The Birds and the Bees (21 page)

Stevie opened up her eyes to a Saturday morning full of a whole Junesworth of sunshine bursting through the curtains. It had all the promise of a gorgeous, warm photographer’s delight of a day. A gorgeous, warm but awful day. Her wedding day.

By the time she came out of the shower, Danny was up, grinding his fists into his eyes to knock out the sleep and then he smiled.

‘Morning, Mum,’ he said, and she picked him up and cuddled him. He smelt of sleep and beds and he rained kisses on her cheeks and lips. He was so beautiful, she wanted to squash him. His love for her was so sweet and uncomplicated. Why wasn’t adult love as pure and faithful as this?

‘How many hours to Josh’s party, Mum?’ he said, as she put him down.

Hell, she had almost forgotten all about it.

‘Three hours, I think,’ she said, although she would check the invitation pinned up on the noticeboard to make sure.

‘Cool,’ he said, and went off for a wee.

She left the kitchen blinds closed and set the table in the sun lounge instead. The last sight she wanted to see this morning was the couple across the road sticking their tongues down each other’s throats on a day that should have been hers and Matthew’s. Was he thinking about what today should have been too, or had it been wiped from his memory? He had probably forgotten and was having wild sex right at the very time that he should have been getting his last shower as a single man. Stevie presumed he and Jo were having sex all the time. She found that she was almost getting obsessed, thinking about the two of them in bed together and
their
sex being the stuff of films, with no fumbling for condoms, wet sticky patches or embarrassing squelchy noises. There would only be fluid, powerful, rolling-about stuff and simultaneous orgasms and sweat that smelt of musky perfume. She hauled her thoughts away from across the street and back to the important issue of how to break it to Danny that they had run out of Coco Pops.

Across the street, Jo and Matthew had just finished having sex and were now relaxing in the glowing aftermath. She was nestled in the circle of his arms and talking about weddings. Theirs.

‘I think I fancy a carriage drawn by white horses, and a chocolate wedding cake like Pam’s only a lot bigger–three more tiers.’

Matthew just wanted to lie there and stroke her, not talk about spending money. He had fallen asleep the previous night totting up how much exactly he owed, and it was
a lot. At present rate of payback, the debt would be a millstone around his neck for fifteen years, not counting the extra to pay for the wedding that Jo was busy planning. Rough figures intimated that would cost at least twenty thousand, and that wasn’t counting the extravagant honeymoon. He felt slightly sick.

The clock said it was nine-fifteen on Saturday 3 June. If he had stopped at giving Jo MacLean his hankie in the car park that day instead of becoming involved, he would be getting married in a few hours. Contentedly so because nothing was actually wrong with Stevie: she was a good girl–generous, kind, warm, considerate, funny, sparky…and there would be less of a hole in his financial situation. He shuddered and pulled Jo into him. How could he be thinking like that? He didn’t like it one bit.

‘What’s the matter?’ she said.

‘I should have been getting married today,’ he said.

‘What–and you’re upset that you’re not, is that it?’ Jo pulled away from him.

‘Don’t be silly–hey, come back here!’

She let him drag her back but lay huffily in his arms.

‘It’s not very flattering being in bed with someone whilst he’s thinking about marrying another woman,’ she pouted.

‘I’m not,’ he protested. ‘Sorry, it was tactless and insensitive of me even to mention it. Come on, what can I do to make it up to you?’

‘Well, there is something,’ she said with that look in her eye. Then she lay back as his head disappeared under the duvet.

Josh Parker’s party was being held in the function room in the annexe part of Well Life. There was a bar there and Stevie was all too aware of how well utilized it would be by all the dads who had been dragged along. One in particular, worst luck.

Catherine had arranged to meet her outside and her welcoming smile slid further off her face the closer Stevie got.

‘Christ, you look like shit,’ said Catherine.

‘Thanks,’ said Stevie. ‘It’s not the best I’ve felt.’

Catherine was overcome with guilt. Maybe it would have been better for Stevie to sit in the cottage and mope or get drunk on gin until she hit oblivion. She could have taken Danny to the party for her and let Stevie pretend the day wasn’t happening. She was thinking about it the previous night then got sidetracked when the kids fell victim to some nameless bug that was circulating. Well, all of them except for Gareth, which was lucky, because he was excited about the party and she wouldn’t have wanted him to miss it.

Catherine linked her arm and they walked in together, and immediately Stevie voiced the, ‘Oh God,’ that Catherine was thinking. The function room was not only full of balloons, but party poppers were piled up in small mountains on every table. The disco music was blaring out by the dance floor and the bar was thick with dad-customers. Josh’s own father, Richard, waved over with a balloon in his hand, seemingly specially prepared. He looked like it was
his
birthday when his eyes first locked on Stevie.

Stevie hated balloons, she hated party poppers and she hated Josh’s noisy dad more than both of them put together. A legacy from her own mum and dad’s shouting days, she suspected, when she had cried herself to sleep, waiting for her fragile world to be split apart. It was almost a relief when it eventually happened. At least the screaming stopped.

Matthew had never come with her to any of the parties, so she had usually been on her own amongst a sea of couples, and what was it about some men that the title ‘thirty-something single mum’ was male-speak for ‘easy prey’? At the first party they had ever been to, Richard Parker had leapt on Stevie’s reaction to a popped balloon with a ‘hilarious’ tirade of many more. She had tried to laugh it off, but after two more hours of having her eardrums tormented, her nerves and her temper were in shreds. Ever since then, he had been there at every children’s party squeaking balloons near her, exploding party poppers behind her, however deep she was in conversation with anyone else, however much she ignored him, until she wanted to scream at him to leave her alone. But how could she do anything but try to be a good sport? She didn’t want to show Danny up or embarrass herself with an over-reaction, and if Jan Parker found Stevie telling her husband to ‘sod off’, what would she think?

She would probably presume that Stevie was at fault, because wives never quite believed that their partners were the instigators of trouble with another female, did they? Then they would end up not talking and the bad feeling might filter down to the kids, all because some stupid idiot
didn’t know when to stop. Yet he would remain blameless in it all, ready to torment another day. So Stevie suffered in painful silence and hoped he would get tired of the joke but he never did, and the more beers he had, the funnier he thought it all was. Today he looked as if he had had quite a lot to drink already.

‘Stand close to me,’ said Catherine. ‘I’ll tell him to piss off, even if you don’t. No wonder his mam called him Dick!’ and with that, she squashed Stevie on a corner table out of the way and went to get the first round in. Josh, Gareth and Danny were dancing–the lady entertainer was demonstrating ‘The Ketchup Song’–but Stevie’s smile at them was quickly knocked off by a big bang in her ear. She squealed and spun around.

‘Gonna get you later big time!’ said Richard Parker, staggering slightly behind her and waggling his finger. His rubbery lips moved over each other as if he was chewing a toffee but couldn’t quite locate it in his mouth.

‘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.