The Piano Man

I. The Piano Man

"It takes a tremendous amount of strength to be a single mother. To hold down the forte of a home, a life and your child's entire happiness." Nikki Rowe
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I. The Piano Man

1st October 2020

London, England

Sophie Cartwright burst into tears as she physically tried to drag her eight-year-old daughter, Maddie, into Westgate Primary School.

Everyone was staring, judging, and looking down on Sophie as the dirty, little scrubber who was too poor and too stupid to be a good mum.

And goddammit, they were right. Sophie couldn't even get Maddie to go into school. She had only managed to get Maddie into school three days in the last fortnight.

"Maddie, please!" Sophie begged, on her knees before her daughter. "Please, just go inside. Stop fighting me!"

Maddie was glaring down at Sophie, her large, brown eyes flaring with hysterical anger. Sophie knew hers would mirror Maddie's exactly.

"NO!" screamed Maddie, with no care whatsoever for the scene that she was making. Sophie's own tears were not helping the situation. Maddie threw her backpack on the ground and folded her arms stubbornly. "I will not go! I hate school!"

Maddie had been academically challenged since nursery school. Her teachers had always told Sophie that Maddie was just away with the fairies and was never interested in school, no matter what they tried to do for her. Maddie was in all the support classes in school, and had reading, writing, and maths assistance. She had not progressed further than a Year 1 student in reading and was only being put up at the end of the year because Sophie had begged the school each time.

Maddie would certainly never return to school if she was not in the same year level with her friends.

Not that she had many friends. Maddie struggled socially, too.

Not being able to afford a tutor made Sophie feel like even more of a failure as a mother. All she could do at home was borrow simple books from the library to read with Maddie, but she had always refused to do her readers.

Maddie had been such a beautiful child up until the age of four when she had needed to start going to school. The next four years had aged Sophie dramatically. Biologically she might have been twenty-six, but she felt fifty-three.

"Maddie, please, I can't be late for work again," Sophie implored. "Do you want me to lose my job?"

Sophie knew that Pete, the owner of the bar where she worked, would never sack her, but that was beside the point.

Maddie just glared at her mum. "You cannot make me go inside. I will scream that you kidnapped me," she threatened.

Sophie just looked at her daughter with utter defeat. What on earth was she supposed to do? She couldn't just sit on the side of the road and cry. She climbed to her feet and grabbed Maddie's hand before picking up her backpack. She then started to drag Maddie back towards the tube station, and Maddie trotted along willingly this time, having won the battle.

Maddie won more than Sophie did these days, and Sophie knew that she was failing in that respect, too. Nobody needed to point that out to her, though many took pleasure in doing that.

Namely Maddie's arsehole of a dad, who thought he was entitled to an opinion because he put two hundred pounds in Sophie's account every month.

It didn't help that he frequented the bar where Sophie worked, though Sophie knew that was just to torment her.