by Eva Woods
The door was opened to a cacophony of sound, a TV blaring out and children fighting. “God, would you two put a sock in... Oh! Hello?”
It was a woman—a young woman, Daisy could now see, despite the initial impression. Not much older than her. She wore a large floral top of the kind Carole favored, and pajama bottoms tucked into Uggs. She’d changed a lot since the nineties—but Daisy knew her all the same. She must have taken over her mother’s house. “Angie?”
Angie blinked. “Yeah? Do I... Oh! You’re Daisy, aren’t you? Daisy Cooke?”
“Yeah. Sorry to just call round like this. Um. Could I have a quick word? It’s important.”
Angie’s front room was comfortable, if overdecorated. Daisy remembered it had smelled constantly of chips in the old days, but now the place was studded with scent reeds and candles, exuding a warm vanilla odor. Pictures of two chubby kids at various stages of growth, wedding shots. It was hard to believe that Angie and Rosie were the same age, and Rosie was living in that tiny studio flat. Daisy had said yes to tea, just for something to do with her hands, and it was too hot and she blew on it while Angie sat bewildered. From the next room the noises of the kids went on. “I don’t understand,” said Angie. “Rosie’s in a coma?”
“Yes. They’re hopeful though, I think.” She could hear the lack of conviction in her voice. Were they even hopeful? So far Rosie had shown no sign of improvement.
“And you came to tell me?”
“Kind of. The thing is, Angie, I went to Rosie’s flat. She’d written this list of names—some people I knew, some I’d never heard of. I think she must have done it right before she went out that day. You were on it. And as we’re trying to find out what happened...”
“I see. Well, she did ring me yesterday morning, if that’s what you’re asking.”
“She did?” Daisy’s heart lurched.
“I thought it was a bit strange—we hadn’t spoken since school, you know. Then she just calls, out of the blue.”
“What did she say?”
Angie looked embarrassed. “I didn’t pick up. I was busy with the kids, and you know...no time in the mornings. And, well, we had a bit of a falling-out way back. Over a boy, as it happened. Bryn Collins. Don’t know if you remember him, you’d have been too young maybe. Anyway, I liked him and Rosie went off with him. Silly girl stuff. But she wanted to say sorry. After twenty years!” Angie shook her head. “I wish I’d answered the phone. I could have told her he was in prison, for a start.”
“He’s in prison?”
“Oh yes. Beat his last two girlfriends black-and-blue, so he did. A real nasty piece of work.” Angie’s face hardened. “Tell you the truth, Rosie saved me from him. Fella like that, you need to be strong to stand up to him. And I wasn’t. I’d have been crushed. Anyway, it all worked out fine. I ran away that day, sobbing my heart out, and his mate Steve came after me, offered me a bite of his Caramac. We’ve been together ever since.” She beamed. “Almost twenty years, can you believe it? I’ve got a ten-year-old!”
“That’s amazing.” And vaguely terrifying—Angie was only a few years older than Daisy. “So...you aren’t angry with Rosie?”
“Oh no, water under the bridge. I’d planned to ring her back once I got a minute. I’m ever so sorry I didn’t do it sooner.”
A thought occurred to Daisy. “This Bryn—did Rosie go out with him for a while?” It seemed like something a sister should know, but Rosie had always been secretive.
Angie frowned. “Long enough.”
“Oh.” Had he hurt her? Angie’s silence felt heavy, and Daisy knew she couldn’t ask any more. “Well, thank you, Angie, that’s been really helpful. I’m sorry to have disturbed you.”
“Not at all, love. I’d come and visit but I can’t get up to London much these days. When she wakes up...will you tell her there’s nothing to forgive? Tell her...it’s thanks to her I’m happy, that I’ve got Steve and Jasmine and Harry. We’ll go for a drink next time she’s down. Cocktails at the George, only this time we’ll be legal!”
As if his name had summoned him, a burly man with arms like hams opened the living room door. Daisy vaguely recognized him from school, a few years above her. “Hiya, love. Alright?”
Angie smiled at him with fond affection. “This is Daisy from down the road. Just calling in to say hi.”
“I better go,” said Daisy. “Thanks, Angie.” She hadn’t the heart to tell her it wasn’t as simple as Rosie just waking up, good as new. That even if she did wake up things might be very different.
So right before the accident, Rosie had been contacting the list of people she’d made. But once again, someone had not answered her call.
Did Bryn hit you too, Rosie? What were you hiding from us? Daisy sighed; the Chinese closed in ten minutes, so she’d better go and get her Mum’s prawn crackers, then speed back to Rosie’s bedside. Her dad hadn’t been in touch, so she could only assume things were fine, but the worry still clenched her stomach. Why did you do it, Rosie? What were you up to?
Rosie
Night had fallen on the hospital. Time was running out, day two was almost over, and still she didn’t have an answer to the biggest question of all. Was I trying to kill myself or not? Outside, the spire of Big Ben was illuminated over the river. One of her favorite views, ever since she’d come to this city at twenty-one, all set for drama school.
Right. That was a definite memory. She’d felt for it and it had been there, right where she’d left it. What a relief. So, she’d gone to drama school after all, as Luke had told her to. And before that, had she traveled with him and Jack and Ingrid? It was very frustrating, still finding gaps in your memory. Not knowing if you were the kind of person who, say, had ever worn jeggings. Or the kind of person who’d be in love with someone else’s husband.
Her father had gone to sleep now, after spending hours by her bed, dutifully chatting to her about accountancy, and reading out bits of the paper. (“Ooh look at this, Rosie, man grows biggest ever zucchini!”) Gary had looked in on her earlier, pushing the door aside while chatting the whole time on his phone, “’Course, ’course, mate. Let’s run the numbers and see. We can move some of the surplus from K2 to K3...” Gibberish, basically. But Rosie had a nasty suspicion that this was how the adult world worked, all codes and targets and professional smiles, and she was lagging behind, with the job of a teenager, which she hadn’t even managed to stick at. When she got out of here—if she got out—she was going to have to make some serious changes, starting with moving out of that horrible flat. It was exhausting just thinking about it.
Alone in the silence of the hospital—machines ticking softly around her, draining fluids, putting new fluids in, monitoring the beat of her heart—Rosie turned the questions over in her head. Why had she fallen out with her mother and sister? What the hell had happened to Luke, and why wasn’t he at her bedside? Why was she reliving all these awful moments, and what could she do to make it better? If only someone could help her. These ghostly visitors, they were no good. They could tell her only what she already knew. What if some memories never came back? Luke. Luke. Come on, access memories of Luke. She pictured clicking on a computer folder, holding the mouse down firm. Nothing happened. The memories remained stubbornly elusive.
The door opened—God, not Gary again—and a nurse came in, the one who smelled of Germolene and didn’t bother making chitchat. Her hands were cool and efficient as they changed Rosie’s catheter bag. Rosie would have thought this must be incredibly humiliating, to be peeing into a bag as an adult, but the nurses were so discreet and efficient about it that it was fine. She felt well looked after, in her body at least. The broken leg and bruised ribs would heal, her cuts and bruises would fade. Maybe her brain would even sort itself out. But the turmoil in her mind—the painful scrape of those terrible memories—she wasn’t sure how long it would take to recover from that. She began to mak
e a list in her head of people she had wronged. Angie, of course. Caz. Mr. Malcolm, except he was dead. Had she known he was dead before this? She must have. Melissa, ditto. Her mother, she supposed. Her sister. But why? What had happened between them that they hadn’t spoken in months? Think, Rosie. It wasn’t easy to force yourself to relive a time when you’d behaved awfully, but she knew now it had to be done. The sooner she figured out what the lesson behind all this was, the sooner she might be able to wake up and take charge of her life. She could almost feel the memory inside her, sitting there, waiting to be relived. She wondered who would take her on this journey. “Grandma?” she said cautiously.
“I’m here, darling.” There she was, a ghostly figure in a cardy, Filou on her lap, now dressed in the pink dog onesie she’d knitted him, and not looking very happy about it.
Rosie shut her eyes. The dials rolled round to a date just a few months ago: 1 August 2017.
1 August 2017 (Two months ago)
Success! She had managed to actually control her memory, and found herself now at her sister’s engagement party. The noise level was high. There were about fifty people crammed into the room above a pub—Rosie remembered she’d been surprised Daisy and Gary had so many friends. She spotted herself loitering sulkily near the mini-quiches, dressed in ripped jeans and an ironic Steps T-shirt. She stuck out like a caterpillar in the salad, as all Daisy’s friends wore sensible shift dresses, ballet pumps, minimal makeup. Rosie could see that her past self was already drunk. She glanced around for Daisy. Her sister looked happy, smiling and displaying her ring to various friends and relatives, but if you knew her very well, you’d be able to see the tightening of tension around her eyes. Because of Gary, Rosie had thought. Because she wasn’t sure about him. But now she wondered if maybe it was in fact because of Daisy’s unstable, drunk sister.
Ghostly Grandma was picking over the buffet with unabashed curiosity. “Look at the size of those cocktail sausages. Tiny, they are. It weren’t like that in my day.”
Grandma had loved a good get-together when she was alive. A chance to criticize the buffet food and catch up on family gossip.
“I have a feeling this might... It might get a bit...heated. I think it didn’t go that well.”
“All the better. It’s hard to have a good row in the afterlife, everyone just drifts about being serene all the time.”
Gary was holding court, a bottle of imported lager in his hand, talking loudly to his colleagues about accountancy regulation. She wouldn’t have put it past him to throw this entire party just to impress his boss. “So I took her to our favorite spot in the woods—that’s the thing about Daise, she doesn’t need fancy proposals or expensive trips abroad—and got down on one knee. Luckily I’d remembered to bring a tarpaulin! Didn’t want to ruin my chinos.”
Urgh. Rosie tuned him out. “He’s the worst.”
“Seems a good catch to me, love. Solvent, all his own hair...”
“But Daisy needs more than that. She needs someone...adventurous, and lively and open to the world.”
“That you or her you’re talking about?” said Gran shrewdly, examining a wrapped prawn. “Eee, party food’s changed since my day. No hedgehog pineapple? No Black Forest gâteau?” She passed a sausage to Filou, who was under the table.
“It’s both of us. She’s like me, she needs to not be boxed in.”
“But she’s got a serious job and she’s engaged at thirty with a mortgage and a set of barbecue tongs.”
Rosie sighed. It was true. What if she’d just been projecting—what if Daisy really did want a dull, stable husband and a house in suburbia? “I don’t know how she can get married when she’s seen the example Mum and Dad set. Look, he’s not even here, Mum wouldn’t allow it.”
“Your parents were happy for a time,” said Gran. “Until all that. Not many couples could survive something like that, you know.”
Rosie couldn’t really remember a time before “all that,” or even what “all that” was. It seemed to sit on her childhood memories like a rock, crushing and shattering everything. “Maybe we shouldn’t watch the rest. I don’t think I behave all that well.”
Gran passed her a mini-sausage. “It’s not really me, love, you know. You don’t need to worry.”
It was about to happen soon. She could see that a paunchy man in a Star Wars T-shirt had sidled up to her at the buffet table. He was casting covert looks at her, with her torn jeans and rippling red hair, as if she wasn’t quite real. Past Rosie spotted him and downed the last of her drink. “Hi.”
“Er, hiya.”
“Rosie. Sister of the bride-to-be. Huh.”
“Oh yeah, we’ve met before actually. Dave. Gary’s mate from school.”
“Dave.” Rosie’s eyes flickered round the room, and her current self knew she was doing a calculation. There were no other single guys at this do except for some of Gary’s work people, and they all looked like the type of guys who’d add you on LinkedIn after you’d spent the night with them. Speaking of Gary, he was about to make his speech. Rosie downed her vodka, wincing, like medicine.
Gary was beaming, half-heartedly shushing the applause like he was running for president. “Thanks, thanks. Daisy and I are so thrilled to have so many supportive friends and relations.” Rosie bet he’d recorded exactly who was there, added it to some kind of friendship database.
“Three years ago I was in a bar, and there was this woman doing tequila shots, and she insisted I do one too. Well, who could resist a girl that buys you a drink? Though sadly it was something of a one-off as Daisy’s now more than happy for me to pick up the bills!” Laughter. Both Past and Present Rosie winced. She knew fine well Daisy earned as much as Gary did, if not more. “So...after a few years of dating and making sure she didn’t have an actual drinking problem... I sensibly asked her to marry me and put a ring on it. I’m thrilled that Daisy Mary Cooke will, as of next year, be Mrs. Gary Rudley.”
Past Rosie was miming retching. “This is awful,” muttered Present Rosie. “I’d forgotten that. Like she has no identity now—just his name! God, I hate him.”
“So, Daisy and I would like to thank you all for coming—do stay for a cheeky wine or two with us—and otherwise we’ll see you at the wedding!” He stood down, clasping Daisy to him and kissing her forehead, flushed with the success of his speech. Daisy looked rigid, her smile forced.
Present Rosie was still ranting to her imaginary grandma. “How can Daisy stand all this patriarchal crap? I gave her The Female Eunuch when she was thirteen! I just don’t understand it. Mrs. Gary Rudley... I’m going to vom.”
“I think you already did,” said Grandma, pointing to where Past Rosie was hunched over one of the crisp bowls in the corner, shakily wiping off her mouth.
Present Rosie winced. “Oh yeah. God, I did puke, didn’t I.”
“Right on top of the Hula Hoops, love. Shame to waste ’em.”
She watched as her past self surreptitiously hid the bowl behind some curtains and sashayed, or attempted to sashay, back to Dave, who was looking horrified. “Sorry about that. I guess their sickly sweet romance made me actually nauseated.”
“Um...do you want some water?”
“No water. Vodka!” Back Dave went to the bar, fishing out a worn tenner from his tattered polythene wallet to pay for it. Rosie winced at that too. Had she made him buy her drinks? He didn’t look rich. He came back with a drink—only for her—and she downed it again, a grim expression in her eyes. Then she made a beeline for her sister and Gary, parting the crowd with the strength of the booze fumes and her rage.
“Your speech.” She poked Gary in the chest. “Bit presumptuous, no? What makes you think Daisy will take your name at all? She’s got a career already.”
Daisy’s face was frozen in fear. “Rosie, please...”
Gary fake-laughed, tightening his hold on Daisy, so close a small sl
osh of wine jumped from her glass onto his shirt. “Of course she’ll take my name! It’s what people do.”
“In medieval times, maybe. It’s 2017, or haven’t you noticed?”
“Well, I think it’s nice—we’ll be a family, a unit. She has to have the same name as our kids.”
“News flash, Gary, you don’t have any kids.”
Dave was hovering anxiously behind. Their mother, hearing the commotion, swooped in. She murmured, “Rosie, do lower your voice. You’re like a foghorn.”
“I won’t!” Drunkenly, she raised her finger again. Poke poke poke into Gary’s chest. “You seem to have it all figured out, Gaz.”
“Please don’t call me Ga—”
“Put a ring on it, you said—like she’s some kind of animal!—change her name, tie her to the kitchen sink having your babies and give them all your name. Well, that’s not what Daisy wants, okay.”
“How would you know what she wants?” Gary hissed. “When was the last time you called her, or came to visit or asked how she really was?”
“She’s my sister. I know her.”
“You don’t know her.” He turned to Dave. “How much has she had to drink?”
That just enraged Rosie further. “He’s not my keeper! How dare you. You bloody sexist.”
There was a small choked sound, and the splash of more wine hitting the floor, glass shattering. Daisy had bolted from the room, crying. Gary moved to go after her, but Rosie rounded on him. “Don’t! She’s my sister, I’ll go.” She staggered out after Daisy, and Present Rosie followed, cringing. This was awful. As if someone had gone round and filmed all her most embarrassing moments and made them into a home movie. Like the world’s worst episode of You’ve Been Framed. She remembered that Jeremy Beadle was dead too. Maybe he’d show up any minute and ask was she game for an after-death laugh.
Daisy was in the stairwell of the bar, biting her lip hard, her makeup already smudged with tears. Past Rosie tried: “Hey, Daise...”