Me Before You: After You Part 31

'This is outrageous.' He was bl.u.s.tering now, his face drained of colour.

'Yup. It really is.' I held out my hand. 'The phone, please.'

Garside glanced around him again, then finally reached into his pocket and handed it, to me.

I tossed it to Lily. 'Check it, Lily.'

I looked away, in deference to her feelings, while she did so. 'Delete it,' I said. 'Just delete it.' When I looked back, she had the phone, screen blank, in her hand. She gave a faint nod. Sam motioned to her to throw it to him. He dropped it to the floor and stamped down on it with his right foot, so that the plastic splintered. He crushed it with such violence that the floor shook. I found myself flinching, along with Mr Garside, every time Sam's heavy boot came down.

Finally, Sam stooped and gingerly picked up the tiny SIM card, which had skidded under the radiator.

He examined it, and held it up in front of the older man. 'Was that the only copy?'

Garside nodded. Moisture was darkening his collar.

'Of course it's the only copy,' said Donna. 'A responsible member of the community wouldn't want to take the risk of something like that turning up anywhere, would he? Imagine what Mr Garside's family would say if his nasty little secret got out?'

Garside's mouth had compressed into a thin line. 'You've got what you wanted. Now let me leave.'

'No. I would like to say something.' My voice, I noted distantly, shook slightly with the effort of containing my fury. 'You are a sleazy, pathetic little man, and if I '

Mr Garside's mouth hooked upwards in a sneer. The kind of man who had never once felt threatened by a woman. 'Oh, do be quiet, you ridiculous little '

Something hard glittered in Sam's eyes and he sprang forward. My arm shot out to restrain him. I don't remember my other fist pulling back. I do remember the pain that shot through my knuckles as it made contact with the side of Garside's face. He reeled backwards, his upper body hitting the door, and I stumbled, not expecting the force of the impact. When he righted himself, I was shocked to see blood trickling from his nose.

'Let me out,' he hissed, through his fingers. 'This minute.'Sam blinked at me, then unlocked the door. Donna stepped away, just about allowing him through. She leaned towards him. 'Are you sure you don't want a dressing for that before you go?'

Garside kept his pace measured as he left, but as the door clicked shut behind him, we heard the sound of his expensive shoes picking up into a run down the corridor. We stood in silence until we couldn't hear them any more. And then, the sound of several people exhaling at once.

'Nice punch, Ca.s.sius,' said Sam, after a minute. 'Want me to take a look at that hand?'

I couldn't speak. I was bent double, swearing silently into my chest.

'Always hurts more than you think it will, doesn't it?' said Donna, patting my back. 'Don't stress, sweetheart,' she told Lily. 'Whatever he said to you, that old man is nothing. Gone.'

'He won't be back,' said Sam.

Donna laughed. 'He pretty much c.r.a.pped himself. I think he'll be running a mile from you from now on.

Forget it, darling.' She hugged Lily briskly, as you might someone who had toppled off a bike, then handed me the pieces of the broken phone to throw away. 'Right. I promised to pop round my dad's before our s.h.i.+ft. See you later.' And then, with a wave, she was gone, her boots clumping cheerfully down the corridor.

Sam began to rummage through his medical pack to find a dressing for my hand. Lily and I walked into the living room where she sank down on the sofa. 'You did brilliantly,' I told her.

'You were pretty bada.s.s yourself.'

I examined my bloodied knuckles. When I looked up, the smallest grin was playing around her lips. 'He totally wasn't expecting that.'

'Neither was I. I'd never hit anyone before.' I straightened my face. 'Not that, you know, you should consider me any kind of moral example.'

'I've never considered you any kind of example, Lou.' She grinned, almost reluctantly, as Sam came in, bearing some sterile bandage and a pair of scissors.

'You okay, Lily?' He raised his eyebrows.

She nodded.

'Good. Let's move on to something more interesting. Who fancies spaghetti carbonara?'

When she left the room, he let out a long breath, then stared at the ceiling for a moment, as if composing himself.

'What?' I said.

'Thank G.o.d you hit him first. I was afraid I was going to kill him.'

Some time later, after Lily had gone to bed, I joined Sam in the kitchen. For the first time in weeks some sort of peace had descended over my home. 'She's happier already. I mean, she b.i.t.c.hed about the new toothpaste and left her towels on the floor, but in Lily terms she's definitely better.'

He nodded at this, and emptied the sink. It felt good having him in my kitchen. I watched him for a minute, wondering how it would feel to walk up and place my arms around his waist. 'Thank you,' I said instead. 'For everything.'

He turned, wiping his hands on the tea towel. 'You were pretty smart yourself, Punchy.' He reached out a hand and pulled me to him. We kissed. There was something so delicious about his kisses; the softness of them compared to the brute strength of the rest of him. I lost myself in him for a moment. But 'What?' he said, pulling back. 'What's wrong?''You're going to think it's weird.'

'Uh, more weird than this evening?'

'I keep thinking about that dihypranol stuff. How much would it take to actually kill a person? Is this something you all carry routinely? It just ... sounds ... really dodgy.'

'You don't need to worry,' he said.

'You say that. But what if someone really hated you? Could they put it in your food? Could terrorists get hold of it? I mean, how much would they actually need?'

'Lou. There's no such drug.'

'What?'

'I made it up. There's no such thing as dihypranol. Totally invented.' He grinned at my shocked face.

'Funnily enough, I don't think I've ever had a drug that worked better.'

CHAPTER TWENTY-TWO.

I was the last one to arrive at the Moving On meeting. My car wouldn't start again and I'd had to wait for the bus. When I got there the biscuit tin was just closing, a signal that the real business of the evening was about to begin.

'Today we're going to talk about faith in the future,' Marc said. I muttered my apology and sat down.

'Oh, and we only have an hour today because of an emergency Scouts meeting. Sorry about that, guys.'

Marc fixed each of us with his Special Empathetic Gaze. He was very keen on his Special Empathetic Gaze. Sometimes he would stare at me for so long I wondered if something was poking out of my nostril.

He looked down, as if gathering his thoughts or perhaps he liked to read his opening lines from a pre- prepared script.

'When someone we love is s.n.a.t.c.hed from us, it often feels very hard to make plans. Sometimes people feel like they have lost faith in the future, or they become superst.i.tious.'

'I thought I was going to die,' said Natasha.

'You are,' said William.

'Not helpful, William,' said Marc.

'No honestly, for the first eighteen months after Olaf died, I thought I had cancer. I think I went to the doctor about a dozen times convinced I was getting cancer. Brain tumours, pancreatic cancer, womb cancer, even little-finger cancer.'

'There's no such thing as little-finger cancer,' said William.

'Oh, how would you know?' snapped Natasha. 'You have a smart answer for everything, William, but sometimes you should just keep your mouth shut, okay? It gets very tedious having you make a snarky comment about everything that someone says in this group. I thought I had little-finger cancer. My GP sent me for tests and it turned out I didn't. It might have been an irrational fear, yes, but you don't have to put down everything I say because, whatever you think, you don't know everything, okay?'

There was a brief silence.

'Actually,' said William, 'I work on an oncology ward.'

'It still stands,' she said, after a microsecond. 'You are insufferable. A deliberate agitator. A pain in the backside.'

'That's true,' said William.

Natasha stared at the floor. Or perhaps we all did. It was hard to tell, given I was studying the floor.

She put her face into her hands for a moment, then looked up at him. 'You're not really, William. I'm sorry. I think I'm just having one of those days. I didn't mean to snap at you like that.'

'Still can't get little-finger cancer, though,' said William.

'So ...' said Marc, as we tried to ignore Natasha cursing repeatedly under her breath '... I'm wondering whether any of you have reached a point where you can consider the prospect of life five years on. Where do you see yourself? What do you see yourself doing? Do you feel okay to imagine the future now?'

'I'll be happy if my old ticker's still ticking,' said Fred.'All that internet s.e.x putting it under strain?' said Sunil.

'That!' Fred exclaimed. 'That was a total waste of money. The first site, I spent two weeks emailing this woman from Lisbon total cracker and when I finally suggested we meet up for a bit of the old how's-your-father, she tried to sell me a condo in Florida. And then a man called Buffed Adonis private- messaged me to warn me off and tell me she was actually a one-legged Puerto Rican fella called Ramirez.'

'What about the other sites, Fred?'

'The only woman who said she'd meet me looked like my great-aunt Elsie, who kept her keys in her knickers. I mean, she was very sweet and all, but the old girl was so ancient I was almost tempted to check.'

'Don't give up, Fred,' said Marc. 'It might be that you're looking in the wrong places.'

'For my keys? Oh, no. I hang those by the door.'

Daphne decided she'd like to retire abroad in the next few years 'It's the cold here. Gets into my joints.'

Leanne said she hoped to finish her philosophy master's. We gave each other the kind of deliberately blank looks you do when n.o.body wants to admit they had actually a.s.sumed she worked in a supermarket.

Or maybe a slaughterhouse. William said, 'Well, you Kant.'

n.o.body laughed, and when he realized n.o.body was going to, he sat back in his chair, and it might have been only me who heard Natasha muttering, 'Hah hah,' like Nelson in The Simpsons.

At first, Sunil didn't want to speak. Then he said he'd thought about it and he'd decided that in five years' time he'd like to be married. 'I feel like I've turned myself off for the past two years. Like I wouldn't let anyone get close to me because of what happened. I mean, what's the point of getting close to someone if you're only going to lose them? But the other day I started thinking about what I actually want out of life and I realized it was someone to love. Because you got to move on, right? You got to see some kind of future.'

It was the most I had heard Sunil speak in any meeting since I had started coming.

'That's very positive, Sunil,' said Marc. 'Thank you for sharing.'

I listened to Jake talk about going to college, and how he wanted to train as an animator, and wondered absently where his father would be. Still weeping over his dead wife? Or happily ensconced with some newer version? I suspected the latter. Then I thought about Sam and wondered whether my offhand reference to a relations.h.i.+p had been wise. Then I wondered what we were in if it wasn't a relations.h.i.+p.

Because there were relations.h.i.+ps and relations.h.i.+ps. And even as I mulled this over I realized that, if he asked, I wasn't sure which category we even fitted into. I couldn't help wondering whether the intensity of our search for Lily had acted as a kind of cheap glue, binding us together too quickly. What did we even have in common, other than a fall from a building?

Two days previously I had gone to the Ambulance Station to wait for Sam, and Donna had stood by her car chatting to me for a few minutes while he gathered his belongings. 'Don't mess him around.'

I turned, not sure if I had heard her correctly.

She had watched as an ambulance was unloaded by the shutters, and then rubbed her nose. 'He's all right. For a great lunk. And he really likes you.'

I hadn't known what to say.'He does. He's been talking about you. And he doesn't talk about anyone. Don't tell him I said anything.

I just ... he's all right. I just want you to know.' She had raised her eyebrows at me then, and nodded, as if confirming something to herself.

'I've just realized. You're not in your dancing-girl outfit,' said Daphne.

There was a murmur of recognition.

'Did you get promoted?'

I was dragged from my thoughts. 'Oh. No. I got fired.'

'Where are you working now?'

'Nowhere. Yet.'

'But your outfit ...'

I was wearing my little black dress with the white collar. 'Oh. This. It's just a dress.'

'I thought you were working at a themed bar for secretaries. Or maybe French maids.'

'Don't you ever stop, Fred?'

'You don't understand. At my age, the phrase "Use it or lose it" takes on a certain urgency. I might only have twenty or so stiffies left in me.'

'Some of us have never had twenty stiffies in us in the first place.'

We paused to give Fred and Daphne time to stop giggling.

'And your future? It sounds like it's all change for you,' said Marc.