The Birds and the Bees (8 page)

Jo was drying her hair at the dressing-table after a dribbling shower. Matthew watched her fondly, the expression of a love-struck Labrador pup on his face.

‘What’s the matter?’ she said, catching his eye.

‘Nothing, I’m just looking at you.’

‘Well, stop it,’ she said, and carried on wafting the hairdryer and trying to pretend that she wasn’t being scrutinized quite so thoroughly.

Coming up behind her, he planted a kiss on her neck.

‘Not now,’ she said, wriggling away. ‘I’m late for work.’

‘
We’re
late for work,’ he said, ‘but at least we can occupy a car-sharing parking space. They’re always in plentiful supply.’

‘Great,’ said Jo sarcastically, which made his little Tigger bouncing heart deflate a little.

‘You okay?’ he said.

‘Well, no actually,’ she said, winding the cord around the hairdryer as if she was wrapping it around someone’s neck. ‘I don’t enjoy living out of a suitcase one bit. I just want to move into your house as soon as possible.’

‘I know it’s hard, sweetie,’ said Matthew sympathetically
because he recognized that it was a lot easier for a bloke living in a hotel room than a girl with all her essential accoutrements. ‘We’ll be in there soon enough.’

‘How soon is “soon”?’

‘Well, I have to give Stevie a few days at least.’

‘Of course,’ said Jo, putting down the hairdryer and coming over for a snuggle. ‘I’m sorry, I’m being selfish even asking. Forgive me, it’s just that if I think too much about Stevie, I’ll start to feel awful. I know she didn’t deserve what we did to her and that’s what makes this so hard. I betrayed my friendship with her to get you, and the awful thing is that I would do it all over again if I had to. It doesn’t make me feel very good about myself. Sorry. This must be a terrible time for Stevie. I’ve been trying to think of what we could do to make all this easier for her.’

Matthew’s arms closed around her tightly. Building a relationship on the ruins of another wasn’t what either of them had wanted, but it had happened. The whole Stevie thing had brought tears to Jo’s eyes many times, because neither of them were the sort of sick people who went around hurting others for fun. It was just that when love like this called, you didn’t hide and pretend you were out, you flung open the door, invited it right on in to sit in your most comfortable chair and fed it your best tin of biscuits.

Jo sighed and rubbed the back of her long, swan-like neck.

‘I’m so stressed out. I’m waiting for Adam’s next move and I just want to be safe in your house with you rather than in some place where he could easily get to me if he wanted.’

‘I understand,’ he said, rubbing her shoulders and making her purr. ‘I’ll ring her later and push her along a bit.’

‘What if she starts playing “not answering the phone” games?’

‘Then I’ll call round,’ although he didn’t want to.

‘Maybe she’ll be at the wedding tomorrow–you can ask her outright then.’

‘The wedding?’

‘Yes. Will and Pam’s wedding,’ said Jo.

‘You are joking. I can’t go to that now!’ said Matthew, shaking his head.

‘Whyever not?’

‘Well, they’re more Stevie’s and your ex’s friends than mine and yours for a start.’

‘Don’t be silly,’ said Jo. ‘I’m sure you and I were invited on our own merits and not just as “plus ones”. Don’t put yourself down like that. You knew Will from the gym, didn’t you, before you even met Stevie
.
And I’ve met Pam and Will a couple of times and got on very well with them.’

‘Well, I suppose,’ conceded Matthew weakly.

‘Plus I’ve bought a new suit I have every intention of wearing.’

He didn’t look convinced so she came at him from another angle.

‘Matthew, the sooner Stevie sees us as a couple, the sooner she’ll realize it’s over for you and her. She has to know.’

‘Stevie won’t go to the wedding. I’d put my life savings on her not going after all that’s happened.’

He knew Stevie too well. She wouldn’t want to face the
world at the moment. At least he hoped he was right, because he didn’t want her turning up, going all Glenn Close, and making a scene.

‘So, what’s the problem?’

‘Well, I’m thinking about Adam.’

‘Matthew,’ began Jo with a dry laugh. ‘I have no intention of hiding away. I’m not the one that wrecked my relationship–I’ve got nothing to be ashamed of.’

‘We don’t have to go. I’m sure we wouldn’t be missed if we didn’t turn up. You and I could do something special together instead.’

‘People have to know some time that we’re an item, Matthew! Stevie will be far less hurt thinking tomorrow is our starting-point. We’re both free agents now, aren’t we? No one can say it’s wrong for us to be a couple now.’

‘Well…er…’ started Matthew, who hadn’t actually spelt it out to Stevie yet that he wasn’t coming back, but Jo wasn’t listening. Her brain had run on ahead.

‘It’s fairer on Stevie in the long run. Okay, it won’t be very nice for her at the beginning, but as soon as she knows you have found someone else, the healing process will kick in for her.’

Matthew was more worried about what MacLean would ‘kick in’ when he heard that someone was moving in on his wife.

‘Trust me, Adam will be less “upset”,’ said Jo, loading the word with meaning, ‘to see us getting respectably together in front of him tomorrow than poking around to discover we’ve been having an affair behind his back for the past few months.’

‘What if there’s a fight?’ said Matthew, thinking about his skull and Adam’s fist connecting with it.

‘Darling, William’s family won’t let anyone ruin his wedding day. If Adam starts any trouble at all then he’ll be out on his ear. As for Stevie, well, I’ve been thinking, maybe we could find her somewhere ourselves. I’ve seen some lovely rentals out in Penistone.’ She nibbled his ear on the final ‘nnn’.

‘Aaahhh! I think she’ll want to stay in the area,’ said Matthew. ‘Danny’s school and all that. But that is so kind of you for looking.’

‘Come on, it’s the least I could do. She’s a nice person and little Danny is sweet too,’ said Jo, and she smiled up at him through her long mascara-ed eyelashes. His legs felt weak, as if someone had taken all the bones out and replaced them with a Birds trifle.

‘Look, let’s talk about it on the way to work,’ he said, kissing the tip of her little pointy nose. He picked up her briefcase for her and they walked out into the corridor to find the lift out of order and the prospect for Jo of four flights of steps in very high stilettos.

‘Bloody hotel!’ she said. ‘How much did you say you were paying for this per night?’

‘Don’t ask,’ he sighed, following her fuming passage down the stairs. He was just at the top of the second flight when he realized what she had actually said:

‘How much did you say
you
were paying?’

The day of the wedding dawned. Danny woke up with a heart full of excitement for the hours to come. In the next bedroom, Stevie woke up with a heart full of dread for the hours to come. The day could take so many possible forms:

• 1) Matthew doesn’t turn up
  
• 2) Matthew turns up and ignores her
  
• 3) Matthew turns up with Joanna
  
• 4) Matthew turns up with Joanna and announces his engagement
  
• 5) Adam MacLean murders everyone
  

None of them was especially good.

Eddie bee-beeped outside at half past eleven and Danny moved as fast as if he had a nuclear rocket secreted down the back of his pants.

‘Mummy, it’s Uncle Eddie, it’s Uncle Eddie!’

‘Never!’ said Stevie, smiling at his jubilation, which trebled when he looked out of the window and saw Boot’s massive and ugly profile in the back seat.

‘Mummy, Boot’s here! Quick!’

‘They aren’t going to drive off and leave you, Danny. Hang on, let me get some shoes on.’

‘Come on,’ he urged, dancing around like Michael Flatley with a bladder problem. Eddie wolf-whistled when Stevie came out to the car in her very long rainbow-striped dressing-gown and a pair of trainers.

‘Oh, get stuffed!’ said Stevie, knowing she was hardly wolf-whistley material in this, or at all. Only blind, insane or desperate builders from high-up scaffolding had ever whistled to her, and that was usually because of her generously proportioned chest.

‘Stevie, what the bloody hell have you done to your conk?’

Stevie’s hand shot up to her still-tender nose in horror. ‘I fell at the gym. Oh God, can you see it? Is it really noticeable?’

Eddie waved it away with a flap of his hand. ‘No, is it heck. Slap a bit of make-up on it, nobody’ll notice.’

‘I did that already.’

‘Oh, sorry,’ said Eddie, twisting round to the little boy as a means of escape. ‘Ready, Sunshine?’ Danny had already clambered in the back and was fighting off a very licky Boot.

‘Boot!’ reprimanded Eddie. ‘Get down!’ Boot immediately lay down with his chin on Danny’s lap and the little boy’s face registered heaven as he stroked the big black head that looked as if it should be guarding a gateway into hell somewhere. It was part of a scenario Stevie had wished for him so many times: brothers and sisters, a house full of rough and tumble, everyone piling in a people-carrier with
a big sloppy dog and a big sloppy dad. Except that it wasn’t her kids or his big sloppy dog or his big sloppy dad but those of her best friend.

‘Oy you, cheer up,’ said Eddie, seeing the shadow of sadness suddenly cross Stevie’s features. He reached through the window, took her hand and squeezed it in his bear-like paw. ‘We’ll look after you today and we’re going to have a great time, and no one will notice your conk because the rest of you will be so gorgeous.’

He meant well.

‘You wearing a kilt then?’ asked Stevie, clicking on a smile.

‘Get lost!’ said Eddie. ‘I don’t want women lusting after my legs.’

Stevie laughed. ‘See you at one outside the church then.’ She rapped on the window to Danny and said, ‘You be good!’

‘Ah, he’s always good,’ said Eddie. ‘He’s a cracker like his mam.’

She blew them all a kiss and then went inside the house in the hope of making herself look the cracker of all crackers. Just for once.

‘Well, this is as good as it gets,’ she said to her reflection an hour later, which nodded back its approval. She had lost weight since she tried the red suit on in the shop; it fitted her not so snugly and the cut made her waist nip in nicely. Offset with slim black patent heels, a matching bag and a large-brimmed red and black hat, she looked okay, if she said so herself. An extra blob of foundation almost covered
up the scab on the bridge of her nose and took some of the bluish hue of the bruise away. The taxi pipped outside and she quickly grabbed the wedding present and locked up the front door on her way out to get it.

‘Saint Peter and All Angels,’ she said, just as the text message came through from Catherine to say they had just arrived and were waiting outside for her.
No sign of x + x
, was how the message ended, which was good, if it lasted.

It was a beautiful day for a wedding, sunny and no wind to blow hats off and skirts up, Marilyn Monroe style. The bells were pealing from the pretty little Maltstone village church where Catherine, resplendent in navy blue and a very gorgeous cloche hat, and Eddie in a dark grey suit and a tartan tie, were waiting for her outside as promised.

‘Oooh, lady in red, you look swanky,’ said Eddie, coming forward and giving her a little kiss.

‘So do you, kind sir,’ said Stevie, although even if Eddie had been wearing Armani he wouldn’t have managed to lose that ‘I hate suits’ look. His hair, as usual, refused to play ball, sticking up at all angles and making him look like a mad uncle with a secret laboratory.

‘Stevie, you look lovely,’ said Catherine, giving her a cheek peck and a little squeeze. Then her smile dropped. ‘What on earth happened to your nose?’

‘Oh hell,’ said Stevie, covering it up with her hand. ‘I fell in the gym. On the flaming treadmill. Guess who helped me up.’

‘Ouch!’ said Catherine, who didn’t have to guess. ‘Bet that hurt more than the injury. I think you have to be the most accident-prone person I know, Steve.’

‘Idiotically clumsy, you mean.’

‘No, I don’t mean that at all. Look, the nose thing isn’t really noticeable–I’m sorry I mentioned it,’ said Catherine, trying quickly to mend the fast-growing hole in Stevie’s composure. ‘It’s only because I stared at you from point-blank range. Your hat throws it right into shadow…’

‘Shut up about her beak,’ said Eddie. ‘Between the pair of us we’ll have her running off over the gravestones like Zola Budd! Come on, let’s get inside where it’s dark and no one can see anyone’s nose,’ and he presented his arms to both ladies and led them down the church path. It made a change from being led down the garden path, thought Stevie with grim humour.

They were so busy talking in the queue for hymnbooks that neither woman noticed him at first. It was only when it was Stevie’s turn and the distinctive voice said, ‘Brrride or Grrroom?’ that she jumped and took a long sweep upwards from the big hairy legs appearing out of the bottom of a heavily sporraned kilt to the mashed but surprisingly cleanshaven face, and then further on to a very, very cropped hairdo.

As if he hadn’t looked hard enough before. Even his name sounded full of testosterone. He was probably going to start smashing bottles on his teeth in a minute.

‘Pardon?’

‘Brrride or Grrroom?’

He even managed to make that sound threatening. As if she was in a Belfast pub and he was asking ‘Catholic or Protestant’ and any answer would result in a kneecapping.

‘Broom,’ said Stevie, swallowing.

‘She means “bride”,’ said Catherine, coming to her rescue.

‘All three of us are,’ continued Stevie, making it sound as if they were a united force. Like Charlie’s Angels.

‘Right, that side there then,’ he said, pointing left, and handed over three hymnbooks and order of services.

‘Thank you, so kind,’ said Stevie, sounding like her Auntie Rita who had been a bit of a slapper, by all accounts, until she married Uncle Reg, who was a barrister, and overnight became all posh and correct.

Catherine and Eddie twittered on in the background as she filled him in on who that was. They filed down to the middle of the church, Catherine first, Eddie in the middle and Stevie on the end.

‘What’s he doing here?’ Stevie asked finally.

‘Haven’t a clue. He must know William. Oy, Steve, did you see his legs?’ asked Catherine in a whisper that seemed to echo all the way up to the altar.

‘Shhh!’ said Eddie, which echoed as much.

‘I thought he’d got furry oak trees under his kilt,’ said Catherine, snorting from the effort of trying to keep the laughter in.

‘Where’s his hair gone?’ said Stevie, wondering if there was a connection with its absence and the break-up of his marriage. Some bizarre Scottish ritual, perhaps.

‘He’s stuck it on his legs, I think,’ said Catherine, having a major fit of giggles under her hat.

‘Will you two be quiet!’ said Eddie like a teacher on a school trip, although even he had a good look when usher-time was at an end and Madman strutted down the aisle to
take up his seat on the groom’s side. He was obviously trying to get his physical house in order, thought Stevie. Ah well, better late than never. Surely, he must have realized before that he wasn’t anywhere near Jo’s equal in the looks stakes, not compared to someone as handsome as Matthew. It pained her to think how stunning a couple Matt and
she
would make, with their matching dark hair and brown eyes and long legs, and treacherous hearts.

‘Big lad, isn’t he?’ said Eddie. ‘Wouldn’t want to be on the wrong side of him.’

‘Like me, you mean,’ said Stevie, who then had to shut up because the organ started playing the first notes to ‘Here Comes the Bride’ and Pam swaggered down the aisle in a fishtail white velvet dress, her hair piled up on her head with white flowers in it and a light furry cape dressing her shoulders. She was a big lass and a meringue frock would have looked ‘a bugger’, as she had so delicately put it, but in that get-up she looked gorgeous and sexy as she walked down the aisle on her dad’s arm–uber-slowly because he’d had a stroke and walked with a stick. Pam didn’t care about the pace, though; it just gave her maximum opportunity to milk that last journey as a single chick and more time to wave and wink and smile at her friends and relatives, in her own unique Pammy way.

‘Dearly beloved…’ began the vicar and Stevie gulped. It was exactly four weeks to her own wedding and she hadn’t a clue if it was still on the cards. Her head was clinging onto the possibility that it was, but a very strong and sensible voice within was telling her that she needed to wake up and smell some very strong espresso.

She managed to get through miming to ‘Love Divine’, which was pitched for either Barry White or Aled Jones in his
Snowman
days and no one in between. At least she had licence to dab her eyes at the readings then burst into full Teardrop City with everyone else as Pam and William sauntered back up the aisle as husband and wife, smiles bursting their faces open. There were no bridesmaids. Pam didn’t want anyone more glam than her stealing her thunder. Not that they would have been able to out-do Pam’s huge personality–and her huge everything else. And little, tiny, skinny William adored her. You could tell by his face during the ceremony that he could not believe his luck. No one, not even Matthew, had ever looked at Stevie with such intensity of feeling.
And no one ever will
, said a nasty little voice in her head that appeared to have a Scottish accent.

So, in the absence of bridesmaids, the best man linked up with Madge, Pam’s mum, William’s doll-like mum linked up behind with Adam MacLean, and Pam’s dad walked out at a more leisurely pace with his own mother. Stevie noticed MacLean flash her a look and she flashed one back as hard. They both transmitted ‘what the hell are you doing here?’ in international eye language. Then, as if that wasn’t enough to contend with, the first person she saw as she followed the others outside for the photos was Matthew. The plus point was that Jo wasn’t with him. The minus point was that he had the suit on that he was supposed to be wearing for his wedding to her.

‘Oh shit!’ said Catherine. ‘Have you seen who’s over there?’

‘Yes, I’ve just seen him,’ said Stevie, suddenly feeling quite nauseous and light-headed.

‘No, not him.’

‘What?’

Catherine did a discreet stabby point and Stevie followed it to see Jo there, in a black suit with red accessories, looking tall and slim and stunning. Stevie was thrown into total shock, and pins and needles prickled at her limbs. She wanted to run across the graveyard and go home. No, she didn’t, she wanted to charge at Jo with her head down like a bull and start clubbing her to death with an urn.

‘Keep calm,’ said Catherine, tapping her lightly on the arm. ‘You’re the one that hasn’t done anything wrong. Let them be the ones to make fools of themselves.’

‘She obviously hasn’t gone back to MacLean then, so that answers that one,’ said Stevie. ‘Then again, why are she and Matthew ignoring each other?’ She should have felt heartened by this but something was interfering with her ability to do that. Jo was, after all, a designer and this scene was looking distinctly designed.

‘They’re probably trying not to incur the wrath of the hairy-legged one,’ said Catherine.

Stevie watched as Adam’s eyes fell on Matthew and stayed there for a long, long second. His body locked like a Rottweiler’s before an attack, then he snapped out of it quickly to be pulled into a smiling photographic tableau. Then, as a natural consequence of seeing Matthew, he looked around for Jo. He found her, he stared, he swallowed and then was once again part of the happy wedding scene.

This must be as hard for him as it is for me, thought Stevie, recognizing that blanched, brave look.

She let her eyes casually drift over to Matthew, who pretended that was the first he had seen of her and, how she managed it she didn’t know, but she waved genially and smiled like the Queen, and then carried on eye-flitting, as if she was merely perusing the crowd. Jo’s red and blackness was harder to deal with. Stevie couldn’t bring herself even to glance in that direction so it was wiser to pretend Jo wasn’t there. Her suit seemed to keep creeping into Stevie’s peripheral vision though, and she had to keep constantly finding places for her eyes to rest away from Jo and Matthew and MacLean. It was exhausting.

‘Last photo–group shot of friends!’ announced the photographer, about three million years later, when all the old people were starting to ask loudly, ‘How much longer before we sit down and have something to eat?’

Oh God, thought Stevie as all the people in her worst nightmare seemed to converge onto the lawn. Catherine protectively dragged Stevie between herself and Eddie and moved forward into the throng. Jo was posing at the other end, Matthew was in the middle and Adam was nowhere to be seen, which meant he was probably somewhere behind her.