by S. E. Lynes
Wiggle your toes, Rosie. It’s my dad’s voice. It’s my daddy’s toes!
I’m giggling. It’s my toes! My toes are next to his!
My dad bends all his toes except his big toe, which sticks up from his foot. Look at my toe, Rosie. Look at it. What does it look like to you?
A toe, silly. My tiny little voice is so cute. Happiness warms my guts like spices.
No, not a toe. That’s no toe, young lady. That, my little fox, is a spaceman.
Silly Daddy!
The memory dissolves. I pick up the phone again and read the caption:
Show me yours?
My heart kind of blows up. I think it will jump into my throat and right out of my mouth. I sit on the edge of the bed and try and figure out which foot is the best. Neither – they’re both bluey-white and gross. I run and grab the nail scissors from the bathroom and trim my toenails. I run back into the bathroom and grab your bag of nail varnishes from the cabinet. I tell myself it’s OK to take them because I always paint your toenails for you so you kind of owe me. I choose bright red, like Lego bricks. Oh my God, you will so kill me if you see I’ve painted my toenails. With your nail varnish.
I paint my right foot, thinking I can do the other one later, once I’ve taken the photo. The varnish smudges, so I run my fingernail along the nail’s edge to neaten it. There is nail varnish all over my thumb now, bright as fresh blood. It looks like I’ve cut myself, but it doesn’t matter because my toe looks proper dank and that’s all that matters. I wish I had a toe ring or something cool like that, but I don’t. It’s twenty past midnight. I’m gonna be so wrecked. The toe will have to do.
It takes less than a second to take the photo. I play around with the filters, decide on no filter, up the brightness. Attach.
Here is my toe, LOL. Blushing-grinning emoji.
Send.
Waiting for him to reply is torture. I paint the other foot. Hopefully he’ll think I have my toes painted all the time, just for, like, hanging at home. I’ll have to hide my feet from you for defs. After ten minutes – ten years, more like – he replies.
Your toe is very sexy. I’m going to call u Sexy Lady from now on. Goodnight, Sexy Lady.
Sexy Lady? Me? O to the M to the G.
Twenty-Nine
Toni
The girl in the opposite bed keeps trying to chat, Rosie. She’s friendly but with an edge, do you know what I mean? I just get the sense she could flare up at any moment, that she’s someone you keep at arm’s length. But she’s had no visitors this evening, poor thing. I wish someone would come for her. Where is her mum? Her dad? She is terribly thin, and she has bandages on her arms. I didn’t ask what she was in for. I can guess, obviously, but I don’t want to know.
Not for me to make diagnoses anyway, is it? The doctor diagnosed you. You were intubated, and they gave you flumazenil. I would have done the same. I could have told him what to do, but I didn’t. It’s not my place to diagnose or to prescribe. I’m only a nurse.
Was a nurse, should say.
I wish Richard was here. He’d cheer me up. I could do with some gallows humour right now, like the other day, when he called me over to his desk.
‘Toni, come and look at this.’ He was already giggling by the time I got there. ‘What do you reckon the scenario was here? Think he slipped at a wine tasting?’
On the screen was an X-ray of a pelvis. Male. And clearly lodged in the back passage, neck end up, was what looked like a wine bottle. ‘Whoops,’ I said. ‘No more Pinot Grigio for you, sir.’
We were both giggling, which we absolutely should not have been.
‘Now if you ask me,’ said Richard, eyes glittering, ‘that’s gonna create one hell of a vacuum on the way out. I mean, he could lose his lungs.’
‘I just hope his teeth are his own.’
We see strange X-rays all the time, but ones like this never get less funny. They make up for the bad news: the nightmare bloods, the harrowing CT scans, the obvious domestic abuse, the kids’ medical notes that would make a grown man weep. It’s part of the job. And of course having a window on all of that is fascinating. The human body and its weaknesses: the diseases, the conditions, the injuries, the breaks, the malformations and, as in this particular case, the foreign bodies. I never get bored of all the things that can go wrong with a human being and all the ways we as a species have found to put them right. When we can. We can’t always put everything right, as you and I know.
Richard knew I was worried that day too. This was the morning after you’d got sick for your second audition, so I suppose he was trying to cheer me up. But the moment the laughter died down, I was back to thinking about you, at home, under your duvet. I’d put your Jellycat rabbit in with you for company. Funny, no one would have done that for me, growing up. My mum was at work or out with her latest skanky boyfriend, my grandparents were too old and my dad was nowhere. Kids thrive on neglect, sure. But there’s a limit.
Richard was looking at me with concern. ‘You worried about your Rosie?’
‘I’m fine,’ I said. ‘Actually, I was thinking I need to stop worrying all the time. At her age, I was up to all sorts.’
I’ve never told Richard about Uncle Eric. I’ve never told anyone apart from your auntie Bridge and you – bits and pieces for you, of course, what I thought you could cope with. I’ve never told Richard about my teenage years. Or my early twenties for that matter. At your age, I was what I’d call wild. If you’d known me at school – not that I was there much – perhaps you’d have called me a slut, a slag or whatever the term is now. Auntie Bridge blew Eric’s cover when I was fourteen. He left soon after. I’ve never told you this, and I don’t know if I will when you wake up, but I was thirteen when he took my virginity. A child. If he was alive, he’d be on the sex offenders register. Or in jail. Possibly. I told you he’d gone to a psychiatric hospital. Your auntie Bridget and I decided we had to say something in case his name came up. You see, our mum never told us Dad had left her, can you believe that? She said he was working away. Then when we moved in with Granny Casement, into the house in Hounslow, she didn’t tell us it was because she was so broke we’d have been on the street otherwise. But we knew all the same, your auntie Bridge and me.
Kids know. They know when adults are lying to them or not telling them things. It’s a form of gaslighting, however kindly meant. Kids know when their parents don’t get on, if their father or mother is having an affair, if their dad has buggered off and left them to fend for themselves, if a close relative is dying or sick. Hard as these things are to say, you have to give kids something that makes sense of their feelings, otherwise they exist in a state of fear and confusion.
So I told you that your great-uncle Eric was a bad man and that he’d interfered with me when I was young. There was no need for any more details, and when I told you I was not OK for a long time but that I was OK now, I meant it. I am. In that sense. And any traces of emotional scarring were removed by your lovely dad. But I put myself in a lot of danger growing up, Rosie. I’ve had three terminations. I sometimes wonder if that’s why I had difficulty conceiving again after you. I don’t know if I’ll ever tell you any of this, but I like to think that I will, some day. I’d like you to get to know me, for us to get to know one another, in all our flawed completeness, if not as friends then at least as grown-ups – as women. But yes, I was chaos, a void that could not be filled. Sometimes I envy your auntie Bridge, who has never slept with a man, even though she tells me life is no simpler for her.
I’ve kept too tight a rein on you, my love. I know that’s why we’re here. I accept that. I can’t rewrite my history. I can’t wash away the stains, and I realise I can’t use your life to do it either. Your life is yours. I need to try and love you exactly as you are. That’s what love is. Stan, your dad, understood that. He knew everything about me, saw my limitations and loved me anyway, and every day it occurs to me as if for the first time that there is no greater gift one person can give to a
nother. Love is everything. It is all there is.
But I ran riot, Rosie. For years.
And there was no one, no one to stop me.
‘I got up to all kinds,’ Richard was saying. ‘Used to hang out down by the railway tracks, high as a kite, or pissed on cheap vodka. Never had to be home, never had a phone, and all the phone boxes were smashed up back then, weren’t they?’
‘So you were a tearaway like me then?’
‘Oh God, yeah, babe. My mum never had a clue where I was. Never had a clue where my dad was either, come to that. I remember once I shacked up with some guy and didn’t go home for a week. No one said a bloody word.’
I love Richard’s honesty. We need more honesty in this life, don’t we, my love? It makes everyone feel so much better. Less alone.
‘But do you think kids are any safer now?’ I said. ‘With all these checks, all this technology and helicopter parenting?’
He shook his head. ‘I don’t think so, babe.’
I remember I ate lunch at my desk that day so I could knock off early and get back to you. I was all right, I think. I was working calmly, until Richard came back from the coffee machine having nicked the Richmond and Twickenham Times from the waiting room.
‘Oh God,’ he sighed. ‘Have you seen this?’
And I don’t know why, but my heart started pounding the moment the words left his mouth. Something had happened to you. You’d been in an accident, you’d been harmed, someone had broken into the flat… Like I say, we think we’re OK, we think: I’ve survived, I’ve got stronger, I’m all right. But the truth is, the smallest thing can send us into panic, and in those moments we know, deep down, that we’re not all right – we’re not all right at all.
‘Girl gone missing in Putney,’ Richard was saying, his pale blue eyes flicking left to right across the page. ‘Not been seen since the day before yesterday.’ He handed the paper over to me.
‘Oh no,’ I said. I already felt weird, even as I took the newspaper from him. Ethereal, like I was no longer tethered to the earth. I knew it wasn’t you, of course I did, but the twists and turns in my guts, the metallic taste in my mouth, the accelerating beat of my heart… those things came to me as if it was.
I read the article. A fifteen-year-old girl. Cosima Wright. She was meant to be meeting her mother in a café after school prior to going to tennis club. Witnesses saw her in the café but no one saw her leave. She was gone by the time her mother arrived. Never seen again. Just like that. There was a picture of her in her tennis kit: brown hair, pale skin, pretty but nothing special. She was shy apparently. A studious girl who kept herself to herself. The police were asking for anyone who had any information or who might know where she was to come forward.
‘Richard,’ I said. ‘I’ve got to go home.’
* * *
I texted you from the car:
U OK, baby girl?
No reply. Bloody kids, I thought. All this technology, and making contact’s like trying to get an audience with the bloody Pope.
I drove home too fast, jumped an amber-to-red on Twickenham Road. I parked out front, but I was so flustered it took me ages to get out of the car. No one answered the door, and I spent another few minutes trying to find my key. It was where it always is, in the side pocket of my bag, but I hadn’t been able to see it for stress. I unlocked the door and raced through the flat, pushing open your bedroom door as I passed.
‘Rosie? Rosie love?’
You weren’t in your room. I dashed through to the kitchen, heart banging in my chest. The back door was locked. Grateful to have the keys still in my hand, I unlocked it and went as fast as I could up the garden path to the gate.
‘Rosie! Rosie!’ My heart was in my throat. I opened the gate and headed for the car park. ‘Rosie!’
A red Mini. Emily’s red Mini. You were just getting in.
‘Rosie!’ I called out. ‘Thank God.’
‘Mum?’
Emily got out of the driver’s side and waved to me over the bonnet. ‘Toni! I was just taking Rosie for a cuppa. Would you like to come?’
‘I…’ My hand was flat to my chest. I couldn’t talk. I was still panting like I’d run a mile.
‘Mum? What’s the matter?’ You ran over to me. ‘I was only going for a cup of tea. I feel better.’
‘I didn’t know where you were.’ My voice shook. I hated that I couldn’t stop it, knew it would irritate you.
Sure enough, a change in the air.
‘Mum, I’m fifteen. I was feeling better and Emily texted to see if I fancied meeting up. We were going to talk strategy. It’s three o’clock in the afternoon. It’s broad daylight.’
‘I know. It’s just… Did you see the paper?’ A silly question. You never read the paper. You never watch the news. We could be in the middle of World War III and you’d still be laughing at those photos with the captions or watching kittens chase after balls of wool.
‘What paper? What are you going on about?’
‘There’s a girl gone missing in Putney. Yesterday.’
‘Oh, for fuck’s sake,’ you whispered. But I heard you.
‘Don’t swear at me! In fact, don’t swear at all!’
‘I’m not. But really? Really, Mum?’
‘And don’t take that tone. You didn’t answer my text. Can’t you see I’m upset?’ I made myself look at you and met your gaze. There was something in your eyes, a hardness, that was new.
‘Mum.’ You slid your phone from the back pocket of your skinny jeans. ‘I’ve just got your text now, OK? Just chill, will you?’
My God, is there anything more annoying than being told to chill by a child? I’ll answer that for you, Rosie. There is not. Not even being talked down to by shop assistants and baristas, patronised by patients. Just chill. As if I’ve forgotten to relax.
But I said nothing. I’d gone from panic to embarrassment… to wanting to slap you in the face.
‘Mum, we’ll be at Harris and Hoole on the high street and I’ve got my mobile, OK?’
‘OK,’ I said through gritted teeth. ‘All right.’
In the kitchen, I listened as Emily’s car pulled away. The silence had barely returned when I burst into tears.
Thirty
It always happened on bath night. Sunday night. The night when parents got their kids clean and ready for the week. Money was tight. There wasn’t the budget for gallons of hot water every day, and of course we had to share the water. It got so I would dread the sound of the taps running thunderously into the tub. Even now the smell of lavender has the power to make me sick. I wanted to tell my mummy. But I was scared of him, of the hissing sound he made when he was angry, the pulling of his fingers, crack crack crack. It was easier to let him.
He started to bring the magazines into my room with him. He would put on my night light and make me look at the pictures. I could not turn away from them. When I did, he would grip my chin in his hand and pull my head back around.
‘What about that one? Shall we try it? Would you like to?’
I would nod. I had to pretend like it was something I wanted to do too. For him, it was a game. I could not speak. I watched the gap in the curtains, the moon and the stars. When I could. It was not always possible – I could not always see. In my head, I spoke. In my head, I survived. In my head, I became other people; I lived other lives.
Thirty-One
Rosie
Mum? Mummy? Are you there? Emily? I’m not underwater. Not really. I am dry… soft… softness below me… cleanness… crispness. Beep beep…
Smell of coffee… clank of the coffee machine, roar of milk on the steam jet. A man’s voice shouts, One large skinny latte, one regular cappuccino for Emily.
Emily. Light flashes like cream on the lenses of her glasses. So what’s this getting-sick business all about?
Emily. She’s opposite me. We’re in the coffee bar. Her cheeks are like Pink Lady apples.
I know when this is!
Mummy? Mum?
Hold on, Mum! I am… OK, this is in the café with Emily. This is after you went mental at me in the car park. That is when this is. That was so embarrassing, Mum. Oh my God, you were being proper mental.
But I was mean to you in front of Emily. You were stressed, and I made you look stupid. I’m sorry. But that’s not what I’m really sorry about. There’s something else, something bigger, like a fist in my gut, but every time I think I remember, it disappears… What is it?
Do you think you can tell me? Emily’s voice is soft and near. Her face. Light flashing on her glasses. She is not chuckling. We are in the café. She is not saying silly moo or any of her batshit stuff. She is like Auntie Bridge – when she’s serious, she’s very serious. I am drinking cappuccino, which is coffee. OK, so it has cocoa on the top, but it is not a halfway house; it is a proper grown-up drink. I have put three sachets of sugar in it.
Tell you what? That’s my voice. I hear it inside my head; see myself say it there in my memory.
Emily lays her soft, dry hand over mine and pats it once, twice, before taking it away. Whatever you want, my darling. But I’m wondering about this nervous-tummy thing. That’s twice now, isn’t it? I’m wondering how I can help or if we can stop it before it becomes a real problem. She smiles. She blows on her coffee, but she doesn’t drink any. She’s on a diet, that’s why she’s having a skinny latte. I suppose I wondered if perhaps you’d like to talk about it. God forbid, I would never want you to say anything you didn’t want to. Of course it goes without saying that this would be in the strictest confidence. Do you think you can talk about it?
She blinks. Her face is kind.
I… I say. Sometimes I get nervous.
She gives a slow nod. On her neck, the skin crinkles. Her hair is kind of white at the front, dark grey at the back, and her cheeks droop at either side of her chin. I don’t want to look like her when I’m older. I want to look like Auntie Bridge. Auntie Bridge’s hair is spiky. My tattoo will be theatre masks on my wrist. I stare down at my hands, flat and pale on the table, the nails bitten, patches of black nail varnish. I need to clean that off – it looks rank. You need nice hands to be an actress. You need to look after yourself.
