The Birds and the Bees(42)

Catherine linked her arm and they walked in together, and immediately  Stevie voiced the, ‘Oh God,' that Catherine was thinking. The function  room was not only full of balloons, but party poppers were piled up in  small mountains on every table. The disco music was blaring out by the  dance floor and the bar was thick with dad-customers. Josh's own father,  Richard, waved over with a balloon in his hand, seemingly specially  prepared. He looked like it was his birthday when his eyes first locked  on Stevie.                       
       
           



       

Stevie hated balloons, she hated party poppers and she hated Josh's  noisy dad more than both of them put together. A legacy from her own mum  and dad's shouting days, she suspected, when she had cried herself to  sleep, waiting for her fragile world to be split apart. It was almost a  relief when it eventually happened. At least the screaming stopped.

Matthew had never come with her to any of the parties, so she had  usually been on her own amongst a sea of couples, and what was it about  some men that the title ‘thirty-something single mum' was male-speak for  ‘easy prey'? At the first party they had ever been to, Richard Parker  had leapt on Stevie's reaction to a popped balloon with a ‘hilarious'  tirade of many more. She had tried to laugh it off, but after two more  hours of having her eardrums tormented, her nerves and her temper were  in shreds. Ever since then, he had been there at every children's party  squeaking balloons near her, exploding party poppers behind her, however  deep she was in conversation with anyone else, however much she ignored  him, until she wanted to scream at him to leave her alone. But how  could she do anything but try to be a good sport? She didn't want to  show Danny up or embarrass herself with an over-reaction, and if Jan  Parker found Stevie telling her husband to ‘sod off', what would she  think?

She would probably presume that Stevie was at fault, because wives never  quite believed that their partners were the instigators of trouble with  another female, did they? Then they would end up not talking and the  bad feeling might filter down to the kids, all because some stupid idiot  didn't know when to stop. Yet he would remain blameless in it all,  ready to torment another day. So Stevie suffered in painful silence and  hoped he would get tired of the joke but he never did, and the more  beers he had, the funnier he thought it all was. Today he looked as if  he had had quite a lot to drink already.

‘Stand close to me,' said Catherine. ‘I'll tell him to piss off, even if  you don't. No wonder his mam called him Dick!' and with that, she  squashed Stevie on a corner table out of the way and went to get the  first round in. Josh, Gareth and Danny were dancing – the lady entertainer  was demonstrating ‘The Ketchup Song' – but Stevie's smile at them was  quickly knocked off by a big bang in her ear. She squealed and spun  around.

‘Gonna get you later big time!' said Richard Parker, staggering slightly  behind her and waggling his finger. His rubbery lips moved over each  other as if he was chewing a toffee but couldn't quite locate it in his  mouth.

‘Excuse me!' said Catherine forcefully and barged him out of the way  with her expertly agile mum-hip. She plonked herself down next to  Stevie, handed her a drink and said, ‘I bet you just love me now for  forcing you here, don't you?'

‘It's okay, Danny's enjoying himself.'

Then Gareth threw up.

‘Oh sod, I thought it was too good to be true,' said Catherine. Mothers  converged onto the dance floor with tissues and dragged off little  brothers and sisters who wanted to go splashing in the puddle of watery  vomit.

‘I'll get your bag,' said Stevie, wishing, and feeling really awful for  doing so, that it had been Danny who had thrown up and given her the  excuse to go home. Did that make her a terrible person? Probably. The  murderous thoughts about Jo she had tried to keep a lid on that morning  were making her feel a bit unhinged. But Danny wasn't going anywhere; he  was having a ball and it would have been so unfair to take him home and  upset his day too. It wasn't his fault his mum was too much of an old  trout to keep a man, and what would they do instead because she didn't  want to go out or do anything but curl up into a ball and sleep the day  away.

‘Oh Steve, I've cocked this right up for you, haven't I?' said Catherine.

‘It's not your fault, Cath,' said Stevie. ‘Gareth's poorly and that's that.'

‘I should never have nagged at you to come. I always think I know better  than everyone else.' Wasn't it me who more or less forced her to go on  that first date with Matthew when she was going to back off? thought  Catherine. Eddie had been right when he accused her of interfering too  much in other people's lives.

‘Mummeee!' cried Gareth.

‘Look, go,' said Stevie, pushing her away. Catherine was dreadfully  reluctant to leave her friend, today of all days, but she was trapped.  Eddie was working and Kate, not 100 per cent well herself, was looking  after the other kids, so there really was no alternative.
                       
       
           



       
‘Go!' Stevie ordered again, and so Catherine blew her an apologetic kiss and went.

Out of the corner of her eye, she saw Richard Parker staring over. Where  was his bloody wife? She was sure that if Matthew had made a beeline  for a woman every time he saw her, she would have picked up on it. Then  again, this from a woman who hadn't seen what had been happening under  her nose with her man and Jo. A sweep of the hall showed her that Jan  was in the dining area, too busy even to look up. A balloon brushed past  Stevie's head, then another landed and almost knocked her drink over,  and so with her nerves stretched to breaking-point and unable to bring  herself to do anything about it, Stevie endured the next hour.

Then the children conga-ed into the dining area, and after making sure  Danny's plate was replete, Stevie stole off to the ladies. She just  wanted to go home but there was another half an hour to go and Danny  would never forgive her if she dragged him away before the party bags  were ready. Her thoughts were so much on where she might go afterwards  to keep herself occupied that she didn't see the figure hiding behind  the corner when she emerged from the loo.

Bang.

Stevie screamed.

‘Told you I'd get you!' said Richard, with eyes very glazed and holding a  clutch of more balloons. He swaggered forwards a little, straying too  far into her personal space, pointing to her chest. ‘What I find amazing  though, is that you're scared of these balloons when all the time  you've got those big balloons under your jumper.'

Stevie's mouth fell into a long O. She was too stunned to react and  stand up for herself, but it didn't matter because seconds later it was  done for her. From nowhere, big Adam MacLean appeared with a not very  friendly expression on his face and he boomed so loudly into the top of  Richard Parker's bald patch that it left an echo hanging in the air,

‘Hey pal, are you bothering this lady?' Even Stevie blanched at the tone  of his voice, which was a weapon of mass destruction in itself. She was  witnessing the side of him now that she hadn't seen yet but had heard  lots about, but despite it, boy was she glad to see him.

‘Er … oh … er … sorry, no offence!' Mumble mumble. Richard shrank and scuttled  away back into the party room and Adam let him. Contrary to what Stevie  might have expected of him, he didn't grab him and mince him between  his fists or do a Steven Seagal and launch him through the nearest glass  window. The confrontation ended there. Then again, Adam was at work and  a little worm like Richard Parker throwing balloons about obviously  wasn't worth risking his job and another assault charge for. Funny,  that. She didn't think they'd employ someone with a criminal record for  GBH in such a posh place, and Adam had spent time inside a hard Scottish  prison for violence, so Jo had told them.

‘Thank you,' she said, relief washing over her like a warm shower.

‘Don't get excited, I wid have done it for anyone,' he said in his usual  gruff and dismissive way. ‘What were you doing out here alone with him  anyway?'

Why is this my fault? thought Stevie. Her head suddenly flooded with  voices: her mother saying ‘No wonder he buggered off!' and Mick's mother  screaming at her, ‘If you'd been more of a wife, he'd still be alive!'  and pictures of the way Adam MacLean always looked at and spoke to her  as if she was to blame for Jo leaving him. She wanted to scream aloud,  ‘I'm not to blame for this, I'm not!' Then she thought of waiting  outside the headmaster's office, being accused of climbing high trees  and pinching apples, and it was then that Stevie's last remaining nerve  snapped, and it appeared that it was the one holding the lid down on her  tear supply because they moved at Exocet missile speed up to her  eyeballs. And, like an Exocet missile, there wasn't a damn thing she  could do to stop them.