confidence is by getting out there again,’ Frankie says. ‘Do you think you could go back to medicine?’

‘Love your shoes,’ I say, gesturing to her red patent high heels and dodging her question.

She glances at my trainers. ‘What size?’

‘Six.’

‘Fancy that. Me too.’

Frankie opens our wardrobe and tells me to pick out a pair. ‘Your suitcase must have weighed a ton,’ I exclaim, admiring some silver high heels.

‘Tell you what? I’ve got a silver top that would look fantastic on you too.’

She shows me something scant and lacy.

‘I’m fine in this.’

Frankie’s face softens. ‘You’re dressing the way I used to, so no one notices you.’ She smiles. ‘Off with that top!’

I do as I’m told, throwing my boring old T-shirt across the room.

‘And on with this sexy little number! Come on, you need to do some serious flirting with Charlie tonight. We’ve only got a couple of nights left.’

‘I like him,’ I admit.

‘But you’re worried you can’t have a boyfriend, right?’

I nod.

‘Have you had a relationship since your accident? And Ticket doesn’t count,’ she says, gesturing to my golden boy in the small oval silver photograph frame on my bedside table.

‘I can’t imagine, I can’t see anyone …’ I stop, remembering Frankie is in the same position as me. ‘Look at the way Sean reacted.’

‘Sean’s a dickhead.’

‘Guys just think you’re in a wheelchair, how do you tell them about all the other problems?’

‘You tell them when the time’s right, maybe not on the first date,’ she adds. ‘Cass, people get dealt bad hands, but it doesn’t mean you have to be alone for the rest of your life.’

‘Charlie makes me laugh.’ I’m attracted to him in a different way to Sean. Sean was good-looking and knew it and we had our medicine in common. I think in a way that was all we had in common; that and sex. With Charlie, I like the way he looks directly at me when he talks, not over his shoulder, to see if there’s anyone more interesting in the room. I’m drawn to the twinkle in his eye that makes him look as if he’s about to break into a smile. I like his interest in everyone and what’s around him. When I was watching him taking photographs I realised I was falling for him. ‘There’s this voice in my head,’ I tell Frankie, ‘that says, “Why would he choose me, with all my baggage, when he could have anyone?”’

‘Listen, if you want to meet someone you have to have the courage to be yourself. And believe me, everyone has baggage.’

She senses there’s something else I want to ask, something I can’t ask Mum or friends, or my consultant.

‘You can have sex,’ she says.

‘But … how does it work?’ I laugh at myself. This is something I didn’t learn at King’s. In many ways medicine, as intricate as it is, skims only the surface. ‘I mean, how do you feel it?’

‘It’s different. I feel it in my head. Ben and I have this closeness, a connection that I thought I’d never have. You have to retune, if that makes sense. Remap your body so that different parts get pleasure.’

I twist a strand of hair; coil it round my fingers. ‘You’re amazing, Frankie.’

‘I’ve been injured for more than half my life, Cass, I’m an old fossil when it comes to this.’ She smiles. ‘It’s still new to you. The first two years are the hardest and most tiring. Your body’s trying to adapt. You look beautiful,’ she adds, opening the mirrored wardrobe door.

‘Yeah. Great.’

‘You haven’t even looked.’

I wheel myself away. ‘Come on, let’s go.’

‘Cass, you come back here at once!’

‘Oh my God, you sound like my mother,’ I say, placing myself in front of the mirror again.

‘Forget the chair is there,’ she says. ‘That’s what I do. I rub it out so that I can only see me. Stop fidgeting with your hair! Look at yourself.
You
, Cass. You look a million dollars.’

‘I look like a Christmas cracker,’ I say, a vision of silver.

‘Exactly.’ She touches my shoulder with affection. ‘And ready to be pulled.’

*

The restaurant is crowded. I watch Charlie at the far end of the table putting on his glasses to read the dessert menu. Susi, the group leader, is sitting next to him, laughing at something he says. She clearly isn’t immune to his charms either. ‘Cass, wine?’ Frankie asks, pouring some into my glass without waiting for a reply.

During coffee my mobile vibrates and Mum’s number flashes on to the screen. She rings every day to make sure I’m still in one piece and to update me on Ticket news. Mum tells me she and Dad took him to the beach and he had a whale of a time playing in the sea.

‘I miss him so much,’ I tell Frankie when I hang up.

‘Oh, come on. He’s just a dog.’

‘He’s not just a dog, Frankie,’ I say, my tone surprisingly hard. ‘He’s the reason I’m here.’

‘Sorry, sorry.’ She gestures to Charlie approaching. ‘Just forget about him for
tonight
.’

‘Forget about who?’ he says, pulling up a chair and sitting between us.

‘The love of her life! Honestly, Cass goes on and on about him all the time, even has a photo of him by her bedside.’

Charlie runs a hand through his hair. ‘Who’s this?’

‘Cass’s man,’ Frankie continues. ‘Catch up, Charlie.’

He turns to me. ‘You haven’t mentioned him.’

I’m about to tell him we’re talking about Ticket. Charlie knows I have a dog. I’ve told him all about Ticket and Canine Partners, but Frankie jumps in quickly, saying, ‘He’s so cute, Charlie. Fair hair, these big brown eyes. You’ve got him so well trained, Cass.’

‘Trained?’ Charlie looks confused now. ‘Have you met him, Frankie?’

‘No,’ she says with regret. ‘But I’m sure I will soon.’

‘Don’t go anywhere,’ Charlie says, scraping his chair back.

‘Frankie, we have to tell him it’s Ticket,’ I whisper.

‘Sure, we can put him out of his misery, but look at the way he reacted,’ she says, as we watch Charlie hurry to his end of the table, grab his wine and hurtle back towards us. ‘If that doesn’t give you confidence, nothing will.’

*

We’ve moved from the restaurant to the bar and dance floor.

Charlie holds out a hand and says, ‘May I have the first dance?’

Don’t say no. Say yes, I tell myself, watching Frankie dance in her chair with Ethan.

An hour later and I’m singing along to the music. Charlie takes me by surprise, lifting me out of my chair and into his arms, spinning me around. I hold on to him tightly, laughing with joy. Why was I so nervous before?

I could happily dance with Charlie all night.

*

On the last day I ski without any help and Charlie skis alongside me. I don’t feel different to anyone else as we race down the slopes. My wheelchair is a distant memory; something I have left at the foot of the mountain.

Up here, I am in another world.

A magnificent world.

It’s the beginning of April, three weeks since our skiing trip, and Charlie calls. ‘Who was that?’ Mum asks after I’ve hung up and returned to the sitting room, Ticket following closely behind. ‘Charlie.’

‘Again?’ My father lights a cigarette.

‘And?’ Mum says.

‘He’s asked me to stay at his parents’ place in Gloucestershire.’

‘When?’

‘This weekend.’ Charlie invited me down on Friday afternoon, telling me he was taking the day off work. I can’t stop smiling. It feels as if someone has handed me a winning lottery ticket.

Mum and Dad glance at one another. I can tell they’ll whisper about this in bed tonight, concluding that Charlie is exactly why I’ve been in such a good mood lately.

*

When the train pulls in at the next station the conductor enters our carriage to punch the tickets of new passengers. The closer we are to Honeybourne, the more anxious I become, my mind plagued with doubts. It’s only for a couple of nights, I remind myself. Will he try to kiss me? Or does he see me only as a friend? Maybe I should make the first move? Normally I wouldn’t think twice about it, but things are different now. I don’t want to screw it up, and if things go wrong, it’s not as if I can make a rapid exit.

Will his parents be there? What if it’s just the two of us? Do I
want
it to be just the two of us? Where will I sleep? What if Charlie can’t even get me up the stairs?

‘Relax, Brooks,’ I can hear him say.

Since returning from Colorado, I’ve replayed that evening when we’d danced. Charlie had walked me back to my room in the early hours of the morning, and I think I must have slept with a permanent grin on my face, music ringing in my ears. We spent our final day together on the slopes. Charlie took more photographs. I felt tearful saying goodbye at the airport. We’d only known one another for a week, but somehow Charlie had slipped effortlessly into my life, and I couldn’t imagine a world without him any more. I stroke Ticket. ‘You’ll like him,’ I tell him. ‘But don’t you worry, whatever happens between us, you’re still my best man.’

It’s close to five o’clock. I look out of the window. It’s drizzling.

With only one more station to go, I squirt some perfume on to my wrist, brush my hair and apply some lipstick. Since the skiing course I have cut my hair and it now falls just below my shoulders. I’ve been shopping online too. I’m wearing skinny jeans with a pair of black patent high heels that I bought in the sales along with a soft leather biker jacket. Frankie would be proud. Briefly I think of Sarah. She asked if she could come and stay in Dorset over the Easter break. She doesn’t know much about Charlie. I make excuses why we haven’t been in touch. I live miles away; she’s busy studying in her final year. Yet I think we both know the truth: we’re letting our friendship slip through our fingers like sand.

As the train approaches the station platform, I see Charlie waiting. He’s dressed in jeans, boots and a navy round-neck jumper with the sleeves rolled up. The first hurdle is over; the ramp is positioned and I can, at least, get off the train.

Charlie bends down to kiss my cheek, before stroking Ticket.

‘Shake hands, Ticket.’ Ticket offers his paw towards Charlie.

‘Lovely to meet you,’ Charlie says to him. ‘How was your journey?’ He picks up my suitcase.

‘Great.’

‘Crikey.’ He laughs, pretending to almost drop my case. ‘How long are you staying for?’ I don’t tell him I’ve packed about ten different outfits, along with many warm jumpers. Even though it’s getting warmer, I feel the cold.

‘Are you hungry?’

I couldn’t eat a thing. ‘Yes.’

‘I’ve made us a lasagne for supper. Just to warn you, I’m not a great cook,’ he says as we head towards the station car park. ‘When I’m on my own I don’t eat. There’s nothing you can’t eat, is there?’

He’s gabbling. Maybe he’s nervous too?

‘I’m a vegetarian.’

‘Fuck, no.’

‘Only kidding. You know I’m not.’

‘Nice day today.’

‘It’s been raining all day.’

‘Oh yeah, terrible day.’

I think we both need to shut up.

*

‘Where are your parents this weekend?’ I ask, as Charlie turns down a narrow winding lane.

‘With friends. I’m glad you could come down.’ He turns to me, one hand on the steering wheel, and says, ‘I don’t like being in the house on my own. I’m sure it’s haunted.’

Ticket barks. ‘He’s saying you’re a scaredy-cat, Bell.’

We turn left through some gates and over an iron grid, into a long driveway with parkland on either side. In front of me are oak and chestnut trees. Charlie tells me they are hundreds of years old. Ticket barks at the sheep.

‘Is this all your land?’ I ask.

‘Yep.’

‘Fuck me.’

He raises an eyebrow.

I can’t see any sign of a house yet. ‘Do your parents live in a palace? Will there be a butler?’

‘Watch it, Brooks.’

Finally I see a large imposing house in the distance.

‘This was my grandfather’s childhood home, my dad’s father. Granddad used to take me out on the tractor as a child or I’d help him plant his trees and we’d have these big family parties in the summer, playing rounders with all our cousins.’

‘Sounds like fun.’

‘How about your family?’

‘Oh, there’s only Jamie, Mum, Dad and me.’

‘Are you close to your grandparents?’

‘One of my grandfathers worked on a railway station, he was an alcoholic. He’s dead now. The other worked in a factory. I didn’t know him. Mum and Dad couldn’t wait to leave home. I think they rebelled against their parents, they wanted more from life than staying in their hometown. Mum and Dad didn’t even invite them to their wedding. Both my grandmothers are alive, but they’re not really interested in getting to know Jamie and me. I can’t think why not,’ I say with a smile, although it has hurt our family deep inside. Neither Mum nor Dad has had any support after my accident.

‘Right,’ Charlie says, unsure how to react to a family so alien to his own.

We go over a couple more ramps before turning right into a courtyard. Through a side gate is an expanse of lawn. To think I’d asked Charlie if they had a garden for Ticket to do his business. ‘There are no steps at the back of the house, easier to get in this side,’ he says, opening the passenger door of his battered VW Golf.

‘Thank you,’ I say. ‘Oh, I need my chair.’

‘Oh yes, sorry.’ He retrieves it from the back seat, telling me how surprisingly light it is. Ticket jumps out of the car and sniffs the ground with curiosity.

He places my chair and the detachable wheels in front of me, before watching carefully how I assemble it together. ‘Show me,’ he says.

‘All I have to do is slot the wheels on, like this.’ I attach one of them and then turn the chair round to do the other side. ‘And if I want to take them off –’ I point to the press release button in the middle of the wheel. ‘I press and hold and it slides off, like that.’ Quickly I slot the wheel back on.

‘It’s neat,’ he says, as I transfer myself from the passenger seat into my chair.

As we approach the back door Charlie shakes a keyring with about twenty keys attached to it.

‘What are they all for?’

‘The garage, cottages, car, tractor …’

Finally he finds the right one and we enter. ‘Oh my God!’ I exclaim, looking at the full-size billiard table right in front of me. I also notice an oil painting of a woman with long dark hair sitting on a sofa in a lilac ballgown. ‘Who’s she? She’s beautiful.’

‘My mother.’ Charlie walks on with my case. I gaze into the next room, a large drawing room with a grand piano by the window, the top adorned with framed photographs. We cross the stone hall, Ticket’s paws padding against the floor. He’s keeping even closer by my side than usual and each time I stop, he stops. Ahead of us is an enormous mirror hanging above a squatting Buddha on a marble table.

I look up to the spiralling staircase. Ticket looks up too.

We turn left, past the library (who has a library?) and into the kitchen, a more normal-sized room with a round wooden table at one end.

‘Sit down. Sorry, I mean, you are sitting, but …’

I smile. ‘Don’t worry, I know what you mean.’

‘Cup of tea?’ he asks, before moving one of the chairs round the table to make space for me.

The closeness and ease we had on the slopes somehow seems far away. As Charlie puts a pan of water on the Aga, we don’t say anything; all I can hear is the ticking sound of the grandfather clock and Ticket breathing heavily under the table. Anxious that this was a bad idea, I give Ticket’s back a reassuring squeeze, wishing Charlie would scrap the tea idea and crack open a bottle of red wine instead.

*

‘I could fit our home into the sitting room alone,’ I say when Charlie gives me a guided tour of the house. Around the fireplace is a fender. The coffee table is covered with hardback gardening, antique and history books. The curtains are deep blue velvet. ‘It’s incredible here.’

‘I know. I take it for granted. It’s also very cold,’ he says, putting some logs on to the fire. Charlie tells me his parents can’t justify, nor afford, heating the whole house.

‘Do you think you’ll live here someday?’

‘Maybe.’ He sits down next to me. ‘One day.’

On the table beside me is a framed photograph of a woman in a mini halter-neck dress, with legs that go on for miles. ‘Anna. My sister,’ Charlie says. ‘She’s in New York at the moment.’

She has bright red hair, creamy skin and large sapphire-blue eyes.

I pick up the next frame. ‘Who’s this?’ She has an arm around Charlie. It’s clearly windy, her long dark hair blowing in her face; hair caught against her lips.

He leaps up to chuck another log on to the fire. ‘Jo. My ex.’

*

After supper Charlie and I watch television. Ticket lies on the sofa in between us, snoring lightly. It wasn’t quite the romantic evening I’d had in mind, especially when Charlie suggests I do something about Ticket’s fish breath.

It’s eleven o’clock when Charlie and I head upstairs. ‘Now hang on, how do I do this?’ he asks, and I sense he’s been dreading it just as much as me. No wonder neither one of us can relax.

‘Well, with Dad, I wrap my legs round his hips and my hands round his neck. It’s like a piggyback but on the front, if you see what I mean.’

‘Right.’

‘I’m sorry, Charlie. Lucky I don’t weigh a ton, hey,’ I say, positioning myself at the edge of the sofa.

‘Trust me, this is a piece of cake. I could take Tyson on.’ He flexes his muscles.

When I’m in his arms …

‘Ticket! Down! Off!’

‘He thinks you’re in trouble,’ suggests Charlie.

‘He thinks you’re about to have your wicked way with me. Ticket, off! Sorry,’ I say to Charlie. ‘I doubt you normally have to carry your guests upstairs, do you?’

‘Stop saying sorry,’ he mutters, carrying me into the hall.

‘Sorry. I shouldn’t have had that second helping of lasagne.’

‘Stop saying sorry,’ he repeats, as he tackles the stairs.

I press my lips together, trying hard not to smile. ‘Sorry.’

‘One more sorry and I’ll drop you.’

‘You know, this place really should have a lift.’

‘Cass, shut up!’

Ticket barks, certain I’m in trouble now.

Charlie lays me down on his bed before going back downstairs to fetch the wheelchair. When Charlie is out of the room Ticket jumps up and lies down beside me. ‘There’s no need to be jealous, I promise you,’ I whisper.

I look around Charlie’s old bedroom, eyes resting on a black hi-fi system with old-fashioned speakers. His room looks as if it hasn’t been touched since he left college. Just like Jamie, he has a map of the world framed over his desk and a stripy navy duvet. He also has what looks like a set of shark’s teeth encased in a glass frame.

When he returns, he kicks off his shoes and lies down next to me, Ticket reluctantly making room.

‘So …’ I say, knowing I have to ask the question.

‘So,’ he repeats.

‘Where am I sleeping tonight?’

‘In here if you want?’

‘Your room? With you?’

‘No, with George Clooney.’

‘Oh. I’m more of a Johnny Depp kind of girl.’

He smiles. ‘Listen, all I was thinking was, well, the spare room has a few steps to get to the loo.’

‘Right,’ I say, mortified inside. I wish, just wish, I could have a break from this for one night. One night, God. Can’t we make a deal?

‘But in my room the bathroom’s next door so …’ Charlie draws in breath, ‘if you need me in the middle of the night, you don’t have to worry about getting down any steps.’

‘Aren’t there any other bedrooms with bathrooms?’

‘There are, at the other side of the house.’

‘The east wing?’

He hits my arm gently.

Ticket sits up and stares into Charlie’s eyes. Charlie looks at him curiously. ‘What’s up with him?’

‘He’s in a big cold house, Charlie, with a strange man.’

‘I’m not strange.’

‘Plus, Charlie, you insulted him about his breath.’

‘Well, you’ve got to admit it, it
is
a bit fishy.’ It’s my turn to hit him on the arm. ‘A bit of Colgate could do no harm,’ he suggests.

‘Block your ears, Ticket. Come to Cass.’ Ticket rests his head against my thigh. Next he rolls over, paws upright and I tickle his tummy.

‘Anyway, if you want to sleep in here,’ Charlie continues, watching Ticket and me with bemusement in his eyes, ‘I can camp on the floor.’ It makes me think of Jamie and I watching films well into the night. Jamie is in Madrid now. I miss him.

Ticket stretches out even more, Charlie almost falling off the bed. ‘Think of Ticket as your bodyguard. Any funny business, Ticket will nip me. Anyway, Cass, you don’t need to make this torturous decision yet. What do you want to do now? Are you tired?’

All I want to do is to sink into some warm water. I’m cold and every part of my body aches, especially my shoulders from doing all the transfers. I stretch out my arms and yawn. ‘I’d love a bath.’

‘Cool. I’ll start running it.’

‘What?’

‘A bath.’

Oh God, I must have said it without thinking. ‘Actually, I’m fine.’