The Lives We Touch

by Eva Woods

  ‘Won’t you have a seat, love?’ pleaded her dad. ‘We can have a nice drink and a chat – I got that wine you like, that Spanish stuff?’

  ‘I don’t want any wine.’ But she sat down, perching on the arm of a sofa as if she might run away at any moment. ‘Where is she then?’

  ‘Scarlett?’ Carole’s nervous face creased with love at the name. ‘She’s having her nap. Would you like a little peep at her?’

  They traipsed up the stairs, also lined with photos, including lots of Daisy and Rosie, and into a baby’s room that was like an explosion of pink. Frills, flowers, hearts, teddies. In a flouncy cot, a baby was stretched out in deep sleep. Rosie and her past self hung back in the door, but she could remember how it felt – a gut-punch of jealousy, sadness, and strange sudden tears coming to her eyes at the sight of this little baby. Daisy said all the right things, of course. ‘She’s beautiful, Carole. Hello, Scarlett. We’re your big sisters.’

  Carole was misty-eyed. ‘I never thought I’d have one. Forty-three and four rounds of IVF. And now a little girl of my own!’

  ‘Because you took someone else’s husband,’ Rosie had muttered. Carole must have heard. There was a short awkward pause, the three of them crammed into Scarlett’s room.

  Carole said, ‘It’s very good of you to come, girls. I know it hasn’t been easy, but I hope that you … that you’ll see her as your little sister, like you said, Daisy.’

  Daisy hugged her as Carole started to cry, murmuring soothing things. But all Rosie could think of was her own mother, weeping on the bathroom floor, staying in bed for weeks. That day years ago, the fear and the screaming. Petey. Petey! It wasn’t fair. She pushed her way out of the baby’s room and thundered downstairs, eyes blurred with tears, only to find her father on the sofa, his jolly expression sunk into one of exhaustion. Good, Rosie had thought with a stab of spite. He’s finding out what happens when you have a baby and you’re actually around.

  ‘I know it’s hard, Rosie love,’ he said quietly. ‘But will you please try? It’s not her fault. Little Scarlett.’

  What a stupid name. A name for a confident privileged little girl who rode ponies, and how could she ever be that with nervy Carole for a mother and their useless shared father? ‘I know it’s not her fault, Dad,’ Rosie said, retrieving the wine he’d poured her and draining the glass in one. ‘It’s yours.’

  Present-day Rosie, watching it all, winced again. Such a cruel thing to say, but she’d believed it, and afterwards, as his face crumpled, she had added privately to herself: And mine. It’s my fault too. All of it.

  She just wasn’t entirely sure why.

  Daisy

  As Daisy closed the front door of her house, some of the engagement cards on the hall table drifted to the ground. She stooped to pick them up, feeling a twinge in her back. This was ridiculous. She was thirty, how could she already feel this tired and old? Gary appeared in the door to the living room, drying a glass with a tea towel. ‘Might be time to put those away now,’ he said, nodding to the cards.

  ‘OK.’ It had been two months. It felt like years.

  Gary’s face was caring. ‘How is she?’ She’d eventually called him on her way home, after returning to the hospital with bags full of new things for Rosie, finding her parents still fighting, and realising she needed some back-up.

  ‘They seem sort of hopeful. She’s made some sounds, responded to light – it’s all … hopeful.’ Mentally, she imagined scoring a red line through that sentence, like Maura would with her client reports. Find a synonym for hopeful rather than repeating the same word, Daisy. But she couldn’t think of one.

  ‘And did they say what happened?’

  Daisy squatted to take off her shoes, leaning on the wall. Gary’s lips pursed – the wallpaper had been very expensive. She took her hand away, balancing awkwardly instead. ‘She walked in front of a bus.’

  ‘You mean …’

  ‘That’s what they said. People saw her step right in front of it. They don’t know if she just didn’t see it or if she …’ Daisy felt her face crumple, an ugly grimace of pain, and her eyes fill with tears. ‘I can’t believe she would do it. On purpose. I just can’t believe it.’

  ‘Oh, hey, come on. Come and sit down.’ He tidied her shoes onto the rack for her, then ushered her into the neat, cosy living room. The scented candles were lit, and the coffee table was dust-free, magazines stacked on it. Home. Daisy sank into an armchair and Gary perched on the sofa, gazing at her sadly. ‘You don’t know for sure?’

  ‘No, but … I went to her flat. It’s such a— God, she lives in a fleapit. It’s horrible. And since Mum and I haven’t really been speaking to her, you know … I think she might have been … unhappy.’

  ‘Well, I hate to say it, but it’s not surprising, is it? The way she was at the engagement party. I mean, Dave, for God’s sake – he’s not coming to the wedding, by the way, I’ve let the caterers know he’s off the spreadsheet.’

  Daisy slapped a palm to her head. ‘The caterers! That was today. God, I totally forgot.’

  ‘It’s OK, I’ve rearranged. But we do need to decide soon. Chicken and Parma ham or beef Wellington? I’ve made a list of the pros and cons of each.’

  Daisy stared up at him. They’d been living together for almost three years now, since meeting in the pub after work one Friday, her tired and freewheeling after a busy few days of contract law, him in his suit fresh from the management consultancy where he worked. A meaningless phrase which meant camping out in the offices of other firms and telling them everything they were doing wrong. She hadn’t made it home in three days and was wearing knickers that still had the price tag on, bought in a hurried trip out of the office that morning. Then, Gary had just been an interesting stranger. Now, she knew every curve of his face, every item in his wardrobe. Today was Tuesday, so it was the blue and white striped shirt with the grey suit. His stomach hung slightly over the waistband of his trousers – they’d both agreed they would lose weight before the wedding. ‘I can’t think about the wedding when Rosie’s in hospital,’ she heard herself say.

  ‘I know, babe, I know. Just saying, it’s hardly out of character for her to do something … unstable.’ He finished off wiping the glass with a hard polish, holding it to the light to check for smears. Daisy recognised it as one she’d already washed and put away the night before. ‘And when you think of it, walking in front of a bus, isn’t that kind of selfish? I mean, what about the driver?’

  Selfish. Unstable. Unhappy. Oh, Rosie. How did you get here? Daisy pushed herself to her feet. ‘I might have a bath.’

  ‘But I made dinner. Slimming World pasta. It’ll get cold.’

  ‘Sorry. Leave me some. I just … I just need a bath.’ She escaped up the stairs, into the white bathroom with the fake old-style claw-foot tub, the one they’d spent so long choosing in B&Q that time. They’d felt so grown-up, owning a house, paying to have the bathroom redone (though she’d had to shower at the gym for weeks). She’d felt like she’d achieved something, a life she could show to her parents and maybe allow them to stop worrying about at least one of their children.

  As she ran the hot water into the bath, glugging in a good measure of the rose-scented oil her mother had got her for Christmas, which she normally kept for special occasions, Daisy took off her engagement ring and sat it on the side, where it sparkled and gleamed among the steam and bubbles. She was just overwrought. There was so much to do. Tomorrow, she had to get up early and call Maura, rearrange her work, explain she wasn’t coming in again. Go to the hospital, referee her parents, hope there might be some change in Rosie. Try to find out what the note meant, what Rosie had been thinking when that bus hit her. She should really get out of the bath and do something useful.

  But she stayed in there so long, just staring at the ceiling, that Gary was in bed when she got out, the lights ostentatiously off and her pyjamas left by the door in a neat pile. His back was already turned away from her. He was pathologic
al about being asleep by nine. She bet Rosie hadn’t been to bed by nine since she was at primary school. Rosie lived alone in a hovel, while Daisy lived in this all-mod-cons house with a garden and replica claw-foot bath, with Gary who cooked for her and would wake her in the morning with green tea, who she would soon marry and live with for the rest of her life. She was the lucky sister. Rosie was the one who’d walked in front of a bus. So why did Daisy feel a hollow gnawing its way into the base of her stomach?

  She thought of the list of names she’d found in Rosie’s flat, which was now slipped into a pocket of her handbag. What did it mean? Tomorrow, she would try to figure it out. She had to, because one day had already passed, and Rosie was still in a coma.

  DAY TWO

  Rosie

  Time in hospital seemed to lose all meaning. The meagre light from the high window came and went, but the fluorescent bulbs burned constantly, and outside in the corridor there was always the sound of feet and beeps and hushed voices, occasionally rising to a shout or a run. It was night, she thought. One day run out already, and all she knew about her life was that it sucked. Did that mean she’d wanted to die? She’d walked in front of the bus on purpose? She only had two days to figure it all out, or she might never wake up.

  ‘Hello, darlin’.’ The door had opened and there was a vision in orange. Dot.

  ‘Can you hear me?’ Rosie tried. ‘I mean, do you see that I’m … awake?’ Are you dead seemed a rather rude question to ask.

  Dot bustled in, wobbling on her flat feet. She had short grey hair and a whiff of cigarettes about her, and she kept up a constant stream of chatter that was hard to interrupt. ‘Let me see now.’ She consulted the chart, pursing her lips. ‘Oh dear, oh dear, that is a nasty one. Don’t you worry, love, we’ve fixed all sorts in this hospital.’

  ‘Have you? Do you think I’ll … will I get better?’ Rosie wasn’t even sure if she was speaking aloud or not.

  ‘You’ll be right as rain, my love, I know you will. You just sit tight and let that pretty head of yours heal. Now, let me see, what do we have here?’ She tidied some paper cups from the bedside locker. ‘Ooh, those are nice, aren’t they?’ Rosie’s mother had put a vase of irises there, the deep purple and yellow lighting up the drab room. So she must believe, in some small part of her, that Rosie knew they were there. Or perhaps it was just blind hope.

  ‘Dot? Can you … can you tell me what’s happening to me?’ Dot smoothed down her bedcover. ‘It must be confusing, Rosie love, but we have it all in hand. You just get better, OK, darlin’? Now I have to go, but I’ll be along to say hello again.’

  ‘Dot? Dot, wait …’ But she was gone.

  Rosie wished she could sleep. Every part of her ached, from the soles of her feet to the crown of her head. But sleep brought memories, which threw her awake with her head racing and tears leaking from her eyes. Sleep brought no rest. She was alone for now, except for the nurses who passed, regular as clockwork, checking charts and adjusting her drips, their touch efficient and cold.

  So. What had she learned so far about her life? Her family was fractured, and the love of her life (she knew Luke was that; she could feel her love for him carried beneath her solar plexus, as real and solid as a fist) had married someone else (probably), she’d been horrible to her stepmother and half-sister, and she lived in a nasty flat with a beatboxing drug-addled downstairs neighbour. Her parents were divorced, acrimoniously. Something had happened, something bad, when she was younger. The top of her finger ached, a ghostly memory of when she’d sliced it off. What other wounds was her body carrying, both physical and mental?

  ‘This is fun, isn’t it? All these memories.’

  Rosie sighed as a ghostly apparition appeared in front of her in polyester maroon. ‘Melissa. It’s not that much fun for me, no.’

  ‘But it’s a real trip down memory lane!’

  ‘Yes, if memory lane was haunted and full of potholes and feral foxes.’

  Melissa chuckled. ‘Oh Ro-Ro, such a joker. You could be on Friends. Ready for another memory? Let’s go.’ Melissa checked her Casio watch. She had fraying friendship bracelets all around one wrist. ‘We’re on day two now already. Time’s running out, Rosie. Try to remember.’

  ‘Remember what?’ The hospital room began to fade around Rosie. The dial appeared, spinning drunkenly. ‘Remember what?’

  Too late. She was back there.

  28 September 2017 (One month ago)

  ‘It’s actually a bit linked to Friends, this memory.’

  ‘Oh?’ That sounded better. Maybe she had a big group of loving mates after all, who’d show up at hospital any minute, bantering in-jokes back and forth.

  ‘Ta da!’

  Rosie looked around her. ‘Right. So when you said it was like Friends, what you meant was, it’s a memory about a coffee shop?’

  ‘A coffee shop where you work! That’s the dream, Rosie! Just like Rachel.’

  ‘OK, well, it’s not the dream once you’re older than fourteen, Mel. So this is my job?’ She gazed around her. A small, hip café, with gluten-free organic cakes arranged in piles, and a menu as long as the phone book. Brief bursts of memory were coming back to her – the rich smell of coffee, slicing into a pan of brownies warm and oozing from the oven, giggling at Serge when he had to wear a plastic hairnet over his beard … (Who was Serge?) Each memory left a trail of different feelings, some happy, some sad, some dull, and then was gone like a speeding comet.

  Melissa was gaping at the menu. ‘I thought the only hot drinks that existed were coffee, tea and hot chocolate. What’s cold brew?’

  ‘It’s …’ Rosie drew a blank. ‘Sorry, I don’t know either. You’d think I would, if I worked here. Oh look, there I am. Yikes, I look awful.’

  Her uniform was a red polo shirt, the worst possible colour for her, and her gingery hair was bundled back, almost but not quite beaten into submission. She was behind the counter, and a large bearded man with tattoos was lecturing her. ‘It’s just not good enough, Rosie.’

  Past Rosie said, ‘What does it matter, Serge? It’s all coffee.’

  Serge – she remembered him now, her boss at the café, expert in krav maga, ran an ironic blog about fried chicken; oh God, she’d slept with him too, hadn’t she, that one time when she was feeling particularly low? – gritted his teeth. ‘Rosie! There is a big difference between Sumatran and Kenyan!’

  ‘Which is …?’

  ‘Well, they’re on entirely different continents, for a start. It’s all about terroir. Provenance.’

  ‘It’s hot brown liquid, Serge. Which we charge a fiver for.’

  ‘Shhh!’ He looked around frantically, even though every single customer was plugged into headphones on their laptops and couldn’t have heard. ‘Honestly, Rosie – you’re late all the time, you laughed when someone asked for a black decaf low coffee shot …’

  ‘Water, that’s what that is. Hot water. If they want to pay a fiver for that, then fair play to them.’

  He shook his head. ‘I don’t think your heart is really in organically sourced coffee.’

  ‘No. It’s not. Sorry, Serge. I know you care about it, almost as much as you care about who’s going to play the next Spider-Man, but I just … can’t.’ Rosie was untying her apron. ‘I need to stop kidding myself. I’m not an actress who makes coffee to pay the bills. I’m a barista, and a bad one at that. I think … maybe I should try to get a proper job. Give up on the dream. I’m sorry. I’ll come to see your ska band sometime. Bye.’

  Now Rosie was trying to piece it all together. ‘So … I quit?’ She’d left her job a month ago, been holed up in that flat ever since, fallen out with her family … What state of mind was she in when she walked into the path of that bus?

  ‘Now, what’ll happen next is you’ll get headhunted for your dream job, and earn more than you ever did, just like Rachel.’

  ‘See, Mel, what you’re doing again there is mixing up American TV of the nineties with real life twenty years
later. What happens nowadays if you quit a perfectly good job is you can’t afford your rent and you end up on the street. Or back with your parents.’ And if they weren’t speaking to you, well, then what did you do? Rosie had a horrible feeling she would soon be finding out. ‘What am I doing now?’

  ‘You’re getting out your phone. Isn’t it amazing how everyone has one now? Maybe if I’d had a phone back then, I wouldn’t have been so lonely.’

  ‘I … I’m not sure that’s necessarily the case, Mel.’ Rosie watched her past self leave the coffee shop, fishing out her phone and calling up Tinder, swiping her thumb over and over in a kind of fever. She knew what she was doing. Looking for company, anyone she could drag back to her nasty flat or meet in a scummy pub and drink with all night, anyone at all, just to not be alone with her thoughts. She remembered now. Some guy called … Ben? At least half the boys her age seemed to be called Ben, so that was a safe bet. They’d met at the huge Wetherspoons up the road, the one that smelled of stale beer and chips, and the next morning she’d woken up to see him curled in her small bed, smelling faintly of cigarettes and garlic, this man she barely knew at all, didn’t even know his surname or how old he was, and realised this was not the way to cure the ache inside her. ‘No,’ she repeated sadly. ‘Having a phone doesn’t always make you less lonely. Not at all.’

  ‘Shall we go back?’ said Melissa. ‘I think this one is over.’

  ‘So, a whole memory about me stupidly leaving my stupid job then sleeping around. Great. This is soooo useful.’

  ‘You sound just like Chandler,’ said Melissa cheerfully, as the coffee shop and Serge and the gluten-free cakes and the hipster patrons all faded like smoke.

  Daisy

  ‘I’m sorry, Maura, I really am. It’s just … she’s in a coma, you know.’

  Down the phone, Daisy heard her boss’s deep sigh. She pictured Maura in her office, where she liked to position herself early to watch her employees arrive, pumping tiny hand weights in her suit and heels. ‘They’re a huge client for us. They have nearly seventy per cent of the UK paperclip market. That’s not nothing, Daisy.’