The Fallout

by Rebecca Thornton

  All happy here, don’t hurry. Thinking of you. Her friend is offline. She scrolls down to Ella’s WhatsApp. Online. Her heart thuds. Should she? It’s a better option than going to The Vale Club. Yes. Why not? After all, they are tied now. Bound together in complicity.

  Ella. Just wanted to check in. Wondered what you were doing today? Whether you wanted to meet up. Her hand hovers over the keyboard. Should she add something extra? Something about yesterday? No. Don’t be foolish, she thinks. She stands and stares at her phone, waiting for the message to be read. Two blue ticks appear on the screen.

  ‘Mummy,’ shouts Casper. ‘Mummy change the channel.’

  ‘Wait, darling,’ she shouts, shaking her handset in the hope it might elicit some sort of response from Ms Bradby. Her teeth clamp together. Nothing. But then she has an idea.

  Or – just thinking. Don’t suppose you’d like to come with me to do a shop for Liza? It isn’t that she wants to deliberately trap Ella into replying. But she had planned to buy stuff for when Liza and Jack got home.

  Can’t today, comes the reply. Got plans, but I’ve sorted something for Liza. Perhaps we could meet up tomorrow. Sorted something for Liza? What on earth does she mean by that? And there she is, dangling herself so self-importantly in front of her. Tomorrow indeed. Sarah’s had enough, the weight of disappointment nearly crushing her bones. She resolves to put this all to the back of her mind. And with that, she claps her hands together and gets to work.

  Firstly, she changes into her best jeans. The ones that she has to squeeze closed but that look good with the right jumper. She’s going to get Ella out of her mind. Go shopping for Liza. Get Tom to agree to let them stay and, in the meantime, she’ll think about the Christmas fair. She’ll boss it with both Casper and Thea. There’ll be no screaming tantrums in the supermarket. She’ll be a fully present and loving mum towards her son. No raised voices. Empathy. Compassion. Kindness.

  She feels her blood pressure rising.

  ‘Right, Casper darling. Telly off.’ She looks at her watch.

  ‘Five more minutes,’ comes the wail.

  ‘No,’ she says. ‘Listen, darling, I thought since we’ve got Thea, we’ll go to Sainsbury’s. Have a really fun trip there. You can steer the trolley? Be like Captain … America, is it?’

  ‘Nooooooo Mummy. Noooo. I want telly.’

  She inhales. Kindness and calm.

  ‘No. We’re going to Sainsbury’s. Like I just said. And please. You’ll wake Thea.’

  His voice starts to rise, his legs thumping into the sofa.

  ‘Fine,’ she snaps. ‘Just turn off the telly. I’ll buy you a toy if you come with me now.’ She regrets the words as soon as they’re out of her mouth; she’s already gone way over budget this month and she had to teach Casper to do what he was told without a bribe. But with a tiny zing of relief, she watches as he leaps up off the sofa.

  After she’s been to Sainsbury’s (thankfully, Thea had remained asleep) and thrown anything and everything sugary that Casper wanted into the bottom of the pram, just to shut him up, she decides to go straight to Liza’s.

  She always has her spare key which Liza had handed to her when she and Gav had separated. She’ll open up, organise everything in the fridge, put the fish pie she’s bought into a Le Creuset and trim and arrange the bunch of purple lilies she’s bought in preparation for their homecoming.

  Casper can hang out in the playroom and she’ll feed Thea and pray she lies there quietly whilst she gets everything done. This will be the start of everything, she tells herself. The start of making it up to Liza. She’ll need a morning or two to sort out the flat if she and the kids are to move in. But that’s OK. She’ll make up the beds, check everything is in order. She’d started doing it last week, after all, when they’d planned for Airbnb renters. And then she’ll get Tom to come round. He would soon enough. They’ve had such a difficult time this last year. It would be a chance to start afresh.

  ‘Casper? Go to Jack’s playroom when we get in. And don’t start pulling everything out.’ She pulls out her key and struggles inside with the pram. ‘Thea, I’m coming. Time for food.’

  She’s always been envious of Liza’s house. The sleek, marble open-plan kitchen. The black barstool and the big island with the copper drop lighting. It even has three holes in it in which you can drop different types of rubbish. There is also the abundance of unlit Jo Malone and other smart looking candles (Liza thinks it a dreadful waste to ever use them), soft, fluffy cushions and sharp lines that draw the eye to the end of the house. But today, without Liza, it feels cold. Today Sarah sees it for what it is – which is a place totally at odds with her friend’s laid-back, slightly chaotic, down-to-earth character. It’s all Gav, she thinks, totally up his street. Liza must be more beholden to him than Sarah ever realised. She thinks about her strong, feisty friend. How recently she’d agree with Gav in front of his face – whatever he said – and then afterwards, she’d say something totally different. It’s almost as if she’d do anything to get back with him. It hadn’t been like that when they’d first met. In fact, it had been Gav doing all the running. His tall frame, following Liza around the room, eyes sparkling at the sight of her. What the hell had happened?

  ‘There, there Thea.’ Sarah makes a token effort at spinning some coloured beads on the bar of Thea’s bouncy chair. She empties the dishwasher (that’s more like Liza, she thinks – everything thrown in higgledy-piggledy piles), cleans out the fridge (also more like Liza – wilting coriander stalks, broccoli stems and soggy aubergines: evidence of her failed weekly good intentions) and puts two loads of sheets in the wash.

  She transfers the fish pie into a dish, cling-filming the top. She writes a message on a small, pink notepad. Thirty five mins @180, and she tears off another piece and writes a list of what she’s done and what food she’s bought. She’s starting to feel a little better. Thea starts to whine. Sarah makes up her milk and goes into the playroom, where Casper is building Duplo.

  ‘You OK, darling? Mummy’s just going to feed Thea now. OK?’

  ‘Can you help me Mummy? I want to build a space station.’

  ‘Of course. Just tell me what you want.’ She rests Thea’s bottle in her mouth and uses her elbow to keep it upright. ‘Here.’

  She passes her son a plastic cube, in an effort to look as though she is engaging with him. Be present, as all the Mama blogs say. This time goes much too fast. Before you know it, they’ll be teens and they’ll never let you kiss their sleepy heads again. (She’d always silently told the authors of these blogs to go fuck themselves at three in the morning when the prospect of sleep was impossible, and then felt teary-eyed and guilty about that too.)

  He takes it without looking. Thea sounds content. Phew. She’s done it. She can do this. Breathe. Just as she’s starting to feel on top of things, she hears a key in the lock. It must be Gav, or Liza. They have no parents between them, and she knows Liza’s cleaner is not due today.

  ‘Hello? Liza? It’s me, Sarah,’ she shouts. ‘I let myself in.’ No answer. Weird. Despite the surge of adrenaline, she doesn’t move. Thea’s too settled – better Sarah gets hurt than wake the baby – and she’s quite frozen.

  ‘Liza?’ she shouts.

  ‘Oh!’ says a voice. ‘Someone’s here,’ and then another, quieter voice in the background. ‘Hello? It’s Mary O’Sullivan here. I’ve come to help out.’

  There’s a rustle of plastic bags and more footsteps and then the living-room door opens. The bottle of milk falls out of Thea’s mouth and she starts to cry.

  ‘Oh hello.’

  Sarah looks up at a short-haired lady dressed in full Norland Nanny uniform.

  ‘Like I said, I’m Mary,’ she smiles. ‘Oh, and look at that delicious, gorgeous little bundle. Here, let me.’

  And before Sarah can say another word, Mary has whipped Thea out of her arms, bottle and all, and is cooing in her ear. ‘There, there. Is this Thea then? I’ve seen a picture. Isn’t she gorgeou
s. Aren’t you gorgeous?’

  Thea stops crying.

  ‘Yes,’ Sarah says, before she has a chance to do or say much more. ‘Thea and my son Casper.’

  ‘Yes that’s right. Liza said you had Thea. You must be Sarah. And you must be tired,’ she says, shushing Thea. ‘I’ve been asked to go and collect Thea from you. To give you a break. I was going to go round to yours after I got settled in here but – it looks like you got here first, didn’t she ducky?’ Mary’s now got a wrinkled finger in Thea’s mouth. ‘Your mummy’s friend got there first.’

  If she hadn’t known better, Sarah might have thought there was something accusatory in Mary’s tone.

  ‘Oh,’ says Sarah, struck dumb. It was so unlike Liza to have any help. ‘Well, I suppose, well, you don’t need to now.’

  ‘And I’ve brought Liza all her food for the next couple of days. I’ll tidy the house, get ready for them to come back from the hospital. That poor, poor boy. Falling like that when there were so many people around. You would have thought someone might have seen him. Don’t you?’

  Sarah inwardly pleads for Mary to be quiet – every word like an arrow piercing her heart.

  ‘Oh gosh, you do look white. It must have been a dreadful shock for you all. You go on, love. Get home with your boy and have a nice, relaxing time. I’ll work out where everything goes. That nice young man Gav told me all the important stuff.’

  Sarah opens her mouth. She’s about to tell this lady not to bother. That she’s got the fish pie and done all the other stuff, but before she can say a word she finds herself alone, standing with her son and the blaring television.

  ‘Right,’ says Sarah weakly, slightly dizzy with confusion. ‘I’d better get on with going home then.’

  Gav is always reluctant to have anyone in their house – probably so he can control Liza in private, she thinks, but then she hears the front door creak open.

  ‘Mary?’ says a throaty voice. ‘I’m just bringing all the ingredients for Jack’s smoothies. I’m going out to get some calcium powder. To help with bone healing.’

  Sarah’s about to start packing up but she can’t bring herself to move. She thinks of the clean fridge, the fish pie. She knows who it is but she cannot for one moment believe that it would be her.

  In her best friend’s house.

  In her heart of hearts she knows it’s a good thing. That Liza deserves all the help she can get, no matter who it’s from, but she can’t help but feel a little stung. Or something else. She searches for the word, just as Casper decides to throw a piece of Duplo across the room.

  ‘Now, now,’ says Mary, who’s appeared back into the room out of nowhere. ‘Casper, who taught you to do such a thing? Now pick it up, then, there’s a good boy. Your mummy’s had her hands full.’

  ‘No one taught him that,’ says Sarah, feeling both defensive and teary. ‘He’s just …’

  ‘Just probably seeing you with the little one,’ says Mary, stroking Thea’s head. ‘Now come on, Casper, there’s a good boy, pick it up,’ she continues, before Sarah herself has had a chance to open her mouth and berate her own child. Casper still doesn’t move. By this point, Sarah’s blood pressure is stratospheric. She silently begs her son to do something.

  ‘Oh,’ the door opens. ‘It’s you. What a surprise.’ Except there’s so little surprise in Ella’s voice, Sarah thinks she could be asleep. ‘I didn’t know you were going to be here.’

  She opens her mouth. What she wants to say is: Why the hell wouldn’t I be here? At my best mate’s house. Helping her out.

  ‘Well, I’ve had a key for a long time,’ she says. ‘I’m Liza’s only other trusted key holder.’

  But Ella doesn’t even seem to be listening. She’s too busy humming and scanning through the label of some special powder – no doubt mixed with frogs’ legs and lotus plants – to notice.

  Ella glides off into the kitchen. ‘I went, just now to the hospital. I saw them.’

  She saw them?

  ‘I was going to get Gav to drop the key with Mary, but – you know, an added thing for them to think about,’ she says, as though Sarah hasn’t made any effort at all to think about the wants and needs of her friend. She’s so confused. She’s dumbfounded. Ella had seen them? At the hospital? And now she’s here? She doesn’t understand a thing.

  She follows Ella into the kitchen. She can hear Mary getting sterner and sterner with Casper, but she can’t be bothered. If she wants to tell him off, let her. She’ll pick it up later. She watches Ella unload a box of tinctures, laying them out neatly in rows. Then she pulls out some beautiful, boxed candles. Oh God. Sarah had coveted those candles for years. And a soft, grey cashmere throw. What in hell’s name is this all about? Throwing money at her guilt? Sarah thinks of her own overdraft and smarts.

  ‘I know I haven’t seen you and Liza for so long. I don’t want to be too over the top, given I hardly know Liza now, but, well, I can’t very well witness what I did yesterday and not do anything. Can I?’ Great. Ella’s now reading her mind. ‘I mean, there’s no such thing as “too much” when someone’s going through something like this. Is there?’

  Sarah shakes her head. Maybe she’s got Ella wrong. No. No, she hasn’t. The phone. The message. The way Ella had dumped her in it yesterday, telling Liza that Jack was fine. No. There is something else at play. Don’t be duped, Sarah tells herself. Ella has an answer for everything. Anything Sarah says will leave her looking mean and nasty, so she shuts her mouth tight.

  Sarah leans over and picks up one of the candles. She recognises the label. Aurore. It’s a shop in Chiswick that she goes into every now and again, just to see the kind of lifestyle that’s just out of her reach. She’d once bought a small ornament from there and left it on her mantelpiece, in the hope that it would transform her home. But it had just left her feeling worse.

  ‘Hmmm.’ She sniffs. ‘Spiced ginger and citrus.’

  ‘Delicious, isn’t it?’ says Ella, passing her another flavour. ‘I thought it would be soothing for the autumn.’

  Sarah looks at the fish pie in its dish. It already looks soggy, pink tips of salmon peeking through the top. The ink on the instructions she wrote has started to bleed into the paper so that it’s almost illegible.

  It’s Liza she should be focusing on now. Liza and Jack and how best to make them feel comfortable. Not the way she feels about this surreal situation. But at this very moment she feels something else. Angry? No. That’s not it. Envious? That’s not it either. And then, as Ella pulls out a jar of raw manuka honey and sets it on the counter, she sees it. Damn.

  Redundant. There it is. She hates to admit it, but that’s exactly what it is. She feels totally and utterly redundant.

  LIZA

  When I see her, I burst into tears. She’s there, at the doorway to my home, with Thea nestled in her arms, her coat dress all starched, the classic beige with a white collar. I had no idea these nannies still existed.

  ‘There, there love.’ Mary leads me in through the hallway and pushes me gently onto the sofa, cushions all plumped up and in a neat line. ‘You poor thing. I’m going to make you a nice cup of tea. Some food. And then you’re to go and have a shower and have a rest.’

  I nod, mutely. I can’t do anything else. She passes Thea to me. I press my nose into her little belly and inhale.

  ‘I’m here,’ I tell her. ‘I’m here. But it looks like you have been in good hands.’ I put my feet up, aware that if I get myself too comfortable, I’m going to fall asleep there and then. But I know that when I shut my eyes, I’ll probably lie awake, body on fire with everything that has happened in the past day – just like it has been since, well, just after Jack had been born really. I have four hours before Gav and I change shifts. In that time, I need to get fresh clothes for me and Jack, sort myself out and shower. Just as I feel my eyes close, Mary’s back.

  ‘Let me take Thea. Come on, have a quick supper and then you’re to go to sleep for a few hours. I’ve made your bed.
Put a fresh nightie out.’

  ‘Oh, Mary. You are an absolute star. Thank you. I couldn’t have done this without you. I don’t have family here. So this feels amazing.’

  I think about if my mum and dad were still alive, and how much they’d want to help me. How much they would have loved Jack and Thea. My heart squeezes. I don’t want to start getting upset about them now. I walk into the kitchen. Everything just looks – sparkling. So clean and fresh and there are three beautiful candles lighting up the island. It almost feels homely, this place. I think of all my candles, which I’ve never lit. How much of a difference a little thought and care makes to the atmosphere. Gav had insisted on designing our house and, although I like it, it has never really felt very ‘me’. But now, today, with the fresh smell of … spiced ginger, is it? And a beautiful tray of brownies and other things laid out, there’s an atmosphere that has always been lacking. There’s even a new plant in the corner of the island, in a pink and white vase. To think, this is all it had ever needed – a homely touch.

  I pull up a barstool. Mary takes Thea and pops her down in her bouncer. Lined up in front of me is a mix of concoctions and brown bottles, each with little labels on them. Hand-drawn, with little pictures on each bottle.

  ‘Oh wow, look at the calligraphy on this.’ I pick up one of the potions. ‘Jack’s get-well magic liquid. Three drops under the tongue twice daily.’ I can’t believe all this. And look at that beautiful drawing in the corner of the label. The little shaded flowers. So much attention to detail. ‘Was this Ella?’

  ‘It certainly was, my dear. Thoughtful like that, she is. When I stayed with them she was always leaving me little things lying around the house. Small gifts under my pillow. Lavender scent for when I was doing the night shifts. Isn’t she amazing?’

  ‘But I don’t understand.’ I inhale one of the scents. Orange blossom and honey. ‘I barely know her.’

  ‘I know, she’s just like that. It’s in her nature. She can’t see something bad happening to someone and not step in. When we arrived she came straight in here whilst I was with Thea. She must have unloaded the dishwasher, tidied the place. She looked busy. She can’t help herself.’ Mary’s eyes scope the landscape, preening at her old boss’s good deeds, almost as if she is responsible for them herself.