The Fallout. Rebecca Thornton
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.
‘He’s absolutely divine,’ Sarah says. Divine? What the hell? She’s never used that word before in her life. But she carries on and on, the words spewing out of her mouth. ‘Just look at that beautiful blond hair.’ Just like yours, she nearly adds, but manages to stop herself just in time.
She stands there, rooting around for more things to say but suddenly her workout top feels too tight, squeezing out all her breath. She notices the squidge of flesh spilling out of the top of her leggings, which begin to feel scratchy and hot. She’s also got a nagging feeling – her stomach feels hollowed out. It’s the sense that she’s forgotten to do something. But then she hears Ella clearing her throat and her mind is transported right back to the present moment. She thinks about making a joke about it all. Telling Ella how annoying she finds this whole ‘soft-play’ thing. She lets out a brief laugh and then wonders how she’s managed, in the space of three minutes flat, to come across as a complete twat.
‘So Felix is enjoying karate? I was thinking about putting my son Casper in for a trial.’ If Ella knows that Casper and Felix are in the same year, she’s not letting on. The feeling her son is being dismissed, as well as her, only makes Sarah more determined to get Ella’s attention.
‘Yes. He enjoys it.’ Ella’s still rubbing her thumb on the screen of her phone, glancing down at it as though she’s expecting it to ring at any given moment.
Keep going with this, Sarah thinks. Her heart’s going crazy. Don’t fuck this up. But Ella’s attention is elsewhere. She’s cooing in Wolf’s ear, totally unaware of Sarah and the emotional energy she’s putting into the conversation.
‘We’re inside,’ Sarah carries on. ‘Me and Liza. Do you remember Liza? She was in NCT too. We’re still mates. Really good mates.’ She sees something flicker in Ella’s expression. A vague recognition but it quickly disappears. She feels slightly irritated. Is Liza really more memorable than her? ‘We’re in the soft-play area. If you want to, you know, join us?’ Liza would scold her later on for that, Sarah was sure of it. What do you want to ask her for?
‘Thanks.’ Ella doesn’t say anything else to indicate she’s even acknowledged what Sarah’s said. She feels stung at Ella’s lack of interest in her, a seed of rage pushing its way up from her stomach. Is she not good enough for her? She tells herself just to stop being so bitter. That none of this is to do with her. Ella is the way she is and that’s all there is to it. Maybe something bad had happened to her when she was young. Her mind fills with images of Ella as a child. A sad and lonely orphan. Maybe, Sarah thinks, just maybe, she should try being a little bit kinder in her thoughts. Except she can’t. She’s furious at the distance that Ella has put between them.
Just as she’s thinking all of this, Wolf’s right leg kicks out and something clatters to the ground.
‘Oh,’ Ella gasps, bending down. But before she can get there, with Wolf now wriggling and whining, Sarah reaches it first. The phone. Ella’s hand stretches out at the same time. Sarah watches as their fingers nearly touch.
‘No!’ Ella lets out a protest. But Sarah’s already grabbed it.
‘Nice,’ Sarah says, turning the phone around in her hands. She feels a giddy sense of power.
‘Can I have it back now, please?’ Ella says, her vowels stretched high