The Birds and the Bees

by Milly Johnson

  ‘I promise I’d never do anything to hurt you,’ Matthew had said. It was just a shame other people weren’t as conscientious, it seemed.

  ‘Is he okay?’ asked Stevie.

  ‘Course he is. Out like a light.’

  ‘What happened to your hair?’ said Stevie. The sight of it was claiming a huge percentage of her attention.

  ‘Marilyn Monroe bleaching kit from abroad, don’t ask. And don’t ever let our Kate use you to test out her eBay buys. Bloody student beauticians! Anyway, never mind about me, what’s been going on? What did Billy Connolly want?’

  ‘Oh, just to tell me that Jo has run off with Matthew to Magalluf.’ She said it so matter-of-factly that Catherine presumed she was joking and laughed.

  ‘Oh, right. Stupid lout! Did you say you’d ring the police? What is he on? Run off with Jo, ha. As if Matt…’

  Her words dried up as Stevie handed her the booking confirmation and her mouth moved like a goldfish that was wondering where all the water in his bowl had gone. She read it three times and each time it seemed more ridiculous than the last.

  ‘No! He wouldn’t…he couldn’t do that to you! Not Matthew. Where is he? Have you rung him?’

  ‘He left his mobile at home.’

  ‘Did you check it for text messages?’

  ‘It’s wiped clean. And there’s no number for Jo in his phone book.’

  ‘Well, have you looked for his passport?’

  ‘It’s gone,’ said Stevie, crumbling a little more. It was starting to sink in that this might actually be happening to her. That Redbeard might be right.

  Catherine looked at the paper again. ‘Is it genuine?’

  ‘Why would he make it up?’

  ‘Because…er…’ Catherine tried to think of something constructive to say, but all that came out was another flurry of denials. ‘No way would Matthew do this to you! Not him. Not Matt!’

  ‘It looks as if he has, Cath,’ said Stevie in the sort of voice that Catherine’s youngest used when she was trying very desperately to be brave. She continued to stir until Catherine forcibly extracted the bowl from her, gently, because it looked as if Stevie badly needed something to hold onto, and gripping the spoon seemed to be the only thing keeping her from falling over.

  ‘This isn’t going to make a cake, ever,’ she said. ‘Not even a starving Oliver Twist would want a second helping of this. Come on, leave it. I’ll get our Kate to knock one up tonight and I’ll bring it over in the morning. It’s the least she can do after this,’ and she pointed upwards at her pink cloud of hair. Stevie gave none of her usual protests and just said a weary, ‘Thank you.’ Then Catherine tipped the mix down the sink. She was impressed. Stevie had actually managed to make it thinner than water.

  ‘Danny wanted to start calling Matt Daddy,’ said Stevie. ‘It was a good job I told him to wait until after the wedding.’

  ‘Look, Stevie, you need to talk to Matthew and find out what is going on. Will he ring you, to say he’s arrived in wherever he’s supposed to be–Inverness?’

  ‘Aberdeen. Maybe. He hasn’t been away before for any length of time so I don’t know what the usual sequence of events would be,’ Stevie shrugged. She didn’t know if he would ring or not. She didn’t know anything any more.

  ‘Of course he’ll ring,’ said Catherine heartily. Every man was innocent until proven guilty. Except Mick, who should have been hung, drawn and quartered and his knackers cut off before he’d even got to trial. Although she shouldn’t think ill of the dead.

  ‘What if it’s true? What do I do?’ said Stevie, trying to keep the panic out of her voice. She’d panicked last time and it had made her lose her grip, sent her into such a downward spiral of emotional quicksand that she thought she was destined to drown in it. Until Matthew held out his hand and offered her the lifeline of his love.

  And what about Danny? This was the only dad he’d ever known. He would lose two men in his life who had gone for the title and then bogged off before the crown was on their heads. What sort of damage would that do to his little heart? She was going through partners faster than Henry VIII, and look how his kids turned out. At that thought, Stevie caved into the huge pressure of tears and Catherine, her future chief bridesmaid, came over to give her a big hug, because that was easier than trying to work out what the hell to say to give any comfort.

  ‘I don’t know what you’ll do, love. Let’s cross that bridge when we come to it, eh? Look, pass me the phone. I’ll ring Eddie and tell him I’m staying with you tonight.’

  ‘No, I’m okay,’ said Stevie, pulling away and wiping madly at her eyes. ‘I need to think straight, and I can do that better on my own. I’ll just cry if you’re here and I really don’t want to do that. I’ll be fine. You go–you’ve got three hundred kids and a zoo to sort out.’

  ‘Cheeky!’ said Catherine, smiling softly.

  ‘Lucky you, though,’ said Stevie.

  ‘I can’t leave you,’ said Catherine. ‘Come home with me. You and Danny.’

  ‘Honestly, I’d rather be alone.’

  ‘Well, look,’ said Catherine, when she was fully convinced that Stevie really did want that and wasn’t being her usual overly independent self, ‘I’ll go and sort out this cake for Danny and I’ll be round first thing in the morning.’ She pre-empted the little protest that she saw coming, ‘And no, it isn’t a problem, before you start. My daughter owes me big time.’

  After extracting another fifty affirmations that Stevie would ring her immediately if she felt out of her depth and wanted to change her mind about coming over, Catherine went on her way back to her huge brood to tackle an urgent hair repair and an emergency baking project. Making a cake for her godson was the least she could do after breaking the vow she had made to herself: never to let another dickhead break his mother’s heart.

  The phone rang about ten minutes after Catherine had gone; it showed ‘number withheld’ on the caller display unit. Knowing instinctively who it would be, Stevie’s hand came out to pick it up. Then, realizing she couldn’t trust herself to act ‘normal’, she overrode the compulsion to speak to him, collapse into uncontrolled tears and beg him to come home. Instead, she let the answerphone handle it. It was, as she knew it would be, Matthew, her gorgeous tall fiancé with the dark brown hair and the dark brown eyes and the smile that made her heart melt like ice cream on a hotplate.

  ‘Hi, Stevie, it’s Matthew. You…er…must be in bed. Anyway, just a quick call to let you know that I’ve arrived safely–motorway’s a nightmare! Looks very busy, lots of people. All set for a good hard week so I don’t know when I’ll have the chance to speak to you again. Forgot my mobile didn’t I, ha ha! Anyway, take care and hope everything’s okay. Er…bye then.’

  No I love you, no Hope Danny’s okay, no Miss you. His voice sounded a lot further away than Aberdeen. And she was probably imagining it, but every one of the three million times she played that message back, she was sure she could hear the strains of ‘Guantanamera’ in the background.

  Chapter 2

  In Catherine’s big homely Waltonesque-style kitchen in the neighbouring village of Hoodley, black-haired, black-gowned, scarlet-lipped Kate Flanagan was expertly baking a cake. In her mother’s frilly apron, she looked rather like a beautiful domestic vampire.

  Her father gave her a big squashy squeeze as he passed her on his way to the teapot and said, ‘Eeh, you’ll make someone a lovely little housewife one day!’ knowing that it would greatly offend her feminist principles, and though Kate shoved him away, she was laughing a little too.

  Catherine, towelled up and sitting in the front room, waiting for the auburn dye to restore her locks to their former fake glory, watched the interchange and it brought an unexpected flurry of tears to her eyes; a curious mix of happy ones that she had such a loving family and sad ones because life seemed determined always to short-change her dear friend on that score. What was it about Stevie that attracted plonkers? Stevie who was sweet and selfless and deser
ved so much better than the Micks and Matthews of this world, whereas she–Catherine Flanagan, outspoken, brash and loud–had been blessed with a wonderful husband, six gorgeous (when they weren’t fighting) kids and a big chaotic house full of love, laughter and daft pets. How would she feel if a Jo MacLean took all this away from her?

  ‘Here you are, love,’ Eddie said, handing his wife a cup of tea. He looked at her worried face and knew instantly what she was thinking. ‘You should have brought her and the little one back with you.’

  ‘She wouldn’t come,’ said Catherine. ‘I was all for frog-marching them over, but she really did want to be alone.’

  ‘Can’t believe it,’ said Eddie, shaking his head. ‘Matthew Finch! I’d have put my all on him not doing that to Stevie.’

  ‘Tell me about it,’ said Catherine, a quarter angry but threequarters sad and disappointed. She had grown very fond of Matthew. She had never liked Mick and been proved right on that one, but Matthew was a good bloke–decent, caring, considerate. Catherine had been instrumental in pushing Stevie and Matt together, following their initial meeting at a mutual friend’s engagement party, because she knew they would be well-matched. He was handsome, kind, big-hearted, and willing to take on a little boy who wasn’t his, which spoke bucketloads. Stevie would never have settled for anyone who didn’t treat Danny well. She knew what a minefield the whole step-parent thing could be.

  After Mick had broken her best friend’s heart, five years earlier, Catherine had screened every male who came within fifty miles of her. Matthew had put a big fat tick in every box on her score-sheet of essentials.

  ‘I’d be lying if I said a warning hadn’t flagged up in my head when Stevie told me about this Jo woman he’d got friendly with at work,’ said Catherine. ‘Vulnerable women are never fully aware of the power they have to make a bloke feel like a hero, but admittedly it wasn’t much of a warning. After all, this was Matthew we were talking about. Reliable, faithful old Matthew!’ Catherine laughed hard.

  ‘You ever seen her, that Jo?’ asked Eddie.

  ‘Just the once,’ said Catherine. ‘I must admit I’d been curious when Stevie started talking about her and I was dying to see her and check her out. Then we bumped into her in town one day.’

  ‘And?’

  ‘She seemed nice and friendly enough. A little too nice, if you know what I mean.’

  ‘How “too nice”?’ asked Eddie, offering her a bite of his Jaffa Cake.

  ‘Well, when she spotted Stevie she came rushing over as if she’d been a long-lost relative she hadn’t seen for twenty years. It crossed my mind that it was a bit over the top, but then, given all that she had been going through and how kind Matthew and Stevie had been to her, maybe she really was that pleased to see her. That’s what I thought at the time, anyway.’

  ‘What’s she look like?’

  ‘Tall, slim, long dark hair, big brown eyes. Very, very pretty.’ Catherine suddenly realized that she wouldn’t have liked a vulnerable Jo MacLean anywhere near Eddie, had the roles been reversed. What’s more, for all the gushing she had done over Stevie, Catherine hadn’t noticed a lot of warmth in Jo MacLean’s eyes.

  ‘It’s a flaming weird business,’ said Eddie, having a long gulp of tea. ‘I reckon he’s having a mid-life crisis and he’ll be back.’

  Catherine looked over at him and smiled. Brad Pitt he wasn’t, but she loved the bones of her big, eighteen-stone husband with the Worzel Gummidge hairdo. Never once had she thought he would be unfaithful to her, but after the shocker of today, she wondered if anyone really knew their partners as well as they thought they did. Her own nice cosy world felt a little rocked too.

  Eddie saw that look in her eye and laughed. ‘Oy, you! Don’t be tarring us all with the same brush,’ he warned with a twinkle in his soft, hazel eyes.

  ‘I don’t know what you mean,’ said Catherine unconvincingly.

  ‘Yes, you do, you lying little bugger.’ He tweaked her nose.

  ‘Well, I think I’ll have you electronically tagged just to be on the safe side,’ said Catherine, but it only sounded like half a joke.

  ‘It’s more likely you’d leave me,’ said Eddie. ‘I’m hardly chuffing Hugh Grant, am I?’

  ‘I don’t like chuffing Hugh Grant,’ Catherine told him. ‘Well, I do to watch, but I wouldn’t want to snog him.’

  ‘I wouldn’t leave you, babe,’ said Eddie, tilting her face up towards his and giving her a kiss on her lips that still made something deep within her tingle. He smelt of soap and Fahrenheit aftershave and home.

  ‘Ugh, gross,’ said the cake-baking Goth in the background.

  ‘Mind your own business, Morticia,’ commanded Eddie over his shoulder, before turning back to his wife. ‘And you, drink your tea and try to stop worrying about things you can do nothing about.’

  That was easier said than done because Catherine felt that she had let her friend down in a terrible way. It was impossible for this to have happened. NO ONE got through Catherine’s hair-trigger defence system for Stevie. She would never let the woman she was closer to than her own sisters go through all that crap again. Or so she had promised herself.

  ‘Well, all I can say is, that’s men for you!’ said seventeen-year-old Kate with a heavy sigh of experience. She drifted from the room like a dramatic black plume of smoke, leaving Eddie and Catherine crippled from the effort of keeping in a bout of laughter that, at that moment, was so very well-needed.

  Chapter 3

  When Adam left Stevie’s house he got into his very nice car and took a minute to study the medium-sized detached house of his love rival. Boring, neat enough outside but nothing spectacular, how he’d always imagined Matthew Finch to be from the way Jo had described him. That was, until he’d seen a framed photo on the dresser (next to another ridiculous Midnight Moon book) of the frumpy (most likely bottle) blonde, lumpy girlfriend snuggling up to a clean-shaven Prince Charming type: dark hair, dark eyes, nice white-toothed smile. He presumed that must be him, and he was far too good-looking for her. Surely she must have realized that it was only a matter of time before Finch’s chocolate-coloured eyes were drawn towards someone his physical equal, like his own doe-eyed Jo. By Jings, the very least that short, unspecial-looking untidy woman could have done was look after her house and brush her hair occasionally to keep her man interested. Anger management classes might have been a good idea too. That way, her man might not have been on red alert, looking for company and desperate for love and attention. And he might not have presented a tortured and vulnerable side to Adam’s beautiful, sensitive lady of eighteen months–Joanna.

  Funny though, he hadn’t expected Finch’s woman to look as stunned as she had done by his revelation. By all accounts, she was a heartless cow. On second thoughts, she was probably thinking about being split up from his money. That type always did.

  Adam sped off down the bypass, out of the town and towards the sprawling estate of newly built ‘Paradise’ properties on the edge of an ex-pit village that had recently been given an extreme makeover. There, he pulled onto the drive of the fortieth finished double-fronted detached house, a design at the top of the luxury bracket. He turned the key in the lock and then quickly deactivated the alarm that protected all their state-of-the-art entertainment equipment, although he was far more of an effective deterrent to would-be burglars than any bell would be.

  She’ll be back, he thought. How could she leave all this? Her dream home. He looked around at the expensive curtains and carpets, the extensive CD and DVD collection, all the creature comforts anyone could desire. All for her. He’d get her back; whatever it took, he’d get her back. How could she leave him? She couldn’t leave him, he wouldn’t let her.

  He smoothed his hand over the freshly plastered wall where the dining room led out to their almost finished conservatory. Then with a huge primal roar, he pulled back his fist and drove it into the wall, leaving the deep, wide impression of his knuckles.

  That night, Stevie didn�
�t give way to the tears that threatened, despite a concrete blockage the size of Venus stuck in her throat. Crying meant grieving, and grieving meant she had already lost him. Crying would have sapped the energy reserves that she badly needed to draw from. This wasn’t a time for emotional output; she needed her head clear in order to think. What was it about Jo that was better than her? She began to write a list. It went on a bit longer than she had anticipated and began to look like a seriously bad idea.

  She remembered how, on all the occasions when she’d moaned about her figure not being quite what she wanted it to be, or that there seemed to be more little laughter lines appearing at her eye-corners, Matthew had kissed her far from perfect nose and said she was just fine and dandy as she was. Obviously not fine and dandy enough if he’d buggered off to Majorca with someone with a flatter stomach, longer legs, smaller conk and all the other sickening ers that she couldn’t compete with. Not without major plastic surgery and a magic wand anyway.

  Stevie turned to a new page in the pad. This time her head would lead on how to tackle this one, not her heart. She would work out a plan to get him back. She would let him slip back seamlessly into her life and pretend this had never happened. He would never suspect she knew of his unfaithful escapade. Whatever it took to make this happen, she would do.

  Whatever.

  Chapter 4

  The next morning, Stevie found Danny downstairs, wearing, or rather drowning in, his dressing-gown. On the label, it said it was for four to five year olds, but omitted to add the word hippos. He was staring at the empty cake-tin he had just found on the kitchen table. His bottom lip protruded so far, it should have had a cliff warning on it.

  ‘Mummy, where’s the cake you promised me?’ he asked.

  ‘Wait and see. Breakfast first,’ said Stevie, clapping her hands like Joyce Grenfell in teacher mode. Danny had his usual orange juice and Coco Pops, and then sucked up the chocolatey milk with a straw. Then he washed his face and brushed his teeth, before getting his blue and grey uniform on for school, socks first. Everything always in the same order. Danny was a creature of habit and got upset if his routines were interrupted. Apparently, that was a sign of a gifted child, the nursery teacher had told her after an infuriating morning getting Danny down the path to school after they were late and rushing, and there hadn’t been enough time to let him read out aloud all the numbers of the houses they passed, like they usually did. Sign of a child that wants his bottom walloped more like, she had thought at the time.