Page 13 of Out of Control

The atmosphere was strained, as though she’d walked in on a quarrel between father and daughter.

“How about a supermarket trip for you girls?” Joe wore a mask of false jollity. “I’ll pay. We’re not going to be a financial burden to you, Fiona.”

“I—” He silenced her with a look before she could explain it was easier and quicker to go on her own. Fiona wasn’t into girly shopping trips. Perhaps she would have been if Amber . . .

Adele kept her head down over the Shredded Wheat. The tender relationship between father and daughter from last night had dissipated.

Joe stumbled on with his one-sided conversation. “Two women sharing a kitchen can be difficult. So, I was thinking, spending some time together and deciding on what food we need . . . it might break the ice, help you understand one another . . .”

“It would be easier for me to do the food shopping on my own.” Fiona finished the sentence Joe had tried to silence.

Adele was swiping at her phone with her left hand, the right one still being in charge of a spoon that was tipping slightly and in danger of dumping its soggy load on the table top.

“Adele!” Joe spoke sharply. “Watch what you’re doing.”

His daughter threw him a look of annoyance. Fiona wasn’t the only one struggling in this mismatched household. Adele was used to the autonomy of her life at uni. Joe had regressed to being ‘Dad’ and dictating her behaviour, which, in turn, was making Adele regress to being an awkward teenager again. Fiona felt for this girl, caught somewhere between the child and adult world and on the cusp of becoming a mother herself. And without her own mum to help smooth things along. The food shopping would be better done on her own, but maybe it would help the bigger picture if she was more flexible on this point — albeit in a controlled way.

She backpedalled just a little bit. “We need to compromise and become a team in order to make this situation work.” Treat it like an IT project and everything will be OK. “The supermarket’s a good idea. I don’t know what food you like, Adele. But when I was—” She closed her mouth quickly, discovered an old tissue in the tiny key pocket of her leggings and blew her nose. She kept the crumpled scrap over her face for longer than necessary while she recomposed herself after almostrevealing the secret of Amber. “There’s no rush. Take your time. Have a shower and then we’ll go for a mooch. There’s no harm in finding out if we’ve got the same taste in food.”

Adele frowned at the Shredded Wheat. Then she stared Fiona in the face. “I can tell when someone’s offering charity and trying to be a false friend. You’re not my mother and you’re not going to be my best mate either. Both of those positions are already taken.” Adele pushed the bowl of cereal away. “You’re simply my dad’s girlfriend.”

Fiona’s proffered dish of kindness had been upended. “I’m trying to make the best of the situation.”

Adele stalked upstairs.

“Apologise immediately,” Joe shouted after her. “Stop behaving like a stroppy teenager. Act like the adult you are, the adult you’ll need to be if you’re going to be a good mother.” He turned towards Fiona. “I’m sorry. Hormones?”

Fiona shrugged. She could understand Adele’s reaction. “How else can she behave? She’s still hurting from your marriage breakdown, and I’m the obvious target.”

“But you had nothing to do with that!”

“That’s not how she chooses to see it. And now, when the going has got tough, her mother has disappeared and she has to share her father with another woman. If I was her, I’d hate me too.”

“It’s impossible to hate you. You’ve offered her a home. I don’t understand. Last night she seemed accepting of the situation.” Joe pulled her close into the warmth of his body. Fiona pushed away a fleeting image of Meeko and relaxed into Joe. “I love you so much, Fiona Ormeroyd,” he said, “you are so big-hearted. Being cramped like this is only temporary. As soon as Rose reappears, Adele will be off to her like a shot. Next year the house will be sold, I’ll get my share of the capital and we can buy a place together.”

No! She pulled away from him. After Rob, she couldn’t combine her finances and home with someone else. Joe was suffocating her by jumping too quickly into whathewanted from their joint future. She needed baby steps, but he was used to being the leader of a couple, the leader of a whole family. For Fiona, a couple was a partnership of equals, and she needed to experience that equality with Joe before committing to anything. Fiona’s freedom had been too hard won. The pain of trying to extricate herself from Rob’s debts would never leave her. Except, hadn’t she, over the last few days, already relinquished part of that freedom?

Then she realised that Joe had just declared his undying love for her, despite her being sweaty from her run, with no make-up and drizzle-dampened hair sticking out at odd angles. In their previous one-day-a-week existence he’d only ever seen her looking perfect. Confused, she grabbed herself a bowl and filled it with breakfast berries and walnuts.

An hour later Adele stood in the hallway, trying and failing to make the edges of her jacket meet across her bump. Her lower half was clad in stretchy blue denim and the bottom of a baggy sweatshirt hung just below the hem of the jacket. “Are we going or what?”

In the supermarket Fiona took charge of the trolley. Neither of them made a move for any of the aisles and Fiona realised she’d made a faux pas. Never had she arrived at the supermarket without previously creating a meal plan for the week and an associated shopping list, with the items ordered according to their place in the store. She never deviated from that list. Now she had to make the best of a bad job by planning in real time while trying to build an adult relationship with Joe’s resentful and abandoned daughter.

“Any preferences for where we start or what we buy?” She tried to sound as though she were willing to be totally flexible, like a blade of grass in the wind.

“Biscuits. Chocolate. Crisps.” Adele’s words were like bullets.

Don’t lecture about what the baby needs. Don’t mention the unhealthy calories.“OK. The confectionery aisle is our starting point.”

Fiona expressed no opinion as Adele loaded the trolley. She merely hoped that it was at least a month’s supply and not for the single coming week. “And what about breakfast and main meals?”

“Frosties, honey-nut cornflakes, pizza, sausages, baked beans.”

“Cereal aisle.” She let Adele have free rein here too, but added a box of her own favourite porridge oats with added seeds.

“I thought we could eat together in the evenings when your dad gets home from work. We could share the cooking.” Fiona paused, waiting for Adele to offer an opinion, but the girl merely picked up another cereal box and started reading the special offer on the back. “I don’t mind starting us off with a few of my own dinner ideas but feel free to butt in if there’s a meal you’d like to cook for the three of us.” She’d nearly inserted the word ‘proper’ in front of ‘meal’ and then thought better of it. “Chicken casserole and jacket potatoes, lentil curry, fish pie and chilli. Are you OK with all of those?” Adele merely shrugged and followed Fiona up and down the aisles as she collected the ingredients.

Then Adele spoke as if she’d been building up to this request. “Could we get pizza for today? I feel like I really need it.”

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