Chapter 35 #2
‘Whose denim jacket is this?’ she asked eventually, thrusting her phone at me.
I reeled back and squinted at the phone. She’d zoomed in and, even though the photo was fuzzy, I’d recognise the vines, butterflies and ladybird design anywhere.
‘Mine.’
‘So you admit it’s yours?’
‘You know it’s mine. You know the story behind it.’
‘And is this jacket unique? Nobody else has one like it?’
‘Other than Auntie Hope, no. It was your nanna’s bespoke design for us.’
‘Thought so.’ She pressed another button before holding her phone up in front of me once more. ‘Then how do you explain this?’
This time it was a video showing a woman wearing my jacket, locked in a passionate embrace with a man. It was taken from a distance and it was grainy but I knew exactly who it was and I started laughing.
‘Seriously, Maddie, please tell me this is not why you’ve been so off with me for the best part of two years.’
‘You don’t think I should be angry with you?’
I knew I shouldn’t laugh but, the more I thought about the ridiculousness of it, the more I had the giggles. My own daughter had turned against me for something I hadn’t even done.
‘Why are you laughing?’ she demanded, snatching her phone back. ‘It’s not funny! I caught you cheating on Dad.’
‘I’ve never cheated on your dad. That’s not me.’
‘Yes, it is! You confirmed yourself that it’s your jacket.’
‘It is my jacket, but it’s not me wearing it. Do you recognise the man?’
‘No. Some rando.’
‘He’s maybe a bit far away but you know him. That’s Ned.’
‘Your friend from uni? Dad’s mate? Ew! That’s even worse.’
‘It would be if it was me in the jacket but I swear on the lives of every single animal in this house and on this farm that it isn’t me. That’s Jude.’
‘You’re lying!’
‘Go and ask her yourself if you don’t believe me.’
‘I will!’
I ran downstairs after her, scarcely able to believe this was the reason everything had changed between Maddie and me and that, because she’d stayed quiet about it, we’d lost two valuable years together.
I’d been to hell and back examining every possible thing I could have said and done to make her turn against me and she must have been having an awful time thinking I’d cheated on Laurie.
So many things she’d said or done now made sense.
She’d stopped doing three things because she believed I’d been lying about the most significant thing to happen to me that day, she hadn’t been surprised by Laurie and me separating, presumably because she’d been waiting for it to happen and, even in the car on the way to the farm, her comments challenging me whether I’d ever loved Laurie now made sense.
She thought I’d been seeing someone else all along.
‘Who’s this?’ Maddie demanded, thrusting her phone at Jude in the kitchen.
Jude gasped. ‘You were there? You saw me?’
Maddie’s head whipped round to me.
‘I told you it was Jude,’ I said.
‘You don’t think…’ Jude began. ‘Flippin’ heck, Maddie! You think this is your mum? It’s me and Ned in Reading, second week in September nearly two years ago.’
‘But you’re wearing Mum’s jacket.’
‘You’ve never borrowed clothes from your friends?’
Maddie looked from Jude to me, seemingly trying to decide whether to believe us.
‘Oh, come on, Maddie!’ Jude said. ‘Your mum and I haven’t just conspired together for me to take the blame.
It’s me. I’m wearing high-heeled boots and you know your mum hates wearing heels.
I’m carrying my favourite handbag too and I can show you several photos of me with that bag.
And, if that doesn’t convince you, we can get Ned on the phone and you can ask him who he was kissing in Reading two years ago.
It would be mortifying for me but it would clear your mum’s name. ’
Mam glanced at the video, her eyes wide. ‘Is this why you’ve been so off with your mam? You thought she was seeing someone behind your dad’s back?’
‘What did you expect me to think? It’s Mum’s jacket. It looks like Mum.’
‘And it’s a standing joke that, from behind, we could be twins,’ I said. ‘You know this.’
Maddie did know that. Adrian had often referred to us as twinnies in Maddie’s presence and she’d heard the story so many times about how he’d been convinced we had twin telepathy when we were at university and how he couldn’t tell us apart until we turned round.
‘But I thought…’ Maddie stared at her phone in disbelief.
I wanted to say you could have asked me!
But could she have? If I’d seen – or thought I’d seen – my mam kissing another man when I was only sixteen, would I have confronted her about it?
My first stop would likely have been Hope.
We’d have discussed it and we’d probably have gone to our grandma for some advice.
Maddie didn’t have a sibling, she could hardly have gone to Laurie’s mam with ‘evidence’ that I was cheating on her son, and my mam had been far away.
So my guess was she’d turned to the one person who’d consistently given her terrible advice.
‘Was Carmen with you when you saw Jude?’ I asked.
Maddie looked up. ‘She was the one who told me to take the photo and video. She said…’ She paused, looking embarrassed. ‘She said I should bribe you with it.’
It shouldn’t have surprised me, but it did. ‘Bribe me to do what?’
She shrugged. ‘I dunno. Buy me new clothes and stuff? Maybe a car when I turned seventeen?’
Even though I hated what Carmen had suggested, I wished Maddie had gone down that route because I could have nipped it in the bud immediately.
‘I’m so sorry, Grace,’ Jude said. ‘If I’d thought about us being spotted…’
‘No! You can’t think like that.’
‘But the damage I’ve caused…’
Maddie sank down onto one of the chairs, pale-faced and looking completely deflated as she stared at the table, her phone abandoned by her side.
At a guess, she’d just realised that Jude hadn’t caused the damage; she had.
Nobody spoke. I wondered whether, like me, Mam and Jude had no idea what more they could say.
Nearly two lost years for no reason at all.
‘I don’t understand,’ Maddie said eventually, raising her gaze to Jude. ‘Wasn’t he married to one of your other best friends?’
‘Yes. Erica, but they’d separated and, truth is, I’d been in love with Ned since I was twenty.’
A thought struck me and, with it, a sliver of hope. If Laurie thought I’d been unfaithful to him – especially with one of our best friends – it would explain why he’d left me, although it wouldn’t explain the timing. Unless Maddie hadn’t shared it immediately. If she’d waited a year…
‘Did you tell your dad or show him the video?’
But my hopes crashed and burned with her one-word response.
‘No.’
I sat down too. I’d laughed earlier but it felt like anything but funny now. This was more of a tragedy and, looking round the table, everyone else clearly felt it too.
The sound of a chair scraping over the tiles broke the silence and my breath caught in my throat as Maddie hurried out of the kitchen, a sob escaping from her.
‘I’ll talk to her,’ Mam said, placing her hand on my arm to stop me when I moved to rise.
‘I’m so sorry,’ Jude repeated when Mam left the room.
‘None of this is your fault. You could never in a million years have predicted this.’
‘If I hadn’t worn your jacket…’
I shook my head. ‘If Ned’s meeting hadn’t finished early, if Maddie hadn’t gone into Reading with Carmen, if you’d kissed Ned on another street, if it had been five minutes earlier or later…
If any one of those seemingly insignificant details had changed the outcome would have been different.
The important thing is I now finally know why Maddie has been foul to me and we can put it behind us and move on. ’
My fear was whether Maddie would be able to do that.
While the mistaken identity was understandable and explained so much, there was no getting away from how problematic her behaviour had been.
She’d made a conscious decision to believe that it was me kissing Ned and that I could do something like that to Laurie.
She’d then chosen to act the way she had and it had been incredibly hurtful to be on the receiving end of her comments and attitude.
She’d chosen to hate me – or certainly act as though she did.
I loved her and wanted our relationship back on track so I could put this aside, but could she forgive herself now that she knew I’d done nothing to deserve her wrath?