The Fallout

When I look back on this moment, I will realise that this is when it hits me. This is when my mindset spirals even further. When I start to really question myself. Not that Gav didn’t help me do a good job of that anyway.

It was in this moment, little more than ten minutes ago, when things changed and cracked.

This moment Ella Bradby walked back into our lives.

West London Gazette editorial notes, September 2019

J Roper interview transcript: Aaron Daniels, crèche manager, The Vale Club

I know, I know. This is meant to be a puff piece for the club, isn’t it? You want me to tell you how fantastic the new crèche is. My boss gave me the heads-up. How happy the mums and dads of West London are that there’s a new place for them to drop off their children so they can get to their Pilates and what not. How much it’s changed the area. Blah blah blah. But it’s – OK – off the record, I’m not staying for much longer. Sick of it, I am. Especially since I moved here.

For some it’s been good, of course. Not just the crèche. This whole ‘health club’ thing. We’ve already had people claim that property prices nearby have rocketed. Like we need that. It was bad enough when they built that school – West London Primary Academy, driving up the house prices like crazy for the rest of us. A school for the under-privileged, my arse. You should see the families that go there now, braying at the gates with their 4x4 cars running outside. So for those people, you see, of course this has all been a bonus.

Anyway, I’m not ungrateful for the job. I’ve learnt how to handle myself much better. Especially when there’s a complaint from the mums or dads that we haven’t been doing our jobs properly. (I didn’t know our role was to be private tutor, chef and the rest all in one.) The behaviour then is crazy. They’re all rigid and polite until something is not to their liking. Then they come up, their faces all in mine. ‘You mean you don’t have drinks and snacks for the children? This is disgusting. I don’t pay all this money for nothing, you know.’ You get the picture.

Anyway, they’re not all bad, obviously. Some are. Your ears would bleed if I told you some of the stuff I’ve seen. Put it like this, I’m not quite sure how some of them have hearts that don’t explode on the running machines after a weekend of ‘excess’. And by excess, I’m sure you know what I’m talking about. (At this point, interviewee mimics sniffing something off the table – ed.)

I hear them all the time in the queue. ‘How did you feel on Sunday, Minnie?’ And the casual tap on their noses, their smiles, all conspiratorial-like. ‘Oh God,’ they’ll reply. ‘The children were up at six in the morning. I was still absolutely awake from the night before.’ Then they’ll do this comedy wide-eyed expression, chewing their tongues. In front of their kids! Anyway, I’m not going into that now, when I’ve still got to hand in my notice.

Besides, as I was saying, some of them are nice. Polite but distant. But they’re all very, I’d say … ‘eager’ to drop their kids. I understand, they want a break. We all do and I’ve got two of my own, so I know. But the way they go about it is quite mad, really. Jostling and pushing to get to the front of the queue. It’s like they’re teenagers all over again, waiting to see their favourite band live in concert. We’ve had to install a proper system with barriers and stuff, just so we can keep them in line.

And when I say the parents run – they’ve barely finished scribbling their names on the signing-in sheet before they’ve disappeared to get to their fitness classes. Then, when they come back it’s all like, ‘Oh little Freya’ or ‘Little Isabella, how I’ve missed you, have you missed Mummy and Daddy?’

Look, as I said, I’ve got my own kids so I know what it’s like. And better they run to their fitness class than, well, to the pub. Although it appears to me they do that too.

But I think what upsets me the most is not that the members here have a place to enjoy. It’s brilliant that they’ve built somewhere that focuses on fitness and health for both adults and children. I know most of those parents work hard. And if I’d grown up somewhere like this I would have loved to have been a part of it all.

But I suppose what I’m saying, really, is that some of the parents who drop their kids at the crèche, they see it as their right to be here, rather than a privilege.

And you know how I know this?

Well, it’s been a few weeks now since the club opened its doors, and some of the first members started coming here right from the beginning. Every day they’ve dropped their little ones here. Same time, same place. And it occurred to me yesterday that only about half of them have even bothered to learn my name. I don’t expect them to know all the staff members here. Of course not. But the ones looking after their kids? Yes. I do expect that.

I do get a vague smile, though, from most of them. I mean, we can’t be totally invisible. Can we?

After all, we’re looking after their little angels. It’s us that keeps them safe from harm. For that window of time they are with us, we have to make sure that nothing bad comes their way. Because, of course, where their children are concerned, there’s danger everywhere – isn’t there?

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

‘Table number?’ the barista asks when Sarah finally reaches the front of the queue. As well as WhatsApping Camilla, her mind’s been off elsewhere. She can’t seem to focus on one thing, thinking about whether it’s true that sugar has an effect on fertility, and her perimenopause and whether that might just be the root of all her problems in trying to conceive. Then she drifts onto remembering to get a dodgy-looking mole checked (she’d have to remember to bring the iPad with her to the GP to entertain Casper) before starting to think about whether she’s actually remembered to sign Casper into his tennis class. Whether she should put a second wash on before she watches Killing Eve tonight, or if she’ll be too tired to stay up until it finishes.

‘Oh, crap. Sorry. I was …’ She waves a hand over her head. ‘Sorry. I’ve forgotten. We’re just by the soft-play. You know, the table by the window. The one that everyone wants.’ She laughs but the waiter gives her a pitying look. ‘It’s like ze Germans with the sun-loungers.’ She stutters on her own bad joke. ‘Oh, don’t worry. Forget about it.’

‘Overlooking the cricket pitch?’ he asks, speaking slowly, as though she’s hard of hearing. ‘That’s table eighty-seven.’ He jabs his finger on the buttons until the till pings. Shit. Her mind starts reeling again.

What if her bank card doesn’t work? Had she been paid for her last project? She can’t remember and she hasn’t checked her account for weeks. She feels hot and clammy and now look – a queue forming behind her. After all, membership here is expensive enough. But it’s a life saver, she’d pleaded with Tom when it had first opened. A health and fitness club. Think of the benefits. She’d even pushed her stomach out extra hard so that he’d see it and think it was unquestionable that they join.

‘Here’s your receipt, Madam.’ Phew.

‘Thanks.’ She snatches the bit of paper from the waiter’s hand and slinks off towards the sliding window. She remembers it’s her birthday soon. Tom had suggested a weekend away in a cottage in Scotland. Something to look forward to. But she can’t quite bring herself to do that either.

‘We have to celebrate, just for your nearest and dearest,’ he’d said as he spooned overpriced, sugar-free muesli into his mouth, before he’d left for work this morning. She knows it’s ridiculous, but truthfully the idea of it fills her with utter dread. The rigmarole of packing up, organising childcare, catering. False jollity when everyone just wants to slob around in bed all day. And then the invites, to boot. She can’t cut her list down to just her nearest and dearest!What if Saskia gets wind of it? Or Matilda or Miranda? They’d be so hurt and she doesn’t particularly want to keep it all a big secret. That would be far too much effort, what with the way WhatsApps spread like wildfire around the school gates. And then her mother too, on at her about celebrating this big milestone of turning forty.

A tonne of guilt washes over her. Look at what Liza is going through with Gav. Let alone the other awful things that are happening across the globe. Those Syrian children she’d seen on the news earlier. It didn’t bear thinking about. And she had Tom and Casper. A nice three-bed house in a desired location to boot, and it even has a self-contained one-bed lower-ground-floor flat too, which she and Tom have plans to develop.

‘Something to get your teeth into,’ Tom had said.

‘Don’t be so patronising,’ she’d replied. It still makes her cross to think about. And inevitably then she’ll ruminate on all the other misguided comments that Tom has made since they’d had Casper. About work, money and all the rest. As if she doesn’t have enough on her plate. They’re close to Chiswick. Close to Westfield shopping centre. So privileged in so many ways. And yet it’s tough, she thinks. These years are tough. Her mother is getting older. Too old to be in that ramshackle house of hers in Gloucestershire, all alone since her dad had died. Casper needs her and here she is, slap bang in the middle of the sandwich years. But should life really be such a chore? Aren’t these years meant to be breezy, loving your kids, a laugh a minute? She should feel lucky she has a child at all after everything that had happened last year. Her eyes fill with tears despite vowing never to think of it again in public. By the time she reaches the balcony, she feels like she’s been through ten rounds in the boxing ring.

She resolves to stop thinking like this. She needs to hurry up and check on Jack. Her thoughts have reached fever pitch. Five minutes alone and she’s already lost it. She doesn’t know what’s wrong with her. She peers over. At first she can’t see Jack but then she spots his curly hair, bandy legs wrapped around a wooden post at the back of the playground, next to the sandpit. He’s halfway up, but looks like he’s edging back down to safety.

She softens for a second. He’s so sweet. Gifted the best of Liza’s personality. Always hugging her, telling her he loves her. Then she thinks of Gav. Wonders what characteristics he’s inherited from him. How he’s changed lately from being fun, up for it Gav to someone she wants to shout and tear her hair out over. Of course, Tom hasn’t noticed a thing.

‘He’s one of my best mates, Sarah,’ he’d said when she’d brought it up. ‘Don’t you think I’d notice if he was controlling Liza?’ Part of her had thought this was true. She’d watched carefully, for any signs. But it is difficult when Gav lives in one part of the house and Liza another. How weird, she thinks. Can’t he just move out? Wouldn’t that make things so much easier for them? It’s not like they can’t afford it. Something is keeping him at the house, she just doesn’t know what.

She really should shout over at Jack. Motion for him to get down from the post. But before the thought segues into action, she feels a presence behind her. She turns.

It’s her. She’s standing on the balcony right behind her, like some sort of apparition.

Ella Bradby.

‘Ella, hello.’ She grabs her opportunity whilst she’s alone, without Liza’s sly gaze making her feel self-conscious. ‘It’s Sarah. Biddlecombe. Remember? We were in …’ she trails off, waiting to see if Ella does indeed remember. Silence. ‘We were in NCT class together?’ she prompts. ‘Years ago. You …’ deserted us all, she thinks. ‘I think you must have been busy.’

‘Sarah. Yes.’ Ella smiles, a flat sort of smile, showing a perfect set of bone-white teeth.

‘How are you then? You …’ Sarah is about to ask about Felix. But she shuts her mouth. How on earth would she know about Felix unless she’s been keeping tabs on her? And she can’t very well admit that now, can she?

‘Did everything go well in the end? After your NCT? Boy? Girl?’

‘Boy, Felix. He’s in karate now.’

Sarah waits, ready to fill Ella in on her own news, the information on the tip of her tongue, but before she can drop in that her own little boy is at The West London Primary Academy School (surely she can’t be dismissive of her after that nugget of information?), Ella’s icy-grey gaze is transported downwards.

Sarah follows her eyeline to see a small, cherubic blond figure on the floor beneath them. The little boy (she assumes it’s a boy but she’s made that mistake before) is about six months old. She thinks about her earlier cyber-chondria. Her self-diagnosed perimenopause. This month’s PMT – she had felt the familiar darkness settling on her all of last week, the downward tug of her uterus. She tries to be generous about other people’s good fortune but, alas, the hand of sadness squeezes her tight around the neck.

‘Oh, lovely,’ she says. ‘What’s … the baby’s name?’

‘This one? He’s Wolf.’

‘Wolf?’ Sarah wants to laugh, desperately – she feels it bubbling up in her stomach. Just wait until she gets back to Liza, she thinks – but then she realises, with some frustration, that Ella pulls it off majestically. A snip of delight swiftly follows that Ella has had two boys –instead of the ‘one of each sex’ that she remembers Ella pining for at NCT. She hates herself for thinking it. Really, really hates herself. But she just can’t help it. Not everything is perfect for the enigmatic Ella Bradby.

She watches as Ella bends down and scoops up Wolf, breathing into his soft hair, her phone in her other hand: a rose-gold-encased iPhone, with an image on the back of her and her husband. Sarah remembers Christian well from their NCT days. Who wouldn’t? His beachy-blond hair, and huge, shiny white teeth. And as for his spectacular body – well, she remembers everyone at their NCT class sliding glances towards him, not daring to stare too long. The way he’d rubbed Ella’s back as they’d all acted out different labour positions. She and Liza had been laughing convulsively but, somehow, Ella and Christian hadn’t made it so funny. She had watched them out of the corner of her eye. The way they’d glided around making it all seem so easy and beautiful – Ella’s eyes closed so serenely, as she transported herself to the birth of their baby. Sarah wonders how it would feel if anyone stared at her and Tom like that.

‘We’re just hanging out, Wolf and I.’ Ella interrupts Sarah’s thoughts, her voice low and controlled. ‘Whilst Felix has got karate. Aren’t we, Wolfie-Bear?’

God, thinks Sarah, the poor bugger is going to develop an identity crisis.

‘God, he’s just so … delicious. Aren’t you, Wolfie?’ Ella continues.