By My Side (24 page)

Two weeks before Christmas

Dear Cass,
I read at the kitchen table.
Happy Christmas! All our love, Dom, Miranda, and Lucas Guy. PS. We’re all sleep deprived but doing well and little LG would love to see you soon to show off his impressive vocal cords. Love to Charlie too – hope all is Ticketyboo between you (sorry, dreadful joke).

Charlie enters the room as I open the next envelope. ‘It’s like a card shop in here,’ he mutters, heading straight for the coffee machine. ‘By the way, we need to get going pretty soon.’ He looks at his watch; it’s early on a Saturday morning. ‘You know what Mum gets like if we’re late for lunch.’

‘Oh my God!’ I say. ‘Frankie and Tom have bought a dog!’

Tom and I went round Battersea Dogs Home and fell in love with her. She’s a bit of this, bit of that, but she’s perfect and we’re calling her Bean, because she jumps up all the time. I’ll have to train her in the New Year not to pull me out of my wheelchair! Lots of trips to the park with Ticket in 2013!

‘That’s great,’ Charlie says, the coffee machine gurgling.

Captain and I are off to my sister’s in Cornwall,
writes Jenny
. I hope it snows, because Captain has a whale of a time, we love building snowmen.

Happy Xmas! Cilla sends her love to Ticket. Thanks for visiting me last month with Medalman.

‘She means Edward,’ I say, when Charlie sits down next to me and reads the card. ‘Have you packed?’ He asks.

‘Yep. All I need to do is get your mum some flowers or something, then I’m ready,’ I say, gathering my handbag and Ticket’s lead.

‘I thought you’d bought Mum the scarf?’

‘This is a tiny extra. Give me twenty minutes.’

Charlie grins. ‘That means at least thirty.’

*

‘Hello, my friend! Where have you been?’
Big Issue
man asks me outside Sainsbury’s, stroking Ticket. He’s wearing a dodgy woolly Christmas reindeer hat that he tells me was a present from his two girls.

‘Well, where have
you
been? I haven’t seen you in months!’

‘I asked you first,’ he says with a broad smile.

I fill
Big Issue
man in on everything that’s been going on in my life in the past eight months, including my break-up with Charlie and moving back to Dorset.

‘But we’re back together,’ I say. ‘In fact I’m going down to stay with his parents this weekend, before Christmas.’ I gesture to the box of Belgian chocolates in my shopping bag.

‘It sounds like a soap opera, man!’ He laughs. ‘But seriously, I’m well pleased for you. You deserve to be happy, my friend.’

‘Your turn now,’ I say, aware a queue is forming behind me.

‘I’ve been on a different patch, not nearly so friendly as here but someone took this spot for a while.’ He shrugs his shoulders. ‘Also been sorting out my kids. I’ve been talking to the council, to see if we can get a bigger flat. It got too cramped so Mum’s been looking after them, but I want to have them back at home full-time. I miss them, man.’

‘I’m sorry,’ I say. ‘It must be hard.’

He nods. ‘I’ve been taking my girls to church every Sunday. I’ve been saying a few prayers to the good Lord.’

Quite a crowd are now lining up behind me. ‘You have fans. You should be on stage. You should sing,’ I say, remembering his version of Louis Armstrong’s ‘Wonderful World’.

‘You think? I haven’t thought about that.’

I buy two copies of the
Big Issue
. ‘Well, maybe you should. Happy Christmas …’ I pause, realising after all this time I don’t know his name.

‘Patrick,’ he says. ‘Happy Christmas to you too, my friend.’

*

It’s Sunday morning and Charlie and I are in bed. ‘We need to get up,’ I say sleepily.

‘In a minute,’ he says, wrapping his arms around my waist and kissing me. ‘I wish we could stay in bed all day.’

‘So do I. But your mum might have something to say about that. And Ticket.’

‘Just ten minutes longer then?’

We kiss again. ‘Ten minutes couldn’t hurt,’ I say.

After our time is up, ‘Another five minutes,’ he suggests. Charlie lifts my face to his. ‘I’ve never been so happy,’ he tells me.

‘Nor have I.’

*

‘How’s the studying going, Cass?’ Mary asks me in the kitchen over breakfast, pouring the coffee. I catch her stroking Ticket under the table, and feeding him a toast crust.

‘Oh it’s great. I
love
being back at King’s. I’m planning to travel to Africa at the end of the summer term, to work in a bush hospital.’

I tell Mary we have to organise a two-month placement during the holidays. It will be a challenge travelling and working abroad, but I’m ready for it.

‘The hardest part will be leaving Ticket and Charlie,’ I confess. ‘But we can’t wait to go to Colorado again.’

Charlie and I are joining the Back Up course next year. It will be our first holiday together, as a couple.

Mary is about to ask me another question but Charlie rushes in, gumboots still on and wearing dirty jeans. His mother tells him to take the boots off. ‘He’s such a mucky pup,’ she adds.

I take his hand. ‘What’s up?’

‘Dad wants your help over something,’ he says breathlessly.

‘My help?’

‘Just come outside, it’s important. You too, Mum.’

‘Hey! What about me?’ Anna says, gulping down her coffee.

We grab our coats from the back hall. Mary wraps a scarf around me because she knows how cold I get. Anna pulls on some sheepskin-lined boots over her pyjama bottoms. ‘Come on, Ticket,’ I say, as Charlie leads me down to the lake. ‘What’s going on?’ I ask him.

Henry is standing by a deep hole with a spade, a bag of compost and a small baby tree. It must be about four foot high. ‘Oh good, Cass,’ he says, ‘you’re here. I want you to help me plant this.’

‘Right,’ I say with surprise, looking over to Charlie who nods reassuringly. ‘Sure.’

‘It’s a liquidambar,’ Henry continues. ‘I remember you saying it was your favourite; that you loved the way the leaves changed colour. I thought you would like to plant it in memory of your friend, Guy.’

Tears rush to my eyes as both Charlie and Mary come to my side. Mary holds the tree. ‘Make sure you get it straight,’ Henry instructs.

Charlie helps me spade in some of the soil over the roots. When it’s well covered, gently he treads it down and we fill up the remainder with the soil. ‘This is for you, Guy,’ I tell him. ‘Wherever you are, I hope you’re happy now.’ And finally I am able to tell him what I never managed to say the last time we were together. ‘I love you.’

Henry puts an arm around my shoulder and I thank him so much.

We all make our way back to the house, Ticket running on ahead.

There are many people I’d like to thank.

Firstly, Canine Partners, a charity that helps disabled people to enjoy greater independence and a better quality of life through the help of specially trained dogs. A moving article about a Canine Partner inspired me to find out more, and when I visited the centre to watch puppy training, I was hooked! I am in awe of these dogs that so transform the lives of people with disability. I’d like especially to thank Jenny Moir, who advised me about the training and how the process works.
By My Side
sticks as closely as possible to reality – but I was allowed a little artistic licence.

I’d also like to thank Nina Bondarenko. Nina started the Canine Partners Training Programme in 1992 and told me about the residential courses. She is so knowledgeable about dogs and their behaviour.

Canine Partners put me in touch with the following partnerships: Eileen and Sailor, Susi and Lex, James and Nemo, Judy and Kermit, and finally Jon and Varick. I was moved by the incredible bonds they shared with their dogs.

I’d particularly like to mention Jon Flint and Varick. Jon took so much trouble to tell me about his time in the Royal Marines and his experiences in Afghanistan, along with what life has been like since returning home after his injury. I met Varick, the most handsome flatcoat retriever, and was touched to see how much he has changed both Jon’s and his wife, Sarah-Marie’s, lives.

Another partnership is Susi and Lex. Horses were always Susi’s passion and she was determined to ride again after her spinal cord injury. I watched Lex, her beloved golden Labrador, running along beside her, ready to be called for help if she was ever in trouble. Lex, sadly, died at the age of twelve but he will always be remembered. He was Susi’s best friend, and without him she would have been lost.

To learn more about the charity please take a look at their website: www.caninepartners.co.uk

The second charity I’d like to thank is the Back-Up Trust— who like to be referred to as Back Up. Back Up is a national charity that has helped thousands of people of all ages and backgrounds rebuild their confidence and independence after a devastating spinal cord injury. Many thanks go to the CEO, Louise Wright, who told me about the courses Back Up run across the country and abroad, and who advised me on many aspects of this novel. To find out more about Back Up, please go to their website: www.backuptrust.org.uk

There are other people I’d like thank for helping me in so many different ways: Christopher Walker, army chaplain, and Ian Wylie, Royal Artillery, Afghan veteran. Sue Annesley and Peregrine Pollen. Many thanks also go to Kate – a fourth-year medical student, for telling me about her degree.

I’d like to thank my editor, Jane Wood at Quercus. Jane challenges me to bring out the best in my writing, and I love working with her. I’d also like to thank all the lovely team at Quercus.

To Charlotte Robertson, my agent, for always being supportive and getting behind this book. I very much value her support and friendship.

To Mum & Dad, as always – for being the best parents and for looking after me so well when I need to meet deadlines!

Finally,
By My Side
could not have been written without Sarah Orr, to whom the book is dedicated. Following her C7 spinal cord injury aged sixteen, Sarah returned to school. When I met her for the first time back in 2006 she was studying for a Masters in Human Rights. She told me about her experiences backpacking across the world. I discovered she went on a skiing course and worked for Back Up. She had also undertaken an independent tour of the twelve spinal injury units throughout the UK and Ireland to share her backpacking experiences with newly spinally injured individuals and healthcare staff.

More recently, Sarah has had experience developing peer support networks and other rehabilitation and support-related services and opportunities for people with spinal cord injuries in the UK, New Zealand, and a number of developing countries in Africa.

Sarah is an inspiration. Her life is tough in every way. Spinal cord injury is unrelenting but she has determination, spirit, humour, stubbornness, talent, grace and beauty. She also has endless patience! I have tested her to the limit with my never-ending questions and wanting to dig deep to find out what it’s really like to be in a wheelchair. It has been an honour to work with her and to become her friend.

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