The Happy Family by Jackie Kabler (electric book reader txt) 📕

It’s not my fault; it wasn’t me. I didn’t … Please, can you just tell her?’

I’m suddenly sobbing so hard I can barely speak.

‘No. And I can’t talk to you anymore, not now. We’ll be in touch. Goodbye, Beth.’

And then he’s gone, and now I feel as if my world, already so fragile, is crumbling around me. Blackness is creeping ever closer. I think about Eloise, and about Finley – my children, my life. I think about Lucy Allen and how her mother must have felt when she lost her, and now, for the first time, I realise that I truly understand. I can feel her pain, her agony.

My children may still be alive, but I’ve lost them, haven’t I? I’ve lost them, and now I get it. This is it. This is my real punishment. It’s what I deserve, I know that, but how can I survive this?

BRRRR.

The phone’s ringing again. For a moment, numb with fear and grief, I just stare at it, sitting there on the arm of the chair. It’s a private number this time. I consider ignoring it, but it’s still ringing, ringing, ringing. It might be important, might be something to do with Eloise maybe, and so I force myself to move. I reach slowly for the handset, my finger fumbling for the button to accept the call.

‘Hello?’

My voice sounds hoarse, thick with tears, and I couldn’t care less. Nothing matters now.

‘Beth Holland?’

The voice is male, brisk, business-like.

‘Yes, this is me.’

‘Hi, Beth. My name is Miles Cranford. I’m a reporter on the Daily Star? I just wanted to let you know that we’re going to be running a story about you on Saturday. We spoke to your boss a few days back – she might have mentioned that?’

Oh God, oh God, oh God. No, no, no …

‘But … Oh, please, no, don’t do this! She said … Gabby said you hadn’t been back in touch. She thought …’

My heart is pounding so hard I can feel it hammering painfully against the wall of my chest.

‘Ah well, she wasn’t too helpful,’ he says, with a little laugh.

A laugh? He’s laughing about this?

‘I believe you claim you were hacked, but the footage is definitely you, isn’t it? So, you know …’ he’s saying. ‘We have that, and some of the comments from your patients. Someone forwarded me some screenshots, you see, before it was all deleted. Some very complimentary remarks, I have to say. I think you’ve got some fans out there now, Beth.’

He laughs again as I listen, aghast. I think I’m about to vomit.

‘Somebody filmed that footage without my knowledge. You can’t—’ I splutter, but he’s still talking.

‘It’s a great story. GP manager in X-rated video storm. Imagine it! But Beth, while we were doing a bit of background research, you know, for the story, well, we came across something, and I just wanted to run it past you, maybe get a comment? I’m going back a bit here, quite a few years, and it may be something hard for you to talk about, but I need to ask …’

His voice has softened a little, taken on a more wheedling, questioning tone, and I feel a shiver down my back, an icy finger of fear moving slowly along my spine.

‘It’s about something that happened back in the early 90s, when you were a pupil at Fairbridge High School in Bristol. A fellow pupil very tragically took her own life, and a source tells us that you had some involvement in that, Beth? I mean, I know there were never any charges brought, don’t worry’—again, he lets out a light laugh, and I’m frozen now, a sort of paralysis creeping over me; the only moving part of me is my chest, pumping up and down, up and down. I’m starting to hyperventilate—‘but a source tells us that there were allegations of bullying, before this girl killed herself? Bullying by you, I mean. Do you have any response to that, Beth?’

I sway in my chair, black spots dancing before my eyes.

This is it then. This is it. It’s all over, isn’t it?

‘No comment,’ I whisper. ‘No comment.’

Chapter 32

It’s worse than I ever thought it would be.

I was down at the local shop before it even opened at eight, hovering on the pavement as the door was unlocked. I rushed to the newspaper stand, folding the paper in half as I paid, too terrified to look. Now, back in my kitchen, with Mum still upstairs in the shower, I open it with shaking hands, turning the pages until …

Oh. My. God.

And there I am, naked in a national newspaper. OK, not completely naked; they’ve put little stars over my nipples and over my crotch. But I’m still largely naked, no pun intended. Two photos – big photos – that are stills taken from the video footage. There’s one of me standing in front of my mirror, slightly side-on, hands stroking the rolls of flesh on my stomach, wobbly thighs and bum turned towards the camera. The second shows me in the bath, breasts visible above the bubbles, hands under the water somewhere. And the headline … I read it again, my cheeks burning.

SCANDAL OF COTSWOLD GP MANAGER’S STEAMY SECRET VIDEO

I’m breathing so fast that my chest is starting to hurt, but I force myself to read the article, my feeling of desperation growing with each sentence.

A GP practice manager from Cheltenham has shocked patients after a link on her surgery’s Facebook page took them to a porn website, where she’s currently starring in a saucy video. The steamy shots show Beth Holland (40) frolicking naked in her bedroom and enjoying a spot of solo underwater fun in her bathtub …

Frolicking? Solo underwater fun? But I didn’t … I wasn’t … Oh shit, shit, shit …

I read on, eyes skimming the text now, seeing mentions of ‘the curvaceous mother of two’, ‘eye-popping cleavage’, ‘recently divorced’, and ‘generous derriere’, my hands gripping the kitchen counter for support.