The Fallout (19 page)

“Which I wish you hadn't. I haven't even told Sasha yet. Couldn't think of how to broach it. Shit, Josh. I don't believe it. What's Sienna doing getting pregnant by a married man who's old enough to be her father?”

“Oh, come on. That's a bit much. They didn't intend to. Sienna was taking these pills and...”

“What a bastard. What an utter bastard. This is going to destroy Sasha.”

“Yes, well you can't tell her. You must promise, okay?”

Hannah said nothing, just continued gazing at Josh without seeing him, shaking her head softly from side to side.

“Hans? We have to stay out of this now. We've let ourselves get far too drawn into Dan and Sasha's mess,” he said. “This is where we have to lay down a bit of distance. You've got to start focusing on yourself now. Surely there are other friends who can rally around to give Sasha some support. Other mums at school?”

Hannah slowly shook her head.

“You know what Sasha's like. She always said she wasn't a woman's woman and she's right. The other mums don't really get her. And she doesn't seem to have many other friends. I think the people they hung out with mostly tended to be people who knew Dan.”

“You're going to have to pull back, Hannah. It's not healthy. For you, I mean. And I wouldn't mind having a break from Dan, as well. School break is coming up soon. How about we go up to see my parents again and break the news? They'll be over the moon.”

“Your parents? We've only just been up there. How about we go and see my family for a change? It's been ages since I visited Mum.”

Josh swallowed. “Do you really think you're up to it?”

“Of course I'm up to it. She's my mum.”

“Okay, whatever you like.”

Later, Josh lay next to Hannah in the dark listening to the sounds of her sleeping, the little snuffling noises she made just before she changed position that never failed to move him. He tried to think back to how he'd felt earlier, when he'd been so sure of the inviolability of their little unit, to that sense of well-being he'd experienced for the first time in weeks. But it eluded him, and in the end he fell asleep much later on, thinking of the forthcoming visit to Hannah's mother and wishing there was something—anything—he could do to stop it from happening.

Chapter 20

“I came as quickly as I could. Where is she? How is she?”

Hannah was so out of breath the words tore from her in great painful bursts. She'd run to the school, cursing herself all the way for allowing herself to get so out of shape. She would start jogging. Everyone was doing it these days.

“Please don't worry yourself, Mrs. Hetherington, Lily's fine now, playing in the sandpit, happy as can be.”

“But you said she was hurt.”

Mrs. Mackenzie breathed in heavily as if weighing up her words. Her eyes seemed to be drawn to something and, following the direction of her gaze, Hannah was mortified to see she'd come out in what she'd been wearing when she got the call—the T-shirt she slept in, over an old pair of jeans with one of Josh's fleece-lined hoodies pulled over the top. She hastily pulled the bottom edges together and zipped it up.

“There's been an
incident
.”

“What kind of incident? What's happened?”

“It's nothing to get concerned about, Mrs. Hetherington. It involved Lily and September. September... Well, perhaps you'd better see for yourself.”

Hannah's heart was hammering under the thin T-shirt as they made their way into the play corner of the preschool. There she was. How small she looked, standing there on her own, concentrating on pouring sand from a small bucket to a larger one, the tip of her pink tongue protruding from between her lips.

“Lily-put? Darling?”

“Mummy!”

Lily ran to Hannah and flung her arms around her, burying her face in her mother's dirty jeans.

“Lil? Are you all right? Let's look at you.”

Hannah crouched down in front of her daughter, taking in her swollen red face and pink-tinged eyes.

Mrs. Mackenzie bent down, too.

“Lily,” she said gently. “Do you want to show Mummy your sore arm?”

Lily looked stricken, but she nodded very deeply and very solemnly.

Mrs. Mackenzie took hold of Lily's pink cardigan and carefully slid the left sleeve off her arm. Underneath she was wearing her T-shirt with the yellow and orange flowers. Mrs. Mackenzie turned Lily away from Hannah, and she let out a gasp of horror. There, in the sweet, pink flesh of Lily's upper arm, just above her plump elbow, was a perfect purple bite mark.

“It looks worse than it is, Mrs. Hetherington. The nurse from the big school has had a look at it and luckily the skin isn't broken, though there's obviously some bruising. She doesn't think there's a need to take her to the hospital, though that's completely up to you.”

Hannah pulled her daughter to her, almost crushing her in her need to feel that warm little body safe in her arms. When she finally pulled away, Mrs. Mackenzie was gazing at them, head to one side, eyes full of sympathy.

“Are you all right to play here for a few minutes longer, Lily, while I talk to Mummy in the quiet room?”

Lily nodded, stepping obediently back to the sandpit.

Back in the other room, little more than a corridor with one side devoted to coat pegs marked with different stickers, Mrs. Mackenzie filled her in. There had been some tension between the girls in the last few weeks, September becoming overly possessive, and Lily seeming nervous. But today they seemed to have been playing fine.

“Lily was so happy,” Mrs. Mackenzie reported. “She told the whole class she was going to have a new brother or sister.”

Hannah felt herself blushing.

“She and September were in the dressing-up area, where there's the castle for playing kings and queens. They both disappeared in there, which they do all the time. And the next thing I knew, there was a scream, and Lily came out with that bite mark on her arm. September has been taken home by her mother, and we called her father in, too. He'd already asked to be kept independently informed of everything that concerns his daughter. I gather the relationship between the parents is a bit strained at the moment.”

“Sasha told you that?”

Mrs. Mackenzie shook her head vigorously, setting her black curls trembling.

“Not Mrs. Fisher, no. Mr. Fisher was the one who let us know. And he came in today, with his new friend. After September had gone home, of course.”

“His new friend? You don't mean he brought her here?”

Mrs. Mackenzie pressed her lips together discreetly. “Like I said, September wasn't on the premises, so there was never any question of awkward meetings. I imagine he just wanted the support.”

Hannah was conscious that her mouth was still hanging open, but she was struggling to take this in. Could Dan really be so insensitive? Did he imagine that now Sienna was pregnant, they could present themselves at school as a new family unit and no one would object? Josh was absolutely right. They needed to distance themselves from Sasha and Dan. Not only for their sake, but clearly for Lily's, as well.

On the way home she held Lily's hand so tightly the little girl eventually wriggled her hand loose. “Ouch, Mummy,” she scolded. “Too hard.”

As they walked, she could feel her phone vibrating inside the pocket of the hoodie she was wearing.
Sasha
said the caller display. She put it back. Almost immediately it started vibrating again. She ignored it.

Back in the flat, Lily was unusually clingy, asking Hannah to cut up her food for her and even feed her—something she hadn't done for a while. “Were you and September fighting?” Hannah asked her. “Was that why she bit you?”

Lily fixed her round blue eyes on her mother and shook her head.

“But September must have been cross about something?”

Again Lily shook her head. Afterward, she lay on her bed listening to a CD of her favorite story, and fell asleep with her thumb in her mouth.

By this time, Sasha had left more than ten messages.

“What shall I do?” Hannah asked a shocked Josh, when she finally got through to him between classes and explained what had happened.

“Call her back, but be firm, no matter how much she grovels. Tell her the girls need a break from each other. And so do we. We're not blaming her, or September, but we need to step back.”

Hannah kneeled on the floor of Lily's bedroom for a long time, watching her sleeping. Then she took a deep breath and picked up the phone.

“Finally!” Sasha didn't sound like someone about to grovel. If anything her tone was combative. “I've been calling you all day!”

“Yes, well I've been busy. Lily has been very upset, as you can imagine.”

“That's what I wanted to talk to you about. How is Lil? Hope she's over it now.”

When Hannah finally responded, her voice cracked with indignation.

“Over it? Sasha, did you see Lily's arm?”

Sasha made a noise that sounded dangerously dismissive.

“It was just a little bruise, that's all. You know how Lily likes to play up an injury. Remember how she was when she had that MMR vaccine? You'd have thought the nurse was trying to kill her!”

Hannah's fingers gripped the phone so tightly she wondered it didn't shatter into millions of tiny pieces.
Shut up
, she urged Sasha silently.
Be quiet now.
Sasha, clearly failing to intuit what Hannah was telling her, continued.

“But what I really want to talk about is how we're going to tackle the issue of why September reacted the way she did.”

“What do you mean?” Hannah's words were shards of glass, sharp enough to sever an artery, sharp enough to rip open the scab on that scratch on Sasha's arm.

“What I mean, Hannah, is that September would never have done what she did if Lily hadn't been taunting her about having a new baby sister or brother. Lily knows September has just seen her own family torn apart, she didn't need to rub her nose in it, telling her she'll never have a brother or sister because her daddy doesn't love her or her mummy anymore.”

“Lily would
never
say anything like that!”

“Hannah, Lily's no angel, as you well know. None of them are. I'm not
blaming
her, I'm just saying it would have been so much better if you'd told me you were pregnant first so that we could have agreed on a strategy for the girls.”

“I don't
fucking
believe you!”

Hannah was so choked up with bile, she could hardly get the words out.

“How dare you criticize my daughter, when she's lying here with your daughter's teeth marks in her arm? She could be scarred for life.”

“Oh, don't be so ridiculous, Hannah.”

“This conversation is over, Sasha. If it goes on any longer we'll both say things we regret. I think the best thing is that we take a breather from each other. You and September and Dan have things you need to sort out by yourselves. And Josh and Lily and I need time to get used to the idea of a new baby, and really solidify our family unit.”

Had she used that phrase deliberately? Because she knew it would cause the maximum hurt? Well, good. For a moment Hannah savored the vicious stab of triumph, visualizing in her mind Sasha's stricken expression, September's crumpled face.

“I'm sorry, Sash,” she said, and her voice was softer now. “I know you're going through hell at the moment, but I need to concentrate on my f—
On things at home.”

She pressed the “end call” button gently, hoping Sasha would somehow be able to tell that she hadn't cut her off in anger. Then she went to look once more at her sleeping daughter, sandy lashes resting on the still-rounded curve of her cheek, thumb firmly positioned in her mouth. Could Lily really have said those things to September? Might she be just another blinkered parent, unwilling to admit her child capable of wrongdoing? Suddenly Hannah felt swamped by a crushing tiredness the likes of which she couldn't remember feeling before. She picked up the edge of the blanket covering Lily and slid in underneath, curling herself around her sleeping child. Then, with one hand over her belly where, incredibly, new life was stirring, whether she wanted it to or not, she, too, fell asleep.

* * *

She woke to the sound of the doorbell. A long, persistent buzzing, as if someone was leaning against the bell. Outside the window, the sky was caught in that no-man's-land of a late-autumn English afternoon, where the greyness of the incoming night met the greyness of the outgoing day and it could be any time at all.

To her surprise, she heard Josh talking into the intercom. She hadn't even heard him come home. She sat up, trying not to wake Lily, and made her way out of the bedroom.

She could hear raised voices in the communal hallway. “You can't,” she heard Josh say loudly. Then a woman shouting. Seconds later, Sasha burst through the door, closely followed by Josh. Her skin was sallow in the gloomy half light, her eyes huge and wild in her shrunken face, and her chest was shuddering as if there was some living thing loose in there, slamming itself against the rib cage, desperate to be free.

“Someone tried to kill me.”

“For heaven's sake!” Beyond exasperated, Hannah put a hand on Sasha's shoulder and steered her roughly into the living room, where she was less likely to waken Lily.

“Hannah. I'm not joking. Look!” Sasha wrestled off her coat and threw it to the floor before rolling up the leg of her skinny jeans, revealing a distinct red mark on her tiny calf at least five inches long that was already starting to bruise. Hannah couldn't help noticing that, breakdown or no breakdown, Sasha had had time to wax her legs.

“I was in Brent Cross. I'd gone because I was so upset about the argument with you, and the thing with the girls. I left September with Katia. She wanted to come with me, but I told her it was her punishment for what she'd done to Lily.”

Sasha shot a sly glance at Hannah, as if seeking approval, but Hannah didn't react.

“All the time I was there, I felt like someone was watching me. You know that creepy feeling you get sometimes. I was in Gap—you know that section where the knickers are—and I swear to God there was someone right behind me, kind of breathing onto my neck. I was so freaked out I just froze and by the time I turned around they'd gone.

“Then I was going down those escalators, the ones outside Marks and Spencer, and the next thing I knew...” Sasha stopped to gulp down a sob. “The next thing I knew, I felt this shove from behind and I went tumbling down. If there hadn't been a man a few steps farther down who broke my fall, I'd have gone right to the bottom. Hannah, I thought I was going to die. You know how they say your whole life flashes before your eyes? Well, the only thing I could think was ‘Brent Cross? Really? I'm going to die in Brent Cross?'”

She was trying to smile, but tears were leaking from her eyes.

“But there must have been loads of people around.” Trust Josh to get straight down to practicalities. “If you'd been pushed, someone would have seen something.”

“That's precisely it,” Sasha said. “The place was packed, and after I fell it was just pandemonium. Can you imagine? At the top I'd pushed in front of a group of women who looked like they were on some sort of wedding mission—to pick bridesmaids dresses or something. They were moving so slowly, I made sure I nipped onto the escalator ahead of them. There were only a couple of people ahead of me and when I fell I nearly knocked them both over. There was such a commotion a crowd gathered around us. Whoever did it would have been able to just saunter away. And no one noticed who was directly behind me.”

“Maybe someone accidentally bumped into you.” Josh had his teacher's voice on, Hannah recognized.

“No, Josh. I was there, it wasn't an accident.” Sasha's voice caught.

“And this ‘someone' who tried to kill you. I'm guessing you mean Dan?”

Sasha glared at Josh as if calling his bluff. “How many other people have threatened to kill me recently?”

“And you told the police, I take it,” Hannah said, keeping her voice neutral. She was still furious with Sasha over what she'd said about Lily earlier, but on the other hand her friend was clearly distressed.