Page 31 of Out of Control

“No, I’ll do it.”

In the kitchen Fiona breathed deeply. For a few seconds she’d thought this was the day she’d been dreading, and now a weird kind of elation had taken over. One day it would happen and perhaps it would be a blessing if her mother was taken overnight and quickly. But it would also be catastrophic — Dorothea’s death would leave Fiona orphaned, childless and without siblings. For a few seconds she panicked. Then an image of Meeko with his twinkling eyes and dimples came into her head, followed by the thought of the other compartments which were slowly opening. Joe would be there. And Rob had offered a possible olive branch. Maybe she could even build a relationship with Adele when they weren’t jostling under the same roof. All she had to do was stay open to the possibilities. But she still hoped her mum had a few more years yet.

Fiona warmed the teapot with scalding kettle water, spooned in tea leaves and flicked the switch to bring the water back up to the boil again. She popped a slice of bread in the toaster in case Dorothea was peckish again after such an early breakfast, and then spread it thickly with butter and marmalade. The pair of them rarely saw eye to eye but they were all each of them had.

Dorothea was back to her usual alert self when Fiona carried the tray into the lounge.

“Oh, you are a good girl!” Her mother went straight for the plate of toast and Fiona basked in the rare words of praise.

“I’ve come with an invitation, Mum.” The older lady looked towards Fiona’s handbag as if expecting an envelope to behanded over. “Not a formal one — that’s not how young people do things nowadays. You remember I told you about Joe’s daughter, Adele? She’s having a baby shower for all her female friends and you are invited.”

Dorothea’s face had lit up at the mention of an invitation but now it frowned into confusion. “A baby shower — don’t they have those plastic baths anymore? And why invite people to watch? The baby hasn’t been born yet, has it?”

Fiona fought to keep a straight face. “No, Mum. Baby showers are American, like trick or treating and Black Friday. It’s a party to celebrate the impending birth of the baby. It’s an excuse for presents and frivolity. Sometimes it’s used to announce the sex of the baby.”

“And she wants me to come?”

“Yes.” There was no need to say it had been Fiona’s idea to invite Dorothea.

“I would like that very much. Should I write a note of acceptance? What present should I bring? Me and you will need to go shopping. And what should I wear? How formal is it?”

“Too many questions!” Fiona smiled at her mother’s enthusiasm and imagined a gaggle of twenty-somethings writing out precise invitation acceptance cards in fountain pen ‘a la Jane Austen’. “A note is not required. There’ll be no formality. Wear whatever makes you feel comfortable in a room of strangers. I’ll get gift vouchers for us to give her jointly.” Fiona remembered the supermarket trip. “I bet her friends will go for cute little outfits but what she really needs is the practical stuff — like a plastic bath — but she hasn’t thought about that yet.” Fiona added an item to the list she’d started in her notepad app. Lists on the go, rather than pinned to the fridge, were new to her but were the only way to stop her head exploding with the baggage that Joe and Adele had brought.

Dorothea dabbed at the toast crumbs around her lips with the kitchen roll that Fiona had put beneath the plate on the tray. “A party to go to! And a new baby coming! And a granddaughter-by-proxy! I can hold my own at the coffee mornings now. I was thinking . . . for Christmas, could you get me one of those phones, like yours? I want to show photos around like everyone else.”

“Absolutely.”

Again her mother’s face lit up with pleasure and, for once, Fiona felt that she was achieving her mother’s high expectations of what a daughter should be.

Chapter 24

Fiona felt good when she got into the car to come home. That was one relationship back on an even keel. But there were a few more to go. Rob, for instance. She’d thought about it and had come to a decision: she needed to put him straight on the fact that he could expect nothing from her. Not reparation and not friendship. If Joe found out she was keeping secrets or had restarted communication with her ex-husband, it would threaten their companionable journey into old age. She pulled over in the car, and while she was still feeling confident, dialled the number on Rob’s business card.

“Coffee? Great, I’m free now.” His enthusiasm gave her cold feet. He was expecting more than she could give. But she had to see him as soon as possible and tell him face to face to avoid the expectations in his head growing to gargantuan proportions.

Twenty minutes later they were sitting in the window of One More Bean, the only independent coffee shop in the town. Having his full attention was like being back in the early days of their relationship when everything was positive and hopeful. His eyes were bright and dancing and she didn’t want to quash his mood, so she found herself prattling while she plucked up the courage to say what she actually wanted to. “If we don’t support places like this—” she gestured round at the tables, housed in cosy inglenooks and decorated with fresh flowers — “every high street in the country becomes the same homogenised blob. It’s like the large numbers of us women over a certain age who dress in beige and brown — without individual colour, we become one invisible mass.”

Rob sipped his coffee and ignored her words. He didn’t seem to share her nerves. When he spoke, his voice was normal. “You never married again? Never tried for another baby?”

Fiona hoped he hadn’t noticed her wince at the question. Counselling or no counselling, he didn’t have the empathy to lead gently up to such a difficult subject. Or maybe that was the point of counselling, to get things out in the open. “No.” She didn’t have to justify her response but the words came out anyway. “I didn’t have the capacity to trust anymore.”

This time he winced. “I’m sorry. I never dreamed that my stupid actions would have such a long-lasting impact on you.” His hand hovered over the table, as though he was about to place it on hers. She immediately put both hands around the tall latte glass in front of her and tried to take comfort from its warmth.

“How could you destroy our lives like that? And the life of an unborn child?”

“I was trying to do the opposite. I was trying to build a better life for all of us.”

“By gambling our money away?” The conversation wasn’t going to plan. She’d come here to tell him that she was in a steady relationship and didn’t need ghosts from the past rocking the boat. She’d moved on from that terrible time and didn’t want to be involved in his ‘reparation’. She’d done nothing that required reparation. But now he was dragging her back.

“At first it was just a bit of fun — an office sweepstake, a night at the greyhounds, a tiny lottery win. Every time I tried, I won something. It was as though I had the Midas touch.” He took a sip of black coffee.

Fiona sighed. He’d said all this three decades earlier in those black days at the end of December. Hearing the same words now didn’t change how she felt about his actions back then.

“We were trying for a baby and I wanted to give you the option of being a stay-at-home mum. At that time, you were a perfectionist, maybe you still are, but I thought you would struggle to split yourself between home and work. I wanted to free you of that struggle. Given my unfailing luck, I thought thatif I studied form and placed my bets judiciously, it would be easy to win enough money to allow you to take a year or two off work.”

Back then she’d argued that he was trying to blame her by calling her a perfectionist; now, with the benefit of age and experience, she was able to let it go. It wasn’t always an insult. Looking at his older face, creased with experience, his dark hair sprinkled with the silver of age and his eyes still with the same plea to understand, she actually believed that he had started his ‘scheme’ with the best intentions and out of love for her. Unexpectedly, and three decades too late, something started to thaw inside her.

“But it wasn’t. My lucky streak collapsed. I tried to chase my losses. And it ended badly.” He moved the sugar bowl from side to side on the table. “But you know this already.”

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