After You (Me Before You #2)(10)

He bounced to his feet. ‘This is Caroline, my fiancée.’ He kept his eyes on me, perhaps waiting for some kind of reaction. ‘We’re training for the next Ironman. We’ve done two together already.’

‘How … romantic,’ I said.

‘Well, Caroline and I feel it’s good to do things together,’ he said.

‘So I see,’ I replied. ‘And his and hers turquoise Lycra!’

‘Oh. Yeah. Team colour.’

There was a short silence.

I gave a little air punch. ‘Go, team!’

Caroline sprang to her feet and began to stretch out her thigh muscles, folding her leg behind her like a stork. She nodded towards me, the least civility she could reasonably get away with.

‘You’ve lost weight,’ he said.

‘Yeah, well. A saline-drip diet will do that to you.’

‘I heard you had an … accident.’ He cocked his head sideways, sympathetically.

‘News travels fast.’

‘Still. I’m glad you’re okay.’ He sniffed, looked down the road. ‘It must have been hard for you this past year. You know. Doing what you did and all.’

And there it was. I tried to keep control of my breathing. Caroline resolutely refused to look at me, extending her leg in a hamstring stretch. Then, ‘Anyway … congratulations on the marriage.’

He surveyed his future wife proudly, lost in admiration of her sinewy leg. ‘Well, it’s like they say – you just know when you know.’ He gave me a faux-apologetic smile. And that was what finished me off.

‘I’m sure you did. And I guess you’ve got plenty put aside to pay for the wedding – they’re not cheap, are they?’

They both looked at me.

‘What with selling my story to the newspapers. What did they pay you, Pat? A couple of thousand? Treena never could find out the exact figure. Still, Will’s death should be good for a few matching Lycra onesies, right?’

The way Caroline’s face shot towards his told me this was one particular part of Patrick’s history that he had not yet got round to sharing.

He stared at me, two pinpricks of colour bleeding onto his face. ‘That was nothing to do with me.’

‘Of course not. Nice to see you, anyway, Pat. Good luck with the wedding, Caroline! I’m sure you’ll be the … firmest bride around.’ I turned and walked slowly back inside. I closed the door, resting against it, heart thumping, until I could be sure that they had finally jogged on.

‘Arse,’ said Granddad, as I limped back into the living room. And again, glancing dismissively at the window: ‘Arse.’ Then he chuckled.

I stared at him. And, completely unexpectedly, I found I had started to laugh, for the first time in as long as I could remember.

‘So did you decide what you’re going to do? When you’re better?’

I was lying on my bed. Treena was calling from college, while she waited for Thomas to come out of his football club. I stared up at the ceiling, on which Thomas had stuck a whole galaxy of Day-glo stickers, which, apparently, nobody could remove without bringing half the ceiling with them. ‘Not really.’

‘You’ve got to do something. You can’t sit around here on your backside for all eternity.’

‘I won’t sit on my backside. Besides, my hip still hurts. The physio said I’m better off lying down.’

‘Mum and Dad are wondering what you’re going to do. There are no jobs in Stortfold.’

‘I do know that.’

‘But you’re drifting. You don’t seem to be interested in anything.’

‘Treen, I just fell off a building. I’m recuperating.’

‘And before that you were wafting around travelling. And then you were working in a bar until you knew what you wanted to do. You’ll have to sort your head out at some point. If you’re not going back to school, you have to figure out what it is you’re actually going to do with your life.

‘I’m just saying. Anyway, if you’re going to stay in Stortfold, you need to rent out that flat. Mum and Dad can’t support you for ever.’

‘This from the woman who has been supported by the Bank of Mum and Dad for the past eight years.’

‘I’m in full-time education. That’s different. So, anyway, I went through your bank statements while you were in hospital, and after I’d paid all your bills, I worked out you’ve got about fifteen hundred pounds left over, including statutory sick pay. By the way, what the hell were all those transatlantic phone calls? They cost you a fortune.’

‘None of your business.’

‘So, I made you a list of estate agents in the area who do rentals. And then I thought maybe we could take another look at college applications. Someone might have dropped out of that course you wanted.’

‘Treen. You’re making me tired.’

‘No point hanging around. You’ll feel better once you’ve got some focus.’

For all it was annoying, there was something reassuring about my sister nagging at me. Nobody else dared to. It was as if my parents still believed there was something very wrong at the heart of me, and that I must be treated with kid gloves. Mum laid my washing, neatly folded, on the end of my bed and cooked me three meals a day, and when I caught her watching me she would smile, an awkward half-smile, which covered everything we didn’t want to say to each other. Dad took me to my physio appointments, sat beside me on the sofa to watch television and didn’t even take the mickey out of me. Treena was the only one who treated me like she always had.