Page 14 of Out of Control

Pepperoni pizza went into the trolley and Fiona balanced it out with a couple of bags of salad leaves and a pack of vine tomatoes.

“I think we’re done,” she said, and mentally patted herself on the back for accomplishing the trip with compromise andwithout argument. Joe would be glad to get a positive report. “Anything else you can think of while we’re here?”

“The baby section.” Adele’s words were barely more than a whisper. “I’m going to need stuff. And if Dad’s paying . . .”

“OK.”

The baby aisle was quieter than the rest and its basic contents hadn’t changed in the thirty years since Fiona had daydreamed her way through it, a perfect vision of motherhood in her mind. She tailed Adele past the tiny jars of weaning food, tins of formula milk and bulky packs of nappies. The girl was headed for the little outfits on miniature hangers. She picked them up, caressed them and put them down again. Fiona’s heart ached for her own younger self who had done exactly the same thing and had planned to run riot in the department as soon as January came and the world knew that Amber was on her way.

“Do you know the sex?”

“Girl.” Adele’s eyes were suddenly alive. “And I’m going to dress her in pink.”

Pink for a girl. Fiona hadn’t expected that from a young woman in today’s swing away from gender stereotyping. She wished Adele’s baby was a boy; it would be less painful. The mum-to-be also selected toys in all the colours of the rainbow, a small teddy and cot bedding. Fiona blinked her eyes and swallowed. This was the fun that had been torn from her by Rob. Watching someone else enjoy what she’d missed was more than she could bear.

“Adele, I’m feeling bushed. Take your time. I’m going to grab a coffee in the café.” She managed to keep her voice and face composed until she’d turned round and was heading away from that maternal fairytale land.

She added a sachet of brown sugar to her latte — sometimes you just needed that comfort. The power of the emotion she’d felt in the baby aisle had shocked her. How could she, themaster of self-control, let her feelings overwhelm her like that? The sweetness of the liquid and the warmth of the cup in her hand were comforting and brought her back from the brink of becoming a quivering wreck in public.

You are over-reacting, Fiona. Lots of people lose babies but they don’t go around being jealous of anyone with a baby bump or blubbing in baby departments. Especially not thirty years after the event.Why wasn’t she coping? She was an independent, financially secure, mature woman. But those other women who’d lost children hadn’t also lost their trust in men on the same day. They hadn’t been betrayed by the one person they thought had their best interests at heart. If Rob hadn’t been the man he was, maybe she wouldn’t have been destined to remain childless and single. Perhaps she would have married again and had a whole brood of youngsters. Perhaps she would have had grandchildren by now.

Why couldn’t Adele have done the typical young person thing and ordered everything online so that Fiona didn’t have to have the plaster ripped off her wounds yet again?

“Fiona!” Adele was waving to her from the café entrance. The trolley looked significantly fuller than when Fiona had left her. She swallowed, blew her nose and walked over slowly.

“I’ve got a few things. Can we go through the checkout now?”

The girl’s mood had soared as Fiona’s had crashed. Fiona had to look away as the cashier scanned the little pink items. And this wouldn’t be the only baby shopping trip. Adele had only chosen the fripperies; lots of practical things were going to have to be purchased as well: cot, steriliser, nappies, et cetera.

The cashier was smiling and congratulating Adele. Then she looked at Fiona. “Is it a first grandchild?”

Fiona tried to smile, waiting for Adele to butt in and explain venomously that Fiona was not her mother. But for once the girl stayed silent.

Chapter 11

The atmosphere over the pizza and salad wasn’t good, even though the meal was Adele’s choice and Fiona forced herself to remain quiet about the pizza’s unhealthy stuffed crust and feign enjoyment. The green salad, grated carrot and dish of vine tomatoes were ignored by Adele as she went for a second helping of pizza. Fiona longed to advocate for the baby’s wellbeing and vitamin needs. Instead, she had more salad herself and mentioned how increasing her plant intake had done wonders for her energy levels. Adele speared a piece of pizza crust with her fork and chased a lump of melted cheese around her plate.

“Can’t beat a pepperoni stuffed crust,” Joe said.

Fiona wanted to talk about processed meat and the link to bowel cancer. She tried to catch his eye. As a physio he should know better than to encourage the consumption of junk food. He looked her way and she deepened her frown.

“But all things in moderation,” he said quickly, and dropped a tomato onto his daughter’s plate.

The possibility of a scene like this had never entered Fiona’s head when she’d first clicked on Joe’s profile just over a year ago. His picture had shown him to be attractive. In fact, she had wondered whether he’d used an old photo because he looked younger than his date of birth indicated. But then she’d enlarged the picture and noted there were laughter lines, silver hairs and the ruggedness that indicated a life well lived. He was muscular, broad-shouldered and five feet ten inches tall, which would make him a few comfortable inches taller than her. In the photo he was wearing a polo shirt branded with the logo of the clinic where he worked as a physio, and tracksuit bottoms. This had enabled her to double-check that he was who he said he was.

She’d narrowed down his profile because they shared an interest in fitness, books and music and, unlike many of theprofiles she’d skipped over, he hadn’t ticked the box to indicate he was looking for a life partner. His ‘About’ information stated that he was newly divorced and dating for the first time in decades. He described himself as ‘dipping a toe in the water’. All of this was true for Fiona as well. Except that it had taken her nearly thirty years from her divorce to actively dip a toe in the water. She certainly wasn’t looking for or expecting a great romance, but with retirement on the horizon, it would be pleasant to have someone to share activities with. Especially if that person wasn’t expecting to muscle in on all areas of her life.

When they met for a drink for the first time, she immediately confirmed there was no ring on his left hand — just a faint white line to show there’d been one sometime in the past. His face was weathered in a good way, indicating that he actually was, as mentioned in his profile, a fan of the outdoor life. She liked that he didn’t have the vanity to cover the initial grey in his hair with stuff from a bottle.

He’d asked her why she’d left it so long before dating again. Without details, she’d explained that it had been a case of once bitten, twice shy. That she’d had a demanding career and simply hadn’t felt the need to add complications to her life. Which was all true. She didn’t tell him that, for years, when her path had accidentally crossed witha handsome unattached man, she used to think of Rob, the rat she’d married. She remembered the way he’d covertly robbed her of the savings she’d brought to their marriage, the way he’d faked her signature, and his superb ability at cloak-and-dagger subterfuge. At that point she could almost feel the cramping in her stomach and the wetness between her legs as the bleeding started. Having mentally relived the worst time in her life, there was no danger that her body would betray her and accidentally give out any ‘I fancy you like hell’ signals. Time had dulled this reaction to the point where there was now pleasure from having a man in herlife — as long as that person understood the strict boundaries she placed on their relationship. It had been no surprise to Fiona that this stipulation alienated most men. Online dating was attractive because she could easily make any possible dates aware of the situation from the outset. But this narrowed down the type of men who made contact to either married men looking for a weekly dalliance or those who would not be immediately attractive to women, for reasons including body odour, an obvious mismatch to their profile picture, and conversational technique based solely around football, their ex-wife or their career ‘success’.

When she first spoke to Joe he immediately understood. “That suits me, too. It’s not long since I got divorced so I’m still feeling my way about how I want my life to be.”

And, until the day of the flood, he had never tried to break through her safety barriers.

But now the basis of their relationship had changed. She was on a bullet train to an unknown destination, her hand hovering over the communication cord.

“Blueberries and extra thick Greek yoghurt for pudding,” she pulled herself back to the present. “Are we all up for it?”

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