Page 43 of Out of Control

“This is Natalie.” Joe beamed at Fiona’s mother.

“She is the most beautiful thing I ever saw. Can I hold her, Adele?”

Joe answered before his daughter could utter a word. “Of course you can. You’re the nearest little Natalie will have to a great-grandparent.” Dorothea sat down on one of the two plastic bedside chairs and Joe handed her the swaddled baby.

“Hello, Natalie. I am your great-grandma-by-proxy — how’s that for a mouthful? We’ll have to find a way of shortening it for you, won’t we?” The old lady sat crooning and rocking as though she’d been transported to a better place.

Fiona studied the happiness radiating from her mother. Again it was obvious that the hours spent alone in her flat did not bring out the best in Dorothea. With nothing else to fill her mind she picked cantankerous fault with anything and everything. It was impossible for life to live up to how it had been in her mother’s heyday. But giving the old lady a reason to get out of bed in the morning, and other people to interact with and care for, melted away that selfish, critical streak that hides somewhere inside all of us.

Joe was standing at Dorothea’s shoulder, equally enraptured. Fiona pulled the second chair closer to the bedhead on the opposite side to her mother, relieved that this timeshe wasn’t being forced into close physical proximity to Natalie before she was prepared emotionally. She spoke to Adele. “I’m sorry we’ve descended en masse like this when you’re still exhausted and sore. Your dad hasn’t stopped smiling all day. He is so proud of you, and as pleased as punch with little Natalie. He couldn’t wait to bring Dorothea.”

Adele gave a tight-lipped smile. “I just wish Mum could see her.” A silent tear dripped down the pale cheek. Adele brushed it away with the back of her hand. “Sorry, you didn’t come here to listen to me blub on Christmas Day.”

“You cry all you want to.” Fiona passed over a box of tissues from the bedside cabinet. “As well as a new baby, you’re coping with the absence of someone close to you.” She paused, not sure whether to say the next words, but if they were going to build any sort of relationship under the same roof, it would help to have everything out in the open. “Correction: with the absence of two people close to you, if you count the baby’s father. Plus, you’re still very young and have had to mature into a mother almost overnight.”

Adele had her head turned away from her father and was trying simultaneously not to cry and to blow her nose silently. Fiona didn’t know whether her words were helping the new mum or making the situation harder. “And you’ve done that last thing spectacularly well — as shown by the fact that you’re worrying about upsettinguson Christmas Day, when in fact it’s us that should be concerned aboutyou. Less than twenty-four hours into motherhood and you are doing fine!”

Adele managed a smile. Natalie began to whimper and was trying to inject movement into her arms and legs beneath the blanket wrapper. Dorothea tried to calm her with little strokes to the head but the baby would have none of it and the noise level rose.

“She’s hungry,” Adele pronounced with the certainty of a mother already learning to interpret her infant’s needs.

“We’ll go for coffee and drop back in thirty minutes. OK?” Fiona hoped neither Joe nor her mother would put up an argument. “Do you want the curtains completely closed?” Adele nodded gratefully. Fiona hadn’t suggested the cafeteria purely out of concern for a young mother who was still new to breastfeeding. After breaking down so publicly in the delivery room the previous evening, she felt on the verge again, and seeing that Madonna moment of a mother feeding her child would set her off. The thought of it made her blink hard.

Afterwards Adele looked brighter. Or maybe it was something to do with the recently applied lipstick and blusher. Her hospital bag had obviously been well planned.

“When can you both come home?” Joe was now cuddling Natalie, who was punch drunk on her mother’s milk.

“A couple of days, I think. Something to do with my blood pressure and the lack of consultant rounds on the bank holidays.”

Forty-eight hours of privacy for her and Joe, plus time to get a grip of herself emotionally. The moment these selfish thoughts surfaced, Fiona quashed them, but she couldn’t help feeling grateful for the opportunity to regain and, hopefully, strengthen her relationship with Joe.

Chapter 32

Meeko glanced at the wrapped box of Belgian chocolates on the passenger seat of his car and hoped they were sufficient to make this call on Dorothea appear legitimate. He’d spent Christmas Day alone, trying to straighten out his feelings for Fiona and accept that she didn’t trust him and, therefore, would never be interested in him romantically. But he couldn’t just stop caring about her. And what terrible secret did she have that she couldn’t share with him?

The obvious thing would be to ask her directly, but that meant admitting that he’d eavesdropped, albeit accidentally, and then he’d have to explain why he’d kept that eavesdropping secret for so long. Besides, if she didn’t trust him, would he get a full and honest answer? Before he could even consider bringing up the subject he needed some background information.

He’d texted Fiona this morning and asked for her mother’s address, on the pretext that the missed dinner invitation meant he still had a gift to present to the old lady. The chocolates had been given to him by a member of one of his classes and he had similarly sourced boxes of truffles for Fiona and Adele — purchasing Christmas presents had been beyond his means this year. He’d pulled back the sticky tape on one corner of each wrapped box in order to double-check the contents and then stuck it back down. These presents had been another reason for reneging on yesterday’s invitation — the value of his gifts wasn’t sufficient to warrant the hospitality that was being offered to him. The Fiona whom he thought he knew wouldn’t do comparisons, but it bothered Meeko.

“Meeko!” Dorothea looked genuinely pleased to see him. She sat him down in an armchair, turned off the blaring rerun of the originalWilly Wonka and the Chocolate Factoryfilm and served him tea and mince pies from bone china crockery. Thenshe settled in the chair opposite him. “It’s so lovely to have company,” she said. “After all the excitement of yesterday and meeting baby Natalie and learning all about this.” She waved a mobile phone at him. “Everything has fallen very flat today. But it’s still family time, isn’t it? There’s nothing going on in the lounge here and I daren’t knock on anybody’s door in case I’m interrupting a thing with relatives. You are a godsend.” She reached out her arm and squeezed his hand. “And we missed you yesterday.”

The warmth of the welcome made tears prick at the back of Meeko’s eyes. He swallowed them away. “I came to bring you this. It’s not much.”

“You shouldn’t have! Fiona said things weren’t going well at work for you.” The old lady pulled back the strips of sticky tape and unwrapped the box without tearing the paper, which she then folded neatly. “But I’m so glad you did. I love an extravagant sort of chocolate in the evening when I’m watching the soaps. Let’s have one now!” Dorothea grinned and flashed her eyes at him wickedly.

For a couple of minutes they savoured the richness of the chocolates in silence. Then the old lady dabbed at her lips with one of the paper serviettes she’d put on the tray with the mince pies. “Now tell me the real reason you didn’t come yesterday. Fiona said something about you not wanting to intrude when there was so much going on. But it wasn’t just to do with Natalie being born, was it?” she asked.

Meeko pretended to still have some chocolate in his mouth while he played for time. He’d expected to be able to bring the subject of Fiona up gradually and to not be asked such a question outright. He wasn’t sure of the answer himself. “Fiona,” he said eventually.

“Ah . . . my daughter isn’t the most perfect person in the world. She can be annoyingly self-centred at times. It’s too manyyears living alone and doing as she pleases. What has she done to alienate you?”

Articulating the words was going to be more difficult than he’d anticipated without showing Dorothea he had romantic feelings for her daughter. Feelings that refused to be quashed, no matter how unrealistic they now were. “Something’s gone wrong with our friendship. Or maybe my version of that friendship never matched Fiona’s in the first place. She doesn’t trust me.” Meeko let his words fade away as a frown of confusion passed over the old lady’s face followed by the brightness of realisation.

“Is this something to do with Joe? You’re suspecting, like me, that he’s only moved in out of convenience, not true love. She’s being used and, given half a chance, he’ll go back to the ex-wife, you mark my words. And Adele being a single mother — that’s not perfect, is it?” She gave his arm a reassuring pat. “You are lovely and traditional, Meeko. It’s just a shame that you’re not . . . interested in Fiona.”

His own words tumbled over themselves in his rush to make Dorothea understand. “I didn’t approve of Joe but then he moved in and I knew I had to accept that as a ‘proper relationship’.” He added the air quotation marks. “Adele — that’s just one of those things, although something to do with the baby is putting a strain on Fiona. But it’s not just Joe. It’s Fiona herself. She’s keeping things from me. Things that must be important to her.” He paused as the old lady’s final sentence suddenly registered with him. “What do you mean, I’m not interested?”

Dorothea poured milk for a second cup of tea and gestured with the jug at Meeko. He nodded and she poured his milk and then tea for both of them. “Fiona told me.” She was rearranging the remaining mince pies. “She told me that you and Lynn had split up and that you wanted some time on your own before even contemplating another relationship.” She sat back in herarmchair and looked him in the eye. “But it’s Fiona’s supposed secrets that we’re talking about.”

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