Ed spun around. “I’ll go see if he’s—”
“Ed!” said Renata. She’d dropped the hand holding her mobile phone to her side. The balcony light reflected off her glasses.
“Call an ambulance!” barked Ed.
“Yes,” said Renata. “I am. I will. But um . . . I didn’t see what happened. I didn’t see him fall.”
“What?” said Ed.
Madeline was still on her knees next to Celeste. Jane saw Madeline look straight past Ed at her ex-husband. Nathan’s hair was all sweaty from the wig and stuck to his forehead. He looked at Madeline with distraught, pleading eyes. Madeline looked back at Celeste, who was staring catatonically at the place where Perry had been sitting.
“I don’t think I saw either,” said Madeline.
“Madeline,” said Ed. He pulled angrily at his costume, as if he longed to tear it off. The glitter was coming off onto his hands, turning his palms gold. “Do not—”
“I was looking the other way,” said Madeline. Her voice was stronger. She got to her feet, holding her tiny clutch bag in front of her, her back straight and her chin high, as if she were about to walk into a ballroom. “I was looking inside. I didn’t see.”
Jane cleared her throat.
She thought of the way Saxon—Perry—had said, “It didn’t mean anything.” She looked at Bonnie, cowering near an upturned bar stool. She felt hot liquid anger suddenly cool and harden into something powerful and immovable.
“So was I,” she said. “I didn’t see anything either.”
“Stop this.” Ed glanced at her and back at Madeline. “All of you stop it.”
Celeste reached for Madeline’s hand and pulled herself gracefully to her feet. She straightened her dress and pressed one hand to her face, where Perry had hit her. She looked for a moment at the curled-up form of Bonnie.
“I didn’t see a thing,” she said, and her voice sounded almost conversational.
“Celeste.” Ed’s face crumpled as though in terror. He pressed his hands hard against his temples, and then dropped them. His forehead sparkled gold.
Celeste walked to the edge of the balcony and put her hands on the railing. She looked back at Renata and said, “Call the ambulance now.”
Then she began to scream.
It was easy after all those years of pretending. Celeste was a fine actress.
But then she thought of her children and she didn’t need to pretend anymore.
Stu: All hell had broken loose by this stage. Two blokes were fighting over some French chick, and next thing this four-foot weasel is laying into me because I’d said his wife couldn’t organize a root in a brothel and I’d offended her honor or something. I mean, jeez Louise, it’s just an expression.
Thea: It’s true the argument over standardized testing got a little heated. I have four children, so I do lay claim to some expertise in the matter.
Harper: Thea was shouting like a fishwife.
Jonathan: I was with some Year 4 parents and we got into an argument over the legality and morality of that damned petition. There were some raised voices. Maybe some shoving. Look, I’m not proud of any of this.
Jackie: Give me a vicious corporate takeover any day.
Gabrielle: I was considering cannibalism by this time. Carol looked delicious.
Carol: I was cleaning the kitchen when I heard the most terrible bloodcurdling scream.
Samantha: Ed came running for the stairs and he was shouting something about Perry White falling off the balcony and would someone for the love of God call an ambulance. I looked over at the balcony and saw two Year 5 dads go crashing out through the open door.
“There’s been an accident,” Renata was saying into her mobile phone. She had one finger plugged into her ear so she could hear the person on the other end over the sound of Celeste’s screams. “A man has fallen. From a balcony.”
“It was him?” Madeline took Jane’s arm and pulled her close. “It was Perry who—”
Jane stared at the perfect pink cupid’s bow of Madeline’s lipstick. Two perfect peaks. “Do you think he’s—”
She never got to finish her sentence because that’s when the two grappling white-satin Elvises, their arms wrapped tightly around each other’s backs as if in a passionate embrace, slammed violently into Jane and Madeline, sending them flying in opposite directions.
As Jane fell, she put one hand to save herself and felt something snap with sickening wrongness near her shoulder as she landed hard on her side.
The tiles of the balcony were wet against Jane’s cheek. Celeste’s screams mingled with the far-off sounds of ambulances and the soft sound of Bonnie sobbing. Jane could taste blood in her mouth. She closed her eyes.
Oh, calamity.
Bonnie: The fighting spilled out onto the balcony, and that’s when poor Madeline and Jane got so badly injured. I didn’t see Perry White fall. I . . . Would you excuse me for just a moment, Sarah? Wait, it is Sarah, isn’t it? Not Susan. My mind went blank. Sorry, Sarah. Sarah. A lovely name. It means “princess,” I think. Listen, Sarah, I need to pick up my daughter now.
78.
Detective-Sergeant Adrian Quinlan: We’re looking at any available CCTV footage, photos taken on the night and mobile phone footage. Obviously we’ll be studying the forensic evidence when it becomes available. We’re currently in the process of interviewing every one of the one hundred and thirty-two parents who attended the event. Rest assured, we will find out the truth about exactly what took place last night, and I’ll charge the bloody lot of them if I have to.
The Morning After the Trivia Night
I don’t think I can do it,” said Ed quietly. He was sitting on a chair next to Madeline’s hospital bed. She had a private room, but Ed kept looking nervously over his shoulder. He looked like he was seasick.
“I’m not asking you to do anything,” said Madeline. “If you want to tell, tell.”
“Tell. For God’s sake.” Ed rolled his eyes. “This isn’t snitching to the teacher! This is breaking the law. This is lying under . . . Are you OK? Are you in pain?”
Madeline closed her eyes and winced. Her ankle was broken. It happened when the two Year 5 dads crashed into her and Jane. At first she thought she wouldn’t fall, but then, it seemed like it happened in slow motion, one of her legs slid behind the other one on the wet balcony as though she were doing a fancy dance move. It was her good ankle too, not the one that kept rolling. She had to lie there on the wet balcony last night in excruciating pain for what seemed like hours while Celeste screamed that awful, endless scream, and Bonnie sobbed, and Nathan swore and Jane lay on her side with blood on her face and Renata yelled at the fighting Year 5 dads to “grow up, for God’s sake!”