Out of Control

Chapter 20

On the way home, Fiona’s head buzzed with anxiety and overwhelm. The prospect of sharing her home with Adele and a baby for months and months was suffocating. Please come home soon, Rose! The potential for her retirement to be a time of self-indulgence and joy had gone. She had responsibility for a young woman she barely knew, an unborn baby she was not biologically related to, and a mother who was permanently disappointed in her only child and so lonely that she had resorted to picking up men from the lonely hearts column. Plus, a confusing transition to make from passionate affair to domestic cohabitation with Joe.

And then Rob’s grinning face sprang to the forefront of her mind. Fiona gasped and blinked hard to obliterate his image. He wouldn’t side-swipe her off life’s track again. “Go away! Go away! Go away!” she muttered, until home was in sight. Then she called on her ability to focus on the task in hand.

There were the details of the baby shower to work out and safeguards to put in place to ensure it wasn’t an uncontrollable nightmare in her own home. Joe was enthusiastic but didn’t have a clue how to arrange even the smallest event, and Adele seemed like all the young people Fiona had worked with — totally last minute in the organisation of anything, from a simple night out to a holiday abroad. Fiona needed to take control. By the time she walked into her house she was itching to start. Fail to plan, plan to fail . A ‘normal’ person would be happy with a simple paper and pen list, but only a spreadsheet would make Fiona feel really in control.

She stopped in the kitchen doorway. Adele was at the sink, washing up. The kitchen table and all the surfaces were clear and damp, indicating they’d recently been wiped down.

“Wow! This is great. Thank you.”

“I felt bad about the other morning, and Dad said . . .” Adele halted, as though realising any words might make her look less than willing.

“It doesn’t matter whose idea it was. You’ve done the job.” It did matter that this hadn’t been Adele’s idea. But Fiona remembered something Meeko had once told her, along the lines of: If we create an atmosphere of acceptance, gratitude and welcome to others, then they are more likely to follow our example and treat us that way in return.

Stepping further into the kitchen, it was obvious the surface wiping down hadn’t been done properly. The main large areas were clean, but the toast crumbs had been carelessly pushed against the silicone sealant running between the horizontal surface of the worktop and the vertical surface of the tiled wall. And there were further crumbs and blobs of jam on the vinyl flooring immediately below. It took immense willpower not to criticise. Fiona took the cloth from Adele’s hand, scooped up the jam and handed the cloth back. “Sorry, I just didn’t want that to get trodden out of here and into the hall carpet.”

Adele frowned and then turned back to the sink without speaking.

Fiona pursed her lips. She’d done the wrong thing. But anyone else would have acted the same. And she was still going to have to sneak back later and clear up all the crumbs now lurking in half-sight.

“I’ll dry for you.” She picked up a tea towel. This way she could ensure that everything had been washed properly. “Afterwards shall we dot the I’s and cross the T’s of the baby shower? What do you think — a paper list or a spreadsheet?”

“It’s a group of friends, not a military exercise.”

Fiona felt a flush burn her cheeks. It seemed their relationship was taking a step backwards. “Once an IT project manager, always an IT project manager.” She tried to keep her voice light. “Planning carefully came with the territory; everything always had to be belt and braces. But paper it is.” She picked up a plate with a smear of butter still clinging to the edge, was about to hand it back to Adele, then thought better of it, gritted her teeth, wiped the mark away with the tea towel and made a mental note to put the tea towel straight in the laundry basket. “The good news is that Meeko has agreed to come along and play Father Christmas. There will be a small gift in his sack for each guest.”

Adele turned her head and grinned. “Brilliant — people will be able to get some great photos.”

And social media will be bombarded with images of my living room. Not good but there is no way back now.

Afterwards they sat in the lounge and Fiona tried to be ‘less military’ by writing on the back of a flyer which had dropped through the letterbox, rather than using the A4 hardbacked notebook that sat upstairs on her office desk and contained the map of how to run her life.

“Guests.” She underlined it as the first subheading. “How many? Do we send proper invitations and collect RSVPs — in which case there’s very little time? Or do you do all that electronically these days?”

Adele’s eyes glanced heavenward. “I’ll put something out there. It’s mostly old school friends. They’re all back from uni for Christmas. It’ll be a big reveal — most of them won’t even know about this.” She patted her swollen belly. “Unless word has spread among the mothers.”

“Oh?” Fiona had assumed the girl would’ve told everyone via endless social media posts — isn’t that how people lived their lives these days? But if she hadn’t even told her parents, maybe that wasn’t the case?

Adele looked awkward. “At first I didn’t realise. And then I wondered about . . .” She looked down and stroked her belly again. “And then I hoped . . . the father and I . . . that it could be a joint announcement . . . and then, here we are.”

The gaps said more than the words. Fiona patted Adele’s knee. “It’s OK, I get it.” For a few seconds it felt as though a confidence had been shared. “Back to the guests.” Fiona didn’t want to wade back in with her big, flat military boots, but this party couldn’t happen without preparation. “You do the inviting and collate responses. But I could do with a rough idea of numbers now, for food, drink and Santa’s pressies. Err on the generous side — better to have too much than too little.”

Adele rolled her eyes again. Fiona ignored the girl’s irritated expression. It was essential to know whether to expect five or twenty-five guests. Adele mouthed names and counted on her fingers. There was a frustrated expulsion of breath and she appeared to start all over again, presumably having lost count when she got past ten.

“Here.” Fiona passed her the pen and paper. “Write them down — it’s a lot easier.”

Resting the flyer on the coffee table, Adele filled the page with a list of names and handed it back. Fiona counted them. Thirty. She wrote the number down and drew a circle around it for clarity and emphasis. More guests than she would like but they probably wouldn’t all come.

“They’ll all be up for it. We haven’t all been together for months. Probably since last Christmas.”

Fiona tried to smile. “I’ll have to fetch my . . .” She gestured at the ceiling with her pen. “You’ve filled my page.”

On her way upstairs she remembered her mum’s happiness at becoming a great-granny-by-proxy. The old lady would love to come to the baby shower — and not only because it would provide a wonderful one-upmanship conversation with her neighbours.

A few minutes later she had the red hardback book open in front of her with the title ‘Baby Shower’ underlined twice. She stapled the list of guests into the book alongside two pages torn from the back of Joe’s diary containing the initial ideas from the previous evening.

“Adele, would you mind if I invited someone along?”

“Who?” There was a hint of suspicion in the girl’s voice.

“My mother. When I told her about you and the baby she was over the moon. She hasn’t got any proper grandchildren and she’d love to be involved in some way. She bakes wicked scones.”

Adele appeared to weigh up this suggestion for a few seconds. “Yeah, OK.” Then she added, “Is ‘ wicked ’ usually in your vocabulary or are you trying to be down with the kids?”

Fiona blushed at her botched attempt to narrow the gap between her and the girl who, following her mum’s logic, could be described as Fiona’s ‘daughter-by-proxy’ — a term which had a much better, less wicked, ring to it than ‘stepdaughter’. Then she looked down at her notebook and wrote the subheading ‘Food’. After some argument about sandwiches and sausages on sticks, followed by an explanation of what a vol-au-vent was, Adele was firm: Fiona’s suggested menu sounded like a children’s birthday party. All that was needed were takeaway pizzas. They were easy and exact numbers plus vegetarian and vegan preferences could be sorted out on the night.

“Salad?” Fiona asked the question, even though she already knew the answer.

A discussion on drink followed, resulting in the requirement for at least ten bottles of prosecco, one of gin, several flavoured tonics plus a few beers. Fiona silently added fruit juices to the end of the list.

“Just Santa’s gifts now.”

“Do I get one?”

“Absolutely.”

“In that case I want them to be a surprise. And . . .” A mischievous grin settled on Adele’s lips. “Do we get to sit on Santa’s knee?”

Fiona waved the comment away. She was starting to learn when Adele was winding her up. “Ah! I almost forgot. Does Santa need a grotto or can he just walk around the room with his sack?”

“A grotto — definitely!” Adele’s eyes lit up like a child’s.

Fiona kicked herself. She’d just increased her work by a multiple of ten. How do you create a grotto in a three-bedroomed semi-detached house? She turned the page in her notebook, wrote the heading ‘Grotto’ and underlined it three times.