By My Side

by Alice Peterson

  ‘My favourites were Branson and Feliz.’ I sigh nostalgically. ‘They were the sanctuary bad-boys.’

  ‘Well, I don’t know about you, but I really need a holiday,’ he says, taking off his glasses and giving them a wipe.

  ‘I wouldn’t exactly call us a holiday.’

  Again Charlie finds that funny. He has a deep infectious laugh. ‘Anything’s a holiday after the couple of months I’ve had.’

  ‘Oh?’

  ‘Long story.’

  ‘Long flight.’ I begin to relax.

  ‘Well, work’s difficult at the moment. We’ve lost a couple of major clients this year. Everyone’s on tighter budgets.’

  I discover Charlie works for a creative design web agency. In an ideal world he’d love to be a full-time photographer, but he doesn’t dare change jobs in the recession. ‘And I split up from my girlfriend.’

  I open my bag of roasted peanuts, feeling my heart skip for a brief second. Not that I fancy him or anything. ‘I’m sorry,’ I say. ‘Had you been going out a long time?’

  ‘Let’s not talk about it,’ he says, as if he’s exhausted that subject. ‘Did you know you have to run a marathon to burn off a pack of peanuts?’

  I raise an eyebrow. ‘Really?’

  ‘Oh sorry, that was a dumb thing to say.’

  ‘Don’t worry. Now we’re even. You can run, so here … finish off mine.’

  The drinks trolley comes round. He tells me to ask for a small bottle of red wine, even if I won’t drink it. ‘Sorry, Charlie, but here’s one thing you need to learn about me. I never turn down free booze.’

  ‘So, what do you do?’ he asks, as we open our little bottles and pour ourselves a glass.

  At that moment the plane hits some turbulence and Charlie splashes red wine down his shirt.

  ‘Oh no!’ I gasp. ‘Was it an expensive shirt?’

  He grins. ‘No, but what a waste of wine.’

  *

  We’ve been in the air for four hours and haven’t spoken much since the turbulence. I press a button to move my chair back and promptly feel a thump at the back of my seat. I shift uncomfortably. The thump comes again. ‘Are you all right?’ Charlie asks.

  ‘Fine, thanks.’

  I draw in breath, aware of Charlie still watching me. ‘Ouch. The woman behind … she’s kicking me,’ I whisper.

  Charlie turns round. ‘Excuse me, but did you just kick my friend?’

  ‘She didn’t ask if she could move her chair back,’ comes the snappy reply.

  ‘Really?’ He frowns. ‘Forgive my ignorance, but perhaps it’s more polite to ask someone to move their chair forward again, rather than kicking them in the hopes they’ll get the message?’

  ‘Look, it doesn’t matter.’ I pull at the sleeve of Charlie’s shirt. ‘I’ll put my chair forward again.’

  ‘My friend has spinal cord injury. It hurts her when you kick.’

  ‘Well, why didn’t she say so?’

  ‘Well,’ he adopts her tone, ‘I don’t think she expected to be kicked three times. Once is perhaps a mistake. Twice is careless; three times is downright rude.’

  I try not to laugh now.

  ‘What?’ Charlie asks when he turns back round.

  ‘Nothing,’ I say, unable to stop smiling.

  ‘When I get cross it brings out the public schoolboy in me,’ he warns me. ‘So watch out. If you’re naughty I’ll drag you into my room and get the cane out.’

  Is he flirting with me? It’s been such a long time, I can’t tell any more.

  16

  It’s the second day and a group of us are outside the hotel, waiting to transfer ourselves from our wheelchairs to our mono skis. We’ve been taught by the professional instructors the basic rules on the nursery slopes and are tackling an easy blue run today. I’m enjoying getting to know my roommate, Frankie. She’s Scottish and breathtakingly pretty, with dark brown hair swept into a ponytail, deep brown eyes that almost match the colour of her hair, and skin as pale and clear as water. She told me she’d had a riding accident when she was seventeen. She’s now thirty-two, so has been in a wheelchair almost half her life. ‘I lost quite a few mates, they got bored,’ she’d confided to me last night when we turned off the lights. ‘They were supportive to begin with but then … I think they were almost angry when I had to cancel parties or holidays. Except for Ethan.’

  I wave when I spot Charlie in his dark shades and salopettes. Susi gathers our group together, and one by one each participant is paired up with a volunteer instructor provided by the NSCD or with a qualified buddy. ‘Cass, you’re going with …’ Susi turns over her sheet of paper and scans a list of names.

  This is almost as bad as waiting to find out if Ticket was going to be mine.

  *

  Charlie stands behind me as I lift my legs into the mono ski, placing my feet against a flat footrest. I then transfer my full body weight across into the chair. ‘Well done,’ he says, in a way that suggests I’ve climbed Mount Everest. It feels weird sitting in this. It’s basically a small chair that’s attached to a ski. The seat has a shock absorber system especially designed for people with spinal cord injury.

  ‘I’m nervous, Charlie. I’m not sure I’ll be any good.’

  ‘You’ll be fine. Look, I promise you’ll be safe, I’ll be holding on to you with the reins at all times.’ He whips them across his thighs as if he’s a cowboy, before kneeling down to strap my feet in properly. ‘By the way, like the hat,’ he says.

  I touch it self-consciously. ‘Thanks.’ Mum, Ticket and I went shopping along Regent Street. I am wearing a pair of thermal leggings, navy salopettes, boots, an ice blue anorak, white fur hat with earflaps, a pair of gloves and bright pink goggles. This morning, when I caught sight of myself in the mirror, I laughed. I actually looked quite sporty for me. ‘You could be in the Olympic team,’ Frankie said, dressed in a leopard-print anorak that looked striking with her dark hair.

  We all do a few warm-up exercises to loosen our necks and shoulders. Then we make our way to the ski lift.

  Charlie attaches the training leads to my chair and we queue in a disorderly line. He crouches down beside me. ‘Watch that couple in front. That’s how you do it.’

  ‘You won’t let go?’

  ‘I won’t let you out of my sight, OK.’

  We get closer to the starting line; Charlie tells me to stop looking so frightened.

  The chair-lift operator slows down the lift. Charlie positions me a few feet in front of it, then guides me backwards on to the seat and a grey safety barrier clamps down. ‘See, it wasn’t so bad, was it?’ he says.

  But I’m not allowing myself to relax yet.

  ‘Aren’t the views amazing?’ Charlie says. ‘Wish I had my camera.’

  ‘Um,’ I say, staring straight ahead, my body rigid.

  ‘Relax, Brooks.’

  ‘I’m fine, Bell.’

  As we approach the top of the ski lift we slow down, the safety bar is released and he pushes me forward on to the snow. ‘Shit!’ I shriek as I slide downhill, towards the fir trees. ‘You’ve let go!’

  ‘I haven’t, you’re just moving,’ he says, trying not to laugh at me.

  Today I’m being taught to use my outriggers. These are the equivalent to a normal person’s pair of ski poles. They are small with mini skis attached to the bottom, both with a gripper edge. They look more like pick-axes.

  With Charlie’s encouragement I move gingerly downhill, digging them into the snow to stop going so fast. A skier whizzes past me, the snow making a glorious crunching sound as he swishes along. ‘Are you still there, Charlie?’ I call out, sunshine and fresh air blasting against my face.

  ‘Right behind you.’

  A group of children now fly past me, their ski poles tucked neatly under their arms, bottoms stuck out and going at Olympian speed. They can’t be more than seven or eight years old. Distracted, I fall over. Charlie takes my arm and pulls me back up. ‘If you go that slowly you wi
ll flop over.’

  ‘Flop over? I was going quite fast,’ I insist.

  ‘Maybe it feels like it because you’re low down? Let’s get this right, Cass. Number one rule is only use your arms when you have to. Your outriggers are used for direction. The rest is about mastering control. Effectively you are balancing on one leg.’

  Frankie and Ethan, Frankie’s buddy and best friend from school, both hurtle past me now, waving. ‘They’ve skied before,’ Charlie kindly mentions, placing both hands on my shoulders. ‘Let yourself go.’

  ‘I can’t,’ I say, now distracted by his touch.

  ‘Yes you can. Trust me. Try again?’ He releases his hands.

  I see one of the Back Up team falling over which makes me feel better. Charlie and I move again, this time faster but before long I lose my nerve, try to slow down and fall sideways in my seat. I am rubbish. ‘Can you help me back up? Ha! Back up!’ I seem to find this hilarious and feel almost drunk. It must be the bright sun, my nerves and the cold air.

  Charlie grins as he gives me a hand. ‘If we’re going to be together for the rest of the day, you need to work a lot harder on your jokes.’

  *

  After lunch, and strengthened by a mug of hot chocolate, we return to the slopes and Charlie runs through the technique again. ‘You can do it,’ he says, ‘just let go and believe in yourself.’

  The sun streams against my face. I push myself forward with my outriggers. I pick up pace and soon my ski chair is like a bullet racing downhill, zipping past fir trees that cast shadows over the snow. ‘I haven’t fallen over yet!’ I shout.

  ‘Steady,’ he calls behind me. ‘You’re doing really well!’

  I am beginning to use my upper body, swaying right to left, left to right. I can feel the ski responding to me at last. I spot the village below. This is incredible. I’m skiing! But I need to stop as we’re getting close to the bottom. ‘Slow down!’ Charlie shouts, pulling in the reins. We come to an abrupt halt and I fly out of my chair.

  Ouch. I’m lying on the ground, laughing.

  Wow.

  I have just skied down a mountain. My arm hurts but who cares. ‘That was amazing! Can we do it again! Please, Charlie?’

  When he recovers his composure he insists on more control next time. ‘But you’re a quick learner.’

  ‘I have a good teacher.’ I smile, glowing from his praise.

  *

  ‘This is bliss.’ Frankie groans with pleasure when we’re in the Jacuzzi later that evening, easing our aching muscles. ‘We skied today,’ she continues proudly. ‘How did you find it?’

  ‘I’m pretty bruised.’ I show her my arms.

  ‘Oh well.’ She shrugs. ‘With Charlie helping you up each time, I think I’d almost fall over on purpose. “Help, Charlie! Oh, Charlie, you won’t let me go, will you?”’ she imitates me. I splash her with water and we both laugh. ‘He is lovely,’ I admit.

  She raises an eyebrow. ‘I saw you two chatting each other up.’

  ‘We were having fun, that’s all,’ I say, though my heart dances inside. ‘Are you going out with anyone?’

  ‘Ben. He’s a chef. I met him on the Internet.’

  ‘Fuck. That’s brave to go online.’

  ‘Oh, it’s nothing to worry about, as long as you go through a reliable agency. Ben was finding it hard to meet people because his hours are so unsociable, and most of my friends are married or with someone. It’s hard meeting new people, especially in your thirties. Everyone does it online these days. You should give it a go.’

  ‘Did you …’ I stop.

  ‘Did I mention I was in a wheelchair? Yes. If I don’t meet anyone, Cass, it won’t be because of that. It’ll be because I’m independent and know exactly what I want. My last boyfriend asked me to move back to Scotland, but I need to be in London, Cass. I’ve made my life there. Also Scotland’s so inaccessible. Way too many hills and cobbled streets.’

  ‘Way too cold as well,’ I suggest.

  ‘Too right.’

  ‘You’ve never gone out with Ethan?’

  ‘God, no. We know each other too well now. We kissed when we went backpacking across New Zealand and Australia for seven months together. I was nineteen. We were both drunk. I think we needed to get it out of our system.’ She smiles as if remembering it. ‘Once we got that awkward moment out the way, we became best friends.’

  I tell Frankie about Sean. I still feel sad, but to my surprise that gut-wrenching pain is easing; there are no tears when I talk about him this time.

  ‘You know, I respect people who admit they can’t handle it. I get the fact that it’s not easy, and guys are scared.’ She looks me directly in the eye. ‘One of these days, Cass, you’ll meet Sean again—’

  ‘I hope not.’

  ‘And when you do, I hope you’ll tell him he was a coward. A letter,’ she repeats. ‘The least he could have done was say it to your face. He owed you that much.’

  *

  ‘Dear Perky,’ I write on a postcard when I’m back in my room. ‘You have got to come skiing next time. I know you’d love it and you’d be much better than me, but I’m getting the hang of it. Everyone is great fun and you’d be able to tell all your jokes to a new audience.’

  I sign off and pick up another card.

  ‘Listen, Cass,’ Paul had said, after a gruelling workout in the gym. It was towards the end of my four months, when home was on the horizon. ‘There’s this organisation called Back Up who run all kinds of courses for the spinally injured. You can go skiing, canoeing, camping, skydiving, you name it.’

  ‘I’m not sure.’

  ‘It would help rebuild your confidence, you know, show you what you can still achieve. They’re the guys that run the wheelchair classes here. I can get you some info if—’

  ‘I’m not going on some bloody skiing holiday for invalids!’ Suddenly exhausted, I slammed my lunch tray on to the table.

  His expression remained calm. ‘It’s not a holiday. It’s a course. And you’re not an invalid. You’re Cass.’

  ‘Dear Paul,’ I write, ‘you’ll be proud. Your whingeing Pom is skiing.’

  17

  Our group is eating out in one of the restaurants within the hotel complex. We’re tired in a happy way after another day’s skiing. Charlie took me out this afternoon. I tried to disguise my delirious pleasure when he’d approached me with the news that he was my buddy again. I am still on the training reins and often fall down on the slopes. However, I am no longer gripped with fear every time I look down a steep slope and realise that the only way to get down it is to ski. I’m beginning to master the ski lift too and now that I’m more confident, I can take in the scenery. It is beautiful. The sky is bright blue; looking up into it is like an adrenalin shot in the arm. The snow glistens and the colours of everyone’s clothes sparkle like jewels on the mountain.

  Charlie took me on a red run this afternoon to show me the views. He took some shots with his flashy camera. He says there’s nothing more peaceful or levelling than being out in the mountains. ‘They’re incredible, don’t you think? They put us in our place,’ he said. ‘You can never be complacent when you’re out here.’

  We didn’t ski for as long today because he wanted to take me round the Rocky Mountain National Park. We hired a scooter and to keep me safe Charlie had to hold my feet down with his own. As we picked up speed, I found myself laughing out loud from sheer joy at being outside and discovering a new and magical world. The mountain peaks soared above us; they must have been thousands of feet high, and I understood what Charlie had meant earlier. Their grandeur did make me feel small. We must look like mere dots on the landscape. But what I loved most about today was being with him and feeling his arms around me. I haven’t allowed myself to think I could meet someone else, but since meeting Charlie, hope has crept into my heart.

  It’s been fun watching the others ski too. Some wheelchair users are experienced skiers who don’t need qualified instructors or buddies with t
hem all the time. Others are more like me; we fall down like skittles but pick ourselves up again with a few more bruises on our arms but strength in our soul.

  Over the course of the trip everyone has opened up about their experiences. There’s Jeremy. He tells us he was shot in the back in Guatemala by a group of bandits. His life was saved because he was wearing a rucksack and in it was a hardback reference book that protected him from the bullet. The bullet went through the spine but not the organs.

  There’s Miles who had a rugby accident. Andrew was involved in a car crash when he was seventeen. He was in the back seat, telling his friend, who had only just passed his driving test, to slow down and stop messing with the tape player. Melissa, the mother of the group, apologises. ‘All I did was fall off a ladder, gardening. Pruning the climbing rose.’ I notice Charlie watching me when I tell everyone my accident was my fault. I wasn’t concentrating, stepped out into the road, was hit, but luckily the driver wasn’t injured.

  I notice, as I did in hospital too, there is a certain hierarchy of people in terms of the level of our injury. Being a T12 I am a mere scratch. My injury pales into insignificance compared to Frankie’s. Frankie is a C7, paralysed just under the collarbone. At first they’d thought she had whiplash; it’s a classic mistake to miss the C7 fracture on x-ray. She has worked so hard at being independent and says she’s lucky in that she has movement in her hands, which is unusual for her level of injury. It makes her able to do much more than she’d imagined.

  Most of the other stories we share are about travel. I tell them about my first train journey to London, when a passenger had lifted me out of my chair, and what’s funny is we all laugh, especially me. Jeremy, the expert traveller, tells us that one time when he was flying, the plane had to do a crash landing at Nairobi. They missed the next connection and all the passengers were deposited in the departure lounge with a stale apricot Danish pastry. When everyone else was moved into a five-star hotel for the night, he was left behind, in his uncomfortable airport wheelchair.

  Andrew tells us about his first night at home after being in hospital. He lives in a council bungalow, and friends had come round to watch the football and drink a few beers. They left him stuck on the sofa with his wheelchair on the other side of the room. ‘I had to ring and ask them to come back, luckily the front door wasn’t locked.’