Out of Control

Chapter 29

There were only six days until Christmas. The festive season had always been Dorothea’s favourite time of year. She had festooned the family home with holly, tinsel and at least two decorated trees, one indoors and one outside. What the Ormeroyd family lacked in size, it made up for in Dorothea’s exuberance. Fiona and her parents always had a paper-chain-making evening the week before Christmas. It was these memories that were causing Fiona to blink hard as she wrote her final Christmas cards — a job that should have been accomplished at least a fortnight earlier.

On paper-chain day, Dorothea would retrieve the piles of used wrapping paper she’d neatly folded away from the previous year and the three of them would carefully cut the creased sheets into strips and then glue the ends of the strips together, interlocking each strip with another link in the chain. One year, she and her father had made a chain long enough to reach twice around the edge of the sitting room ceiling. As a child, Fiona had delighted in the magic and colour of it all, mixing up the different papers to produce the gaudiest, but to her the most beautiful chain of all. As a teenager, she’d tried and failed to look down her nose at the family tradition. But the designs of her chains became more sophisticated; she’d stick to hues of the same colour for each chain and had the motto that ‘less is more’, cutting tiny strips to create mini chains to hang around the pictures and to crown her mother’s pot plants. In her father’s eyes, whatever Fiona produced was wonderful but her mother was more critical, especially during Fiona’s ‘minimalist’ phase when she tried to insist that all the chains should be made from old brown or white envelopes and the wrapping paper be reused for its original function.

The Ormeroyds had few extended family members but, once decorated, Dorothea filled the house with neighbours, friends and any waif or stray she heard about. There were always at least two pre-Christmas parties, another the day after Boxing Day — “It’s a dead sort of day and people need it filled,” her mother always used to say — and another on New Year’s Eve. When Fiona and Rob married and moved into their own house, Fiona continued the traditions, becoming popular among her neighbours for her generosity, and among her uni friends for a New Year’s Eve fixture for which they journeyed from all parts of the country, full of hope for what the next twelve months might bring.

The bailiffs, the divorce and the loss of Amber swept away Fiona’s open-hearted spirit, like a volcanic eruption razes a town from the map. The house was gone, their savings were gone, her husband was lost and the most precious thing in the world had died. Every time December came around, the bleakest memories boiled up from their simmering point and burned Fiona again and again. She put a hand up to her face, as though she expected the skin to feel tender and blistered. For the last thirty years Christmas had merely been a series of lists, cards, presents to buy, a couple of Secret Santas at work, ensuring a pleasant day for both her parents, and then, for the last two years, just for her festive-loving Mum — duties to be fulfilled in order to conform to society’s expectations, even though neither she nor most of her acquaintances set foot near religion during the whole of the holiday season.

“We need a tree.” Adele stood in the doorway of the lounge with her hands in the small of her back and her bump straining against the confines of the maternity jeans. She looked matronly rather than like a girl at the start of her twenties. “At home the tree was always up by now.”

“I’ve got a small artificial one with inbuilt lights in the loft.” Joe had bought it the previous year, at the start of their relationship. He’d been horrified when she’d said there was no point bothering with decorations for only one person.

“No! It has to be real. Without the tree smell, it’s not Christmas! And the presents need to go under the tree.”

The prospect of full-on Christmas decor made Fiona want to curl up and cover her head with her hands. The day the bailiffs came, the house had been ready, with a real tree sheltering a pile of presents — expensive gifts (she’d even indulged in one for Amber — a CD of whale music that her daughter could enjoy in utero as Fiona practised relaxation in the months leading up to the birth) purchased on their joint credit card. She later learned they couldn’t afford to pay the bill.

“All Mum’s Christmas stuff is in our loft above the Airbnb people. Can we buy new, Fiona?” Fiona’s face must have shown her lack of enthusiasm because Adele started to plead. “Please? This room looks more like a morgue than a home.”

“Meeko’s grotto is still there, and the balloons.” She pointed at the ceiling where the pink blobs still tickled the white paint. “We can put the presents in a sack in the grotto.”

“It’s not enough. Please? Remember how good it felt when this place was full of people?”

Adele had chosen the right words. Fiona did want that warmth of feeling back. But that had been created by people, not trashy tinsel or gaudy baubles. But if they were what made the people in the house feel happy, maybe it was the right place to start. She was tempted to hand over money and send Adele on her own — the shops would be a nightmare. But it wasn’t fair to send a heavily pregnant girl on the bus to crowded shops.

The two of them shopped several times over the next few days. For decorations and for food. Fiona coped by persuading herself that, had Amber lived, she would have inherited her grandmother’s love of the festive season. Adele insisted on plenty of cheeses and chocolates as well as the traditional turkey and pudding.

“The shops are only closed for one day,” Fiona tried to argue. “We don’t need to buy it all now.”

“We do. Twixmas is hibernation time. That’s when we hunker down at home, watch films and eat Quality Streets. And your Meeko will expect a good spread,” Adele continued.

“He’s not my Meeko .”

“Body language rarely lies . . .”

“You are imagining things, Adele.”

By the time Christmas Eve arrived both Joe and Adele seemed happy with the bulging fridge, crammed freezer, colourful fairyland lounge and the strings of tinsel adorning doorframes, banister, pictures and shelves around the house. Fiona had to admit that her home now looked warm and welcoming in the darkness of late afternoon. She crossed her fingers that she would receive help to put everything back to how it should be.

The physiotherapy practice was closed on Christmas Eve and, at lunchtime, Joe said he was heading out. “I’ll be back late evening.”

Adele had insisted Christmas was a big thing in their house so why would he go out? “Where are you going?”

“The boys. It’s traditional. We always meet for a drink and a curry on Christmas Eve — the table’s all booked and everything.”

Adele was looking from her dad to Fiona and then back again, waiting for the next volley. Despite her recent mellowing, the girl was still bigging-up Meeko and would probably be glad if she and Joe split up, paving the way for a reconciliation with Rose. “You always do this — and Rose didn’t mind?” His ex-wife must have been a saint.

“Yes. But if you feel strongly . . .”

“No, go ahead.” To say anything else would make her possessive, and she was doing her utmost to make this relationship work and to be part of a family instead of waiting for a sea of sharks to consume her in the form of loneliness, old age, infirmity and empty days. Her career had to be replaced with another sort of belonging. And any belonging had to be worked at and earned.

Adele picked a romcom for her and Fiona to watch and filled a bowl with popcorn. They sat side by side with a brand-new Christmas blanket over their thighs. The festive woven crib scene had been chosen by Adele on one of their shopping sprees; she swore that Fiona would get years of good use out of it. And if Fiona didn’t want it, Adele would take it with her when she got her own place. That last statement had been the deciding factor on the purchase for Fiona — her lodger was feathering her own nest for a departure at some point. Adele kicked off her slippers and put her feet on the low coffee table in front of them. Fiona stopped herself from criticising but refrained from following suit. From time to time Adele rubbed her belly with more vigour than usual. Then she shuffled her bottom and sat forward on the edge of the sofa, placing her hands in the small of her back and doing more rubbing.

“Are you OK?”

“Just some backache. I’ve had it all day, along with those pretend contractions. What do you call them?”

“Braxton Hicks?” Fiona could still remember every word of those baby books she’d devoured over the course of just a few weeks.

“I need the toilet again. The baby must have moved. Pause the film.”

After using the bathroom Adele circled the room several times. Mostly she looked comfortable and then pain or discomfort kicked in and she paused in her perambulation, bent over and attempted to rub her own back. A lump of fear grew inside Fiona. She looked at her watch and was shocked to see only ninety minutes had elapsed since she’d poured the first of two large glasses of wine. It was out of character, but her way of sticking two fingers up at Joe and his Christmas Eve night out with the boys, and also a means of not thinking about the correlation between his current absence and Rob being late home all those years ago. She wouldn’t dare get behind the wheel to drive Adele to hospital. “Should we call an ambulance? Or your dad?”

“No. It doesn’t feel like it’s for real — you know what I mean?”

Fiona nodded, but she didn’t know what labour, real or not real, felt like. She only knew the agony, physical and mental, of losing a baby before she’d even had chance to meet it. “Why don’t you have a bath?” It was something the books had recommended to ease the discomfort of the early pains.

Fiona ran the bath and gathered a couple of clean towels. She was about to add bubbles so that Adele could luxuriate for a while and then decided that might not be the right thing if the baby was imminent.

Downstairs Fiona stared at the frozen film image on the TV. It was part way through a Christmas party scene that had been about to throw together the two soon-to-be lovers who had proclaimed that they hated each other. Above her she could hear the noise of water sloshing in the bath as Adele shifted position. Fiona tried to use the time to mentally go through her checklist for the next day. Cooking Christmas dinner was an exercise in logistics as well as culinary skill and Fiona didn’t know how she’d compare to the phantom of Rose. Even so, knowing Adele and Joe’s liking for junk and takeaways, she’d decided to take the easier route and not do everything from scratch. The fridge was laden with packs of ready-prepared roast potatoes, pigs in blankets, bread sauce and red cabbage. The turkey breast joint was defrosting and would require a fraction of the faff and oven time of a full-size bird. Fingers crossed that her mother would still be so enamoured with her granddaughter-by-proxy and/or busy picking fault with Joe that she wouldn’t notice what she was eating.

There was more sploshing from upstairs and then the sound of water draining down the plughole. A few minutes later Adele appeared wrapped in a towelling robe and her hair still wet.

“It’s getting worse,” she said weakly.

“Don’t panic.” This might have been an instruction to herself or to Adele. “I’ll phone your dad to come home.”

“He went in an Uber, remember? He’ll have been drinking and be no use at all.”

Fiona couldn’t deal with the situation alone. “He’s your father and he needs to know.” She tried his mobile three times in quick succession. It went straight to voicemail each time. “Damn! He’s switched it off.” In her head she screamed expletives.

“The midwife said you’re supposed to phone the hospital for advice.”

“Then phone!” Adele’s eyes widened at the sharpness in Fiona’s voice and she immediately softened it. “Sorry, I didn’t mean it to come out like that.”

“You’re more scared than I am.” Adele took her mobile into the kitchen.

Fiona paced in the same way Adele had been doing. The younger woman was right — she was scared. Scared of being in this situation and failing another baby in the same way that she’d failed her own.

“They said I can go in if I want, but it sounds like only early stages of labour and I might be more comfortable at home. I said I’d stay put for a bit.”

Fiona nodded, willing to be led by the person with the physical symptoms.

Adele started the film again. Every few minutes she got up and paced the room. Fiona watched her out of the corner of her eye, trying not to pass on her anxiety but aware someone needed to watch the progress of Adele’s labour objectively. The girl was getting up and down more frequently as the film reached its romantic climax: a church dressed for a winter wedding, surrounded by snow that was too white and pristine to be real.

“I’ve wet myself! Your carpet! Sorry.” Adele lumbered from the room and up the stairs. Fiona heard the bathroom door shut and lock.

No! She ignored the carpet and ran after the girl. “Unlock!” she banged on the bathroom door. “We have to be able to get in if you get into trouble in there.”

There was a shuffling noise and then another click of the lock. Fiona sank down onto the carpeted landing. “Shout if you want me to come in. Otherwise, I’ll give you a few minutes’ privacy.”

“I think that was my waters breaking . . .” The words disappeared into a loud groan which seemed to go on forever. “It’s getting more painful.”

Fiona’s mind fixated on a section in one long-ago book about the increased risk of infection to mother and baby after the waters broke. “We need to get you to hospital. I’m going to phone an ambulance.” She spoke loudly and slowly to penetrate the moans from within the bathroom. “And I’m going to open the bathroom door so that if you . . .” she was going to say ‘collapse’, but that might put the fear of God in the girl, “. . . so we can reach you easily. Back in two ticks.”

She went downstairs to make the call so she could hear without the competition of Adele’s moans. “No! That can’t be right . . . she’s in labour and it’s Christmas Eve . . . and I’ve had too much to drink. A taxi? OK.”

A six-hour wait for an ambulance! Fiona’s brain felt suddenly sharp. She’d finished the last glass of wine at least an hour ago. She knew the route to the hospital like the back of her hand — she’d taken her mother to enough appointments there. But if something happened to Adele and the baby . . . She couldn’t bear the responsibility of losing another baby.

Adele’s groans were coming more frequently now, and with such a ferocious intensity that there might be a wild animal caged upstairs.

Fiona called all the local taxi firms. They either didn’t answer or were fully booked. “Christmas Eve, sorry, love,” was the stock answer if she tried to plead. The Uber app was on her phone but never used. At some point it had seemed the sensible thing to download in case she ever found herself stranded. She pressed it now and slowly worked her way through the prompts. Either she was doing it wrong or there was nothing to be had here either, or at least no takers for her requested journey.

Adele screamed and Fiona fumbled the phone. She pushed it into her jeans pocket and raced back up the stairs. Adele was on all fours and her fringe was stuck to her forehead with sweat. She didn’t acknowledge Fiona’s entrance. Her face was closed in, as though her entire being was concentrated on her belly. In between the harrowing cries, the silence felt deep and ominous, punctuated only by Adele’s exaggerated deep breaths and panting. Eventually the younger woman managed to speak. “Are they coming? Please say they’re coming.”

“They’re coming.” Keep her calm and don’t scare her any further. Fiona forced her own terror away and tried to pull her professional persona into play. “Give me a minute.” She went back onto the landing to check her phone.

Still no message from Joe. Who else could she call late on Christmas Eve? Someone who wouldn’t be deep within the bosom of their family? Meeko. The possible arrival of her best friend was like a mirage. He was the epitome of calm. When he hugged her, she felt as though she was in the safest place in the world, with someone who cared for her unconditionally and without judgement.

Except that Meeko had given her the cold shoulder at the baby shower, and in the week since then she’d received no communication from him at all. Whenever she’d turned up for breakfast at the hotel, he’d either been and gone or hadn’t yet arrived. She’d messaged him twice and been blanked. In all the years they’d known each other, they’d never gone so long without some form of communication, most often instigated by Meeko. Something had happened to alienate him and she didn’t have a clue what.

Adele screamed again. Fiona went back into the bathroom. The young woman had moved from hands and knees to a squatting position. “Push, push.” Adele was talking to herself in an oblivion of natural urges.

“No! Don’t push. Pant.” If she pushed, the baby would arrive here, on the bathroom floor, and it would die. “Pant.”

The message got through and Adele panted like a marathon runner. After thirty seconds she repositioned herself and looked like she was going in for the finale. “Can’t hold it no more.”

Fiona pressed the green telephone symbol next to Meeko’s name and then flung her phone onto the landing while shouting, “The baby’s here, please come!” Then too much happened all at once to think about the recent coldness of her best friend. She placed a clean, soft towel on the floor between Adele’s feet just as the baby slithered into the world. Adele sank down like a deflated balloon and started to cry great huge, heaving sobs. She gently stroked the baby on her stomach. Excerpts from everything Fiona had ever heard about helping someone give birth danced in her head and formed a jumbled mental checklist. Right order, wrong order? Truth or old wives’ tales? She had no way of knowing but tried to action them anyway.

Cord round the neck? She knelt close to Adele and lifted the baby. It was sticky with mucous and blood but the cord was definitely not strangling it.

Airways clear and breathing?

“Is it alive?” Adele whispered between sobs.

Fiona put her little finger in the baby’s mouth and realised too late that she wasn’t scrubbed up for doing such things. Tongue wasn’t blocking throat. The baby still hadn’t cried. Should she be checking anything else? In the old-fashioned films didn’t they smack the baby? The umbilical cord still attached baby to mother, and Fiona managed to place the little girl face down on Adele’s stomach and gently tap the tiny buttocks. And again, a little harder.

“Don’t hurt her! Is it a girl?”

A tiny wail. And then another one, a little stronger. Fiona lifted the baby a little and showed her to Adele. Ineffective kicks and punches were now accompanying the wails.

Keep the baby warm. Fiona found yet another dry, clean towel and attempted to swaddle the infant like the Christmas card image of baby Jesus. Impossible to do it properly with the cord still attached.

Don’t cut the cord. Infection and bleeding.

Check the mother. In what way? Adele was a picture of physical devastation. But the tears had stopped and as she leaned forward in her seated position on the floor, cradling her towel-clad baby, there was the hint of a smile. There was blood between her legs but it didn’t appear to be flowing from her in torrents. It probably looked worse than it was. Fiona crossed her fingers behind her back.

Get mother and baby medical help. As if on cue, a faint tinny voice sounded from the discarded phone. “Are you still there, Fiona? I’ve been shouting for fifteen minutes.” Was that how much time had elapsed? It simultaneously felt like seconds and days because the world had changed so profoundly; she had helped, for the first and probably last time, to bring a new life into it. “I’m in the car about five minutes away.”

Meeko was nearly here. Relief flooded her. For a second she closed her eyes and exhaled. Then she pulled herself back into midwife mode.

She dampened a facecloth with warm water and cleaned Adele as best she could while the new mother sat there, shell-shocked. The bathroom looked like a murder scene. The baby was making snuffling noises. At the bottom of Fiona’s checklist was something about putting the baby to the breast as soon as possible, but that looked too difficult, given the umbilical cord was still in place.

“One minute away!”

Fiona ran downstairs and opened the front door. When Meeko walked in, she pointed him straight upstairs.