Maddie

Book summary

Fleeing her troubled past, eighteen-year-old Maddie arrives in mid-20th century Glasgow, determined to start anew despite her fears. Befriended by the kind Kingston family, she seizes a chance for a fresh beginning. As a new man enters her life, Maddie must decide if she can truly let go of her past for lasting happiness.

Excerpt from Maddie

It was on the third Sunday of the month that Maddie Granger killed Will Benson. She lifted the heavy brass candlestick off the communion table and struck the back of his head with it, over and over again, satisfaction in every hit. He dropped like a stone at her feet, blood pouring from his wounds, and she inflicted another couple of blows to make sure the job was properly done. She rolled his body over; his eyes were craving the forgiveness she couldn’t find.

Maddie was deciding how best to dispose of the corpse when Mr Dunwoodie thumped the pulpit ledge, jolting her back to reality. Seated between her mum and the hateful Will in their family pew at St Luke’s, she forced a swift glance at her stepfather’s profile. His crooked nose and thin, mean mouth made her shudder.

Long-standing and intense hatred of Benson filled her soul; it rose up and choked her. After all he’d inflicted on her in her younger days, he was now a pillar of the Kirk. What would Mr Dunwoodie and his elders think if they knew the same Will Benson she did?

The sullen clouds clung tenaciously to the windowpanes, allowing no vestige of daylight in to brighten the colourless interior of the sandstone walls and dark wooden pews. Maddie’s eyes were drawn to the stained-glass window to the right of the pulpit. She loved the bright blue and purple hues on the glass and its inscription, ‘In the beginning was the Word and the Word was with God’.

Having long since lost the thread of the minister’s sermon, Maddie picked at her chipped nail polish; the shade was pretty peach. Her stepfather hated painted nails, saying they made her look cheap, but she wasn’t interested in his opinion.

She edged away from Benson and closer to her mother, smelling the mothballs from Mum’s fur coat. Wisps of hair escaped out of the sides of Mum’s blue felt hat, curling up to rest on the fabric. Pulling a handkerchief out of her pocket, her mother began to cough into it, the feathers on her hat waving around with the movement. Maddie glimpsed a flash of blood when her mother took the hankie away from her mouth. The cough was getting worse and Mum had also lost a lot of weight recently, although she pooh-poohed Maddie’s concerns. Sensing Maddie’s anxious eyes on her now, she smiled reassuringly and squeezed her daughter’s hand.

Poor Mum had been easy prey for Will Benson. She must have found it hard to cope after Dad’s death at Dunkirk, with little money or help with child-minding. As an engineer, Benson was in a reserved occupation and his offer of marriage must have seemed heaven sent.

He’d only moved in with them a couple of months when it had started. Even now all these years later Maddie still felt her stomach churn. Her hands were in a tight fist on her lap as she recalled the brushing sound of her bedroom door in Rowan Avenue being pushed open across the thick pile carpet. It had continued into her school years and she’d been terrified to say anything to Mum because of Benson’s violent temper and threats of what he’d do to both of them if she did tell. Mum wouldn’t have believed her anyway as she could see no wrong in Benson and reporting him to the police would have meant answering too many painful questions.

By now Mr Dunwoodie’s words had faded into the distance and Maddie stopped even trying to listen to what he was saying.

She looked up at the bulbs on the light fittings hanging from the ceiling. Cleaning them must be difficult; surely scaffolding would be needed to get up to that height. She counted seventy-two bulbs in total; six sets of lights, each with twelve bulbs. Three bulbs had gone out but she guessed they wouldn’t be replaced until others joined them; too much effort otherwise.

The sermon over, Mr Dunwoodie said a final prayer and gave out the announcements. While they were singing the last hymn, ‘Onward Christian Soldiers’, Mum started coughing again and had to dig into her bag for a boiled sweet. She always kept them with her for this purpose. After the Benediction, they moved out of the pew and made their way downstairs, where Mr Dunwoodie was waiting at the front door to shake hands with his parishioners.

Maddie linked arms with her mother on the five-minute walk to their terraced home in Rowan Avenue. The coughing fit had abated for the moment but she decided to persuade her mother to contact Dr Harvie, their G.P., first thing tomorrow morning.

March 1956

‘Your hands are so cold, Mum.’ Maddie smiled through her tears at the skeletal figure lying on the bed, while she rubbed her mother’s paper-thin hands between her own. When some warmth began to creep back into the frail fingers, Maddie placed them underneath the blankets, noticing how the colour of her mother’s skin matched the white sheets. Mum was tiny, 5’2” in her stocking soles, but the outline of her body under the covers made her look even smaller. Maddie had taken her 5’7” height from her dad, the dad that sadly she couldn’t remember.

Her mother’s blue eyes looked up at her. ‘Happy Birthday, Maddie,’ she whispered, then began coughing with the effort of speaking. Stretching over for the glass of water sitting on the bedside table, Maddie held it to her mother’s pale lips. Her mother sipped it slowly and when the coughing ceased, she lay back on the pillow, exhausted.

‘Don’t worry Mum, you’ll be able to help me celebrate my next birthday.’ Both knew Maddie was lying; they were equally aware that there was little time left. It was on a cold wintry day, almost three months ago now, that Dr Harvie had diagnosed pulmonary tuberculosis. Even although Maddie had suspected that tuberculosis was the cause of her mother’s cough, hearing it put into words still came as a shock. The disease had taken too great a hold for Mum to benefit from treatment in a sanatorium, even if she could have afforded the fare to go to one.

Dr Harvie had visited Rowan Avenue about an hour ago to give Mum her injection of streptomycin and as he sounded his patient’s emaciated body, Maddie could see that he was visibly upset.

The door was pushed open and Will Benson came into the bedroom. His eyebrows arched but Maddie shook her head. Tensing up at the sight of him, she turned away to avoid meeting his eyes. When Mum’s diagnosis had been made, Benson’s behaviour towards Maddie had changed, due she suspected to his fear that she would speak out once her mother could no longer be hurt by the revelations. But his efforts to redeem himself were wasted as she knew that she could never forgive him for her stolen childhood.

He came closer and made to lay a hand on her shoulder but she quickly moved aside, out of his reach. ‘Do you want something to eat, Love,’ he whispered, ‘you’ve been up here for hours and you really need a rest. You’ll make yourself ill.’

His words grated and, without looking at him, she shook her head. ‘No, I’m staying with Mum,’ she said abruptly, and turned away, holding her mother’s hand under the blankets.

Her shoulders relaxed once the door closed behind him and she stroked her mother’s sweaty brow and dark stringy hair, now liberally sprinkled with grey. She glanced at the clock above the door. ‘It’s time for your cough medicine, Mum,’ she murmured, picking up the bottle from the bedside table. She poured some of the foul-smelling treacly solution on to a spoon and raised her mother up into a sitting position. Supporting her mother with one hand, she held the spoon to the pale lips with the other. Her mother made a face but valiantly swallowed the medicine. Maddie wiped a drip of medicine off her mother’s pink nightie before capping the bottle and returning it to the table.

When her mother’s eyes closed soon afterwards, Maddie patted the white cheek. ‘You have a sleep now Mum and I’ll be here beside you when you waken up.’

Over the past week, during which her mother’s condition steadily worsened, Maddie had had little sleep and even when she went to bed, she lay there for hours wide awake. Thankfully her boss at work was understanding and allowed her as much time off as possible to be with her ailing mother. But now, sitting here, with her mother lying peacefully in bed, Maddie soon drifted off, dreaming that Benson was sobbing but she could feel no pity for him.

A strange noise aroused her and, when she jerked back from sleep, she realised it had come from her mother. Guilt at falling asleep washed over her and she took her mother’s puny hand between her own two. Panic arose inside her when she heard a rattling noise coming from her mother’s throat. Maddie wiped the sweaty brow again and drew her fingers gently down the waxen cheek. The rattle came again and, as Maddie leaned closer, her mother’s eyes flew open.

‘No Mum, no,’ she whispered. She sobbed quietly as she laid her cheek against her mother’s. When she raised her head again, her tears dripped down on to the bedclothes as she gently pushed the eyelids down.