Me Before You: A Novel Read Free Page A

clouds. ‘I’ve got four laps to go.’
    I hesitated just a moment, and then began to run alongside him. It was the only way I was going to get any kind of conversation out of him. I was wearing my pink trainers with the turquoise laces, the only shoes I could possibly run in.
    I had spent the day at home, trying to be useful. I’m guessing it was about an hour before I started to get under my mother’s feet. Mum and Granddad had their routines, and having me there interrupted them. Dad was asleep, as he was on nights this month, and not to be disturbed. I tidied my room, then sat and watched television with the sound down and when I remembered, periodically, why I was at home in the middle of the day I had felt an actual brief pain in my chest.
    ‘I wasn’t expecting you.’
    ‘I got fed up at home. I thought maybe we could do something.’
    He looked sideways at me. There was a fine film ofsweat on his face. ‘The sooner you get another job, babe, the better.’
    ‘It’s all of twenty-four hours since I lost the last one. Am I allowed to just be a bit miserable and floppy? You know, just for today?’
    ‘But you’ve got to look at the positive side. You knew you couldn’t stay at that place forever. You want to move upwards, onwards.’ Patrick had been named Stortfold Young Entrepreneur of the Year two years previously, and had not yet quite recovered from the honour. He had since acquired a business partner, Ginger Pete, offering personal training to clients over a 40-mile area, and two liveried vans on the HP. He also had a whiteboard in his office, on which he liked to scrawl his projected turnover with thick black markers, working and reworking the figures until they met with his satisfaction. I was never entirely sure that they bore any resemblance to real life.
    ‘Being made redundant can change people’s lives, Lou.’ He glanced at his watch, checking his lap time. ‘What do you want to do? You could retrain. I’m sure they do a grant for people like you.’
    ‘People like me?’
    ‘People looking for a new opportunity. What do you want to be? You could be a beautician. You’re pretty enough.’ He nudged me as we ran, as if I should be grateful for the compliment.
    ‘You know my beauty routine. Soap, water, the odd paper bag.’
    Patrick was beginning to look exasperated.
    I was starting to lag behind. I hate running. I hated him for not slowing down.
    ‘Look … shop assistant. Secretary. Estate agent. I don’t know … there must be something you want to do.’
    But there wasn’t. I had liked it in the cafe. I liked knowing everything there was to know about The Buttered Bun, and hearing about the lives of the people who came through it. I had felt comfortable there.
    ‘You can’t mope around, babe. Got to get over it. All the best entrepreneurs fight their way back from rock bottom. Jeffrey Archer did it. So did Richard Branson.’ He tapped my arm, trying to get me to keep up.
    ‘I doubt if Jeffrey Archer ever got made redundant from toasting teacakes.’ I was out of breath. And I was wearing the wrong bra. I slowed, dropped my hands down on to my knees.
    He turned, running backwards, his voice carrying on the still, cold air. ‘But if he had … I’m just saying. Sleep on it, put on a smart suit and head down to the Job Centre. Or I’ll train you up to work with me, if you like. You know there’s money in it. And don’t worry about the holiday. I’ll pay.’
    I smiled at him.
    He blew a kiss and his voice echoed across the empty stadium. ‘You can pay me back when you’re back on your feet.’
    I made my first claim for Jobseeker’s Allowance. I attended a 45-minute interview, and a group interview, where I sat with a group of twenty or so mismatched men and women, half of whom wore the same slightly stunned expression I suspected I did, and the other half the blank, uninterested faces of people who had been here too manytimes before. I wore what my Dad deemed my