The Lives We Touch

by Eva Woods

  Daisy followed his gaze to the machines pumping Rosie’s heart and blood and lungs. ‘Who can say, Dad? I don’t think it’s any one person’s fault. Rosie is just … well, Rosie. She always was.’

  ‘But everything that happened with …’

  Daisy couldn’t bear to talk about it. Not now, the fight with Gary still fresh on her skin, the panic dissolving her bones. What have I done? ‘Dad, come on, we have to stay positive. We have to talk to her, like the doctors said.’

  ‘Right.’ But they both stayed where they were, silent. ‘She rang me,’ her father said, so quietly Daisy almost missed it.

  ‘Sorry?’

  ‘On the day it … the day. She rang my mobile. She never rings me. Not even birthdays or Christmas. Can’t remember the last time.’

  Daisy’s heart began to hammer in her chest. ‘What did she say?’

  ‘I didn’t answer. It was early, and you know how it is, getting Scarlett into her uniform and some breakfast down her, stopping to answer a hundred questions about how do fish breathe and do they think air is wet … and, well. The last few times I spoke to your sister she called me some terrible names. I – I couldn’t face it. I’d have rung her back later. Probably.’

  ‘She called me too,’ Daisy heard herself say. ‘I didn’t pick up either. I – well, it doesn’t matter, but I missed the call.’

  ‘Oh.’ Her father’s brow knitted together. ‘She ring you often?’

  ‘Nope. And not at seven in the morning. I … we had a falling-out, at the engagement party.’ She felt a sweep of embarrassment, recalling that she hadn’t even invited her father. Her own dad.

  He didn’t seem to care about that. ‘So if she rang you, and she rang me, and neither of us answered …’

  And then an hour later she was stepping into the path of a bus, her phone with its unanswered calls held in her outstretched hand. Daisy swallowed. ‘Dad …’

  His fists tightened convulsively. ‘What have I done? Is it my fault she …? Oh Christ.’

  Daisy wanted to say of course not, it didn’t mean anything that Rosie had chosen the day of the accident to finally contact her family and friends after months – years, in her father’s case. It was pure coincidence that later that same day she’d almost died. That she’d made a list of names, all so far people she needed to say sorry to. That could all be explained away. None of it meant for sure Rosie was trying to kill herself. But Daisy found that she could not say anything over the large shard of fear that had lodged itself in her throat.

  Suddenly, Rosie made a sound. Not a good, positive, might-be-waking-up sound. A sound like she couldn’t breathe, like she was screaming inside a vacuum and hardly any noise was coming out. Like the squeal of brakes and the cry of a child in pain and a hundred terrible noises all mixed up in one. Her father turned almost as pale as Rosie, whose lips were now tinged with blue. ‘What’s happening? Rosie, love, what’s wrong?’

  Daisy was already running for the door. ‘Can someone come now, please! My sister can’t breathe!’

  Rosie

  ‘It’s OK. You’re OK. I’m with you, Ro-Ro. Try to breathe.’ Mel was there.

  Doctors. Doing something near her throat. The feeling of choking, of drowning inside her own body. ‘What’s … happening?’ She knew she had not spoken out loud, that they could not hear her, that she could only speak to this ghost or hallucination or whatever, who was not even really there.

  ‘What’s happening?’ she croaked.

  ‘You’re not getting enough oxygen. They said something about more bleeding in your brain.’

  She tried to hear what they were saying, the two young doctors who held her life in their hands, but could not. The real world was nothing but blur and buzz and static, while her memories were so real she could not escape them. Through the glass doorway she could see her sister, her father, noticing how old he’d got. She hadn’t seen him in over a year. Her dad who used to fix her bike and put plasters on her knee and do silly impressions of Zippy from Rainbow. She’d loved him, once. She still did. But maybe she would never get to tell him that.

  A vague sense of urgent feet, of voices talking fast. ‘Are they worried about me?’ said Rosie, alarmed. ‘Am I in a bad way?’

  ‘You’re slipping away, Ro-Ro. Come on, you have to try and wake up.’

  ‘But I can’t … I can’t!’ By her side, Dr Posh Spice was slipping a syringe into her IV. A warmth was spreading through her body, a fake chemical peace. Rosie tried to fight it, to stay in the world, but it was no use. All she knew was she had to try to remember everything. All the bad memories. All the reasons she had ended up here, in this hospital bed. She would never truly be ready for that, but there was no choice, and so she went.

  21 August 2005 (Twelve years ago)

  ‘Keep them closed!’

  ‘OK, OK, I’m not peeking.’ Past Rosie, giggling with excitement and nerves, with Luke’s big hand over her eyes. She wore frayed denim shorts and a pink vest that clashed with the sunburn on her shoulders, and her hair was twisted up in braids to hold it off her neck. She remembered that moment so clearly – the roughness of his palm, the smell of cinnamon and the Origins mint shower gel he used, his breath hitting the back of her neck, damp with the heat of the marketplace. They were in Marrakesh, in the souk, the kind of place your eyes didn’t know where to settle because everything you looked at was so beautiful and interesting: woven rugs, bright rainbow glass, copper wind chimes, carved wooden chess sets, and everywhere sacks of fragrant spices. Luke was holding her hand, and gently plunging it into a large bag of something brown and knobbly. Now Rosie, watching like a ghost from the dark, almost gasped as the sensory memory came back to her. The rough sacking, her fingers brushing against the spice … ‘Cloves,’ her past self said. ‘Definitely cloves.’

  ‘Not fair. That was an easy one.’ Luke took his hand away.

  ‘Your turn.’ She was tall, but still had to reach up to put her own small hand, traces of picked-off red polish on the nails, over his eyes. Feeling the flicker of his eyelids under her palm, taking his hand and guiding it to another sack. He bent, sniffing.

  ‘Is it saffron?’

  ‘Very good. Did you know it’s more valuable than gold, pound for pound?’

  ‘So why do we bother buying gold jewellery, then? It’d mean more to propose with a ring of saffron strands, surely.’ Luke had said it idly, leaning over a bag of cinnamon sticks, but Rosie’s heart had begun to pound. It was a miracle she hadn’t passed out during that month with him: the heat, the constantly held breath every time their hands brushed. The confusion and excitement and drama of it all. Nothing had happened, of course – she was still with Jack, even though, most days, he and Ingrid wanted to go clubbing till three, then sit by the pool and drink recovery vodkas, while she and Luke wanted to sightsee. They walked, and ate in cafés, and talked and talked and talked, her words tripping out of her mouth in her impatience to tell him things about her, find out things about him. It was so strange to remember all the times she’d sat with her mother over the dinner table, and been unable to summon up a single word to break the silence between them. She hardly felt like the same person at all.

  But nothing had happened with Luke. It couldn’t. She’d been mired in doubt. Maybe he didn’t like her that way. Maybe it would all end soon. What if Luke headed off to volunteer, as he’d planned, and she had to spend the rest of her life with Jack?

  Melissa said, ‘Pay attention, Ro-Ro.’

  Her past self went to tuck her arm through Luke’s – a friendly gesture, or what could be excused as one at least – but he pulled away. Luke was looking at her directly now, standing in the aisle of the bazaar, glaringly British with his sunburned nose and sensible trainers and khaki shorts, a smattering of gold hairs on his forearms. ‘What?’ she said nervously.

  ‘Rosie, I … You’re supposed to go home from here, right?’

  ‘Yeah.’ The flights had been booked months ago, before she’d even met Luke. />
  ‘And … after that, you’ll be in London? With Jack?’

  ‘I guess so. That’s the plan, anyway. Find a job or … something.’ Her voice sounded deeply unconvinced. Rosie wanted to scream at her past self. This was her chance. This was Luke opening himself up to her, trying to tell her something, and she just wasn’t hearing it. ‘Why?’

  ‘I just …’ He scuffed his trainers along the dusty ground of the market. ‘I think you should do what makes you happy. Not what Jack wants, or what your parents want. If you want to be an actress, do it.’

  ‘It’s not as simple as—’

  ‘But it is, Rosie. It is as simple as that.’ He was looking at her so earnestly, this twenty-something boy, hardly grown out of his teenage lankiness. If only she’d been different, and braver, and known how to hear what he was saying, they might have been together all this time. Twelve years with Luke. The loss of it almost made her gasp. ‘Life is so short. You’re so young. Just … do what makes you happy, OK?’

  Past Rosie was staring at her feet too now, at the chipped polish on her toes, which she’d applied weeks ago. Before she knew Luke existed. And now everything was different. ‘What are you saying?’ Her voice was barely audible over the sounds of the market.

  ‘You know what. I just … It’s time to make a decision. This …’ He gestured awkwardly at the space between them. ‘It’s going to end. You’re going home. I’m going to volunteer. Is that what you really want? I mean, Jack’s a good guy, but is he for you?’

  ‘I …’ A long silence between them. Say something. Tell him you feel it too. But Past Rosie said nothing, and the moment had gone on a fraction too long. It was too late. ‘Luke, I don’t know. I …’

  He stepped back, a blank, hurt look coming over his eyes. ‘Right. I see.’

  ‘I didn’t mean …’

  ‘I’m going back to the hostel,’ he said, turning away. ‘Are you coming?’

  ‘You don’t want tea and baklava?’ Rosie loved it, the mint tea in the ornate cups, just the right amount of bitter cutting through the cloying sweetness of nuts and honey.

  ‘No. Not today.’ And he walked off, leaving her in the souk among all that colour and noise and smell.

  Rosie’s current self said, ‘I let him go, didn’t I? And he married someone else.’ She’d lost him. But then why were they having an affair ten years later? Why couldn’t she remember? The truth was, Rosie knew, that she did remember. It was all in there, and she could access it if she tried hard enough. She just didn’t want to. For a moment longer, she wanted to leave them as they were, young and happy, with the possibility of being together still alive. She sighed. ‘I wanted to keep them. The nice memories of us.’

  ‘The trouble with nice memories is they have to end sometime. No one can be happy always. Every day of your life, something will have been good and something bad. So. Shall we go?’ Melissa dragged her on, efficient, and the bustling bazaar faded and she opened her eyes again on another scene. The same day, she knew. The dingy staircase of the youth hostel they were staying in, Arabic music blaring from the TV downstairs at the reception desk, a smell of incense and old tobacco smoke in the air. The halls echoing with slapping sandals and high youthful voices. It was evening, growing cool and fragrant. The call to prayer from the mosque had gone up, and Rosie had showered and changed into a long patterned dress. At this time, she would usually join her fellow travellers on the roof to drink beers, and later still fan out in search of grilled meat, and flatbread, and dancing, and maybe she would find more time to sit with Luke and talk to him, while the others got drunk. But not tonight. They had to sort things out, and Rosie had decided, while washing her hair in the gross communal showers, that she was going to take his advice. Because it was that simple, of course it was. She was twenty-one. Of course she could break up with Jack and carry on travelling with Luke rather than going home and working in some dingy office. She could do anything she wanted.

  ‘But that’s not what happened,’ said Mel’s voice. ‘Is it?’

  A nasty feeling was working its way up Rosie’s legs. Not that these were her real legs; those were flopped on a hospital bed a thousand miles and twelve years from this moment. She knew what happened next. And she also knew one thing: it had been entirely her own fault.

  The rooftop of their hostel. The warm night air, the bulk of the mosque just streets away, the city skyline and the birds that circled endlessly. The high keening of the call to prayer and the smell of incense. Her memories of Morocco came down to this: honey and nuts and olives for breakfast, music seeping out of taxi radios, a dry circling heat, and Luke. Luke beside her, walking down the hot bright streets. He was there, him and Ingrid, sitting on cushions around a low metal table, intricately carved. They were in a group of young people, Irish, Australian, French, Israeli … Rosie could not remember any of their names. They were just people she’d spent one night drinking with, never to be seen again. Likely they were now back in their own countries, living their lives, perhaps married with kids, and if she died in her hospital bed, they would never even know or care. So many lives she had streamed through without touching.

  Past Rosie was walking towards the group, a resolute expression on her face. At the same time, Jack was approaching from the bar, a beer in his hand, his face red with the heat. The four of them, her and Jack, and Ingrid and Luke, sitting so close together, converged like the points of a triangle. And as Rosie and Jack watched, Ingrid suddenly put her arms around Luke’s neck and kissed him.

  Her best friend. Her boyfriend. And the boy that, really, she actually loved. Why else would she feel like someone had punched her in the stomach? But she had no right to be upset. Ingrid was single, Luke was single. Rosie was not single.

  As Past Rosie looked up, she saw Jack standing beside her. And he was also staring at Luke and Ingrid, and he looked just like she felt – gutted. And suddenly it all made sense, and she turned and ran.

  Jack caught up with her in the stairwell, which smelled of feet and cheap deodorant. ‘Rosie!’

  She turned, tears in her eyes. ‘It’s over, Jack. Isn’t it? Why do we keep pretending?’

  ‘What? I’m not pretending!’

  ‘Oh, come on. I saw the way you looked at them. It’s her you want. And you and me, it’s not been good for months now, has it? Oh God, I’m sorry, Jack. I just …’ Rosie watched her past self grope for the words, to try to explain that she just didn’t love him. That she was only twenty-one and there had to be more to life than sitting bored while he talked about skiing while coked off his head, or listening to him play maudlin songs on his acoustic guitar about the burden of having a trust fund. That she’d even heard sex might be something fun and exciting, rather than a chore she’d rather put off in favour of a hot bath and good book. ‘I just … we’re not happy, are we?’

  ‘I’m happy,’ he said unconvincingly.

  ‘But we don’t make each other laugh, or have fun together, or even get on that well.’

  ‘Life’s not about having fun, Rosie. You need to grow up a bit. I’ll be starting at Goldman Sachs next year, it’s a big responsibility. And we have plans – we’ve already got the lease on the Clapham flat. We can’t just break up now!’

  ‘But I’m only twenty-one! And I want to have fun, and try new things, not just get an office job and move to Clapham.’

  ‘Yeah, well, it’s dangerous to have no life plan. What do you want, to end up unemployed and alone in some studio flat?’

  ‘I do have a plan.’

  ‘Acting’s not a real job, Rosie. Why don’t you temp or do a law conversion course or something?’

  ‘I’m sorry,’ said Past Rosie miserably to Jack, ‘I just want more. More than this. And you … I think you want more too. Don’t you? I really think it’ll be best for both of us. I’m going home tomorrow. Alone.’ She risked: ‘You and Ingrid need to talk.’

  He stared at her. ‘You really are impossible, Rosie.’

  Then Jack was marchin
g away, back to join the group, and Past Rosie was wrapping her arms round herself, tears in her eyes.

  ‘Well,’ said Now Rosie. ‘He wasn’t wrong. I am all alone and unemployed in some studio flat. Is my memory trying to tell me I should have stayed with Jack, become a lawyer, got really good at skiing?’

  ‘Just keep watching,’ said Melissa, agog. ‘Honestly, this is better than Hollyoaks.’

  Because now Luke was there. ‘Hey. Are you OK? I saw Jack come storming out.’

  Past Rosie stared at the dirty floor of the staircase, making her voice cold. ‘Fine. None of your business.’

  Luke’s face creased in confusion. ‘Did I do something?’

  ‘Other than stick your tongue down my friend’s throat?’

  Confusion was briefly replaced by annoyance. ‘She kissed me. It’s not … Anyway, Ingrid and I are both single, Rosie. And you’re not. Remember?’

  ‘I am now.’

  ‘Oh. Right. I’m … I’m sorry.’ They looked at each other, and for a moment in that dirty stairwell, the future stretched ahead of them. The silence between them. The place it had felt too dangerous to go to, maybe because their emotions might overwhelm them. If only she’d been brave enough to say, Hey, Luke, I’m in love with you, and I should have broken up with Jack months ago, but I’m a coward. But what if he didn’t feel the same? What if he preferred blonde, confident Ingrid to gawky red-headed Rosie? Ingrid, whose pretty face he’d just been sucking?

  She hadn’t been brave. Instead, she’d said, ‘I’m going home tomorrow.’

  ‘What?’

  ‘I … it’s time I grew up and settled down. So no more travelling for me. Back to my crappy old life.’

  ‘I … Jesus, Rosie. Let’s talk about this or something or …’ If she’d let him carry on speaking, she could see it now, they could have gone on together. Been a couple. Seen the world.

  But Past Rosie had shut down. Put her armour on. Easier than letting herself get hurt. ‘I’m fine, Luke. You carry on with your plans.’