‘Sex?' said Jo.
‘You know, that thing we used to have.'
‘Fuck you!' said Jo, and starting raining slaps on him.
‘Jo, what's happening to us?' said Matthew, wincing at her language, catching her hands and holding them still. He needed to focus on his problems with Jo, but he was having real difficulty getting the image of Stevie and MacLean having sex out of his mind. They must have been doing it on the kitchen floor. She'd never wanted sex like that when she'd been with him. Nor had he ever heard her make those sorts of noises before. He hadn't really associated her with that kind of passionate activity.
‘How could he? With her?' said Jo.
‘Why are you so bothered about him?' Matthew asked.
‘Why are you so bothered about her?' Jo countered.
She pulled her hands away from him and started pacing up and down the room like a caged tiger. ‘We need to move. I don't want to stay here watching Adam and that bitch living out their lives in front of us.'
‘Why are you so horrible to her, Jo?'
But Jo wasn't listening; she was lost in a world filled only with herself.
‘ … I mean, is that why he said, "Okay, off you go then"? Is that why he didn't try to stop me? Not even a kiss or a hug goodbye. He even carried my bloody suitcases to the car for me. Why was that, eh? Because he was carrying on behind my back with that short, fat cow. If you think about it, it's the only answer. The bitch, the treacherous fucking bitch!'
‘Did Adam let you go that easily?' said Matthew. ‘I thought you said he-'
‘How soon can you realize your investments, Matthew? Let's buy a house away from here, please. Leeds. One of the nice ones in the country that we saw in the Yorkshire Post.'
Now is the time. She needs to be told.
‘About my investments,' said Matthew quietly, trying to moisten his nervous dry lips with his nervous dry tongue. ‘Sit down, Jo, a minute, will you, please.'
‘Okay, Matthew, I know what you said, you're broke at the moment. We've had too many expensive meals out recently. But if we moved, we wouldn't feel the need to go out and get away from that house so much.'
He gently shushed her.
‘Jo … '
Then he began.
Chapter 43
The next morning, Adam awoke to a flurry of whispering outside his new temporary bedroom door.
‘Can I go in and see him?' said a small boy's not so quiet voice.
‘No, you'll see him later.'
‘Please, Mummy!'
‘No. Now come on and don't make any noise or you'll wake him up.'
‘But I want to wake him up, Mummy!'
‘Come on, Danny, that's not very fair waking him up early, now is it? Superheroes really need their sleep, you should know that.'
‘Aw, okay.'
Adam smiled. He reckoned they were counting down the days now until Dannyman, his fellow Superhero, would be back living across the road. A thought which made his smile fade surprisingly quickly.
Matthew awoke feeling totally exhausted and already started ticking off the hours until he could catch up on some sleep. He hadn't had as much sex as that in one night since the Fresher's Ball at University, but that had been a far less complicated experience.
Jo had taken yesterday's news that he was not in fact a half-millionaire in the making pretty well, considering. Although he hadn't quite told her the whole truth, but tempered it slightly for the sake of his own pride. The story given being that his investments had taken a substantial crash and the only way he could recover the losses was to leave them where they were for at least five years. He told her he had a meeting with the bank to discuss the best plan of action as far as his ‘investments' were concerned, and was sneaking out from work later on the pretext of going to the dentist. Who knows, he might even find out that all was not quite as bad as he had painted it. His story would give him five years' breathing space to sort himself out. He might even win the Lottery (properly this time) in that space of time. At least it was finally out in the open to her that he was broke now and that there couldn't possibly be a big wedding in the near future, or more than one meal out per week, if he was expected to foot all the bills. He sneaked that in to see if she might consider actually helping him out here by contributing. She hadn't offered.
Contrary to what he thought might happen, Jo had not shouted or screamed or thrown anything heavy in the direction of his cranium. She had just nodded her head resignedly and forced out a smile and said, ‘Well, that's that then.'
Then, when they had gone to a bed in which he expected not only the cold shoulder, but a cold back, cold legs and cold everything else, she had surprised him by instigating sex. Quite energetic, almost brutal sex actually. She had wanted him to bite her all over in her passionate throes. At one point, he felt like going to the window and checking to see if the moon was full, because she was like an animal – insatiable and wild. Matthew wasn't really the type to mix up pain with pleasure, though, and he fulfilled her requests quite half-heartedly. He had managed to give her a sucky love-bite on her chest, which he regretted the next morning because she wore her blouses quite open, and it was showing there as an ugly, painful-looking bruise. When he mentioned this, she had laughed and kissed him lightly on the nose and told him not to worry, and if he was lucky, they might try it again later on. Matthew didn't want to be that lucky. The whole experience hadn't sat well with him at all. He was all for passion – sex with Jo had been great and exciting in the beginning – but recently, he had found himself missing the gentle intimacy and more considerate, warm love-making which he had enjoyed with Stevie, before he got greedy. He had an uneasy feeling about this turn in their sex-life.
Adam had a day off, and as Stevie hadn't come back after dropping Danny off at school, he presumed she had gone into town. He had just grilled up half a farmyard full of bacon and stuck it in between two half-loaves of bread when the phone rang.
‘Hellooo,' he said.
‘Hello,' said a cut-glass voice on the other end. ‘Is Bea there?'
‘Sorry, hen, wrang number.'
‘I can't have, she's on short dial. Is Stevie there? Stevie Honeywell?'
‘Stevie's oot … out at the moment. Can I help you at all?'
‘And you are?' purred the voice.
‘Adam MacLean.'
‘Ah, you're Damme MacQueen.'
Poor awd thing is deaf, thought Adam and spoke more slowly. ‘No. A-dam Mac-Lean.'
‘Yes, I heard you, darling.' The voice cut like glass too. ‘I'm Crystal Rock, Stevie's publisher at Midnight Moon.'
Ah, thought Adam. Interesting.
‘Sorry,' he bluffed. ‘I apologize. Of course she has told me so much aboot you.'
Crystal gave a little tinkly laugh. She was half in love with Adam already.
‘And I am getting to know all about you, Mr MacLean, or should I say Mr MacQueen.'
‘All good things, I hope,' he sparkled back.
‘Well, if the hero of Highland Fling is based on you, I think we can expect to have a bit of a bestseller on our hands.'
What was that name she'd asked for at first? B something or other? Adam reached over and picked up a nearby Midnight Moon by Betty Proctor and said craftily, ‘Do you think it will be better than Forever in Dreams?'
‘Oh, good God, I hope so. Betty Proctor isn't a patch on Beatrice Pollen. She only lasted two books. Bea, sorry, Stevie, has a very great following. Can you ask her to give me a ring and tell her, in the interim, that I love Damme MacQueen, I love Evie Sweetwell and I want the rest of the chapters of Highland Fling finished ASAP. I'll simply die if he doesn't kiss her soon.'
‘I will do that indeed.'
‘And tell Miss Honeywell that she is a very dark horse and I expect a full update when she calls. She'll know what that means.' Crystal gave a very salacious giggle and finished with a ‘ciao' that was as rich as a tiramisu. Adam put the phone down slowly. Well, well, well! No wonder she wouldn't tell him what she did after all the scorn he had, inadvertently, poured on her stories. So that's why there were Beatrice Pollen books all over the place. He worked his way along the shelf until he came to a book written by Ms Pollen, then he got himself a coffee from the nice full percolator that belonged to Beatrice, aka Stevie, settled down with book and breakfast in the sunroom, and began to read.