The Lives We Touch

by Eva Woods

  ‘You’d go to jail!’

  ‘We took an oath, Praj! To help people. Sometimes helping them means helping them to die.’ She whispered the last word in a fierce undertone.

  ‘But how can they tell you that’s what they want, if they can’t speak?’

  ‘I just know that, if it was me, I’d want to make the choice while I still could.’ She shuddered slightly. ‘I see coma patients, the way they are … getting their nappies changed, being fed through tubes, needing someone to help them just to turn over in bed, living for decades like that … I wouldn’t want that. I’d want to be switched off, OK?’

  He stared at her. ‘Why are you telling me? I won’t be the one deciding for you, will I?’ They seemed to be talking about something else now. Zara’s peaches-and-cream skin flushed, and she stared at the window. Rosie wanted to scream at her, He loves you, can’t you see? Just give him a sign! But, just as in her memories, she was powerless to change anything.

  ‘I’m talking about … hypothetically. Would you want to be like this? Trapped in your dying body?’

  ‘She’s not the worst. She’s got hope. You saw the scans – she could still wake up.’

  ‘But she hasn’t. Barely a flicker in days now – you know she’s running out of time. Later today we’ll have to talk about moving her.’

  She knew they were kind, and very young, and very tired, and doing their best for her, but it felt unusually cruel to talk about her over her own comatose body. From the corner of her eye, she saw the door opening, and a flash of orange lifted her heart. It was Dot, whoever she was. Kind, chatty Dot. Who Rosie was still not sure was alive or not. Once again, the doctors didn’t seem to notice her slip in, this time with a yellow duster in her hand which she applied half-heartedly to the skirting board, clearly listening in.

  Zara was saying, ‘I sometimes think some hope is worse than none. Do you know what I mean? Families watch these films or hear these stories about people in comas who wake up after years, and they think that’ll be them. So they sit and wait and hold on, while the person they loved is gone – long gone – and it’s just a dying body they’re talking to.’

  ‘People do wake up sometimes.’

  ‘Depends what you mean by wake. Would you want to be conscious, and trapped in a paralysed body, not able to talk or feed yourself? People aren’t always the same when they come back to us.’

  He was silent for a moment. ‘We shouldn’t be talking like this in front of her. It’s not right.’

  She pulled herself together. ‘I’m sorry, Rosie. If you can hear me. He’s right. If you’re in there … we’re doing everything we can for you. Come on, we have rounds.’

  Praj groaned. ‘I’ll never survive. I got exactly six minutes’ sleep last night.’

  ‘Suck it up, dude. I’ll buy you a Twix.’

  They left, and Dot came forward to Rosie’s bed. ‘Don’t you listen to those two, my love. They might have letters after their names but I’ve seen plenty in your situation over the years. And you’re going to be just fine.’

  ‘Will I really? How do you know?’

  ‘Trust Dot. I’ve seen worse off that woke up again, right as rain.’ Gently, she smoothed down Rosie’s hair. ‘Eee, we could do with a shampoo, couldn’t we? I’ll have a word with the ward sister. Fix up that pretty face of yours, what do you say?’

  It was true Rosie was feeling grotty. She hadn’t brushed her teeth in days, and she was pretty sure there were still bits of road grit matted in her hair. ‘Thank you, Dot. Can you hear me? And who are you – why can I see you if we’ve never met?’ Is this real? Are you dead or am I just hallucinating all of this or …? Rosie’s head hurt trying to figure it out. She felt her eyes close, too heavy to stay open.

  ‘You just rest. I know you can hear us in there. Get better and come back to us, love.’

  Her words were as comforting as a hot bath, but Rosie didn’t know if she believed them. Dr Posh Spice had been brutal in her honesty. Rosie felt oddly grateful, in a way. Although she of course wanted to believe that she’d get better, she’d be back to her old self soon, it seemed to undermine the seriousness of what had happened. That whatever happened now, her life had been split in two, and nothing was ever going to be the same again. That the old Rosie Cooke was, effectively, dead.

  ‘How’s it going, love?’ Not Dot. Another voice.

  ‘Oh hi, Grandma. You’re still here then. I’m … well, I’m doing my best.’

  She looked around her, straining her neck. ‘Where is everyone? Aren’t they supposed to be round my bedside, talking to me and singing “Kumbaya” or whatever?’ Not that she had any right to expect it, after the way she’d behaved.

  ‘Your dad’s hiding outside the door there.’ Grandma pointed with a knitting needle. She’d stuck around since the last memory, and Rosie was glad. She hadn’t realised how much she’d missed this grey-haired woman with her crosswords and cardies and practical kindness. If only she could tell her that now, in real life. If only there was still time. But that’s what death meant – no more time.

  ‘That’s typical. Never there when you need him.’

  ‘That is my son you’re talking about, love.’

  ‘Sorry.’ She sighed. ‘It’s kind of become a habit, blaming him for everything. For not being there, for leaving us with Mum.’

  ‘I’ll admit, love, he didn’t handle it as well as he could. But he regrets it. Look, here he is now.’

  Her father had snuck around the door, as if afraid someone would catch him. It was surreal, watching him walk right past the ghostly form of his mother and sit down on the orange plastic chair. He stretched out a hand towards Rosie’s limp one, then snatched it back and cleared his throat. ‘Hello, Rosie. It’s Dad. I don’t know if you can hear me, or … if you’re in there at all. But they said to try. I—’ His throat constricted. ‘Love, I don’t know what to say to you, and that’s the truth. We’re not close. Not since you were little. I know you think badly of me because of … well, Carole, and Scarlett, and I don’t entirely blame you, love, but … well, all I can say is I was just trying to survive what happened. Like all of us.’ He seized her hand suddenly. Rosie could not move it, could not push him away or squeeze his back or give any sign she was listening intently to every word. ‘Anyway, love, whether you can hear me or not, I just want to say … I’m sorry. For any hurt you had. For anything that might have made you—’ A loud sob. ‘Did you do this to yourself, love? Why? Why would you want to do a thing like that?’

  She would have loved to shout, I didn’t, Dad, it was just an accident, but she couldn’t speak, and anyway she still wasn’t sure if that was the truth or not. She just had to lie there, unmoving, as her father cried in front of her for the first time she could ever remember. ‘Gran?’ she whispered. ‘How did it happen, Mum and Dad’s divorce?’

  ‘You can remember it, love, if you try hard. If you’re ready.’

  There were still so many memories she couldn’t access. Perhaps because she knew they must be the hardest ones, the most painful. But maybe she had to face them all, relive the worst moments, if she was ever going to wake up. ‘All right. I’m ready.’

  Rosie shut her damp eyes. She pictured the memory in her head. Open it. I want to remember. And she began to fade away. Away from the harsh bright lights and the ache in her bones and her father crying beside her, estranged from her, perhaps because of the memory she was about to relive. Just: away.

  14 February 1998 (Nineteen years ago)

  ‘Aw, Dad, we’re watching that!’

  ‘Sorry. I need to talk to you for a minute.’ In this memory, Rosie was in the living room of her childhood home. She was a teenager, and wore Adidas bottoms and a vest top to sprawl in front of the TV on her stomach. Daisy was curled up in the armchair, already in her pyjamas. A typical Saturday night, cups of tea scattered around and the wrappers from Club bars screwed up about the sisters. Their dad, oddly nervous, had just stepped in front of them and turned off Gl
adiators.

  ‘Oh,’ said Rosie, watching her past self. ‘This is when he told us.’

  ‘That’s right,’ said Grandma, still knitting. ‘If I’d known, I’d have given him a flea in the ear and no mistake. In your own home! With no warning! And on Valentine’s Day too, oh dear, oh dear.’

  ‘Would you have told him not to do it? If he’d asked?’

  ‘I don’t know, pet. When all’s said and done, they weren’t happy, your parents, were they?’

  ‘Not since Petey, no.’ The name still felt like glass in her mouth, though she was not really saying it, though none of this was real. ‘Though I can’t remember what that means, exactly.’ She could feel the memory looming, a dark shape slowing taking form. ‘I guess they weren’t happy, no.’

  ‘And he’s happy now? With Carole?’

  ‘God, I don’t know. I never see them. And you’re dead, so you can hardly know.’

  ‘Less of your cheek please, miss. Just watch.’

  In the memory, her father was pacing in front of the fireplace, and her mother was rigid in an armchair, make-up on, subtle jewellery, ironed white shirt. Daisy was in the chair still, but Rosie had jumped to her feet. She’d known there was something bad coming. If she didn’t sit down, didn’t listen, she could prolong it, maybe for ever.

  ‘What’s going on, Daddy?’ Daisy said nervously.

  ‘Rosie, will you sit down, please?’ Her father was harassed.

  Their mother cut in. ‘Just say it, Mike. They deserve to know.’

  Daisy and Rosie exchanged a quick panicked glance. Was one of them dying?

  ‘I …’ Her father opened his mouth, and faltered. ‘Girls …’

  ‘Your father has met another woman, it seems, and so he’ll be moving out and in with her.’

  Daisy and Rosie gaped at their father. ‘What?’

  Their dad had aged before their eyes, haggard, ashamed. ‘Girls, I’m sorry. It’s just, your mother and me—’

  ‘Don’t you dare blame me, Mike.’

  ‘No, no, it’s just … I wanted a bit of happiness. Is that so bad?’

  ‘You’re moving in with her?’ How like Daisy, to ascertain the facts, in a quiet voice, before flying off the handle. ‘That means … you’ve known her for a while?’

  ‘I … Well, yes, love. This was never meant to happen, but it has, and, well, Carole’s not getting any younger and she—’

  Rosie was on her feet, red hair bristling in rage. ‘You’re ancient, Dad! You can’t have a girlfriend, that’s disgusting!’

  ‘It just … well, it just happened.’ And Rosie had seen it. The flicker in her father’s eye that told her that, no matter how painful this was for him, he was relieved, deep down. Released from a marriage that had never recovered from what happened. In love. A chance to make things right. Rosie had seen it and the bewildered little girl in her started to howl.

  ‘You can’t do this! You can’t just leave us!’

  ‘Rosie, love, you’re a big girl now. Daisy too. And your mum … she agrees this is for the best.’

  Oh, the iciness of her mother’s voice. ‘I hardly have much choice, Michael.’

  ‘I’m sorry, OK? I wish it wasn’t happening like this. But … it is. I’m sorry.’

  Daisy had simply nodded, her hands laid flat on her knees. ‘Right. OK. That’s … I just need a while to process.’ She’d already taken to speaking like the teens on 90210, like someone twice her age.

  Rosie had stared at her sister. ‘Process? How can we process Dad cheating on Mum, and leaving her, at his age?’

  Their dad pleaded, ‘I still love you, both of you, and your mum and I—’

  ‘Don’t you dare, Mike …’

  Rosie spat, ‘You love us? Yeah, right. You’ve hardly been here for years. You just left us all to deal with it, while Mum went to pieces and we had no one looking after us. Now you’re off to start another family you can destroy. Well done, Dad.’ She began to storm out, throwing open the door to the hallway. Running, as was always her first instinct.

  Her father blundered after her. ‘Rosie – sweetheart – I wish you knew how much I loved you, both of you …’

  ‘Yeah, well.’ She spun on her feet, her face twisted in rage. ‘Save it, Dad, because I hate you. I hate you.’ And she seized the family photo off the wall in the hallway, the one from the day of Petey’s birth – taken in this same room, when they’d all been so happy – and smashed it on the ground, before slamming out the front door. On the doormat, Rosie saw now, there was a pink-edged envelope addressed in childish handwriting, which got kicked aside and slid under the hall cabinet. And she remembered. ‘That was from Melissa. We’d been writing to each other since she moved, but after this I just … didn’t reply.’ Current Rosie winced to herself. She’d stopped writing to her friend, and not long afterwards Melissa had died. ‘God. I was awful.’

  Grandma said, ‘You were upset. You had a lot going on.’

  ‘Yeah, but he’s right. I shouldn’t have taken it so hard. And he’s my dad. Of course I don’t hate him. I … Oh!’ She gasped as, like popping open a canister inside her head, her mind was suddenly flooded with memories marked ‘Dad, happy’. Suppressed for years because he’d dared to try to live his life. They came and came, all the lost days, crowding her head.

  She was three, and her dad was scooping her up onto his shoulders, higher than a skyscraper, so she could pull leaves from the trees overhead …

  She was seven and getting ready for school, and he was trying to plait her long red curls, sweating and muttering with the effort, while she offered the less than helpful commentary that Mummy doesn’t do it like that, Daddy …

  She was ten and Mary in the school nativity, despite having red hair, and she looked down after her big speech about there being no room at the inn and her dad was in the second row, crying his eyes out (so she had seen him cry before, she’d just forgotten, like she’d forgotten so many important moments of her life …).

  She was sixteen and coming out of a teenage disco at two in the morning and her father was waiting in his Volvo, even though he didn’t live with them any more, yawning to himself, Bryan Adams on the tape deck, and she slid into the warm interior of the car and he’d brought her a Caramac in case she was hungry …

  She was eighteen and off to university, and he was hugging her on the pavement outside her halls of residence, having hauled seventeen bags of clothes and books and kettles and duvets up four flights of stairs, and he wasn’t quite ready to say goodbye, to let her go, but she shrugged him off, eager for her new life to start …

  She was in her twenties and standing beside him in church in a Jane Norman dress that was too tight, her hair straightened into submission, her dad’s shoulders heaving. In front of them was a wooden coffin (‘Mine,’ said Grandma. ‘I never did like mahogany, don’t know what they were thinking.’) and Rosie put out her hand and took her dad’s and they cried together …

  She was twenty-six, and moving out of the flat she’d shared with Caz because Caz was getting married, and her dad was helping her lug all her stuff yet again, and awkwardly slipping her a cheque because ‘I know it’s hard to manage on your own’, and she’d somehow taken offence and they’d ended up having another row …

  And then her memories ran out because she’d blamed him for everything and done her best never to see him, Carole or Scarlett, except when she needed something. ‘Oh. Poor Dad. Poor, poor Dad. And now I’m … Now he must be … Oh!’

  Rosie wasn’t sure if she was crying in the memory or for real, or both, but the pressure in her lungs increased, and she was gasping for air, racking sobs tearing through her. ‘Grandma? I can’t … I can’t breathe!’

  ‘Just try to wake up now, Rosie. Wake up!’

  Daisy

  She was still shaking when she got upstairs. She’d told Gary to fuck off. Gary, her fiancé! For a moment, she let herself imagine being without him, starting over – all those awful Tinder dates her friends went on
. Going to weddings alone and sitting at the kids’ table. Cancelling the venue and the church and the florist. She began to gasp for air, and for a moment she had to lean against the puke-coloured wall to gather herself. What have I done?

  But no, it would be OK. Gary would understand. She hadn’t slept. She was very stressed, that was all.

  ‘You OK, love?’ Her dad was sitting by Rosie’s bed, leaning on his knees and staring at the floor. He looked as if he’d been crying.

  Hastily, she pulled herself together. ‘Hi, Dad. How is she?’

  ‘No change. I’ve been talking to her but … I don’t know. Where’s your young man?’

  ‘Gone to work. As per usual.’

  ‘I used to do that a lot too.’

  ‘I know.’ It was a theme her mother returned to often.

  ‘Told myself someone had to earn the money, especially with your mother the way she was. And I suppose … sometimes it’s easier to be out of the house. With adults, where everything’s kind of … packaged up nice and clean. No one crying or making a mess or saying they hate you.’

  ‘I know. It’s OK, Dad.’

  Her father looked at Rosie, who lay comatose, her body floppy and her face as pale as the sheets. ‘It’s not my place to say anything, Daisy … God knows I haven’t been around much …’

  ‘Dad, don’t …’

  ‘And if Gary makes you happy, then great. But one thing I will say is that moments like this, seeing your daughter lying there in bed and not even able to help her, or comfort her, or know if she can hear you … Well, moments like this you wish you’d left the office early all those times. Skipped the meeting. Turned the report in late. Gone to the school plays and ballet recitals … She was always so good in the school plays, wasn’t she?’

  ‘Yeah.’

  ‘I was ever so disappointed when she gave it up. Not disappointed in her – just felt that it wasn’t fair somehow.’

  ‘Fair?’

  ‘Maybe if I’d been around more, if there hadn’t been all that business with Carole, well – she might have stuck at it. Maybe she wouldn’t be like this now.’