Me-Before-You-by-Jojo-Moyes

‘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.
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.
1. 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.
2. 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.
3. 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.
4. Go on a beach, unless your chair had been adapted with ‘fat wheels’. Will’s hadn’t.
5. Fly on aircraft where the disabled ‘quota’ had already been used up.
6. Go shopping, unless all the shops had got their statutory ramps in place. Many around the castle