by Rona Halsall
She made it just in time. Ezra was already in his coat, standing by the door, his backpack in his hand. It would be fair to say that he’d learnt to tolerate nursery, but he definitely didn’t love it, and as for making friends, he hadn’t managed to develop strong connections with any of the other children as yet. He didn’t seem to be interested, happier in his own little world, surrounded by his familiar things, with Sara in the background if he wanted company. Self-contained, that was how the nursery teacher had described him, and Sara didn’t know if that was a good or a bad thing. If she tried to organise play dates, he resisted, so she’d given up, hoping he’d get the hang of social interaction when he started school.
It was a lovely sunny day, quite warm for the end of April, and Sara had made them a picnic to take up onto the moors, which stretched for miles above the town. She felt the need for fresh air and exercise and knew that Ezra would sleep better for a good stomp around the boulders, where he liked to play hide-and-seek and look for little creatures. She’d sleep better too, she hoped, the planned outing as much for her benefit as his.
‘We’re nearly there, aren’t we, Mummy?’ Ezra said as they drove out of town and up the hill towards the moors. He wasn’t a good traveller, but as long as he knew where they were going, and looked out of the window, he seemed able to cope.
‘A few more minutes,’ Sara said as the hill steepened and the valley was laid out in her rear-view mirror. She felt her heart quicken as she turned a corner and the land fell away to her left, while the boulder-strewn moors rose up to her right, wild and rugged and inviting.
Although some people found the vast open space unnerving, the moors were one of her favourite places. She remembered coming up here as a child on the bus with her mum and Hailey. She’d been quite a tomboy when she was young, and had loved to run and explore and climb on the boulders. She’d enjoyed picking bilberries when they were in season, little explosions of flavour straight from the bush. Just thinking about them now, she could taste the sourness on her tongue.
The smell of peat and heather created an earthy mix that awakened so many happy memories, not just of her own early childhood, but also of coming up here with Matt when the children were little. The moors were a part of her, their wildness an expression of how she felt inside, even if her life was a bit more contained these days.
It made her heart sing that Ezra enjoyed being up here as much as she did. Unfortunately, the girls were no longer so enthusiastic. At fourteen, they would be starting their GCSE courses in September and had morphed from girls to young women in the space of a couple of months. These days they didn’t want to scramble over the boulders, or pick bilberries to make into a pie, or have a picnic. Instead, their time was spent deliberating about hair and eyebrows, nails and spots and clothes. So much stress! Sara thought it had been much easier when she’d been young, with no social media or filtered photos setting impossible standards and instilling a fear of not being quite good enough.
At least the girls had each other; but did they spend too much time together behind their closed bedroom door? Recently it seemed they only came out of there to eat and go out with friends or to football practice with Matt, and she hardly had a proper conversation with them. It saddened her that their relationship was becoming more distant than she would like.
‘Mummy! Mummy, what are you staring at?’
Startled by Ezra’s voice, Sara realised she’d arrived at the car park on autopilot, lost in her thoughts, and now she was sitting staring out of the windscreen, not even registering the landscape in front of her.
‘Nothing, little smudge.’ She turned and grinned at him as he wriggled in his seat, desperate to be freed.
She got out and unfastened his seat belt, waiting for him to clamber out of the car before leaning over to grab the rucksack containing their lunch. He reached for her hand. ‘Let’s say hello to the cow and then the calf, shall we, Mummy?’
Sara laughed. The Cow and Calf was a rock formation at the top of the hill and a favourite picnic spot with the most wonderful views. The rocks also gave shelter from the wind, whatever direction it might be coming from.
‘Okay. Let’s go.’ She swung her arms, doing an exaggerated walk, and they laughed their way up the path, making up silly marching songs as they went.
Once they’d found a good spot for their lunch, and Ezra had made sure their blanket was in exactly the right place, he went insect-hunting with his magnifying glass, while Sara gazed across the valley, thinking about Matt and how their relationship had cooled over recent years. Ever since Ezra was born, if she was honest. That was when the problems had started.
It had been hard having a baby again, when the twins were ten and wanting to be active. Especially when Ezra had been the sort of baby who didn’t sleep more than a couple of hours at a time. The result had been Matt taking the girls under his wing while Sara looked after Ezra. That was the point when the family had fractured into two units, and they hadn’t yet managed to bring everyone back together again.
She wondered if it was too late now. If they could ever be the cohesive family she’d dreamed of, that she’d yearned for when she was a child. Not if Matt’s having an affair. The thought made her shiver. Hailey was right, she reminded herself. Cheating was not part of his make-up. He was as committed to his family as Sara.
People change. Look at Mum. She’d gone from being a doting mother to a reckless idiot after their father had died. He’d obviously been the stabilising influence in the partnership, and without him, her mum had gone completely haywire, in a way Sara couldn’t begin to comprehend. She was too young to remember a lot about it, only six years old when disaster had struck, an accident at work that meant her dad never came home again. Hailey, four years older, had a clearer view of it all.
She shook the thoughts from her mind, telling herself it did no good to dwell on the past. Her mum had gone, and all the trouble with her. But the scars remained, both physical and mental. Nothing intentional, but inflicted by neglect, by a woman who’d stopped caring about anything for long periods of time.
Sara shivered in the sudden breeze. Had Matt stopped caring too? She watched Ezra following a butterfly as it fluttered among the bilberry bushes, trying to remember when her husband had last focused all his attention on her and her alone. Nothing came to mind.
I’m losing him.
She swallowed, the very thought making her eyes sting. Don’t be so stupid, she told herself firmly. Hailey’s right. Matt wouldn’t cheat on me. He isn’t like that. Or at least he hadn’t been. But something in him had changed, and now her assurances lacked conviction.
She jumped up and went to join Ezra, marvelling with him at the patterns on the wings of the butterfly, wanting to fill her mind with anything but her niggling suspicions. Matt wouldn’t do anything to destroy the innocent life of his little boy. Or those of his beloved girls. He wouldn’t.
Chapter Four
‘Pizza for tea,’ Sara called up the stairs at the girls’ disappearing backs. ‘About an hour, okay?’ She watched the three of them hurtle round the corner and out of sight. Heard the bedroom door slam, excited chatter on the other side. What happened to teenagers? It was the weirdest thing. One minute they were all cuddly children wanting attention, the next it was like you had just stepped out of the grave and they couldn’t get away from you fast enough.
‘Mummy, come and watch with me,’ Ezra called from the lounge, where she could hear the familiar theme tune of a particularly annoying children’s programme. ‘It’s your favourite.’ She cringed. If she never heard that song again, she would count it as a major blessing.
‘Five minutes. I’m just going to make a cup of tea.’ She popped her head round the door, smiling when she saw her son already snuggled up with his cuddly Pikachu toy, which was his constant companion at home. ‘Do you want a drink?’ She could see his eyelids already at half-mast and knew it was going to be a struggle to keep him awake until bedtime. ‘How about a milkshake?�
�� Sugar and milk, the best of both worlds and her go-to solution at this time of day to give him enough of a boost to keep him conscious until after they’d eaten.
‘Thanks, Mummy,’ he said, voice drowsy, and she hurried to get him a drink before he nodded off.
Ten minutes later, his empty cup in hand, she drifted back into the kitchen to make her own cup of tea. She had just sat down at the table when her phone pinged. A text message. She checked and found it was from Hailey.
Matt left early, so following now.
Her pulse quickened. It doesn’t mean anything, she told herself. She checked her watch: just after 4 p.m. Bit late for a meeting. But he’d said he was working late, so perhaps it was an evening meeting – dinner with clients or something. It had happened quite a lot lately. If it was actually clients he was having dinner with. She busied herself with the laundry, putting another load on, hands shaking as she stuffed clothes into the machine.
Finally she heard another ping from her phone.
He’s gone to the pub. The Flying Duck.
Sara’s heart skipped. She called her sister, could hardly ask the question. ‘Is he on his own? Did he meet anyone?’
‘I’m not sure. It’s pretty quiet, but you know I can’t go in. I’m still banned after… well, you know…’
Sara’s heart sank. Hailey dealt with young people who were the victims of abuse and neglect and helped them find a more positive future, but she was fiercely protective of her service users and that sometimes got her into trouble. She tugged at her hair. So close to finding out what was going on, and yet… ‘Can’t you just peek through the door? Nobody will notice.’
Hailey sighed. ‘Okay. He wasn’t looking excited, though, I can tell you that. In fact, he looked like he had the weight of the world on his shoulders.’
Guilt would do that to a person, Sara thought. ‘Go on then,’ she urged. ‘Please.’
Hailey’s breath crackled down the phone. ‘Right, back in a sec.’
Sara paced up and down the kitchen as she waited. Turned on the oven. Got the pizzas ready. Set the table. At last her phone rang. She picked it up. ‘That was a long bloody sec.’
‘Yeah, well, I couldn’t see him from the front door, so I walked round the back and sneaked in. But he wasn’t at the bar. I had a quick scoot round before anyone saw me, but I couldn’t spot him anywhere. Must have been in the loos, because his car’s still out front.’
‘Any women sitting on their own, like they were waiting for someone?’
‘There were all sorts of people in there.’ Hailey sounded a bit cagey and Sara wondered if she was telling her everything, worried perhaps that she would jump to the wrong conclusion. ‘Look, I’ll wait outside and keep checking on what’s happening if you like.’
‘Are you sure?’ Sara stopped pacing. ‘I don’t want you hanging around.’
‘No problem.’ The line went dead.
Nerves tugged at Sara’s belly. It wasn’t like Matt to drink during the day. In fact, he had a rule that he didn’t drink during the week, saving his alcohol quota for Saturdays. It was what he’d always done. Or at least she thought he had. Now she was wondering if she knew his habits as well as she’d thought she did.
She busied herself with getting the pizzas in the oven, checked that Ezra was still awake and spent ten minutes folding clothes into piles, one for each family member. Just as she was about to call the girls down for their food, the door opened and in walked Matt.
She gaped at him in stunned silence as he threw his briefcase on the floor, slung his jacket after it and headed straight for the fridge, where he pulled out one of his weekend beers and cracked it open, taking a big slug.
‘Matt, what’s going on?’
He glugged his beer, not stopping until the bottle was empty. Then he wiped the back of his hand across his mouth before he finally looked at her. ‘We need to talk.’
He had a strange look in his eyes, a sadness about him, a heaviness in his stance. Oh my God. He’s going to tell me he’s leaving. She clung to the worktop, and for a moment, time seemed to stand still, the two of them looking at each other in the sort of silence that never has a happy ending.
The girls must have smelt the food because they came thundering down the stairs before she had a chance to call them, chatting and giggling, phones in their hands as if they’d grown there and were part of their anatomy. The noise shattered Sara’s fearful thoughts, bringing her back to the moment and the smell of burning. She dashed to the oven, relieved to see it was just the edge of the top pizza that had caught. The other one looked fine, and she quickly cut it into slices, jiggled the pieces onto plates and put them on the table, where she’d already placed the bowl of salad.
‘Thanks, Mrs Whitlock,’ Chelsea said with a broad smile. ‘Smells lovely.’
Despite her concerns about Matt, Sara smiled back. Chelsea had such beautiful manners and she wondered where she’d gone wrong with her two girls, who were helping themselves to salad without even acknowledging her existence.
‘You’re welcome,’ she said as she went to get Ezra from the lounge. She tried to make sure the whole family had their evening meal together, so there was one point in the day when they could chat and have a catch-up, but it was tricky keeping Ezra awake long enough for him to join in.
When she got back to the kitchen, Ezra clutching her hand, Pikachu dragging along the floor in his wake, she was surprised to find that Matt had gone.
She frowned. ‘Where’s your dad?’ she asked Amelia.
‘He went outside. With a couple of beers.’ Amelia pulled a face. ‘What’s up with him? Looks like he’s in a stinker of a mood.’
Sara shrugged and gave a fleeting smile, not wanting Chelsea to get the impression there was a problem. ‘I’ve no idea, love. Will you sort out Ezra while I go and see if he’s eating with us?’
She left without waiting for an answer, knowing exactly where she’d find Matt. He was in the garage, which sat on the other side of a covered walkway next to the house. His man cave, as he liked to call it. Not long after they’d moved in to the house, when the twins were still infants, he’d divided the garage in two, making a room for himself in one half and a storeroom in the other. Gradually, as finances allowed, he’d installed electricity, then heating and a bit of furniture, and now this was where he came with his mates to watch football and play on the Xbox. It meant they could be as rowdy as they liked and not disturb the kids.
He was sitting on the sofa, staring at the blank TV screen, his face wet with tears.
Sara’s heart stuttered and she stopped in the doorway. Matt never, ever cried and a horrible uneasiness settled in her stomach. She was in uncharted territory with a storm brewing and no shelter in sight. The sound of her pulse filled her ears.
She hesitated, just for a moment, before she rushed over and sat beside him. ‘Bloody hell, Matt. What’s wrong?’ She put an arm round his shoulders and gently wiped his tears away, but he didn’t look at her. His empty beer bottle hung from his fingers, swinging backwards and forwards, like the pendulum of a clock, as he stared straight ahead.
He can’t tell me. Oh my God, this is it. This is where he says he’s leaving. She couldn’t bear it, couldn’t stand the not knowing. Her hand tightened on his shoulder and she held him close, breathed in the spicy scent of him as if it was the last time. ‘Tell me, Matt. You’ve got to tell me.’
Seconds turned into minutes, his body shaking with the force of his heartbeat. He heaved in a deep breath and let out the longest sigh before he finally spoke.
‘I’ve been laid off. Made redundant.’
His words hit her hard, like she’d just run into a wall. Her jaw dropped as she processed what he’d said. Oh God, I got it wrong, so wrong. The relief slackened the muscles that had been holding her rigid, but after a few moments, she realised this news was just as bad, but in a different way.
She gulped, hoping she might have misheard. Misunderstood. ‘What? They can’t have. They wer
e taking on staff not long ago. Talking to you about promotion.’
He nodded, still staring at the wall as if he was in a trance. ‘We lost that big contract. A major bit of work for a government department.’ His voice was thick and weary. ‘They just pulled it without warning. A change in policy, would you believe? They’ve spent millions building this system, but there’s a new project team, and when they looked at all their budgets, they decided to mothball it.’
The bottle slipped from his fingers and clattered to the floor, spinning off under the sofa. She flinched, startled by the noise. He didn’t seem to notice, though, his eyes still fixed on the blank screen in front of him.
‘The company has overstretched itself, apparently. Didn’t read the warning signs. Everyone’s been laid off.’ He turned to her and she could see that his eyes were brimming, chin quivering, his emotions barely under control. ‘They’ve gone bust. There’s no redundancy pay. Probably no salary this month.’ He leant forwards, elbows on his knees, head hanging between his shoulders. ‘That’s it,’ he mumbled to the floor. ‘I’m unemployed.’
Sara laid her head on his shoulder and rubbed his back, trying to think of something soothing to say while her mind started doing mental arithmetic, adding up their monthly outgoings. They had a mortgage. An overdraft. Credit cards. Two car loans. Three kids. None of that was cheap. A surge of panic flowed through her, bringing her out in a cold sweat. How are we ever going to manage? What if we can’t?
Images from her childhood flooded into her mind, her and her sister being picked up by the ladies from social services. ‘Just for a couple of weeks. Think of it as a holiday,’ her mum had said. ‘Until I get everything sorted.’ But things never did get sorted and they boomeranged between being at home with their mother and living with foster parents. It happened three times, until the new caseworker decided that their mother shouldn’t ever be given responsibility for her children. Sara was ten at the time, and the next eight years were spent with four different families, always an outsider and always resented by the foster parents’ natural children. She was alone, separated from her sister, because very few foster placements could take siblings, and anyway, Hailey was out of the care system four years before her. They did what they could to stay in touch, but geography and finances didn’t make it easy.