‘Right then, missy. We need to get your travel cot set up in my room, then I think a trip to the shop for some of your favourite food.’
Jemima giggled in response and Maddie felt elated, but the feeling evaporated just as quickly. What would she do with Jemima later? She had to go and see Mark. She had to finish this.
But maybe Jade was right. Jemima was the perfect cover. She could pick her up a Halloween costume at the shop and use that as her way to get Mark to open the door.
Just another friendly trick or treater.
16
Mark Bennett was a simple bloke. Easy to please, his mother would say. And yet his life was anything but. He worked with a nice group of lads. There was plenty of banter, a couple of pints after work on a Friday and some good-natured ribbing about the football on a Monday. Not quite the camaraderie of the rigs, but still a nice place to work. And when he was finished at the end of the day, all he wanted was to get home, have a hot bath and then collapse in front of the telly with a cold beer.
But pregnancy had turned his girlfriend Gloria into a nightmare, truth be told. Before she was pregnant, they’d been strong. They liked a laugh, she enjoyed a few drinks and hanging out with his mates, and she was really good at her job as a hairdresser, which also meant he got free haircuts on the weekend.
But since the pregnancy, she’d become a lot more high maintenance. She didn’t want to go out anymore, was always tired and now that she was a few weeks off the baby coming, everything was an issue. It was like she was sitting at home just finding things to complain about.
It hadn’t been like this with Jade. That had been the perfect pregnancy from his point of view. A text message to say she was pregnant and a few photos of her swollen belly. Another message to say she was in labour but not to worry as she had her friend with her. She’d even sent him a smiling photo of the two of them in the hospital, then followed it up with a photo of a tiny Ben after he was born.
No worry; no stress. Pregnancy from a distance meant he wasn’t bossed around, snapped at, sent on late night shopping trips for weird snacks – all that stuff you hear about and think your girlfriend won’t inflict on you. Turns out she will.
He had been thrilled to hear he had a son. When he finally got off the rigs, he arranged to meet Jade at her flat and there he was. A pink, squirming three-month-old, with intense eyes and a strong pair of lungs on him. Mark fell in love immediately.
He’d felt really heartsore leaving him that day and every other time since then. That was one of the reasons he’d left the rigs. He wanted to see more of Ben. He wanted to be there to teach him to kick a football and ride a bike, clichéd as it was.
And he’d had a few opportunities like that, especially when Ben was a baby. He would spend entire afternoons with them. They took him to the zoo once when he was about eighteen months old and it had been a brilliant day.
When he met Gloria, he had been upfront about Ben, told her that he wasn’t with Jade. In fact, he’d never really been with Jade. She’d been a one-night stand in the beginning and then an unfortunate drunken mistake the night before he headed back to the rigs had resulted in Ben. Jade was just not his sort of girl. But Gloria was. She liked to dress up, make herself look pretty, banter with the boys, but also knew when to leave him to it.
Well, she used to anyway. Now it was all moaning, baggy tracksuit pants and not closing the door when she went to the loo.
It was her baby shower this weekend, so she’d gone to stay at her mother’s house, which meant he had all weekend to do just what he wanted. He suspected it would mostly involve the couch, football on the telly and pizza. He could spritz some Febreze around the place before Gloria got back on Sunday night and she’d never know.
He’d actually sent Jade a message to ask if he could have Ben for the weekend, but she’d said no. She’d been doing that a lot lately.
Maybe it was a weird jealousy thing over Gloria. You could never tell with women.
The fact that it was Halloween hadn’t escaped his notice. There were small kids everywhere, dressed in random costumes, trawling the streets, knocking on doors and asking strangers for sweets. Mark wondered if Ben was trick or treating, and his heart contracted as he thought about how it should be him taking Ben around. Not for the first time he wondered if Jade had a new partner and maybe that was why he was being frozen out of Ben’s life.
A mate of his had told him recently to get some legal advice on it – he had rights after all. But Gloria was due soon and then he’d have two kids to worry about. Maybe when the new baby was born, he would do something about Ben.
Right now, he was happy to sit in front of the football. He had a bowl of sweets next to the door for trick or treaters if they knocked – he loved seeing the kids’ faces when they were digging grubby hands into the bowl – but other than that, he wasn’t planning on moving from this chair.
*
Maddie realised halfway along the motorway that she really should’ve thought this through a bit
