The Birds and the Bees (19 page)

The anticipation of having Adam MacLean come to the house was worse than having a real date because at least on one of those, the chances were you were going to be with a person who liked you, not with someone just aching to criticize and score points. Was she supposed to cook or what? She could throw him a bone, she supposed, and watch him gnaw it whilst she had a sandwich.
Like she was going to give him the satisfaction of calling her inhospitable!
She wasn’t the most fantastic cook in the world but she could throw together a very nice chilli. Stevie made rather a huge one for that night and poured a big slodge of red wine in it. At least if he didn’t eat, she could freeze it for herself. And eat it over the coming decade.

With Danny tucked up in bed, Stevie put a light blue blouse on and her jeans. On the slim off-chance that Matthew happened to see them, she would look out to impress but with a foot in casual. Perfect. Had posting Jo’s letter done the trick? Had that one small stone caused big ripples in their happy water life? If so, they would be watching out for activity at her front door. If not, then she might have to think about shagging Adam MacLean in the
street.
Ugh, joke!
Matthew was an intelligent guy, intellectually if not emotionally, and he could put two and two together–and, with any luck, make five in this case. There must have been a few questions floating around in his brain by now, surely?

Knock knock knock
, It was quite a soft knock for him. Considerate that Danny was in bed, maybe?
Yeah, right!
She wasn’t ready to give him any benefits of any doubts yet; he had hardly earned the privilege. Stevie crossed to the door and opened it to a huge bouquet of flowers, which quite took her breath away.

‘Hi,’ said a porridge-rich voice from behind a big pink rose.

‘Oh hello,’ said Stevie. God, they were beautiful, expensive. If a lover had genuinely given these, she would have fainted. Then recovered to bonk him five seconds later, which obviously was not going to happen in this case. Not without a frontal lobotomy anyway.

‘Can you see anything across the street?’

‘No,’ said Stevie. ‘Their cars are there but there’s no sign that they’re in.’

‘Oh, the swine,’ said the rose.

‘Do you want to walk around the block and come back?’

‘No, in case they are in and have seen me. Then it would look mighty odd, me bringing floooers then taking them away again.’

‘You should have squealed your tyres. Your driving capabilities seem to attract the most attention.’

‘Are ye going to invite me in or no?’ said the rose loudly, getting more and more annoyed.

‘Certainly, do come in,’ said Stevie with a courteous and tinkly little laugh for the benefit of any viewers who might have been watching over the street. Adam handed the flowers to Stevie. They weighed a ton and she buckled under the weight of them. She stole a look across the lane, but nothing. She noticed that, once again, she and Adam had colour co-ordinated.

‘Same blue claes,’ he said, which she presumed meant ‘clothes’, in the absence of anything else they had co-ordinated in, apart from the number of eyeballs.
Was he really from Great Britain? In fact, was he really from Earth?
Adam walked straight into the dining area to find it was neat and tidy, which saved him having to tell her to keep it so. The owners had been most specific about that. He had lied to them and said that his ‘lady’ was extremely house-proud. He then walked through to the kitchen, which was also scrubbed, he noted, as he did a slow warder-type walk around it–not a hint of flour or chocolate anywhere. There were lovely spicy beef waves coming from an enormous cauldron-like pot on the hob and his stomach keened in response to it.

‘Well, at least they’ll see the car if they don’t see me,’ said Adam.

‘Yes,’ said Stevie, thinking, Okay, the preliminaries are out of the way, so what do we do now for the next hour or so?

‘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: