‘She’ll end up running the country, that one. I have to say, though, Louisa, I was always surprised you didn’t leave before her. We always thought you were such a bright little thing. Not that we still don’t, of course.’
I raised a polite smile. I wasn’t sure what else I could do.
‘But still. Someone’s got to do it, eh? And it’s nice for your mum that one of you is happy to stay so close to home.’
I wanted to contradict her, and then I realized that nothing I had done in the last seven years suggested I had either any ambition or any desire to move further than the end of my street. I sat there, as the bus’s tired old engine snarled and juddered beneath us, and had a sudden sense of time racing, of losing whole chunks of it in my small journeys backwards and forwards along the same stretch. Round and round the castle. Watching Patrick go round and round the track. The same petty concerns. The same routines.
‘Oh, well. Here’s my stop.’ Deirdre rose heavily beside me, hoisting her patent handbag over her shoulder. ‘Give your mum my love. Tell her I’ll be round tomorrow.’
I looked up, blinking. ‘I got a tattoo,’ I said suddenly. ‘Of a bee.’
She hesitated, holding on to the side of the seat.
‘It’s on my hip. An actual tattoo. It’s permanent,’ I added.
Deirdre glanced towards the door of the bus. She looked a bit puzzled, and then gave me what I think she thought was a reassuring smile.
‘Well, that’s very nice, Louisa. As I said, tell your mum I’ll be round tomorrow.’
Every day, while he was watching television, or otherwise engaged, I sat in front of Will’s computer and worked on coming up with the magic event that might Make Will Happy. But as time went on, I found that my list of things we couldn’t do, places we couldn’t go to, had begun to exceed my ideas for those we could by a significant factor. When the one figure first exceeded the other, I went back on to the chatroom sites, and asked their advice.
From the ensuing conversations I learnt that getting drunk in a wheelchair came with its own hazards, including catheter disasters, falling down kerbs, and being steered to the wrong home by other drunks. I learnt that there was no single place where non-quads were more or less helpful than anywhere else, but that Paris was singled out as the least wheelchair-friendly place on earth. This was disappointing, as some small, optimistic part of me had still hoped we might make it there.
I began to compile a new list – things you cannot do with a quadriplegic.
Go on a tube train (most underground stations don’t have lifts), which pretty much ruled out activities in half of London unless we wanted to pay for taxis.
Go swimming, without help, and unless the temperature was warm enough to stop involuntary shivering within minutes. Even disabled changing rooms are not much use without a pool hoist. Not that Will would have allowed himself into a pool hoist.
Go to the cinema, unless guaranteed a seat at the front, or unless Will’s spasms were low-grade that day. I had spent at least twenty minutes of
Go on a beach, unless your chair had been adapted with ‘fat wheels’. Will’s hadn’t.
Fly on aircraft where the disabled ‘quota’ had already been used up.
Go shopping, unless all the shops had got their statutory ramps in place. Many around the castle used their listed building status to say they couldn’t fit them. Some were even telling the truth.
Go anywhere too hot, or too cold (temperature issues).
Go anywhere spontaneously (bags needed to be packed, routes to be double-checked for accessibility).
Go out to eat, if feeling self-conscious about being fed, or – depending on the catheter situation – if the restaurant’s bathroom was down a flight of stairs.
Go on long train journeys (exhausting, and too difficult to get heavy motorized chair on to train without help).
Get a haircut if it had been raining (all the hair stuck to Will’s wheels. Weirdly, this made both of us nauseous).
Go to friend’s houses, unless they had wheelchair ramps. Most houses have stairs. Most people do not have ramps. Our house was a rare exception. Will said there was nobody he wanted to see anyway.
Go down the hill from the castle in heavy rain (the brakes were not always safe, and that chair was too heavy for me to hold).
Go anywhere where there were likely to be drunks. Will was a magnet for drunks. They would crouch down, breathe fumes all over him, and make big, sympathetic eyes. Sometimes they would, indeed, try to wheel him off.
Go anywhere where there might be crowds. This meant that, as summer approached, outings around the castle were getting harder, and half the places I thought we might be able to go – fairs, outdoor theatre, concerts – were ruled out.
