Chapter 7
Fiona’s head was thumping when she woke. Two consecutive nights with another person in her bed wasn’t good. The searing night sweats and general insomnia of the menopause had receded over the past couple of years but she still remembered the advice her female GP, also of a certain age, had given her at the time: “Sleep alone in a double bed if you possibly can. Believe me, it works wonders.” Fiona had merely smiled and nodded; sleeping alone had been her default situation and at that time she’d had no intention of changing it. Now, with the forced proximity of the man with whom she’d thought she had the perfect relationship, Fiona understood exactly where her GP had been coming from and also why royalty so often chose to sleep in separate bedrooms.
Joe’s breathing was loud, heavy and far too intimate as it gusted over the base of her neck, causing her shoulders to knot. The gap between the curtains showed only a wisp of greyish light. Somewhere out there, Sunday was beginning to happen. The thought of early morning fresh air made the fug of shared breathing feel like a pillow over her head. On her back, she slid sideways away from Joe. If he woke there’d be expectations and she didn’t want to talk, make love or even eat breakfast with him, either in or out of bed. She needed time alone to sort her thoughts out. Her own company — that was what she liked. Especially after the fiasco of the previous evening.In his enthusiasm to introduce her to his colleagues, Joe had tried to influence what she wore and the impression she made. But she had stuck to her guns and worn what she wanted. She doubted he would try the same thing again. Perhaps he’d been as apprehensive about the evening as her and this had fed into his behaviour.
There was other stuff in her head too, such as her mother’s advice about growing infirm alone not being fun. That was well evidenced from the other residents in her mother’s complex. And, unlike many of them, an elderly Fiona would have no family to visit her. And there was what her mother had said about not allowing past failures to cloud her future. And giving people another chance and learning to trust them. Her mother had meant Rob — the one man in the whole world that Fiona could never again have confidence in. But maybe it was Joe she shouldn’t write off too quickly? He was trying to make this work; he’d bought her jewellery, made her breakfast in bed, stayed sober so he could drive her home, been lavish with his compliments. She postponed her hasty decision about asking him to leave. She’d go for a run, clear her head and see how things panned out over the next few days.
Ferreting in the drawers for clean running gear would be too noisy, so instead she raided the laundry basket in the bathroom. The last time she’d run had been before work on the day Joe turned up, homeless. If she’d known it would be her last day of freedom she’d have run further and faster, or maybe slower so that she could enjoy every moment — a sort of ‘last meal’ for the condemned woman.
Fiona pulled on luminous yellow leggings and a matching stretchy top, keeping her nose averted from the lurking odour of her previous exertions. She bypassed the reflective running jacket hanging in the hall; cold air was needed this morning.
A gentle jog took her half a mile down the road where she paused, moving her feet on the spot, until the lights changed and let her cross the traffic into the wild natural park — outdoor ‘green’ exercise made her feel better than anything done in a gym or studio. Fiona’s feet knew the way. She tried to empty her mind of the constant background buzz that had plagued her since Joe, plus suitcases, had arrived. But within a few seconds her current situation catapulted back to her.
An only child, Fiona knew she had been spoiled and could be selfish. Her mother had drilled that into her. “Other children have to share,” she was told every time she received sweets or presents. These ‘other’ children were invited to tea parties by Dorothea, “To help you learn.” For five-year-old Fiona, sharing was an over-rated experience. It meant giving away what you wanted to keep for yourself. But eventually she’d learned to tolerate, and even, with the right people, enjoy sharing — as long as it wasn’t everything, all the time.
Now, as she felt the satisfactory ‘thud, thud’ of turf beneath her trainers, she realised that she would have to share her whole life. Her every action would have to be rethought from Joe’s perspective. What would he be thinking right now when he woke and found her gone? Would he enjoy some time to himself or would he think her selfish for needing these moments alone? She had no idea what he was like in an ‘off’ mood. If he didn’t like something she did, would that be his problem or hers? She feared it might be hers. Maybe Rose had always made her life fit Joe’s schedule — until she reached breaking point.
Fiona slowed from a run to a jog to a walk. She had to pass the edge of a small pond, more like a puddle in the summer but growing to a lake at this time of year, turning the footpath to mud and requiring eyes on feet to navigate it successfully. Then she opened the throttle again and picked up pace as the footpath emerged from the wooded area and re-joined the tarmac. This was the bit where she built up to a sprint, well, as much of a sprint as a sixty-year-old woman could manage. The tarmac led to the northern exit of the park, and opposite the gate was the Birnside Hotel. It was a nondescript, four-storey concrete building and part of a hotel chain that stretched across the country. It didn’t promise four-poster beds or roaring fires but it had a leisure club with a postage-stamp-size swimming pool and it also had Meeko, yoga teacher extraordinaire and her best friend. He breakfasted in the hotel every day, in between his early morning and mid-morning classes — a free breakfast was his only perk of the job. Somehow, he’d persuaded the staff to turn a blind eye to Fiona joining him, and now she was such a fixture that they just waved her in too, even if she appeared alone, too early or too late for Meeko. It was over these breakfasts that she and Meeko had become close. A closeness only allowed to grow by Fiona because the existence of Meeko’s live-in ‘almost-fiancée’, Lynn, had meant there was no danger of a romantic relationship developing between the two of them. Fiona had introduced Meeko and Joe only once, two months earlier, breaking her own compartmentalised-life rule at the insistence of Meeko. It had been a strained couple of hours followed by separate, awkward conversations with both men. Not helped by the fact that Meeko had dropped the bombshell at that meeting that he had broken up with Lynn. Joe had immediately offered to introduce Meeko to a couple of his female acquaintances who were recently single.
“No thanks.” Meeko had raised the palm of his right hand and thrown Fiona a weird look. “I’m not open to meeting new women.”
“Platonic friendships only work in books,” Joe had said to Fiona later. “Now that he’s finished with his girlfriend, he’ll be after something more from you. That’s why he doesn’t want to meet anyone new.”
“He just doesn’t seem your type,” Meeko had said about Joe, without expanding on what he thought Fiona’s type of man was. “Be careful.”
These comments had left Fiona having to justify herself to each man, and emphasised, in her mind, that life worked better when everybody was kept in separate compartments.
Now, as she walked past the hotel’s leisure complex, she caught sight of Meeko waving off his first class, covering his slim, Lycra-clad figure with a baggy orange hoody and then sitting to tie his trainers. He ran his fingers through his spiky silver hair and grinned at the young woman in charge of towels and signing people in at the leisure club reception.
Usually, Fiona’s heart rose at this point. Meeko’s company over coffee, fruit, yoghurt, eggs and the best granary bread she’d ever tasted was a great start to the day. Meeko never stressed over anything. He was calm, laid-back and, unlike her, he didn’t sweat the small stuff — or even the big stuff for that matter.
She’d first met him ten years ago when she’d joined the hotel leisure club and attended her very first yoga class. It was Meeko’s first session too and they’d both lurked on their mats at the back of the studio for fear of making fools of themselves nearer the front. At the end, Fiona had decided yoga wasn’t ‘her thing’, but Meeko, with a twinkle in his eye, had persuaded her the class needed another chance. He’d turned out to be naturally supple while Fiona’s joints and muscles constantly complained. In the early weeks it was Meeko’s supportive smiles and winks that maintained her attendance.
“I’m going to train to be an instructor,” he’d announced after a couple of months.
He qualified, resigned from his job as a classroom assistant and stepped into the shoes of the club’s existing yoga teacher, who was moving on. Fiona had attended his classes ever since.
Meeko wasn’t motivated by money but was careful with what he had. While his contemporaries had gained degrees and built careers, he had done voluntary work overseas. Then he’d got paid work with a children’s charity in the UK before deciding to move into schools. Over the years he’d moved through a series of bad landlords, but each time he’d just shrugged and moved on. “Where I live is one of the things that I can change in life and so I do — no point in getting uptight about it.” When he was told his mother’s breast cancer was terminal, he lost his smile and his shoulders sagged but then he righted himself. “I can’t change this,” he said, “but it doesn’t have to define my attitude to the whole of my life. It doesn’t change who I am or who Mum is.” His grin returned, he continued to care about his class members, he still dressed in bright colours and he always took his mum a feminine treat on his daily visit — a new lipstick, one of the tiny complimentary body lotions from the hotel, or a sample of perfume from the waitress who held cosmetic parties in her spare time. In Fiona’s opinion, Meeko was a prince among men. He loved everyone. His break-up with Lynn, a former receptionist at the hotel, after eleven years, worried her because he’d been unable to explain why he’d suddenly decided the relationship had run its course; she hoped he wasn’t throwing his future away over a minor disagreement that could have been easily fixed.
She’d tried to suggest that instead of removing Lynn from his life completely, they just see a little less of each other for a while. That was when she’d been more open with him about Joe and how it was the greatest arrangement ever. “It works because we only see the best of each other,” she’d said. “Sometimes relationships fail when, side by side, you have to deal with all the annoying flotsam and jetsam of life. We get all of the pleasure and none of the aggro.”
He’d looked disapproving. “Working together to solve things can make relationships stronger,” he’d countered. “For me it’s all or nothing.”
After that they’d never again discussed the rights and wrongs of her relationship with Joe or his break-up with Lynn. Their respective love lives remained in closed boxes, alongside the details and tragedy of Fiona’s failed marriage — some things were just too painful to reveal, no matter how close the friendship.
They arrived at the entrance to the restaurant at the same time. Meeko hugged her, kissed her on both cheeks and then grinned. “I missed you yesterday.”
She hesitated, not sure how he’d react to the news of Joe moving in. “Food first and then I’ll explain.”
Since Fiona’s last visit a couple of days earlier, the hotel restaurant had been transformed with giant gold and scarlet baubles hanging from the ceiling and ropes of shiny tinsel clinging to the walls. Advertisements for a series of December tribute band party nights stood proud in the middle of each table.
Meeko chased the last of the Greek yoghurt and blueberries from his dish. Fiona took the first spoonful of hers; she’d done the talking while Meeko ate. Now he appeared to consider her plight.
“The perfect situation is no more,” he pronounced eventually.
“Yes and no.” She licked the smear of yoghurt she could feel on her lips. Then she spoke quickly before he could brand her a hussy who only wanted Joe for weekly sex. “I really looked forward to our weekly dates and loved his company.”
“But you enjoyed his absence as well?”
“I guess so. I didn’t like the way he seemed to be showing me off last night, and having him in my space all the time, it’s . . .” It would be disloyal to Joe for her to say anymore. If they did stay together, he would meet Meeko again and it would be embarrassing if Meeko knew too much.
“Claustrophobic?”
She nodded. The chef shouted and Fiona jumped up to fetch their boiled eggs. She walked slowly back with the egg cups, pausing to gather her thoughts by the coffee machine. Why was what Meeko thought of her changed relationship with Joe so important to her? The two of them could still enjoy their breakfast together and he would continue to gently adjust her hips and back to improve her downward-facing dog and plank positions in his classes.
Meeko cracked his egg with a spoon and peeled off the top of the shell. He’d already buttered his toast and chopped it into soldiers. She watched him dip and saw the satisfaction on his face when the yolk was just the right consistency. She tried to push thoughts of Joe away and concentrate on slow, mindful eating. She focused her mind on the feel of the velvet yolk on her tongue. It didn’t work; her shoulders remained tense and her brain felt as though it was in chains, being dragged in a direction it didn’t want to go.
“What will you do about him?” Meeko’s eyes met hers as she looked up from the half-empty shell. “Don’t just shrug. This is something that you can change. If you want to.”
Fiona watched the light catch the green Christmas-tree-shaped studs in Meeko’s ears. Her mind was clearing, as it often did in his presence. A thought was emerging that she’d never consciously been aware of before. “What Joe and I had together was good. If I ask him to leave that will be the end of us forever. And I’m not ready for that. We’re just having teething problems.”
There was no affirming or negative expression on the yoga instructor’s face. He was totally blank. Fiona had the weird feeling that she was on a psychiatrist’s couch.
“But also, it feels like I’m sitting in a trap waiting for vicious metal jaws to close around me and make me a prisoner for life.”
“Does recognising those feelings help you decide what to do?” The neutrality remained. Fiona wanted him to grin or at least smile. She wanted some credit for this great insight she’d just produced. She wanted to be told whether she was right or wrong.
“I don’t want to throw him out. Yet. But I do want to lay some ground rules. And maybe some timescales for how long the situation is going to last and what he might do as a permanent solution.”
Now Meeko’s lips did form a smile. “You had me worried for a minute, but the real Fiona-I-am-in-control-of-my-life has just re-emerged.”
Fiona grinned back. The dimples that appeared around the corners of Meeko’s mouth always made her smile. A braver woman than her would reach out and touch them.
Meeko looked at his watch. “I’ve got to love you and leave you. I want to grab the PC in the leisure club office to do some emails before my next class.” They hugged again and for a few seconds Fiona luxuriated in his warm male smell, unadulterated by aftershave or scented deodorant. He gave her a squeeze that told her he’d always be there for her. Then he was striding out of the dining room.
Fiona power-walked home — running on a part-full stomach didn’t aid her digestion. There was a note from Joe indicating he’d gone football training and wouldn’t be back until later in the afternoon. She felt relieved.