The Birds And The Bees Part 9

Danny was tired out and asleep by half past seven, which left one and a half hours of absolute nerve-jangling torture in which the hands of the clock seemed to stay so still that at one point Stevie lifted it to her ear to see if it was still working. The time went trebly slow from nine o'clock until five past, when Matthew's black Punto pulled up outside. For the seven millionth time, Stevie quickly checked her precisely chosen casual clothes in the mirror and looked to see that there was no lipstick on her teeth. Matthew knocked on the door, which indicated a big marker of their estrangement, and Stevie was careful not to jump too quickly to open it. Slowly, slowly, she paced herself. She opened, smiled, invited him in and then went to sit in the big winged armchair.

Adam's words suddenly reverberated very loudly in her head. 'Play it exactly the opposite tae how he'd expect you tae behave.' Not that she was going to play it any other way, but he made her push it that one notch further. Matthew would have expected her to be tarted up to the nines ready to seduce him back. He would have expected her to sit on the sofa in the hope that he would join her and not be able to resist snuggling up. He would have expected her to have the kettle on and offer him tea, so she did none of those things.

'What can I do for you?' said Stevie with a small smile.

'Well, firstly I came to see if there was any post,' said Matthew.

'It's on the hall table waiting for you,' said Stevie, still clinging on for grim death to her friendly nice-lady smile.

'And secondly...' He raked his hand through his thick dark hair. 'Sorry, it's a bit awkward. I thought you should know, because I don't want there to be any lies between us'which made Stevie gulp down the biggest sarcastic laugh her voice box could hope to create'I...er...asked Joanna out last night.'

'Joanna? But she's married,' said Stevie, taking her place on the stage to receive her Oscar for 'best shocked actress'.

'She's...er...split up from Adam at last. As I found out last night. So...er...I'll need the house back as soon as I can.'

Stevie felt shaky and sick. 'What? You're moving her in alreadyafter one night?'

'No, of course not. Don't be silly.' Matthew's hand went nervously to his hair again and then he started rubbing his neck. He really wasn't very good at lying.

He must think I'm an idiot to believe all this, thought Stevie, suddenly filled with a boiling rage which took over her mouth, totally bypa.s.sing her brain.

'Well, actually, I was going to tell you, Matthew, that I've found somewhere and I'll be out by Wednesday. I can't make it any earlier than that, I'm afraid, so I hope that will be okay with you?'

'Oh yes...great.'

Great? He actually said great. The rage temperature shot up a few more centigrade. She was not even letting herself think of what she was saying; she just wanted to show him she was in control and okay and bigger than this. Even if she wasn't. Even if inside she was vibrating with anger and fear and hurt, outside she would look as if she could cope. Stevie stood up, surprised that her legs had been strong enough to support her.

'I'll pop my keys through the letterbox when I leave. Let's say, by Wednesday noon.'

'Five o'clock would do,' said Matthew, seemingly unable to cover up the sweat of his relief. If he'd had a handkerchief handy he would have probably mopped his brow at this point, Stevie thought. Like Louis Armstrong singing 'Wonderful World'.

'Okay, five o'clock then.'

'Right. Brilliant.'

'So let's get your post,' Stevie said, rising to her feet. 'Where are you staying?' She clung on to the amicable smile. It was like hanging onto something burning; it hurt and she couldn't wait to let go of it.

'Oh, just one of the hotels in town.'

Hotel. So it wasn't a grotty little B&B after all then. She wanted to ask which one, and whether Jo was staying there too, and watch him squirm because, had she had any life savings left, Stevie would have put them on the perfidious pair being holed up together in a double room in this mysterious and nameless 'hotel in town'. But that's what he would be expecting her to do, cross-examine him, so she didn't. She played outside his expectations. There was something she did need to ask, though.

'So, about our wedding,' she began, her voice croaking like a frog on forty Woodbines a day.

Matthew didn't say anything; he just looked at her with big, apologetic, brown eyes.

Stevie gritted her teeth and said, 'I thought so. Well okay,' she managed, with a 'let's get on with it then' hand clap. 'You tell your parents and your relatives, I'll do the rest.'

'Sorry,' he said, as if he had just accidentally stood on her toe and not smashed up her life with a sledgehammer.

'To be expected in the circ.u.mstances. Especially if you're asking other people out,' she said, her upper lip so stiff, she doubted it would soften in three tons of Lenor.

'Bye, Stevie, you're such a lovely, understanding person,' he said, and he shocked her with a big grateful hug after he picked up his post and stuck it in his pocket, which at least proved to her just how surprising the unexpected could be. She extricated herself, battling the urge to stay there and fill herself with the smell and the feel of him and to beg him not to leave her.

'Bye, Matthew.'

She lasted five seconds after the door closed before breaking down. How could she have been so stupid as to think a nice hairdo and a few pounds off would make any difference? Hadn't she learned anything from last time?

When she first suspected Mick had been having an affair, she had post mortemed herself to shreds. What was she? Too porky, too blonde, too unfit, too arty, too short, too straight-haired, too blue-eyed, too incredibly clumsy, too c.r.a.p at cake baking? What was it that had caused Mick to turn his attentions to another woman? Then she had found out who he was having an affair with. A barmaidLinda: hook nose, yellow teeth and proud owner of incredibly fat ankles.

'This hasn't happened because you've got a slightly bigger b.u.m than you should have, girl,' said a nice, kind part within her, eager to give some comfort. It hadn't stopped her from wanting to know just why it had happened then, to pin his actions to a reason. Why was it so hard for blokes to understand that all an ex might need to go forward was a two-minute explanation? Why did they hold up an aggressive crucifix against the demon of 'closure'? Even, 'I ran off with Linda because I happen to have a thing about women who look like bulldogs,' would have been better than the not-knowing why. But the cowardly swines saw no advantage in facing up to what they had done and so women started ripping into themselves trying to find the answer, as they would their house if a ring had been lost and leaving no stone unturned to find it. No wonder they started boiling rabbits and sewing prawns into curtains. Well, Stevie wasn't going to go mad this time. She wasn't going to hide Matthew's clothes, follow him in his lunch-hour, starve herself or give him her full emotional repertoire in a misguided, desperate attempt to get him back. All that would do was drive him further away, as she knew to her cost with Mick.

Stevie crunched herself up into a small ball and sobbed quietly, so Danny wouldn't hear, though she wanted to keen and howl at full belt like a wolf at the moon and let out all the pain. And what the b.u.g.g.e.ry b.o.l.l.o.c.ks had made her say she had somewhere else to go? In three days' time too? 'So what are you going to do now?' the sensible part of her brain shouted at the smarta.r.s.e side. The smarta.r.s.e side was not forthcoming with any answers.

She couldn't stay at Catherine's, although she knew the Flanagans would s.h.i.+ft and jiggle to accommodate her and Danny. There would be no s.p.a.ce to work, plus she wouldn't be able to work anyway from the guilt of inconveniencing them. Her mother lived too far away for Danny's school and anyway, Edna Honeywell only had a one-bedroomed flat, and a life in which there was even less room for them both. As for her fatherwell, he wasn't even in the short-list of people to ring with this one.

Stevie sobbed some more, letting herself wallow in rare self-pity. Five months ago, she had had her own house, a nice full bank account and a fabtastic boyfriend who loved her just as she was. So how had she got to this placegrossly depleted savings and three days away from being homeless? She hated to admit this, but there was only one person who just might be able to stop everything slipping away from her. Stevie went out to the recycle bin in the garage where all her sc.r.a.p paper was kept awaiting collection, scavenged around until she found what she was looking for, and then she rang the number on the retrieved business card.

'h.e.l.looo,' said a voice full of nails and razor-blades.

'h.e.l.lo, Mr MacLean. It's Stevie Honeywell. I think I'm ready to talk.'

Chapter 19.

It was with a certain amount of c.o.c.kiness that Adam MacLean swaggered up the short path and rang the doorbell of 15 Blossom Lane the next morning, at nine thirty, as arranged, and it was with a certain amount of humility that Stevie received him. He accepted her offer of a cup of coffee and followed her into the kitchen where a percolator was already chewing on some beautiful-smelling beans. The room looked completely different when it wasn't covered in flour, he thought. She had obviously tightened up her act a bit since Matty Boy left. It was gleaming actually, and so was the front room that they went into when the coffee was ready, give or take a bit of mess that made a home comfortableSpiderman slippers, jotters and pens, a big tub of Lego and a very strange head made out of a sock sitting in a jam jar with gra.s.s for hair. Adam sat down on a sofa that was meant to hold four people and took up nearly half of it. On the coffee-table there was one of those infernal books that daft women read, called The Carousel of Life by Beatrice Pollen. He picked it up, gave the back cover blurb a quick dismissive read and put it back down again in such a way that gave Stevie no doubt of his opinion of it.

'So?' he said, rather smugly. 'You changed yerrr mind.'

'It wasn't an easy decision.'

'I can bet.'

They even managed to make their coffee sipping look like a duel.

'What was it then that finally made ye ring?'

'HeMatthewcame around last night.'

'Aye, you said he was coming roon, when I saw you in the supermarket. With the giant cuc.u.mber.'

Stevie bared her teeth a little but didn't rise to the bait. Instead, she continued icily, 'He told me that he and her had got together at Pam and Will's wedding.'

'Oh?'

'And I have to get out of this house by Wednesday and cancel my wedding.'

'Oh.' It was quite a sympathetic 'oh' for him, who seemed to deduce from the speed at which she started slurping coffee then, that she was possibly quite upset about having to do that.

'So where will ye go?' he said.

'I don't have a clue. I'll have to start looking bigtime. And packing. G.o.d, I don't know which to do first.' Her voice went all funny and she coughed it away.

'So do ye want tae know what I think noo?' said Adam MacLean, who was wearing jeans and a cornflower-blue s.h.i.+rt that exactly matched his eyes.

'Go on,' she said.

'Ah think you and I should pretend to start winchin.'

Winchin? What the h.e.l.l did that mean? She needed an interpreter to converse with the b.l.o.o.d.y man.

'I'm sorry, you've lost me.'

'Winchin. It means "go-ing out to-geth-er".'

'Who?'

'You and me.'

'You and me?' Stevie laughed, waiting for the punchline, because that was a joke, wasn't it? And not a very funny one either. She was being serious and he was messing about.

'No, it's not a joke,' he said. 'This is part of my master-plan.'

'Your master-plan?'

'Is there an echo in here?' he grumbled. Stevie ignored him and he went on, 'First of all, I didn't fight the decision for Jo to leave me. I just let her go. I knew that would affect her far more than if I acted like she might expect me to.'

Stevie didn't ask how Jo would expect him to act. That seemed pretty obvious. It had to involve something dangerous that hurt a lot.

'And you want us to go out together?'

'My G.o.d naw!' he protested a bit too enthusiastically. 'Just to pretend.'

'You're barking mad.'

'Quite possibly, but have you any sane solutions?'

That shut Stevie up because she hadn't.

'Any chance of another coffee, please?' he asked. 'With a wee bit more mulk this time, if I could?'

'Yes, of course,' said Stevie, and went half-dazed into the kitchen. Adam picked up another Midnight Moon book from the table under the window. Another by Beatrice PollenThe Silent Strangershe must be her favourite. Obviously, this Pollen woman was some sad old grand-maw of a writer with a loveless life who lived her dreams through characters with names like Maddox Flockton and Devon Earnshaw. Jeez, who thought o' this c.r.a.p?

Devon flirtatiously pushed back her luxurious auburn hair, exposing her long creamy neck. Maddox grabbed her, ignoring her protests as he rained kisses onto that neck until she surrendered to him and groaned aloud, 'Maddox, Oh Maddox!'

b.o.l.l.o.c.ks, oh b.o.l.l.o.c.ks, more like, he thought, closing the book and putting it back where he had found it by the window. Then his eye caught sight of the sign on the house opposite, just before Stevie returned to put a giant cup down on the coffee-table for him. It had been a joke Christmas present and was one-step short of a horse trough.

'What's that hoos? Is it tae let?' He pointed to the big cottage opposite.

'Yes,' said Stevie, roughly understanding what he was saying.

'Why don't you get that wan?'

'You are joking!' said Stevie with a laugh belonging to Mrs Rochester. 'I couldn't afford that in a month, sorry, year, sorry millennium of Sundays.'

'Will Housing Benefit not cover it?'

'Housing Benefit?' said Stevie indignantly. 'What on earth makes you think I would get Housing Benefit?'

'I...er...just presumed, seeing as you're at the gym every day, that you didnae work.'

'Well, I do work actually, thank you!' said Stevie.

'What do you dae?'

'None of your b.l.o.o.d.y business!' Like she was going to tell him that after he had tossed her book down as if it was some worthless piece of c.r.a.p and then have him do a snidey laugh thing.

'Sorry I asked,' said Adam, holding his hands up in a gesture of peace. He took a sip of coffee and, contrary to her silent wish, didn't burn his throat in agony. 'So, how expensive is it?'

Stevie sighed and got out the newspaper to show him some brief details. 'Too expensive for me, and my salary.'

'Christ awmighty!' said Adam as the figure shot out at him from the page. 'Be cheaper tae move into a Hilton Penthoos.'

'Precisely.'

'Hmmm.' He rubbed his smooth, freshly shaven chin in thought. 'Although the Hilton doesn't have such a good view as that hoos has.'

'Pardon?'

'And because you can't afford it, that's even more reason for it to be the perfect place.' He was thinking out aloud. This was starting to look verrry interesting.

Stevie shook her head. 'I haven't a clue what you're talking about, Mr MacLean.'

'If you lived there...'

'I couldn't anyway, even if I had a million in the bank,' b.u.t.ted in Stevie, shaking her head quite defiantly. 'There is no way I could stand to see those two in this house every day and every night, and furthermore-'

'Hold your wheesht, woman!' Adam growled. 'If you lived there, you would absolutely cause them mental h.e.l.l. "How could she stand to live there opposite tae us? How could she afford it?" they'd ask. Then I turn up wi' floooers...'

Floooers? 'If you mean "floors", at a rough guess I think it might have them already, Mr MacLean. And possibly ceilings. Maybe even a wall.' What is the man on!

'Och! Not flairs, floooers.'