The Birds and the Bees

by Milly Johnson

  They journeyed to work in the same uncomfortable silence that had stood like a concrete block between them the previous evening during dinner.

  ‘Look, please, can’t we be friends?’ Matthew said, pulling into the work’s car park. ‘I hate this atmosphere between us. I’m sorry about mentioning the money and I don’t care what’s going on across the road. Let them get on with their lives and let us get a sandwich at twelve and go and sit in the park and talk.’

  ‘I’m going shopping,’ said Jo, petulantly through a very dry pout.

  ‘I’ll come with you,’ he said, smiling at her. ‘Would you like that?’

  ‘No, Matthew, I wouldn’t like that,’ said Jo flatly. ‘Today I want some space. I’ve got things to do.’

  ‘I’ll walk five paces behind you,’ he tried to joke but she rounded on him fiercely.

  ‘For Christ’s sake, stop stifling me!’ And she leapt out of the car and went into the building alone. He sat in shock because she had always led him to believe that she liked to be made a heavy fuss of. Rather like a spoilt, demanding Persian cat.

  Matt waited for Jo in the foyer at the time when her lunch-hour was due to end, hoping to catch her for a quick kiss-in-passing at least. He wished so much that he could have turned the clock back and not mentioned the money. He hoped it was that which was making her hostile towards him and not the Adam and Stevie thing, which had taken up a big unwelcome block of his own headspace, too, however much he was trying to deny it. He had an appointment with his bank account manager fixed up for the next afternoon, and had he waited for the outcome of it, he might never have had to tell her that he had a few financial problems. Then all he would have had to do was tell her one final lie–that his investments weren’t as great as he had been led to believe. How he was going to break the news that they were approximately half a million pounds light was a bit of a teaser though. He had got so carried away exaggerating, trying to impress her. Oh God, what a mess!

  There was something different about her as she came in from town, then he realized it was that she didn’t have any shopping bags.

  ‘Why are you waiting for me?’ she said, with the big scared eyes of a spooked deer. She didn’t break her stride, forcing him to trot along at the side of her.

  ‘I thought we might snatch five minutes.’

  ‘Not today, Matthew. I don’t feel like I want your company today.’

  ‘Please, darling.’ He grabbed her arm to stop her. She ripped it away with disproportionate force and ran up the escalator. It was all very odd. She looked like she did when she had first started speaking to him, when she had been scared of Adam. Matt couldn’t get a handle on it at all.

  However, coming through the revolving door into the building immediately behind her, Colin Seed knew he could.

  Chapter 42

  It was Catherine’s youngest daughter Violet’s birthday that same day.

  ‘Vio can’t wait to see her new pyjamas!’ said Danny that morning, skipping his way to school.

  ‘Oh Danny, you didn’t tell her and spoil the surprise, did you?’ said Stevie.

  ‘No, I didn’t,’ said Danny indignantly. ‘I just said that it’s something she can wear in bed.’

  ‘Great,’ said Stevie, shaking her head.

  The Flanagan matriarch picked Danny up from school to whisk him away for a party at Burger King, allowing Stevie time to get stuck into Highland Fling. She had sent Crystal the synopsis and was waiting for a call to see if she liked it. Knowing Crystal as well as she did, she rather thought she might. It was turning out to be the best Midnight Moon she had ever written. There was a knock on her door just after six and she opened it to find Adam on the doorstep.

  ‘I didnae like coming straight in.’

  ‘Well, it’s going to look pretty weird if you start knocking, considering you’re supposed to be living here.’

  ‘Aye, I suppose so,’ said Adam and he bent, placing his cheek near to hers to simulate a kiss, just in case they were being watched. She noticed that he smelt of work and clean sweat and woody aftershave. ‘Where’s the wee ’un?’ he asked as Stevie closed the door.

  ‘He’ll be scoffing a big burger now. It’s Catherine’s daughter’s birthday so he’s at her party.’

  ‘Ah, I see. Have you eaten?’

  ‘Er, no, I’ve only just stopped working.’

  ‘Come on, what is it that ye dae?’

  ‘I’ll put the kettle on,’ she said.

  He dropped his bag near the hall table where Stevie had put down her post–a postcard from an old schoolfriend and her unopened wage slip from Midnight Moon. The motif on a big brown envelope caught his eye. A large moon with a clock face sat in it.

  ‘You get post from Midnight Moon?’ he said with an amused twist to his lip. ‘What is this then?’ He pretended to open it.

  ‘Give me that, please!’ said Stevie, quickly abandoning the kettle, but Adam put it well out of her reach, high above his head. Well, as high as the beams would allow.

  ‘I’m serious, Adam, let me have it.’ Stevie jumped up. She didn’t want him to know what she did. He had made her feel sad enough, in the pathetic sense of the word, about her job. She wanted that envelope back now, but it was impossible. Adam danced around and Stevie leapt up like a Red Indian around a totem pole. It caused a very odd picture in the window, which Matthew, staring obsessively through his window, saw.

  Despite his money troubles, despite his hiccup with Jo, despite worrying why he seemed to see Colin Seed hovering around whenever he looked up these days, Matthew still had a huge chunk of worry space saved up for Stevie. He knew MacLean was using her, probably to tempt Jo back by driving her crazy with jealousy. He knew one day soon the charm (whatever that could be) would stop and the violence would begin. Surely no woman, not even Jo, would want to see Stevie as scared and beaten as she had been. Whilst this thought was on his mind, he saw Adam MacLean and Stevie involved in some kind of tussle by the window, although hardly a fair one with her at Bonsai and him at Californian Redwood height.

  Jo had just about been ready to forgive him and had come up for a snuggle when Matthew almost threw her out of the way and thrust open the outside door.

  ‘Hey, look,’ said Adam, dropping his arm, ‘your man’s on his way over here and he means business. Start laughin’. NOO!’

  ‘Laughing? What do you mean, “laughing”?’

  ‘As if we’re having a good time.’

  ‘I’m not that good an actress!’

  ‘C’moan, nooo!’

  Stevie shrugged, but complied anyway. ‘Okay.’ She managed a pathetically lame laugh.

  ‘Och, try and dae better than that.’

  ‘I can’t just laugh like that.’

  ‘Stevieareyouatiglsh?’

  ‘Am I a what?’ said Stevie.

  ‘Quick!’ said Adam.

  ‘Quick wha…arrrgghh!’ In a flash Stevie suddenly found herself being slammed onto the floor. Then for some bizarre reason Adam ripped his shirt open like the Hulk and sat astride her.

  ‘What the hell…!’

  ‘Sorry!’ he said in advance as his hands made claws and descended.

  Matthew didn’t bother to knock before trying to open the cottage door, but it was locked and he banged hard on it. Stevie was screaming, which made him bang more. Although the more he listened, the less sure he was that those screams were ones of pain. She was laughing maniacally and actually sounded more like she was being tickled than assaulted. In between various requests for him to stop whatever he was doing, she was shrieking out Adam’s name and that, for a reason he was not prepared to admit to himself, made him even angrier.

  ‘Stevie, let me in!’ He threw his shoulder into the door, but it was massive and oak and he couldn’t have broken it down if he was Rambo with a cannon.

  Suddenly, Stevie arrived at the door looking very tousled. She was so red-faced, he could have been forgiven for thinking that she had just been mainlining beetroot. Her hair was mu
ssed up, she was straightening her clothes and he got the distinct impression that she had just been rolling around on the floor. There in the background, Adam MacLean appeared to be getting up from the same floor with his shirt ripped open and looking too fucking pleased with himself for Matthew’s liking. Plus he was none-too-subtly adjusting his trousers.

  ‘I heard you screaming, Stevie, are you okay?’

  ‘I’m…er…fine,’ Stevie said breathlessly.

  ‘MacLean wasn’t hurting you then?’

  ‘Er…no, quite the opposite actually.’

  Too much detail, thought Matthew with an inner wince. ‘Oh, right–sorry to have bothered you,’ he said stiffly. He turned to go, then, when he was at a safe distance, spun around with his finger projecting towards Adam like Harry Potter’s wand.

  ‘You hurt her, MacLean, and I’ll…I’ll kill you!’ he spat. ‘And leave her money alone as well!’

  Adam didn’t react, other than with a surprised Roger-Moore lift of his eyebrows. He stood there trying not to look amused, watching as Matthew stabbed at him a few more times before retreating quickly across the road whilst his luck was still in. Finch was being awfully protective towards this violent firebrand he supposedly couldn’t wait to get away from. Hmmm.

  Stevie was astounded. She hadn’t seen Matthew act that passionately since–well, ever. Whatever she might think of MacLean, he certainly knew his basic psychology very well. That didn’t stop her taking her hatred of him to new heights, though. How dare he do that to her! Who did he think he was?

  ‘Wow,’ said Adam when Stevie had shut the door. ‘There’s a turn up. Sorry, by the way. I saw that trick once on a John Wayne film. It worked then as well.’

  ‘You…’ struggled Stevie, not able to find a word insulting enough.

  ‘Tell me why Midnight Moon are writing to you.’

  ‘Go to hell,’ said Stevie, snatching her letter and charging into the study where she sat and wondered if her heart would ever stop thumping.

  Sheepishly, Matthew trudged back across the lane, thinking, I must have caught them at it! How could Stevie sleep with someone who beat up women? Was she so desperate to try to make him jealous that she would compromise her own safety and that of her child? If so, was it working? He honestly didn’t know which leading emotion had sent him flying across the road to her defence.

  Jo was waiting for him with a slow handclap.

  ‘How gallant,’ she said. ‘Shame you didn’t do that for me when I needed rescuing from him.’

  ‘She didn’t need rescuing,’ said Matthew bitterly. ‘I thought she was screaming because he was beating her up when actually they were about to have sex.’

  ‘Sex?’ said Jo.

  ‘You know, that thing we used to have.’

  ‘Fuck you!’ said Jo, and starting raining slaps on him.

  ‘Jo, what’s happening to us?’ said Matthew, wincing at her language, catching her hands and holding them still. He needed to focus on his problems with Jo, but he was having real difficulty getting the image of Stevie and MacLean having sex out of his mind. They must have been doing it on the kitchen floor. She’d never wanted sex like that when she’d been with him. Nor had he ever heard her make those sorts of noises before. He hadn’t really associated her with that kind of passionate activity.

  ‘How could he? With her?’ said Jo.

  ‘Why are you so bothered about him?’ Matthew asked.

  ‘Why are you so bothered about her?’ Jo countered.

  She pulled her hands away from him and started pacing up and down the room like a caged tiger. ‘We need to move. I don’t want to stay here watching Adam and that bitch living out their lives in front of us.’

  ‘Why are you so horrible to her, Jo?’

  But Jo wasn’t listening; she was lost in a world filled only with herself.

  ‘…I mean, is that why he said, “Okay, off you go then”? Is that why he didn’t try to stop me? Not even a kiss or a hug goodbye. He even carried my bloody suitcases to the car for me. Why was that, eh? Because he was carrying on behind my back with that short, fat cow. If you think about it, it’s the only answer. The bitch, the treacherous fucking bitch!’

  ‘Did Adam let you go that easily?’ said Matthew. ‘I thought you said he—’

  ‘How soon can you realize your investments, Matthew? Let’s buy a house away from here, please. Leeds. One of the nice ones in the country that we saw in the Yorkshire Post.’

  Now is the time. She needs to be told.

  ‘About my investments,’ said Matthew quietly, trying to moisten his nervous dry lips with his nervous dry tongue. ‘Sit down, Jo, a minute, will you, please.’

  ‘Okay, Matthew, I know what you said, you’re broke at the moment. We’ve had too many expensive meals out recently. But if we moved, we wouldn’t feel the need to go out and get away from that house so much.’

  He gently shushed her.

  ‘Jo…’

  Then he began.

  Chapter 43

  The next morning, Adam awoke to a flurry of whispering outside his new temporary bedroom door.

  ‘Can I go in and see him?’ said a small boy’s not so quiet voice.

  ‘No, you’ll see him later.’

  ‘Please, Mummy!’

  ‘No. Now come on and don’t make any noise or you’ll wake him up.’

  ‘But I want to wake him up, Mummy!’

  ‘Come on, Danny, that’s not very fair waking him up early, now is it? Superheroes really need their sleep, you should know that.’

  ‘Aw, okay.’

  Adam smiled. He reckoned they were counting down the days now until Dannyman, his fellow Superhero, would be back living across the road. A thought which made his smile fade surprisingly quickly.

  Matthew awoke feeling totally exhausted and already started ticking off the hours until he could catch up on some sleep. He hadn’t had as much sex as that in one night since the Fresher’s Ball at University, but that had been a far less complicated experience.

  Jo had taken yesterday’s news that he was not in fact a half-millionaire in the making pretty well, considering. Although he hadn’t quite told her the whole truth, but tempered it slightly for the sake of his own pride. The story given being that his investments had taken a substantial crash and the only way he could recover the losses was to leave them where they were for at least five years. He told her he had a meeting with the bank to discuss the best plan of action as far as his ‘investments’ were concerned, and was sneaking out from work later on the pretext of going to the dentist. Who knows, he might even find out that all was not quite as bad as he had painted it. His story would give him five years’ breathing space to sort himself out. He might even win the Lottery (properly this time) in that space of time. At least it was finally out in the open to her that he was broke now and that there couldn’t possibly be a big wedding in the near future, or more than one meal out per week, if he was expected to foot all the bills. He sneaked that in to see if she might consider actually helping him out here by contributing. She hadn’t offered.

  Contrary to what he thought might happen, Jo had not shouted or screamed or thrown anything heavy in the direction of his cranium. She had just nodded her head resignedly and forced out a smile and said, ‘Well, that’s that then.’

  Then, when they had gone to a bed in which he expected not only the cold shoulder, but a cold back, cold legs and cold everything else, she had surprised him by instigating sex. Quite energetic, almost brutal sex actually. She had wanted him to bite her all over in her passionate throes. At one point, he felt like going to the window and checking to see if the moon was full, because she was like an animal–insatiable and wild. Matthew wasn’t really the type to mix up pain with pleasure, though, and he fulfilled her requests quite half-heartedly. He had managed to give her a sucky love-bite on her chest, which he regretted the next morning because she wore her blouses quite open, and it was showing there as an ugly, painful-looking bruise. When he m
entioned this, she had laughed and kissed him lightly on the nose and told him not to worry, and if he was lucky, they might try it again later on. Matthew didn’t want to be that lucky. The whole experience hadn’t sat well with him at all. He was all for passion–sex with Jo had been great and exciting in the beginning–but recently, he had found himself missing the gentle intimacy and more considerate, warm love-making which he had enjoyed with Stevie, before he got greedy. He had an uneasy feeling about this turn in their sex-life.

  Adam had a day off, and as Stevie hadn’t come back after dropping Danny off at school, he presumed she had gone into town. He had just grilled up half a farmyard full of bacon and stuck it in between two half-loaves of bread when the phone rang.

  ‘Hellooo,’ he said.

  ‘Hello,’ said a cut-glass voice on the other end. ‘Is Bea there?’

  ‘Sorry, hen, wrang number.’

  ‘I can’t have, she’s on short dial. Is Stevie there? Stevie Honeywell?’

  ‘Stevie’s oot…out at the moment. Can I help you at all?’

  ‘And you are?’ purred the voice.

  ‘Adam MacLean.’

  ‘Ah, you’re Damme MacQueen.’

  Poor awd thing is deaf, thought Adam and spoke more slowly. ‘No. A-dam Mac-Lean.’

  ‘Yes, I heard you, darling.’ The voice cut like glass too. ‘I’m Crystal Rock, Stevie’s publisher at Midnight Moon.’

  Ah, thought Adam. Interesting.

  ‘Sorry,’ he bluffed. ‘I apologize. Of course she has told me so much aboot you.’

  Crystal gave a little tinkly laugh. She was half in love with Adam already.