The Fallout

by Rebecca Thornton

  ‘Of course. Casper. Just one please. And make sure you say your pleases and thank yous.’ Casper gingerly puts his hand out, searching for the biggest, before settling on one at the bottom of the pile. I hear Sarah gasp as the biscuits slide perilously to the edge of the plate. ‘Oh goodness, Casper, do be careful.’

  ‘It’s OK,’ says Ella handing him another one. ‘Don’t worry at all. You can’t be too precious with kids around, can you.’

  Sarah retreats into herself as though scolded for being uptight. ‘Exactly. Totally get it. You really can’t be. Not with these monkeys around, pulling everything off the shelves and everything. Not that yours probably do that,’ she hastily adds. She pulls out her phone. ‘Oh and by the way, the Christmas fair? Liza – I said I’d take over but, Ella, you said you wanted to discuss it? Before Thursday’s meeting?’ I can see panic all over Sarah’s face. The way she repeatedly blows strands of hair out of her eyes.

  ‘Oh God,’ Ella ruffles Casper’s hair. ‘The Christmas fair. Let’s not discuss that now. Tedious.’ Sarah opens her mouth and closes it. ‘Let’s just have fun, shall we? Give Liza a good time whilst she can get out of the house?’

  ‘Yes,’ replies Sarah. ‘Yes. A good time. Of course.’

  ‘Oh thank you,’ I mumble. We all go silent, and watch as Casper reaches for another biscuit. I stop myself from filling in the conversation. That should be Sarah’s job. After all, it’s because of her strange behaviour that we’re in this awkward situation. But for the moment, no one says anything. My cheeks heat up at the excruciating lack of chit-chat.

  ‘So,’ Sarah says, eventually fumbling for things to say, never one to sit with a silence. But she doesn’t do a good enough job, and then she just gives up and uses Casper as a distraction.

  ‘Have you got a loo I can use?’ She stands up and wipes some imaginary crumbs off her trousers. ‘If you could just keep an eye on Casper here please.’ Her tone is businesslike and curt. I start to feel angry and defensive. What has she got to be peeved about, I think. But then I see the inwards pull of her lips. The weird stare in her eyes. And I know that look. I know it very well. And it’s at that point I realise my friend is about to burst into tears.

  SARAH

  Sarah tells herself she’s being ridiculous. Absurd, even. But she has no idea what’s wrong. Her hormones have levelled out after her PMT. Jack is going to be OK. She thinks she’ll make her peace with everything but something feels off. Not depressed quite. Or ‘down in the dumps’ – as Tom had referred to it after they’d planted Rosie’s tree. Just the pull and squirm of anxiety, in the pit of her belly; residual guilt that she has a feeling is never, ever going to go away. And now Liza’s here, Sarah can’t very well speak to Ella about the investigation.

  She follows the directions into a cloakroom at the end of the corridor, just past the study and off the biggest kitchen she thinks she’s ever seen. The design – oh God – the design. The loo has a beautiful antique-looking wooden seat and the wallpaper is to die for. Small, intricately hand-painted birds with gold leaf patterns around them. It smells like a spa. She thinks of her own hastily pulled together attempt at a bathroom when they’d renovated last year. The way her used loo rolls have piled up and up from her attempts at saving them for crafting ‘rockets’ with Casper. No such luck. They’re more likely to be shredded by the mouse she had discovered in the living room last week.

  After she’s scanned all the black and white photographs of the Bradby family, she switches on the soft lighting just above the mirror and peers into it. No eyebags in the reflection, but she knows they’re there. She presses her fingertips, pulling her skin around her forehead taut, like the celebs in the magazines. Hmmm. She could probably pass for early thirties. She knows she’s lucky to have come this far in life relatively unscathed. But it doesn’t stop her from feeling the way she does. She wonders why she had felt so stung back in the living room. Ella hadn’t said anything particularly nasty. She didn’t know whether the comments about tedium had even been directed at her. But she feels that they had. And that’s surely enough?

  And why had Ella asked them both over anyway? Sarah thinks back to Ella’s earlier text. Want to come over for a playdate? And she’d said she’d wanted to discuss school stuff. So – why on earth had there been no kids when she’d arrived? And Ella had shut her down when she’d tried to discuss the Christmas fair. She can’t work any of it out. She just wishes things could go back to normal, but it seems that the wheels have spun too far out of control.

  It’s like being back at school all over again. She gives her face a few good slaps. ‘Pull yourself together,’ she says out loud. She remembers to flush the loo – she hopes she doesn’t actually need to go anytime soon – and makes her way back into the living room.

  Casper is sitting on the floor, winding up an enormous crane that she knows he’ll be asking for, on repeat, until the run-up to Christmas. And Ella and Liza are shaking. She steps forward. Oh God. Liza. She’s about to put her arms out to hug her, and tell her she’ll be OK, when she realises she’s actually laughing. She hasn’t seen Liza laughing like this for weeks. Liza looks up, her hand covering her mouth.

  ‘Oh, Sa …’ She starts to explain the joke, but can’t get any further before she’s struck again by the most convulsive giggles. ‘Stop. Oh God, Ella, I can’t take it any more. Oh, thank you. Thank you so much for cheering me up like this. You are exactly the tonic I needed. As well as the actual tonics you gave me for Jack … oh God.’

  And there they both go again. Sarah contemplates making a quip about gin but she senses it will fall flat, so she leans down to Casper and attaches a piece of Lego onto the hook of the crane.

  ‘Get off, Mummy.’ He pushes her hand away. Great, she thinks. Even her five-year-old doesn’t want her around. She stands up and tries to start laughing too, just to feel less awkward, but the tears are streaming down both Ella and Liza’s faces and she’s too isolated to join in now.

  ‘Come on then, darling. We’d better get going,’ Sarah says as she holds out her hand to Casper, despite knowing he is going to ignore her.

  ‘Oh no,’ Ella says. ‘Wait. You’ve only just arrived.’

  That’s not my fault, Sarah thinks to herself. If you’d bloody replied earlier to my text, we wouldn’t be in this position.

  ‘Please, don’t go yet Sarah. Liza has to be off soon. And you really have only just arrived.’

  Despite herself, Sarah feels a puff of pleasure that Ella wants her to stay.

  ‘And besides,’ she goes on. ‘The kids will be so upset if they don’t see …’ she misses a beat. Can’t even remember his name, Sarah thinks. ‘Casper here,’ Ella manages to save herself just in time. ‘They always love having friends around.’

  ‘I know but we actually have to get back for tea.’ Sarah’s not giving in so easily. ‘I promised Casper we’d go out, didn’t I darling?’ He looks up and nods. Good boy, she thinks.

  ‘Oh, do please stay for tea. Barnaby will rustle up Felix’s favourite. Home-made fish and chips.’ At the mention of fish and chips, Casper’s head darts up.

  ‘Fish and chips?’ His eyes shine. ‘Please, Mummy. Fish and chips.’ He turns to Ella. ‘And have you got ketchup too?’

  ‘Ketchup? Of course we have. You can’t have fish and chips without ketchup, can you?’

  Sarah’s surprised. She didn’t quite see Ella giving her children ketchup, but Ella gets up and takes Casper by the hand. ‘Come and find it with me.’

  Sarah watches her little boy dutifully stand – for once – and take Ella by the hand. ‘See?’ she says, her long body twisting to look back. ‘How can you say no to that?’ Very well, thinks Sarah.

  She’s now left alone with Liza. It feels unbelievable that she can’t think of anything to say. She refocuses on Casper and then Liza starts to talk.

  ‘Gav’s at home. I guess I’ll get going. How’s Tom?’

  ‘Oh, yes OK, thank you for asking,’ Sarah says, wanting to cry.
Wishing she could just come out with everything, get all the guilt off her chest – after all, there’s nothing they haven’t shared since they’d both given birth to their first-borns. Apart from, come to think about it, that weird time Liza had gone totally AWOL on her just after Jack was born.

  ‘He’s all right,’ she repeats. ‘I’ve been thinking about you, Liza.’ Silence hangs in the air. She wants, so much, to explain why she hasn’t been in touch. ‘How’s Gav?’

  ‘He’s, you know. Gav. You spoken to him?’

  ‘Me? Why would I have done?’ Sarah snaps her head up.

  ‘No reason.’ Liza looks taken aback.

  ‘No, no I haven’t spoken to him.’ They both go quiet until Liza gets up to leave.

  Sarah feels hurt. Hurt that her friend pays more attention to Ella when they say their goodbyes, giving her a hearty hug, when she gets a distant kiss on the cheek. It’s only when Liza and Ella go out into the corridor that she decides to give herself a mental kick where the sun don’t shine. What the hell? She’s nearing forty and behaving like she’s at school again. She’s got to take charge here. Stop playing the victim. Stop being so damn passive. She has to take Ella by the horns and get this situation back where she wants it. She doesn’t know what’s happened to her. She used to be so on top of things. Head of Marketing at Sainsbury’s. And then – she had Casper, and it had all fallen to shit. Not that she’s blaming parenthood, of course.

  But enough of this. Most importantly right now, she needs to behave more kindly towards Liza. It doesn’t matter what she knows about Gav – that’s irrelevant, she’s done wrong by her friend, and she won’t say a word about it. She’s going to forget the whole matter exists and ignore what she saw today in the IVF clinic, and she’ll park the chat with Ella about the investigation and discuss it with her later.

  Next, she’s going to find out what the hell Ella Bradby thinks she’s playing at. With both Liza and the PTA and the secret she’s been harbouring all this time. And she’s going to get on top of things, and become the Sarah she once was. Imposter syndrome to the max – fake it until you make it and all that. She goes into the kitchen. Barnaby is there with Casper, preparing supper for the children.

  ‘Hi.’ She sits down on one of the sleek, chrome barstools. ‘I’m a friend of Ella’s. Sarah. Our kids are at school together.’

  Barnaby is her ticket, she thinks. Someone who probably knows all of Ella’s secrets. She remembers her father’s words of advice when she was a teenager, about the men she dated. Watch how they treat staff.

  ‘Thank you,’ she says, ‘for feeding the kids.’ The door slams. She can hear someone running up the stairs.

  ‘Hey, Sarah,’ Ella shouts down. ‘I’m just going to send an email before the kids get back. Make yourself comfortable. I won’t be long. Barnaby will look after you.’

  For once, Sarah is delighted that Ella doesn’t seem to want to talk to her. This way, she can have Barnaby all to herself.

  ‘No problem,’ she shouts back up. ‘Take your time. I’m very happy here.’

  She turns back to Barnaby. ‘You must be tired,’ she says and starts to sweep up some crumbs from the middle of the island. ‘Here. Let me help you. It can’t be easy,’ she claps her hands clean over the electronic bin in the corner of the room, ‘working in a house as big as this.’

  ‘It’s hard,’ he says, switching on the hob. ‘But Madam – she’s a very good boss and her husband very kind. And her children. Perfectly behaved.’

  Sarah’s stomach sinks. For fuck’s sake, she thinks. Of course she is. Of course her kids are perfect. She looks over at Casper, who is squeezing huge globs of ketchup onto a plate, smearing his fingers in the red sauce.

  ‘Ah that’s lovely,’ she says as she walks over to the plate. She thinks back to the text message she had seen at The Vale Club. Surely, Ella would want to keep Sarah on side, not create a distance between them? She can’t really understand it all. Ella is a law unto herself.

  ‘And Sir, he’s a very good dad. Very hands-on. You know some of these men. Not hands-on. But Sir, when Madam is away on the trips, well, he’s always there. Up at night. Takes leave from his job to take full care of them. Very well-adjusted kids.’

  ‘Her trips?’ Sarah says, opening the fridge door and putting back the ketchup. She hardly dare turn around, the breath stuck in her chest. It must have something to do with what she’d seen on Ella’s phone. She replays the message back in her mind. That makes so much sense.

  ‘Of course, yes. Her big trips. I think I remember her saying,’ she sings, casually. ‘Where does she go?’

  ‘Ah, just work.’ Barnaby shuts down. ‘Abroad. You know.’

  ‘What kind of work?’ Sarah is not going to give up easily. ‘I thought Ella had stopped working?’ She knows Barnaby knows something. ‘Christian doesn’t mind? That she’s away? He’s fully behind her?’

  ‘Behind her?’ says Barnaby, throwing pieces of crumbed fish into the fryer. ‘Of course he’s behind her. Why wouldn’t he be?’

  Great, she thinks. Now she sounds like a right old bitch.

  ‘Just – that – you know.’ He clearly didn’t. ‘If she’s not working, is she on holiday? That’s amazing Christian doesn’t mind. You see,’ she leans forward and whispers conspiratorially. ‘I wish my husband was the same. But if I even suggested so much as a spa day away, God – all hell would break loose.’ She feels momentarily disloyal to Tom but shunts it aside.

  ‘Well, Madam is obviously doing important things.’ Barnaby squeezes his lips together.

  Sarah thinks again of Ella’s face as she had tried to snatch her phone back from her just before Jack had fallen. Important things indeed. Like trying to hide a huge lie from her husband and family, she thinks. Maybe she’ll try and go upstairs, have another snoop. And when she’s done, she’ll present her findings to Liza.

  She rubs her hands in glee and moves towards the door, feeling emboldened. Soon, life will go back to how it should be. Just her and Liza. And the debt that she owes her friend for betraying her? That would be done and dusted.

  WhatsApp group: The Vale Club update

  Members: Millie, Becky, Isa, Georgina

  Millie: I want to take Raffy today to TPC – we haven’t been since Jack fell. But I’m just worried, y’know? I don’t know. This whole saga has left a sour taste in my mouth about the place.

  Becky: I would hold off if I were you. *Apparently* I heard that there’s something else going on. The staff at the Club are all saying that there’s more to it. And that the manager keeps getting weird calls and stuff and everything’s hush hush. That’s what Greta told me anyway – that lady who is in charge of the memberships.

  Georgina: oh my god are you serious? But what ‘more to it’ could there be? Jack fell. Unless … god, no one pushed him off or anything weird did they? Another child? Something like that?

  Isa: Shit. Maybe?? I mean I can’t think what other kind of thing it would be?

  Millie: Jesus. I don’t know. I’ll try find out.

  WhatsApp group: The Fall

  Members: Millie, Florence, Kate

  Millie: Hey ladies, Becky Granville just told me that she thinks that Jack was pushed before he fell. Or something weird happened surrounding the accident. Something that no one’s talking about. Any of you guys know anything?

  Florence: Pushed? Seriously? Are you sure it’s not rumours getting out of hand? You know what this place is like!

  Millie: Well normally I’d agree but I’ve just been on the Chiswick forums. Everyone is talking about it. Saying that there’s something amiss. Because they’re all being so coy about it at the club.

  Florence: Shit. Guys. There *must* be something going on. You’re right. I’m on the green with the kids and I’ve just seen Liza going in to Ella’s … and then Sarah B also went in just now! They’ve never been friends before. Ella doesn’t hang out with them. Maybe they’re there to discuss it all? Sally told me they were together just before the f
all.

  Kate: Sarah, Liza and Ella? I’ve never seen them together before. Odd.

  Florence: Me neither. Sarah walked straight past me without saying hello. Not sure if she clocked me or not. But she looked distant, worried. Maybe she knows something about what happened?

  Kate: Maybe. Well, something weird is going on. There’s an odd atmosphere around the place. And we all know the saying, don’t we? No smoke without fire.

  LIZA

  It’s Sunday morning. Gav’s running late, again, to hang out with Jack after going for a haircut. Thea’s having her morning nap, and Mary’s gone. The doorbell goes and it’s Sarah with a brown paper bag and a steaming coffee in her hand. I hadn’t asked her over; it seems strange I’m now questioning why my best friend is turning up unannounced. We used to do this all the time.

  ‘Here,’ she passes the bag to me. ‘From that new place that looks amazing – Fed and Watered.’ She doesn’t say anything about the day before at Ella’s. No apologies for not turning up for Jack’s homecoming. Just walks in as normal, plonking her bag down before she sits next to Jack.

  ‘Hello little man,’ she says, giving him an oat and raisin cookie. ‘I brought your favourite. Casper might pop over later too. He’s at home watching telly in bed with Tom. We’ve all been talking about you non-stop.’

  She breaks it into small pieces for him. She doesn’t look at me, but I know she’s trying to make things right. I know she’s trying to get our friendship back on an even footing. Yet, I’m still angry with her, even though I tell myself I’m being silly and childish.

  ‘Thank you, Aunty Sarah,’ says Jack. My heart swells. Still so polite, even when he’s in pain.

  ‘Did Ella tell you anything yesterday by the way, when I was out of the room?’ she asks, staring at Jack’s Spider Man duvet cover. She looks like she’s deliberately avoiding my gaze.