Ha! said Ritchie. Welcome to our world, Bee.
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 listpfts), 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 Rear Window on my hands and knees picking up the popcorn that Will’s unexpected knee jerk had sent flying into the air.
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 listpsted building status to say they couldn’t fit them. Some were even tellistpng 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 feelistpng self-conscious about being fed, or – depending on the catheter situation – if the restaurant’s bathroom was down a flistpght 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 listpkely 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.
When, struggling for ideas, I asked the online quads what was the thing they would like to do most in all the world, the answer nearly always came back as, ‘Have sex.’ I got quite a lot of unsolicited detail on that one.
But essentially it was not a huge help. There were eight weeks to go, and I had run out of ideas.
A couple of days after our discussion under the washing line, I returned home to find Dad standing in the hallway. This would have been unusual in itself (the last few weeks he seemed to have retreated to the sofa in the daytime, supposedly to keep Granddad company), but he was wearing an ironed shirt, had shaved, and the hallway was filled with the scent of Old Spice. I am pretty sure he’d had that bottle of aftershave since 1974.
‘There you are.’
I closed the door behind me. ‘Here I am.’
I was feeling tired and anxious. I had spent the whole bus journey home talking on my mobile phone to a travel agent about places to take Will, but we were both stumped. I needed to get him further away from home. But there didn’t seem to be a single place outside a five-mile radius of the castle that he actually wanted to visit.
‘Are you okay getting your own tea tonight?’
‘Sure. I can join Patrick at the pub later. Why?’ I hung up my coat on a free peg.
The rack was so much emptier with all Treena’s and Thomas’s coats gone.
‘I am taking your mother out for dinner.’
I did a quick mental calculation. ‘Did I miss her birthday?’
‘Nope. We’re celebrating.’ He lowered his voice, as if it were some kind of secret. ‘I got a job.’
‘You didn’t!’ And now I could see it; his whole body had lightened. He was standing straighter again, his face wreathed in smiles. He looked years younger.
‘Dad, that’s fantastic.’
‘I know. Your mother’s over the moon. And, you know, she’s had a tough few months what with Treena going and Granddad and all. So I want to take her out tonight, treat her a bit.’
‘So what’s the job?’
‘I’m going to be head of maintenance. Up at the castle.’
I blinked. ‘But that’s –’
‘Mr Traynor. That’s right. He rang me and said he was looking for someone, and your man, Will there, had told him that I was available. I went this afternoon and showed him what I could do, and I’m on a month’s trial. Beginning Saturday.’
‘You’re going to work for Will’s dad?’
‘Well, he said they have to do a month’s trial, to go through the proper procedures and all, but he said he couldn’t think of any reason why I shouldn’t get it.’
‘That – that’s great,’ I said. I felt weirdly unbalanced by the news. ‘I didn’t even know there was a job going.’
‘Nor me. It’s great, though. He’s a man who understands quality, Lou. I talked to him about green oak, and he showed me some of the work done by the previous man. You wouldn’t believe it. Shocking. He said he was very impressed by my work.’
He was animated, more so than I had seen him for months.
Mum had appeared beside him. She was wearing lipstick, and her good pair of heels. ‘There’s a van. He gets his own van. And the pay is good, Lou. It’s even a bit more than your dad was getting at the furniture factory.’
She was looking up at him like he was some kind of all-conquering hero. Her face, when she turned to me, told me I should do the same. It could contain a million messages, my mother’s face, and this one told me Dad should be allowed his moment.