The Lives We Touch

by Eva Woods

She checked the clock on the microwave. ‘We should head off first thing in the morning, Mum. Shall I help you pack?’

  ‘I’m fine, darling. If you want to find something to take for Rosie, there’s some old toys and books in your room.’

  ‘Oh, that’s a good idea.’

  ‘I still can’t see it working, though. They need to be thinking about an operation, or some kind of medicine, not … Chalet School or whatever.’

  ‘Well, it’s worth a try. I’ll take a look.’

  Daisy trailed upstairs, running her fingers along the bumpy wallpaper. She and Rosie had often crept down these stairs at night as small children, listening to their parents talk in the kitchen, the warm hum of adult laughter. They’d picked off all the flocks with their childish fingers, driving Alison mad. Daisy and Rosie had shared a room then, in twin beds. They’d played a game they called Crocodile, jumping between the beds until they got in trouble. Some nights Rosie told her long involved stories, until she fell asleep. Daisy had been afraid of the dark. Rosie always said, The dark is hugging you, Daise. It’s like a big blanket wrapped around you. Nothing to be scared of. And when it had all got scary for real, Rosie would get up and check under Daisy’s bed or in the wardrobe. ‘See, nothing here. No monsters.’ And Daisy could remember her sister tucking her back in. ‘I’ll stay awake and keep guard. You sleep.’

  Daisy could barely remember Petey being born, but she could just about recall the day he came back from hospital – the half-worried half-happy feeling that she was a big sister now. Had it been Christmas? She had a vague memory of lights and tinsel. And fire? Was that right?

  Daisy paused now in the hallway and ran her fingers lightly over the door of the spare room. For a while after, she had not been sure what to call this room. If you said Petey’s room, Mummy would cry and run out and everyone would look sad. Eventually they started calling it the spare room again, but Daisy always felt that second of alarm before saying the words. When Rosie hit her teens she demanded to move into it, which had caused another almighty row. ‘It’s not like he needs it, Mum!’

  Daisy could hear her mother opening drawers in her own room, so she gently turned the handle and stepped in.

  It looked totally different, of course. When her mother went away to get better that time, their father had stayed up all night grimly slapping paint over the blue walls, making them cream and bland. She remembered peering round the door, the fresh lemon smell of the paint. Mum had cried when she came back and saw it. It’s like he was never here. Is that what you want, Mike?

  For God’s sake, Alison, I don’t know what you want from me.

  Now the room was a typical guest one – magnolia walls, blue carpet and bedspread. Throw pillows, pointless knickknacks on the chest of drawers and bedside table. It hadn’t been slept in for some time. Daisy realised it was ages since she’d visited. Work, she always said. Reports due. Pitches. But it wasn’t a good enough excuse.

  She touched the wall gently. Was that where the yellow ducks mural had been? Her mother had painted it. That was when she’d been fat and happy, of course. When Petey was on his way. Daisy could barely remember Petey, was the truth. A blob in a cot, always crying and taking their mother’s attention away. When he’d gone she’d thought it was her fault, for not loving him enough, and she’d lain awake crying every night for weeks. Rosie would slip in beside her. ‘Shh, Daisy. Grandma said God just wanted another little angel.’

  ‘Then God is a big selfish poo!’

  Rosie had fallen silent, trying to puzzle it out for herself. ‘I know. It doesn’t really seem fair.’

  And it hadn’t been. None of this was fair.

  An enraged miaow interrupted her thoughts, and Daisy followed the smell of premium tuna to see Mopsy lurking under the bed, glaring malevolently. ‘Yes, yes. I lived here before you did, you know. I’m going now.’

  She slipped back out after the cat, closing the door behind her, just as she heard her mother’s wavering voice from the bedroom, and was momentarily shocked at how old she sounded. Like a frail old woman. ‘Daisy? I think I’ll turn in. I want to head off early tomorrow.’

  ‘OK. Night, Mum.’ Tomorrow. Day three. Crunch time for Rosie. Daisy had to find out more about her sister’s life, and fast.

  Rosie

  The ward was quiet. Rosie lay awake, dry-eyed beneath her heavy lids. She knew she must look serene to those watching, the nurses who passed every so often, industrious birds in their uniforms, with kind, efficient hands. Little did they know she was in turmoil. She’d got drunk and ruined her sister’s engagement party. Shouted at her mum. Rejected her little half-sister, who seemed like an adorable kid. Lost her friends, screwed them over – Angie, Caz. And Luke. She’d lost Luke. She knew that, deep down. He’d have come, wouldn’t he, if they were in touch. He’d be at her bedside right now, begging her to wake up.

  ‘So what’s the point?’ she said, out loud, but not out loud. ‘Is all this explaining why I wanted to kill myself? Did I walk in front of that bus on purpose, because I’d made such a mess of my life I couldn’t go on any more?’ It was a terrible thing, to not know if you’d tried to kill yourself. If it had been an accident, and you’d clung to your life with all your might as it was torn from you, like poor Darryl. Or if you’d let it go, throwing it up into the air like a captive bird.

  What happened to me? How did I lose Luke? That night on the beach, the warm waves lapping and the cocktail flooding her veins, the smell of his tanned skin, the feel of his big capable hand resting on hers. That had been real. Had that maybe been the last time she was truly happy? Had the rest of her problems stemmed from there, a slow slide down until everything was ruined?

  Rosie looked around her at the quiet, plain room. The rust stains from the water pipes which she’d already catalogued a hundred times. The switched-off TV that she wished she could turn on via mind control. The magazines her mother had left on her locker, tantalisingly out of reach. She had to try to wake up. And that meant facing everything, all the truth about what she’d done. ‘I’m ready for another memory,’ she called. ‘Grandma? Darryl? Mr M? Mel? Dot? Can someone come, please?’

  Silence. ‘Is someone going to come and visit me?’ she asked, to the empty air. Nothing. She sighed. ‘Oh come on. I’ll take any memory at all, I guess. Even though they mostly all suck.’

  ‘That’s good,’ said Melissa, appearing by the bed, her frizzy hair sticking up. ‘They mostly will all suck.’

  ‘You look tired; is it night for you too?’

  She yawned. ‘I’m a teenager, remember. I’d sleep for twenty-four hours if no one got me up.’

  ‘I used to be like that,’ Rosie said nostalgically. ‘Now I’m lucky if I get four hours.’ Insomnia had plagued her for years, that almost-hysterical feeling of lying awake in the dark, listening to shouts and traffic outside her window, so sick of being herself that any kind of oblivion seemed better. Was that enough to make her walk under a bus?

  ‘Do you remember when your sleep problems started?’ said Melissa, reading her mind again. Reminding Rosie that the girl wasn’t really there, she was just … a memory. A hallucination. Of a friend she hadn’t even thought of in years. A friend who’d died without Rosie even noticing – or had she? She couldn’t access the memories of how Melissa died.

  ‘I guess it was … not long after that drink in London. With Luke.’ She remembered the Christmas after the pub encounter, short grey days burning themselves out before Rosie staggered from bed, long nights in her mother’s cold house, staring at the orange glow of the electric streetlight outside. Her father long gone, with a new baby. Finding out Luke was getting married. But from the park memory, he’d clearly still been in her life after that. So where was he now?

  ‘Do you remember what happened between you two?’ Melissa was gentle, but firm.

  ‘No, but clearly I’m going to find out. I’m not going to like this memory much either, am I?’

  ‘Sorry, Ro-Ro,’ said Melissa, holdin
g out her ink-stained ghostly hand. ‘That’s kind of the point of all this.’

  Rosie knew now not to argue. She took her old friend’s hand and closed her eyes, opened them. The hospital was gone; the dial was spinning. 28 2 2015. Several years after the park. She closed her eyes again. It was her last chance to remember, before dawn broke and she was onto day three.

  28 February 2015 (Two years ago)

  It was a hotel room. Anonymous, clean enough, with one of those stupid tiny kettles and bars of wrapped soap no bigger than a square of chocolate. Past Rosie was on the bed, regarding herself glumly in the mirror. She was in her underwear, the same kind of stuff they’d cut off her in A&E. M&S cotton, plain and functional.

  ‘Ooh, free snacks!’ Melissa was unwrapping a packet of chocolate biscuits from near the kettle. ‘I never stayed in a hotel when I was alive, you know.’

  ‘I don’t remember this. What am I doing?’

  Past Rosie suddenly got up, making an expression of annoyance in her throat, and pulled her jeans and jumper over the underwear, fluffing out her red hair. Her face looked pale and miserable. She went over the bathroom door and knocked on it gently. ‘Are you OK?’ she said tentatively.

  The door opened a crack, letting out steam, and through it the hazy figure of a man in just a towel. ‘Not really. I feel awful. You?’

  ‘Well … no. I feel rotten too.’

  ‘Christ, Rosie. I’m so sorry. I never meant for … God. This was a terrible idea.’

  ‘Oh. I’m sorry.’

  ‘I didn’t mean …’

  There was an awkward pause. ‘I better go.’ Rosie lunged for her shoes, fumbling on her socks, which had pictures of dinosaurs on them. Not the kind of thing you’d wear for a night of passion, surely. This was clearly the awkward morning after, but after what? And why was it this awkward?

  ‘We should talk, though.’

  ‘Should we?’

  ‘I just need … God, this is all such a shock. I never expected … Give me some time?’

  Rosie was buttoning her coat all wrong, hiding her face under her hair as if she might be about to cry. ‘It’s fine. I understand. I … I’ll just go.’

  ‘Rosie!’ As she edged towards the door, the man came out of the bathroom after her. ‘Can’t we just …? Christ.’

  ‘Oh my God. It’s Luke,’ hissed Now Rosie to Melissa. And it was. The curve of his face, the width of his chest, his wet fair hair. Luke, who had been engaged to a tiny beautiful woman.

  ‘Rosie! Rosie, wait!’

  She turned briefly, her face contorted in tears. ‘I’m sorry, Luke. It’s not fair on her. For Charlie’s sake, you need to at least try.’ Then Past Rosie was gone, and Luke, dressed as he was just in a towel, clearly could not go after her. She watched her past self rush down the corridor of the cheap hotel, already in tears. Who was Charlie? Who was her, for that matter?

  ‘What’s going on?’ Rosie turned to Mel.

  ‘You know what’s going on, Ro-Ro. This is all from your head.’

  ‘Are we … together?’ Rosie’s voice faltered. If they were, why were they here in a hotel? Why were they both looking so sad? And … why did Luke have a wedding ring on his left hand?

  ‘You know the answers to all those questions,’ said Melissa helpfully, leaving spectral biscuits crumbs behind her.

  Rosie didn’t want to accept it – it couldn’t be true, could it? – but the signs were all there for her to read. She and Luke were having an affair.

  DAY THREE

  Daisy

  ‘What’ll it be today then?’ said Adam, smiling brightly despite the earliness of the hour.

  Daisy was yawning, bleary-eyed. ‘Oh, a latte please. Triple strength.’

  They’d arrived at the hospital to find Rosie comatose, unchanged. Two days had ticked by with no improvement. They’d brought back old cassette tapes of Rosie’s favourite bands, Ash and Take That and All Saints, her childhood stuffed rabbit, an old fraying poster with a very young Leonardo DiCaprio on it. All things she’d loved as a teenager, hoping to rouse some response in her brain, but it just underlined the fact they didn’t know what Rosie loved nowadays. Or who. Daisy had gone out to get the strongest coffee she could find, and while she waited, she stared again at Rosie’s locked phone, trying desperately to think what the code could be.

  ‘Problems?’ Daisy looked up to see Adam’s keen dark eyes watching her as he frothed milk. ‘You aren’t some kind of international phone thief, are you?’ he said easily.

  ‘It’s my sister’s.’ She realised that did sound strange. ‘I just think she was maybe … going through some stuff when she had her accident. That maybe she was on her way to meet someone. I want to know who that was.’ Daisy couldn’t explain why she was doing this. ‘It’s just so hard to sit and wait, you know? At least this way I can do something.’

  ‘You’ve tried all the birthdays? People usually use a really obvious one.’

  ‘Yeah. But it’s not working.’

  ‘May I?’ He set down the milk jug and took the phone from her. Daisy felt his fingers brush her hand. He was angling the phone towards the lights. ‘OK. First digit is maybe a two? Anyone’s birthday start with that?’ He laughed at her look of surprise. ‘You just look at where on the screen is most smudged. Most people never clean those finger marks off.’

  ‘Maybe you’re some kind of international phone thief.’

  ‘Nothing so exciting. I worked in Carphone Warehouse for two years before this place. You wouldn’t believe how many people forget their own phone codes. Next one is six, I think.’

  2 … 6 … Daisy frowned.

  ‘Does that mean something do you?’

  ‘Maybe. Can I …?’

  She took back the phone, careful not to touch him this time, and typed in 2, 6, 1, 2. Then blinked in astonishment as the screen cleared, revealing rows of apps. ‘It worked!’ She let that sink in. Petey’s birthday. 26 December. Rosie was using Petey’s birthday as her phone code.

  Adam took out a paper cup. ‘Dunno why most people bother with codes, to be honest. Anyone can crack ’em if they know how.’

  ‘Don’t suppose you’re any good with email passwords?’

  He laughed. ‘Those are easy. Most people have them written down on Post-its near their computers, or it’s the same one for every account they have. Anyway, you’ve got into the phone now. Doesn’t she use apps? Those are password free.’

  ‘You’re a genius. Coffee and cyber terrorism.’

  ‘I try.’ Adam flicked a tea towel over his shoulder and went back to the machine, humming over the sound of foaming milk. Daisy turned her attention to Rosie’s phone, almost afraid of what she’d find there.

  The texts were disappointing. Nothing that week except a circular from her phone company. Her browser history yielded a bit more – she’d searched for Melissa Carter, and for Mr Malcolm teacher Coombe Bridge High. Of course, he’d been on the list too. Daisy remembered him – the French and Drama teacher, a quiet and unassuming man, who shuffled about in old cardigans and blew his nose a lot. Rosie must not have known his first name. Teachers were just entities back then, and you never thought of them as being human. Daisy had dropped Drama as soon as she could but she remembered his excitement on learning she was Rosie Cooke’s sister. ‘Do you act, Daisy?’

  ‘No, sir.’

  ‘We must get you a try-out all the same. Rosie was just a wonderful performer.’ Past tense, because by that stage her sister had stopped doing school plays altogether. Why was that? Daisy had obediently tried out for Mr Malcolm, and seen his furrowed brow at her leaden, mumbling recitation of Lady Macbeth’s blood speech. She was more of a natural props handler, really. Rosie had evidently found something on Mr M, because one of the articles was an obituary on the school website for Beloved Teacher Dies. Oh, poor Mr M. Cancer. He couldn’t have been that old.

  Quickly, she checked the phone contacts, but there was no Luke. She hadn’t expected there would be. And nothing on Rosie�
�s Google search history about him either, no Facebook friends with that name, and without a surname she couldn’t get much further. He was like a ghost. How could someone who’d had so much impact on her sister’s life be unknown to those closest to her? There was also no one called Ella in the contacts or friends list or search history. No trace.

  Unless you’re not. Close to her, that is. You didn’t know any of this, did you?

  She shut down the nasty little voice in her head and moved on to the call history of the phone, not expecting to find much there. Nobody of their generation actually rang people, except their parents. No calls at all for the past few days, then a flurry on the day of the accident itself. Rosie ringing Caz and Angie, probably. Then another, at 6.45 a.m. Daisy stared down at it, recognising her own phone number.

  Why would Rosie be up that early? Daisy tried to think. She hadn’t seen a missed call from her sister that day, definitely not. She would have noticed it. Why, then? Where had she been at that time? In the shower, most likely. Staying under for an extra minute before she had to drag herself out and face the crushing terror of Maura.

  ‘Here you go, triple latte. I make them with a dash of coconut milk, let me know what you think.’ Adam was holding out her coffee.

  ‘Thanks. Um … can I ask you another quick phone question? If you find a missed call in your call list, but it never showed up on your screen, why would that be?’

  His forehead puckered as he considered it. ‘Someone must have seen the call come in and rejected it, I guess. That’s the only explanation. Even if it got pocket-answered it would show up unless you manually hid it. Not you, then?’

  Daisy’s mind turned to two mornings ago. Herself in the shower. Gary in the bedroom knotting his tie. Her phone on the bedside table. ‘No,’ she said. ‘Not me at all.’

  Rosie

  ‘Grandma? Is that you?’

  ‘Yes, love. I’m here.’ It was morning, after a long, dark, lonely night. The grey dawn came in her high windows. Day three. Hadn’t they said they’d have to make hard decisions if she hadn’t woken up by then? That if she didn’t come back to herself today, the chances she ever would weren’t good? They’d talked about feeding tubes, tracheotomies. Moving her to long-term care. The thought of it sent fear sloshing through Rosie, all the way up from her numb feet. She had to try to wake up. The sound of gently clacking knitting needles reached her ears, comforting her somewhat.