Me Before You(73)
Author: Jojo Moyes

‘Why would they? We didn’t exactly move in the same circles. And I would just have been the baby you passed in the pram, while swinging your sword.’

‘Ah. I forgot – I am positively ancient compared to you.’

‘Eight years would definitely have qualified you as an “older man”,’ I said. ‘Even when I was a teenager my dad would never have let me go out with an older man.’

‘Not even if he had his own castle?’

‘Well, that would change things, obviously.’

The sweet smell of the grass rose up around us as we walked, Will’s wheels hissing through the clear puddles on the path. I felt relieved. Our conversation wasn’t quite as it had been, but perhaps that was only to be expected. Mrs Traynor had been right – it would always be hard for Will to watch other people moving on with their lives. I made a mental note to think more carefully about how my actions might make an impact on his life. I didn’t want to be angry any more.

‘Let’s do the maze. I haven’t done it for ages.’

I was pulled back from my thoughts. ‘Oh. No, thanks.’ I glanced over, noticing suddenly where we were.

‘Why, are you afraid of getting lost? C’mon, Clark. It’ll be a challenge for you. See if you can memorize the route you take in, then take the reverse one out. I’ll time you. I used to do it all the time.’

I glanced back towards the house. ‘I’d really rather not.’ Even the thought of it had brought a knot to my stomach.

‘Ah. Playing safe again.’

‘That’s not it.’

‘No problem. We’ll just take our boring little walk and go back to the boring little annexe.’

I know he was joking. But something in his tone really got to me. I thought of Deirdre on the bus, her comments about how good it was that one of us girls had stayed behind. Mine was to be the small life, my ambitions the petty ones.

I glanced over at the maze, at its dark, dense box hedging. I was being ridiculous. Perhaps I had been behaving ridiculously for years. It was all over, after all. And I was moving on.

‘Just remember which turn you take, then reverse it to come out. It’s not as hard as it looks. Really.’

I left him on the path before I could think about it. I took a breath, and walked in past the sign that warned ‘No Unaccompanied Children’, striding briskly between the dark, damp hedging which still glistened with raindrops.

It’s not so bad, it’s not so bad, I found myself murmuring under my breath. It’s just a load of old hedges. I took a right turn, then a left through a break in the hedge. I took another right, a left, and as I went I rehearsed in my head the reverse of where I had been. Right. Left. Break. Right. Left.

My heart rate began to rise a little, so that I could hear the blood pumping in my ears. I forced myself to think about Will on the other side of the hedge, glancing down at his watch. It was just a silly test. I was no longer that naive young woman. I was twenty-seven. I lived with my boyfriend. I had a responsible job. I was a different person.

I turned, went straight on, and turned again.

And then, almost from nowhere, the panic rose within me like bile. I thought I saw a man darting at the end of the hedge. Even though I told myself it was just my imagination, the act of reassuring myself made me forget my reversed instructions. Right. Left. Break. Right. Right? Had I got that the wrong way around? My breath caught in my throat. I forced myself onwards, only to realize that I had completely lost my bearings. I stopped and glanced around me at the direction of the shadows, trying to work out which direction was west.

And as I stood there, it dawned on me that I couldn’t do it. I couldn’t stay in there. I whipped round, and began to walk in what I thought was a southerly direction. I would get out. I was twenty-seven years old. It was fine. But then I heard their voices, the catcalling, the mocking laughter. I saw them, darting in and out of the gaps in the hedge, felt my own feet sway drunkenly under my high heels, the unforgiving prickle of the hedge as I fell against it, trying to steady myself.

‘I want to get out now,’ I had told them, my voice slurring and unsteady. ‘I’ve had enough, guys.’

And they had all vanished. The maze was silent, just the distant whispers that might have been them on the other side of the hedge – or might have been the wind dislodging the leaves.

‘I want to go out now,’ I had said, my voice sounding uncertain even to me. I had gazed up at the sky, briefly unbalanced by the vast, studded black of the space above me. And then I jumped as someone caught me around my waist – the dark-haired one. The one who had been to Africa.

‘You can’t go yet,’ he said. ‘You’ll spoil the game.’

I had known then, just from the feel of his hands on my waist. I had realized that some balance had shifted, that some restraint on behaviour had begun to evaporate. And I had laughed, pushed at his hands as if they were a joke, unwilling to let him know that I knew. I heard him shout for his friends. And I broke away from him, running suddenly, trying to fight my way to the exit, my feet sinking into the damp grass. I heard them all around me, their raised voices, their bodies unseen, and felt my throat constrict in panic. I was too disorientated to work out where I was. The tall hedges kept swaying, pitching towards me. I kept going, pushing my way around corners, stumbling, ducking into openings, trying to get away from their voices. But the exit never came. Everywhere I turned there was just another expanse of hedge, another mocking voice.

I stumbled into an opening, briefly exultant that I was near freedom. But then I saw I was back at the centre again, back where I had started. I reeled as I saw them all standing there, as if they had simply been waiting for me.

‘There you go,’ one of them said, as his hand grabbed my arm. ‘I told you she was up for it. Come on, Lou-lou, give me a kiss and I’ll show you the way out.’ His voice was soft and drawling.

‘Give us all a kiss and we’ll all show you the way out.’

Their faces were a blur.

‘I just … I just want you to –’

‘Come on, Lou. You like me, don’t you? You’ve been sitting on my lap all evening. One kiss. How hard is that?’

I heard a snigger.

‘And you’ll show me how to get out?’ My voice sounded pathetic, even to me.

‘Just one.’ He moved closer.

I felt his mouth on mine, a hand squeezing my thigh.

He broke away, and I heard the tenor of his breathing change. ‘And now Jake’s turn.’