The Fallout

by Rebecca Thornton

  ‘Hey, by the way,’ Ella takes a breath. ‘About Sarah.’

  ‘Yes?’

  ‘Do you think she’s OK?’

  ‘Yes? As far as I can make out. Why?’

  ‘Just that she behaved very oddly at the Christmas fair meeting. I can’t quite explain. Everyone commented to me about it afterwards. A bit manic, I suppose. Or like she was terrified of doing, or saying, the wrong thing. I can’t quite put my finger on it. I’m sorry to involve you. It’s just that you know her the best.’

  She pauses, waiting for me to talk, but before I can open my mouth she carries on. ‘I wondered if she was all right. Whether I should be relying on her to carry on with organising the fair. Or whether it’s just all too much for her. She seemed just so odd the other day too, when she came to mine. Don’t you think? And she was saying some stuff …’

  ‘Hmm,’ I say. ‘Some stuff? What stuff? I do think she’s been a bit odd, yes. I put it down to her being upset about Jack.’

  ‘Yes. Of course. That’s affected us all.’

  There’s a silence. I think about how glad I am that Ella walked back into our lives, and the kindness she’s extended towards me. The way she’s known exactly what to say and do, at exactly the right time. Something that Sarah has been struggling with.

  ‘It’s probably that,’ I say. ‘She was a bit odd before the fall, though, come to think of it.’

  ‘Really?’ I hear an intake of breath. ‘Like how?’ She sounds all casual again.

  ‘Well, just not really with it. Vague. Not interested in anything. I hadn’t seen her laugh for ages. Not a proper Sarah laugh anyway.’ I think of my friend. The way she would throw her head back and slap her knees when I made a bad joke.

  ‘Come to think of it, she did mention something that stuck with me,’ Ella says. ‘About you.’

  ‘What?’ That’s what Ella must have meant in her earlier WhatsApp. ‘What about me?’

  ‘Oh well, you’ve got enough on your plate. Nothing much. Just that, well, she sent me a bit of a weird message. And then I heard her talking to Camilla about something. I think it was to do with you and Gav but I couldn’t really hear properly. Don’t mention it to her though. Will you?’

  ‘No.’ I shake my head down the phone.

  ‘I think you should just focus on Jack,’ she tells me. ‘It’s totally irrelevant.’

  It’s not irrelevant, I want to say. If it’s about me. I start to feel all shaky again. But I don’t want to look too needy. Too desperate. I give a small laugh.

  ‘Go on, Ella,’ I say, knowing that if I don’t get it out of her now, I’ll want to know later. ‘Just give me a bit of a heads-up.’

  ‘Oh God. Don’t be silly. It’s not a big deal at all. Just pathetic school stuff that we don’t need to be involving ourselves in. Do we now? When we have bigger things to think about.’

  But you were the one who brought it up, I want to shout. Instead, I grip my handset and hold onto the door handle as the Uber swerves in and out of the wrong lane. We’re on the Westway now. Shooting past the grey, high-rise buildings. The green heart on the hoarding to my right. Grenfell in our hearts forever. I want to let out a sob. What the hell am I doing? What am I doing caring about what Ella Bradby thinks? Projecting my own feelings on to what is probably an innocent conversation. What am I doing racing in an Uber, having left my kids in the care of someone else who’s already done so much for me? But I need to do this, or God knows what could happen. It could be even worse than last time with Jack and I know I can’t trust myself in this state. I shift myself around the car seat, pulling uncomfortably at the seatbelt. I watch a lorry rattling past my window.

  ‘Hello?’ Ella’s voice echoes down the phone.

  ‘Oh.’ I clutch the phone again. ‘Reception went. Sorry.’ I swallow back my tears. I think about getting the driver to turn around. To swing back right to my house. I feel overwhelmed with everything and I want to curl up in a ball. But it’s too late, I tell myself. Too late for that. Nearly there.

  ‘Anyway, how are things going with Gav?’ Ella sounds so chilled, she could be asking about the weather. I try and concentrate on giving her some sort of reply. But it’s too far gone for that. Ella’s planted the seeds about Sarah too, and they haven’t been sprouting, but burgeoning into huge, socking great weeds, strangling my brain.

  ‘He’s OK. He seems to just want to come and see Jack and Thea and not really speak to me. He checks up on them a lot. On me.’

  ‘Really? You can put a stop to that, you know. You have the power to do that. You are separated after all. He wanted to leave.’

  ‘Hmmmm.’ I think about the things that Ella doesn’t know. The things that are still keeping me awake at night.

  ‘Just, you know, set your boundaries with him. OK? You can do it, Liza.’

  Despite the fact she’s made me paranoid, Ella has also made me feel better. Just the image of her house, her lovely comforting sofa, makes me feel all warm and cosy. The way she lets me talk. It feels like I’m being truly heard for the first time in ages.

  ‘Where you going by the way?’ she says. ‘Sounds like you’re driving.’

  ‘Oh, nowhere.’ I look ahead of me at the lines of traffic up Marylebone High Street. I’d spent a lot of time here after Jack had been born. After I’d gone AWOL from, well, my own life and Gav had to pick up the pieces. All the old associations come flooding back: the Waitrose where I’d lurked around in the aisles before every visit – not really focusing on what I wanted but killing time until my appointment, hating myself for what I’d done.

  I told Sarah I’d be a couple of hours. I feel a thrum in my chest, birds trying to escape from behind my rib cage.

  ‘I’m going absolutely nowhere.’

  SARAH

  ‘Jack,’ she cajoles. ‘Chocolate biscuit?’ But he remains mute, his eyes resolutely on the ceiling. ‘Your mummy is coming back soon, Jack.’

  Sarah can’t help it but his silence is making her nervous. A five-year-old! But it’s almost eerie – a painful reminder of what she’d done. Does he know something? She’s still reeling after the miscommunication of the zoo conversation. Or maybe he’s so traumatised he’s begun to lose his voice. It just gets worse and worse.

  She remembers wondering if Casper’s silences last year had meant anything either. Oh, how she’d googled and googled variations, looking for answers for her child’s temporary muteness.

  ‘He’s only four. He’s just trying to focus on his own things,’ Tom had told her. ‘They do that at this age. They’re in their own world.’

  She’d even gone so far as to ask Tom’s mother when she’d been alive. Just for peace of mind. Except she hadn’t quite got the answer she’d hoped, when she’d been told that maybe it was a sign that her grandson was a genius.

  ‘Einstein didn’t talk until he was four,’ she had told her. ‘Not a dickie.’

  Sarah loves her son and he is a bright little boy but genius he is not. But she had been in an odd state of mind and she had wanted to look for problems. She’d been totally convinced that her son was exhibiting behaviour of something. She’d spent hours on the Mumsnet forums, trawling through any sign that might be good or bad. She remembers seeing one poster – Anna Banana – she can still remember the avatar to this day, three unicorn emojis and five exclamation marks with a ridiculous acronym. DDD2. Was that dear darling daughter? Anna Banana’s daughter DDD2 had exhibited signs of the same thing. Sarah had been relieved. She’d thought it might have been a boy thing. And she’d scrolled down to find out that Anna Banana’s DDD2 did indeed have something wrong with her. Selective mutism. See? She had shaken her iPad in Tom’s face. She had good reason for her anxiety! It had, of course, turned out to be nothing.

  But this time, with Jack, it’s different. It’s not her being overly anxious. How could her friend have said such a thing? No. This is out-and-out post-traumatic stress syndrome. Or anxiety. Or depression. Sarah knows it. It’s perfectly obvious, and perfectly
unsurprising, given what has happened. Given what has happened.

  ‘Jack. Are you sure you don’t want something?’ He doesn’t reply. ‘It’s lunch time soon. You have to eat. Your mum said you could sit up a bit. She’ll be back soon.’

  Nothing. She’s seen Jack smiling before, at his physio. It’s just her then. Maybe he’s picking up on her mood – after everything that had happened with Ella this morning. And the WhatsApp message. And the weirdest thing of all is that Ella hadn’t mentioned one word about it either.

  ‘All OK?’ Ella had said when Sarah had walked back into the room. Sarah knows Ella had seen the message. She had still been holding her phone for God’s sake, looking at the screen and then towards her. But it was as though nothing had happened at all. Ella’s face remained impassive, those grey eyes of hers combing the room. Charlotte G had practically been panting at this point, craning her neck to see what the message said.

  ‘Oh, Sarah,’ Charlotte had said. ‘There you are. Funny. You just texted Ella.’ Sarah had looked over then just to catch Ella’s expression, but there was none. This, for some reason, felt even more dangerous. Her skin had prickled and she had felt her cheeks go cold. What was she up to? All these walls of silence.

  She looks down at her best friend’s son, pale and staring straight up at the ceiling. And then she has an idea. She’ll ask Jack directly about the fall. She knows Liza doesn’t want him reminded of it yet. But she has to know. She has to be warned if Jack is going to say anything at all. All this god-damn not knowing.

  She won’t be obvious. She’ll prod him just enough that she can get some information but not enough that she jogs his memory. When she’s made herself a cup of tea and replied to a weird message from Liza (who still hasn’t bloody told her where she’s gone), she pulls up an old chair that she’d meant to have reupholstered.

  ‘Jack, do you know where your mummy went?’

  Silence.

  ‘She’ll be back soon, you know. Just in case you were wondering.’

  His arm twitches. She tries another tack.

  ‘You want to know where Tom is going this weekend? Which football match he’s going to?’ Ha! That got his attention. But just as his gaze catches hers, he closes his eyes. ‘OK, little one, I’ll leave you to sleep. But just before you do, I wanted to say that you’ve been a very brave little boy. Since the fall.’

  ‘Go away,’ he says. ‘I don’t want you here.’

  Indignation rises in her and then she feels sick. He’s broken his neck for crying out loud. She should take the role of the adult here instead of being so childish.

  ‘OK. I’m going,’ she says. ‘I love you Jack. I’m always here for you. You know that, don’t you?’

  And for the first time since the horrific event, she feels the full force of what she’s done. She’s been so caught up in trying to make things up to Liza that she thought she’d taken stock of things. But she hadn’t. This – this is much, much worse. A sucker punch right in the gut. She’s never actually stopped to examine her own feelings towards the whole thing. And she’s barely given Jack’s feelings a second thought. He is going to have to carry the weight of fear from his fall for the rest of his life.

  A sick and shaky feeling rushes over her. She doesn’t know where to turn. Tom? No. Perhaps she should confide in Camilla. Not tell her everything. Just edited bits. No again – she needs someone who knows the whole sorry story. The only person she can get help from – the only person she can talk to – is the exact person that she’s come up against since the fall. Could she make herself vulnerable to Ella Bradby? Perhaps if she did, it would change the dynamic somewhat. Swing things into balance. She’d forget all about Ella’s secret (despite the thought of it still festering away in her mind) and she’d apologise for the vicious things she’d said earlier on WhatsApp.

  She knows Ella is going away soon. Barnaby had said so. And she’d seen it on the fridge calendar too – this week’s diary laminated and colour-co-ordinated. So she knows she probably can’t schedule something in – she knows how hard it is to get close to Ella. There’s only one thing for it and now she knows where Ella lives. She’ll have to turn up unannounced. She has to go and speak to her anyway about what they’re both going to say to The Vale Club – she’s decided she’s going to persuade her that they go together. She’s pushing her own temptation. Then a loud ring makes her jump. The landline. How extraordinary. She’d totally forgotten they even had one installed. She goes over to the sideboard in the hallway and picks it up after the fourth ring.

  ‘Hello?’ She’s fully expecting some random caller or wrong number. The crackly echo of a sales call before the person on the other end of the line dives into some irritating pitch. She’s already bracing herself to tell them to go away.

  ‘Hello, is that Liza Barnstaple?’

  ‘It’s …’ But before she can tell the lady on the line that it’s not in fact Liza, she carries on speaking. ‘We were given your details by Hammersmith hospital. I tried your mobile a few times with no luck so we thought it best to try the second number you gave us.’

  Sarah nods down the phone and is about to stop the speaker in her tracks before she feels a jab of curiosity.

  ‘Yes?’ She picks up a dried flower petal from next to the phone. She has no idea where it has come from but she squeezes it between her fingers until it crunches into small, sharp pieces.

  ‘It’s social services here. We’d just like to speak to you about the fall. Your son’s fall.’ She drops the last bit of the flower on the floor and notices that her finger is bleeding. She squeezes out the droplet of blood, letting it rest on her fingertip.

  ‘Oh yes?’

  ‘It’s protocol. When someone has a fall like that we need to speak to them about the surrounding circumstances. Make sure everything is OK at home. Can we send a health visitor over? We’ve got you down on our records anyway, Mrs Barnstaple, so we should have your details but I’ll need to make sure they’re all up to date.’

  ‘Health visitor?’ Sarah doesn’t know why she’s speaking the way she is. She knows perfectly well what a health visitor is – she’d had plenty of them coming to see her after Casper was born, checking to see if she was OK. And then she wonders why on earth they have Liza’s records on file. Liza, who is such a natural mother that she makes everyone around her feel bumbling. Why would they feel the need to come and check in on Liza?

  ‘Yes. Just to meet your son. Tomorrow a good time for you? Nothing at all to be concerned about, Mrs Barnstaple. We can send someone over at, what – say, four o’clock?’

  ‘Four o’clock. Do hold on.’ She adopts a very strange voice and grabs a tissue from the hallway table, to wipe her finger. It’s a voice that sounds nothing like Liza – her accent verges on mock Australian, for God’s sake. ‘I’m sorry, Jack has a physio appointment then. Could I call you back? With a time? I’ll have to make sure my husband is here too.’

  ‘Yes. Please do call us back. My name’s Beth. It’s either me or my colleague Theresa who’ll be in the office later and tomorrow morning. Have you got a pen?’

  ‘Pen? Oh, pen. To take your number. Of course.’ Sarah has no idea what she’s doing, or why she hasn’t just told the truth – and that she’ll get someone to call them back – but she pretends to pick up a pen and write down the digits that Beth recites down the phone. Ridiculous, she thinks. This whole pantomime charade of acting out the motions when no one can even see her. But it makes her duplicity feel somehow … better. She shudders as she realises this whole thing has been a reflex reaction – what kind of person does that make her?

  ‘Thank you.’ Beth is talking about the nice day outside but Sarah has stopped listening. She places the receiver, very carefully, back in its cradle, and with both arms and legs shaking, she makes her way back to the front room, where Jack is silently waiting.

  WhatsApp group: Renegades

  Members: Liza, Sarah

  Liza: Just had weird chat with Ella who said somet
hing about a strange text you had sent? Or something like that. Couldn’t get to the bottom of it! But said it might have something to do with me?

  Sarah: Oh yeah – that. I was just talking to her about the meeting and the Christmas fair stuff. Said it was quite boring. How is everything? Where are you now?

  Liza: Will be back soon. All ok there?

  Sarah: All good. Just having a chat with Jack. He’s certainly not his usual self, is he?

  Liza: No. I’m going to have to do something about that, for sure.

  Sarah: Like what?

  Liza: Not sure. But thank you for pointing it out. I needed to hear it. Asking physio. Therapy or something? To try and help him process the fall and the moments that happened before. Not sure yet. Gotta run see you soon. Thank you again.

  LIZA

  ‘Jack, I’m here. I’m back. Mummy’s back. All OK, I’m here.’ Despite where I’d just been – the past revisited – the shattering guilt – or maybe even because of it, I still feel that mad rush of love for my kids. ‘Thea? Little one, you are so cute.’ I kiss her squashy nose and plonk down on the sofa. ‘Sarah, thank you for watching. I really appreciate it. Wow. I’m done in. Go, go go.’

  ‘Sure? You look zonked. Or like you’ve been crying? Are you OK, Li? Where have you just been? Did you see Gav?’

  ‘No, no.’

  ‘What were you doing when you headed out?’ Sarah is trying to sound casual, looking down at her phone. I suppose I am, too.

  ‘I just went for an appointment. Just doctors. To see about,’ I wave vaguely at my head, in the hope she’ll just be quiet, ‘just about sleeping and stuff.’ I turn away from her, thinking about the small square room I’d just been in. The green plastic chair, the moulding of which was so familiar to me. The polystyrene cup of tea with a slightly soapy aftertaste.

  ‘So earlier you were saying about Ella?’ Sarah says. ‘Something about a phone call?’ I should have known – Sarah will always come full circle to Ms Bradby.