on a safari in Lesotho to celebrate their twentieth wedding anniversary the previous year; the living room was now filled with African masks and zebra-print cushions. Both her adult sons had recently left home and Jayne had turned one bedroom into a Moroccan souk and the other into a minimalist Swedish spa. It was an interesting look for a four-bed semi, but if anyone had the personality to pull it off, it was Jayne.
Maddie dumped Emily’s pink backpack on the retro fifties kitchen table. ‘You’re a total star,’ she said. ‘I literally don’t know what I’d have done without you.’
‘Forget it. I literally can’t think of anything I’d rather do.’
The two women grinned at each other. She and Jayne had met eight years ago at a council meeting about a proposed bypass that would cut through a beautiful section of their West Sussex green belt. The main speaker against the development had had an irritating habit of adding ‘literally’ to almost every sentence; sitting next to each other, she and Jayne had got the giggles and had eventually been asked to leave the meeting, as if they were naughty schoolgirls. They’d been firm friends ever since.
‘Seriously, though, you’re a lifesaver,’ Maddie said. ‘I owe you one.’
‘Don’t be daft. If it wasn’t Steve’s birthday, I’d have her overnight. I’ve got more than enough time on my hands.’
Maddie gave her a sympathetic smile. Jayne had quit her job as a receptionist at a law firm a couple of years earlier to look after her widowed father and his death four months ago had left her at a bit of a loose end while she searched for a new job.
‘Time for a quick cuppa?’ Jayne asked, putting on the kettle.
Maddie glanced at her phone. ‘Go on, then. I’ve got half an hour before I have to leave.’
‘Do you want me to put on a DVD for you, Emily?’ Jayne asked. ‘Or would you rather play in the garden?’
The little girl looked hopefully at her mother. ‘Can I watch Netflix on my phone?’
‘I suppose, since you’re theoretically sick. But not all day,’ she added helplessly, as Emily grabbed her back-pack and shot off towards the sitting room.
Jayne got out a couple of mugs. ‘You’ll be telling me next Jacob has a Snapchat account,’ she teased.
‘Oh, God, am I an awful parent for getting her a smartphone?’ Maddie exclaimed. ‘I am, aren’t I? Lucas was dead set against it, but I wanted her to be able to reach me if there was an emergency—’
‘Give over. You’re a great parent. I was just teasing.
‘It’s not funny,’ Maddie groaned. ‘I can’t keep up with it all. I’ve only just got to grips with Facebook, and now they’re all on Instagram or Pinterest or God knows what instead.’
‘Listen to you. You sound like your own grandmother. You realise you’re technically a millennial, don’t you?’
‘You know you’re way more on the ball than me.’
Jayne set a mug of tea in front of her. ‘That’s a low bar, love.’
At first glance, theirs was an unlikely friendship. Jayne was nine years Maddie’s senior, an energetic, outgoing woman who’d grown up with four brothers and was the life and soul of the party. She’d married and had children young and had been the kind of mother who threw end-of-term parties for the entire class and was everyone’s favourite chaperone on school trips. Maddie never even went to parent–teacher conferences without Lucas as a protective buffer. But she and Jayne had both grown up in homes where money was tight and dessert a treat you only had on Sundays. They’d learned the value of thrift and hard work.
‘You all right?’ Jayne asked. ‘No offence, love, but you look shattered.’
Maddie sighed. ‘I’m fine. Just tired. Noah’s still not sleeping. I know it’s just colic, but it never seems to end.’
‘I hope that lovely bugger of yours is pulling his weight.’
She shrugged. ‘He has to get up for work in the morning. I’d bring Noah into our room, but there’s no point both of us being up all night. The horses don’t mind if I fall asleep on the job, but if Lucas does, a hotel will end up with no windows or something.’
‘Screw his hotels. You’re more important. It’s easy for things to get you down when you don’t get enough sleep—’
‘It’s OK,’ Maddie interrupted, knowing what her friend was driving at. ‘I’m OK. I’m still taking my pills. Dr Calkins even said I can start tapering down soon. I’m not depressed.’ She summoned a tired smile. ‘Exhausted, but not depressed.’
‘Any more funny turns?’ Jayne asked lightly.
Maddie hesitated. Jayne had been with her the first time she had one of her memory lapses, not long after she’d found out she was expecting Noah. They’d been at the garden centre, looking at lavender bushes for Jayne’s new landscaping project. One minute she’d been crushing a soft purple stalk between her fingers, inhaling its aromatic scent, and the next, she’d been eating cheddar-and-kale quiche at Stone Soup two miles away with absolutely no idea how she’d got there.
Jayne had laughed when she’d told her, said it was typical baby brain, to forget about it. She’d left her car in the multistorey at the shopping centre when she’d been expecting Adam, Jayne said – she’d actually got the bus home before she’d realised!
But then it had happened again, three months later, when Maddie was collecting Emily from school. This time she’d lost a whole afternoon. It was like someone had simply wiped the slate clean. She could remember turning into the crescent-shaped drive in front of Emily’s primary school for afternoon pick-up; she could see Emily standing on the front steps, chattering to her best friend, Tammy, windmilling her arms as she demonstrated some sort of dance step. And then suddenly Maddie was upstairs in the bathroom at home, kneeling next to the tub as Jacob splashed fat hands on the water, giggling. It was dark outside; she’d lost four hours, hours in which she’d driven her children home and fed them and helped out with homework and changed nappies. And she couldn’t remember any of it.
It wasn’t baby brain. This was something different and it scared her. She hadn’t done anything odd or out of character during one of her episodes – at least, not yet – but just the thought was frightening. She hadn’t wanted to go back to her psychiatrist, Dr Calkins; he was a good man and he’d done his best to help her when she’d had postnatal depression, but he’d also been the one pushing for her to be admitted to a psych ward and suggesting ECT. She knew he’d only had her best interests at heart, but the idea of electric shock therapy had terrified her. She’d worried that if she’d told him she was literally losing her mind, he’d definitely have wanted to admit her, and if she’d refused, she might have ended up sectioned.
Nor did she want to tell Lucas; it would only worry him. And she couldn’t talk to her mother, either; Sarah wasn’t the kind of woman who did reassurance and sympathy. She solved problems, found solutions. She’d parented Maddie efficiently when she was a child, ensuring she was clothed and fed and nurtured, but although Maddie had always known she was loved, she’d never felt Sarah liked being a mother very much. Even when Sarah played with her, getting out the finger paints or making jam tarts, she’d always had the sense her mother was ticking off a good-parenting box rather
