by Dawn Goodwin
After her shower, she made a strong cup of tea and sat at the table with the cupcake in front of her, her wet hair dripping down her back. She’d forgotten how hungry running could make her. Eating the breakfast of champions today though.
The cake was delicious, moist and soft and sweet with cocoa. She can’t have made this, Maddie thought. There was no evidence in Jade’s kitchen that she cooked anything other than heating up ready meals and shoving fish fingers under the grill.
The cake was finished in a few bites, then she went into the bedroom to dry her hair and get ready to pick Ben up for their swimming session, desperately hoping it would still be on. Jade still hadn’t replied to her earlier text though. Should she send another one? Maybe if the swimming session with Ben was off, she could see if Gemma would let Jemima go with her instead.
Half an hour later and Maddie was in agony, all thoughts of swimming forgotten. Her stomach had clenched into an iron fist and waves of nausea were rippling through her, sending cold, sweaty shivers throughout her body. She crawled to the bathroom as her guts cramped. She wasn’t sure which end it would come from, but it was inevitable.
Maybe it was the Chinese food yesterday. She’d had prawns while Jade had stuck to a chow mein. The prawns were clearly a big mistake.
She lay on the bathroom floor in between spells of either sitting on or leaning over the toilet, her arms wrapped around her belly and her hot forehead resting on the cold tiles. At one point she felt like she may have dozed off or passed out, she wasn’t sure. She had no idea what time it was or how long she had been in the bathroom, but she didn’t have the strength to get up.
Jade would surely be wondering where she was, why she hadn’t called for Ben. Or was she still giving her the cold shoulder? But if she had texted, Maddie wouldn’t know because her phone was in the other room. The thought forced her upright and she staggered into the kitchen for a glass of water, desperately searching for her phone, but it wasn’t long before she was rushing back to the bathroom.
She was getting worried. She would need to take some nausea and diarrhoea medicine, but knew she didn’t have any. There was plenty in her old bathroom cabinet in Greg’s house though. But she couldn’t call Greg or Gemma. Not this time. This was too humiliating. She didn’t want either of them seeing her in this state on the bathroom floor.
So she was on her own.
Jade. She could call Jade. Maybe she would have something she could take or could go to the chemist for her.
Her phone was still in the other room. She managed to crawl her way to the lounge. It lay on the couch like a beacon. She summoned up the energy to send Jade a message through Snapchat.
Minutes later she heard a knock on the door. She was still in the lounge, curled up in a tight, cramping ball at the foot of the couch, a shivering mess with the stench of puke clinging to her.
She limped over to the door and opened it without checking who it was.
‘Jesus H. Christ! Look at the state of it!’ she heard Jade say, although she was now beyond the point of comprehension. ‘Come on, let’s get you into bed.’
She felt herself being dragged like a sack along the corridor to her bedroom, plopped on the bed and the warm duvet flung over her. Then Jade tucked her in like a child, smoothed back her hair and said, ‘I’ll get you some water, then I need you to take these for your stomach.’
Maddie clenched her eyes shut as another cramp ripped through her. A hand propped her head up and said, ‘Here, take these.’ She opened her eyes to slits and accepted the small pills from Jade and the glass she was holding out.
Only after swallowing them did she say, ‘What are they?’
‘Just Imodium – don’t worry, I’m not trying to poison you,’ Jade said with a laugh.
Maddie managed to say, ‘Thanks Jade, you’re such a good mum,’ before her eyes started getting very heavy. ‘Wait,’ she said, her eyes popping open again. ‘Where’s Ben?’
‘Don’t worry about him. He’s fine. Just concentrate on you. ‘
‘I don’t think I should take him swimming.’
‘You don’t say! Another day is fine. Now sleep it off. I’ll clean up the bathroom and you’ll be right as rain in a bit.’
*
Something was ripping her apart. Someone had taken a scalpel and was slicing through her abdomen, pulling and tearing, probing and rummaging.
Her baby! They were stealing her baby!
She needed to wake up, shout out, tell them to stop! Her hands pushed out, fingers like claws, ready to scratch and cleave at them.
You can’t have him! You can’t have him! Archie!
Maddie sat upright, her T-shirt stuck to the cold sweat on her skin and her eyes wide and panicked.
The room was dark, the curtains drawn to the late afternoon light. She was alone.
Then she remembered the cramps, the sickness. Jade had been here. Had she left?
She lay back down, her breathing slowing. The tightness in her gut had loosened and it no longer felt like she was being ripped apart from the inside out. She swung her legs from the bed and took a few tentative steps on weakened legs. She peered into the bathroom. It was immaculately clean, any sign of her earlier illness washed away while the scent of citrus bleach lingered.
She kept a steadying hand on the wall as she headed along the corridor towards the lounge. ‘Jade? Are you here?’
The only sign she had been was the box of Imodium on the kitchen counter next to a glass of water. Everything had been cleaned and tidied. Her breakfast dishes were washed and stacked next to the sink and the bakery box had been removed.
A wave of mortification flooded through Maddie. What must she have looked like when Jade arrived? She couldn’t really remember what Jade had said or done. It was kind of her to clean up though and she wouldn’t be standing here now if Jade hadn’t brought her the medication.
She heard a key turn in the door and Jade walked in, carrying a plastic bag. ‘Oh, great, you’re up! How are you feeling?’
‘Better, thanks – well, the cramps have stopped anyway.’
Maddie noticed the keys in her hand. ‘Oh, I borrowed your key from the nail behind the door so that you wouldn’t have to get up.’ Jade hung the key back where it belonged.
‘Um, ok, thanks.’
Jade started unpacking the plastic bag in the kitchen. ‘I borrowed some money from your purse to get some stuff for you – bananas, bread for toast, that kind of thing. It will help to settle your stomach. Sit, I’ll make you some buttered toast – always works for me when I’m feeling gross.’
Maddie sat on command. She didn’t have the energy to process the admission that Jade had helped herself to money from her purse as well as her front door key. ‘Thanks so much for looking after me. You didn’t have to go to all this trouble.’
‘Oh, it’s nothing – you’d do the same for me.’
‘Where’s Ben?’
‘He’s with a friend.’
A burnt smell filled the air and minutes later Maddie was presented with some charred toast, the butter melting into the black crumbs. ‘Here, eat that. It might look burnt, but the charcoal will help settle your stomach.’
Maddie took a timid nibble of the corner. ‘Thanks.’
‘Go on, get it in ya,’ Jade pushed.
Maddie took another bite, not exactly relishing the blackened taste, then put the toast down. ‘You know, I think I’ll go back to bed. I’m wiped out. But thank you so much for looking after me. I do appreciate it and I had no one else I could count on.’
‘Oh, really, it’s fine. I can hang out here if you like? In case you need me?’
‘No, no, you get back to Ben. I’ll be fine – I can text you if I need anything.’
‘Ok, if you’re sure.’ Jade got to her feet. ‘Let me know, yeah? And eat that toast!’
Maddie smiled and took another bite as evidence. As soon as the door closed behind Jade, Maddie took the plate of cremated bread into the kitchen and tossed the toast in the b
in. She headed back to bed, but paused at the front door to slide the chain in place first.
THEN
Everywhere I look I see children that are clearly being neglected. Overlooked, forgotten while their parents focus on work, their social lives, their phones.
Take the little boy over there by the swings, for instance. He has been running around with snot rimming the dummy in his mouth for about ten minutes, his mother oblivious to the germs he is sucking in with every tug on his dummy as she sits and natters away with her friend. She is as thin and shapeless as a French fry and she is guzzling what is probably a skinny frothy caramel something or other from a takeaway cup like it’s a drug. Meanwhile, her little angel of a boy is swallowing snot, his head clearly full of a nasty cold. He should be at home, tucked in bed with her reading him stories or snuggling together watching a Disney film so that he can recover, not here, running around a cold and damp playground, sharing germs with the other toddlers like they’re sweets from a packet.
Sometimes I am flabbergasted at how women like these have been given such a blessing as these beautiful little creatures when they clearly do not deserve it.
A little girl has tripped over her own feet not far from me and she is crying. I can see her knee is grazed, the skin red raw and bleeding. I can’t see the mother anywhere.
Another victim of neglect.
I get up and stride over to the girl. ‘Hey there, Princess. Did you fall over? Have you hurt yourself?’
The little girl is sitting in the dirt, peering at her knee. Her big brown eyes are glassy with hurt and tiny pebbles of water have collected along the edges of her long eyelashes. She looks down at her bleeding knee, her lip trembling, and nods her head.
‘Oh, don’t you worry about that. We’ll clean you up and then you’ll be as right as rain. You know, a little scrape here and there is a sign that you’ve had a good day. You’ve done something unusual, extraordinary, dangerous even. Don’t you think?’
The girl is peering at me like I’m an alien with two heads. She hasn’t run away though, so she clearly hasn’t had the don’t talk to strangers conversation yet.
I lift her gently from the ground, brush the dirt from the back of her skirt and lead her over to the bench I have been sitting on. I look around again – still no mother has made herself known.
There is a café on the other side of the playground with a small bathroom where I could clean her knee and wipe her face.
‘What’s your name, Princess?’
‘Mia,’ she whispers with a hiccup.
‘Where’s your mummy?’
She shrugs. A tiny movement, but I’m sure I see it.
‘Will you come with me to the café over there so that we can clean up your knee? Maybe we can see if they have any cookies too? To make you feel better?’
She doesn’t respond, but takes hold of my hand when I reach out to her. I look around as we walk away from the noise and bustle of the playground towards the café. Are there any women here who look like they might belong to this little angel? A childminder who has her hands full with a few children maybe? Or a working mother too busy answering emails to notice her daughter has hurt herself? There are a few women that could fit the bill, either staring at their phones or chatting to friends, another fawning over a tiny dog as it does a rather runny poo on the grass just beyond the fence that cordons off the play equipment from the rest of the park.
The girl is trotting next to me, still sniffing. Her pink shoes are freshly scuffed at the toe from when she fell. I push open the door of the café and walk straight past the tables, weave around the many pushchairs and beyond the queue of people waiting to pay for their beverages, heading instead to the bathrooms at the back of the room.
The bathroom is empty except for one cubicle with the door closed. The air smells chemical, like it has just been doused in bleach. Someone inside the cubicle is loudly praising a small child for not weeing in their pants for a change, saying in a sing-song voice that he’s such a big boy now, that mummy is incredibly proud of him.
I pull a paper towel from the holder on the wall and wet it with some cold water.
‘Now this may sting a little, Mia, but I know you’ll be a brave girl. But if you need to squeeze my hand, you can do that, ok?’
Mia stares at me, nods a little again. Her nose is still running and the beads of tears have stuck to her cheeks like dew drops.
I bend down and dab at her knee, but Mia stands still and straight, not moving a muscle.
‘Wow, you are a brave girl, a warrior like Mulan, I think.’ I clean away the mud and gravel stuck to the graze. ‘Do you know Mulan, the Disney princess? I have the DVD at home.’ Behind me, the door to the cubicle opens and a little boy in Thomas the Tank Engine wellies bursts out, bumping into me and almost knocking me over.
‘Slowly, Cameron!’ his mother says as she heaves her bulk around the toilet roll dispenser to emerge from the small cubicle. I can’t help but think it must’ve been a tight squeeze in there for both of them. ‘I’m so sorry, he’s just so enthusiastic about everything,’ she says with pride. ‘Oh, you poor little thing. Did you fall?’ she says to Mia. ‘Oh well, Mummy will make it better. That’s what mummies are for, after all,’ she says delightfully.
I don’t correct her. Instead, I say with a voice matching her in pride, ‘She’s being very brave, aren’t you, Mia? She’s a tough cookie, this one.’
The little boy is splashing more water on the floor than on his hands. The woman smiles at him in glee, then bundles him from the bathroom.
‘There,’ I say to Mia. ‘That’s all clean. Now, let’s blow your nose and see if we can get you that cookie, shall we?’
I grab some toilet roll from the cubicle and hold it to her nose. ‘Blow,’ I say and she does so on command.
I wipe the tears away, then take hold of her hand again to lead her from the bathroom. Her hand is tiny and warm in mine. It feels right, like it moulds perfectly. The queue at the tills has lessened and there is now only one elderly woman in sensible walking shoes waiting for her polystyrene cup of tea. She smiles at us and I smile back, still holding tightly to Mia’s hand.
‘What would you like, Mia? Those chocolate chip cookies look yummy, don’t they? And those ones over there have Smarties in them! Would you like that?’
She raises her hand and points to the Smarties cookie as the old lady moves away.
‘What can I get you?’ says the bespectacled woman behind the till.
‘We’ll have that cookie there, please,’ I say and wink at Mia.
As I pay, I hear a commotion outside. Voices are raised and it sounds like a woman is shouting hysterically. I shrug at Mia and lead her from the café as she munches happily on the enormous cookie, the graze on her knee now forgotten.
A small group has gathered around the gate to the playground, all focused on a woman in tight jeans and a huge sweatshirt that swamps her small frame. It’s the woman I saw picking up dog poo. I also recognise among the group the large woman from the bathroom, who is talking animatedly and then turns to point at the café. She freezes when she sees me. ‘That’s her!’ she says loudly.
The entire group turns towards me, like a pack of lions, their faces feral.
‘MIA!’ the sweatshirt lady shouts and runs towards us.
‘Mummy,’ Mia says and breaks into the first smile I’ve seen since I picked her up out of the dirt. It lights up her entire face like a spotlight and I think to myself how beautiful and pure she is. She breaks loose from my hand and toddles to meet her mum, the cookie still clasped in her hand.
I watch her go, my heart in freefall as our connection is broken, my hand immediately feeling empty.
The woman scoops her into her arms, hugging and kissing her, tears streaming from her eyes in an undignified display of emotion. I want to tell her to calm down, that she’ll frighten Mia, but I am rooted to the spot, this openly demonstrative display paralysing me in its rawness. The love of a mother for her
child.
I don’t notice when the group of bystanders gathers around me en masse, blocking me from leaving. A pack of wild dogs, ready to tear me limb from limb.
But I can’t tear my eyes away from Mia.
*
Greg paces around the windowless room, his stride shortened by the lack of space around the bare metal table.
‘What the fuck were you thinking, Maddie? Were you even thinking?’ His hair is sticking up where he has run his hands through it while waiting for the police to finish interviewing me.
I look at the bare grey walls, still confused at why I am even here, in a police station, being accused of trying to kidnap a child. Me. Of all people.
My throat is rubbed raw from trying to explain that I wasn’t trying to take Mia. I was trying to help. I was looking after her. Her mother wasn’t there.
The woman with the small dog was her mother, but had been distracted by the dog and its runny poo, worrying because she only had one poo bag left and the dog was especially active in the toilet department today.
But how was I supposed to know that? All I saw was a little girl with a sore knee in some distress. All I did was take her to the bathroom.
Apparently, the mother had panicked when she couldn’t find Mia and the other mums had spent the whole time we were in the café calling her name and searching the vicinity for her.
‘And you bought her a cookie? That just looked like you were trying to bribe her! What if she had some sort of intolerance or allergy? If the cookie had nuts in it or something? You can never know with kids these days – they all have an allergy to one thing or another. You of all people should be aware of that! Look at me! She could’ve ended up in hospital! Or worse!’ He is shouting and I flinch at his words as they ricochet off my face.
‘She also could’ve been fine. She was fine. All I did was clean her up, wipe her tears and buy her a cookie. That’s not a crime,’ I say quietly. I’m tired. I want to go home.
‘It is a crime, Maddie! Walking off with someone else’s child without telling them is tantamount to kidnap! They have a witness who heard you say you were taking her home to watch Mulan, for fuck’s sake.’