Out of Control

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 original Willy Wonka and the Chocolate Factory film and served him tea and mince pies from bone china crockery. Then she 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 many years 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 her armchair and looked him in the eye. “But it’s Fiona’s supposed secrets that we’re talking about.”

It was true he had told Fiona that. But he’d been talking about relationships with women whom he didn’t yet know. He had not mentally included Fiona in that sweeping statement.

“You said she doesn’t trust you. That she’s keeping secrets,” Dorothea prompted.

“Yes. She was outside One More Bean with a man. They didn’t see me and I accidentally overheard Fiona say that she hadn’t told me something because she didn’t trust me.” He looked across the table for a reaction to his confession of eavesdropping. Dorothea looked puzzled so Meeko continued. “Is she keeping secrets?”

The old lady’s face closed up. “I don’t know who she’s told what. Who was the man?”

“I don’t know.”

“He’s unlikely to be a relative. Fiona is an only child and both her father and me are only children. What did he look like?”

“They were behind me. I didn’t get a proper look. Perhaps a couple of inches taller than Fiona. Dark hair. Stockier than me but still slim.”

“Overly confident?”

“Couldn’t say because I didn’t speak to him. But Fiona obviously thinks he’s more trustworthy than me.”

“It might be Rob. I know that she did meet him recently.”

“Rob?” An innocent explanation was coming and it felt like the anticipation of stepping into a warm bath when every single muscle aches from exertion.

“Her husband.”

“Husband!” The icing-sugar-dusted pastry of his second mince pie suddenly stuck in his throat and made him cough. Meeko reached for the paper serviette again.

“Sorry, ex-husband. It must be about . . .” She paused. “. . . thirty years ago. I’m surprised she hasn’t told you.”

“I know she was divorced. A long time ago.” There was a tightness in his stomach as he contemplated Fiona getting back together with her ex-husband. He hardly dared to ask the next question. “Is there more that I need to know?”

Dorothea hesitated and her eyes roamed the room. “It’s not for me to say. You need to ask her yourself.”

“Could there be something going on between Rob and Fiona now?” He hoped his voice didn’t sound as shaky as he felt.

“Doubtful. Until very recently Fiona hadn’t mentioned him for years, and whenever she did, it was always in the role of the Antichrist.”

“How do we find out what their relationship is now? Can you talk to her?”

Dorothea shook her head. “Absolutely not. Our relationship has the ups and downs of a mountain range as it is. If I start prying, she’ll close me off completely, and that can’t happen when I’ve just met my granddaughter- and great-granddaughter-by-proxy. I’ve got pictures!”

Meeko sat politely as the old lady scrolled slowly through the images of her newly found non-blood relatives. As he was about to leave, she placed a hand on his arm. “It’s in my best interests to find out what’s going on with Rob, isn’t it? If Fiona gets side-tracked by him and boots Joe out, I might lose access to Adele and Natalie. I don’t care about Joe but I do love them lasses, especially since the mother has run off — they need me.”

Meeko nodded. Whatever reason brought Dorothea onto his side was fine by him. But he would prefer it if Joe didn’t stick around long-term.

“I will put out feelers.” She gave him a wink. “As I told Santa at the party: I want to see my daughter settled down with a good man before I go to my grave. And, putting my selfish grandma reasons aside, I don’t think that man is Joe. No proper man would have been happy with that arm’s-length relationship she instigated.”

“Thank you.”

“Put your number in my new phone. We might need to be in touch.” Dorothea’s eyes were alight now, as though she was looking forward to some cloak-and-dagger espionage. “It’s subterfuge, like on the TV, isn’t it?”

He tapped the screen of the phone to add his number to the meagre few already in there.

“Thank you. One question for you.” Dorothea paused. “Are you available as a long-term partner for my daughter?” Her face was deadly serious.