He asked her again what she did for a living, and once again she told him she wasn't telling him. Then he asked her how her son had taken to the move and she answered that he had been remarkably ‘cool' – in the warm sense – about it. Then she changed the subject because Danny was not part of all this. She didn't want him any more confused than he had been already, and she didn't want Adam MacLean talking about her son; he was off-limits. Adam MacLean, however, was nothing if not persistent.
‘How old is he?' he asked.
‘Four,' said Stevie.
‘Does he go to Lockelands School around the corner?'
‘Yes.'
‘Hard work at that age, aren't they?'
‘He's a good boy,' said Stevie. The clipped monosyllables weren't putting him off, obviously.
‘So Matthew's no' his daddy then?' he asked mischievously, for he had already worked out the answer to that one.
‘No,' said Stevie, clearly irritated. ‘I've only known Matthew for two years.'
‘Ah, so your wee boy was two when you met.'
‘My goodness, you can do sums as well. Where do your talents end, I wonder?'
Adam growled and spooned a little more chilli his way. ‘He a local boy?'
‘Matthew? Yes.'
‘No, your wee boy's daddy.'
‘Yes, he was a local boy too.'
‘Wes?'
Okay, she would end all the questions now.
‘Yes, "wes". I'm a widow, Mr MacLean. My husband died when I was two months' pregnant, if you must know. Danny never knew his father.'
Adam stopped mid-chew. What she had said sank in and he had the grace to look slightly ashamed of himself for thinking her a loose piece. Jo had twisted that particular detail. She'd told him that Danny didn't know his father because Stevie wasn't sure who he was. He started to eat again.
‘I'm sorry.'
‘Yes, well, that's life. Or rather it isn't,' said Stevie with a black little laugh.
They chewed on some more and Stevie filled up their glasses.
‘So how long have you actually lived with Matthew then?' asked Adam.
‘Well, I was introduced to him about two years ago, as I say, but we first went out as a couple eighteen months ago. I moved in with him at New Year,' said Stevie. ‘I really thought I was doing the right thing. You have to take chances sometimes, don't you? Even if you do keep getting it wrong.' She gulped back any more leakages of information. ‘So what about you and … ?'
Nope, she still couldn't say the name.
‘The same. I've known her just over eighteen months; lived together for fifteen.'
Stevie put down her fork. It was the first proper meal she'd had in ages, even though she had barely cleared half of the small portion she had given herself.
‘You'd think after aw that time, you'd know someone enough not to get hurt like this, if that makes any sense?' said Adam.
‘Yes, it makes perfect sense,' said Stevie, knowing exactly what he meant. She had been with Mick just over eighteen months, too, and thought she knew him inside out. Before that, there had been Welsh Jonny, a hideous flirt of a police officer whom she discovered having email affairs with half the known world – all at least fifteen years his senior – from a menopausal Lulu look-alike in London to a tan-tighted granny in Tyneside. They split up after eighteen months, no surprise there then, when he upped and left her for TTG just as her retirement lump sum came through. It made Stevie quite ill to think that Jonny had probably been fantasizing about Thora Hird when they'd made love. She'd give him a ring when she was eighty if she was still single and try another eighteen months, she'd joked to Cath, although she knew she probably would be. It appeared Stevie had invented the ‘eighteen-month itch'. Maybe they would name it after her like a disease:
Honeywell Syndrome: state of being so dissatisfied with your partner after a year and a half that you feel the need to bog off with someone else in the most hurtful way possible.
There was a single ladleful of chilli left. Stevie offered it to Adam, but he refused.
‘That was awfa nice but I am so full,' he said. ‘Thank you.' He stood and started clearing plates. Stevie tried to protest, but he counter-protested and won.
‘Coffee?' she said, as he started loading the crockery into the dishwasher.
‘Naw, you're okay,' he said, meekly for him. ‘It's obvious there's going to be no joy tonight. I'll away.'
Stevie nodded. She was disappointed too. She had so wanted to aggravate the inhabitants of 15 Blossom Lane with Adam's visiting presence as much as the latter himself did. Probably more because she genuinely loved Matthew; she didn't just see him as a possession that was not allowed to leave, as MacLean saw Jo.
‘You'd better put those floooers in water,' he said, in a tone that suggested she was ungratefully at fault for not doing it immediately. ‘Are there vases in the hoos?'
Stevie had found two in the cupboards whilst the rice had been cooking. She would tend to them; after all, it was no fault of the flowers that they had been bought by Adam ‘Control Freak' MacLean.
‘Yes, I'll do it soon. Thank you for reminding me,' she said tightly. She would set her stall out early and make sure he knew she wasn't one for doing what he dictated.
‘Nae bother,' he said. ‘It would have been actually worth it if they'd seen them, though. Cost an absolute fortune.'
‘Would you like me to pay half?'
‘No, you're okay.'
‘I'll wave them over if I see them arriving.'
They both smiled unwittingly at each other. Then they realized what they were doing and stopped it immediately.
‘Start thinking aboot the next step,' said Adam, returning at warp speed to gruffness.
‘Your cheque,' reminded Stevie, handing it over.
‘Yes, thank you,' he said, shoving it in his back pocket.
‘Oh, and here.' She handed him a flat packet of handkerchiefs.
‘What's this?'
‘You lent me a hankie, remember? I couldn't get the blood out. So, there you go. They only sold them in threes.'
‘You didn't have to go and do that.'
‘Yes, I did.'
Hmmm,' thought Adam MacLean and walked to the door. She was trying awfully hard to prove she wasn't a freeloader. Too hard, in his opinion, and she was wasting her time because he knew exactly what sort of person she was.
‘Good night then, Mr … Adam,' said Stevie.
‘Good night, and thanks again for the food.'
He got into his car. It was dark now and it was obvious Matthew and Jo weren't in after all. He drove off slowly, turning right at the end of the lane, not seeing the couple rounding the corner on the left. They had taken a long walk into town to see the Denzel Washington film and then broken the journey home by calling in at a bistro. The woman's eyes closed in on the numberplate.
‘God, that was Adam! What was he doing in here?'
‘It's okay,' said Matthew, putting his arm around her shoulders. He was the picture of heroic calm although inside his nerves were jangling. Treble shit, he's come looking for me. I'm dead … HEEELLLPPP!
The dishwasher was contentedly humming, washing away the evidence of Adam's unsuccessful visit. How many more of them to go before Matthew and Jo saw them? Maybe they were destined to miss them by a whisker every time. Maybe she and Adam would both be eighty and on their four-millionth bouquet and chilli before Matthew spotted him knocking at the door. By then his cataracts would be so bad he wouldn't have a clue it was Adam, though.
Stevie couldn't have said that the evening had been ‘pleasant', but then again it hadn't been ‘unpleasant' either. The big man's manners were surprisingly nice, and there had even been a flash of vulnerability at one point. Then again, she was too soft, too emotional, and any chink in Adam MacLean's armour had been put there for her to see. He was manipulative, that much she did believe from Jo. She had something he wanted and he had to keep her sweet and on side.
Stevie started to head up to bed. She clicked off the light, then immediately put it back on again because she knew that she wouldn't sleep. Maybe half an hour torturing Damme with some psychological twists and turns from Evie might help. Just half an hour.
There was no sign that he had been near the house at all when Matthew and Jo got home. No forwarded post through the letterbox, no booby traps, no death threats written in blood on the door. As Matthew closed the curtains on the day, across the road, the light shone from the downstairs cottage window. One eye of light that suddenly went off once and then on again. It was as if it had winked at him.