by Eva Woods
“So you just...showed up?”
“I...I didn’t know what else to do. I knew she’d be at work.”
“Fucking hell, Rosie! I’ve been wanting to talk to you for two years, and now you just appear at my door? Come inside.” He seized her elbow, drawing her inside the lovely house. Briefly she noted the photos in shabby-chic frames, the tasteful ornaments and knickknacks which she remembered from the night of the dinner party in their old flat, when he’d taken her to the hospital and held her hand. That memory was there too, bright and thrilling and cut through with shame.
Luke stood in his living room, running his hands through his fair hair. He wore gray tracksuit bottoms and a T-shirt, and she could see a line of golden skin in the gap where they didn’t quite meet. She wanted to touch it so badly. He didn’t offer her coffee or tea. “Rosie, I know it’s hard, but you can’t be here. It’s not fair to Ella. Things aren’t...well, never mind that. I know you and I need to talk—God knows we do—but this isn’t the way. I need to tell you...”
Ella. The name was like a knife in Rosie, even now. “I had no choice, Luke! I...I need you.” And just like that, Rosie remembered why she’d come. About the weeks alone in her flat, sleeping only for snatched minutes here and there, only to dream about the past again, her mother shouting at her, her sister turning away. You stupid, stupid girl. She’d lost her job and her friends and failed at acting. A succession of deadbeat men dragged back to her flat, summoned by clicking and swiping at her phone, each one an attempt to stop the slow leak of loneliness in her life, and each one making it worse. She’d lost Luke. She’d lost everything. She was in a bad way. And so, desperate, she’d found her feet carrying her here to his door, without thinking of the consequences if Ella saw her there. Oh God. She began to back away again, her shoulders pressing against the wall, except she wasn’t really there, and the wall wasn’t really there and this was all in the past, too late to do anything about.
Then, the key in the lock. Rosie’s blood freezing in her veins—she remembered it exactly—and Luke freezing too with his hands on his head, and slowly, slowly, the door opening. Ella was beautiful. Even with the cold she’d come home from work nursing, her hair was shiny and glossy, her lips full. The little boy she was leading by the hand was also beautiful, with solemn eyes under a dark fringe. Charlie. Ella frowned. “Rosie? What are you doing here?”
The little boy said, “Daddy?”
Past Rosie was speechless. It could have been possible. They could have explained it away, she’d just popped round (miles away from where she lived) to ask Luke something or borrow something, they were friends after all, but neither she nor Luke was very good at lying. They weren’t very good at affairs either, it seemed, if you could even call it that, the one time that they’d been together, both racked with guilt and shame the whole time.
Luke’s Adam’s apple was working hard in his throat. “Eh... El...she just...”
Ella was not stupid. She slowly lowered the hand that was holding her keys, and looked between them, and Rosie then and Rosie now could see on her face that she knew.
Rosie ran. Her previous self sprinted for the door, barreling past Ella and her son, Luke’s son, sobs caught in her throat, and her dream self was following, down the road, eyes already blind with tears. She was tearing toward the train station. The heel of her boot was worn down at the back. She wasn’t looking, she was upset, she was going too fast. The road was uneven.
Present Rosie, helpless to stop any of these memories or change them, had to stand and watch as she tripped, tried to right herself and failed, and fell heavily into a heap on the road, weeping, the knees of both jeans torn open and the skin bleeding. She turned away, tears in her eyes, and felt a ghostly hand on her arm. “Sorry, mate.”
“Darryl. You’re here. This is...this is the last time I saw him, right? Luke?”
She remembered it now. Luke had not come after her—arguing with Ella, no doubt, confessing it all, having it out with her. Despite what he’d done, he was not a liar. The betrayal had killed him. Rosie had lain on the ground for a few moments, dazed, then pulled herself slowly to her feet, wincing at the pain in her bruised knees and scraped palms. There was something deeply upsetting about having no one to help you up when you fell. She went on to the station, hobbling like an old woman, determined to get out of there as fast as possible. And she’d sat on the train, her face wet with tears, and gone back to her horrible flat and locked the door and begun to think about her life. All the people she’d let down. All the lives she’d ruined—and now Ella, and little Charlie too, had been hurt by her stupidity and selfishness. Luke was not hers, had never been hers. Why couldn’t she just let him go, instead of clinging uselessly to things when there was no hope? He’d chosen Ella, clearly. Ella and Charlie. His son. They’d worked things out. Sometimes she lied to herself, told herself he’d wanted to get in touch but didn’t know her new number. When really she knew he had stayed with the life he already had, the nice house and beautiful wife and cute kid. Because that’s what people did.
Darryl’s ghostly hand was on her back. “I’m sorry, mate. This is pretty heavy stuff.”
“Yeah. Well. My life is heavy stuff. I’m just getting to see the consequences of it.”
“Shall we go back?”
She nodded stiffly. Her current life—comatose in a hospital bed with her pee draining into a bag—was better than this, the shame, the pain. What would that do to a person? Would you get to the point, eventually, when going under a bus might seem preferable?
Rosie
Back in herself, her broken, useless body. Her fractured, functional mind. Trapped in her own memories, forced to see all the mistakes she’d made. Maybe this was hell. There were people in the room—her parents, the doctors—but they seemed so insubstantial. More like ghosts than the ghosts who visited her.
“Dude, what’s up?”
Oh God. She wasn’t in the mood for Melissa right now. Melissa belonged to a simpler time, where the worst thing Rosie had ever done was sneak an extra biscuit from the tin before dinner. Before all these many failures and mistakes.
“Mel, no one says dude anymore. It’s not 1997, okay? It’s...things are very different now.”
Melissa, still in her crumpled school uniform, looked crestfallen. “I know it’s not been easy, Ro-Ro.”
“Er, that’s an understatement. I’ve alienated all my family and friends, I’m unemployed, I’ve slept with a married man, oh and I’ve been shagging any awful guy who showed me a crumb of affection, for years now.” She felt weird saying this to a teenager, even though she knew the teenager was just a figment of her imagination (or a ghost or...who knew). “That’s another thing, Mel. How come I see you like this? In my mind you should be ten, since that’s the last time I saw you. And how come I know you’re...”
“Dead?” she said cheerfully. “You don’t remember, I guess.”
“Remember what?”
“The list you made. People you wanted to contact to say sorry. I was on there. But you Googled me and found out I’d died. I guess you don’t remember how either?”
“I...didn’t like to ask.”
Melissa looked slightly sad for a moment. “It was the bullying you see.”
A cold feeling was rising up in Rosie’s legs. That was interesting in itself, as she hadn’t felt her legs since the accident, but right now all she could think about was this. “You didn’t...”
She shrugged. “Maybe I didn’t mean to. Maybe I just wanted to go away for a while, sleep, make it all over. I was so lonely, so unhappy. I had no friends. My mum had these pills left over from when my dad died, so I just...yeah.”
Rosie felt sobs choke in her throat. “Oh God, Mel. I’m so sorry. I knew all this?”
“It was in the article you found. You knew I’d died and how it happened. Not why. You can never really know why. No one can.” Me
lissa glanced at the door. “Your family, you know, they’re wondering the same thing right now. If you stepped in front of that bus on purpose or it was just an accident. They want to believe you didn’t mean it. But there’s the list, you see.”
“Why did I write it?”
Melissa shrugged again. It was a uniquely teenage gesture, artless and careless, and it made Rosie’s heart ache for her long-lost friend. If only she’d stayed in touch, could she have prevented this? Or was that the wrong way to think about it? Was everyone walking their own path through the wilderness, and all you could do was try to touch them as you passed? “You know why, Rosie. Only you can know.”
“But I can’t remember! Was I trying to make amends, or was I...saying goodbye?”
She could imagine that all too well. Alone in her sad flat, not speaking to her family or friends, the ache inside her from everything she’d lost—she could feel it now, gnawing at her—and the loss of Luke. She could see herself picking up a pen, writing down names, holding their faces in her mind, knowing she’d hurt them. Looking them up, finding out Melissa was dead. Probably she’d done the same with Mr. Malcolm. The raw sting of guilt, of grief, of knowing it was too late.
She felt Melissa’s hand in hers, the bitten nails, the smudges of highlighter ink. It felt real. Yet it was not real. She hadn’t seen Melissa since they were both kids. She hadn’t had a chance to say sorry, to do anything that might have helped keep Melissa from swallowing those tablets in the bathroom of her house. Maybe it would have been too late anyway. But she could have tried. “There’s no point thinking like this, Ro-Ro,” Melissa said, kindly. “I’m long gone. I don’t exist anymore. You don’t need to say sorry to me. It’s yourself you need to save now.”
“But...”
“Come on. There’s a few more things to see, and we don’t have much time.”
“What do you mean we don’t...”
The dark, the blur of gray light. The dials spinning. But Rosie already knew what she was going to see this time.
28 February 2015 (Two years ago)
Rosie’s head hurt so much. Exploding with a lifetime’s memories, every cup of tea, every kiss, every tear and every smile. “Please... I’m so tired. My head...”
Melissa’s voice was gentle. “I know, Ro-Ro. It won’t be long now. Just a few more.”
This place, it was that hotel bar again. Luke ranting, semihysterical, tears shining in his eyes. “He isn’t mine, Rosie. Charlie isn’t mine.”
She remembered now. Just the once. One time only, her and Luke. He’d been up in town for a conference, staying over to be there early, and she’d met him for a drink at his hotel. Stupid, in hindsight. How naive they’d been. When she’d got there Luke was already drunk, on the verge of tears.
“What do you mean, he isn’t yours?”
“She slept with someone else. Her ex, back in Sydney. She says she didn’t know, she thought Charlie must be mine...but then she saw him again last week. He’s in London now. And she says Charlie... Charlie looks just like him! I guess maybe she always knew, or at least suspected. But now he’s back.”
Rosie’s head had been reeling. “I’m so sorry. My God. What’s going to happen?”
“I don’t know. Charlie thinks I’m his dad, and I can’t just abandon him. Jesus. How can we tell him? Poor kid.” He shuddered. “You want to know the worst thing? It should have been you. I only married her for the baby, and because you’d left me. It was always you, Rosie.”
This was the moment. Rosie had watched Luke cry and storm, and she’d had the choice to be his friend or seize her chance for more, and she’d done the stupid thing. Because she couldn’t bear to see him so upset. Because she’d give whatever comfort she could. So she’d leaned forward, pressed her mouth to his. The feel of his warm skin grazing hers, the golden hairs on his arms, his hands tightening on her back. His voice. Oh God, Rosie. Breaking with sadness, with years of holding this back. This was how it happened. Angry with Ella, overwhelmed with all the mistakes they’d made between them, the miles traveled away from where they’d started, and all in the wrong direction. Away from each other. So they’d gone upstairs, to that hotel room with the tiny wrapped soaps and too-small kettle, and she’d taken him in her arms, finally, his mouth on her, the weight of his body, the heat of his skin. But it was no good. He still had a family, a little boy who called him Daddy. Rosie would not be the one to break that up. So she’d run away, like she always did.
“Did you do it with him?” came Melissa’s noisy voice in her ear, as in front of her she watched herself lean in to Luke. No matter how many times she saw it, no matter how loud she tried to scream stop, don’t do it, it would still happen. She could not change the past, only relive it, only see her mistakes again and again and again.
“Looks that way.”
“Urgh. Was it horrible?”
“No it was...it was the best thing ever.” Stupid Rosie, stupid, stupid girl. And afterward she’d cut off all contact with Luke, until she realized what a terrible mess she’d made of her life, just one bad decision after another, and two years later she’d gone to him, in a desperate last-ditch attempt to save herself, and there was Ella still with him and a voice in her head said he’d slept with her only to get back at his wife and...she’d run. Yet again.
“It’s a bit like those Catherine Cooksons my mum used to read. A fallen woman, coming to ruin.”
“Yeah, well, it’s my actual life, so can we go now? I don’t think I can handle any more of my Greatest Mistakes.” And her head hurt. God, it hurt.
“Okay. Let’s try and go back. But, Rosie, there aren’t many memories left. Once they’ve all come back, there’s no reason for you not to wake up. So...try, please? You have to try.”
Daisy
There was no work information on Luke’s public profile, and when she Googled him she found he was a freelance journalist. That would be no use for tracking him down. But Daisy had found out where Ella Marchant worked—only streets away—and now found herself walking there in a kind of daze. She wasn’t sure what she was doing. All she knew was she had to talk to this woman, learn the truth about Luke and why his was the one name Rosie had uttered when her life was draining away from her. She had the feeling it wasn’t going to be a simple answer.
She waited outside the glass office block, shivering in the wind. This was stupid. Ella might be working late, or not even in today. It could be hours. Go home, Daisy, you idiot. Go to your sister. But she stayed. And eventually, after squinting hard at every woman who came out, she spotted one in an elegant camel coat, glossy dark hair twisted into a French plait. She was tapping at her phone, one headphone in her ear. Her nails were dark red and shiny. Daisy stepped forward. “Er...sorry, are you Ella?”
The woman frowned, as you would if a strange person had accosted you outside your office. “Yeah?” She had an Australian accent.
“Um...this is going to sound very weird...”
“Who are you?” Ella Marchant had a clear, ringing voice. Confident. Daisy felt her own fail in her throat. Come on. For Rosie.
“I’m...my name is Daisy Cooke. I’m Rosie’s sister.”
* * *
“I don’t have a lot of time.” Ella stared at her balefully over the cup of peppermint tea she’d reluctantly let Daisy buy her in a nearby Starbucks. It wasn’t as nice as Adam’s café. A cold breeze blew in from the door which banged open every few seconds, and it was full of people plugged into laptops, noises emanating from their headphones.
“I know. I’ll be quick, I promise.” She’d already explained, haltingly, what had happened to Rosie and that she’d said the name Luke when she was brought in.
“She’s really in a coma?”
“Yeah...there was an accident two days ago. On London Bridge.”
Ella pressed a red-tipped hand to her mouth. “Jesus. That must have been what held my
taxi up. Do they know what happened?”
Daisy shook her head, feeling her limp hair flop. “No. They said she might have maybe...that maybe she’d...you know. But we don’t know for sure.”
Ella Marchant was a decent person, you could tell, under all her gloss and toughness. She softened marginally. “I’m sorry. But what is it you want from me?”
“Luke is...your husband, yes?”
“Ex-husband. Or, he will be.”
“But on Facebook...” Daisy blushed, revealing her own stalking.
“We haven’t told our families yet. Not till it’s all settled. But yeah, it’s over.”
“I’m sorry.”
“Don’t be. It was all a mistake, him and me. We tried, but...there you go. I’m with someone new now.”
“Do you think it was him she meant, when she said the name Luke?”
“Probably.” Ella sighed, tapping her paper cup with one nail. “Look, I take it you don’t know anything about all this.”
“No. She never even mentioned a Luke.”
“They met traveling. Crete or somewhere. Then she went home, out of the blue, they had some kind of falling out, he traveled on, eventually ended up in Thailand where I met him, and we lived in Oz for a few years. Anyway, a few years later we’d got engaged—I’d realized I was pregnant, and to live here I needed a visa—and came back, and we had these drinks. He invited Rosie along, as you do, old friends and so on. And I don’t know...as soon as they saw each other... I mean, I was there. I saw it happen. There was just something between them.”