The Birds and the Bees (24 page)

There was a slight panic on the Friday as unforecasted rains came: great heavy flash floods and sparking lightning that Saturday brides and barbecuers alike stared out at in dismay. Stevie and Danny, walking home from an after-school visit to the park, were caught in a spectacular shower that drenched them totally, and they ran home half-laughing, half-screaming like mad things, then peeled off their saturated clothes and climbed straight into a big bubbly bath together.

Luckily, the clouds were gone the next day, except for a few wispy mares’ tails and the air was already very warm and shimmery above the garden. By mid-morning, brides everywhere reached for their lipsticks with relieved smiles. Stevie had worked in the sunny garden all week, and a splash of freckles had appeared all over her nose and cheeks as if flicked there by a paintbrush. The light tanning of her skin made her eyes seem as blue as that day’s skies and they shone with anticipation and excitement. She toasted a little further as she and Danny spent most of the day in the garden weeding out the potatoes that plagued the flowerbeds and digging out the dandelions, and the physical work took her
mind nicely off the nervous anticipations of the evening to come. Then Danny fell asleep under the umbrella whilst she was mowing the grass, and as it was probably going to be a late evening for him, she let him sleep on until it was time to get his bath and then his party shirt on. Catherine had arranged for Eddie to pick him up and take him to the Flanagans’ house so he could go along with the rest of the children.

‘That’ll give you another two hours to make yourself beautiful,’ she had said with a wink, and Stevie had retorted, ‘I’ll need more than that!’

‘Not in that frock you won’t,’ said Catherine. ‘All the work’s done for you.’

And so, as soon as Danny ran joyfully down the lane in his red dragon party shirt to Uncle Eddie and Gareth awaiting in the car, Stevie jumped in a bath armed with exfoliators, hair treatments and her trusty razor blade–a woman with a mission.

Apart from the fact that her hand was shaking when she put her eyeliner on and she had to redo one total socket, Stevie was quite pleased with her self-treatment, although she knew she couldn’t compete with Jo’s salon-perfection. Catherine was right, the dress was beautiful and fitted as if it had been made for her. She had dropped over a stone and a half in weight since all this business had started and the nipped-in waist only served to accentuate the curves below and above it. The dress pointed out the best bits even further, and teamed up with some strappy gold sandals that would probably cripple her in an hour, and a blue flower
holding back her hair at one side, she looked fresh and rather lovely.

She had met Adam briefly at the gym the previous day. He was zipping about busily but found her at the weight bench to say that he would pick her and Danny up at seven-thirty. He was going to drive, because he didn’t want to drink enough to put himself over the limit, and he wanted his head clear. When Stevie told him that Danny was going on ahead, she thought he had looked slightly disappointed. But then again, Adam MacLean,
Family Man
, would have shoved Matthew’s nose a little further out of joint, she thought cynically. She hoped Danny wouldn’t be upset by seeing Jo and Matthew together but, as Catherine had said, she couldn’t hide it from him forever that life moved on.

At seven she heard a taxi beep and peeped through the upstairs window to see Matthew and Jo climbing into it. He was wearing a loud Hawaiian shirt that would have looked ridiculous on anyone else but on him, it looked fun and summery and his shoulders looked big and broad in it.
She
had on a white strappy sundress with incredibly high black sandals. The whole ensemble looked very simple, but stunning, and Stevie’s nerve took a bit of a nosedive. Then again, she knew there was nothing she could have done to look better than she did with what she had available. Stevie felt
right
. Right shade of lipstick, right shoes, right hairstyle. This was it:
shit or bust
, as her Auntie Rita used to say, pre-posh husband.

She spent the last half an hour trying to keep her fingernails out of her mouth. She had French manicured them
herself and they looked quite nice, although they weren’t long talons like Jo’s because she had to keep them short for typing. She was so nervous that when Adam was thirty seconds late she was all for ringing him to say she wasn’t going–but just as she was doing the five-billionth check that there was no lipstick on her teeth, she heard a car pull up outside. Her legs wouldn’t move. She heard the car door shut, she heard his steps, she heard his heavy rap on the door.
Maybe if she pretended she wasn’t in
…

Telling herself off for being so pathetic, Stevie got up, went out into the hall and opened the door. Adam was wearing the same colour shirt as her dress. He looked big and blue and a bit handsome, and she found that her breath got all snagged up in her throat and she gave a little involuntary gasp.

He, meanwhile, gave her a discreet look up and down, then said quietly and as if surprised, ‘You look nice.’

‘Oh…er…thanks,’ coughed Stevie, who was quite thrown, seeing as she hadn’t expected a compliment from him, not in a million years. She thought it only polite to give one back. ‘So do you, actually.’

‘Aye, well, enough of the Mutual Appreciation Society annual day oot, let’s get tae the party,’ he grumbled, suddenly impatient. Stevie, who found she was a lot more comfortable with Adam MacLean in hostile mode than being a pretend nice-person, took a deep breath and climbed into the passenger seat.

The journey to Will and Pam’s house was too short. They had to park up at the end of the street as there were so
many cars. Stevie’s heart was boom-booming and she was trembling with tension. When Adam turned off the ignition, he didn’t look too keen to get out of the car himself.

‘You okay?’ he asked.

‘No,’ said Stevie.

‘You…we’ll be fine.’ Sounds of laughter and music filtered into the ensuing silence that hung between them. ‘I’m a wee bit scared myself for the record,’ he added eventually.

‘Are you?’

‘Aye.’

And scared as she was, it was Stevie who said, ‘Well, come on, we know what we’re doing. Let’s get on with it,’ and with that she opened the car door.

Contrary to what she thought might happen i.e. that the world would stop revolving and there would be a silence so profound that if a pin dropped it would deafen everyone within a forty-mile radius, what actually transpired was that Adam rang Pam’s doorbell, Pam answered, kissed and hugged them both and shoved them out into the back garden. There, they fell straight into the welcoming company of Catherine and Eddie, who were halfway down their first lagers. Adam, with his advantage of height, did a quick sweep of the merrily drinking crowds, but there was no sign of the lovebirds. He shook his head and Stevie was a paradoxical mix of relieved and disappointed.

‘They’re just around the corner to the left,’ said Catherine in a low whisper. Then she started doing an odd eye-blinking thing to Stevie, as if trying to deliver a
message in Morse code. Bizarre as it was, Stevie understood it. But then they had been friends for four thousand years.

‘Oh…er…Adam, I know you’ve seen Catherine but you haven’t really said a proper hello yet so, anyway…erm…this is Catherine and Eddie, my best friends. Cath, Eddie–this is Adam.’ Hands were shaken and smiles exchanged. He had quite a nice smile, Stevie noticed, as he flashed it at Catherine. Modest, warm and genuine.

‘Can I get you a drink, mate?’ said Eddie.

‘Naw, thanks. I think we’ll head awf and get one ourselves in a wee minute,’ said Adam, taking another look around and waving at someone.

‘You look bloody lovely,’ whispered Catherine to Stevie.

‘Do I? I could be sick with nerves!’

‘You look like a proper couple. You’re both glowing. Interesting, that.’

‘Oh shut up. I just wish they’d see us and be done with it. Where’s Danny?’

Catherine pointed over to the Bouncy Castle. He was with Catherine’s brood and having the time of his life.

‘He won’t come over even if you shout. You are one of the forgotten, like us,’ said Catherine, and gently pushed her forward. ‘Go and be seen, my love.’

‘Come on,’ said Adam, and he reached down and took up her hand. Stevie stared at it enclosed in his big square one and rounded her eyes at Catherine, who gave her a sly thumbs-up and a schoolgirl-giddy smile. Then, as if she was attached to a very energetic Doberman Pinscher, Stevie lurched forwards as Adam proceeded to move.

‘There they are,’ said Adam, tightening his grip. ‘Stay
calm and if you want to pretend you haven’t seen them, keep your eyes right on the conservatory.’

It was Catherine, watching in the background, who recorded what happened next. As she was to tell it later to Stevie, Jo and Matthew were walking slowly back into the throng engaged in beautiful couple conversation with an equally tall and willowy pair. As Jo’s lovely head swung around, her eyes touched upon her ex, holding hands with Stevie, and her whole body seemed to stiffen to the extent that, for a moment, she was almost one of Pam’s garden statues. Matthew followed her eye-path and saw them too. He hadn’t imagined it then, they really were a couple. Here was the indisputable proof. Both of them watched as Adam moved fluidly towards the drinks table. Then he bent to Stevie as if to ask her what she wanted, and she placed a hand at the back of his neck as she was speaking into her ear.

Beautiful! thought Catherine, watching the little touch that spoke of more intimacy than if they’d started shagging on the grass in front of everyone. Then Adam poured her a drink first and himself one second, then they very gently chinked their glasses and, after a respectable time, with a protective arm curled around her, Adam steered her back in the direction of her friends. Their movements were Bolshoi Ballet perfect.

Matthew’s mouth hung so widely open, it would have been easy to think the shock had dislocated his jaw. Never in his wildest dreams had he imagined that if they were together, they would be so brazen as to be seen in public. And what’s more, they were acting as if they had been
together years, easy and comfortable in each other’s company.
And she was holding his hand!
He stole a tentative look at Jo, who now knew what he did, and he was suddenly afraid at what that information would do to her. He could see her trying to act natural but she was a mess of nervous, annoyed gestures; the fingers on the hand not holding her glass were working at each other, her eyes were blinking and it was costing her a considerable effort to keep them away from her ex. Her smile was stiff. She looped her arm possessively through Matthew’s and forced him back into the conversation, but his brain was scrambled egg and he wasn’t contributing much other than the strained village idiot grin of the disengaged.

‘You did good,’ said Adam, kneading at the back of his neck. It felt as if someone had been using his muscles to do macramé.

‘I feel shaky as hell,’ said Stevie.

‘We’re okay. The worst is over and the good news is, I think it’s working.’

‘Oh, that was a beauty. Nicely understated,’ said Catherine, butting in. ‘Well, they definitely know now you’re a couple, and they both looked far from happy about it.’

‘Really?’ Adam and Stevie said in unison.

‘Everyone all right?’ said Pam, making her usual big appearance. ‘Stevie, I have to ask, when did you get to be so chuffing gorgeous?’

Pam might as well have put her on a rotating pedestal with neon arrows pointing to her. Stevie blushed and fobbed the compliment off, as the others teased her. Adam
found himself looking at her through man glasses and realized with a shock how lovely his companion appeared to everyone. Of course, he had given her a cursory once-over when he first saw her, but now he studied the detail of her–the tousled golden hair, the sky-blue eyes, the curves you could time eggs by. He wrenched his eyes quickly away, not wanting to look at her like that. That was not in his plan at all.

Pam was laughing like a drain. She took Stevie’s drink from her and gave it to Adam.

‘I’m taking this one away for a bit. I’ll bring her back safe and sound in a moment, promise,’ she said, threading her arm through Stevie’s and proceeding to lead her off. ‘Come here, you–I want to show you something.’ They walked off towards the conservatory because there was no saying ‘no’ to Pam. It was a family trait–you just didn’t argue with a née Manning girl.

‘What are you showing me then?’ asked Stevie.

‘Oh, this and that,’ said Pam enigmatically. ‘Come and look at my new conservatory.’ She picked off two glasses of champagne from a tray in the kitchen and led Stevie off to the big sunshiny room. Pam didn’t do ‘little’. Except Stevie. Stevie was a small person she was very glad to know.

‘So how’s married life?’ asked Stevie, after she had admired the huge comfy and colourful bouncy sofa in the room. If Pam had been an object of furniture, she would have been that sofa.

‘Fuck married life. Tell me about you and Adam MacLean. How long has that been going on?’

‘Oh…er…not long,’ bluffed Stevie.

She would have to be careful in this interrogation. She didn’t want to lie to Pam, but neither did she want to blow it by spilling the beans that they were actually only pretending to be together. Pam’s mouth was as big as an aircraft hangar.

‘I have to say you could have knocked me down with a feather when I heard about you and Matthew, Steve.’

‘Me too,’ said Stevie.

‘You didn’t know it was coming?’

‘No, not a clue,’ said Stevie.

‘He’ll be sorry,’ said Pam, shaking her head. ‘When he comes to his senses.’

‘I doubt it,’ said Stevie. ‘Jo’s pretty spectacular.’

‘She’ll be even sorrier. I never took to her, you know. Neither did Will. Too far up her own arse,’ Pam said with a derisory sniff.

‘No?’ Okay, Stevie got a thrill that Pam and Will hadn’t liked Jo, especially because Pam was not the type to say something just to make her feel better.