Page 5 of One Day at a Time

Maddie wasn’t prone to public outbursts of emotion, but she suddenly felt the need to blink back the water that appeared to be pooling on her bottom lids. How would she have got through the last year if it weren’t for all these women: Jessie, Val, Alyssa and all the other ladies that had lined the pews at her mum’s funeral a few months ago?

Jessie and Val had been her mum’s friends since they were younger than Maddie and Alyssa. That was the way it worked in this village. Sure, people left, some came back, some didn’t, but relationships carried on down the generations. Her mum used to tell her how the women of the village had stepped in when Maddie was just a toddler and her dad had died in a climbing accident. They’d rallied around the widow and her tiny girl,provided childcare, friendship and moral support for all of Maddie’s formative years. And now Maddie had discovered that the support didn’t come with an expiry date.

Four months ago, when she’d followed her mum’s coffin into Weirbridge church, she’d been out of a job and faced with returning her childhood home to the council. Before nightfall, Jessie had offered her a chair in the salon, Val had assembled an army of pals to help her empty her mum’s house, and her old school friend, Dylan, had cleared his spare room for her. Maddie wondered if it was an act of divine intervention from her mum, to repay her for taking care of her for the last six months of her life. Not that Maddie was looking for a reward, but it just seemed like an unexpected karmic kindness, and she would always be grateful. Although, she didn’t feel entirely thankful that she’d accepted the invitation to the Easter party that had left her and her germs housebound for the last week.

‘Is Dylan all packed and ready to go then?’ Alyssa asked her, and Maddie could hear the sympathy in the voice of her old school friend. She and Alyssa had gone right through primary school and high school at the same time and had both been in the same group of friends. Since Maddie had returned, they’d got so much closer, so she knew Alyssa would be tuned in to her feelings.

Maddie was already swimming in an emotion whirlpool, so she went for overblown breeziness because anything less than that risked a complete wobble of tears and snot in the middle of the salon.

‘He is. His flight is at nine o’clock tomorrow morning.’ Just saying that caused another swirl of her stomach, and this time she was pretty sure it didn’t have anything to do with the last traces of the bug in her system.

Dylan had been another mate at Weirbridge High School,and out of it too, until Maddie had gone to work as an apprentice in one of the top hairdressing salons in Edinburgh, straight after school. She’d moved into a tiny room in a tiny flat in the capital, but as the years had passed and she’d moved through the hairdressing ranks to senior stylist, she’d built a nice life there. Meanwhile, Dylan’s family had relocated to Spain when he was in his late teens, but he hadn’t gone with them because he’d started a joinery apprenticeship by that time. Instead, he’d lived with his late granny in Glasgow, until he’d got married at twenty and only divorced and moved back to the village last year when he got a job with a local company.

Over the years, their friendship had drifted to coffees and quick catch-ups when she was back in the area visiting her mum. That had changed, though, when her mum got her cancer diagnosis. A brain tumour. Glioblastoma. Grade 4. It came with an average prognosis of twelve to eighteen months, but in the end, she hadn’t even got that. That’s why Maddie would never regret quitting her job and moving back in to take care of her. Although, if she’d known that the council would demand her mum’s home back within a month of her dying, she might have taken time to make other plans.

In the end, it was Dylan who’d broached the solution to at least one of her problems. After the wake, he’d been one of the last to leave the community centre, and he’d met her at the door, where she was saying goodbye to her mum’s neighbours.

‘What will you do now? Back to Edinburgh?’ he’d asked her.

‘No, I don’t think so. The salon couldn’t keep my job open because it’s been bought over and the new owners don’t know me. And I let my flat go, so other than friends, there’s nothing there for me now. I think I need to take a minute to decide. Actually, four weeks – that’s how long the council give you to hand back a house after the tenant dies. I had no idea.’

‘You know, my spare room is free. You’re welcome to it, until you decide.’

‘Really?’ It was such a generous offer, that the word had stuck in her throat.

‘Sure. You’ll have to put up with a keyboard, three guitars, a rowing machine and a wardrobe full of old wetsuits though. Or I can clear them out if that’s a problem. The wetsuits do have a bit of an odour.’

‘I’ll hold my breath,’ she’d said, appreciating the fact that he was trying to lift her spirits.

Yep, Dylan and Jessie had been her divine intervention. She’d moved in the following week, they’d binned the old wetsuits and she had come to love the keyboard, the three guitars and the rowing machine. Now, four months later, Dylan was taking off to America indefinitely, so she was on the property search yet again. However, that was a problem for another day. Right now, she just had to get through the next eight hours without relapsing back into Stomach Cramp Central.

‘On you go home and spend the last day with him, Maddie. I’ll take care of things here,’ Jessie pressed.

There was nothing Maddie wanted more, but there was one thing stopping her. She couldn’t afford to lose the day’s income.

Jessie read her mind. ‘And I’ll put the takings from your clients today into your account. You can return the favour next time my varicose veins are playing up. Or if Val here drags me to another Daniel O’Donnell matinée show at the King’s.’

Val immediately burst into a chorus of ‘Danny Boy’ and her pipes were indeed calling… but only for singing lessons.

‘I could hug you and not let go, Jessie, but the smell of that bleach is making me retch, so I’m just going to tell you that you’re magnificent and I’ll love you forever and get out of here.’

Alyssa jumped up at the same time. ‘I made up a bag for youwhen you came in because I knew she’d send you home. Just some soup and bread. It’s on the counter.’

Oh, damn, the weepiness was threatening a resurgence. It had been this way since her mum died. Waves of emotion that just crept up and the only thing to do was to go home and watch a romcom with a clanger of a sad bit three quarters of the way through that gave her an excuse to let the sobs out.

Maddie left the shop with a full heart and a brown bag containing two cartons of Scotch broth, a sourdough loaf and two caramel shortcakes.

It was only a ten-minute walk home, and when she got there, she used her key to let herself in. The first thing she noticed was the silence. When she’d left this morning, Dylan had the telly on and was singing along to the tunes in the adverts.

That had been the biggest adjustment when she’d moved in. In Edinburgh, she’d lived on her own, in a lovely but bijou studio flat just off Queen Street, and other than some music when she was in the shower, it was a pretty quiet house. Not here. If Dylan was awake, he was usually singing, talking or laughing, and if he was quiet, then it was because he was thinking about the words to a song that he was writing in his mind. If anyone had told her a year ago that she’d be sharing a house with an aspiring country singer from her home village, she’d have wondered what they’d been inhaling. But here she was. Although, maybe she should drop ‘aspiring’ from that description given his plans for his future.

She slipped her feet out of her Ugg Tazz clogs and padded through to the kitchen, ignoring the two suitcases and two guitar cases that were already packed and ready at the door. The short, curly-haired boy she’d been in school with had turned into a six foot four, chiselled-jawed bloke, who had worked as a joiner for the last ten years while gigging in any barthat would pay him. He’d been in bands and he’d been solo, but no matter where he performed, he’d uploaded the videos to social media. A couple of months ago, he’d captured an American talent agent’s attention, who’d invited him over for a meeting in Nashville. Dylan had blown his entire week’s wages on the flight, but it had paid off, because when he was there, he’d done nightly open mike sessions in a bar on Lower Broadway that was owned by a friend of the talent agent. The crowd had loved his voice and his songs so much, the owner had offered him a three-month trial gig in the epicentre of Nashville nightlife. Maddie had never been there, but Dylan’s grin couldn’t be wider when he’d told her all about the street they called the Honky Tonk Highway, packed with bars and clubs, live music blaring from doors, windows and rooftops. Landing a job there, even a temporary one, was the stuff of his dreams, so he’d been ecstatic, especially when it came with the promise that it could be extended indefinitely if he made a success of it. Which, of course, he would, because even Maddie, who knew nothing about country music, could see that he was all kinds of talented.

‘Do you think I’d be mad to leave my life here?’ he’d asked her, when she’d picked him up in his work van at the airport on the night he’d got back.

‘Absolutely.’

He’d visibly flinched. ‘Really?’