The Fallout

She thinks she should perhaps relinquish some of the power back to Ella and diffuse the situation before matters get much worse. After all, that’s what Ella wants. Girls like her are all the same, she thinks. Or women. They’re women now. Grown-ups. Oh God. Look at everyone here, playing grown-ups, not knowing what the hell they’re doing most of the time. And now this has happened.

‘No. Don’t say anything. There’s no need. Why did you tell me that?’

‘Because …’

‘Because you wanted me to carry half the burden of guilt? Am I right?’ Sarah gives a half nod. This is the most she’s heard Ella speak in one go.

‘Look, Sarah. If there’s one thing I’ve learnt, it’s that you can’t change things. It won’t help if Liza knows. Will it? It won’t change things. It still happened. It still would have happened. And Liza’s strong.’

Sarah listens intently. Ella’s right. In a way. But she should do the morally correct thing. And how dare Ella presume she knows what’s best for Liza.

‘You don’t know anything about Liza.’ There’s the funny look again. Sarah ignores it. ‘Listen. Ella, I don’t even know why we are having this conversation. We just need to focus here on Jack. On Liza. Making sure they’re both OK. All right? I don’t really care about anything else.’

‘Fine,’ Ella says. ‘But do what I say. Just keep quiet, OK? Things will be much worse if you don’t. You’re just being selfish,’ she carries on. ‘Wanting to take away your own guilt. It doesn’t serve anyone. Least of all Liza. So just stick to your story and all will be fine.’

At the mention of Liza’s name, Sarah pulls out her phone. No new messages. And then she wonders if she should ring Gav.

‘Anyway,’ says Ella. ‘It’s time. We need to get the others.’ Oh God. Casper. Sarah hasn’t even thought about her little boy.

‘You go.’ Sarah turns Thea around so she’s facing outwards. ‘Get Felix. Then get Casper. He’s in the tennis lessons on court three.’ She feels too shaken up to move anywhere. She doesn’t think her legs will carry her just yet. And besides, she needs a few moments alone. ‘If they ask where I am, tell them that it was my friend,’ she motions towards the playground, ‘back there. Password for pick-up is Leo.’ She thinks of Casper’s lion comforter and wants to cry. ‘And after that, the kids can get a snack.’

‘OK.’ Ella walks off, sashaying from side to side. She has that unselfconscious walk of someone totally confident with their own body. Then Sarah wonders why she is even thinking of such a thing at a time like this, and what that says about her. Has she been so conditioned to be so damn … judgemental? Or is her mind just distracting itself from the god-awful thing she’s just done? She rubs her stomach, trying to make the bottomless sensation disappear, but the thought of Jack and Liza’s faces keeps looming in her mind’s eye.

She sits and waits, checking her phone every five seconds. She thinks back to what she’d seen on Ella’s screen, moments before. How she wishes that right about now everything had been different. If only she could relive the last twenty minutes. If things had gone according to plan, she’d be WhatsApping Liza under the table right about now, as they sat drinking coffee.

Just wait until you find out what I’ve got to tell you when she’s gone!

She tells herself that Jack is going to be OK. That he’s alive. But what if things never go back to normal? What if Jack never goes back to normal? What if he never walks again? What would she do then? She clenches her hands together, trying to rid them of the onset of pins and needles. How would Liza and Gav cope? Not just emotionally, but financially too? It would be a daily reminder of what she’d done. All her fault.

Just as she thinks she can’t take the not knowing much longer, Ella arrives back in sight, with Wolf in her arms and Felix and Casper on either side of her. Felix looks like something from a Boden catalogue, all neat and clean blond hair swept to one side. He’s wearing brown leather hi-tops, cream chinos and a sleeveless V-neck jumper over a striped blue shirt. Ridiculous. Casper, by comparison, looks like some sort of urchin child, with ragged tracksuit bottoms on and a black smudge on his chin. She’s lucky enough to have her little boy. She thinks of Rosie. She must make more of an effort. She holds Thea up over her shoulder and opens her arms up to her son, breathing in his smell.

‘Oh God. Casper.’ She doesn’t deserve him. Not after what she’s just done.

‘They’re closing the club early. My tennis teacher said so,’ he says in his matter-of-fact voice, eyebrows disappearing under his blunt-cut fringe. Sarah had hacked at it two days earlier, trying to save money on a professional cut. She’d made him look half-deranged. ‘Where’s Liza, Mummy? Where’s Jack? Liza promised we could have half an hour play.’

‘Jack has had a small …’ Sarah places a fist on her breastbone. ‘He’s going to be …’ she swallows back tears.

‘He fell,’ Ella says. ‘Jack fell. He’s just gone to be checked out. He’ll be OK though. Felix, go with Casper and get some biscuits. Quick. Before they shut the place.’ She presses a ten-pound note into Felix’s hand. Casper runs after him. Sarah watches his legs winding up faster and faster at the thought of a sugar-fix.

‘Jack – he’ll tell her he didn’t see me.’ Sarah turns to Ella. ‘That is if he …’

‘If he what? I think you’re being a bit hysterical about all of this. He’s going to be just fine.’

Sarah fights an uncontrollable urge to hurt her again.

‘How do you know? I was just thinking that if he does – God help us – make it out alive, he could be paralysed. Or something. So tell me, how do you know it’s all going to be OK? You don’t. Too busy looking at your special messages?’

She grabs at Ella’s phone but she snatches it away.

‘Look.’ Sarah starts to cry again. ‘We need to sort this out. I think something really bad has happened to him. If I’d just told him to get down.’ She watches as Ella glances over to where he fell. For a fraction of a second, she bites her lip, before her expression turns to one of impatience, and she throws her hands up in the air.

‘Look, you did check on him. OK? We saw him. From the balcony. You waved at him. He was at the bottom of the post. That’s your story. He’s not going to remember if he waved back at you or not. You can say he can’t have seen you. But that you saw him. Or that you thought he waved back but maybe you were mistaken. Maybe he was just moving his hand around.’

‘What if they’ve got CCTV or something?’ Sarah can’t believe she’s even entertaining this discussion. She tries to motion to Casper, who has come back with a muffin stuffed into his pocket. Oh well. She’ll have to be done for theft too. She’s too emotionally wired to tell him to put it back. And then she sees a waitress right behind her, coffee cups stacked on a tray. She steps aside, heart thumping. Is her son about to get told off? She couldn’t cope with it if he was. More lies – having to pretend she hasn’t seen Casper pocketing their food because she certainly isn’t going to own up to that now. But the waitress mercifully carries on walking, the sound of china rattling around the otherwise silent room.

‘It’s not going to get that far. Is it? She’s your friend.’ Ella pulls up her posture until she looks like she’s about to launch into a backflip. ‘She’s going to believe you. Why would she think you’d lie?’

‘I don’t know.’ Sarah pauses to think about why she had lied. Ella. Ella had happened. ‘But what if he is paralysed or something?’

‘Just wait and see what happens.’

Sarah wants to shake Ella, predominantly for not giving her the reassurance she needs, but also for seemingly not giving a damn about Jack’s welfare.

‘Look, I’m telling you, he’ll be fine,’ Ella says. ‘Whatever happens, he’ll be fine.’

‘Whatever happens? What do you mean, whatever happens? So you do think he’ll be paralysed? I can’t cope with this.’

‘Look, just stay calm, Sarah. Just bloody well stay calm. This is certainly not helping.’

Casper suddenly runs up to Sarah, a cereal bar in his hand.

‘Can I have this, Mummy?’

Sarah bends down, careful not to jog Thea now she’s finally quiet.

‘Of course you can, darling,’ she says, her mind being pulled in a hundred different directions. In any other situation she’d have said something, she’d have told the truth, straight away. At least, she likes to think she would. She can barely swallow for fear.

But the thought of losing Liza’s friendship is too much for her to bear. Tell the truth, lose a friend. Lie, and keep her close. A hot flush rips through her as her brain settles on her decision. She’ll do what Ella told her to. At least then they’d both be in it together. And, on second thoughts, Ella’s right. Telling the truth now won’t solve anything. In fact, it might make matters worse – stress Liza out even more. For the moment, they all need to do what’s best for everyone and, most of all, Jack. She’ll wait and see what the news is at the hospital. The Tannoy goes off again.

‘In light of an earlier incident, we’ll be closing the club in ten minutes. I repeat …’

‘Fine,’ Sarah says, turning to Ella. ‘Let’s just see what happens. Casper. Come on, darling. We’re going to take Thea back to ours.’ She is about to say goodbye to Ella, but she pulls up. ‘Wait,’ she says. ‘I need your number.’

She watches a frown cross Ella’s face.

‘In case I need to speak to you.’ Ella shrugs. Sarah lifts her chin in defiance. ‘Don’t you want to know what happens? With Jack?’

‘Fine,’ Ella breathes, and then she reels off her phone number, a bored expression on her face.

‘Thanks. Fine. I’ll ping you later. Felix, bye to you too.’ She grabs Casper’s hand and takes him and Thea back to the soft-play. She takes the pram, hoisting all the bags and coats into the bottom of the buggy before ordering an Uber. She’s in no mood to take the bus home. Whilst she’s waiting, she rings Tom.

‘Oh God,’ he says, once she’s run through the whole incident. ‘Is he OK? What can we do? I’m coming home now. Anything at all I can do, just let me know. Anything.’

‘I don’t know, Tom. I’m …’ She tries to tell him she’s scared but the words hang heavy on her tongue. ‘OK, look.’ She decides now is not the time to be thinking of anything else other than Liza and Jack. ‘Right. Formula. Can you get some formula milk for Thea? I’ve got her with me. Take out the Moses basket from the loft. Oh, and some nappies and shit … I don’t know. The steriliser. Do we still have that? What else do we need for babies? It’s been a while.’ She gives a small laugh which turns into a hiccup.

Images of last year surface in her mind – they seem to come back full-force in times of stress: how Liza had gone quietly to her house from the hospital before Tom had arrived back in London; keeping her mother up to speed because she couldn’t face her grief as well. Liza had then spent that day putting away any reminders of Rosie’s homecoming – everything shrink-wrapped and stored back in the loft so Sarah wouldn’t have to see it again.

She squeezes Casper’s hand. ‘OK?’ she mouths. He nods, looking up at his mother, a worried expression on his face. It’s only when she hangs up that she realises her hands are shaking and she’s got tears running down her face. For the first time in about five years, she actually wants to ring her mother but she’s too scared that the sound of her voice will prompt her to lose it entirely.