She peered up the stairs to the first floor, but it all looked the same as the ground floor. Clearly, whoever had been arguing and playing music into the early hours lived upstairs, probably directly above Maddie in Flat 4. There was a small lift tucked away in the corner, which was indeed out of order according to the handwritten note taped to it.
As she turned to leave, something tiny and furry on the stairs caught Maddie’s eye. Her breath hitched, initially thinking it was a mouse. It was too big surely. Please God, not a rat. A little kitten maybe? Crouching, frightened, in the corner? She approached it gingerly with her hand outstretched, but it didn’t move. She gently stroked its dark grey fur. It felt synthetic under her fingers. It still wasn’t moving and Maddie had the sickening thought that she had just stroked a dead cat before she realised with an embarrassed chuckle that it was a soft toy. She picked it up and glanced up the stairwell again, then rested the toy on the side of the stairs so that anyone coming down would see it. Her heart leapt absurdly at the thought that a small child lived somewhere in the building.
Maybe this place wouldn’t be so bad after all.
*
It seemed odd that the car park for the supermarket was so empty. Maddie parked in a space right outside the entrance and climbed out. It was cold. Only September and yet autumn seemed to be setting in pretty quickly.
Then she realised her mistake. It was Sunday and the store wouldn’t be open for some time yet. She returned to her car and sat in the still warm interior, mulling over what to do next. Maddie had lived in this area of Teddington for years now and knew that not much would be open apart from coffee shops and newsagents. Why had she forgotten what day it was?
She immediately had an urge to call Greg and tell him about her silly mistake. He’d tease her and they’d laugh about it. In fact, she could pop in on him. Any excuse if she could go and see little Jemima. The house they’d lived in for most of their marriage was only a few streets away. Maddie’s new flat was almost in his back garden. That was one of the reasons she had agreed to this new arrangement. She picked up her phone to call him, then hesitated.
A text would be better. She sent him a quick message saying she was at a loose end and could she come and say hello to Jemima. The response came back quickly.
We’re just having breakfast. Maybe another time? G x
She put her phone back in her bag, immediately regretting sending the message. She needed to start being independent, to forge her own path. Yet here she was on day one and sending him messages. He had picked his side and she had to live with that.
Annoyed at herself, she got back out of her car, locked it and walked towards the High Street in search of a cup of tea.
Cardboard cup in hand, she walked past the closed gift shops and restaurants to the playground. It was already buoyant with lively toddlers and exhausted dads, their hair on end and nerves jangling as they helped small bodies onto the climbing frame and pushed swings on autopilot, their partners left at home to enjoy the luxury of a lie-in while Dad was on duty. Maddie sat on the bench and took it all in. The excited whoops from a boy dressed like Batman as he flew down the slide; the gentle smile on the face of a little girl as she sat in the swing seat with her doll in her lap, legs dangling, her father yawning and stretching in between pushes.
Maddie knew nothing about the level of exhaustion reached by a parent of a small child, but she’d spent a lot of time on this bench over the last few years, observing, living vicariously, wishing she could be that worn out, itching to reach out and touch the wriggling, warm bodies playing around her.
A woman was struggling to get her pushchair through the gate to the playground. Maddie set her tea down on the ground at her feet and jumped up to help, holding the gate for the woman while the pushchair reversed in. The woman was shorter than Maddie, no more than five foot, and her peroxide-blonde hair was scraped back into a scalp-pulling high ponytail that highlighted her dark roots. Maddie caught a whiff of cigarette smoke as she passed, mumbling her thanks.
Maddie looked down into the pushchair to see a little boy of about three years old clutching a Matchbox car in each fist, his eyes wide and tears standing out on his ruddy cheeks. He had a knitted hat pulled down low over his eyes.
Maddie returned to her seat and retrieved her tea while she watched the woman lift the boy from the pushchair and give him a shove towards the climbing frame. The woman then leant casually against the fence and pulled her phone from her pocket.
Most of the children were oblivious to each other as they clamoured and jumped around. The little boy seemed lost, unsure what to do with himself. Then he climbed up the steps of the slide, perched at the top and let his car slide all the way down to the bottom. He smiled, followed it down on his bottom, collected it up and repeated the process happily for a while.
Maddie watched mesmerised, enjoying the mundane yet satisfying repetition of the boy’s activities.
After a while, the boy dressed as Batman wandered over just as the car landed at the bottom of the slide for the umpteenth time. Batman reached down, grabbed it and ran off towards the swings. The boy on the slide looked confused, his eyebrows knotted together, then angry. His cheeks turned puce and he started to scream.
His mother finally looked up from her phone, swore under her breath and said loudly, ‘What is it now, Ben? You’re really testing my patience this morning.’
The boy gulped through his tears and pointed a shaking finger at Batman, who was now happily driving the car in the dirt below the climbing frame.
‘Use your bloody words and tell me what’s wrong, Ben. Otherwise, we’ll have to go home. I can’t be doing with your tantrums today.’ Her words were sharp, exhaustion weighing down the syllables.
Ben cried harder.
‘Right, that’s it. We’re going,’ the mother said, her temper flaring. She shoved her phone into her back pocket and stormed over to the slide. ‘Come down here right now.’
Maddie’s heart broke for Ben, who was now distraught and only cried harder. Everyone had turned to stare, apart from Batman who resolutely played on with the pilfered car.
Maddie got to her feet and approached Ben’s mother. ‘Um, excuse me?’
She turned towards Maddie, her eyes flaring. ‘Look, he’s not having a good day, ok? No need to butt in.’
Maddie held her hands up in surrender. ‘I know. It’s just… um… that boy over there took his car. That’s why he’s crying.’
The woman looked over at Batman, then back to Ben, before marching straight over to Batman and demanding that he hand over the car. Batman’s dad was standing to the side of the playground, scrolling through something on his phone, but upon seeing Batman being told off by a stranger, he weighed in too.
Sensing that the situation was getting uncomfortable, Maddie threw her now empty cup in the bin and headed back to her car.
*
The handles of the plastic bags cut into her hands as Maddie struggled into the flat. One of the bags snagged on the handle and the plastic tore open, spilling apples, ginger and shampoo onto the floor.
Muttering under her breath, she put the other bags down, then went to retrieve the produce rolling around. As she stooped to pick everything up, she heard the entrance door open over her shoulder.
Maddie looked up and immediately recognised the woman from the playground, now reversing into the foyer with the pushchair.