‘I’ll put the kettle on and you can tell me all about it,’ she said, the grin feline. ‘Or would you like something stronger?’
‘Tea is fine, thanks. I’ve had a couple of beers already.’
The noise of the tap running gave Maddie a moment to wonder how she was going to explain herself – or even if she needed to. Instead, she said, ‘Who’s Lucy?’
Jade’s hands stilled on the kettle. ‘Why?’
‘I was just sitting with Luke, chatting and having a drink, and he mentioned her, said I reminded him of her.’
Jade snapped off the tap just before the kettle overflowed. ‘She lived downstairs before you. She was nice enough, but I didn’t know her that well. Since when are you friends with Luke?’ She looked almost jealous.
‘Oh, we just got chatting. He’s really nice, got a really good sense of humour once he starts talking. He’s asked me to do some bookkeeping work for him.’ Maddie had enjoyed herself in the end. Once he opened up, they had chatted easily, joking and laughing about all sorts. It reminded her a little of when she first met Greg, but in a gentler and more mature way without the trappings of adolescence. ‘He’s a really nice guy.’
‘You’ve said that already.’ Jade’s voice was clipped. She loudly washed a couple of mugs. ‘Luke was keen on her, I reckon. He was always talking to her, offering to do things for her, stuff like that. I think he fancied her, but she knocked him into the friend zone.’ Jade paused, like she was letting her revelation about Luke sink in. ‘Anyway, that’s not important. Let’s talk about what went on with you and Greg!’
‘It was a one-off, that’s all. Like a goodbye – well, that’s what it felt like to me, anyway.’
‘A goodbye? Why?’
‘I don’t know. I think I’m just ready to put it all behind me and move on. Get my life in order.’
‘Woah, hang on, what happened to helping me out? Asking him for a loan? You did ask him after I left, didn’t you?’ Desperation hung like a vapour around her.
Maddie shifted her feet, tracked a crack in the floor tile with her toe. ‘Well, I mentioned it, but he wasn’t really… he said he couldn’t right now, what with Jemima and the business is tight at the moment and they’re trying for another baby…’
‘Fuck’s sake!’ Jade launched her mug across the room. It skimmed past Maddie to shatter against the wall. The handle flew off and landed, spinning, on the counter. ‘What the fuck am I going to do now?’
‘Woah, calm down!’ Maddie backed away towards the door.
Jade spun at her, her finger pointing like a sharp stick. ‘You said he would help. It was your idea!’
‘I know and I should’ve checked with him first before I said anything.’ Maddie took another step away. ‘But that doesn’t mea—’
‘You’re all the same, aren’t you?’ she spat at Maddie, advancing on her, her finger still pointing and jabbing in the narrowing space between them. ‘All promises to help and great ideas, but when it comes down to it, none of you actually want to do anything to help me. Well, we had a deal and I will see it through. And if I help you, you will help me.’
Maddie stepped away from the vitriol on Jade’s face until she was backed up against the couch. ‘Jade, you’re frightening me.’
‘Frightening you? I should think I am. Don’t forget, I know where they live. Your precious Greg and Jemima,’ Jade spat.
‘Is that some sort of threat?’ Now the fear was burning into anger.
They glared at each other, the air swirling and toxic around them. Maddie took a step forward, closing the distance between them, challenging Jade.
All of a sudden, the anger and bluster seemed to deflate from Jade as quickly as it had flared up. She sunk to the tiles in a heap and began to cry into her hands, her shoulders shuddering dramatically.
‘I just don’t know what to do anymore,’ she said around gasps of air.
Maddie paused, wanting to make sure there were real tears first and that this wasn’t another show of drama, then sunk down next to her. ‘It’ll be ok. We’ll figure it out. Shhhh… shhhh…’ she said as she put her arm around Jade’s quivering shoulders.
‘I can’t lose him, Maddie, I can’t! He’s all I’ve got.’
Maddie let her cry. After a while the sobs melted away and she sat, sniffing, on the kitchen floor. Maddie was about to suggest they get up when Jade started talking again. ‘I never had a good relationship with my own mother,’ she said in a quiet voice. ‘She was a single mum, very young. She got pregnant when she was at school and left to have me. But she never really forgave me for ruining her life.’
‘You didn’t ruin her life.’
‘That’s not how she saw it. She used to leave me alone for days when I was little. She’d disappear with her new boyfriends and leave me to fend for myself. Then she’d come back either with a new boyfriend or a new drug habit.’ She rubbed at her eyes like a child. ‘Then one day I came home from school to a letter and a twenty-pound note. She’d gone – and never came back.’
Maddie clasped a hand over her mouth, aghast. ‘She left you?’
‘Yeah, but good riddance to her. I’ve been on my own ever since. And I’ve done alright, you know? But I can’t lose Ben – he’s all I have. He’s my whole world.’
‘That won’t happen. We’ll make sure of it,’ Maddie said in a whisper as Jade began to cry again.
‘You have to help me get rid of him, Maddie, otherwise I have no choice but to run away with Ben.’
*
Maddie swirled the wine in her glass and stared out at the black sky. The clouds were thick and ominous, the night inky and slick behind them. Her mind was just as overcast as she considered what had just happened.
She’d eventually calmed Jade down, got the ugly crying under control, made her a cup of sweet tea and tucked her up on the couch like a poorly child, with the remote control and a grab bag of crisps. If she was acting, she was very good. Her eyes were red and puffy, her nose still sniffly, when Maddie let herself out of the flat and returned to her own.
The episode had unnerved Maddie. Jade’s demeanour had switched in a matter of seconds and Maddie was left wondering which side of Jade was to be believed. It worried her for Ben’s sake – how unpredictable she could be and how fiery her temper. Did she think Jade would ever hurt Ben? Probably not. But Maddie also had to consider her background, the stories she had just told Maddie about her own mother and her all-encompassing desperation to hold onto Ben, to not lose him. Maddie understood that level of desperation all too well. That feeling of clinging onto something with the very edges of your fingernails and the fear as you feel your grip failing.
Where was Ben tonight anyway? She hadn’t seen any sign of him in days. If his dad had been looking after him more, that would explain Jade’s mood swings and emotional outbursts. She was probably missing Ben like mad.
She hoped that was the case anyway.
But if not, if Maddie was even slightly worried about Ben’s safety, then should she take matters into her own hands?