by Eva Woods
“Right,” said Daisy, nonplussed. “It’s probably not the same Rosie though.”
“No. Probably not. Now, where d’you want this lava lamp?”
Rosie
Briefly, she surfaced. The world was full of light and pain, and she had the impression of doctors working over her lifeless body, her parents in the background, faces pale and terrified. What was happening? Move, she urged herself. Lift a finger or a toe or just blink your eye to show them you’re still in there. But she couldn’t, and the darkness was already pulling her back under, to her memories, to the past. To the things she’d done her best to forget.
6 May 2011 (Six years ago)
“Where’s this, then?”
“Hello, dear.”
“Mr. Malcolm! You’re back.”
“Yes, dear. Can’t you tell where you are?”
Rosie looked around. A lawn. A stately home. Giant Connect Four. Bunting. Women in high heels and floral dresses, pegged to the grass. Men in suits holding pints. “Oh. A wedding. Is it...?”
Rosie remembered now. Since the night of the dinner party, she’d seen Luke quite a lot. It hadn’t gone the way of most London friendships, where you might see each other once a month if you were particularly close, or let meet ups dribble away to nothing as work and distance got in the way. And he had a wedding to plan for. But they’d taken to meeting up during the day—Luke worked from home, and there was never much call for angry articles demanding that the government should pay more in overseas aid—having coffee, wandering by the river near where he and Ella lived in Pimlico, popping into the Tate to look at the paintings, gradually eking out the day until he had to dash home to make dinner and pretend he’d done some work that day. They were friends. As they’d been years ago, nothing more. Enough to invite her to the wedding though. So here was Rosie, and her heart felt like the crushed raspberry in her glass of prosecco.
People were moving toward the house, being rounded up. She spotted herself, shivering slightly in a strapless turquoise dress she regretted wearing (really, if all this got sorted out she was hiring a personal shopper or something), clutching a wrap and bag and glass. On her own. She didn’t know many of Luke’s and Ella’s friends. James from next door, luckily, had not been invited. As she tottered inside in her poorly chosen heels, she realized what this was: the ceremony. She was now going to have to watch Luke get married.
She turned to Mr. Malcolm, a ghostly form in his sweater-vest, standing out among these polished young people. “Do I have to? This was one of the most painful moments of my life.”
“I’m sorry, dear.”
So she gritted her teeth and watched through it all, the medley of Adele songs, the reading from The Owl and the Pussycat (was this actually her memory of this wedding, or just a composite of every other one she’d been to in her life?), the vows. Oh God, the vows, as they held hands and looked at each other. Ella of course looked beautiful, so shiny and glamorous she didn’t seem real. Her skin glowing, her dark hair swept up, the lace dress clinging to her curves and the swell of her baby bump. Luke was in a gray suit and waistcoat, a blue tie to match the wedding colors.
“Will you all please rise?” said the registrar, and Rosie got shakily to her feet with everyone else, as Ella and Luke clasped hands. This was it, the moment they would actually be married. After this, she would have to put all thoughts of him away. She couldn’t have feelings for a married man—she’d seen what her father’s affair had done to their family. He’d have a baby soon anyway. He wouldn’t have time for her.
“I do,” said Luke. Rosie looked up from her feet, already swelling in the stupid shoes, knowing she had to watch even though it stabbed her inside. When she raised her eyes, she saw his gaze briefly flicker to her, just a moment, before looking away.
“He looked at me. During his vows! Did I...was that real?”
“It seemed that way, yes.” Mr. Malcolm beckoned her from where she was observing, the ghost at the feast. “Allons, cherie. There’s just one more thing.”
The ceremony faded and dissolved, and the scene changed to the evening, everyone blurry and rumpled, drink flowing, people doing a conga round the dance floor. Rosie was in the bar area, standing with a gin and tonic untouched in her hand, staring into space.
“Having a good time?”
Past Rosie turned to see Luke, and started, spilling some of her drink on her shoes. The groom had come to seek her out. It was like talking to the king. Luke was down to his waistcoat now, sleeves rolled up, a sheen of sweat on his forehead. She wanted to rest her head on his chest. “Oh yeah, fantastic.” Past Rosie put on a bright unconvincing voice. “Married, eh... Congratulations!”
“Oh yeah. Hard to take in, really. Are you...you’re okay?”
“Of course. Just having a breather, then I’ll hit the dance floor...” She hadn’t danced at all at that wedding, she remembered. Hard to when your heart was broken.
Luke suddenly laughed, a short abrupt sound. “You know what’s funny? I thought for sure you were married too. When I invited you to those Christmas drinks.”
She blinked. “You did?”
“It sounds daft now. But I’m Facebook friends with Jack, and I saw he got married a few years back, but I never clicked on the photos because, well...it doesn’t matter why. So I thought he’d married you!”
“Oh God, no, he married Ingrid. Weird, huh?”
“Very weird. How did that happen?”
“Oh, it’s just...long story. I think they always liked each other, I just didn’t see it. We’re not really friends anymore, sadly. I haven’t seen her since...Marrakesh.” At the mention of it, they both stepped back slightly. Rosie bit her lip and Luke frowned. Bad memories.
“Why’s that?” he said. “Were you upset about it?”
“No. Me and him, we were—well. It should have ended long ago. All I felt was that... I wished I’d finished it much sooner. Before we went traveling. Before...” Before you, was what she wanted to say. Because then I would have been free and you would be marrying me today, not her. But it was too late to say any of that.
Luke closed his eyes for a second. “For Christ’s sake. Rosie, I...” Who knew what he’d been about to say to her. He hadn’t said it; that was the point. There were things you just couldn’t, that you had to keep locked up inside. Words like unexploded bombs.
For a moment they just stared at each other, as his wedding went on around them, and then they were in each other’s arms, in a crushing hug, his heart beating beside her ear, waves of heat coming off his body. She could smell his aftershave and a faint tang of sweat, taking her back to that day they’d met on the beach, and suddenly Rosie had tears in her eyes. She wiped them off surreptitiously on the back of her hand, smearing mascara.
“I’m so happy for you,” she lied. “It’s an amazing day. Go, find Ella. Dance with her.”
“Okay.” Reluctantly—she could see now it had been reluctance, she hadn’t imagined that—he went, and Rosie stood and watched him go.
Now, she waited to wake up, go back to her own aching body, but instead she didn’t surface. “Mr. M?”
“Hold on, dear. There’s a bit more, I’m afraid.”
And there was. As if the drawer in her memory marked Luke had been forced open, images and facts and certainties flying through the air. “Oh.” A flood of it. She couldn’t breathe. The pressure of all those memories, hitting her cortex at once, like a hundred filing cabinets bursting open and their contents showering down on her.
Luke and her at a pub quiz, other people there in the background as dull blurs, feverishly hunched over the question paper, slapping a high five when they got answers right...
Luke and her walking along the river near his flat, eating ice-cream cones though the coats and scarves said it was winter, and the sun sliced hard on the Thames and her chest hurt with laughing and the cold and
she was happy, yes, happy...
Doing a crossword, in deep concentration, crammed into the same seat of a train, her red hair hanging down over the table and brushing against his hand, which he didn’t move away...
Karaoke, duetting on “Islands in the Stream,” his arm slung loose around her shoulders...
In a coffee shop, talking intently, Luke moving the sugar bowl and milk jug round the table to explain something (trade routes, she thought), the waitress, tired and bored, pointing out they’d closed ten minutes ago and kicking them out...
She and Luke in what looked like a hotel bar, him staring angrily into his beer, shoulders heaving. “She lied to me, Rosie. How could she do this? How could she?” And Rosie’s head reeling, trying to make sympathetic noises—what had Ella done? She couldn’t remember. “What should I do, Ro? You tell me. What should I do?”
What had she told him? She couldn’t remember that either.
“We were friends,” Rosie said, poleaxed by the memories. “Best friends, maybe, for a while. He came to me for advice about Ella, because I was his friend.”
“Yes. You were.”
Were. Past tense. She knew he was not her friend now, because her family hadn’t heard of him. (Why? Had she kept it a secret from everyone, hidden how close they were getting? Had he done the same? Pretending all the while it was innocent, knowing deep down it wasn’t? Seeing each other when Ella was at work, a daytime secret for the two of them?)
“So...what happened?” Rosie knew she wasn’t ready to see it, not yet. The last day of her and Luke, whenever that had been. “Did I tell him to work on it with her, or what? Did I tell him...I loved him?”
“I don’t know, dear. But you were...something. You and him. Anyone can see that.”
Rosie was crying again. They had been something, something special. But whatever had happened between them, they weren’t anything at all now.
Daisy
“Hey, it’s you again.” Adam’s smile was as warm as the air in his café, coffee-scented, the windows steamed up against the dreary day. It almost made Daisy cry. Comfort, she realized, was a very underrated thing. Gary would not understand that. He believed in cold showers and bracing walks and healthy, low-GI food. What she needed now was a long lie-down in a feather bed, with blankets and hot water bottles, and tea and cake. Lots of cake.
“Yeah. I just...needed a break.” She’d been running round all day, talking to people, puzzling things out, and still she was no closer to the truth. Rosie was unconscious, it was dark outside already, and she might never wake up again.
He nodded in sympathy, as his quick hands stacked clean glasses. “It happens. Can I get you something? Another latte?”
“Oh, no, thank you. I’ll never sleep again if I do.” Not that she’d slept much the past few nights, lying awake worrying. The labyrinth of secrets Daisy was following her sister through. “Do you ever get time off?” she said to Adam, watching him buzz about. She wasn’t sure what made her ask the question. Did it sound like she was asking him out? She blushed, spinning her engagement ring on her finger. She should call Gary. They needed to talk. Just...she couldn’t face it right now. The fight with him seemed to have opened an abyss in her head. Maybe I never loved him. Maybe I just wanted security, like Rosie said. “I mean, you always seem to be here.”
“Boss runs a pretty tight ship. Anyway, it’s nice here. Talking to people, being around cakes, what’s not to like?”
She surveyed the cakes on the counter, the swirls of raspberry and soft cracked icing and plump, generous sponge, like a pillow after a long day. “Good point. I’ll take a cake, please. In fact, I’ll take two.”
He didn’t judge. She’d known he wouldn’t. “Sugar is good for shock. Very wise.”
Daisy sat in the table by the window, and taking a deep breath opened her laptop again. She felt a bit like a detective, piecing together her sister’s last movements. Rosie had called Angie, and Caz, and Daisy herself and her parents. She’d made a list of people that—what, she’d wronged in some way? She needed to make amends with? She’d discovered that two of them were dead. She’d left messages apologizing to the rest. But Ella—who was Ella? And who was Luke?
“Everything okay?” Adam set down her cakes, along with a hot chocolate he’d made without being asked, drawing a leaf pattern on top. Imagine all that effort, just for something that would be destroyed in seconds. Making something nice, just for the sake of it.
Suddenly, she really needed to tell someone. “Oh, it’s just... I’m trying to find out what was going through my sister’s mind before the accident. I found this list in her flat. Names. I thought it might...mean something. But there’s a few of them I can’t trace on her Facebook or phone or email. I even looked at her search history but there’s nothing.”
“Have you tried the Facebook search bar?” He unfolded a napkin for her. “If the names are people she looked at, it’ll likely autofill to tell you who they are.”
“I never thought of that. God, you’re brilliant. You should be a spy!”
“How do you know I’m not?” He spread his arms wide. “This whole café thing could just be an elaborate cover.”
“Nah, you wouldn’t be that good at making cakes if it was a cover.”
“See, that’s how good I am. I trained as an actual pastry chef to cover my spying.”
Daisy laughed. She actually laughed, in the middle of all this pain and confusion. Immediately guilt descended, her face puckering into frowns, and she bit her lip. What was she doing, chatting to a nice man, laughing, making jokes, when Rosie was in a coma and she’d told Gary to fuck off? “I...I’ll try that, then. Thanks.”
As he moved off, efficiently wiping tables, Daisy opened Facebook on Rosie’s phone and typed in the name Ella. Her heart began to hammer as the app autofilled it. Ella Marchant. A pretty name, a smart name. And Rosie had been searching for her. In the professional shot she looked glamorous and capable, full lips, dark glossy hair. The kind of person who, Daisy knew, Rosie would feel intimidated by. But she couldn’t find any connections between them. They hadn’t gone to the same university or worked in the same industry or anything like that. They had no mutual Facebook friends. How did Rosie know this woman? Why had she been looking at her profile page, if they weren’t friends?
An idea was forming in Daisy’s stomach. She was trying to squash it down, because it wasn’t a good one, but somehow, she just knew. She clicked on Ella’s profile, scanning the public information, and there it was.
Married to Luke Marchant.
Luke. At last. In his profile shot, he was handsome, broad-shouldered, a bit beardy and hippyish the way Rosie liked. A radiance about him, his fair hair and tanned skin. Ella, the woman on Rosie’s list, the glamorous, beautiful woman, was married to the man whose name had been on her sister’s lips as she clung to life. Luke was married.
Oh Rosie. What have you done?
Rosie
Something different was happening. When she surfaced from her memories, it was for only a few seconds each time. Faces around her bed, voices calling urgently. But she couldn’t stay, and she couldn’t wake up. She just floated in the gray, the halfway, the in-between. The real world seemed to fade from her, as she clung until her fingers went white to these memories, these past days when she and Luke had been together.
11 October 2017 (Two weeks ago)
Another memory. She saw her past self walking up to the door of a small redbrick house, with a navy blue front door and red roses growing round the windows. Past Rosie—only weeks ago—was standing there, as if psyching herself up to knock. She’d dressed up, in heeled boots and her hair pulled into a bun, makeup failing to mask the fact her face was white and her hands were shaking. As Rosie watched, her past self, trembling, knocked very quietly on the door, poised as if to run away.
“What am I... Oh.” The door had been opened, and
Rosie remembered: this was Luke. It was Luke’s house. He and Ella must have moved out of London as planned, bought a proper house. Behind him, she could see the bright green of a child’s bike, with stabilizers and a bell. Of course. He was a dad. So what was she doing here, two years after she’d slept with him in that hotel?
She began to twist away, turn her back. “Is anyone there? I don’t want to see this, I don’t want to relive this one.”
No answer. Was she alone in this memory?
“Hello? Are you there? Fine. I can wake up! I’m waking up now.” Rosie seized her left arm and pinched. Nothing. She was still in this dream, this memory, whatever it was, the dark crevice of her brain this had been hidden in. “I... Oh God.” It was happening.
Luke’s face went through various different emotions when he saw her on his doorstep, standing on the ironic mat that read You Again? “Rosie! What the hell...?”
“I’m sorry!” Past Rosie was very close to tears. “I...I just need to talk to you.”
“But...you said you didn’t want to hear from me! You just disappeared!”
“I know, but...” Rosie remembered now. After the incident in the hotel, she’d felt so terrible, overwhelmed with guilt. She had tried to stay away, deleting his emails and phone number. Because she knew the truth by then. She and Luke could pretend they were friends as much as they wanted, and carry on meeting for coffee, or a drink, just to talk, but things would always escalate. She could not be around him without wanting to touch him, put her hands on his chest and feel the beat of his heart. Even in this memory, standing shivering on his doorstep, she had been desperate to press her face against his, feel the rasp of his golden stubble under her hand, press her nose to his neck and breathe him in. “I just... I’m in a really bad way, Luke, and I couldn’t think who else to go to. There is no one else. I’ve... I’ve ruined it all. My entire life. I needed to see you...” So Luke and Ella were still together? Whatever he’d been upset about, in that memory of her and him in the hotel bar, they must have gotten past it.
