Me Before You: After You Part 8

'You said.'

'But I'm not sure anyone believes me.'

We exchanged an awkward smile and for a minute I wondered if he didn't either.

'So ... do you pick up many people who fall off the tops of buildings?'

He shook his head, gazed out across the road. 'I just pick up the pieces. I'm glad that, in your case, the pieces fitted back together.'

We sat in silence for a while longer. I kept thinking about things I should say, but I was so out of practice at being alone with a man while sober at least that I kept losing my nerve, my mouth opening and closing like that of a goldfish.

'So you want to tell me about the teenager?' Sam said.

It was a relief to explain it to someone. I told him about the late-night knock at the door, and our bizarre meeting and what I had found on Facebook, and the way she had run away before I'd had a chance to work out what on earth to do.

'Whoa,' he said when I'd finished. 'That's ...' He gave a little shake of his head. 'You think she is who she says she is?'

'She does look a bit like him. But I don't honestly know. Am I looking for signs? Am I seeing what I want to see? It's possible. I spend half my time thinking how amazing that there's something of him left behind, and the other half wondering if I'm being a complete sucker. And then there's this whole extra layer of stuff in the middle like if this is his daughter then how is it fair that he never even got to meet her? And how are his parents supposed to cope with it? And what if meeting her would actually have changed his mind? What if that would have been the thing that convinced him ...' My voice tailed away.

Sam leaned back in his chair, his brow furrowed. 'And this man would be the reason you're attending the group.'

'Yes.'

I could feel him studying me, perhaps rea.s.sessing what Will had meant to me.

'I don't know what to do,' I said. 'I don't know whether to seek her out, or whether I should just leave well enough alone.'

He looked out at the city street, thinking. And then he said: 'Well, what would he have done?'

And just like that, I faltered. I gazed up at that big man with his direct gaze, his two-day stubble, and his kind, capable hands. And all my thoughts evaporated.'You okay?'

I took a deep gulp of my drink, trying to hide what I felt was written clearly on my face. Suddenly, for no reason I could work out, I wanted to cry. It was too much. That odd, unbalancing night. The fact that Will had loomed up again, ever-present in every conversation. I could see his face suddenly, that sardonic eyebrow raised, as if to say, What on earth are you up to now, Clark?

'Just ... a long day. Actually, would you mind if I '

Sam pushed his chair back, stood up. 'No. No, you go. Sorry. I didn't think '

'This has been really nice. It's just '

'No problem. A long day. And the whole grief thing. I get it. No, no don't worry,' he said, as I reached for my purse. 'Really. I can stand you an orange juice.'

I think I might have run to my car, in spite of my limp. I felt his eyes on me the whole way.

I pulled up in the car park, and let out a breath I felt as if I'd been holding all the way from the bar. I glanced over at the corner shop, then back at my flat, and decided I didn't want to be sensible. I wanted wine, several large gla.s.ses of it, until I could persuade myself to stop looking backwards. Or maybe not look at anything at all.

My hip ached as I climbed out of the car. Since Richard had arrived, it hurt constantly; the physio at the hospital had told me not to spend too much time on my feet. But the thought of saying as much to Richard filled me with dread.

I see. So you work in a bar but you want to be allowed to sit down all day, is that it?

That milk-fed, preparing-for-middle-management face; that carefully nondescript haircut. That air of weary superiority, even though he was barely two years older than me. I closed my eyes, and tried to make the knot of anxiety in my stomach disappear.

'Just this, please,' I said, placing a bottle of cold Sauvignon Blanc on the counter.

'Party, is it?'

'What?'

'Fancy dress. You going as Don't tell me.' Samir stroked his chin. 'Snow White?'

'Sure,' I said.

'You want to be careful with that. Empty calories, innit? You want to drink vodka. That's a clean drink.

Maybe a bit of lemon. That's what I tell Ginny, across the road. You know she's a lap-dancer, right? They got to watch their figures.'

'Dietary advice. Nice.'

'It's like all this stuff about sugar. You got to watch the sugar. No point buying the low-fat stuff if it's full of sugar, right? There's your empty calories. Right there. And them chemical sugars are the worst.

They stick to your gut.'

He rang up the wine, handed me my change.

'What's that you're eating, Samir?'

'Smoky Bacon Pot Noodle. It's good, man.'

I was lost in thought somewhere in the dark creva.s.se between my sore pelvis, existential job-related despair, and a weird craving for a Smoky Bacon Pot Noodle when I saw her. She was in the doorway of my block, sitting on the ground, her arms wrapped around her knees. I took my change from Samir, and half walked, half ran across the road. 'Lily?'She looked up slowly.

Her voice was slurred, her eyes bloodshot, as if she had been crying. 'n.o.body would let me in. I rang all the bells but n.o.body would let me in.'

I wrestled the key into the door and propped it with my bag, crouching down beside her. 'What happened?'

'I just want to go to sleep,' she said, rubbing her eyes. 'I'm so, so tired. I wanted to get a taxi home but I hadn't got any money.'

I caught the sour whiff of alcohol. 'Are you drunk?'

'I don't know.' She blinked at me, tilting her head. I wondered then if it was just alcohol. 'If I'm not, you've totally turned into a leprechaun.' She patted her pockets. 'Oh, look look what I've got!' She held up a half-smoked roll-up that even I could smell was not just tobacco. 'Let's have a smoke, Lily,' she said. 'Oh, no. You're Louisa. I'm Lily.' She giggled and, pulling a lighter clumsily from her pocket, promptly tried to light the wrong end.

'Okay, you. Time to go home.' I took it from her hand, and, ignoring her vague protests, squashed it firmly under my foot. 'I'll call you a taxi.'

'But I don't '

'Lily!'

I glanced up. A young man stood across the street, his hands in his jeans pockets, watching us steadily.

Lily looked up at him and then away.

'Who is that?' I said.

She stared at her feet.

'Lily. Come here.' His voice held the surety of possession. He stood, legs slightly apart, as if even at that distance he expected her to obey him. Something made me instantly uneasy.

n.o.body moved.

'Is he your boyfriend? Do you want to talk to him?' I said quietly.

The first time she spoke I couldn't make out what she said. I had to lean closer and ask her to repeat herself.

'Make him go away.' She closed her eyes, and turned her face towards the door. 'Please.'

He began to walk across the street towards us. I stood, and tried to make my voice sound as authoritative as possible. 'You can go now, thanks. Lily's coming inside with me.'

He stopped halfway across the road.

I held his gaze. 'You can speak to her some other time. Okay?'

I had my hand on the buzzer, and now muttered at some imaginary, muscular, short-tempered boyfriend.

'Yeah. Do you want to come down and give me a hand, Dave? Thanks.'

The young man's expression suggested this was not the last of it. Then he turned, pulled his phone from his pocket and began a low, urgent conversation with someone as he walked away, ignoring the beeping taxi that had to swerve around him, and casting us only the briefest of backwards looks.

I sighed, a little more shakily than I'd expected, put my hands under her armpits and, with not very much elegance and a fair amount of m.u.f.fled swearing, managed to haul Lily Houghton-Miller into the lobby.That night she slept at my flat. I couldn't think what else to do with her. She was sick twice in the bathroom, batting me away when I tried to hold her hair up for her. She refused to give me a home phone number, or maybe couldn't remember it, and her mobile phone was pin-locked.

I cleaned her up, helped her into a pair of my jogging bottoms and a T-shirt, and led her into the living room. 'You tidied up!' she said, with a little exclamation, as if I had done it just for her. I made her drink a gla.s.s of water and put her on the sofa in the recovery position, even though I was pretty sure by then that there was nothing left inside her to come out.

As I lifted her head and placed it on the pillow, she opened her eyes, as if recognizing me properly for the first time. 'Sorry.' She spoke so quietly that, for a moment, I couldn't be entirely sure that that was what she had said, and her eyes brimmed briefly with tears.

I covered her with a blanket and watched her as she fell asleep her pale face, the blue shadows under her eyes, the eyebrows that followed the same curve that Will's had, the same faint sprinkling of freckles.

Almost as an afterthought I locked the flat door and brought the keys into my bedroom with me, tucking them under my pillow to stop her stealing anything, or simply to stop her leaving, I wasn't sure. I lay awake, my mind still busy with the sound of the sirens and the airport and the faces of the grieving in the church hall and the hard, knowing stare of the young man across the road, and the knowledge that I had someone who was essentially a stranger sleeping under my roof. And all the while a voice kept saying: What on earth are you doing?

But what else could I have done? Finally, some time after the birds started singing, and the bakery van unloaded its morning delivery downstairs, my thoughts slowed, and stilled, and I fell asleep.

CHAPTER SEVEN.

I could smell coffee. It took me several seconds to consider why the smell of coffee might be filtering through my flat, and when the answer registered I sat bolt upright and leaped out of bed, hauling my hoodie over my head.

She was cross-legged on the sofa, smoking, using my one good mug as an ashtray. The television was on some manic children's confection of brightly clad, gurning presenters and two Styrofoam cups sat on the mantelpiece.

'Oh, hi. That one on the right's yours,' she said, turning briefly towards me. 'I didn't know what you liked so I got you an Americano.'

I blinked, wrinkling my nose against the cigarette smoke. I crossed the room and opened a window. I looked at the clock. 'Is that the time?'

'Yeah. The coffee might be a bit cold. Didn't know whether to wake you.'

'It's my day off,' I said, reaching for the coffee. It was warm enough. I took a slug gratefully. Then I stared at the cup. 'Hang on. How did you get these? I locked the front door.'

'I went down the fire escape,' she said. 'I didn't have any money so I told the guy at the bakery whose flat it was and he said you could bring it in later. Oh, and you also owe him for two bagels with smoked salmon and cream cheese.'

'I do?' I wanted to be cross, but I was suddenly really hungry.

She followed my gaze. 'Oh. I ate those.' She blew a smoke ring into the centre of the room. 'You didn't have anything much in your fridge. You really do need to sort this place out.'

The Lily of this morning was such a different character from the girl I had picked off the street last night that it was hard to believe they were the same person. I walked back into the bedroom to get dressed, listening to her watching television, padding into the kitchen to fetch herself a drink.

'Hey, thingy ... Louise. Could you lend me some money?' she called out.

'If it's to get off your face again, no.'

She walked into my bedroom without knocking. I pulled my sweatshirt up to my chest. 'And can I stay tonight?'

'I need to talk to your mum, Lily.'

'What for?'

'I need to know a little bit more about what's actually going on here.'

She stood in the doorway. 'So you don't believe me.'

I gestured to her to turn around, so I could finish putting my bra on. 'I do believe you. But that's the deal. You want something from me, I need to know a bit more about you first.'

Just as I pulled my T-shirt over my head, she turned back again. 'Suit yourself. I need to pick up some more clothes anyway.'

'Why? Where have you been staying?'

She walked away from me, as if she hadn't heard, sniffing her armpit. 'Can I use your shower? I absolutely reek.'An hour later, we drove to St John's Wood. I was exhausted, both by the night's events and the strange energy Lily gave off beside me. She fidgeted constantly, smoked endless cigarettes, then sat in a silence so loaded I could almost feel the weight of her thoughts.

'So who was he? That guy last night?' I kept my face to the front, my voice neutral.

'Just someone.'

'You told me he was your boyfriend.'

'Then that's who he was.' Her voice had hardened, her face closed. As we drew nearer to her parents'

house, she crossed her arms in front of her, bringing her knees up to her chin, her gaze set and defiant, as if already in silent battle. I had wondered if she had been telling me the truth about St John's Wood, but she gestured to a wide, tree-lined street, and told me to take the third left, and we were in the kind of road where diplomats or expat American bankers live, the kind of road that n.o.body ever seems to go in or come out of. I pulled the car up, gazing out of the window at the tall white stucco buildings, the carefully trimmed yew hedging, and immaculate window boxes.

'You live here?'

She slammed the pa.s.senger door behind her so hard that my little car rattled. 'I don't live here. They live here.'