Jade was different. Part of it was that she was still quite young, a millennial, while Maddie was supposedly a baby boomer. The irony in that was not lost on her. Jade had said last night that she was 28 – ten years younger than Maddie, but it felt like much more. She was opinionated and still believed the world owed her everything while Maddie had learnt that the world owed you nothing and never played fair.
The idea of female friendship was something that Maddie had effectively missed out on until now. After meeting Greg when she was a teenager, he quickly became Maddie’s best friend and they married young, fresh out of university and starry-eyed with hope and ambition. As the years of their marriage unfolded, any girlfriends she may have had all but dissolved away as she invested her entire being in him, their business, their family, to the point where she had few people she could call a friend now.
She thought about the people she had in her life and it painted a depressing picture. Her father had left when she was very young and her mother had died when Maddie was at university. Her old friends were all married, a few divorced, all with families of their own and living spread out across the globe. It had been just her and Greg for so long. He had been her entire existence.
For Maddie, this was a chance at a new start. She realised that she had never truly been independent before. As she sat, still in her pyjamas, eating custard creams out of the packet at 5 p.m., she felt suddenly liberated. She had gone from living with her mother to flat sharing at university to living with Greg. There had been no time for discovering who she actually was herself, in her own space. She had always shared space with Greg, had him to look after her, manage her life for her, make her decisions. Her mother had taught her to have an independent spirit, but the luxury of having someone shoulder the responsibility for you was addictive.
And now that could change. She needed to change her mindset. Her impending divorce was an opportunity rather than a failure. Jade had come along at the right time too, despite their clear differences. She thought about how independent Jade was – a single mum, living alone, making her own decisions – and she wanted a bit of that. And of course, there was Ben.
Of course she wanted Ben.
As if she knew what Maddie was thinking, Jade’s next message was a video of Ben laughing into the camera while she spun him around, her ponytail like a propeller, and Maddie’s heart expanded like a balloon as she listened to his fits of giggles, saw the sheer, childish joy on his face. Maddie replied:
That is adorable! I could eat him up! Is he home?
She put the phone to her chest and shuffled further down the couch under the duvet, trying not to cry. The phone vibrated again in her hand and she expected another message from Jade, but it was a call.
Greg.
She hesitated, then answered.
‘Hi.’
‘Hey you. How was the head this morning?’
‘My head?’
‘Yeah, you sounded pretty toasted last night.’
Maddie had no recollection of calling him last night.
‘And who was that laughing in the background?’
A vague memory was teasing her, the two of them calling Greg, but she couldn’t remember what they had said to him or even if they had said anything at all.
‘I’m sorry, we were just hanging out, drinking wine and then things got a bit silly…’
‘Who were you with?’ His voice had an interesting edge.
‘The woman who lives above me. She’s really nice, has a three-year-old son called Ben.’
‘Maddie, don’t—’
‘I’m just making friends, having some fun. That’s all.’
‘She sounded a bit… you know, not our kind of person, Mads…’
‘And what kind of person is that?’ Annoyance clipped the edge off her words.
‘You know what I mean. You’re just being obtuse now.’
‘No, actually, I don’t know what you mean. Are you referring to immaculately made-up women who shop in Waitrose and think a good night out is two slimline gin and tonics before an early night? Women like Gemma, maybe?’
‘Hey, what’s got into you? I’m just worried about you.’
She was uncharacteristically annoyed at him now. How dare he imply that Jade was not worthy? So she may be a bit crass, did everything with the volume turned up high and wore clothes that were a little cheap, but she had also been kind, welcoming and fun to hang out with last night. He didn’t know her, hadn’t even met her.
Maddie wanted to shock him, make him see she didn’t need him anymore. What would Jade say to him right now? ‘I think the days of you having the right to worry about me, tell me what to do, or have anything at all to do with me were over when you decided to shag your PA behind my back, don’t you?’
Then she hung up on him.
Her head was pounding again and she could barely breathe. She had never spoken to Greg like that before. If they had argued in the past, it had always been with voices barely raised above conversational, with Maddie offering an opinion and him telling her she was wrong or dismissing her outright. She felt at once rebellious and brave, then immediately foolish and immature. This was Greg, after all. He knew her better than she knew herself. She could picture his face now, the way he chewed on the inside of his lip when he was perturbed or rubbed at the back of his neck when he was uncomfortable.
She called him straight back and before he could speak, said, ‘I’m so sorry, it’s the hangover. I don’t know what came over me.’
But it was Gemma’s icy voice that
