Magic Sometimes Happens

by Margaret James

  I wonder if there’s anything the British cannot fix by drinking tea and eating toast? I kind of doubt it, actually. Rosie certainly seemed better after she had breakfast.

  Joe was dozing, so she didn’t wake him. She merely touched his hand and then she left to get some sleep herself. A minute later, Joe woke up and asked where she had gone and then asked, where was Mom?

  ‘I’m doing everything I can to track her down,’ I told him. ‘I’m sure she’ll be here soon.’

  It took a while, but finally I got to speak with Lex. She was held up in Scotland, so she said. She and Mr Wonderful took a romantic weekend break in Aberdeenshire. Mr Wonderful had friends who owned a castle there. ‘I tried to call you, Patrick,’ she insisted. ‘But there was a ton of rain and then there was a landslide.’

  ‘What do landslides have to do with anything?’

  ‘The wires came down or some such. So I couldn’t use a landline. I couldn’t get a signal on my cell. The road was washed away, and – listen, Pat, it’s not my fault!’

  I told her that I didn’t care about whose fault it was, if she’d been held up by a landslide or an avalanche, been swept away by a flash flood or whirled into the sky by a tornado. All she had to do was get her ass to London right away.

  ROSIE

  I had a few hours of troubled sleep then went back to the Royal to see Polly, Pat and Joe. When I saw Pat and saw how tired he looked – he’d aged ten years in just five days – I cried again. I couldn’t help myself.

  He stroked my hair and told me twenty, thirty times that Joe was doing good. The doctors, nurses all agreed. I’d got him to the hospital in time and he would make a full recovery. So why was I crying?

  How could I tell him about Charlie and my nightmare on a loop?

  ‘When will Alexis get here, do you think?’ I asked.

  ‘She should be in London by this evening and she’ll come straight to the hospital.’

  ‘Then I’ll go home. I don’t think we should meet.’

  ‘She ought to thank you.’

  ‘She might not see it quite that way.’ I shrugged out of his embrace. ‘I took you all to Paris. She might hold me responsible for this.’

  ‘I’ll make it very plain to Lex it’s not your fault. Or anybody’s fault. The consultant guy, he told me not to waste my time and energy in trying to figure out what someone did or didn’t do. Anyone can get this sort of thing, he said, from a bug bite, graze, an accidental scratch – kids are always getting little scratches – and these can get infected. When you think about it, Rosie, all those tiny cuts and injuries we all get all the time, it’s a wonder anyone survives. The important thing is your quick thinking saved Joe’s life.’

  ‘The doctors saved his life.’

  ‘They told me three, four hours more, his body would have started shutting down. Then he might have lost his limbs, his hearing or his sight. He might have even died.’

  ‘Three, four hours – that’s all?’ I whispered.

  ‘Yeah, that’s what they said. So Lex and I, we can’t thank you enough and we will be forever in your debt. You need me, I’ll be there.’ Poll was tugging at his T-shirt now and so he let me go and picked her up. ‘I’m sorry I got mad at you when you called to tell me Joe was sick,’ he added. ‘When I think of what I said to you—’

  ‘You were shocked. You probably thought I’d run away with him, had kidnapped him or something, was holding him to ransom.’

  ‘I shouldn’t have got mad. I didn’t mean to frighten you.’

  ‘You didn’t frighten me.’

  ‘I’d hate for you to be afraid, for anyone to scare you.’

  ‘Pat, don’t look so worried. I wasn’t scared at all.’ Although I was so tired and so conflicted, I still managed a small, feeble smile. ‘I never could be scared of you.’

  ‘You hold that thought and if I ever yell at you again you tell me to go f— chase myself. I mean it.’

  I wasn’t scared of Pat, how could I be?

  But I was very scared of what was happening to me. I couldn’t keep him – I knew that. I’d read the novels, seen the movies, sobbed with Tess through reconciliation scenes between the warring parents at the bedside of their child, seen the joy in both their faces when their child got well.

  I’d heard them promise tearfully to be a real family again. I’d watched them crying in each other’s arms. I’d heard them ask whatever were they thinking when they’d parted? When they got the chance, they told each other, they would go to see the minister, priest, rabbi or whatever and renew their vows.

  Did I want to meet Alexis?

  No, because I didn’t want to see them being kind to one another, much less making up. Patrick and Alexis getting back together, Joe and Polly living with both parents once again – that would make the perfect happy ending, wouldn’t it?

  But how would I survive?

  PATRICK

  Joe was in the hospital a while. At first he made slow progress. But every day he got a little better, had more colour and ate with more enthusiasm. Polly, don’t you touch my chocolate buttons/jelly beans. Rosie brought me those! Okay, you can have one – but only one. He grew more like the Joe we nearly lost.

  Rosie disappeared. I could kind of understand it, see it might be awkward if she and Lex should meet. But I was hurt as well. Joe talked about her all the time. When would he see Rosie? When would Rosie come?

  ‘Rosie, Daddy?’ Polly looked around for Rosie, too.

  But whenever Joe or Polly mentioned Rosie, Lexie’s mouth grew like a hen’s butt or a miser’s moneybag that had the strings pulled tight. ‘I’m your mommy, honey,’ she reminded Joe. ‘Rosie’s just a friend.’

  ‘But Rosie brought me to the hospital. Mom, if Rosie hadn’t brought me here, I would have died.’

  ‘Who told you that?’ demanded Lexie.

  ‘Daddy,’ Joe replied.

  ‘Well, Daddy isn’t always right.’

  Whatever Lexie said and thought, however – and of course she said a ton of stuff – I was beyond grateful to Joseph’s guardian angel and knew I always would be for as long as I might live. If my wife had any sense or feeling, she should have been beyond grateful, too.

  But when I explained to Lex, when I told her in much more detail what had happened, all she said was she was not surprised that Joe got sick if that Rosie woman had taken us on dirty British trains. Nobody in Britain rode the trains unless they couldn’t afford to travel any other way. Stephen never rode the trains, and Stephen always said …

  I considered having a discussion with Mr Wonderful. But it seemed he had the sense to keep out of my way, and I had other, more important matters on my mind, like sorting out my future, a future in which Rosie would play a major part.

  As for our son, the afternoon he asked us for his hair gel so he could fix his style, we knew our little guy would be okay.

  A few days later, Lexie and the kids and Mr Wonderful flew back to Minnesota. I didn’t have a fight with Lexie about taking Joe and Polly home, much as I’d have liked to see them and to satisfy myself that Joe was fit and well.

  I knew I’d always get the nightmares. While he was sick, I drove myself half-crazy googling septicaemia, finding out what could have happened, how Joe could have lost his sight, his hearing, his arms, his legs, his mind.

  So when Joe and Polly left, I missed them. But I was scheduled to spend more time in the UK. I still had work to do in the IT department at Queen Alexandra College, and – who was I kidding? Shoot, I could have done most of that work in Minnesota. The truth is that I wanted – I needed – to see Rosie.

  But she was very busy, so she said. She was working all hours, building up her client list and driving round the country seeing people who could use her PR expertise. ‘I need to get this business on its feet,’ she said. ‘I want to see results.’

  Since I also like to see results, I guess I understood.

  When she was out of town, we kept in touch by cell. When we managed to meet up again
, the magic was still there. Or most of it was there. She seemed as loving and as funny and as cute as she had ever been. But something wasn’t right. It was kind of like she was withdrawing, was putting space between herself and me.

  ‘Rosie, is there anything you want to talk about?’ I asked one evening, while we were sitting on her couch and she scrolled through her emails. ‘You worried about something?’

  ‘No, why would I be? How are Joe and Polly, Patrick? Joe is up to speed again, I hope?’

  ‘Yeah, Joe is doing great. Lexie took him to the doctor’s office yesterday. Our Dr Mayer checked him out and seems he made a full recovery. Polly – well, she’s fine.’

  ‘That’s good to know. Pat, I hate to throw you out, but I’m going to Hull tomorrow morning and I’ll need to get up very early.’

  I took the hint and left and, as I rode the subway home, I thought – maybe our affair had run its course, that she was tired of me, was thinking it was time she found herself another guy, someone who had no baggage?

  There was still so much she didn’t know. So much I didn’t feel I could explain, had never told a mortal soul. Perhaps she ought to know? I wanted her to know. But if I did come clean, if I should go for full disclosure, would she ever speak to me again? If she wouldn’t see me and if she wouldn’t talk to me, it would break my heart.

  One evening when I called and called, she failed to pick up. All I could get was voicemail. So was this the end, the point at which I should have got the message, when I should have realised what it meant, when a woman would not take my calls?

  Or maybe she was sick?

  I had just a couple days left here in the UK.

  I decided this was not the end.

  I went to her apartment and saw at once that something must be wrong. She had been crying. ‘What’s the matter, Rosie?’ I began, concerned. ‘Why are you so upset?’

  ‘I’ve l-lost my phone!’

  Oh, sweet salvation, the relief!

  ‘I’m always losing mine,’ I said. ‘Why don’t you call the number?’

  ‘I’ve called the number half a million times!’

  ‘No luck?’

  ‘It’s going straight to voicemail.’ She began to cry again. ‘It isn’t in the office and it isn’t in the flat. I’ve t-turned the whole place upside down.’

  ‘Did you leave it on?’

  ‘I think so, yes.’

  ‘What about the battery – how long does it last?’

  ‘Oh, ages – several days – more than a week, in fact.’ She sniffed. ‘I charged it up this morning, so—’

  ‘So we have time to find it.’ I gave her a big hug and stroked her hair. I hoped her phone was on and that the battery was fully charged. Otherwise, she’d be looking for a brick. ‘Someone kind might find it,’ I suggested, fingers crossed behind her back. ‘Go into your list of contacts, make a call to one?’

  ‘I suppose they might.’

  ‘But let’s not wait for that to happen. We can start to look for it online. What security and tracking applications do you have?’

  ‘I don’t have any security and tracking applications.’

  ‘Of course you do. You must. When you first got the phone – remember? When you took out the contract?’

  ‘Pat, my phone is four or five years old. We didn’t do security and tracking applications then. We didn’t realise we needed them, and I don’t have them – right?’

  ‘Okay, okay, don’t worry – if your phone is on and no one’s using it and running down the battery, I’m sure there’ll still be something we can do. But if we can’t track it down by GPS, it’s just a handset, yeah? You can replace it.’

  ‘I can’t replace what’s on it.’

  ‘What is that?’

  ‘The last time I saw Charlie.’

  ‘Who is Charlie? Some guy you used to know?’

  ‘Charlie is my sister.’

  ROSIE

  ‘I didn’t know you have a sister?’ Pat looked puzzled. ‘When we went to Red Wing that time, you told me—’

  ‘I don’t have a sister any more.’

  ‘Oh, Rosie, love! What happened?’ He led me over to the sofa, sat me down and put his arm around my shoulders. ‘Does she … is she—’

  ‘I can’t talk about it now.’

  ‘Then we’ll just sit quiet awhile. If you do decide you want to talk, that’s fine by me. If you decide you don’t, that’s also fine.’

  If I didn’t tell him now, when would I tell him?

  When would I tell anyone?

  I began to talk.

  ‘I had a job in Paris,’ I began. ‘I was working for a PR company and having a great time. Charlie had come back to the UK after spending six or seven weeks in Africa. She had been all over, to places like the Congo and Angola and Namibia, hitching rides, staying in people’s houses, sleeping rough and doing stuff which gave my parents nightmares.

  ‘But they couldn’t stop her going any more than they could stop the world from turning or the sun from rising. Well, unless they’d locked her up in a tall tower or something and thrown away the key. You see, she had to travel. She was born that way, was an explorer as soon as she could walk. She went to London on her own when she was six or seven. She walked into our little local station, caught a train. She ended up in Regent’s Park. Mum was mortified because, when two policemen brought her home again, they called in Social Services and Child Protection, put my parents through the third degree. When she was eighteen, Dad started up a Ransom Charlie fund for when he had to go and get her back from somewhere like Somalia, Iraq or Kazakhstan.

  ‘After a week or two in Dorset with my parents, she was bored. So she came to Paris to spend some time with me. We stayed in my apartment. It was in the Marais. We went shopping, clubbing, drinking, partying – did the whole Paris thing.

  ‘One lunch time, we were in a café where I often went with friends or by myself. I loved it, I was comfortable there, I knew the staff and they knew me. It was my local, if you like. On the day I went with Charlie, there was a cool guy I sort of knew at the next table, having lunch alone.

  ‘He started flirting with my sister in that ironic way some Frenchmen do. Soon she was flirting back at him, making out she didn’t know much French while he pretended he didn’t know much English. So I was interpreting or rather misinterpreting and all of us were laughing.

  ‘I asked him if he’d take a video of the two of us. He said yes, I handed him my phone and he began to film us. Charlie did ridiculous impressions of actresses and singers. We were laughing fit to wet ourselves. Then Jean-Paul said he fancied having ice cream for dessert and did we fancy ice cream, too?

  ‘Charlie said she definitely did. A chocolate glacé with an almond and spun sugar topping, that would hit the spot. She called the waiter over and ordered three ice creams in silly Franglais which made us fall about. She made the waiter laugh as well.

  ‘I didn’t think about the milk in the ice cream. I just assumed it would be ordinary cow’s milk. But it turned out to be goat’s milk. Charlie was allergic to it. She had had a bad reaction to some goat’s cheese while we were on holiday in France when we were children and she was sensitised. Pat, it said so on the menu – lait de chèvre. Why did I not read the flipping menu before I let her order?’

  ‘Nobody reads everything on menus, Rosie.’

  ‘But I’d promised Mum and Dad that when I was with Charlie I would always check ingredients, would always, always, always read all menus! We knew she wouldn’t bother! She never, ever bothered! I was her big sister and so I was responsible! I—’

  ‘Rosie, take your time, okay?’ soothed Pat. ‘What happened next?’

  ‘The waiter brought our ice cream. Charlie ate a little, but then she started wheezing, coughing – trying to get her breath. It took me twenty, thirty seconds to realise what must be happening, that this was a reaction, most likely caused by milk. The waiter came and thumped her on the back. He must have thought she’d choked on nuts or someth
ing.

  ‘As I was begging him to stop and shouting to the guy I knew to call an ambulance, telling him that Charlie wasn’t play-acting, that this was all for real, I was searching through her rucksack for her EpiPen.

  ‘The wretched rucksack had a trillion pockets. I couldn’t find the pen. I thought, perhaps she doesn’t have one? She was very bad at carrying stuff like that around. I suppose she thought – she hoped – she’d never need the thing. Or she was in denial. She hated being different. While she was at school, she—’

  I found I couldn’t go on.

  ‘It’s okay,’ soothed Pat. ‘When you’re ready, when you want to tell me, if you want to tell me—’

  ‘I grabbed my phone back from the guy at the next table. He’d stopped filming when they brought the ice cream, before Charlie started choking, but now he just sat there looking stunned and doing nothing. So I called the ambulance and I must admit it came at once. I explained about the allergy and what had caused it. The paramedics gave her something at the café.

  ‘We got her to the hospital. But by now her system was in shock, she was unconscious and she died ten minutes later, hooked up to a dozen drips, machines. Nowadays, I can’t walk past a hospital without feeling sick with terror, panicking and thinking I’ll throw up, pass out or both. As for going into one—’

  ‘But you still took Joseph to the hospital. You still stayed with him while he was getting better. You sent me home so I could get some rest.’

  ‘What else could I have done?’

  ‘I already knew you were a heroine. But up to now I didn’t know how much it must have cost you to do what you did for Joe. Listen to me, darling, you mustn’t blame yourself about your sister.’

  ‘It was my fault.’

  ‘Rosie, it was not your fault.’

  ‘It was, because the pen was in the pocket of her jeans. She’d had it with her all the time.’

  Silence.

  I could hear it.

  Or rather I could hear the thudding of my heart, the drumming in my head. Pat said nothing for a moment. But then, slowly, carefully, he turned me round to face him. ‘So how should you have known?’

  ‘It was the most obvious place to look! Pat, I never told my mother, father or anybody else I didn’t find the pen. But I should have told them. I should have confessed, not let everyone believe that Charlie didn’t have a pen and that was why she died.’