by Dawn Goodwin
Maddie asked Jade to show her photos of Ben and she took her time scrolling through – Ben playing with the toys Maddie had noticed earlier; his face covered in tomato ketchup with a McDonalds Happy Meal in front of him; another of him splashing in a puddle wearing bright green wellies. Looking around the lounge, there was only one photo on show in a frame – Jade and Ben smiling into the camera behind a birthday cake marked with three candles.
One photo popped up on Jade’s phone of a tiny baby Ben held in the arms of a tall, dark-haired man. ‘Is that Ben’s dad?’ Maddie asked.
Jade hesitated and looked away.
‘Don’t worry, you don’t have to tell me,’ Maddie added hastily.
‘No, it’s fine. It’s just… Yes, that’s Mark. We’re not together now.’ She picked at a small hole in her T-shirt. ‘We split up before I was pregnant, but then one drunken night a couple of months later and bam!’ Jade explained conception like it was nothing. Like it was the easiest thing in the world. Maddie supposed for most people it was.
‘Mark got a really good job on the oil rigs and moved up north. He was making proper good money. I texted him to tell him I was pregnant and sent him photos and stuff. He sees Ben as much as he can and he’s always been good with paying child maintenance, which is great.’
Maddie couldn’t imagine having that kind of removed relationship with her own child. ‘Doesn’t he mind not being more involved? Missing so much of Ben growing up?’
‘No, not really. He has a new girlfriend and she’s pregnant now, so…’ Jade shrugged. ‘Actually, he’s talking about moving closer to here now. I’m not sure if I want that though. It works like it is now. He gets time with Ben and I get time away on my own. It would be too… complicated if he lived closer.’ Jade’s face looked tight and pinched as she spoke.
‘It can’t be easy for you raising Ben on your own,’ Maddie said gently.
Jade ignored her and they watched TV in silence, the atmosphere dampened.
After a while, Jade lurched to her feet and headed into the kitchen, returning with the chocolates and more wine. Maddie’s head was starting to thud, a sign of what tomorrow would be like, but she wanted to resurrect the atmosphere of earlier, didn’t want to leave on a flat note.
Until they had mentioned Ben’s dad, she had been enjoying herself. Men always knew how to ruin things. Jade had a brittle sense of humour that had had Maddie in fits of giggles all night. Her tongue was so sharp it could clip a hedge and she was quick to share her strong opinions on most things, like she had a childish need to show off for her new friend. Maddie decided one more glass wouldn’t hurt. The damage was probably already done anyway and it wasn’t like she had anything to do tomorrow.
‘Tell me about Greg,’ Jade said. ‘A bit of a sugar daddy, is he? He certainly buys you lots of nice stuff.’ Her eyes were greedy with delight.
Maddie shuffled uncomfortably. ‘It’s complicated, but he is still very much a part of my life.’
‘Really? So it’s a friendly divorce. Are you just being nice to keep the maintenance cheques coming?’ She grinned and winked.
‘No! We’re… friends. He’s been my best friend for so long – and we’re not actually divorced yet.’
‘Riiiight…’
‘It’s complicated.’
‘So you said. So are you going to divorce him? Holding out for a good settlement, I hope?’
‘I haven’t really thought about it. I guess I need to get a lawyer at some point, but for now we are just ticking along. He still lives in our house. It’s not far from here.’ Jade’s mouth gaped open and Maddie felt the need to defend herself. ‘But he bought the flat for me and he pays me my salary like before, even though I’m not working right now. He’s held my job for me if I want it, says I can work from home instead of the office, because it would be awkward.’
‘For you or him?’
‘For both of us. And his girlfriend, who was his PA before everything, so…’
‘Oh my God! This just gets better.’
Why was Maddie telling her all this?
‘They have a baby together, little Jemima.’
‘So basically, you’re stringing him along, milking him for money while he plays happy families in your house?’ Jade sounded almost envious.
‘I’ve said I’ll get a new job and I think the arrangement will change when we finally get divorced and they get married, if they get married… It’s funny, but if he died now, I would get everything because I’m still married to him and I’m a partner in the business. He’s actually worth more dead than alive.’ The thought had come from nowhere and she suddenly found it amusing. She wondered if Gemma knew that. In her inebriation, it was quite a delicious concept. She smiled into her glass. Then just as quickly, a wave of hurt nipped at her, demanding to be let in.
‘Well, I say string him along for as long as you can. Divorces are expensive,’ Jade said.
‘I think she is pushing to get married, so I’m sure he’ll ask for a divorce soon enough and things will change.’
‘Yeah, I think I might have similar problems.’ Jade slurped at her wine and fidgeted. ‘God, I need a cigarette, but I’m trying to stop smoking. Do you vape?’
Maddie was feeling very drunk, but Jade now looked sober and alert, her eyes darting around and her words crisp, unlike Maddie’s rounded, slurred diction. Jade suddenly sat forward, causing Maddie to slop some of the wine over the rim of her glass.
‘You know, we should work together, make a pact,’ Jade said excitedly.
‘Oh?’ Maddie’s attention was diverted by one of her favourite episodes of Friends starting on the TV. She was glad of the distraction, didn’t want to talk about Greg and Gemma and money anymore. ‘Oh, this is my favourite episode – Monica’s hair!’ She giggled.
‘If our respective fellas try to change our agreements, we should team up. Do something to help each other out. I don’t want to be out of pocket over their mistakes with their dicks.’
‘Sure,’ Maddie said, her eyes on the TV. ‘Like what? Kidnap them and rough them up until they agree to carry on paying up?’ Maddie laughed giddily at the absurd thought of her trying to rough anyone up. Jade, on the other hand, could probably hold her own.
Jade was watching Maddie earnestly. ‘Maybe… have you ever thought about the perfect murder? How to get away with it?’
‘Can’t say I think about murdering people very often. Well, apart from Greg…’ She giggled again.
Jade stared into her glass. ‘Ben is in Mark’s will. Mark told me that once. He earned a lot on the rigs and if he died, it would go to me for Ben until he is old enough. Especially if his other kid hasn’t been born yet.’
Maddie watched Jade as she chewed on her lip, thinking it over, and chuckled. ‘Look at you, the devious criminal mastermind! Well then, you’ve got it all sorted. Now we just have to figure out how to kill them and get away with it.’ Maddie wrung her hands together like a Bond villain, playing along with Jade. ‘Maybe a sharp shove off a cliff? A poisoned vindaloo? I tell you what, if you kill mine, I’ll kill yours.’
‘Deal.’
‘I’ll drink to that!’ Maddie held her glass up and chinked it against Jade’s, then drained it.
Jade grinned at her, showing teeth stained red from the wine, and Maddie shivered, suddenly feeling cold. She felt the smile slide from her own stained lips.
Maddie had forgotten what it was like to be drunk. It had been years since she’d felt this loose, finding everything either hilarious or infuriating – and nothing in between. Her head was full of noise, like there were one hundred people whispering to her, all trying to get a word in, but she couldn’t make out what they were saying. It was just a constant buzz of background noise, both pleasantly entertaining and annoyingly chaotic at the same time, and she had an urge to rest her head for a minute, maybe close her eyes, just to still the buzzing for a moment. Jade’s face swam in and out of focus, like someone was manipulating a camera lens in front of her
eyes.
She drank some more wine and as the alcohol surged to her head, her stomach lurched. She staggered to the bathroom and threw up, her arms clutching the toilet bowl like a life preserver.
THEN
The music is loud in my ears, reverberating through my feet and up my legs as I stand in the corner of the room. Tracey is chatting up some guy, her head tilted to the side as she giggles and flirts. It’s a routine I’ve seen a few times in the last few weeks as she continues her search for a boyfriend before the end of term, just so that she will have someone to invite to the end of year dance. I’m hoping she doesn’t hook up with anyone though because then she will have to go with me. I won’t go on my own, that’s for sure, but I’d rather not go at all than spend the whole evening with a date I don’t like.
Looking around at the boys at this party, they all look the same, sound the same. Their jeans are too baggy, hanging loose in the crotch and making them look bigger than they are. Size is apparently important. The two standing next to me have been discussing the same game of football for about twenty minutes, reliving every goal and referee decision. They shove at each other while they talk, sniggering and trying to sneak swigs of alcohol from hipflasks they’ve swiped from their dads’ golf bags. There’s no need. There’s booze at the party – beer and boxed wine aplenty.
I move off through the mass of people squeezed into the small, overheated terraced house as I search for the bathroom. I pass couples snogging, like they’re trying to swallow each other whole, and I want to gag. I breathe in thick, heady cigarette smoke as girls try to look cool by dangling sticks of nicotine from their lips. Underlying the smoke is the smell of teenage hormones and warm beer.
The hallway is lined with people too; some I know and I greet them with a nod or a smile as I slide past. At the top of the stairs is a number of doorways. The bathroom could be through any one of them. I try the one straight ahead of me, jiggling the door handle.
‘Busy!’ someone calls through the door and I hear a toilet flush.
I lean against the wall and stare down the stairs at the bobbing heads below me, writhing to music that is so loud I’m wearing it like an extra layer, the lyrics distorted by the volume. Tracey and I were invited to this house party by Connie, a classmate at our school. I’ve known her and most of these people for years. We all moved from junior to secondary school together and finally we are on the brink of parting ways. I have mixed feelings about the impending split. While I’ve had some fun in the last few years, I find it all a bit tiresome now. Most of these people wouldn’t be able to have a sensible conversation about politics or economics, even if they wanted to. I’m actually looking forward to the exams and getting on with the next stage of my life.
It’s Connie’s eighteenth birthday party and her parents agreed to give her the house for the night as a last celebration before we all go into study leave hibernation. I’m not sure they knew what they were letting themselves in for though. Connie is very popular with the boys at our school and it looks like most of them are here, along with a fair few plus ones that weren’t on the original invitation list. Word of mouth has spread like wildfire and the place is packed.
I hear the bathroom door unlock. The guy who steps out of the bathroom looks familiar, but I can’t quite place him. Something about his dark hair that is two weeks too late for a haircut maybe or the utterly uncool Coca-Cola T-shirt he is wearing.
‘All yours,’ he says with a smile. He steps aside to let me pass.
As I’m about to move, a girl flies past me in floods of tears and slams the bathroom door in my face. I can hear the lock slide into place.
‘What the—?’ I say, gaping.
‘Wow, someone’s in a hurry,’ he says.
‘Yeah, looks like I’ll have to wait a bit longer.’
He nods, looks around, then says, ‘I’m Greg, by the way.’
‘Madeleine, nice to meet you.’
‘I think we’ve met before.’ He’s scrutinising me like I’m a painting on display. I push my hair behind my ears awkwardly. ‘Wait, were you at Stacey’s party a couple of weeks ago?’
‘Yeah, I was.’
‘That’s it then! I was getting a drink and I got one for you too? That cocktail thing she had in the big bowl – God, it nearly blew my head off.’
I laugh. ‘That’s right, I remember now.’
‘How about I get you another drink now? There’s no punch on offer tonight, but is there anything else you’d like? A beer or something?’
‘I don’t really drink beer. Maybe a diet coke though?’
‘Great.’ Then he does a bad Terminator impression: ‘I’ll be back.’
It’s a good ten minutes before he returns and I didn’t expect him to. I have taken to sitting on the landing with my legs stretched out in front of me, forcing people to step over me as I wait for the girl in the bathroom to unlock the door. My patience is running thin. A fluffy-haired girl called Lola knocked and was let in; I heard muffled sobs and screechy words; then a guy I don’t know with long hair the colour of flames also knocked and was admitted. If it is as simple as that, I’m willing to knock myself and see if I can fix the problem. There have since been raised voices, amplified as Lola then opened the door and left the two lovebirds to fight it out, but by the time Greg returns, the bathroom is suspiciously quiet.
‘Sorry, the place is heaving,’ Greg says as he plops down next to me on the carpet. He hands me a warm can of diet coke. ‘You not been in yet?’
‘No,’ I say with a scowl. ‘From what I can gather, this girl Michelle seems to be having a few issues with the guy that’s in there with her now. Larry or Lonny or something. I think they might be making up now though.’ I pull a face. ‘Hope they hurry up. I’m bursting.’
As I say it, the bathroom door opens and Michelle emerges draped over a very flushed Larry/Lonnie, his cheeks now the same colour as his hair. I leap to my feet and dash into the bathroom before anyone else can, leaving Greg sitting on the floor.
When I come back out, he is still sitting there, waiting for me.
‘Oh, hi. Still here?’
‘Yeah, thought I’d wait for you. This party is kind of lame when you’re not hooked up with someone, so I thought I’d… you know, hang out with you.’
‘And what makes you think I haven’t hooked up myself?’
He shrugs. ‘I just don’t think you’d be into any of these doughnuts. Not your type.’
‘And what is my type? Wait, don’t tell me. You are.’ He blushes, but I don’t give him any sympathy. ‘You’re right, though. They aren’t my type because I don’t have one – because I’m not interested. I’ve got exams coming up and then university and I’m not interested in hook-ups.’
‘What universities are you looking at?’
*
And that’s how I met Greg. We talked all night, mostly sitting in a cramped hallway in a terraced house while drunk teenagers stepped over our legs.
We were 18. And by the end of that night, I was drunk on him.
4
Maddie woke up the next morning to a mallet hammering at her skull and only fleeting memories of how she got down the stairs and back into her flat. Jade had helped her of sorts, but there was much ricocheting off the walls and stumbling on the stairs while Jade cackled with laughter. Maddie had a vague recollection of handing Jade her keys to open the front door, but the next thing she knew, the sun was streaming through the open curtains of her bedroom and she was slumped face-down on her bed, still wearing her top and cardigan, her neck twisted at an unnatural angle. She’d managed to shed her jeans somehow. They lay abandoned in the bedroom doorway alongside one shoe, like the aftermath of a nasty road accident.
She felt dreadful.
Dribble had dried on her chin and her tongue was painted to the top of her mouth. How much wine did they drink in the end? Three bottles? Considering that Maddie was a two-glass limit kind of girl these days, no wonder she felt like something had crawled
into her mouth and died. She peeled herself from the bed and carried her thumping head in her hands as she staggered into the bathroom and sat on the toilet, feeling ashamed of her overindulgence.
Then a new memory came to her in technicolour. Jade suggesting fresh air and opening the door to her little balcony. Maddie holding onto the drying rack as she leant over and threw up over the railing.
Maddie’s garden was directly below Jade’s balcony. She had to stop thinking about it. It was hurting her head too much.
She sat longer than was necessary, breathing deeply, swaying a little and considering whether she was going to be sick again or not, before slowly making her way to the kitchen to pour herself a large glass of water. On her way back to bed, she drank in small sips before crawling under the covers and burying her face.
*
Greg cradled his daughter in his lap while she chatted away to her favourite teddy in a language only she understood. Her blonde curls tickled his chin, but he didn’t notice. She pushed up onto her feet unsteadily for a moment, using Greg’s shoulders as leverage, then plonked back down again. It wouldn’t be long before she was walking. He couldn’t wait to be able to hold her hand as she walked next to him. Daddy’s little girl.
He pulled her to him and squeezed her tight, thinking about Maddie. She wriggled against him and he released her.
He was worried about Maddie. He still felt terrible that he had ultimately evicted her from her home, but Gemma had insisted it was the right move. It did make sense – this was a big house and Gemma was talking about having more children. Meanwhile, Maddie was now on her own and didn’t need very much. The thought made him feel wretched with guilt.
For the last near-on two decades, Maddie’s sole focus had been having a family with him, to the point where everything else had come second, including him and the business they’d set up together. It was desperately sad that she had invested so much into what had turned out to be a fruitless endeavour. If it had been a business deal, he would’ve advised cutting their losses years ago, but she had always been so single-minded about it.
