Page 26 of The Fall-Out

Like you won’t believe.

‘Mummy, I’m cold.’ Meredith’s inevitable announcement came a good three minutes later than I’d been expecting it – a welcome reprieve.

‘Come on then, darlings. Bedtime and a story?’

For the next half an hour, I was distracted from any thoughts of Zara by The Cat in the Hat, Aliens Love Underpants and the intoxicating smell of my children, all soapy and sleepy – although I didn’t particularly rate the chances of them staying that way, given Toby’s recent habit of pinging into shouting wakefulness the moment I left the room.

I waited while they fell asleep, perched on the end of Meredith’s bed, not looking at my phone or even thinking about anything much except the way the shadow Toby’s eyelashes cast on his cheek was more visible than the pale ginger lashes themselves, and how Meredith’s lips drooped downwards towards the pillow as she fell asleep, her favourite teddy clamped under her chin.

At last, I felt it was safe to leave the room. I stood, infinitely slowly so as not to cause any vibration in the mattress, tiptoed to the door and stepped out on to the landing.

Only then did I allow myself to breathe.

Retrieving my wine glass from the bathroom, I walked downstairs. The kitchen was a mess – the children’s coats dumped over the backs of chairs, their lunchboxes unwashed next to the sink, my handbag spewing its contents over the kitchen table, which was still littered with the remains of spaghetti bolognese.

It was far from the scene of domestic serenity I’d imagined welcoming my husband home to, back when we’d decided it made sense for me to give up work. And, even though the child-related chaos was somewhat worse now than it had been earlier, it wasn’t the image of mine and Patch’s home I’d have chosen to display to Zara, either.

I glanced at my phone again and saw that the chat had been updated.

Rowan:

That’s so weird. It sounds like she was almost… Nice?

Abbie:

She was always nice. That was one of the things about her. Dangerously nice.

Naomi:

I know, right? I could feel my guard coming down all the time, and I really didn’t want to let it.

Kate:

Want to know something else?

Naomi:

What? Tell us quick, because I need to get cracking.

Kate:

She messaged me on LinkedIn. She’s asked me to meet her for a cocktail next week.

I put down my phone, leaving the others to react to Kate’s announcement. I took the defrosted chicken breasts out of the fridge, along with a couple of bendy carrots, a head of broccoli that was going brown round the edges and some wilting spring onions. My hands moving without my mind being fully engaged, I started vigorously peeling and chopping.

Zara was back. It seemed like she intended to infiltrate our lives as if nothing had happened – as if she could turn the clock back to when we were all friends and none of us would notice, or remember what had happened in the intervening years.

And I had absolutely no idea what to do about it.

ELEVEN

MAY 2010

‘Ooooh!’ Rowan clutched the handrail, her ankle almost turning over as she stumbled down the stairs in her high heels, just making it safely on to the pavement outside the bar. ‘I think that last round of strawberry mojitos was a mistake.’

‘Strawberry mojitos are never a mistake,’ Kate scolded. ‘Strawberry mojitos are the bomb.’

‘Bet you won’t be saying that at seven a.m. tomorrow,’ pointed out Abbie, who’d been held up at work and was therefore the most sober of the five of us – not that that was saying much.

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