Chapter Eleven PRESENT DAY

Chapter Eleven

P RESENT D AY

Madeleine laughed at the texts her dad had sent from Marnie’s phone. Her mum had arrived home via ambulance and was transported to the flat in a wheelchair. He had snapped a picture of her in the lift – the lift! – looking none too impressed. Oh, the indignation of it – this the woman who prided herself on climbing the stairs in all weathers. The next picture showed her sleeping on the sofa under a soft blanket, and he was wearing her apron, so all good. It was great that Marnie was home, where she would no doubt instruct Dougie on the chores that needed doing and sleep well at night, knowing he was by her side. Finally her mum could stop worrying about the mince in the fridge and the laundry pile.

The flowers Madeleine had sent would arrive in the morning; she hoped Marnie liked them. Her mind flew to the bouquet from Rebecca and then of course to Nico. She cringed to recall the text she had sent him.

HAPPY X

The message that, as indicated by the two small blue ticks that sat alongside it, he had read and chosen not to respond to. She winced every time she thought of it, wondering if he still needed time to order his thoughts or had decided that to invest in her complicated life was simply not a price worth paying. Her heart hurt at the thought of the latter, but she understood. Of course she did. It was no surprise that a man like Nico would not want a woman like her with her many quirks, oddities, habits, and superstitions. And that was before he knew of the ugliest quirk of all, the one deep inside her that she kept hidden. The one where other women slipped into motherhood as if it was the natural order of things, as if it was what was expected, while she railed against it, knowing it was just not how she was built.

Madeleine didn’t know how she felt about her and Marnie’s chat in the hospital. It had felt like the beginning of a wider conversation, if not the conclusion she’d been hoping for, but it was a start. Next time, she figured it might be more successful if she could voice exactly what she wanted and a plan of how they might achieve it; those two things, so easy to say, were the goal. It sounded simple now she thought about it: she wanted Marnie to support her choices and not make her feel bad about them; she wanted to feel at ease when she saw her mother and not constantly waiting for the barbed judgement to drop from her tongue. She wanted to visit Edith without the gut-churning nerves at how she might still, even after all these years, be getting it wrong.

She would have been lying if she said she wasn’t nervous to be heading to Jimmy’s place. The old lock-keeper’s cottage was a place she’d passed more times than she could count – a building that was part of the fabric of her childhood. The towpath had been their whole countryside when she was growing up on the Brenton Park estate. She and Trina would walk along it for hours in the summer evenings, practising smoking, which thankfully neither of them mastered. The rest of the time they hoped to see boys and giggled over specific boys, like Jake Dowdeswell – a boy in their class. He was that guy – a great footballer with a good smile and blond hair; everyone loved Jake. Jake who ended up with Andrew Lewis, leaving many broken hearts in the wake of their nuptials.

Sometimes the chatter was just of boys in general – the kind of man they wanted to end up with. She often expressed her desire for someone with a decent car, an extensive wardrobe, someone who earned enough for travel to exotic places and a healthy budget for fine dining. Even as a teen, she knew the life she wanted – that extra life with spare chairs and pretty things. A fancy-pants kind of life. Trina was not quite so prescriptive; she wanted someone who was nice, kind, and funny. Madeleine remembered stopping on the path and staring at her friend.

‘I want someone who is nice, kind, and funny too! Doesn’t everyone? I thought that was a given. I mean, have you ever heard someone say, “Oh, I’d like to end up with a mean arsehole who has zero sense of humour!” I mean, dur! But wanting them to be successful is okay too! And I want my success to match his so I never have to wait for him to hand over a roll of banknotes wrapped in a plastic band. I want to pay for myself. I want it all!’

‘Yeah, you do.’ Her friend had shaken her head like a disapproving mamma, and they had dropped the subject for the evening.

The towpath around the now defunct lock was also where she had told Jimmy she was pregnant. The details of that night were ingrained in her memory: the damp, slimy bench, the way he had walked away, his silhouette disappearing into the darkness, and how she had never felt so alone. Today, though, in the winter sunshine, where the sky was blue and the air still, she hoped it might feel like another place entirely.

The lock-keeper’s cottage had in her lifetime been occupied by an old man who she could recall sitting outside the front door in a camping chair on warm nights. After his death, the place had fallen into ruin. Windows were then smashed by vandals, the walls daubed with illegible, mindless graffiti and a large penis had been sprayed on the front door. Twists of determined ivy had roped their way around the window frames and covered the once pretty red-brick exterior. The small garden grew wild and consumed the spear-headed railings that were its boundary. Vast woody-trunked lilacs grew strong and high until they almost hid the cottage from view entirely. Years ago, to add insult to injury, someone had lit a fire – whether looking for warmth or simply with malintent it was impossible to know, but the result was just the same: a blackened hole in the red-tiled roof and damage to the front corner of the property. It had saddened her to see the place destroyed and, worse, as it was then utilised as a rubbish dump for items too cumbersome or troublesome to have removed legitimately. Hence the collection of old mattresses, a rusted fridge, and piles of builders’ rubble that were all visible within its broken walls.

She’d had to ask three times when Marnie told her Jimmy had bought the place. ‘The old lock-keeper’s cottage?’

‘Yes, love.’

‘What, the one up on the towpath? The derelict one?’

‘Yes, he said he can see its potential.’

‘The one up by the old lock, the burnt-out one with the penis?’

‘Madeleine!’ her mother had shouted. ‘For the love of God! How many bloody lock-keeper’s cottages do you know of around here? Yes, that one!’

‘Well, I hope he’s not planning on taking Edith there!’ She could think of a thousand hazards that might befall the child in such a grotty place.

‘He’s a good dad. The best.’

And just like that they were silent.

Marnie’s words were so much more than the sum of their parts. As ever she felt them land like ticks burrowing into her skin, and they hurt just as much. She got the message. He’s a good dad ... and would do nothing to harm her. He’s a good dad ... and I trust him. He’s a good dad ... and you are in no position to judge, bearing in mind that you’re not exactly mother of the year ... At least, that’s how Madeleine took it.

Marnie had kept her up to speed with Jimmy’s renovation project over the last couple of years.

‘Oh, you should see it! A proper oasis. He’s a clever man – done all of it himself.’

Madeleine was pleased for him, but also felt a little disappointed that the grotty little dwelling on the edge of the canal was his home. She had wanted more for him, better. How he could settle a stone’s throw from his mother’s flat when there was a whole wide world to explore was beyond her.

The cab dropped her by the lock and, doing her best to avoid the muddy puddles that pitted the cobbled stone pathway that ran alongside the canal, she was glad she’d opted for her hiking boots. It was only the second time she’d worn them – the perfect opportunity to break them in before she hit the trails of LA on her downtime. With her mini Louis Vuitton backpack over her shoulders, she set off.

It was nice to be back here – nicer than she’d thought – as nostalgia warmed her from the inside out. Memories of walking along hand in hand with her dad, the crappiest of picnics with Marnie, smooching with Jimmy during their fling, as the days grew longer, the sun shone higher and life felt full of the infinite possibilities that her youth, and lack of insight, allowed to flourish. And Trina, of course – all those hours she walked with Trina, idling by the water, drawn by the change of scenery, a place to breathe. A calm space in this urban sprawl they called home; lobbing small stones from the bank as their feet dangled over the edge, just for the joy of seeing the ripples grow wider and spread further.

It had been lovely to see her again at the hospital, to chat to her, in the way it did when someone was so familiar. Despite their obvious awkwardness, there was still a spark there. The shared humour, timing and ribbing that had been the mainstay of their chatter. It was jarring to realise just how much she missed her. There was something about that friend you grew up with that no new relationship could emulate.

And here she was, walking tentatively over the cobbles to reach the cottage where Jimmy now lived. How she hoped he’d scrubbed the elaborate penis from the front d—

Madeleine drew closer and stopped in her tracks.

‘What the ...?’ She placed her hand at her throat and took a moment to take it all in, feeling almost light-headed at the sight that greeted her.

If she hadn’t been entirely sure of the location, she wouldn’t have believed it to be the same place. The old lock-keeper’s cottage with its collapsed roof, overrun garden, graffiti and neglect had been transformed into something quite beautiful.

It was picture-postcard pretty, and more so because behind it stood the towering blocks of flats that were anything but. The contrast only served to illuminate its cosy perfection. It was like a bright wildflower that caught your eye on a neglected verge, a piece of stunning sea glass on a bland pebble beach, a double-ended rainbow that cut through the gloom of a rainy day. It was something loved and nurtured in a world of decay. It was a slice of countryside right there in the middle of the city.

The glossy grass-green front door in the middle of the building matched the painted railings and woodwork of the four wide sash windows. Two at the top and two at the bottom, they sat in perfect harmony next to the scrubbed and restored red-brick exterior. The patch of front garden was neat. Atop the pale gravel, bisected by a flagstone path, sat railway sleeper troughs that even at this time of the year held grasses and ferns that prospered. An open-fronted porch with a climber snaking over its roof had been added and gave the whole place a feeling of cosy-cottage warmth that had previously been absent. Inside the porch, her eyes were drawn to an iron welly rack with two pairs of wellingtons upended on to the poles. One large green pair with a leather binding around the top and the other pair ... She swallowed the feelings that flared at the sight of them. Pink glittery wellingtons with a purple sole and tiny unicorns on the side. Wellington boots inside which Edith’s tiny feet must nestle as she no doubt puddle jumped and splished in mud.

A wide raffia basket stashed by the front door to the left side of the porch held piles of kindling and what looked to be gathered twigs. She raised her fist to lift the brass knocker, which was embellished with two acorns, and hesitated.

It was an odd thing, how she could command a boardroom, make confident suggestions to clients like Stern, whom she’d spent an hour calming only yesterday. His rage over the budgetary slip-up was incendiary. He threatened to fire her and her entire team, asking how she could justify such exorbitant sums for art installations when he was being shafted over the price of a jetty! By the time they ended the call, he had increased his request for art and agreed to another two paintings at an equally exorbitant sum, which made her bottom line positively glow! It was a skill. She could even stand up to the formidable Rebecca Swinton when the need arose. All of this she could do with confidence in her gaze and a steady voice.

Yet the thought of walking into Jimmy’s home, the home where Edith liked to spend time with her dad, the home where memories were made that excluded her, routines were adhered to and of which she had no knowledge, the place where life carried on perfectly without her presence – just the thought was enough for her legs to tremble inside her designer jeans.

Your choice, Madeleine! Always your choice! She heard Marnie’s words as if she were standing next to her.

Edith, who must have been alerted by her silhouette through the glass, called loud enough for her to hear, ‘Mummy’s here! My mummy’s here!’

Folding her hand into her jacket pocket, Madeleine painted on a practised smile and took a deep breath.

The moment the door opened, her senses were overloaded. Jimmy looked great, relaxed, as was to be expected in his home environment, but in his jeans, soft brown corduroy shirt and hand-knitted socks, with his beard trimmed and his lustrous locks pushed behind his ears, he looked like a poster boy for outdoor living. The smell that hit her nose was a cosy combination of real fires and amber-and-oud-scented incense that was quite intoxicating. Her mouth watered as the aroma of baked gingerbread wafted from the kitchen.

‘We’ve been baking.’ He looked pleased with himself.

‘We made gingerbread people and we’ve given some of them boobies!’ Madeleine peeped inside as Edith ran headlong into a long patchwork chesterfield that took up most of one wall and crashed face-down into it, her hysteria, it seemed, at the mere explanation of boobies on gingerbread more than she could stand.

‘How wonderful!’

The sound of a fire popping and spitting enticed her in.

Placing her hand on the inner wall of the porch, her fingers touched the rough stone that gave the lower half of the porch shelter, before it opened up into a sturdy oak frame that met the portico roof.

‘Would you mind kicking your boots off?’ Jimmy pointed to the wellie rack and, slightly embarrassed not to have thought of it, she took a step backwards.

‘Sure! Of course!’ Bending low, she untied her boots, stepped out of and upended them, placing them on the welly spikes, where they sat next to his large boots and Edith’s dainty ones. There was something about the sight of them that stirred the silt of loss in her veins. It happened this way sometimes when glimpses of a life that could have been hers caught her off guard. A Sliding Doors moment ...

Stepping over the waxed flagstones that acted as a wide step, she was truly astonished at the home he had created.

‘Jimmy! Oh my goodness! This place is incredible!’ She looked up at the beamed ceiling, where wood and plaster were both painted white – Old School white, if she’d had to guess. It was TARDIS-like in that it seemed much more spacious on the inside than it looked from the outside.

‘Thanks.’ He smiled. ‘I love it when people see it for the first time.’ His pride was evident and she more than understood, knowing how she took delight from someone stepping into her neutral apartment and being similarly impressed. ‘I knocked down the walls – well, that’s not strictly true, only some of the walls were still standing – and I moved the staircase to the back on the side, so it’s kind of hidden behind the kitchen.’

He pointed to the other side of the property. The kitchen she could see – a large room the same size as the sitting room, the two spaces separated by an ornate, green-glazed wood burner whose pipe went straight up and along the ceiling.

‘That’s beautiful!’ She stood in front of it, almost dazzled by the orange flames that leaped and danced to a music she wished she could hear.

‘It’s very old – Dutch. I found a place that restores and sells them. I kind of designed the whole of the downstairs around it. That’s ... that’s probably daft.’

He faltered as if remembering what she did for a living.

‘No! It’s not daft at all. It’s a great principle for design; one thing, one element, that is all important or a focus, like a trunk, and then your branches, leaves, fruit and whatnot grow from it.’

She felt the blush on her cheeks; she didn’t want to sound like a know-all or an arsehole.

‘I didn’t picture it as open plan, but when I started to spend time here, it kind of made sense. I couldn’t imagine putting walls up and making it smaller. It’s all about how I wanted to use the space. It used to have a narrow entrance hall at the front, and another corridor between the rooms – just wasted space. She loves it.’ He pointed at Edith, who finally took her head out of the sofa. ‘She can run around, use her roller boots, twirl. She’s big on twirling and then falling over.’

‘I love to spiiiiiin!’ And just like that their daughter was off, turning quickly in a circle with her arms out until she teetered and tumbled down on to a bright, multi-coloured deep-pile rug that part covered the wooden floor in front of the sofa. Her pink t-shirt rose up to reveal her rounded tum. Her green leggings were embroidered in pink hearts, and with heart-covered socks to match, she looked adorable.

‘She’s a bit excited,’ he whispered. ‘She’ll calm down in a bit. I hope.’ He raised his crossed fingers.

His words were a poignant reminder that Madeleine’s presence here was unusual. She was a guest, a visitor, and was not part of this little family, this little life.

Your choice ... She batted the air by her head as if this might help remove Marnie’s words of rebuke.

‘Do you remember what it was like before?’ he asked, as she followed him into the kitchen, which was a neat cottage style, with handy butchers’ hooks beneath sturdy wooden shelves on which pottery mugs and cream jugs were hung. The worktops were slate and the cupboards either side of a gleaming enamel range were rough wood with heavy ironmongery for latches and hinges. It reminded her of a cabin, an escape. She liked it.

‘I do! Trees growing out of the windows and a big knob on the front door.’ She pulled a face as they both laughed at the double entendre.

‘Oh, in that case, you’ll like this!’ He beckoned her over to a rear archway that led to a glass-roofed extension that ran the width of the house and took up most of the rear garden. The walls were stone and glass, the window frames black, and a very soft oversized denim-blue sofa with elaborately embroidered cushions scattered on it sat in the middle of the room on a large jute rug. Positioned, she could see, to take advantage of the shifting light, the change of seasons and the sight of the big, big sky overhead. His taste was warm, eclectic, and yet sophisticated. ‘Here!’ He pointed to a large piece of modern artwork that hung on the only solid stone wall. It was hard to make out what it was at first. She stood closer and studied it, able now to recognise the damaged brick, a broken window, the twist of an interloping climber and the pale curve of purple paint, no more than a hint that she knew was in fact part of the rather gross work of vandalism that had been the cause of many giggles as they walked past the spooky old cottage.

She turned to Jimmy and smiled. ‘I know what this is!’

‘I took lots of snaps throughout the renovation, but it felt a bit sad to have one framed. I didn’t want to be reminded of the decay. Then I had the idea of disguising the whole, but offering a hint, this mega close-up, but only those that knew the place will know the place. If you get what I mean. This little corner.’

‘I do know what you mean.’ She liked his subtlety, his cleverness.

‘Can you read me a story?’ Edith ran at her and thrust the book into her hands.

‘Oh, yes, I guess so.’

‘We like to read here.’ He pointed at the big blue sofa and clicked on a large ceramic ochre lamp with an oversized shade that flooded the room with a golden glow. ‘I’ll go and make tea. How do you have it?’

‘Erm.’ It struck her as the most bizarre of things. This man with whom she had created a child, this man with whom she would be connected for their whole lives because they shared Edith, this man who didn’t know how she took her tea. ‘Just a bit of milk. No sugar.’

‘I only have oat milk, is that okay?’

‘Sure.’ She smiled.

Sinking back into the soft cushions, it was a wonderfully comfortable place to sit. Edith sat against her, curled into her, as was her way. It was a feeling like no other and one she knew would keep her warm on the coldest of nights when she looked out of her picture window over a view of LA, palm trees and all. Opening the book, she stared into the garden. The tall trees cast shadows over the honey-wood floor and in this warm, gingerbread-scented cocoon, it was hard to believe that just a few feet the other side of the rear-garden wall, sat the flats where she had grown up.

They were three pages in when Jimmy returned with a rattan tray loaded up with two mugs of tea, a cup of orange juice and a plate piled high with gingerbread, some sporting rather badly drawn boobies in icing.

It was only when he handed her a mug and placed his finger on his lips that she realised Edith was asleep.

‘She’s absolutely zonked.’ He pulled a soft teal blanket, edged with pink stitching, from a wicker basket and placed it over his little girl, and took a seat on the other side of her sleeping form. Caring, attentive and lovely, as he had always been.

She sipped her tea and confessed, ‘It feels strange being here.’

‘It does, yes, for me too. Having you here.’ He readily agreed and she was reminded of his candour.

‘How have you been?’ She didn’t know how to chat to him casually; this felt like as good a place as any to start.

‘How have I been? What, since you broke my heart, left me holding the baby and buggered off to chase the bright lights and the big bucks?’

‘Jimmy, I—’

‘I’m kidding!’ He ran his fingers through his hair and gave that easy smile. ‘Although if you talk to my mother anytime soon, that is her exact version of events.’

She could well imagine.

‘First, I’ve spoken to you a million times since Edith was born, and second, I didn’t run off and leave you holding the baby.’

‘No, you ran off and it was up to me to go and find the baby and become part of her life.’

‘Is that what your mother thinks?’

‘No, it’s what I think.’ He turned his body on the sofa to face her.

‘What do you want me to say?’ She hated every part of this conversation; she wasn’t good at handling the blanket of shame that covered her as surely as the one under which Edith now slumbered. Her little mouth, moving in the gentlest of snores. ‘You sound like you want to get stuff off your chest, so do it! Go for it!’ She kept her voice low so to not wake Edith.

What could be the harm? She was leaving in two weeks and to have this situation also resolved could be no bad thing. She’d simply do what she always did – take the flak, button up her big-girl britches and carry on.

‘I’m not angry with you, Maddie.’

‘Good.’ She raised her chin and held her ground; he had no right to be angry with her. She was, after all, free to make her choices and had done everything that Marnie had asked.

Everything.