The Birds And The Bees Part 33

'I'm sorry,' he said apologetically. 'I seem to have developed rather a habit of wrecking your life.'

For once she didn't say her customary kind, 'No, don't be silly,' to let him off the hook. Matthew knew, by that, just how deeply he had hurt her. The sooner he got to London the better. Maybe there he would finally grow up.

'When the house is sold, I'll give you some money from it to cover Danny's holiday and of course the wedding costs. I'm sorry, Stevie. I've been a total b.a.s.t.a.r.d. I look at myself and I don't like what I've become. I used to think I was a good bloke. I don't want to be this Matthew. I want to get right away from him.'

'When do you leave?' she asked.

'Next weekgot to pack up the stuff I need and get rid of the rest. Might even do a car boot sale.'

'You can earn quite a bit on those.'

'Hey, remember when we did that one, that freezing Sunday morning?'

'Yes, I remember,' she said, smiling a little at an old faded memory, of a time when they were happy. A lifetime ago. Those two people didn't exist any more though.

Matthew was viewing the same memory, although his mind gla.s.ses had deeper rose-shaded lenses at the moment: snapshots of them eating burgers at eight o'clock in the morning just to keep warm; the old woman bartering them down from thirty to twenty pence for a leather wallet; the man in the Shredded Wheat wig they'd tried so hard not to giggle at. Stevie had been so sweet, so much fun. He hoped there would be another Stevie in London to meet.

'Thanks, Stevie, you're a diamond and I owe you big time,' he said, and he threw his arms around her and hugged her for the last time. She wasn't as pliant as he remembered. She didn't melt against him and envelop him in her affection. But then, she wasn't his any more.

'Goodbye, Matthew, and good luck,' she said, and kissed his cheek, and though she smiled, the light seemed to have gone from her eyes. He wished, at least, he could put that back there for her.

That afternoon, Adam MacLean was watching something mindless on the television about doing up gardens hosted by a woman with jolly features and wayward b.r.e.a.s.t.s, as he imagined Stevie's would be in that garb. He'd always gone for women with sc.r.a.ps of meat on their bones, like his mother, but Stevie had a bottom he wanted to bite lumps out of. She was so soft and curvy and warm, but Jo's words in the letter had haunted him. Stevie would want more for herself and her son than a 'unique' (i.e. ugly) man who made noise wherever he went.

He knew he would have to speak to her soon about the arrangements for the cottage, but he was scared he would turn the corner and see her back in Matthew's house, and find Humbleby Cottage lying as empty as his heart felt. He would have to face it, but not now. Just a few more days until he found the strength to look her in the eye, wish her all the luck and happiness in the world, let her go for ever.

He looked around at the cold, characterless room and decided that he really needed to clean up. The house hadn't been vacuumed in days, nor had the dishwasher been switched on. Then again, there had been no plates to wash because he hadn't been eating. He had managed to drag himself to the shower, but not over to the shaving mirror. He looked half-wild with his auburn stubble and flat, tired eyes. He caught sight of his reflection in the smoky gla.s.s of the display cabinet and decided he wouldn't have liked to meet himself up a dark alley.

He ignored the first 'bing bong' of the doorbell, as he wasn't in the mood for visitors. After the fifth bing bong, he thought he had better address the irritation and get rid of it by telling them that, no, he didn't want to convert to their religion, thanks, he was quite happy being a Satanist. No, he didn't want to sponsor them, vote for them, buy their windows, look at their brochure or convert his energy supplies. He had no energy to convert.

The fuzzy shape that he saw through the gla.s.s was a man's, and when he opened the door, it was to a rather pale-looking Matthew.

'Hi,' his unexpected visitor said with a big gulp and a hand held up in a 'how'-like greeting. 'I realize you might want to murder me, but before you do, can I please tell you something?'

Chapter 58.

Stevie dropped Danny off at school then picked up some empty boxes from the Happy Shopper en route to home. As she opened the cottage door, silence greeted her and the quiet was uncomfortably deafening in a way that Adam's noise could never be. She missed his big, booming voice more each day. She missed seeing his cavernous sports bag by the door. She missed his boxers on the was.h.i.+ng line. She missed the heavy tread of his large feet on the stairs, the way he crashed through doors and blasted out 'Flowers of Scotland' at three billion decibels in the shower. She missed everything about the man. And Danny's insistent questioning didn't help. Where's Adam? When is he coming back? Will he be back tonight? He hadn't asked half as many questions over Matthew or Mick combined. It seemed that her little boy was hurting as much as she was.

Her mind had taken her to some horrible places that weekto Majorca, spying on Jo, in her white size-10 bikini and blissfully stretched out at the side of Adam in the sun. She wished she could wish she had never laid eyes on the man, but then she might never have discovered she had the capacity to love to that tremendous depth. This had been no love on the sidelines that made compromises, this had been a fall into an abyss out of which she had never wanted to crawl.

She hoped Matthew would find contentment down south, although she knew deep down that he would. She hoped Colin Seed would enjoy his new life in New York and find someone he could love and look after who would drag him into Burtons occasionally. And most of all she hoped Jo would realize what she had nearly lost and take better care of Adam's beautiful big heart. Stevie found out that true love made it possible to let someone go to be happy with another.

She started to put books into one of the boxes until her eyes clouded over so much that she couldn't see what she was doing. She'd gone and fallen for Humbleby too, and having to leave it would half-kill her. It sounded stupid, but the cottage felt 'sad' that she would be going soon, as if it had been lonely in its enforced long emptiness and had rather enjoyed having a funny little boy, an incurable romantic and a rather loud Gaelic giant enjoying its warmth and protection.

She was going mad, obviously, thinking about old houses having feelings. What next? Imagining the dishwasher sobbing as it scrubbed the pots clean? She needed to get out. Somewhere in the presence of other human beings doing something that would bat these ridiculous notions of emotional inanimate objects out of her head. Filling up her water bottle, she grabbed her gym card and car keys and headed out to Well Life.

Stevie looked at the calorie counter. Apparently, she had burnt up 350 of them in the last hour and she still wasn't tired, but then her body didn't feel connected to her head. Her legs were pounding but her brain wasn't giving out any messages for them to stop. It was too busy blotting everything out. It wasn't connected to her ears either so it didn't hear the track 'Loneliness' playing once again and it wasn't connected to her eyes so she didn't see the screens showing MTV and Morning Coffee in front of her. Nor did she see Adam MacLean walking up the side of the StairMasters either.

Not until she saw a big, hairy arm put a small jeweller's box on the water-bottle shelf and heard that big thunderous voice of his saying, 'Ah hear you've fallen for me hook, line and sinker, woman,' was she even remotely aware of his presence. And in shock, she lost her footing, cracked her head on the control panel and did the sort of backwards flip that would have knocked the Romanian gymnasts off the Gold Medal spot in the Olympics.

Chapter 59.

'So once again I make a complete prat of myself in front of everyone because of you,' she said in his office as he applied a bag of ice to the fast-growing egg-shaped lump. 'Ow, ow, ow!'

'Wheesht, woman.'

'And if vibrating me off the machine with your voice wasn't enough fun for you, you give me an empty box as well!'

'Course it's empty. I just wanted to see what your reaction would be.'

'You are a s.a.d.i.s.t. I was right all along.'

'Not at all. Choosing a ring is an important matter. I'd only have got something with too many diamonds on it.'

'Is there such a thing?'

He smiled a little and had a good look at the lump. 'I think this might hatch at any minute.'

'Anyway, what did you mean by you've heard that I've fallen for you hook, line and sinker? Which mentally deranged nutter could possibly have told you that?'

'Stop moving your head, woman! Matthew came to see me earlier. Very brave in the circ.u.mstances. Said I was an idiot if I'd let you go.'

'Matthew?'

'Aye. He said you were the most wonderful woman he'd ever known.'

'Yes, well, I couldn't have been that wonderful if he dropped me like a hot brick, now could I?'

'He also said that he'd asked you to go back to him but you were in love with me. And you were under the impression that I was back with Jo.'

'Did he now?' She cleared her throat in preparation for the next question, 'And are you?' It came out all shaky.

'Oh aye, that's why I'm giving ring boxes to you.'

'Empty ring boxes though.'

'I explained the reason for that. You have tae wear the thing for ever, so it's no' fair fo' me to force ma tastes on youse, is it noo?'

'I suppose,' said Stevie. Her heart was thumping so loud she thought it might even deafen Adam. 'But you still haven't answered the question.'

'Stevie.' Adam looked her squarely in the eyes so she could read the truth in them for herself. 'I don't know if I ever was in love with Jo. I was besotted, but I don't even know if there is a real Jo MacLean. I think she just borrows personalities aff a peg and wears them like a suit. The trouble with that is that none of them ever quite fit properly. I certainly didn't know herI realized that at Will's barbecue.' He didn't say he could trace that moment back to when she shoved little Danny away and he saw the hurt in the wee boy's eyes. He knew then she wasn't the woman she had presented herself to be. She wasn't the woman he had waited for all his life.

'So how come you left me a note saying we both needed s.p.a.ce?'

'Because even though I knew I wanted you more than anything, I needed to give you some time to find out what you felt for Matthew once he was free. I mean, I'm no' exactly your archetypal romantic hero, am I noo? You like handsome men who whisper and I'm a big, ugly, noisy b.u.g.g.e.r.'

'I don't want Matthew. I'm from Venus. I'm not like you Mars lot, that sod off into caves and play with elastic bands or whatever it is.'

'No, you're not like anyone I've ever met, Stevie Pollen b.u.mble Bee Nectar or whatever your name is.'

She blurted out a big pocket of laughter that pulled out a few bonus tears with it.

'Stop crying, woman,' he said gruffly. 'Okay, I admit it. I saw how quickly you jumped when Matty Boy called and I judged you on that. I thought you'd gone back to him. After all, it's what we planned for all along.'

'He was suffering, Adam. Jo stuffed him too. I couldn't have walked away and see him branded a violent s.e.x pest.'

'Aye, well, I know that noo.' He took the ice-pack away and bowed his head. 'But, stupid man that I am, I thought I'd lost you just when I was on the brink of getting you. And Danny, of course. Ba' Christ, I've missed the wee laddie.'

'You stupid, stupid man,' said Stevie, for Danny and herself.

'Hang on a wee minuteyou loved Matt, you didnae even like me!'

'Oh, Adam MacLean, you've got a nerve, considering how marvellous you thought I was in the beginning!'

Adam laughed, remembering the flour and the cocoa and that snotty 'I hate you' look on her face and her friend with the mad pink hair. How very deceiving those first impressions had been. On both sides too, for at the same time, Stevie was thinking of the wild, red man pus.h.i.+ng a holiday reservation up her nose in Matthew's front room. Who would have ever thought she could have loved him to the same degree that she hated him then?

'And all the time I was thinking that now Jo was available, you'd be straight off back to her.'

'Naw,' he smiled. 'How could she compete with you?'

'Yeah right,' said Stevie.

Adam looked at her sweet, disbelieving face and realized she would never know how lovely she was, which was a shame. He wanted to tell her how very deeply he had fallen for her, how she seemed to have flooded every chamber of his heart as only the right person could. But there was time, lots of it to come. For now, a kiss would suffice. He put down the ice pack, took her face in his great hands and carried on where he'd left off that night of the fillet steaks and her home-made cake and the raspberry-truffle coffees and the interrupting knock on the door.

Her lips were sweeter than honey.

Epilogue.

They married at the beginning of the next summera day full of balmy May suns.h.i.+ne. There were Scottish pipers and the bonny bride carried an armful of wild wooded bluebells and heather instead of a formal pink rose bouquet. Adam took his vows in the tartan-trimmed church with a heart that was truly satisfied and content. There was no feeling that a part of him was pleading to an inaccessible part of his lady; he knew she was all his. For Stevie it was better than any ending she could have written. Like her alter ego Evie Sweetwell, she had found her Damme MacQueen. And he was even better in the flesh than he was on the page.

Matthew sent the happy couple a silver-plated bluebirds of happinesshe paid for it in cashand a building society cheque for three thousand pounds, made out to Mrs Stevie MacLean. It was the first time she had seen her new name in print and it made her insides as runny as the waters of the Clyde.

They had a Ceilidh at the reception and a Scottish band, and wore kilts and danced jigs and reels such as Blue Bonnets and The Birds and the Bees well into the night. Things went awry as the champagne flowed, and some of the dancers ended up with different partners from the ones they started out with. But that seems to have turned out all right.

The newlyweds compromised on some of the Scottish traditionsthe groom didn't drink whisky and wore very nice Calvin Klein boxers under his kilt. He did, however, eat a Sa.s.senach alive for breakfast the next morning. And by all accounts, she rather enjoyed it too. They honeymooned for five days in an old castle by a beautiful loch, then they picked up Danny from Catherine's and whisked him away to EuroDisney for a week.

Highland Fling became the best-selling Midnight Moon ever. The critics panned it as romantic claptrap, of course, but the readers loved it so much that a film was made with a gorgeously rough American actor who could actually manage quite a good Scots accent. Apparently, the top girls of Hollywood clawed each other to death for the part of Evie. The enormous cheque for the film rights arrived with Stevie exactly eighteen months after Adam MacLean first kissed her.

Adam discovered the increasing turn-on of women with soft curves, freckly noses and absolutely no ability whatsoever to control flour. Stevie was to wonder how she had ever lived without large crus.h.i.+ng Highland thighs, red stubble and thunderous, unintelligible endearments.

Adam bought Humbleby Cottage for himself and his bride, his wee adopted laddie and their auburn-haired newborn daughter, Rona, and they all still live happily there today with a huge sloppy dog, a mad ginger kitten and an enormous black rabbit called McBatman.

Life, for the MacLean clan, is braw.

Acknowledgements.

A very sweet part about writing a book is being able to say a very public thank you to a swarm of wonderful people.

To the totally fabulous guys at the agencyDarley Anderson, Julia Churchill, Emma White, Ella Andrews, Madeleine Buston and Zoe King. And at Hive HQSimon and Schusterto Queen Suzanne Baboneau, Libby Vernon, Nigel Stoneman, Joe Pickering, Amanda s.h.i.+pp, Caroline Turner, and the lovely Grainne Reidy who always make me feel so welcome when I fly down there and, of course, to my gallant chaperone Paul Evans. And to the ultimate Worker, Joan Deitch, for combing out all the c.r.a.ppy bits from my ma.n.u.script.

To the nectar in my lifemy friends: Alec Sillifant for allowing me to refer to his smas.h.i.+ng children's story 'The Useless Troll' (published by Meadowside Children's Books) and the best male mate in the world Paul Sear. To Ged and Kaely Backland, Cath Marklew, Maggie Birkin, Sue Welfare, Debra Mitch.e.l.l, Sue Mahomet, Rachel Hobson, Tracy Harwood, Judy Sedgewick, the enviably artistic Chris Sedgewick, the gorgeous and superbly talented Lucie Whitehouse and my S.U.N. sistersKaren Baker, Helen Clapham and Pam Oliverall friends in the greatest sense of the word.

To Sara Atkinson at haworthcatrescue.org who is an absolute honey!

To the decidedly 'uncrusty' Dr Peter O'Dwyer and my solicitor David Gordon and the Attey gangBev Stacey and Mary Smith who have got me through a B of a year with kindness, support, expert expertise and very strong coffee.

To the smas.h.i.+ng Steph Johnson and Steph Daley at the Barnsley Chronicle, the delightful Jo Davison at the Sheffield Star and the magnificent Jayne Dowle at the Yorks.h.i.+re Post for all the nice things they've said about my book, my hair and my house!

To our man in the HighlandsIain MacLennan at www.Scottishquality.com for his Mcexcellent Gaelic Translation services.

To Miss Kate Taylor at Barnsley Sixth Form College who made me see Jane Austen as she was meant to be seen and turned English into my favourite subject.

To my beautiful 'pupae'Terence and George for not telling me to 'buzz aff' when I ask them if I've told them recently that I'm a novelist.

To my very special parents Jenny and Terry Hubbard for babysitting, making me huge Sunday dinners then listening to me drone on about my weight.

And last but by no means leastto the inspirational clan of Glasgow both past and presentall those wonderful warm, big-hearted, generous, funny, crazy aunts, uncles, cousins and friends who coloured my childhood days with bright tartan and flavoured my memories with square sausage, steak pie and Jocks' Loaf.

Tapadh leibh-you're the Bee's Knees, every single one of you.

Also by Milly Johnson.

The Yorks.h.i.+re Pudding Club.