Of course, Adam had lied. He didn’t need any time. He knew what he wanted but he had to get out of the way and not complicate things for Stevie. She had waited so patiently for Matthew to come back to her and now she had him. So how could he upset all that for her by declaring his feelings now?
He pushed the door open to his house–only a house, never his
home
. It was so chilled and without heart, warmth, laughter or little boy’s mess. There was no Mr Greengrass Head on the windowsill, no comfy clutter of pens or books with clocks-and-moons motifs on the covers. There were no clouds of flour billowing from the kitchen and no monster pans of chilli on the hob. He had never liked this house, but now he hated it. It was big and bare and echoey, and the memories stored within its walls were cold and hollow. He would ring the estate agent that afternoon and get it on the market. Then he would award himself some time off work so he didn’t bump into Stevie.
Stevie
.
Adam MacLean dropped himself on the cold leather sofa and thought of the softness of her face as he held it,
remembered how she had gulped as he stared into her eyes and how his heart had trembled when her lips had touched his. He had never loved anyone in this way before, with a depth that made cheap parodies of all the other times he thought he had been in love. Stevie deserved to be happy, and he so much wanted her to be happy–with him or without him. And it looked as if it was going to be without him.
At that thought, big fierce boxer-faced Adam MacLean’s head fell forwards into his hands. He didn’t stop the tears when they came.
Jo sat in her bedroom in the Queens Hotel staring into her compact mirror as she applied a slick smear of lipstick. Was that a line appearing under her eye? she wondered. It was becoming more and more urgent to hook a rich fish who would be able to finance her fight against the ravages of time. Beauty was a talent on a timer.
Suddenly Jo lauched the compact across the room, smashing it against the wall. She didn’t even think of clearing it up. Any mess outside the boundary of Jo’s clothes was of no consequence. She was interested in nothing but the fulfilment of her own needs.
‘Damn you, Stevie Fucking Honeywell,’ she snarled. Had it not been for that short, fat cow she would be in Colin’s lovely oak-panelled house now, being petted and fussed over, and not in the cheapest room in a glory-faded hotel paid for by pawned jewellery. Or better still, she would be with Adam. He wasn’t as rich as Colin, by far, and no one was more surprised than her to realize that it didn’t seem to matter. Jo MacLean’s mantra had always been, ‘Happiness doesn’t bring you money.’
There was a two-day Porsche business convention going
in the hotel, and a wealth of suits spilled into the large reception area, the wine garden, the bars and restaurant. Jo slipped on a plain black dress that emphasized her long, slim body, the cut of it adding the illusion of curves. She had never failed to ‘pull’ in that dress.
But before she explored the potential downstairs, there was one final thing she needed to do. She couldn’t just leave it there with Adam and Stevie. If she couldn’t have what she wanted, then why the fuck should they?
Jo MacLean picked up her pen.
On the last day at work before his self-imposed break, Adam’s hand stilled on the envelope in the middle of the pile of post in his office at Well Life. There was no stamp on it, so it had obviously been hand-delivered for maximum effect. He knew the beautiful precise writing with the artistic loops well. He should have thrown it out, but curiosity got the better of him. It was Jo at her manipulative best.
Dearest Adam, whatever you think about receiving this from me, grant me one final kindness and read it to the end, I beg you
.
They were iron words, cushioned in a velvet glove of girly curls.
I’m so sorry I hurt you
…
I will always care for you
…
I have to say this
…He didn’t want to read it, but the masochistic part of him couldn’t rip his eyes away from the hypnotic soft swirls of ink.
She put it oh so beautifully, how he could never be right for Stevie because he would never conform to her dull, vain type…
and you deserve to find someone who will love you for the strong, selfless, unique, big personality that you are
. She said that playing happy families with Stevie and Danny was a mere illusion, because Stevie’s own horrid experiences
with step-parents would never allow him to be really accepted unless he were perfect. She was saying this to be kind, of course.
Darling Adam, you were the best thing that ever happened to me and I shall always regret my stupid mistake at falling for the lies of another. I still love you and if you ever change your mind, I will drop everything and come to you. Be happy, you wonderful man. Jo x.
He read the letter through to the end and the words continued to sting him long after he had ripped it up and thrown it into the bin. Adam MacLean might have known his
basic psychology
well, but Jo MacLean was a past master.
Stevie found the letter on the welcome mat. It had been hand-delivered and bore her name in extravagant script on the front. There was a friendly little smiling face drawn in the final ‘e’ to lend it affection. Stevie didn’t want to open it, but its very presence gave her no choice.
Dearest Stevie, I know you will never forgive me but please allow me this one act of genuine friendship and read this letter to the end
…
The words were exquisitely put, needles embedded in cotton wool. She knew this, but still she read on.
Adam is using you
…
he never stopped loving me
…
He invited me to the gym to talk about a reconciliation
…
He told me evil things you had said about me
…
I so regret believing him and scratching your car in temper
…
Stevie gasped. She remembered the day well. Why else would Jo have been at the gym, if not to talk to Adam?
Be careful of little Danny’s heart
…
as you know only too well, dear friend, step-families are doomed to fail
. Jo told her
how Adam’s ‘type’ would always be tall, beautiful, thin, dark-haired women, and how Stevie needed to find someone to love her for the
wonderful curvy sunshiney woman
that she was.
You deserve so much more than any of us. You were the best friend I ever had and I shall always think of you with a smile. I so much regret that you will never be able to do the same for me. Be happy, darling Stevie. Kindest regards and love–Jo x.
Stevie ripped the letter up, but the words left a poison deep in her heart and there was no one on hand to suck it out for her.
Catherine snuggled up to Eddie’s big body under the thin cotton sheet. There was a light breeze ruffling the curtain, blowing cool and gentle onto their skin. They only needed a cheesecake and it would have been heaven.
‘Can’t believe after all these years you’re still that good in bed,’ said Catherine.
‘Is that a compliment or not?’ laughed Eddie, slapping her on the backside.
Catherine sighed. If she could, she would have split her bliss and given half to Stevie. She was functioning day to day but Catherine wasn’t fooled. Her friend was an automaton, an empty shell bravely guarding the remnants of a heart that was smashed to pieces.
As if reading her thoughts, Eddie asked her, ‘How’s Stevie getting on?’
‘You know Stevie,’ said Catherine. ‘She’s stuck a smile on for the outside world and says she’s fine, but I can tell she’s not good. Not good at all.’
‘I reckon Matt will try and get back with her.’
‘Probably,’ said Catherine. She didn’t voice it, but that’s what she was afraid of. Stevie and Adam MacLean might
have been the world’s unlikeliest couple but there was something sparking between them that she doubted they even knew was there. She didn’t want Matt to slip weakly back into her best friend’s life. She wanted that big, strong Gaelic man to confess his undying love and live happily ever after with Stevie and Danny in that beautiful cottage.
‘I wish there was something I could do,’ she said absently.
‘You keep out of it,’ said Eddie with as stern a voice as he could muster.
‘I’m not the keeping-out-of-it type.’
‘Force yourself,’ said Eddie.
‘I wish Stevie could find what we’ve got,’ said Catherine with a heavy sigh. ‘Well, maybe not all seven kids.’
‘Talking of kids, I saw Rip Van Winkle today,’ said Eddie. ‘I said “By heck, James, it’s Saturday afternoon, what are you doing up?” And by the way, we’ve only got six.’
‘Aye, well, remember the night of Pam’s wedding, when you got all frisky dancing your big meaty legs off to that Birds and Bees dance and then came home and gave me what-for…’
‘Yes, I most certainly do,’ said Eddie with a big beam. ‘I wasn’t bad, was I, if I say so myself.’
‘Well, you left a bit of you in here.’
Eddie sat up in bed. ‘You’re never!’
‘I flaming am!’
He threw his arms around his wife and squashed her to bits.
‘Bloody fantastic,’ he said with a grin that stretched so far across his face, his lips nearly joined around the back of his head. He took her hand and kissed the back of it tenderly. ‘Mrs Flanagan, I love you. You’re chuffing magic.’
‘Well, if magic has got anything to do with it, let’s send some of it on,’ said Catherine, and laid her own kiss on top of Eddie’s, then blew it in the direction of Stevie’s house. Surely not even Eddie could rebuke her for interfering in Stevie’s life on that plain.
A week had passed when the loud knock landed on Stevie’s door and her heart started racing as she rushed to open it. It dropped like a stone though to find Matthew standing there; nevertheless, she formed a small, welcoming smile, which was roughly a quarter the size of his own.
‘I’ve got some great news!’ he said, angling for an invite.
And Stevie being Stevie, she said, ‘Come in.’
‘Is er…?’
‘No,’ said Stevie, anticipating what he was going to ask. ‘Adam doesn’t live here any more.’
Matthew’s smile suddenly got a bit wider.
‘Coffee?’ said Stevie, because it would have been rude not to.
‘Yes, please,’ he said, because it would give him an excuse to stay a little longer. ‘Lovely cottage,’ he commented, looking around. Not only lovely but also shining and polished and clean, and there was that indefinable something in it that turned a house into a home. His house didn’t have it any more. It hadn’t had it since Stevie left.
‘Yes, it is lovely,’ she said quietly. She would be sorry to say goodbye to it too, so sorry. So many times she had
picked up the phone to ring Adam on the pretext of asking him when she needed to get out of the cottage, only to put it down again in case Jo picked it up. He would be a fool to have gone back to her, but Jo MacLean was like a flame to men and she attracted the sorts of hearts that could not stop themselves burning their fragile moth-wings many times against her. Adam must have taken her back; why else would he have left and not been in touch?
‘Sorry I’ve not been across before, but it’s been a mad week,’ said Matthew.
‘Oh yes?’ said Stevie, barely realizing how many days had passed. She had locked herself away in her office when Danny wasn’t around, occupying all thought-space with Damme and Evie, because she did not want to think of her own empty life.
‘I’ve been offered my old job back!’ said Matthew.
‘Good, I’m pleased,’ said Stevie.
‘But…’ He left a dramatic pause. ‘I’m not taking it.’
‘Why ever not?’
‘Because I’ve decided I’m going to have a fresh start. I’m selling the house and clearing some of my debts with the equity, and then I’m moving to London. I’ve got interviews lined up and I’ve found a flat, sharing with some other people. It’s cheap and cheerful but it will do nicely until I get back on my feet. I’ve made too many mistakes here and I want to get away. And by way of an unofficial apology, Doyles are giving me three months’ paid leave and they’ve wangled me a tax-free bonus. I hear it was old Seedy who came through for me in the end, can you believe?’
‘Yes, I can believe it,’ said Stevie. He had looked a decent
man. One who must be hurting terribly at the moment too.
‘He’s going to live in New York apparently.’
‘Good. A fresh start for him too. And…Jo?’ asked Stevie, although she still had difficulty saying the name.
‘
Got flattened by a stray meteorite, died an agonizing slow death
.’
Okay, so she imagined that.
‘No one knows. She didn’t turn in for work the day after you went into the office and hasn’t been back since.’
Adam hadn’t been seen either. He hadn’t been working at the gym. They were obviously together. Maybe they had gone off on holiday–after all, isn’t that what couples did to escape the trail of devastated hearts they left behind–run off to the sun? Not that it mattered really, for the words of Jo’s letter had stung her hard and deep. Even with no Jo MacLean on the scene, Adam’s heart wasn’t going to be fulfilled by a short, lumpy woman and someone else’s kid.
‘Apparently Colin looked rough for a couple of days after your meeting,’ said Matthew. ‘Someone said he was caught crying in his off—’ A five-ton penny dropped. ‘Hey, you don’t think Jo and Colin…do you?’
‘I’m almost sure of it, Matthew.’ Stevie had been instrumental in that avenue of escape being closed to Jo, which would almost definitely have driven her back to Adam as a safe haven. She shooed that thought away and turned her attentions back to Matthew. ‘So how come you know what happened at work?’
‘Well, people started ringing me again–once the truth filtered out that I wasn’t a psycho-woman batterer. I think
they felt a bit guilty about believing the stories and tried to over-compensate. Anyway, I got some presents and good luck cards in the post and I’m meeting my department for a night out before I move.’
‘I’m glad for you, Matthew, I really am. I hope you enjoy London.’
‘Unless you…er…’ Matthew stumbled. Stevie looked up into his eyes. They were soft, brown, warm and open, and he was looking nervously at her like the first time he had dared to ask her out.
‘Unless of course you didn’t want me to g-go and…’ he stuttered on.
Stevie gulped. This was the moment she had been waiting for. Adam’s plan had come through for her too, it seemed. So why wasn’t she hearing brass bands playing in her heart? There was nothing but the faint piercing sound of retreating bagpipes.
That week she had finally faced up to the fact that her love for Matthew had started to die as soon as Adam showed her the holiday confirmation; its roots had been wrenched out with the break of trust. She knew she had clung on blindly to the fantasy that it was still a plant alive and growing because a buried but determined part of her wanted to win Matthew back from Jo, to make up for the fact that she had lost Mick to Linda. She wanted so much to see him as the strong, reliable bloke her heart was waiting for. But he wasn’t that man. Someone else was.
‘No, I don’t suppose…you would, would you? C-consider–you…me–again?’
‘No, Matthew.’ She answered him in a kind voice
because there had been too many hearts broken, too many emotional casualties.
‘I was a thick twat,’ he said with genuine frustration. ‘My grass was lovely and green and I went looking for better stuff and ended up with Astroturf.’
She hoped his next job wasn’t going to be writing romantic fiction, because he just might give her a run for her money with lines like that.
Matthew looked at her, her spun-gold hair, her lovely blue eyes, warmth and nice-person radiating out from her in waves, and once again he could not believe he had let her go. Ironically, her strength in saying, ‘No’ to him made him want her even more, but her eyes were only looking back at him as if he was ordinary. They weren’t registering that he was special any more. They looked at Adam MacLean quite differently, he had noticed. Jim Bowen’s voice welled up in his head with the Bull’s-eye tune playing in a minor key:
Look at what you could have won
.
‘It’s him, isn’t it–Adam? You really fell for him then?’
‘Yes, Matthew, hook, line and sinker.’
‘I thought you were just joking at first, you know. You’ll laugh but I thought it was all a sort of plan to get us jealous.’ He laughed at how stupid that seemed now. As if! ‘So what happened?’
‘I don’t know,’ she shrugged. ‘I presume Adam and Jo are together somewhere, planning a new start. I haven’t seen or heard from him since…well, since…’
‘Since I came round that night, by any chance?’ Matthew said, his shoulders scrunching up with shame and embarrassment. Stevie didn’t answer; she couldn’t. There
was a big lump in her throat, and there was no Adam around to perform a Heimlich manoeuvre on her to shift it.
‘I’m sorry,’ he said apologetically. ‘I seem to have developed rather a habit of wrecking your life.’
For once she didn’t say her customary kind, ‘No, don’t be silly,’ to let him off the hook. Matthew knew, by that, just how deeply he had hurt her. The sooner he got to London the better. Maybe there he would finally grow up.
‘When the house is sold, I’ll give you some money from it to cover Danny’s holiday and of course the wedding costs. I’m sorry, Stevie. I’ve been a total bastard. I look at myself and I don’t like what I’ve become. I used to think I was a good bloke. I don’t want to be this Matthew. I want to get right away from him.’
‘When do you leave?’ she asked.
‘Next week–got to pack up the stuff I need and get rid of the rest. Might even do a car boot sale.’
‘You can earn quite a bit on those.’
‘Hey, remember when we did that one, that freezing Sunday morning?’
‘Yes, I remember,’ she said, smiling a little at an old faded memory, of a time when they were happy. A lifetime ago. Those two people didn’t exist any more though.
Matthew was viewing the same memory, although his mind glasses had deeper rose-shaded lenses at the moment: snapshots of them eating burgers at eight o’clock in the morning just to keep warm; the old woman bartering them down from thirty to twenty pence for a leather wallet; the man in the Shredded Wheat wig they’d tried so hard not to
giggle at. Stevie had been so sweet, so much fun. He hoped there would be another Stevie in London to meet.
‘Thanks, Stevie, you’re a diamond and I owe you big time,’ he said, and he threw his arms around her and hugged her for the last time. She wasn’t as pliant as he remembered. She didn’t melt against him and envelop him in her affection. But then, she wasn’t his any more.
‘Goodbye, Matthew, and good luck,’ she said, and kissed his cheek, and though she smiled, the light seemed to have gone from her eyes. He wished, at least, he could put that back there for her.
That afternoon, Adam MacLean was watching something mindless on the television about doing up gardens hosted by a woman with jolly features and wayward breasts, as he imagined Stevie’s would be in that garb. He’d always gone for women with scraps of meat on their bones, like his mother, but Stevie had a bottom he wanted to bite lumps out of. She was so soft and curvy and warm, but Jo’s words in the letter had haunted him. Stevie would want more for herself and her son than a ‘unique’ (i.e. ugly) man who made noise wherever he went.
He knew he would have to speak to her soon about the arrangements for the cottage, but he was scared he would turn the corner and see her back in Matthew’s house, and find Humbleby Cottage lying as empty as his heart felt. He would have to face it, but not now. Just a few more days until he found the strength to look her in the eye, wish her all the luck and happiness in the world, let her go for ever.
He looked around at the cold, characterless room and
decided that he really needed to clean up. The house hadn’t been vacuumed in days, nor had the dishwasher been switched on. Then again, there had been no plates to wash because he hadn’t been eating. He had managed to drag himself to the shower, but not over to the shaving mirror. He looked half-wild with his auburn stubble and flat, tired eyes. He caught sight of his reflection in the smoky glass of the display cabinet and decided he wouldn’t have liked to meet himself up a dark alley.
He ignored the first ‘bing bong’ of the doorbell, as he wasn’t in the mood for visitors. After the fifth bing bong, he thought he had better address the irritation and get rid of it by telling them that, no, he didn’t want to convert to their religion, thanks, he was quite happy being a Satanist. No, he didn’t want to sponsor them, vote for them, buy their windows, look at their brochure or convert his energy supplies. He had no energy to convert.
The fuzzy shape that he saw through the glass was a man’s, and when he opened the door, it was to a rather pale-looking Matthew.
‘Hi,’ his unexpected visitor said with a big gulp and a hand held up in a ‘how’-like greeting. ‘I realize you might want to murder me, but before you do, can I please tell you something?’