The Fallout

by Rebecca Thornton

  Members: Saffy, Johanna, Claire, Mils T, Katie, Amina, Della, Mehreen

  Saffy: Look at this! Sarah in Reception sent it to Ella Bradby by mistake! You know Ella?

  Johanna: The tall model one? OMG!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

  Mils T: This would be bloody hilarious if it wasn’t just so heinously awful. AWFUL.

  Amina: Sarah, she’s got Casper, right? Reception? The little boy with the wonky fringe?

  Saffy: That’s the one. I can’t believe it. I’ll bet she won’t be showing her face around here again!!!!

  LIZA

  I don’t really know what to make of Katy when she walks through the door. My first thought is that she isn’t Gav’s usual type. Or rather, she doesn’t look like me. And then I wonder if I ever was Gav’s type in the first place. She’s got black hair, a neat centre-parting tied back into a low ponytail (the sensible type, I can tell) and a long, pale face. She’s wearing red lipstick. Odd, I think, for a Saturday therapy session with a five-year-old boy. I pace the room, opening and closing cupboards, checking we’ve got milk for the fourth time that hour.

  ‘Liza, sit down,’ Gav orders. ‘You’re making me nervous. It’s OK. Jack will be OK.’

  ‘It’s … ha. That’s normally your game. Making me nervous.’ I sit down and then get up again. I don’t even care how Gav is going to react. He wouldn’t dare say anything in front of the therapist anyway. ‘How long is she going to be in there with my son?’

  ‘She’s helping. Remember? It’s what you wanted?’

  ‘She said five minutes. That she’d spend five minutes alone with him. It’s been—’

  ‘Seven?’

  ‘Still. That’s longer than she said.’ All sorts of thoughts are running through my mind. Might she one day be Jack’s stepmother? What’s she asking him? My palms are slick with sweat.

  ‘Just chill. She’s amazing. She’ll sort him out.’

  ‘Amazing?’ I know I have no ownership on Gav, but it hurts me to hear him say this. ‘She didn’t look that amazing.’

  ‘I didn’t say she looked amazing, I said she was amazing.’ Before we can get further into the discussion, Katy walks back in.

  ‘Hi, both of you. Well, what a clever little boy.’

  ‘He is, isn’t he.’ My chest expands. ‘He’s just been so off since this happened. I never expected him to be tip-top, of course. But I just don’t want things to fester, you know.’

  ‘I do know. And I just wanted to spend some time alone with him so he slowly gets used to me and trusts me. I’m going to go back in now and do some play therapy for another hour or so. If you don’t mind?’

  ‘Of course not. But it’s a Saturday?’ I look at my watch. Two p.m. ‘You should be off surely?’

  ‘That’s OK.’ She looks over at Gav and smiles, her teeth practically zinging in the sunlight. ‘I owe this one here.’

  ‘You do?’ I try not to sound too accusatory.

  ‘I do.’ She doesn’t explain further. I want to ask but I have to remind myself this is about Jack. No one else.

  ‘And costing?’ I ask, just in case she thinks I’m taking the complete piss.

  ‘I’ll do my initial assessment – and then a session tomorrow so you can see how it all works. Then I’ll write to you with a proposal, how many sessions I think he’ll need. That sort of thing. But just to let you know that certainly I’ll be doing at least three of those with no charge.’

  Again, she looks at Gav. ‘Sound all right? You’re under no obligation either. You can ask me any questions at all about how it all works. Speak to my clients. Anything you need. I’m here to help, not to do a massive sales push on you.’

  ‘Great. Tomorrow’s a Sunday though?’ I wonder if this is all a sales technique in itself, then I tell myself not to be so cynical. ‘Thank you, by the way.’

  ‘Sunday’s fine. In fact it’s better for me, so I’ve got a clear run with no other patients. That OK?’

  I nod, unsure of where to look next. I can’t bring myself to face Gav, to see what sort of expression has crossed his face. I like her. Damn. I like her a lot. Something about her feels right. Good. As though she’s melting away all my own troubles. She’s looking directly at me, occasionally glancing over at Gav, who keeps nodding his head. Why does he feel the need to reassure her, I wonder. To make her feel like she’s doing a ‘good job’?

  ‘Listen.’ I don’t have a chance to process what I’m about to say. ‘Maybe this isn’t such a good idea after all. I don’t know. Just that maybe it’s best to have someone totally new. Someone who doesn’t know any of us?’

  ‘I totally understand.’ Understand? There is something to understand then, I think. ‘Look,’ she tucks her papers into her shiny, black briefcase. ‘How about you go and speak to Jack? See what he says.’

  I’m torn between doing what she’s suggested and leaving them together. Maybe I should just ask Gav? Maybe I should come right out with it. Here. But then I remember – I have no rights to his life any more. Not after what I did.

  ‘One minute.’ I walk into the other room. Jack is doodling with his good arm. There are a small set of scribbles in different colours on a scrap of white paper with an address at the top and her name. Katy Loftman, and her address! Excellent. I snatch the paper away from him. Maybe I can snoop.

  I pretend to peer at the picture. It’s something that looks close to a rocket. ‘A spacecraft?’

  ‘Mum, no, it’s a dog. Can’t you tell?’ He’s laughing. That dimpled grin is back. The sparkle in his eyes. ‘It’s a sausage dog. Maybe that’s why you thought it was a rocket.’

  ‘It’s a lovely sausage dog.’

  ‘Why are you crying, Mummy? What is there to be sad about?’

  ‘I’m not sad. I’m … you looked like your old self again just for a minute. From before.’

  ‘I am myself,’ he laughs. ‘Jack Barnstaple.’

  ‘You liked that woman?’

  ‘Yes. She’s nice. Can I have a biscuit?’

  ‘Course you can.’ I leave the room, wondering what magic Katy has. If she can transform my son in the space of seven minutes flat, I don’t really have a chance with my husband. I have a decision to make now. Either I can give in to all of this. Let her have Gav. Or I can go in with a fight. I’m going to say yes. That way I can see what’s unfolding in front of my eyes. And, most importantly, Jack likes her. Maybe, just maybe, Gav will get off my back a bit then. Maybe he will ease up. Just maybe. He’s been better in the past few days but I still feel like I’m on eggshells – nothing, after all, can change the things I’ve done. I’m stuck with this weird sensation of wanting my freedom, but not wanting to let Gav go. Somehow, though, we have to find a middle ground. Maybe this Katy woman is my key. I feel an overwhelming sadness at how things have turned out.

  I grab a biscuit and am walking back into the room to speak to Gav and Katy when my phone pings. I should leave it. But it might be something else important. Jan or Franny maybe, trying to schedule our next physio or tutoring appointment. I slide my phone out of my pocket. It’s a screenshot, from Shereen.

  I thought you should see this. I know you’ve got a lot going on but I know how close you are to Sarah. This has gone round the entire school.

  My first thought is not to look. I’ve got enough on my plate. But something draws my eyes to the screenshot. It’s a WhatsApp from Sarah to Camilla, about Ella and the rest of the mums at the Christmas fair group. I read it once. Then I read it again. My first reaction is to cover my hand with my mouth. My next is to laugh. Lastly, I gasp. Sarah, I think. Then I realise that I’m implicated in all of this too, just by association.

  Sarah, I tut. You silly girl. I can’t quite believe it and read the message again.

  Because if I’ve taught her one bloody thing, it’s always, always to bloody well stay on the right side of the school mums and dads. But she hasn’t listened, and now the shit really is about to hit the fan.

  SARAH

  She now knows
why her phone had been pinging so relentlessly earlier on. She’d managed to make herself feel stronger after her time with Tom. But now, the strangled feeling is back. She hadn’t got away with it after all. She can’t breathe. There’s too much going on. Jack’s fall. The investigation. That sodding journalist scurrying around. Gav’s behaviour. Ella. And now this.

  This. Which she supposes is Ella again. She thinks back to the way Ella had ignored the whole WhatsApp incident after the Christmas fair meeting. The way she’d just given her that small smile as if to say, I know what you’ve done but I’m far too above it all. Above it all my arse, Sarah thinks, she was clearly just waiting for the right time to unleash hell. Why now? Why did she wait until now? She supposes she’ll find out soon enough, which makes her impending sense of doom go stratospheric. She looks down to her phone again to Camilla’s message. She can’t quite bring herself to read through her own little missive, but she skims a few of the words:

  Desperate. Ella. Secret. Gossip. Hideous mothers’ meeting. Nosey Parkers. Nothing better to do. And then the worst. LOSERS. She’d actually put it in capitals and tapped out three crying emojis afterwards and then a series of knives. She looks properly sociopathic. Her stomach shrinks. Oh God. What the hell has she done! She hadn’t even meant any of it. At all. Everything had been getting on top of her at the Christmas fair meeting and Ella had been sitting there all smug. She’d been trying to make Camilla laugh. Trying to get her ‘Ella rage’ out.

  Her phone pings. It’s a calendar notification. Christmas fair meeting on Monday. She switches her phone off. It’s like it knows. How is she going to get through the day knowing that everyone has read her message? Knowing she’s going to have to face every single person she’s mentioned in that bloody WhatsApp? Oh God. She needs to physically get out of here. The entire place is suffocating her, with constant reminders of everything bad that has happened. She thinks about fleeing to her mother’s. Not saying a word to anyone. She’ll scribble a note to Tom telling him she needs a break from it all, because she certainly can’t tell him what she’s done, plus he seems so beaten by life just now.

  She takes four deep breaths. She can hear Tom in the bedroom. She thinks about Ella, about the ease of her life. How she never has to struggle for anything. Sarah’s absolutely sure of that. Even Ella’s little secret is something cool. Something glamorous. A secret love child with Rufus North. When Sarah was a child she’d always wished she had a more interesting background than the one she was born into – nice house, nice family, nice school. Nice. Nice. Nice. How she wished she had a dark secret about her that would have made her more interesting to her peers, instead of just Sarah Biddlecombe, who always just looked like someone – someone nondescript you couldn’t ever quite put their finger on. You do remind me of … hmmm. I can’t quite think.

  All this time she’d been trying to look after Liza. To look after Jack, given this was all her fault anyway. And now she’s managed to wrap herself up in the eye of the storm. She looks at Ella’s words underneath the screenshot.

  Wondered if Sarah was ok. It’s not that I mind so much what she’s said. It’s more that I hope she’s all right. Seems like she’s going through a tough time. Maybe she has too much on with Liza? Do you think we can help her at all?

  Bitch, she thinks. Liza had defended Ella to the hilt but she can read through Ella’s text beautifully. And more fool Charlotte G, Ella’s messenger, for falling for it. Sarah’s going to have to apologise to each and every person she’s offended. She starts with Camilla – apologising that their conversation had leaked.

  By the time she’s had a chance to calm slightly and think about everything, she decides she can’t go to her mum’s. Running away from things won’t help in the long run. And what about Casper? Has she forgotten she’s a mother in all of this? Instead she decides to just get out of the house for a little while, perhaps head into Chiswick to get some space. And tomorrow she’ll make her statement at The Vale Club and pop round to Ella’s. She’ll be back from her little trip now and Sarah really does need to do something which involves moving her body, if only to distract her from the terror churning through her mind. She’ll find out where Ella has been. Apologise face to face. It will be the hardest thing she’s ever had to do, but she’s going to go through with it. For the sake of Liza.

  ‘Tom? I’m going out,’ she shouts. ‘Casper’s down here. I’m bringing his Lego down. I’ll be half an hour. I’ll go and get some groceries.’

  She’s putting on her coat when she hears the front door to the downstairs flat slam. She hurries out of her own door and sees it’s neither Liza, nor Gav. Who on earth is that? She rushes down and catches up with the small, dark-haired lady. Lord, she’s very pretty, is the first thought that crosses her mind. She feels ungainly next to her. A result of all the stress-eating she’s been doing lately.

  ‘Hi.’ She offers a hand and for some inexplicable reason pretends to start jogging. Why, she has no idea, given she’s dressed in grey Ugg boots and jeans, but all the adrenaline coursing through her is doing something strange. ‘I’m Sarah. Liza’s friend. She’s staying with me at the moment. Whilst Jack, y’know.’

  ‘I’m Katy. Ah Jack, he’s so lovely. I’m practising some therapy with him.’ The woman smiles – one of those smiles that makes Sarah think of Agas and roaring country fires. ‘Just like his dad. They have the same mannerisms.’

  ‘Just like his dad?’ Sarah wants to shake the woman. ‘You know Gav well?’ And then she jolts. Could this be the lady she saw coming out of the IVF clinic? Her mind flicks back to that fateful day, just before she’d bumped into Charlotte G. She conjures up the image of that other lady Gav had been with. She had blonde hair, she’s sure of it. Maybe she’d dyed it? She peers into Katy’s face.

  ‘How do you know Gav?’

  ‘We met recently actually. I can’t really go into it. But – actually he ended up helping me with something.’

  ‘He did? He’s like that. Helpful. Sometimes overly so.’ Sarah thinks about the way Gav behaves towards Liza and about the information she knows about him. ‘So what did he end up helping you with?’ She realises, as she’s talking, how unlike her this is. To be so pushy. She’s been spending too much time with Charlotte G.

  Katy takes a step back. ‘I can’t really talk about that,’ she says, still smiling.

  ‘Of course you can’t,’ Sarah carries on. ‘Jack OK?’

  ‘He’s doing really great. I’m going to get to the bottom of what happened just before that fall and we’re going to get him all better and sorted so he never has to think about it again. So that his body doesn’t carry it for ever. In fact, we’re starting tomorrow lunchtime.’

  ‘I saw him. Before the fall.’ Sarah doesn’t know why she’s said those words. But they’ve entered the air before she can stop herself and she needs to take some form of control given the timeframe. ‘He was … fine.’

  ‘Really? Well, maybe I can have your number? Just in case I need to chat to you? I like to get the details straight so we don’t muck things up.’

  ‘Course. Shoot, I’ve got to run and I’ve left my phone. But give me yours. Have you got a card?’

  ‘I do. Here.’ The woman passes her a light blue card with a dolphin on it. ‘Give me a ring anytime about anything you remember. It would be really helpful.’

  ‘Cool. I will. And it’s lucky, you know, Gav and Liza. They’re working things out together.’ Sarah flinches as she says it; she certainly doesn’t want Gav anywhere near her friend, but then again she doesn’t want him near this lady either.

  ‘Have a lovely day,’ Katy says and walks off, shiny ponytail swinging in the breeze.

  Sarah should get her phone. Text Liza. So if she’s not the woman Gav’s been seeing, who is?

  She opens up the front door, slides her hand around to the hallway table and grabs her handset. Tom’s chatting on the phone. Shit, he’s talking to Gav! Does that mean Gav’s left the house? Or is he still downstairs?
>
  ‘Gav mate,’ he’s saying. ‘Sarah’s being so weird about Liza. I mean, I know their friendship wasn’t quite what it was, even before the fall. But – she’s acting so strangely about it. I’m worried. She’s eating badly. Her skin’s grey. Her eyes are always puffy and she’s started doing this weird trembling thing when she’s still. I’m at my wits’ end. Know anything?’

  She can’t lean her head in any further and she doesn’t want him to know she’s overheard. Their friendship wasn’t quite what it was, even before the fall? Has everyone been talking about it behind her back? She closes the door quietly and looks down at her hands. They’re still. Thank God. Just then her phone pings with a text from Liza. SOS!!! it says. It’s underneath the chat they’d been having about Gav – where Sarah had told her that she wouldn’t let anything happen to her. Sarah’s heart quickens. Liza must be in trouble – well, she knows that already, but she must mean she’s in trouble right now. Gav is on the phone to Tom so at least he’s occupied right this minute. But later on? An idea comes to her.

  Don’t worry, she types back. I’m on it.

  She’s got to do something. Things haven’t gone quite as planned so far, in trying to make things up to her friend. However much she tries to make things better, nothing seems to help. She’s got to go one step further.

  She walks to the car, which is parked opposite the house. It’s covered in birdshit, she thinks. Just like her life. When she’s settled in the driver’s seat and has set up the Bluetooth for her mobile, she takes three deep breaths and searches for a phone number. When she finds it, she tries to copy and paste it three times but her fingers are shaking too much. She hopes she’s not doing this to distract herself from the atrocities of what she’s about to face at school. She’s just got to trust her decisions, for once. Except she doesn’t know what that means any more. She thinks of all the parents at the school gates and she starts to dry-heave. The WhatsApp. Everyone has seen it! Something private she’d written has actually gone viral.