‘Joanna? But she's married,' said Stevie, taking her place on the stage to receive her Oscar for ‘best shocked actress'.
‘She's … er … split up from Adam at last. As I found out last night. So … er … I'll need the house back as soon as I can.'
Stevie felt shaky and sick. ‘What? You're moving her in already – after one night?'
‘No, of course not. Don't be silly.' Matthew's hand went nervously to his hair again and then he started rubbing his neck. He really wasn't very good at lying.
He must think I'm an idiot to believe all this, thought Stevie, suddenly filled with a boiling rage which took over her mouth, totally bypassing her brain.
‘Well, actually, I was going to tell you, Matthew, that I've found somewhere and I'll be out by Wednesday. I can't make it any earlier than that, I'm afraid, so I hope that will be okay with you?'
‘Oh yes … great.'
Great? He actually said great. The rage temperature shot up a few more centigrade. She was not even letting herself think of what she was saying; she just wanted to show him she was in control and okay and bigger than this. Even if she wasn't. Even if inside she was vibrating with anger and fear and hurt, outside she would look as if she could cope. Stevie stood up, surprised that her legs had been strong enough to support her.
‘I'll pop my keys through the letterbox when I leave. Let's say, by Wednesday noon.'
‘Five o'clock would do,' said Matthew, seemingly unable to cover up the sweat of his relief. If he'd had a handkerchief handy he would have probably mopped his brow at this point, Stevie thought. Like Louis Armstrong singing ‘Wonderful World'.
‘Okay, five o'clock then.'
‘Right. Brilliant.'
‘So let's get your post,' Stevie said, rising to her feet. ‘Where are you staying?' She clung on to the amicable smile. It was like hanging onto something burning; it hurt and she couldn't wait to let go of it.
‘Oh, just one of the hotels in town.'
Hotel. So it wasn't a grotty little B&B after all then. She wanted to ask which one, and whether Jo was staying there too, and watch him squirm because, had she had any life savings left, Stevie would have put them on the perfidious pair being holed up together in a double room in this mysterious and nameless ‘hotel in town'. But that's what he would be expecting her to do, cross-examine him, so she didn't. She played outside his expectations. There was something she did need to ask, though.
‘So, about our wedding,' she began, her voice croaking like a frog on forty Woodbines a day.
Matthew didn't say anything; he just looked at her with big, apologetic, brown eyes.
Stevie gritted her teeth and said, ‘I thought so. Well okay,' she managed, with a ‘let's get on with it then' hand clap. ‘You tell your parents and your relatives, I'll do the rest.'
‘Sorry,' he said, as if he had just accidentally stood on her toe and not smashed up her life with a sledgehammer.
‘To be expected in the circumstances. Especially if you're asking other people out,' she said, her upper lip so stiff, she doubted it would soften in three tons of Lenor.
‘Bye, Stevie, you're such a lovely, understanding person,' he said, and he shocked her with a big grateful hug after he picked up his post and stuck it in his pocket, which at least proved to her just how surprising the unexpected could be. She extricated herself, battling the urge to stay there and fill herself with the smell and the feel of him and to beg him not to leave her.
‘Bye, Matthew.'
She lasted five seconds after the door closed before breaking down. How could she have been so stupid as to think a nice hairdo and a few pounds off would make any difference? Hadn't she learned anything from last time?
When she first suspected Mick had been having an affair, she had post mortemed herself to shreds. What was she? Too porky, too blonde, too unfit, too arty, too short, too straight-haired, too blue-eyed, too incredibly clumsy, too crap at cake baking? What was it that had caused Mick to turn his attentions to another woman? Then she had found out who he was having an affair with. A barmaid – Linda: hook nose, yellow teeth and proud owner of incredibly fat ankles.
‘This hasn't happened because you've got a slightly bigger bum than you should have, girl,' said a nice, kind part within her, eager to give some comfort. It hadn't stopped her from wanting to know just why it had happened then, to pin his actions to a reason. Why was it so hard for blokes to understand that all an ex might need to go forward was a two-minute explanation? Why did they hold up an aggressive crucifix against the demon of ‘closure'? Even, ‘I ran off with Linda because I happen to have a thing about women who look like bulldogs,' would have been better than the not-knowing why. But the cowardly swines saw no advantage in facing up to what they had done and so women started ripping into themselves trying to find the answer, as they would their house if a ring had been lost and leaving no stone unturned to find it. No wonder they started boiling rabbits and sewing prawns into curtains. Well, Stevie wasn't going to go mad this time. She wasn't going to hide Matthew's clothes, follow him in his lunch-hour, starve herself or give him her full emotional repertoire in a misguided, desperate attempt to get him back. All that would do was drive him further away, as she knew to her cost with Mick.
Stevie crunched herself up into a small ball and sobbed quietly, so Danny wouldn't hear, though she wanted to keen and howl at full belt like a wolf at the moon and let out all the pain. And what the buggery bollocks had made her say she had somewhere else to go? In three days' time too? ‘So what are you going to do now?' the sensible part of her brain shouted at the smartarse side. The smartarse side was not forthcoming with any answers.
She couldn't stay at Catherine's, although she knew the Flanagans would shift and jiggle to accommodate her and Danny. There would be no space to work, plus she wouldn't be able to work anyway from the guilt of inconveniencing them. Her mother lived too far away for Danny's school and anyway, Edna Honeywell only had a one-bedroomed flat, and a life in which there was even less room for them both. As for her father – well, he wasn't even in the short-list of people to ring with this one.
Stevie sobbed some more, letting herself wallow in rare self-pity. Five months ago, she had had her own house, a nice full bank account and a fabtastic boyfriend who loved her just as she was. So how had she got to this place – grossly depleted savings and three days away from being homeless? She hated to admit this, but there was only one person who just might be able to stop everything slipping away from her. Stevie went out to the recycle bin in the garage where all her scrap paper was kept awaiting collection, scavenged around until she found what she was looking for, and then she rang the number on the retrieved business card.
‘Hellooo,' said a voice full of nails and razor-blades.
‘Hello, Mr MacLean. It's Stevie Honeywell. I think I'm ready to talk.'
Chapter 19
It was with a certain amount of cockiness that Adam MacLean swaggered up the short path and rang the doorbell of 15 Blossom Lane the next morning, at nine thirty, as arranged, and it was with a certain amount of humility that Stevie received him. He accepted her offer of a cup of coffee and followed her into the kitchen where a percolator was already chewing on some beautiful-smelling beans. The room looked completely different when it wasn't covered in flour, he thought. She had obviously tightened up her act a bit since Matty Boy left. It was gleaming actually, and so was the front room that they went into when the coffee was ready, give or take a bit of mess that made a home comfortable – Spiderman slippers, jotters and pens, a big tub of Lego and a very strange head made out of a sock sitting in a jam jar with grass for hair. Adam sat down on a sofa that was meant to hold four people and took up nearly half of it. On the coffee-table there was one of those infernal books that daft women read, called The Carousel of Life by Beatrice Pollen. He picked it up, gave the back cover blurb a quick dismissive read and put it back down again in such a way that gave Stevie no doubt of his opinion of it.
‘So?' he said, rather smugly. ‘You changed yerrr mind.'
‘It wasn't an easy decision.'