‘I'll make you a cup of tea, huh?' Adam said when they got inside the house. ‘Then I'll get aff.'
‘Will you go back home?' said Stevie. Her throat felt worse than Danny's must have. Dry and sore. As if she had been gargling with razor blades.
‘Aye,' he said, obviously not relishing the prospect.
‘Stay,' said Stevie. ‘Please.'
‘Aye,' said Adam.
Then he went to put the kettle on.
Chapter 48
Unaware of the drama that had happened across the lane the previous day, Matthew walked into work on Monday morning and had the weirdest feeling he was being watched. Eyes seemed to linger on him longer than was necessary. He had the ridiculous notion that he was the subject of gossip.
Jo had driven her own car in very early that morning; his suggestion that he accompany her had been met with a weary sigh. It appeared that he couldn't win at the moment: if he paid her attention, he was crowding her, if he didn't he was ignoring her. He had tried to talk to her about it in bed at the weekend but she had looked at him as if he were nuts.
‘That is so your imagination!' she had bawled at him, like a good-looking fishwife, then she demanded rough sex. This time he hadn't been able to raise as much as a smile and he had refused to bite and manhandle her, with the result that she hadn't spoken to him after Saturday morning.
He had gone into town on the Sunday, to buy her a ‘sorry for whatever I did' present, something gold and expensive, but bit back the urge at the shop doorway. This was harder than giving up cigarettes years ago, but he had managed to muster up the willpower to do it eventually, so at least there was some hope of a cure. He bought her a sweet little card instead. It still lay unopened on the kitchen table where she had tossed it down.
Matthew settled himself at his desk, pondered over the dilemma of what to do for the best and then bit the bullet. He decided Jo would be less annoyed if he tried an active approach rather than a passive one, so he took a deep breath and dialled her extension.
‘Jo MacLean,' she answered briskly.
‘Hi, it's me. Fancy lunch?'
‘Sorry, no,' she said, as if he was a sex-crazed stalker who had just asked her for a gangbang with the Board. She slammed the phone down on him and he stared at it in disbelief. What have I done wrong now? he thought, shaking his head.
Life had been so much easier and less complicated with Stevie, he found himself thinking, as he headed out of the building in the direction of Pauline's Pasties at half past twelve, again with the feeling that he was under some giant microscope hidden in the ceiling.
‘Have I done the right thing, sending Danny to school?' said Stevie, shaking her head in self-disgust that she was waving through the class window to the son who nearly died yesterday.
‘Okay, let me ask you this,' said Catherine. ‘How was he when he got home from the hospital yesterday?'
‘Bit quiet. Apart from that, fine. Considering.'
‘Was he upset in the night?'
‘No, he slept like a log. I didn't, though. I kept checking to see if he was still breathing.'
‘And did the doctor say, "Keep him at home"?'
‘No.'
‘And what happened when you said, "Danny, you're going to school"?'
‘I didn't. I said I was keeping him off for a couple of days but he wanted to go. They're having that Punch and Judy show in assembly this morning, aren't they? I've told Mrs Abercrombie to ring me if there was any problem at all.'
‘There you go then. He wanted to go and he was fine to go. He'll be better at school bragging to his mates that he went off in an ambulance yesterday than sitting at home with a miserable-looking mother nattering over him.'
‘If Adam hadn't been there, I just don't know what would have happened.'
Catherine grabbed her hands. ‘Adam was there. Danny is well. There's no point in going along the "if" road. You're talking to the woman who didn't strap her three-week-old baby properly up in the car seat once and dropped him down two stairs, remember?'
‘Yes – and I also remember the state you were in afterwards.'
‘Precisely. I was half-insane with all the "ifs".'
‘I feel half-insane as it is. I asked Adam to stay on even though I'm scared stiff that Danny will get attached.'
Catherine stared right into her friend's sad, blue eyes. ‘Are you sure you're not frightened that it's you who will get attached?'
‘Me?' said Stevie.
‘Yes, you. I watched you at the party and I thought, They aren't acting.'
‘Of course we were acting, Cath. Besides, the guy likes tall, good-looking women who weigh less than eight stone. How could I follow Jo MacLean? Talk sense, will you.'
‘Ah yes, the lying, cheating Ms MacLean – what a catch she is. The more I hear about that woman, the more I think she might turn up in the Guinness Book of Records for being the most treacherous bitch in the world. I've always thought there was more to her than meets the eye. Clever though. But then good liars usually are – and you, of all people, should know that.'
‘I know,' said Stevie. ‘I know.'
They walked on a little further to where Catherine had parked her car.
‘I made some discreet enquiries to Will, by the way,' Catherine said, ‘like: "Could you get a job as a manager in a topclass gym if you had a criminal record?'"
‘Oh, very subtle,' said Stevie with a gentle laugh. ‘And?'
‘Not a chance. They do a full police check.' Catherine looked hard at her mixed-up bunny of a friend. Next to Stevie's, her life was more or less flat-lined but she wouldn't swap her lot for Stevie's present roller-coaster ride. The girl deserved a break.
‘So what now, hon?' she went on gently.
‘I don't know.'
‘Would you still have Matthew back? After all that's happened?'
‘Of course I would,' said Stevie, without thinking. She didn't want to allow herself room to think. Otherwise, what the hell had been the point of the last eight weeks?
‘Hiya, wee man!' said Adam, coming in from work, giving Danny a big cuddle as he rushed at him. He was wearing new pyjamas with no buttons or collars to be seen, he noted, and his Dannyman emblem was stitched on the front.
‘Hey – nice jim-jams. Like the style!' said Adam, twirling him around.
‘He'll be in that style until he's forty-five, if I've got anything to do with it,' said Stevie. ‘Anyway, come on, bedtime, little man.' She gave Adam a tentative smile. ‘He wanted to stay up and just say "hi". I hope that was okay?'
‘Of course,' said Adam. ‘Why wouldn't it be?'
‘Because I've encouraged you to stay away from him, and then suddenly I'm throwing him at you. I didn't want to add to any confusion for you.'
He looked at her. What was that conversation he'd had with Danny once about the most important quality of a Superhero? He reckoned Danny's mum had just what it took to be one of the best.
‘Nice smell,' he said, pulling his eyes away and to the kitchen.
‘I made you a steak pie. As a thank you for … you know what. I'll just … '
Words failing her, she edged backwards and took Danny upstairs for their bedtime business. Then, after discreetly checking her make-up and squirting on an extra spray of perfume, she went back downstairs to find Adam looking across the lane at Matthew's house, lost in his thoughts. Her heart started beating a little faster in distress. After all Jo MacLean had done to him, it was obvious that he still wanted her, but then the heart was a wild card that didn't play to a rulebook. It had made her half-mad for Mick, who treated her so cruelly, it had made her agree to a ridiculous plan to get cheating Matthew back, and now it had turned its deranged attentions to Adam MacLean, who was still madly in love with another woman. How could she judge him? There was no bigger fool on this earth than her own heart.
She carried the pie to the table, which had been set just for one.
‘You no' going to join me?' he said.
‘I'm not hungry, really. I have to get some work done. Can I get you a drink? Wine? Whisky?' She had bought a bottle of both in.
‘No, I'll just get a wee glass of water. Cannae stand whisky!'
Stevie looked at him in open-mouthed shock. ‘But you're Scottish.'
His eyes twinkled. ‘You noticed?'
‘And you had a trolley full of it that day when I met you in the supermarket.'