The Fallout

The doctor comes in with Gav. She’s still in scrubs, her dark hair pushed up under her cap. She’s very pretty, with kind features and a reassuring expression, which makes me want to start crying all over again. I stand up and go to Gav’s side. Without realising it, we are gripping each other’s hands.

‘I’m your surgeon, Mahim Qureshi,’ she says. ‘Nice to meet you. Sorry I didn’t catch you both earlier.’

Please, tell me he’s going to be all right, I plead in my mind. I’ll die if he’s not. I’ll die.

‘Jack is going to be OK,’ she says. ‘He’s going to survive.’

Gav snaps his head up, ripping his hand out of mine. ‘Survive? What do you mean, survive? I had no idea …’ I will the doctor to start talking, to put us out of our misery.

‘He had a very lucky escape,’ says Dr Qureshi, looking at me. ‘He’s broken a wrist. And he’s had a greenstick fracture on the seventh cervical vertebrate. That’s to say that in adults, it would have resulted in a clean break. But children’s bones are a lot more supple. We’ve operated on his wrist but you’ll have to keep him lying down for the next few months whilst his vertebrate repairs and he’ll have to be in a neck brace. He’ll be able to move a tiny bit. But it’ll be painful for him and we can’t be a hundred percent certain that it won’t have a future impact on things.’

For a second, I think about asking what things but I’m unable to process everything she’s saying to us. The only words that are flashing through my mind right now are survive and lucky escape.

‘So he’ll be OK? He’ll be able to walk again properly and everything?’ I ask, desperate to hear one more time that he’s going to be all right.

‘With the right care and support. But at the moment, I cannot stress to you how important it is that you keep him still. No knocks. The bone needs to heal right.’

I think of how the hell I’m going to do this but then I don’t care. I don’t care. He’s alive. He’s going to be OK. I feel like collapsing with relief. My boy. My beautiful boy. It’s all going to be OK. I start to cry.

‘You might want to arrange things at home so that …’ her gaze flicks from me to Gav, ‘it’s comfortable and easy for you to reach him.’

‘We’re …’ I can’t bring myself to use the words, even though it has been weeks now.

‘We’re not together any more,’ Gav finishes for me. I look over at him. His presence fills the entire room. ‘But I still live there and am watching Liza and the kids all the time.’

He glances over at me. I imagine him ending the separation. How we might be able to make things work if I can show him that we’re meant to be together. That we are a family unit of four. That I’m a good person. A good mother, who has just made some mistakes in her life.

‘It’s OK,’ says Dr Qureshi. ‘I’m sure you’ll work it out and we’ll send support for you, of course.’

I think about our house. My room in the loft. Jack’s on the floor below and the living area two more floors beneath that with a spare room attached to the end, where Gav sleeps.

I’ll move downstairs, or move Jack to the bottom room, and then we can be together. Thea can be in the … fuck. My mind feels like it’s spinning with all the options. Gav would never, ever agree to moving back upstairs to the room we used to share. And I can’t move downstairs to be nearer Jack – I wouldn’t be able to cope with being on the same floor as Gav, breathing down my neck all the time. And besides, Jack would pick up on the bad atmosphere if we’re forced to spend long periods of time together.

I’d begged Gav, after all, to move out. To end things in a better, cleaner way than him still living in the house. But of course, he’d refused over and over.

‘I’m staying. To watch you,’ he’d warned me.

What am I going to do?

And then, a flash of an idea. And I think about Sarah’s earlier text.

If you need anything at all.

Sarah and Tom. Their lower-ground-floor flat. It would be perfect. They aren’t getting it developed for another year. Maybe, just maybe, I could ask if we might stay for a bit. We’d all be on one floor. Me, Jack and Thea. I’d have to get Gav onside, and no doubt he’d be over every five minutes. But I’d know that Sarah and Tom would be right upstairs if I needed them. It would work perfectly. If I could get them to agree. Do I dare ask?

‘I’d best get back but I’ll come and see you later to answer any questions you have,’ says Dr Qureshi, leaving the room.

We both sit and my phone pings. Sarah.

What’s going on? I can’t stop thinking of you all.

He’s ok. Fractured his neck.

Oh my god. Oh my god. I’m so sorry. Liza, I’m so sorry.

Why are you sorry? I’m just grateful you were there to take Thea.

What does that mean? He’ll be able to walk again, won’t he? Will he be ok?

Doc says he’ll be ok. But very difficult. We won’t be able to move him at all for a bit otherwise it’ll disrupt his healing, so he has to lie flat on his back. It’s going to be tough. For him mostly. And I think she said there might be knock-on effects. But was too overwhelmed to ask what they were. I feel so upset for him. He should be running around in the park with his friends. Not lying like this in a bed for the foreseeable future.

I think about asking her there and then. Just come out with it. She wouldn’t say no now. But then I tell myself to slow down. Wait, at least, to find out if Jack is going to be OK. Focus on his recovery. And then, only then, will I think about how to move on from this.

To: J.Roper@westlondongazette.com

From: 54321@freeserve.com

Hi

I saw you’ve been covering quite a lot of The Vale Club’s new opening of late. I’m not sure if you’ve got some form of tie-in with them but I thought you might like to know that there was an accident there earlier today. A small boy fell off from high up a post in the playground. I believe he is ok but I thought you should have a look at what went on – us residents and members would be keen to know the truth behind it all.

Yours,

Derry

SARAH (#ub687bb9b-816d-5913-a6b5-230e71dfbb2b)

That night, Sarah lies in bed, terrified of Thea waking up. She listens to the snort and shuffle of tiny arms and legs. She hovers over the Moses basket, holding her hand under Thea’s perfect upturned nose. She’s breathing. This time five years ago, she’d done the same thing every night, with Casper.

She thinks back to when they had first brought Casper home from Queen Charlotte’s and Hammersmith Hospital. She had snapped at Tom for being too rough with the car seat as he tried to click it into the back of their BMW. She’d held her breath at absolutely every jolt on the road, both for the baby’s sake and her own – she had been torn from back to front. She winces remembering the pain as the metal had tugged Casper right out of her. And then the rest. The ensuing images at every turn of things that could go wrong: Casper choking on her milk, suffocating in his Moses basket, inhaling smoke particles from family members who held him. The list had been endless. She rubs her stomach wistfully. She’d do it all over again in a heartbeat. And just like that, she has a vision of Rosie being handed to her in the hospital. She remembers wanting to breathe life into her daughter, so desperately. To impart some of her own living soul into the tiny creature that lay in her arms. Liza’s presence strong and calm right beside her. The doctors. We’re so sorry. Nothing anyone could do. She shivers.

She hears Tom downstairs, the soft monotones of the cricket commentary on the TV, which she normally finds so comforting. Tonight though, she wants to shout down to tell him to come and help her. But, she reasons, he has probably fallen asleep. She doesn’t want to leave the room in case the creak of the door wakes Thea.

Her mind traces the events of the day. Jack fracturing his neck. His small body lying in the operating theatre, the anaesthetic needle puncturing his tiny veins. She curls herself up into a ball as she replays the events preceding the accident. And then Liza’s WhatsApp. She flicks back onto it, reading and rereading the conversation she’d had with her earlier: there might be knock-on effects. She puts her phone down. He’s alive. That’s all she should be focusing on. She thinks about whether Ella was right. Hestill would have fallen. Whether you’d checked on him or not. She’d never know.

And anyway, where the hell is Ella? Does she really not give enough of a damn to at least contact her and ask about Jack? Especially given the thing that Sarah had found out earlier. And then Priti mentioning the investigation. She knows, rationally, that the club will be duty-bound to look into what happened. She also knows they won’t want any bad publicity from this. They’ll shut it down as soon as possible. They might want to speak to her. That’s OK. She’ll tell them what she told Liza. She takes a breath and recites the words in her head. I waved at him. He was absolutely fine. And then she goes through the various responses to any given questions they might ask her. Are you sure you saw him properly? Yes. He was playing. Are you sure he was OK? Yes.

Oh God. She wipes her hands on her top and shuts down her thoughts. She needs to focus on Thea. Do the best for her friend and try and make things up to her. And then she remembers Liza’s earlier text. How Jack would be flat on his back. How this is all her fault so she needs to be doing more to fix it – especially if he never quite recovers properly. The taste of bile floods her mouth. She can’t quite believe that she’s been responsible for something so hideously awful. She’s done some bad things in her life – she’ll never forget lying to her parents time and time again so she could go to the Palladium nightclub – but this, this is something she could never have even imagined experiencing.

She thinks about their lower-ground-floor flat. It’s free at the moment. Perhaps she’ll ask Liza and Jack to stay with them for a bit so she can help out. Try and make things all right. It would give Liza a break from Gav, too. The way he calls her out on everything. Look at you, he’d say. Look at the way you’re doing that. And he’d get up and take over. Tutting and asking Jack if he was OK, gliding his eyes over his little boy’s body in exaggerated movements. Anything your daddy can help you with?

She didn’t know how Liza stood it, really. He never used to be like that – controlling and anxious. And it’s even weirder now, given that they’re actually separated. In any case, it would be good for Liza to get away from him. Give her some breathing space. Sarah’s absolutely sure that Gav is not going to be happy about the fact they’d both been inside The Vale Club, and not out in the sandpit with Jack. He’ll probably try and sue and then she’ll have to speak up in court. Oh God. But before the thought maps out into anything further she hears a small cry.

Shit. The milk. It’ll be freezing cold. She should have boiled the kettle earlier instead of being held hostage by her thoughts. Perhaps she should go downstairs and get her bottle first? Or take Thea down with her so she doesn’t start shrieking at full pelt? Shit.

Before she knows it, she’s running downstairs.

‘Tom,’ she hisses. ‘Tom, she’s awake.’