Me-Before-You-by-Jojo-Moyes

I backed Will’s chair down carefully and then watched as the wheels sank
several inches into the mud.
Will said nothing. He looked uncomfortable, and had been silent for much of
the half-hour drive. We stood beside him, fiddling with his controls. A breeze
had picked up, and Will’s cheeks grew pink.
‘Come on,’ I said. ‘We’ll do it manually. I’m sure we can manage to get there
between us.’
We tilted Will backwards. I took one handle and Nathan took the other and we
dragged the chair towards the path. It was slow progress, not least because I had
to keep stopping because my arms hurt and my pristine boots grew thick with
dirt. When we finally made it to the pathway, Will’s blanket had half slipped off
him and had somehow got caught up in his wheels, leaving one corner torn and
muddy.
‘Don’t worry,’ Will said, dryly. ‘It’s only cashmere.’
I ignored him. ‘Right. We’ve made it. Now for the fun bit.’
Ah yes. The fun bit. Who thought it would be a good idea for racecourses to
have turnstiles? It was hardly as if they needed crowd control, surely? It’s not as
if there were crowds of chanting racehorse fans, threatening riots if Charlie’s
Darling didn’t make it back in third, rioting stable-girls who needed penning in
and keeping out. We looked at the turnstile, and then back at Will’s chair, and
then Nathan and I looked at each other.
Nathan stepped over to the ticket office and explained our plight to the woman
inside. She tilted her head to look at Will, then pointed us towards the far end of
the stand.
‘The disabled entrance is over there,’ she said.
She said disabled like someone entering a diction contest. It was a good 200
yards away. By the time we finally made it over there the blue skies had
disappeared abruptly, replaced by a sudden squall. Naturally, I hadn’t brought an
umbrella. I kept up a relentless, cheerful commentary about how funny this was
and how ridiculous, and even to my ears I had begun to sound brittle and
irritating.
‘Clark,’ said Will, finally. ‘Just chill out, okay? You’re being exhausting.’
We bought tickets for the stands, and then, almost faint with relief at finally
having got there, I wheeled Will out to a sheltered area just to the side of the