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‘I do wash him, sometimes, but only down to his underwear’

Patrick’s stare spoke volumes Finally, he looked away from me, pulled off his socks and hurled them into the laundry basket ‘Your job isn’t meant to be about this No medical stuff, it said No intimate stuff It wasn’t part of your job description’ A sudden thought occurred to him ‘You could sue Constructive dise the terms of your job?’

‘Don’t be ridiculous And I do it because Nathan can’t always be there, and it’s horrible for Will to have so him And besides, I’m used to it now It really doesn’t bother me’

How could I explain to him – how a body can becoe Will’s tubes with a deft professionalise bathe his ned top half without a break in our conversation I didn’t even balk at Will’s scars now For a while, all I had been able to see was a potential suicide Noas just Will – , mercurial, clever, funny Will – who patronized ins to e, a thing to be dealt with, at intervals, before we got back to the talking It had beco part of hih … how long it took you to let er who you’re quite happy to get up close and personal with –’

‘Can we not talk about this tonight, Patrick? It’s my birthday’

‘I wasn’t the one who started it, with talk of bed baths and whatnot’

‘Is it because he’s good looking?’ I demanded ‘Is that it? Would it all be so much easier for you if he looked like – you know – a proper vegetable?’

‘So you do think he’s good looking’

I pulled hts carefully fro ‘I can’t believe you’re doing this I can’t believe you’re jealous of him’

‘I’m not jealous of him’ His tone was dismissive ‘How could I be jealous of a cripple?’

Patrickit a bit We had sex, a marathon session in which he seeth and vigour It lasted for hours If he could have swung me from a chandelier I think he would have done so It was nice to feel so wanted, to find myself the focus of Patrick’s attention after months of se the whole thing I suspected it wasn’t for me, after all I had worked that out pretty quickly This little shoas for Will’s benefit

‘Hoas that, eh?’ He wrapped hihtly with perspiration, and kissed my forehead

‘Great,’ I said

‘I love you, babe’

And, satisfied, he rolled off, threw an arm back over his head, and was asleep within ot out of bed and went downstairs tofor the book of Flannery O’Connor short stories It was as I pulled the that the envelope fell out

I stared at it Will’s card I hadn’t opened it at the table I did so now, feeling an unlikely sponginess at its centre I slid the card carefully from its envelope, and opened it Inside were ten crisp £50 notes I counted the Inside, it read:

Birthday bonus Don’t fuss It’s a legal requiree month The newspapers and television were full of headlines about what they terenerative disease had asked that the law be clarified to protect her husband, should he acco beca football player had co his parents to take him there The police were involved There was to be a debate in the House of Lords

I watched the news reports and listened to the legal arguments from pro-lifers and esteemed moral philosophers, and didn’t quite knohere I stood on any of it It all seeradually been increasing Will’s outings – and the distance that he was prepared to travel We had been to the theatre, down the road to see the ht face at their bells and hankies, but he had gone slightly pink with the effort), driven one evening to an open-air concert at a nearby stately ho than mine), and once to the multiplex where, due to inadequate research on irl with a terminal illness

But I knew he saw the headlines too He had begun using the coot the new software, and he had worked out how tohis thumb across a trackpad This laborious exercise enabled hiht hi about the young football player – a detailed feature about the steps he had gone through to bring about his own death He blanked the screen when he realized I was behind hih in o away