By My Side

by Alice Peterson

  ‘Most places these days have lifts,’ Charlie had continued, ‘but you don’t want to show up and find there are steps.’

  ‘Don’t worry, it’ll be fine,’ I replied, avoiding eye contact.

  ‘I hope you’re taking Ticket with you?’

  I stare at the five steep stone steps. I hate it when he’s right.

  What do I do? I have a job interview in – I glance at my watch – oh Christ, ten minutes, for a PA position in a property firm. It’s quite well paid, experience in the property world handy but not essential … but what is essential is entering the building. It starts to drizzle. People barge past and suddenly I long to be the woman striding along in a stylish navy mackintosh and heels, cup of coffee in one hand, umbrella in the other. I’m not saying she doesn’t have any problems, but how I long for a normal problem, not how do I get up five steps. Panicking, I dig into my handbag to find my mobile. I wish Ticket were with me. Because I hadn’t explained in my application about the wheelchair, I decided to leave him at home, telling myself that if the interview went well and by some miracle they employed me, I’d ask if I could bring him into the office. I am such an idiot! Feeling cold now, and getting wet, I stab at the numbers, but then stop midway. Think rationally, Cass. You have precisely eight minutes now to get inside the building. Charlie is in his office in Farringdon. You’re in Mayfair. Not even superman Charlie can get to Half Moon Street in eight minutes and whisk me up the steps and into the reception area. Somehow I have to work this out. I look up to the sky. Oh dear God, please help me.

  *

  ‘Good afternoon. Can I help?’ the middle-aged receptionist asks, looking up from her computer. She has auburn hair with a heavy fringe, is wearing glasses and a tight-fitting cream silk blouse.

  ‘I’ve come for the interview,’ I say, now wondering why it hadn’t occurred to me that if I do get this job the problem of those five steps isn’t going to vanish. Can I always rely on two hot young businessmen being around first thing in the morning to press the buzzer and then carry my wheelchair and me into the building?

  The receptionist scans the diary. ‘Ms Brooks.’

  ‘Yes, that’s me! Sorry I’m late.’ Only five minutes late. Not bad considering, I congratulate myself.

  ‘If you’d like to come this way.’ She stands up and bustles towards the door.

  I wheel myself out of the small reception room and back into the narrow hallway, almost bumping into the wooden banisters. She then stops and turns, as if taking into account my situation for the first time. ‘All the offices are upstairs.’

  ‘Right. Is there a lift?’ I ask, doing my best to remain composed.

  ‘Yes. Downstairs.’ She gestures to a mini flight of stairs to the left. ‘Can you walk at all?’

  ‘No. I’m sorry.’ I twist a strand of my hair, coiling it round and round my finger. ‘And don’t do that thing with your hair during the interview,’ Charlie had said this morning as he helped himself to some cereal.

  ‘Oh,’ she says curtly. ‘I see.’

  ‘I’m sorry,’ I apologise again. ‘I should have mentioned it.’

  ‘That would have been advisable.’ Her tone is like a schoolmistress’s. ‘It might have saved you, and us, a lot of time.’

  ‘It’s just I thought all places had to be legally accessible these days?’

  ‘We’re a listed building. It would ruin the aesthetics installing ramps and whatnot.’

  ‘But why stick a lift down there?’ I say, raising my voice. ‘I mean, don’t you think that if I could walk down those steps then I’d be able to walk upstairs too?’

  Don’t get too cross with the old bat, I can hear Charlie saying in my head. You’re going to need her help to get out of the bloody building.

  *

  ‘You’re not the first to make that mistake,’ Frankie reassures me that night, when we meet in a tapas bar on the Old Brompton Road. After the interview (or lack of it, I should say) I’d called her, asking if she could meet me after work. Back in the reception room the old bat had said to me, spectacles perched on the end of her nose, ‘In future I do advise you to alert future employers about your disability.’ And then, to make matters worse, Richard Petherick, my potential boss-to-be, had flown down the stairs, paperwork in his hand, asking if his two o’clock interview had arrived. ‘Oh,’ he’d said, staring at me.

  ‘I know that “oh”,’ Frankie commiserates.

  ‘I wanted the ground to swallow me up. Richard was nice, actually, very apologetic. He helped me down the steps.’

  ‘Listen, you won’t make the same mistake again. Everything goes wrong in a first interview. It’s like a first date.’

  ‘OK. So what was your first interview like?’

  Frankie smiles.

  ‘That bad?’

  She nods. ‘After college I didn’t know what I wanted to do, right? All I knew was I needed cash to move away from home and pay my rent so I applied for this job in London, in some swanky advertising company. I turned up at the reception and it was all marble floors, glass walls and cupid fountains. Only problem was my interview was on the fifth floor and, believe it or not, there was no lift. “But once you’re up there, there’s an easy access bathroom and it’s all one level,” the receptionist said, completely deadpan.’

  ‘So you have to somehow get up five flights to enjoy the mod-con bathroom. It’s crazy, Frankie,’ I say. ‘Doesn’t it make you feel like a freak?’

  ‘Not any more. Thing is, Cass, I went on to get a much better job at Oxfam, rehousing asylum seekers. Advertising was never for me. You know what, you really should go back to medicine. At least in hospitals you know there are lifts.’

  ‘And A&E right on the doorstep.’ I smile dryly. ‘I still can’t even think about it though.’

  ‘Fine. Well, next interview just tell them, OK.’

  ‘I will.’ I confess that Charlie had said the same too.

  ‘How’s it going with him by the way? What’s his place like?’

  Charlie’s flat is off the North End Road, close to Barons Court tube. I call it the white street, since it’s all white stucco-fronted houses with pillared entrances. Many of the flats have balconies with colourful window boxes and bay trees. People sit out on their balconies in the sunshine, drinking and playing cards, and there’s always music blasting out of windows, especially at weekends.

  Everything I need is close by: a dry cleaner’s, deli, café, patisserie, and an organic butcher’s that I can’t afford yet so instead Ticket and I head round the corner to the newsagent’s to play the lottery, saying a prayer as I pick my numbers. I have also joined the Charing Cross swimming club, in Hammersmith, recommended by Frankie. ‘They have a hoist to lower you into the water and you’ll fall in love with Perry. He teaches the kids but will always jump in to save you,’ Frankie had said.

  ‘Fantastic,’ Frankie says to the swimming, pleased I’ve taken her advice. ‘And Charlie? How’s all that going?’

  ‘Good.’

  She frowns. ‘Expand. Is it going anywhere?’

  ‘I don’t think so.’ I tell her that living with someone is a quick way to get to know them, warts and all. ‘He sees me first thing in the morning now, not pretty,’ I say. ‘And he hates the way I forget to put the milk back in the fridge.’

  ‘What about his bad habits?’ she asks. ‘He can’t be perfect all the time.’

  ‘He leaves the loo seat up.’

  ‘All men do that.’

  ‘He doesn’t wash up. Somehow the plates make a journey from the table to the edge of the sink, but that’s where the journey ends. Or the dishes are left “soaking”,’ I say, using my fingers as inverted commas, ‘overnight. He’s really untidy too.’

  Charlie had confided that his untidiness used to drive Jo mad. She couldn’t understand how he could leave the house without at least making his bed or picking up last night’s clothes from the floor.

  ‘Seriously, if we were going to get together, the moment’s gon
e.’ There’s a long pause. ‘But don’t get me wrong,’ I continue, when I see how disappointed she is that there’s no gossip. ‘He’s fantastic. You should have seen how hard he and Dad worked to get the flat right for me.’

  Charlie and Dad had to remove the cupboards under both the kitchen and bathroom sinks to allow space for my wheelchair. Charlie’s breakfast bar was knocked down and Dad contributed towards a normal-height kitchen table for us. Mirrors in my bedroom and the bathroom were adjusted to my height. Dad and Charlie fixed grab rails around the bath. Thankfully Ticket can turn the light switches on and off, so they didn’t need to change them. Frankie’s eyes glaze over as I continue reeling out a list of adaptations, including Dad building some low shelves in the kitchen. ‘Everyone thought you’d get together,’ she cuts in, ‘honestly, you two were a hot topic on the slopes.’

  As Frankie heads off to the loo, I think about what she has just said. Neither Charlie nor I have mentioned that moment in the garden, when I thought he was about to kiss me. Late at night, when I can’t sleep, I do think about that look in his eyes and the touch of his hand on my back. What if we hadn’t heard his parents’ car in the driveway? What if his mum hadn’t turned up? But the following morning, when Charlie knocks on my bedroom door to ask if I’d like a cup of tea, it’s as clear as daylight that we’re going to be just good friends and flatmates.

  Part of me is relieved. Charlie’s mother is desperate for him to get back with Jo, and then there’s Anna, his sister, whom I’ve never met – who, according to Charlie, vets all his girlfriends. Apparently Jo had said meeting Anna for the first time was like an interrogation in hell.

  ‘How about the Internet?’ Frankie asks when she returns to the table.

  I shake my head to online dating. ‘I need to concentrate on finding a job first.’

  ‘Right. No dating until you have a job?’

  ‘Definitely not.’ What a good delaying tactic, but I don’t tell Frankie that.

  ‘Well, we’d better get thinking fast,’ she says, raising her glass to mine. ‘Before Charlie meets someone else.’

  23

  Mum calls me most nights, around seven o’clock, when she’s returned from work, a drink is in her hand and there’s enough time to gossip before EastEnders. ‘The house seems quiet without you and Ticket,’ she says.

  It’s the middle of August now, and Ticket and I have been living with Charlie for over two months.

  ‘Are you keeping busy? Not getting too depressed?’

  ‘I’m fine, Mum. Busy.’

  ‘Doing your exercises?’

  ‘I swim every other day, Mum.’

  ‘Good. You’ll be in the Paralympics next! And how’s Charlie?’

  Charlie has taken me to a few nightclubs with his friends. Occasionally Dom, Miranda and Frankie come along too, but I haven’t seen Guy for weeks. He’s had a series of bladder infections that have set him back. He’s been screening his calls, understandably low and frustrated. When I spoke to his mum, Angie, she told me that he was struggling to keep up with the history degree that he’s studying part-time from home. I feel for him, wishing I could do more to help.

  ‘You’re eating properly?’ Mum goes on.

  ‘Too much,’ I say. ‘I’m getting fat.’ Charlie and I often eat out at our local Italian. The access is poor, but Charlie insists we eat there because not only is it cheap but they also serve the best spaghetti bolognese. As he carries me up the steps, huffing and puffing to make a point, he says, ‘Put on a few pounds, Brooks?’

  ‘Watch it, Bell.’

  ‘No gelato for you.’

  It makes me recall how awkward we were that first night, when Charlie had carried me up his parents’ staircase. Now we seem like an old married couple who have known one another so long that it doesn’t matter if we eat our ice-cream in silence. I didn’t feel this sense of ease with Sean. In many ways all we did was jump in and out of bed in between living and breathing for medicine. It was fun, I was happy, and I loved the sex … but deep down I’m not sure if I really knew him that well. I’m not sure, in fact, that I knew him at all.

  Charlie makes me laugh. When he walks into a room my heart lifts. When I’m with him I feel normal. The chair is an inconvenience, that’s all, and a minor one at that.

  ‘I can’t wait to meet him,’ Mum says. ‘Dad said he was charming. You’re happy, darling?’

  I tell her I’m happy. Ticket is settling in too and getting used to the traffic, smoke and noise. He loves sniffing all the rubbish left out on the pavements and he’s making new friends all the time. The man in the red cap who works in the kebab shop always waves when we walk past. Ticket particularly likes the Big Issue man outside our local Sainsbury’s, ten minutes from the flat. He also enjoys his walks. He can’t wait to get his lead because he knows it might mean chasing squirrels in the park. ‘The only good thing about being in a chair,’ I say to Ticket when I park my car in a disabled slot inside the gates of Kensington Gardens, close to the Albert Memorial, ‘is free parking. And having you, of course.’

  ‘Any news on the job front?’ she asks at the end of our conversation, a question I know she dreads hearing the answer to.

  *

  The following morning, Ticket picks up the mail and brings it to me. Last week I had an interview for a marketing company in Fulham and they promised they’d let me know shortly. My heart stops when I clutch the pale yellow envelope. I need this job because A, I need the money to pay Charlie rent. B, I want to stop eating baked potatoes and budget cottage cheese. C, I don’t want to sign up with any more recruitment agencies. And D, I want Mum and Dad, even Charlie, to stop urging me to go back to medicine.

  I open the envelope. I’ve had three interviews in the past month. I wore a cream lace jacket that I’d found in Reiss for half price in the summer sales, with navy trousers. I swept my hair into a ponytail so I couldn’t do that finger-coiling thing with it. Charlie tells me he knows when I’m going for a job interview because I look like an air hostess. Ticket accompanied me to each interview. I brushed his teeth and groomed his coat. Yet so far the feedback has been:

  I’m afraid you don’t have the experience or qualifications.

  You’re not quite what we’re looking for, but good luck!

  Lovely dog, but …

  I rip open the envelope, Ticket sitting by my side, watching me. It’s as if he senses he was being interviewed too. ‘Have we got the job?’ he’s asking me with those deep brown eyes of his. The moment I read the word, ‘Unfortunately,’ my heart sinks. ‘I’m sorry,’ I tell Ticket as he places a paw on my knee. ‘They say I wasn’t experienced enough. But tell me, how do I get experience if I’m not given the chance?’

  *

  Charlie, Ticket and I go out that night to our local Italian. Charlie reassures me that the right job is out there, waiting for me.

  ‘It’s hiding very well.’

  ‘If something’s too easy, Cass, it’s never worth it.’

  ‘Easy would be great. I’m tired,’ I tell him, before we argue about who’s going to pay the bill.

  ‘Something will come up,’ he insists. In so many ways his optimism reminds me of Jamie.

  My mobile vibrates. It’s Frankie. Just as I launch into why I didn’t get the job this time, she stops me. ‘What are you doing this Thursday?’

  That’s three days’ time.

  ‘Nothing. Why?’

  ‘Back Up needs a Course Coordinator from the beginning of September.’

  24

  I reread my presentation. There’s something missing. ‘What does independence mean to you?’ I drum my fingers against my desk, waiting for inspiration.

  ‘They need someone to organise the courses,’ Frankie had told me that night, ‘recruit buddies, nurses and volunteers, talk to airlines, make sure the accommodation is booked. There’s a lot of admin, sorting out insurance and chasing application forms, but it’s really challenging too, especially trying to get people interested in signing
up.’ Having spinal cord injury isn’t an advantage, she’d warned me; many people of all different backgrounds have applied. I’ll be judged purely on the person I am and on my skills and experience. Frankie did this job in her late twenties and had loved it so much that she’d decided to stay in the events management world. When I’d called Back Up to ask if I could apply for the role, they told me I needed to give a five-minute presentation on what independence means to me at the end of the interview.

  ‘Independence means freedom,’ I type. ‘To be free and able to make decisions on my own.’ Unoriginal, Cass. ‘What’s going to make my presentation stand out?’ I ask Ticket, wishing he could talk to me sometimes. Ticket yawns and stretches. ‘Exactly,’ I agree, pressing delete and starting all over again.

  *

  A couple of hours later there’s a knock on the door. Charlie enters. Ticket stirs from under my desk, immediately on guard.

  ‘How are you getting on?’ he asks, looking over my shoulder.

  ‘Not great.’

  ‘You’ve written loads. Want to read it out to me?’

  ‘I’m not done yet.’ I reread the last paragraph. It sounds clichéd. I realise I’m much happier in a science lab or lecture room than in front of a computer. It’s much easier examining a wounded knee or taking blood than writing a presentation for a job interview. Even our exams were multiple-choice. Rarely did I have to string a sentence together on paper.

  ‘D’you want anything? Cup of tea? Chocolate?’

  ‘Nope. Thanks,’ I add, aware of my impatient tone.

  He still doesn’t take the hint. ‘Why don’t you take a break?’

  ‘Charlie! I don’t have time!’ I retrieve my first draft from my virtual waste-paper basket. I think I was on the right lines from the beginning.