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By the time she’s got Casper out of the building and manoeuvred the pram and everything else, the sky is getting darker and heavier, and it’s nearing tea time. Any minute now, Casper’s going to start whining and Thea’s going to want her milk. She passes a small group of women by the car park.
‘Awful,’ one of them whispers. Priti, she’s called. Sarah recognises her from Body Pump – she always wonders how she manages to be so compact but springy at the same time. ‘Investigation … I mean, my little one plays out there all the time. Lord knows what could have happened. Someone could have been killed.’
She wants to tell them all to stop gossiping. To go back home and have a little respect. She watches all the 4x4s, streaming out of the barriers. People are waving at her left, right and centre. Why can’t one of you just offer me a lift, she thinks. She stands scanning the roads for her Uber, when she realises she doesn’t even know what she’s looking for. She puts the brake on Thea’s pram, checking it’s on with her foot, three or four times. Something about the conversation she’s just overheard has made her even more nervous.
‘Casper. Away from the road.’
‘I’m not near the road,’ he says, but she yanks him back so he’s standing right close to the hedge. He looks shocked.
She pulls out her phone and brings up the Uber app. Tom’s words play back in her mind. Anything at all I can do, just let me know. And that’s when she knows. That she’ll do anything to make it up to Liza. To Jack. Liza won’t know why, but that’s fine. Somehow, even if it means putting her own life on the line, she’s going to sort out this awful, sorry mess. Maybe she should do some googling – falls from a great height, or paralysis – but then she knows her fear will take over.
She puts her phone firmly in her pocket, and then she sees Priti, leaping into her car. She plays back the conversation she’s just overheard; the self-righteous tremble of Priti’s voice. Investigation. Someone could have been killed. And that’s when she jolts. Investigation? Surely not. It was an accident. That’s all. Surely they wouldn’t go that far? And anyway, she couldn’t come clean now. She thinks of Liza’s face. The relief when Sarah had told her that her son was OK. I saw him. He’s fine. This is the way I paid you back for your friendship and love, Liza.
Her stomach tilts. She watches Priti’s car swing out of the space and into the road, the flash of her diamond ring winking in the weak sunlight. It’s far too late. She’s sure the investigation won’t happen. And if it does? Well, she has a story. She is going to stick to it and that, she tells herself with a lurch, is that.
LIZA (#ub687bb9b-816d-5913-a6b5-230e71dfbb2b)
I’m taken into a waiting room, whilst Jack is rushed into the operating theatre. Gav arrives soon after, motorbike helmet clamped under his arm. I stand up, and we hug. Something we haven’t done for months now. It doesn’t last long. I extricate myself from him, terrified about what’s coming next.
‘What happened?’ he demands as he crosses his arms and takes a step forward, encroaching into my space.
‘He fell.’ I take a step back from him.
‘How?’
I’d worked out the explanation already, yet now that Gav is here I’m finding it hard to speak.
‘He was climbing.’
‘Climbing what? A tree?’
‘No.’ I lower my head. ‘He was outside The Vale Club. In the playground.’ My vision tunnels.
‘And?’
‘Look, please,’ I tell him. ‘I was with Thea. She was screaming.’
‘That’s not what I’m asking you.’ I look into his eyes. Ever since we’d separated and he’d moved into a different area of the house, he’s been distant, unreadable.
‘He was outside. In the sandpit.’
‘And you were doing what, exactly?’ His voice takes on a menacing tone. ‘Can you please explain? That’s my son in there.’ He narrows his eyes. ‘Again.’ Cold rises up in my blood and I take another step back. I know we’re both thinking the same thing.
‘I was … I told you. I was with Thea. He was fine.’ I think back to just before it had happened. How Thea had just fallen asleep. How finally, that day, I thought I’d have three minutes to myself. Until Sarah had turned up with Ella Bradby.
‘He was fine. Sarah checked on him seconds before. He obviously …’ I trail off, unable to think of his small body impacting the ground. I swallow. ‘The doctors are, well, they’ve been good.’
‘What have they said?’
‘Nothing much. Just rushed him into theatre. They think he might have damaged his neck.’
‘Damaged? What the fuck do you mean, damaged? Broken?’
‘Gav. Please.’ I cover my mouth with my hand. ‘Please. Keep your voice down.’ I’m used to Gav’s emotions going from zero to a hundred miles per hour within the space of a few seconds.
‘You weren’t watching him, were you? Busy in that café with Sarah? Please, just tell me you were doing your job as a mother.’
‘I was,’ I try, but the words sound hollow. ‘I was. He was fine.’
‘And you trusted Sarah? What did she say? That he was OK?’
‘She said,’ I look up, trying to recall what she had said. ‘She said that she had waved and that he was fine.’
‘Well, you shouldn’t have left it up to Sarah. She’s so dopey sometimes she wouldn’t notice if her arse was on fire.’
‘That’s not fair. And nor is it relevant.’
‘What about the club then? How could they have something so dangerous? In the kids’ playground. I’m going to fucking have them. I’m going to …’
‘Listen.’ Now he’s turned his attention to The Vale Club, at least it’s off me and Sarah. ‘We have to focus on Jack.’
‘Well, it’s all relevant. He was under your watch, after all.’ He stares me down. I know what he’s thinking.
‘Look.’ My voice comes out in barely a whisper. ‘He was in the sandpit. I had seen him minutes before. Sarah checked on him. There’s nothing else that we should have done. I know that … I know you’re thinking of …’ I can’t bring myself to talk any further, but I don’t have to because he takes a big breath. The room feels dry.
‘If anything happens,’ he points a finger at me but then tempers himself, rubbing his face with both hands.
If anything happens, then what, I want to say but I sit down, defeated.
‘And I’m going to make sure they damn well do an investigation into all this. The club. Someone’s going to have some answers. I want answers. I’m going to sue.’
This is the thing about Gav – he always needs answers. Even when there aren’t any. I’m torn between pushing the spotlight off me – and the fact that I hadn’t been outside with Jack – and getting Gav onto the fact that it might have been The Vale Club who was at fault. Eventually, however, he runs out of steam and we sit in silence, Gav fidgeting in his seat. He picks up his motorbike helmet, clicks and unclicks the clasp over and over. I give him a warning look but he carries on.
I’m scared. So scared. I’ve been through every single outcome of the fall. From the best to the worst options. Jack is alive, but what about his quality of life? What if he never walks again? One of my greatest fears come true. And then all these other fears start careering through my mind. If he is paralysed will we be able to afford it? How will I cope? I don’t want to be thinking of money at a time like this, but we’d have to make arrangements. Change the house. Maybe Gav’s right? Maybe we should sue? Maybe that’s the only way we’d get enough to pay for his care. I try and be sensible and give myself the advice I’d give Sarah. Wait and see what the doctors say. Stop making things up before they’ve happened. But I feel sick at the thought of my son going through all of this.
‘Please can you stop making that noise with your helmet,’ I finally snap. ‘I’m finding it distracting.’ He stands up. ‘I mean, not you,’ I add quickly, in case it makes him flare up again. I’ve just got more important things on my mind right now than stepping on eggshells around Gav. ‘Just the noise.’
‘I’m going,’ he says. I feel the familiar stone drop in my stomach. Where to, I want to ask, but I keep my mouth shut. ‘I need to know what’s going on.’
He walks out of the room and I start to sob. I pick up my phone, mainly as a distraction from the sensation of dread hanging over me. There’s a text from Sarah. About Thea. My God. Thea. All this time I haven’t even thought of Thea. I feel the tingle, the swelling of my milk ducts. Oh God. She needs feeding. I am a shit mum.
All ok with Thea. We’ve given her formula. She’s fast asleep. We’re thinking of you. We’re here for you if you need anything at all.
Thanks, I text back. Still waiting. Jack in surgery. Can Thea stay the night in case we aren’t back? Not sure what’s happening.
Of course, comes the swift reply. Don’t think about anything other than Jack. Let us know any updates if you can Sx.
I start typing a reply. Telling Sarah that she needn’t berate herself about what happened, but I put down my phone. I’ve got to concentrate on the matter in hand.
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.’
