‘Yes, I do. I'm not condoning violence, don't get me wrong, but I think Jo and Matthew both deserve a taste of their own medicine,' she went on.
‘Will they get it though?' said Stevie, who had made tea for two in her new temporary home and opened up a celebratory packet of chocolate shortbreads. Not that she had anything really to celebrate. Yet.
‘Well, it's worth a try,' said Catherine and nudged her lasciviously. ‘You and Adam MacLean, eh?'
‘No, not me and Adam MacLean. There is no me and Adam MacLean. I want to hang onto my teeth and ribs a bit longer, thank you. Besides, the man is barely house-trained. Trust me, I wouldn't give the bloke so much as the time of day if I wasn't so desperate.'
‘Fantastic legs, though. I could imagine them-'
Stevie held her hand up and staved her friend's verbal flow.
‘Please, no Adam MacLean sexual fantasies. I'm trying to hold onto the contents of my stomach.'
‘Well, he doesn't come across to me as the violent nutter she said he was. Plus, can you really believe her word on all this? Miss Butter-wouldn't-melt?'
‘He's "acting" the non-violent type for our benefit, that's the point. He can't risk losing his temper because he needs me as much as I need him. But I don't trust him as far as I could throw him.' Which wouldn't have been very far at all. The bloke was a walking sofa.
‘Is there a house phone? You'll have to give me your new number.'
‘I'll sort it out tomorrow – well, the day after tomorrow,' said Stevie.
‘Why, what's happening tomorrow that's so important?'
‘Tomorrow I'm going to cancel all the wedding stuff.'
Catherine abandoned her biscuit and came over to give her a hug. ‘I can do all that for you,' she said.
‘No, no, it's all right,' said Stevie, with cry-shiny eyes. ‘I do appreciate it, but you've got enough to do.'
‘Naw, now the kids are all at school or nursery, I actually find time to breathe. I feel a bit lost, to be honest,' said Catherine with a sad little smile.
‘I have to do it myself,' said Stevie. ‘I have to face facts that this wedding is not going to happen.'
‘God, Stevie, you are so strong.'
‘Trust me, I'm not,' said Stevie, with a little laugh. One kind word would have turned her eyeballs into Niagara Falls.
‘The offer will still be there in the morning, but I won't bully you for once,' said Catherine, stroking her friend's hair as if she were Boot, whilst thinking to herself, What an idiot you are, Matthew Finch!
Stevie and Catherine had been friends from nursery school, although it hadn't started out that way. They had both fought viciously over the Cinderella crinoline in reception class and had to stand facing the naughty wall together. Somehow after that they had become friends, bonding over the Play-Doh shape machine and a few Spangles. The friendship grew from strength to strength, even when Catherine got pregnant at seventeen to a trainee boxer, Eddie Flanagan, although he was hardly the candidate the heavyweight boxing community had been holding out for. Eddie had about as much edge as Boot. Stevie had been prepared to hate him for coming between her and her best friend, but you couldn't dislike Eddie, not even if you were on mind-altering drugs. Catherine and Eddie married and went on to have kids and animals, whilst Stevie had taken the university route, during which time their friendship took a pen-pal turn for three years. Then Stevie came home and worked through a succession of dead-end jobs by day whilst she pursued her dreams of becoming a writer at night. Whenever she felt like giving up after a post-box full of rejections, Catherine was always there, spurring her on with her commonsense and fighting talk. She was the sister Stevie wished she had had, and could be very scary when crossed.
‘Right, come on now, this isn't knitting the baby a bonnet,' said Catherine, who had knitted quite a few baby bonnets in her time. ‘Let's get ready to rumble.'
Stevie carried her clothes on hangers straight over the road because there didn't seem much point in packing them only to have to unpack them at the other end all creased up. For herself, she picked the pretty pink bedroom at the back, which overlooked the garden. The front bedroom was larger but she did not want the first thing she saw when she drew the curtains every morning to be the house where her fiancé and his new lover lived. She carried her toiletries over in one of the cardboard boxes she had cadged from the Happy Shopper around the corner. She took the soft white towels she had recently bought too, leaving Matthew with his ancient ones that were more like wafer-thin loofahs. She would have left him a couple of hers, until she visualized Jo using them.
Shoes took up one of the new suitcases she had bought for their honeymoon. Catherine took the plastic-covered wedding dress over. Stevie hoped she might get some of her money back on that but either way, it needed to be got out of sight as soon as possible. She was stripping her bed when Catherine walked in on her from bagging up some of Danny's toys.
‘What are you doing?' said her friend, standing over her with her hands on her hips.
‘Well, they won't want to sleep in my sheets. I was just changing them.'
‘Don't be so soft, Steve. Stick them in the laundry basket and leave them. Let them make up their own bed and lie on it.' Then she shook her head at the irony of her words. Catherine had her ‘do as I say or else' face on, so Stevie obeyed.
She took her Le Creuset pan-set from the kitchen and her new super-steamy iron and the ironing board that she had bought only a couple of weeks ago. There was just the rest of Danny's room and bits and bobs to pack up, and then they had to call a halt to the day's mission, as it was time to pick up the children.
‘I'll come round with Eddie about seven o'clock,' began Catherine, shutting up Stevie before she started protesting. ‘I'll bring you a couple of spare duvets and some sheets and pillows to tide you over, and he'll carry the microwave over for you.'
‘I can't take the microwave.'
‘Who bought it?'
‘Well, I-'
‘Who bought it?' Catherine said again, being extra stern.
‘I did,' Stevie relented grudgingly, ‘but for both of us.'
‘You can't split it so you take it. Besides, the cottage doesn't have one,' said Catherine, who was beginning to realize that Stevie's financial contribution to the arrangement had been a lot greater than was fair. It looked as if Matthew hadn't paid for much of anything at all and there she was, thinking he had been so generous. Certainly, on the times they'd gone out to dinner, he was very extravagant with his money. She had taken that as a strong indicator that he was a good provider. Something else it appeared she was wrong about.
‘Look, do you want her baking her spuds in it, whilst you and Danny do without?' urged Catherine, watching Stevie still deliberating over the microwave.
That was the clincher. Catherine really should have been a psychologist. Or a Kray.
‘Okay, I'll take it then.'
‘Don't you dare try and lift it yourself. I know what you're like, Stevie Independent Honeywell, it'll weigh a ton! Promise?' admonished Catherine with a heavy wag of her finger.
‘Yes, Sergeant Major, sah, I promise!' said Stevie, saluting her. Then she went to pick up her son and tell him, with a softening ice cream en route, about their new domestic arrangements.
Danny's new bedroom was much, much bigger than the old one, plus he had a double bed in it, which was ‘cool', and once he was full of chicken nuggets and was arranging his toys in his new space and had put Mr Greengrass Head on the kitchen windowsill, he seemed easily content with the changes. It was a real relief for Stevie who hadn't known how he would react. She'd had visions of him screaming and clinging to the door whilst she tried to drag him over the road and crying, ‘I won't go, I won't go!' but he trotted over quite keenly and said, ‘Wow!' and ‘Cool!' a lot, which was always a good sign.
She and Danny had taken some other bits and pieces over, then Eddie and Catherine arrived and helped to move the boxes of Stevie's videos and CDs and DVDs. Eddie transported the microwave and Danny's portable TV. There was a huge TV in the cottage and speakers all round the room. Eddie, a gadget maniac, fiddled and foddled and found out how to switch it to cinema surround.
‘Curtains closed, a big bag of popcorn and a Harry Potter on here, lad, and it'll be better than the pictures,' said Eddie, which had Danny's face lighting up like a Christmas tree. He was viewing all this as much of an adventure, as Charlie Bucket did his trip to Willy Wonka's Chocolate factory.