by Eva Woods
She felt Melissa’s hand in hers, the bitten nails, the scratch of a friendship bracelet. 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 any more. 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 grey light. The dial 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 one more.’
This place, it was that hotel bar again. Luke ranting, semi-hysterical, 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, and she’d met him for a drink at his hotel. Stupid, in hindsight. How naïve 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 by all the mistakes they’d made between them, the miles travelled 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 into 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 afterwards she’d cut off all contact with Luke, until she realised 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 only slept with her 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.
‘OK. 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, her 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 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, and again when she’d almost woken up.
‘She’s really in a coma?’
‘Yeah … there was an accident two days ago. On Westminster 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 travelling. Crete or somewhere. Then she went home, out of the blue, they had some kind of falling-out, he travelled on, eventually ended up in Thailand where I met him, and we lived in Oz for a while. Anywa
y, a few years later we’d got engaged – I’d realised 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.’
‘Oh.’ Her sister, in love with a married man.
‘Anyway, later on he and I were having some … problems, and something did happen between them, and I found out, it all got messy, he promised to cut off contact so we could make it work, and that was that. Then the other week she turned up at the house. I think she got the wrong end of the stick – Luke and I were already splitting up at that point, only living together for the sake of our kid, but Rosie – well, she ran off. She was really upset.’ Our kid. Luke was not only married but had a child.
‘So … she doesn’t know you’ve split up?’
‘I don’t know. I … it was kind of my fault, to be honest. Someone from my past, a guy, came to work in London. Someone I thought I’d never see again. He’s … well, he’s the father of my kid. I didn’t know, I swear, not for sure, but … he is. So Luke and I … it’s over. But it’s fine. I’m fine.’
She probably was, Daisy thought. Ella seemed like a tough little nut, shiny, resilient. Not like Rosie at all.
‘She didn’t try to contact you?’
‘Rosie? Not as far as I know. We only met a few times. At my engagement drinks, my wedding, a random dinner party, and when I found her in my house.’ Ella’s full mouth twisted in a parody of a smile. ‘So, I don’t think we’d have had much to talk about. She wouldn’t have my number or anything.’
‘Right.’ So Rosie had not got as far as contacting Ella, or perhaps she’d chickened out. Did that mean she’d not been in touch with Luke either? There was nothing on the phone to suggest she’d called him. Just his name in her dying mouth.
Ella stirred, picked up her smart leather bag. ‘I have to go. Sorry, Daisy.’ Outside, Daisy could see a man waiting for her, in an expensive navy coat. He was holding a little boy by the hand. Seeing them together – same nose, same dark straight fringe – it was clear this man was the father of the child. Not Luke. How confusing. ‘I’m sorry about your sister. I don’t wish her ill, despite everything. Luke and I … like I said, it was a mistake. We were too young, and I don’t think he ever got over her leaving like that. Plus there was the baby and everything. But I’m not sure I can tell you anything that will help.’
‘No. Thank you anyway.’ She was gone, leaving her tea untouched, and Daisy looked around the too-bright café, realising it was dark outside, the third day of Rosie’s coma almost running out, and she was still no closer to any answers.
Rosie
It was late now. Dark. She could hear rain pattering ineffectually against the high shatterproof window of her room, though she still could not turn her head to look. Her neck was still in a brace. Her leg in a cast. The catheter and drip still regulating her, in and out, in and out. She could see her parents by her bed, their heads bowed, faces anxious. Saying nothing, because nothing would help. Waiting.
Rosie had read stories of people who lay in a coma for years, decades even. How could you possibly live for years in your broken body, awake and alert but unmoving? How could anyone survive that?
But she knew that people could survive anything, carry around back-breaking loads for years. It was the curse as much as the gift of being human. Had she finally broken under hers? Was that why she was here?
‘Hello?’ she tried, knowing she made no sound in the world. Her lips were still frozen. Who would come to her next? Darryl, Melissa, Mr Malcolm, Grandma … She had known these people were gone. That was why she saw them here, ghostly, dead. Too late for her apologies, too late for everything. They were only symbols, of all the things she’d loved and let go. Her family, her friends, her career. All the random people whose lives had intersected with hers, the butterfly-wing impact she’d had in her thirty-three years. It made sense that, in its fractured state, her brain would conjure them up as her guides to dying. Because she almost had. She had touched it, and pulled away, back into this confusing world of lights and beeps and gentle hands on her slack flesh. She had not died in the accident. But she still might. Her brain was trying to come to terms with that. The idea that everything inside it – every memory, every face, every smell and sight and sound – would be going with her, and all she’d leave behind would be people’s memories of her. That was what it meant to be dead.
‘I understand now,’ she tried. ‘I know you’re not real but I … I’m lonely. Can someone come?’
Silence. Just the rain on the window, the slow rise and beep of her machines. Tethering her down to the earth, when otherwise she might gently float away. But then, Rosie got the sense she was not alone. It was a strange feeling. Comforting and exciting and scary all at once. Not a ghost, no. But it was hard to believe these were just hallucinations. She blinked her dry eyes – those worked, at least – and stared into the pool of light at the bottom of her bed. Someone was standing there. A child. Scarlett, maybe. But no, Scarlett was older, and real and noisy and breathing, like she could now see the living always were, blundering about, while the dead stood quietly, watching. It was all they could do.
This child was a little boy. A toddler, really, only just standing up on his own, wide-legged and stocky. He was dressed in jeans and a Transformers sweatshirt, the kind kids wore in the early nineties, when this boy had been alive. Rosie felt it all rush through her veins, along with the saline and painkillers and God knows what else they were pumping into her. Love. Terror. Guilt. ‘Petey,’ she whispered.
Petey said nothing back. He had never learned to talk, of course, not properly. He’d not even been two when he died. She could see in him her father’s blue eyes, her mother’s gingery hair, same as her own. His clear, unblemished skin. Her little brother. Finally returned to her. ‘I knew you would,’ she said. ‘I knew you’d come back.’
3 April 1991 (Twenty-six years ago)
Rosie opened her eyes onto the past. Immediately her heart began to race and her breath came shallow and ragged in her chest. She knew this memory. She’d relived it over and over. If only it had been different. If only she could go back, do it over again, change things. And now she knew she could not, that this wasn’t possible, she just had to stand here and watch it unfold. The very worst moment of all the bad moments that made up her life.
In the start of the memory, it was a good day, the first breath of summer in the air, warm enough to roll up your jeans and take off your jumper. Rosie knew the place. A park near their house in Devon, where they’d gone often as children. Before. Never after. Grass, and trees to hide behind, a van selling ice creams. And a stream, running along in a hollow just metres away.
There she was, in her favourite Danger Mouse top and her trainers with flowers on. There was Daisy, only three, cute and chubby still, her hair in pigtails, trying to make a chain of her namesake flower with her fat fingers. On a striped rug, their mother. It was a shock to see her once again, to realise how changed she had been by what happened next. Back then – before – she was a young woman, younger than Rosie was now. Her red hair was tied back with a wide yellow band, and she wore an embroidered sweatshirt and shorts. How pretty she was. Her legs were long and slim, her eyes laughing. Toddling about her – he’d only just learned to walk – was her youngest child. Peter. Petey, they all called him, since Daisy couldn’t quite pronounce his name. A family of three children, all beautiful, all perfect. A loving husband who couldn’t wait to race back from work to see them all, a warm and welcoming house, her youth, her health. In that moment, Alison Cooke must have thought she had it all.
Don’t get up, Mum. Please just stay.
But as Rosie watched, her mother did get to her feet, dusting grass off her white shorts. ‘I need the loo, Rosie; will you watch them just for a second?’ Of course – she’d had three babies. Sometim
es she just had to go, and there were public loos over by the gates. She could have taken the children with her, but they were happy, playing on the grass, and she didn’t want to move them. She would only be a minute. Rosie knew her mother had also replayed this moment over and over, torturing herself, wishing she’d just held it in or gathered them all up and marched them home. Not let them out of her sight. But it was 1991. People left their kids then. And Rosie, though she was only young, was a responsible girl.
Rosie did not quite remember what happened next. She’d never been able to. Had she taken it in, her mother telling her to watch Petey, or had she been engrossed in her own world, like her teachers always said at parents’ evening? Imagining herself on a stage, in the spotlight, everyone clapping. The dresses she would wear when she was grown-up. The amazing flat she’d live in, just like in Pretty Woman, that nice film about the beautiful lady she’d seen five minutes of at her friend’s house, which Mummy had said was ‘highly unsuitable’ (Rosie wasn’t sure why). The boy she might marry, one day, who would look a bit like Scott from Neighbours. She’d been daydreaming, helping Daisy poke holes in the stems of daisies, their fingers green and sticky, and she didn’t know how long it had been before she’d thought to look up at Petey. He could hardly even walk. If you left him for a moment, he’d normally be right there when you came back.
But Young Rosie looked up, and her childhood ended, and the rest of her life was forever changed. Because Petey was gone. The next few seconds passed in a sweaty blur. She stood up, looking around in confusion. Where was he? Should she leave Daisy, who wouldn’t be moved when she was enjoying something, and run after him? What if Daisy ran off too? Then her mother was racing across the grass, shrieking, and Rosie’s eyes turned to the stream just a short walk, just a toddle, away and …