The Birds and the Bees

by Milly Johnson

  ‘So–money,’ said Adam, answering her unasked question.

  ‘Great!’ said Stevie. At last. Now she’d find out just which percentage of the flesh nearest her heart she would need to cut out in order to pay him.

  ‘May I?’ He gestured towards the table.

  ‘Yes, of course,’ said Stevie, and he sat down at a chair there and got out a folded piece of paper from his pocket.

  ‘Do you want something to drink?’ she asked. ‘Tea, coffee, wine? Sorry, no spirits.’ She added that last bit with an over-sorry smile. She didn’t want to give him the opportunity of fuelling up on whisky and starting a singsong and/or a fight.

  ‘Wine would be nice, thank you,’ he said.

  ‘White or red?’

  ‘Red, please,’ he answered, almost sure it would arrive at the table with the £1.89 label still on it. She surprised him with a very rich little South African Pinotage, fragrant and heavy on the summer fruits and berries. He nodded appreciatively.

  ‘Nice,’ he said.

  ‘Yes, isn’t it?’ she drawled. I’ve surprised him, she thought. He thinks I buy crappy wines to get me drunk cheap and quick.

  ‘Look, here are my calculations.’ Adam smoothed out the paper. ‘I’ve taken a three-month lease and we’ll assess the situation after that, if it takes that long, but if you can pay me, say, four hundred pounds a month, I can cover the rest. Can you manage that?’

  Stevie stared at him. She had been expecting so much more, a thousand a month at least and dubious sexual requests. As much as it shamed her to say it, if it would have guaranteed Matthew coming back, she would have considered stumping up on all fronts, and back.

  Four hundred was reasonable, too reasonable, but for all she couldn’t stand the man, she wouldn’t have cheated him.

  ‘Mr MacLean…’

  ‘The name’s Adam.’

  ‘Sorry…‘Adam.’ She made the weighty pause before his name sound like an insult. ‘I can afford more.’

  ‘No, I said I’d take four hundred–that’ll dae.’

  Stevie shook her head. ‘Sorry, I’m not a charity Mr…Adam.’

  ‘Charity, by Jings! Whit on earth are you talking aboot, woman?’

  ‘Seven hundred. I know what this place is costing. That’s what I can afford. Seven hundred a month.’

  ‘Four.’

  ‘I can do eight at a push.’

  ‘This is bartering in reverse!’ said Adam, pushing his hand back through his hair. ‘Are ye mad?’

  ‘Obviously yes, to be here in the first place,’ said Stevie calmly. Four hundred was so low as to be suspicious. She would rather not be in his debt so much.

  ‘What do you do for a living that you can afford to throw your money aboot?’ said Adam.

  ‘None of your business,’ said Stevie, ‘and I’m hardly throwing it away. I’m living here and it’s a lovely, big, expensive house. Eight hundred, Mr MacLean, that’s my final offer.’

  Adam MacLean sat back in the chair and slowly folded his arms. He looked faintly amused.

  ‘So if I say no, what are ye going to do? Refund me to death?’

  She didn’t answer. She just stared him out until he broke eye-contact and smiled resignedly.

  ‘Okay, if it makes you feel better, let’s say seven hundred. That is my final offer. I can take a cheque.’

  Stevie produced one she had made earlier, like Valerie Singleton, and Adam put it down on the table, slowly moving his head from side to side.

  ‘Crazy lady,’ was his only comment.

  ‘Would you like to eat something?’ said Stevie. ‘I made a chilli. It’ll help pass the time. Unless you want to play Scrabble.’ Neanderthal could be quite a high word score.

  ‘Food would be very nice. I am actually quite hungry,’ said Adam. He crossed to the kitchen window and peered through the blinds. There appeared to be no activity at all in Matthew’s house. The night was closing in, the curtains weren’t drawn, and no lights had been turned on. Despite the presence of the cars, it looked very much as if they were out. Och nooo!

  Adam excused himself and went upstairs to the loo. The front bedroom door was closed with a KEEP OUT SUPERHERO’S ROOM door hanger on the handle. Stevie’s bedroom door was open and he poked his head inside to find it was tidy also, and subtly scented like a sweet summer garden. A Midnight Moon book was on the bedside cabinet, by Alexis Tracey. The bed had a big puffy quilt like his Granny Walker used to have. He and his sisters would creep in and bounce on it and his granny would turn a blind eye, because she knew they didn’t have much else in life to make them smile.

  ‘Want a hand?’ he asked, appearing in the kitchen doorway once again and filling it more than the door did.

  ‘You can stick that garlic bread in the oven if you want,’ said Stevie, pointing to a tray with a herby loaf covered in cheese gratings and salsa. Home-made garlic bread, Adam thought.

  His eyes must have lingered on it a bit too long, for she said, ‘What’s wrong? Not to your taste, Mr MacLean?’

  ‘Not at all,’ said Adam, taking the bread and putting it in the oven. ‘It’s just that the first time I saw you, you appeared not to have an affinity with cooking.’

  ‘I was baking,’ said Stevie. ‘I can cook okay, I just can’t bake. For some reason, if it involves flour, it just doesn’t happen for me. The kitchen seems to explode.’

  ‘Oh I see,’ said Adam. He watched Stevie scurry about trying to locate the rice in one of the cupboards.

  ‘Mind if I try oot the cinema surround?’ he said, thumbing towards the lounge.

  ‘It’s your house,’ Stevie sniffed.

  ‘I’m trying to be polite,’ he smiled wearily.

  ‘Go right ahead,’ said Stevie in her best part nice-hostess and part bugger-off voice.

  Whilst the rice was cooking she stole a look across to Matthew’s house. ‘Why aren’t you in? Where are you, you bastard! Don’t you realize what I’m doing for you?’ she said in the direction of the unfaithful house, which was now keeping Jo safe and warm. Well, lukewarm, for life at the cottage was much more comfortable temperature-wise. Matthew kept the central-heating thermostat very low. It gave them the excuse to cuddle up lots. Where had all that love and affection gone? Maybe it was hiding dormant in the walls, waiting for her return. It couldn’t just disappear into nowhere, could it?

  The buzzer telling her that the rice and bread were ready rescued her from unwelcome tear-duct activity. She dished up and was about to carry it to the table when Adam came in to help her. She hoped she had made him enough; after all, she had only done three ton.

  ‘This is quite nice,’ he said, tucking right in. He sounded surprised, as if he only thought her capable of tackling boil in the bag cod and crispy pancakes.

  ‘Why, thank you,’ she said, with an ultra-sarcastic smile, but he seemed too absorbed in his food to notice.

  He asked her again what she did for a living, and once again she told him she wasn’t telling him. Then he asked her how her son had taken to the move and she answered that he had been remarkably ‘cool’–in the warm sense–about it. Then she changed the subject because Danny was not part of all this. She didn’t want him any more confused than he had been already, and she didn’t want Adam MacLean talking about her son; he was off-limits. Adam MacLean, however, was nothing if not persistent.

  ‘How old is he?’ he asked.

  ‘Four,’ said Stevie.

  ‘Does he go to Lockelands School around the corner?’

  ‘Yes.’

  ‘Hard work at that age, aren’t they?’

  ‘He’s a good boy,’ said Stevie. The clipped monosyllables weren’t putting him off, obviously.

  ‘So Matthew’s no’ his daddy then?’ he asked mischievously, for he had already worked out the answer to that one.

  ‘No,’ said Stevie, clearly irritated. ‘I’ve only known Matthew for two years.’

  ‘Ah, so your wee boy was two when you met.’

  ‘My goodness, you can
do sums as well. Where do your talents end, I wonder?’

  Adam growled and spooned a little more chilli his way. ‘He a local boy?’

  ‘Matthew? Yes.’

  ‘No, your wee boy’s daddy.’

  ‘Yes, he was a local boy too.’

  ‘Wes?’

  Okay, she would end all the questions now.

  ‘Yes, “wes”. I’m a widow, Mr MacLean. My husband died when I was two months’ pregnant, if you must know. Danny never knew his father.’

  Adam stopped mid-chew. What she had said sank in and he had the grace to look slightly ashamed of himself for thinking her a loose piece. Jo had twisted that particular detail. She’d told him that Danny didn’t know his father because Stevie wasn’t sure who he was. He started to eat again.

  ‘I’m sorry.’

  ‘Yes, well, that’s life. Or rather it isn’t,’ said Stevie with a black little laugh.

  They chewed on some more and Stevie filled up their glasses.

  ‘So how long have you actually lived with Matthew then?’ asked Adam.

  ‘Well, I was introduced to him about two years ago, as I say, but we first went out as a couple eighteen months ago. I moved in with him at New Year,’ said Stevie. ‘I really thought I was doing the right thing. You have to take chances sometimes, don’t you? Even if you do keep getting it wrong.’ She gulped back any more leakages of information. ‘So what about you and…?’

  Nope, she still couldn’t say the name.

  ‘The same. I’ve known her just over eighteen months; lived together for fifteen.’

  Stevie put down her fork. It was the first proper meal she’d had in ages, even though she had barely cleared half of the small portion she had given herself.

  ‘You’d think after aw that time, you’d know someone enough not to get hurt like this, if that makes any sense?’ said Adam.

  ‘Yes, it makes perfect sense,’ said Stevie, knowing exactly what he meant. She had been with Mick just over eighteen months, too, and thought she knew him inside out. Before that, there had been Welsh Jonny, a hideous flirt of a police officer whom she discovered having email affairs with half the known world–all at least fifteen years his senior–from a menopausal Lulu look-alike in London to a tan-tighted granny in Tyneside. They split up after eighteen months, no surprise there then, when he upped and left her for TTG just as her retirement lump sum came through. It made Stevie quite ill to think that Jonny had probably been fantasizing about Thora Hird when they’d made love. She’d give him a ring when she was eighty if she was still single and try another eighteen months, she’d joked to Cath, although she knew she probably would be. It appeared Stevie had invented the ‘eighteen-month itch’. Maybe they would name it after her like a disease:

  Honeywell Syndrome: state of being so dissatisfied with your partner after a year and a half that you feel the need to bog off with someone else in the most hurtful way possible.

  There was a single ladleful of chilli left. Stevie offered it to Adam, but he refused.

  ‘That was awfa nice but I am so full,’ he said. ‘Thank you.’ He stood and started clearing plates. Stevie tried to protest, but he counter-protested and won.

  ‘Coffee?’ she said, as he started loading the crockery into the dishwasher.

  ‘Naw, you’re okay,’ he said, meekly for him. ‘It’s obvious there’s going to be no joy tonight. I’ll away.’

  Stevie nodded. She was disappointed too. She had so wanted to aggravate the inhabitants of 15 Blossom Lane with Adam’s visiting presence as much as the latter himself did. Probably more because she genuinely loved Matthew; she didn’t just see him as a possession that was not allowed to leave, as MacLean saw Jo.

  ‘You’d better put those floooers in water,’ he said, in a tone that suggested she was ungratefully at fault for not doing it immediately. ‘Are there vases in the hoos?’

  Stevie had found two in the cupboards whilst the rice had been cooking. She would tend to them; after all, it was no fault of the flowers that they had been bought by Adam ‘Control Freak’ MacLean.

  ‘Yes, I’ll do it soon. Thank you for reminding me,’ she said tightly. She would set her stall out early and make sure he knew she wasn’t one for doing what he dictated.

  ‘Nae bother,’ he said. ‘It would have been actually worth it if they’d seen them, though. Cost an absolute fortune.’

  ‘Would you like me to pay half?’

  ‘No, you’re okay.’

  ‘I’ll wave them over if I see them arriving.’

  They both smiled unwittingly at each other. Then they realized what they were doing and stopped it immediately.

  ‘Start thinking aboot the next step,’ said Adam, returning at warp speed to gruffness.

  ‘Your cheque,’ reminded Stevie, handing it over.

  ‘Yes, thank you,’ he said, shoving it in his back pocket.

  ‘Oh, and here.’ She handed him a flat packet of handkerchiefs.

  ‘What’s this?’

  ‘You lent me a hankie, remember? I couldn’t get the blood out. So, there you go. They only sold them in threes.’

  ‘You didn’t have to go and do that.’

  ‘Yes, I did.’

  Hmmm,’ thought Adam MacLean and walked to the door. She was trying awfully hard to prove she wasn’t a freeloader. Too hard, in his opinion, and she was wasting her time because he knew exactly what sort of person she was.

  ‘Good night then, Mr…Adam,’ said Stevie.

  ‘Good night, and thanks again for the food.’

  He got into his car. It was dark now and it was obvious Matthew and Jo weren’t in after all. He drove off slowly, turning right at the end of the lane, not seeing the couple rounding the corner on the left. They had taken a long walk into town to see the Denzel Washington film and then broken the journey home by calling in at a bistro. The woman’s eyes closed in on the numberplate.

  ‘God, that was Adam! What was he doing in here?’

  ‘It’s okay,’ said Matthew, putting his arm around her shoulders. He was the picture of heroic calm although inside his nerves were jangling. Treble shit, he’s come looking for me. I’m dead…HEEELLLPPP!

  The dishwasher was contentedly humming, washing away the evidence of Adam’s unsuccessful visit. How many more of them to go before Matthew and Jo saw them? Maybe they were destined to miss them by a whisker every time. Maybe she and Adam would both be eighty and on their four-millionth bouquet and chilli before Matthew spotted him knocking at the door. By then his cataracts would be so bad he wouldn’t have a clue it was Adam, though.

  Stevie couldn’t have said that the evening had been ‘pleasant’, but then again it hadn’t been ‘unpleasant’ either. The big man’s manners were surprisingly nice, and there had even been a flash of vulnerability at one point. Then again, she was too soft, too emotional, and any chink in Adam MacLean’s armour had been put there for her to see. He was manipulative, that much she did believe from Jo. She had something he wanted and he had to keep her sweet and on side.

  Stevie started to head up to bed. She clicked off the light, then immediately put it back on again because she knew that she wouldn’t sleep. Maybe half an hour torturing Damme with some psychological twists and turns from Evie might help. Just half an hour.

  There was no sign that he had been near the house at all when Matthew and Jo got home. No forwarded post through the letterbox, no booby traps, no death threats written in blood on the door. As Matthew closed the curtains on the day, across the road, the light shone from the downstairs cottage window. One eye of light that suddenly went off once and then on again. It was as if it had winked at him.

  Chapter 32

  Stevie saw Adam twice in the next week, but only in passing. He nodded to her from a distance when she was on the lat pulldown in the gym and she nodded in return. Then he nodded again a couple of days later when she was leaving, and once again, she nodded back. It was like the birth of another language, because there was something in each nod t
hat told the other person that no, they had nothing to report.

  They hadn’t instigated any more action. First, they wanted to see if the seeds they had planted had sprouted over the week. But eventually it looked as if they might have to re-open Parliament because the couple across the road continued to travel to work together each morning in perfect loved-up harmony, still walking the ten steps’ distance from the front door to the car holding hands and making Stevie’s stomach heave with jealousy and hurt. The pain seemed to get worse, not better.

  On the seventh day since seeing Adam MacLean in the lane, the tension had actually started to leave Matthew’s shoulders and he let himself finally believe that he was not suddenly going to be accosted by Jo’s estranged husband, or his own ex-partner, because he still couldn’t quite believe she had accepted the break-up with so little reaction. In fact, on one occasion he had actively encouraged her to make a move after seeing her buzzing near the kitchen window and so had darted straight out to deliver some post that had arrived for her. He knew she had seen him, and he knew for absolute definite that at the very moment when he reached the letterbox she would open the front door as if by total coincidence and force him to engage in conversation. However, no, he was wrong. Not a sausage.

  He almost wished she would flip and start throwing things at him because he wanted to bring this to a head finally. He was certain she was up to something and it was driving him mad trying to work out what it could be. He had a theory but it was too ridiculous to take seriously.

  The post was occupying a lot of his mind recently. Every day seemed to bring a new bill, a new demand, and his mortgage payment had bounced. He was perpetually on the brink of asking Jo to contribute financially, but how did you broach a subject like that with a woman who spent every lunchtime in Harvey Nichols? Especially after what he’d told her about his bank balance.

  He decided to soften her up and went shopping in his lunch-hour and bought fillet steaks and champagne and raspberries, white chocolate, cream and cognac and accompanying nice-meal vegetables. Expensive, but he hoped it would be a worthwhile investment for him. He ran Jo a bath after work and told her to stay in there until he called her, then he brought her up a glass of chilled champagne and popped a truffle into her mouth and kissed the chocolate from her lips, and retired to the kitchen to work at a feast fit for the queen of his heart that she was.