Free Whispers Through a Megaphone by Rachel Elliott Page A

bedroom door. Harvey was cocking his leg against the sofa. Ralph was nowhere to be seen.
    Sadie Swoon @SadieLPeterson
Husband missing on his birthday. Party about to start!
    Marcus Andrews @MAthebakerboy
@SadieLPeterson More champagne for us
    Sadie Swoon @SadieLPeterson
Gone for sparkly silver vest and white trousers tonight. I have smokiest BBQ sauce!
    Sadie looked around the garden. Soon she would be wearing her Keep Calm and Have a Cupcake apron while cooking sausages. Their friends would be standing in the usual groupings, together but divided. She would make small talk with Ralph’s parents. She would look like she was enjoying herself. Arthur would drink too much and get aggressive. Stanley would be charming but distant. Her lips would be on Kristin’s lips.
    “Where’ve you been?” she said, as Ralph joined her, wearing the clothes she had bought him for his birthday.
    “I’ve been up in the loft.”
    “The loft?”
    “Yep.”
    “Why?”
    “Looking for my old guitar.”
    “Oh no.”
    “What?”
    “You’re not going to play it tonight?” she said, wielding the strongest of marital superpowers: the ability to evoke shame in her husband, which dismantled his spontaneity. Stun-gun Sadie had just shot him between the eyes.
    “Probably not,” he said. “Actually, I’m just going to run upstairs and get changed. These clothes are great but I feel a bit uncomfortable.” (There are two types of people: those who put on new clothes straight after buying them and those who like to save them for days, weeks or months, until the right time, which sometimes never comes. Ralph was the latter.)
    Knocks at the door, one after another, the kind of knocking that goes on and on until you think you’re going to scream. Who had invited all these people? Arthur answered it every time, expecting to find his girlfriend. She was late. The garden was full of conversation and music and the sizzle of burning meat. Sadie was sweating. The barbecue was overpowering.Ralph’s parents were watching. Marcus and Luci were gossiping on wooden chairs beneath the apple tree. A group of psychotherapists were sitting around the old camping table, laughing wildly, topping up one another’s glasses with red wine. Ralph was unwrapping a birthday present from their friend Beverley—“Just a little something, thought you might like it, no worries if you don’t, I’ll keep it myself.” Numerous teenagers, friends of Arthur or Stanley, were dotted about in brightly coloured clothes (a new trend? Sadie didn’t know. How could she not know? She followed the dots, her eyes hopping from red to blue to pink to yellow, not knowing who most of them were). Beverley was flirting with one of the neighbours, the one whose wife was in hospital (Sadie had only invited him out of pity).
    No one asked why Sadie’s face was swollen around her eye, they just helped themselves to salad, rolls, garlic bread, burgers, sausages, chicken, griddled vegetables, halloumi kebabs.
    Marcus put the cooked food onto large plates and lined them up on the table.
    Arthur’s girlfriend finally arrived—her sentences were polite, her face tight with venom.
    Stanley fiddled with the playlist on his laptop, sending music around the house and garden.
    Sadie cursed herself for forgetting to marinate the chicken as she noticed Carol and Kristin holding hands.
    Ralph’s mother tugged a weed out of the garden and held it up to her husband as if he should know where to put it.
     
    Yesterday afternoon, after a massage, haircut and highlights, Sadie met Kristin at Monkey Business for coffee. Kristin said they needed to talk , which made Sadie feel nervous. What did she want to say? Had she realized how Sadie felt?
    Over two flat whites and a slice of chocolate cake, they discussed the benefits of getting a regular massage, the golden stripes in Sadie’s hair, how Kristin was getting on with her prints, how Carol was still working long hours, how Sadie hoped it wouldn’t rain