The Birds and the Bees

by Milly Johnson

  ‘Excuse me!’ said Catherine forcefully and barged him out of the way with her expertly agile mum-hip. She plonked herself down next to Stevie, handed her a drink and said, ‘I bet you just love me now for forcing you here, don’t you?’

  ‘It’s okay, Danny’s enjoying himself.’

  Then Gareth threw up.

  ‘Oh sod, I thought it was too good to be true,’ said Catherine. Mothers converged onto the dance floor with tissues and dragged off little brothers and sisters who wanted to go splashing in the puddle of watery vomit.

  ‘I’ll get your bag,’ said Stevie, wishing, and feeling really awful for doing so, that it had been Danny who had thrown up and given her the excuse to go home. Did that make her a terrible person? Probably. The murderous thoughts about Jo she had tried to keep a lid on that morning were making her feel a bit unhinged. But Danny wasn’t going anywhere; he was having a ball and it would have been so unfair to take him home and upset his day too. It wasn’t his fault his mum was too much of an old trout to keep a man, and what would they do instead because she didn’t want to go out or do anything but curl up into a ball and sleep the day away.

  ‘Oh Steve, I’ve cocked this right up for you, haven’t I?’ said Catherine.

  ‘It’s not your fault, Cath,’ said Stevie. ‘Gareth’s poorly and that’s that.’

  ‘I should never have nagged at you to come. I always think I know better than everyone else.’ Wasn’t it me who more or less forced her to go on that first date with Matthew when she was going to back off? thought Catherine. Eddie had been right when he accused her of interfering too much in other people’s lives.

  ‘Mummeee!’ cried Gareth.

  ‘Look, go,’ said Stevie, pushing her away. Catherine was dreadfully reluctant to leave her friend, today of all days, but she was trapped. Eddie was working and Kate, not 100 per cent well herself, was looking after the other kids, so there really was no alternative.

  ‘Go!’ Stevie ordered again, and so Catherine blew her an apologetic kiss and went.

  Out of the corner of her eye, she saw Richard Parker staring over. Where was his bloody wife? She was sure that if Matthew had made a beeline for a woman every time he saw her, she would have picked up on it. Then again, this from a woman who hadn’t seen what had been happening under her nose with her man and Jo. A sweep of the hall showed her that Jan was in the dining area, too busy even to look up. A balloon brushed past Stevie’s head, then another landed and almost knocked her drink over, and so with her nerves stretched to breaking-point and unable to bring herself to do anything about it, Stevie endured the next hour.

  Then the children conga-ed into the dining area, and after making sure Danny’s plate was replete, Stevie stole off to the ladies. She just wanted to go home but there was another half an hour to go and Danny would never forgive her if she dragged him away before the party bags were ready. Her thoughts were so much on where she might go afterwards to keep herself occupied that she didn’t see the figure hiding behind the corner when she emerged from the loo.

  Bang.

  Stevie screamed.

  ‘Told you I’d get you!’ said Richard, with eyes very glazed and holding a clutch of more balloons. He swaggered forwards a little, straying too far into her personal space, pointing to her chest. ‘What I find amazing though, is that you’re scared of these balloons when all the time you’ve got those big balloons under your jumper.’

  Stevie’s mouth fell into a long O. She was too stunned to react and stand up for herself, but it didn’t matter because seconds later it was done for her. From nowhere, big Adam MacLean appeared with a not very friendly expression on his face and he boomed so loudly into the top of Richard Parker’s bald patch that it left an echo hanging in the air,

  ‘Hey pal, are you bothering this lady?’ Even Stevie blanched at the tone of his voice, which was a weapon of mass destruction in itself. She was witnessing the side of him now that she hadn’t seen yet but had heard lots about, but despite it, boy was she glad to see him.

  ‘Er…oh…er…sorry, no offence!’ Mumble mumble. Richard shrank and scuttled away back into the party room and Adam let him. Contrary to what Stevie might have expected of him, he didn’t grab him and mince him between his fists or do a Steven Seagal and launch him through the nearest glass window. The confrontation ended there. Then again, Adam was at work and a little worm like Richard Parker throwing balloons about obviously wasn’t worth risking his job and another assault charge for. Funny, that. She didn’t think they’d employ someone with a criminal record for GBH in such a posh place, and Adam had spent time inside a hard Scottish prison for violence, so Jo had told them.

  ‘Thank you,’ she said, relief washing over her like a warm shower.

  ‘Don’t get excited, I wid have done it for anyone,’ he said in his usual gruff and dismissive way. ‘What were you doing out here alone with him anyway?’

  Why is this my fault? thought Stevie. Her head suddenly flooded with voices: her mother saying ‘No wonder he buggered off!’ and Mick’s mother screaming at her, ‘If you’d been more of a wife, he’d still be alive!’ and pictures of the way Adam MacLean always looked at and spoke to her as if she was to blame for Jo leaving him. She wanted to scream aloud, ‘I’m not to blame for this, I’m not!’ Then she thought of waiting outside the headmaster’s office, being accused of climbing high trees and pinching apples, and it was then that Stevie’s last remaining nerve snapped, and it appeared that it was the one holding the lid down on her tear supply because they moved at Exocet missile speed up to her eyeballs. And, like an Exocet missile, there wasn’t a damn thing she could do to stop them.

  ‘I only went to the loo. Please, Adam,’ she said, without the customary pause before his name, ‘not today.’ She wiped at her eyes with the flat of her hands; they were dripping out water like a pair of taps with faulty washers. ‘I don’t care if you fight me for the rest of your life, but please, please, I beg you, not today.’ Her throat failed on the last word and she turned away before she could make any more of a fool of herself in front of him, and melted back into the party room, grateful that it was so dark inside.

  When the party was at last over, Stevie and Danny went down to Blockbusters and got out the Crocodile Dundee trilogy and a big bag of popcorn. They transformed the lounge of Humbleby Cottage into a cinema, closing the blinds and diverting the sound through the surround speakers. Then they snuggled up on the sofa with the popcorn and Cola. Really, it was a lovely hot day and it was a shame to be inside, but today, Stevie didn’t want to see the sunshine. She didn’t want to know that she would have been outside the church bathed in it now, having her photographs taken, laughing and being beautiful and throwing her bouquet. Neither did she want to think that tomorrow she and MacLean were going to tail the faithless exes in a hired anonymous car, like Starsky and Hutch, in a bid to win them back. Who was she kidding? Matthew and Jo hadn’t taken their bait, it was useless. A tsunami of despair engulfed her and dragged away her last remaining hope with its massive ebb.

  ‘Are you okay, Mummy?’ asked Danny, holding up a nub of popcorn near her lips.

  ‘I’m fine, love. I think I’m just getting a bit of a cold,’ she sniffed.

  ‘You’ve got cry all over your cheek.’ Danny’s little hand came out to wipe away the escaping tears that threatened to flow so fast that she would be dissolved by them. It would have been so easy to collapse into them but she didn’t want her little boy to see her as a weak, blubbering mess when she was supposed to be the strong one. Sometimes it was so hard to keep it together, though. Sometimes she just wanted to let go, surrender her power to someone else who would look after her, deal with things and make everything all right. But that was a luxury she was not afforded, so, with a monumental effort she managed to rein her tears in, just as there was a knock on the door. Oh no, no, no! She didn’t want to see anyone. Maybe she could pretend she wasn’t in. Boom boom boom. Whoever it was knocked again more insistently, and there was only
one person who did knock like that. And she didn’t want to see him more than she didn’t want to see anyone else.

  BOOM BOOM BOOM!

  He’d break the damn door down if he carried on, the loud insensitive swine.

  ‘Stay there, pet, I’ll be back in a minute,’ Stevie said, closing the lounge door behind her before opening the outside one. If it was who she thought it was, Danny must not see him under any circumstances. Unfortunately for her, it was.

  Adam MacLean was standing there on the doorstep in his smart work clothes: a white shirt and a blue tie with a WL motif on it.

  ‘Hellooo,’ he said, sounding quite contrite for him. Jeez, she looks terrible, he thought.

  ‘Hello,’ she said coldly, the bloodshot shining eyes betraying her air of composure.

  ‘I…er…came to say I’m sorry for sounding a wee bit aff.’

  ‘Oh right,’ she said. He seemed a bit taken aback that she didn’t seize on the opportunity to say that he’d never sounded anything other than ‘aff’ and not thought to apologize for it before. There looked to be little fight left in her.

  It was over.

  ‘Adam, this isn’t working,’ she started to say.

  Then time stood still. The world stopped revolving for five seconds but it was just enough to allow her to catch her breath and decide how best to capitalize on this gift of a perfect moment. For there across the lane, Matthew Finch was perfectly framed in the window. He was looking at her. And Adam’s car. And Adam himself. On her doorstep. Smart in a shirt and tie.

  Now or never!

  Stevie arranged her tired features into a smile that twisted as sexily as she could at one side, then she reached forward for Adam’s tie, reeling him slowly in, and down, and then kissed him gently on the mouth.

  Adam didn’t resist. There was only one reason she had just done that and it wasn’t because apologetic butt-ugly Scotsmen turned her on.

  ‘They’re watching, aren’t they?’ he whispered loudly.

  ‘You don’t think I’m doing this for fun, do you?’ she confirmed through gritted teeth. He pushed her inside the house as if he was eager to get her alone for questionable reasons and they slammed the door together and stood behind it, each of them wiping at their lips with the back of their hands like three year olds that had experienced their first kiss and were thinking, I’m NEVER doing that again.

  ‘Aw this planning and the chance just falls into our laps,’ said Adam, fighting back the desire to whoop around the kitchen. For one horrible moment there, he had nearly been in danger of hugging her.

  ‘I know, I know,’ said Stevie quietly because her heart was pumping so fast it wasn’t letting her breathe properly. Had she had more air in her lungs, she would have danced with him, leapt on him, hugged him, yes him. Then Danny appeared in the doorway with his collar sucked up into his mouth and freeze-framed because there was a giant in the room who looked like a ginger Mr Incredible. Far from being scarred for life at the sight of MacLean, Danny’s only comment, after letting the soggy collar drop from his mouth was, ‘Hi.’

  ‘Hi there,’ said Adam, waving awkwardly.

  ‘Who are you?’

  ‘Oh God!’ began Stevie, but Adam dropped to his haunches.

  ‘I’m Well Life Man,’ he said. ‘See?’ And he showed off the letters on his tie. ‘I just dropped by on a mission to ask all people who work at home to come and be fit, but shhhh, you haven’t seen me, okay? If anyone asks, I’m Adam MacLean. Like Superman is Clark Kent, understand?’

  ‘Cool!’ said Danny, nodding. Yes, he knew exactly what he meant.

  Well, he couldn’t have picked a better persona than a Superhero to ingratiate himself with my son, Stevie thought. She was observing exploitation at its best. That’s what his handle should have been: ‘Manipulatorman’.

  ‘Danny, go and watch Dundee and let me and Mr…Well Life talk about…er…having a coffee.’

  ‘Okay,’ said Danny, grinning. Wow, a secret Superhero in the kitchen. Cool! ‘You’re not going yet are you?’

  ‘No, I’ll say goodbye before I go,’ said Adam, waving again and raising his best ‘shushing’ finger. Then, when Danny had gone, he crossed the window to steal a quick look across at Matthew’s house.

  ‘He’s still there,’ he said, smiling over at Stevie, as if he was saying something suggestive instead. ‘Quick, come here.’

  She came there as requested, but she didn’t expect him to enclose her in a great big embrace and tip her back Hollywood snog-style.

  ‘Right, you can get off me now,’ said Stevie eventually.

  ‘Bit longer, we’re still being looked at.’

  ‘Both of them?’

  ‘Can’t tell. I’ll pretend to kiss you. Put your hands in my hair.’

  He brought his cheek close to hers, she started stroking his hair. They would have looked magnificent in profile, very Gone with the Wind.

  ‘Right, he’s moved away,’ said Adam, letting her drop ungraciously to the floor.

  ‘Ow!’

  ‘Oops, sorry.’ He extended a hand and helped her up.

  ‘There obviously isn’t a word for chivalry in Gaelic then.’

  ‘Look, lady…’ He nipped off what he was going to say because he didn’t want to add any more grief to her day. She had probably had enough of a bad one and he hadn’t helped.

  He had been at work checking on the CCTV camera when the little boy had been sick, then recognized the woman rushing towards him–the one with the ex-candy-floss hair. He had moved the camera around, aware that he was looking for her. Sure enough, there she was, sitting alone, out of the way. He focused in on her face, saw how unhappy she looked. Some dickhead was throwing balloons at her, insensitive to her annoyance, actually relishing in it. Adam got on with some work, then switched on again soon afterwards to find the dickhead was still annoying her. Then he had checked again later and saw her walk out of the function room. He watched the man dump his beer and follow her out and then, obviously in a professional vein, Adam had felt obliged to find out what was going on in person.

  When he found her cornered in the corridor, she looked so utterly defeated and helpless, and something flagged up in his subconscious that today was the wedding day that never was. He didn’t know why he had been so hard on her outside the loo, when it quite obviously wasn’t her fault. He had wanted to stride in and rescue her from that slimy little man, but something had twisted inside him and he had ended up accusing her of causing it all. He hadn’t liked seeing her so vulnerable and it confused him. Her pale little face had haunted him all afternoon and he knew he wouldn’t have slept, had he not driven over to see if she was okay. It was the right thing to do after he had behaved so rudely.

  ‘Is Well Life Man staying for tea?’ said Danny, appearing round-eyed with fascination in the doorway again.

  The two grown-ups looked at each other. Stevie’s thoughts had never been so perfectly at war. On the ‘No’ side was:

  1) this was Adam MacLean

  2) she didn’t want Danny getting confused

  3) she didn’t want Danny getting eaten

  But on the ‘Yes’ side was:

  1) Adam needed to be there at least another hour for maximum effect

  2) the damage had been done–he and Danny had met

  3) Danny appeared to remain psychologically intact

  4) she was doing all this for Danny as much as for herself

  The argument was clearly won.

  ‘We’re going to have fish and chips!’ said Danny.

  ‘Ooh, one of my three hundred favourites!’ said Adam, rubbing his hands together.

  It looked as if he was staying then.

  ‘Cool,’ said Danny, stroking Adam’s tie as if it was as precious as a national treasure. ‘I love Superheroes, you know.’

  ‘Is that what you’re going tae be then, when you grow up? A Superhero?’

  ‘No,’ said Danny, as if that was the most stupid question in the world. ‘I already am a supe
rhero. I’m going to be a window cleaner.’

  ‘Oh I see.’ Adam suppressed a grin. ‘So, have you got a name, fellow Superhero?’

  ‘I’m Dannyman.’

  ‘Glad to meet you, Dannyman,’ said Adam, holding out his hand. Danny’s little mitt was swallowed up in it.

  ‘So when did you last save the universe then?’ said Adam.

  ‘Thursday,’ said Danny, and off he trotted to watch the rest of Crocodile Dundee.

  Chapter 35

  Matthew stood at the window and tried to process the information his eyes were sending to his brain. Stevie with a man. Not just any man. A huge ginger man. And not just any huge, ginger man. Him. She had pulled his head down towards her with his tie. So it wasn’t a casual call then. How bloody long had that been going on? Matthew asked himself. This was supposed to be their wedding day and she was snogging MacLean! His brain was busy speed-reading the events of the past few weeks for any enlightening information. The irony of his thought processes was lost on him.

  So that’s how Stevie got hold of Jo’s Visa bill…That mysterious connection had been bugging a back part of his brain since it happened. He moved closer to the window. The scene being played out in front of him raised a hell of a lot more questions than it answered.

  He had been waiting to see something bizarre from MacLean and Stevie. Her ultra-cool reaction to being rejected hadn’t been normal, but he didn’t expect this! Was this why his leaving had seemed to cause such little interruption to her life then? Had they embarked on their affair first? Stevie and MacLean? NO! HOW? Is that why they were dancing together so clumsily at Pam and Will’s wedding–double-bluffing to throw him off the scent? There were so many question and exclamation marks bombarding him, he thought his brain might go into punctuation overload and pop out of his head like a jack-in-a-box. Then, just as he thought it might be a hallucination, there they were engaged in Part II by canoodling in the window–and not right next to the window, as if they were showing off to a would-be audience either, but back from it, lost in each other. It couldn’t be! They weren’t a match. She was what–five foot two–and he was the bloody BFG! Well, a BVG–a Big Violent Giant! Although they had looked pretty matched up, snogging like that. Too much so for comfort.