Chapter 22
Hope, Mam and I had a really constructive afternoon, applying a second coat of paint in the counter space and finishing first coats everywhere else.
We’d had a lovely time together, having a good old catch-up on family and friends news, and my heart felt so lifted that we’d be able to do that regularly over a cuppa.
FaceTime was great but nothing beat in-person contact.
Mam and I waved Hope off and returned to the farmhouse. I wanted to take the dogs out for a decent walk but decided to check on Maddie’s progress first.
Upstairs, I knocked on her bedroom door.
‘Don’t come in!’ she called.
‘Are you behind the door?’
‘No, but you can’t come in.’
‘Why not?’
‘It’s not finished.’
‘Then let me help you before I take the dogs out.’
Taking a leaf out of my sister’s book, I pushed open the door and my stomach lurched.
The walls looked terrible. There were roller streaks going in all directions, some completed with too little paint to cover the previous colour and others with far too much, resulting in blobs and trickles.
The edges between the feature colour wall and the adjoining walls were a hideous blend of the two paints.
I’d expected some imperfect cutting in but this was worse than I could ever have imagined.
There were no dust sheets down and I could see speckles of paint on all her furniture and bedding, a large dollop of paint on the edge of her duvet where my guess was she’d dropped a paint-laden brush, and a smeared mass of paint on her floorboards.
Couldn’t she have followed even the most basic of instructions to cover everything?
‘You hate it,’ Maddie declared.
‘It’s, erm…’ I didn’t want to criticise her work and searched for a positive but I couldn’t find one. I didn’t even like her choice of colours. I’d suggested at the time that they didn’t go well together but she’d been adamant they were what she wanted and that my opinion wasn’t welcome.
Maddie was standing on a stepladder painting over a splodge on the ceiling but she wasn’t using a paintbrush.
‘Is that…’ I stepped closer. ‘Is that Tipp-Ex?’
‘You said we didn’t have any white paint so I was improvising.’
Her thinking she’d be able to cover up the mess with Tipp-Ex was so ludicrous that I nearly laughed hysterically.
She’d made such a mess that even twenty bottles of Tipp-Ex had no chance of covering the blobs on the ceiling, not that they’d be the same colour as the paint already there even if they did.
‘I wouldn’t bother with the Tipp-Ex,’ I said. ‘I think you should come down.’
She screwed the lid back onto the bottle and tossed it onto her bed before descending the ladder.
‘It might be best to leave the painting for today and have some relaxation time,’ I said.
She looked up at her Tipp-Ex splodges and released a sob. ‘I thought it’d be easy but I’ve got paint everywhere and it looks…’ She gazed round the rest of the room, her eyes wide. ‘I should have let you do it. I’ve screwed it up.’
‘It can all be sorted out.’
‘I can’t do anything right!’ she cried. ‘I’m useless!’
‘Don’t say that! It was your first attempt and, as you’ve discovered, it isn’t as easy as you’d thought.’
‘I’ve got paint in my hair.’ She lifted up a paint-encrusted lock.
‘That’ll wash out.’
‘And the paint on my duvet?’
‘Probably not.’
‘Argh! Told you I’m useless. I screw everything up.’ Her voice cracked on the final word and tears streamed down her cheeks.
I rushed over to hug her but she dodged past me, wiping her cheeks with the back of her hands. ‘You’ll get paint on you.’
‘I don’t care about that.’
‘I do. I’m going for a shower.’
She grabbed her bath robe and dashed out of her bedroom, leaving me bewildered as to what had just happened.
I could understand her being upset at making a mess of the painting but she wasn’t in trouble with me.
Granted, I was far from pleased that she’d refused my help, ignored my advice and created a bigger job, but I’d remained calm and it was Maddie who’d negatively assessed her work.
I sank down onto her bed, tears pricking my eyes.
She’d been so harsh on herself. I’m useless.
I can’t do anything right. I screw everything up.
Where had that come from? I’d never heard her speak that way before.
Those words suggested serious self-esteem issues and it was awful to witness when I was used to seeing her so confident.
Maddie wouldn’t appreciate me still being in her room after she’d showered, so I removed her paint-spattered pillowcases and duvet cover.
The pillowcases should recover in the wash but I wasn’t convinced I’d be able to salvage the cover.
The paint had seeped through to the duvet itself but there was nothing I could do about that now as we didn’t have a spare.
I put a fresh set of bedding on and sighed heavily as I went back downstairs.
‘That doesn’t look good,’ Mam said as I headed through the kitchen to the utility room with the bundle of bedding.
‘Her room doesn’t look good,’ I said, shaking my head. ‘It’s like an explosion in a paint factory in there.’
‘Oh dear.’
‘It’s gonna take some sorting but the thing I’m most concerned about is Maddie’s reaction.’
I filled Mam in on what she’d said about herself and Mam frowned. ‘That’s not like her.’
‘That’s what I thought. I’ll let her have some downtime then try to speak to her about it.’
But when I went upstairs an hour later, Maddie refused to talk.
‘I’m watching a film. You said I should relax so that’s what I’m doing and I can’t do it with you banging on my door.’
That sounded more like the Maddie of late but it didn’t stop me being worried. Something was going on with my daughter and I was determined to get to the bottom of it.