The Birds and the Bees

by Milly Johnson

  She took one last look at Matthew’s house, which she had kept warm and full of treats and comforts. Matthew’s house, which she had intended to share with him as Mrs Stevie Finch. Then she forced herself to leave it, locked the door behind her and posted the key back through the letterbox. That one small action was huge in its implications. She tried to see it as a comma in their relationship, but it felt more like a big fat full stop.

  The first thing she did on entering Humbleby Cottage was to pick up her mobile. Taking a big breath, as if she was about to dive underwater, she rang Matthew’s number. It clicked onto answerphone and she noticed how the recorded message was slightly different to his usual one. He sounded chirpier, cocky as a greedy cat in a cream factory. She wondered if he really was too busy to answer or was just ignoring her. She prepared herself for the long beep to end.

  ‘Hi, it’s Stevie,’ she said, pitching it neither too up nor down. ‘Just to let you know that I’ve fully vacated the house now and posted the key back through the letterbox, so it’s all yours. Take care, bye.’ Then she hung up and let all the air out of her lungs before taking up her notebook to make the first of all the other dreaded calls.

  ‘Hello, “Kiss the Bride”,’ answered a jolly voice.

  ‘Is that Ros?’

  ‘Yes, this is Ros, who’s speaking, please?’

  ‘It’s Stevie Honeywell. I bought one of your wedding dresses, I don’t know if you remember me. It was long, to the floor, white silk, criss-cross breast panel.’ She had brought the dress and accessories home from the shop so that she could show them to Jo, if that wasn’t a kick in the teeth.

  ‘Ah yes, I remember, we had to have it considerably shortened.’

  ‘…And a pink bridesmaid dress, size ten, and a pageboy outfit. You’ve still got those in the shop.’

  ‘Yes, I’ve just altered those too for you.’

  ‘Er…yes. Well, the thing is, there isn’t going to be a wedding any more, so I wondered if I could have a refund.’

  ‘Oh dear,’ said Ros, ‘I am so sorry. Is there no chance that maybe in the future…?’

  Stevie didn’t answer either way, just in case she would influence some self-fulfilling prophecy that happened to be lurking about in the cosmos. She merely shook her head slightly whilst thinking, Even if there were, I couldn’t wear that dress now with all its bad memories.

  ‘Oh dear,’ said Ros again in a not too encouraging way. ‘Well, the thing is, we did have to have a lot taken off the hem.’

  God, I’m five foot two, not Jimmy Krankie, thought Stevie.

  ‘I haven’t worn it at all. Isn’t there anything you can do? The shoes haven’t even been out of the box and the veil is still wrapped up.’

  Surely, other short people get married?

  ‘Well, I did say that I would buy everything back for forty per cent if you wanted to sell it after the ceremony. That’s the best I can do, I’m afraid. I’ve had to alter everything so much, you see.’

  ‘The shoes and the veil haven’t been altered though,’ said Stevie bravely.

  ‘Yes, but they’ve still been sold to you. Oh dear, it is sad.’

  Obviously not sad enough, though.

  ‘Is that really your best offer?’ said Stevie, suspecting it probably was. ‘It’s cost me a small fortune.’

  ‘I’d make him pay for it,’ said Ros, still dreadfully sympathetic.

  ‘Alas, that isn’t an option,’ said Stevie stiffly. Matthew hadn’t contributed a penny towards the wedding and was swanning around in the seven hundred quid suit she had bought for him, not counting the shoes. Why hadn’t she made him stump up? Why was she so stupidly unsparing?

  ‘I’m afraid that really is my best offer,’ said Ros, as if it embarrassed her terribly to say so.

  ‘Okay,’ said Stevie resignedly. ‘Can I bring the dress and other stuff in today?’

  ‘Yes, of course,’ said Ros. ‘I totally understand how you’ll want it out of sight. Oh, it is such a shame, I am so sorry,’ and she sounded it too. Sorry enough almost to cry, but not sorry enough to barter.

  ‘Thank you for your help then,’ said Stevie.

  ‘A pleasure,’ said Ros with a voice as soft and as sweet as June rose petals, belying a heart that was as soft and sweet as a concrete block.

  Stevie decided not to make the other calls before getting rid of the dress and all the accessories that ‘Kiss the Bride’ supplied. She threw them all straight into the back of her car and headed into town, finding a parking space not too far away. There was an embarrassing walk through the arcade to the shop, as if everyone she passed knew she was taking the stuff back because she had been rejected for someone prettier with longer legs and who was no doubt better in bed as well.

  Ros was dressing a dummy with a pageboy’s outfit when she walked in. A little Scots boy with a kilt, wouldn’t you just know it.

  The ‘poor you’ look she gave Stevie when she entered the shop and set the bell tinkling, sent tears flooding up to her eyes.

  ‘Aw, my dear,’ said Ros. ‘Come and sit down, whilst I check the dress over.’

  It was amazing how cold and warm someone could be at the same time.

  Satisfied that the dress hadn’t been worn and that all the accessories were as perfect as Stevie had described, Ros wrote a cheque for exactly 40 per cent of the amount on the receipt. Right down to the twenty-four pence.

  ‘Well, if it’s any consolation, you’ll have all this excitement of picking another dress one day, I’m sure of it, dear,’ said Ros with a big summery smile. ‘He’s a mad fool, but then they all are. Men.’

  ‘Thank you, Ros,’ said Stevie.

  ‘I’m sorry I couldn’t help more.’

  ‘It’s okay,’ said Stevie, who found she was actually so relieved to have the stuff out of the house that in the end, she would have taken less if pushed. Not that she would voice that to Ros. She would need all the money she could get to pay Adam MacLean for living in the cottage.

  ‘Have you had to cancel everything then?’

  ‘No, I thought I’d keep the cake and flowers for a laugh,’ she almost wanted to scream, but instead she answered calmly, ‘Well, no. I’ve got that delightful task in front of me. You were first on my list.’

  ‘Aw, I hope you have a friend there to help you. It’s not something you’d want to do without support, is it?’

  ‘No,’ said Stevie with a loaded sigh, wondering how much support she would get from her mother, who was next on her list to ring.

  ‘Good job I haven’t bought my outfit yet then,’ said Edna Honeywell with a big sniff. ‘Anyway, I never liked him.’

  ‘That’s a lie, Mum–you said he was nice.’

  ‘Too good-looking. You’d never have kept him.’

  Thanks.

  ‘He’s not gone for good, Mum. We’re just having a short break.’

  ‘So what’s she like?’ Edna went on, not hearing what Stevie was telling her. ‘I presume there is someone else.’

  ‘There’s no one else, Mum. We just want to be sure so we’re putting the wedding off for a bit,’ said Stevie, thrown off-kilter by her mother’s powers of perception. She didn’t want her parents knowing what the situation really was, because she knew this storm would blow over and she and Matthew would end up getting married later. Positive thoughts like this kept her spirits buoyant. It was crazy but somehow she knew he would come home to her heart again. This was merely a temporary glitch in the greater scheme of things, albeit a massive temporary glitch.

  ‘There will be another woman, mark my words,’ said Edna. ‘They don’t leave unless they’ve sniffed another bitch. Have you told him yet?’

  ‘I’m going to ring Dad next. Will you let Auntie Rita know?’

  ‘Yes I’ll let our Rita know but I’ll have to get off the phone soon, I was just on my way out.’

  ‘Oh, going anywhere nice?’ asked Stevie with a hopeful attempt at continuing the conversation for just a little longer.

  ‘I�
��ve got a Salsa class at half-past.’

  Stevie might have known. Her mother always did have a class on the go. She had been doing Great Female Poets during pregnancy and fallen in love with Stevie Smith’s work, hence the choice of name for her daughter. Luckily the Greek Legends course had been cancelled otherwise Stevie would now be living life as Aphrodite Hera Honeywell.

  ‘Okay, mum, I won’t keep you.’

  ‘Well, anyway, I’m sorry for you, lass. It can’t be easy.’

  ‘It isn’t easy. Danny’s fine, by the way.’

  ‘I was just going to ask!’ snapped Edna. ‘I don’t know, you can cause an argument in an empty house, can’t you?’ she continued. ‘No wonder your fella buggered off.’

  Stevie ended the call politely before it degenerated into all the other conversations they had, where she ended up feeling surplus to requirements. Edna Honeywell made Ros’s heart look like a goosedown pillow.

  Stevie told her dad that she and Matthew had decided to take some time apart and re-think things through. She gave him her new address.

  ‘Nay, lass, never,’ said Jack Honeywell, strangely drawing the same conclusion as her mother. ‘He wants shooting. Can’t keep it in their trousers, some lads,’ which was rich, considering he had kept it well out of his trousers when he left her mum for Thick Neck. Then he cheated on Thick Neck for Cyclops, who lost her left eye in a fight years ago after being biffed in it with a bingo dabber. Neither woman had felt the slightest obligation to welcome Stevie into the step-family fold.

  ‘Are you all right? Are you coping?’ he asked solicitously.

  ‘I’m fine, Dad. I’ve moved out. Danny’s fine too by the way.’

  ‘Good, give him a big kiss from his granddad. I nearly called in last week. We were passing coming from Thelma’s (Cyclops’s) son’s house. Good job we didn’t, if you’d moved.’

  ‘I only moved last night.’

  ‘Oh.’

  Stevie finished the conversation before it ended up like all the other calls to her dad, which made her feel insignificant and second-best to her step-family, and that if it weren’t for the connection of blood, there would be no connection at all.

  Next was the cake woman.

  ‘I’ve already made the fruit cakes in the hexagonals you wanted. I’ll have to keep the deposit and just not charge you for the icing,’ she said grumpily.

  ‘Thank you,’ said Stevie, who didn’t feel up for a fight. Was she just being ultra-sensitive, or was the world really such a hard, bitter place, she wondered. Did people think she was doing this for a joke, organizing a wedding and then cancelling it because there was nothing good on the telly? The wedding world was far more cold hard cash than it was warm hearts and flowers. Talking of which, the florist was next call. Thank God for gay male florists.

  ‘Oh, you poor darling,’ said Donny Badger before spitting, ‘Bastard!’ like an irate cobra. If she had gone into the shop in person, she had no doubt he would have taken her in the back room and be plying her with biscuits and tissues by now, which might have been rather lovely because she so badly wanted someone to be nice to her. It was slightly disconcerting, the way everyone assumed she had been traded in for a better model. There seemed to be an awful lot of sceptics in the world. Maybe that’s why her Midnight Moon books did so well, because her heroes and heroines were honourable and faithful and didn’t hurt each other. True fantasy then. Stevie didn’t want to turn into a hard-bitten cynic who didn’t believe in love in real life any more. However, it was looking more and more as if any love that existed out there was never going to be for her.

  ‘Look, love, what’s your address again? I’ll put you a full refund of your deposit in the post.’

  Stevie started to give her old address, before correcting herself. She should have got a forwarding form from the post office for her mail, although her post going across the road would at least give her the excuse to have contact with Matthew again. In saying that, she wasn’t 100 per cent sure that she wanted to have it whilst her nerves were in this raw, torn state. It would be like picking at a sore, rubbing salt in the wound–all the clichés seemed to fit.

  The photographer hadn’t taken a deposit and was grumbling that he had turned someone away on that date for her. ‘It’s not my fault!’ she wanted to scream at him.

  The vicar offered counselling, which she kindly refused, but he was very sweet. The manageress of the White Swan promised to send the deposit back, if she didn’t tell anyone, she said warmly, although any faith recovered was lost again with the horrible old printer who had just completed the order of services and said he had just put them and the invoice in the post, so she would have to stump up.

  After him, Stevie couldn’t face making another call. She composed a general letter on her computer to send out to the people on her side of the guest list.

  The wedding is off, sorry folks.

  Matthew is shagging Jo MacLean.

  Love,

  Stevie x

  Well, maybe not. The second draft was less blunt.

  Due to unforeseen circumstances,

  the wedding between

  Matthew and me has been called off.

  Please don’t ring. I will be in touch.

  Sorry, folks.

  Hope you are all well.

  Love Stevie (Honeywell) x

  It wasn’t exactly literary genius but it was to the point and would do. She wondered how many of their guests would be of her mother’s opinion and say, ‘Well, I’m not surprised, he was far too good-looking for her.’ It was one of many thoughts to torment her as she got on with the business of alternately addressing envelopes and wiping away the fat tears that were dropping from her eyes. Then, when she was done, she posted the letters as she went on her way to pick up her son from school, hoping no one at the school-gates would notice how red and puffed-up and sad her eyes were. Thank goodness, there was always a bout of conjunctivitis going around to blame it on.

  Chapter 22

  In the Queens Hotel, and after a very nice evening meal, Jo had just finished packing.

  ‘I know this is an awful thing to say, but thank goodness Stevie’s left the house,’ she said, shutting the last case. ‘I did wonder if she would start playing silly games.’

  ‘Well, she’s actually got out a day early for us,’ reminded Matthew.

  ‘That was sweet of her in the circumstances but it wouldn’t do her any good at all psychologically, being in that house any more,’ said Jo. ‘I so cannot wait to get into a decent bed. I hope she hasn’t left the place in a real mess for you.’

  ‘I wouldn’t have thought so, knowing Stevie,’ said Matthew. ‘Wonder where she’s living?’ It was a question that had been circling his head like a lost homing pigeon since he picked up the message that morning. He hadn’t really believed her when she had told him on Sunday that she had somewhere else to go, and so when he heard her on the answerphone, he was amazed. Of course, he hadn’t picked up the actual call because he was convinced she was ringing him to ask for extra time, or worse, to cry and beg him to come back.

  The porter started to load the cases into Matthew’s and Jo’s cars like a Tetris expert.

  ‘You drop those off and come back for me,’ said Jo. ‘Just in case there are any nasty surprises waiting.’

  ‘I shouldn’t think—’

  ‘I’ll stay here and have some coffee, darling,’ said Jo, brooking no argument. She gave him a long, warm kiss that reached all the way down to his toes before zooming back up to his groin, then she waved him off and headed back to Reception.

  Matthew parked the car outside his house in Blossom Lane then entered it tentatively in case a massive booby-trapped hammer arced down and smacked him cartoon-style on the head. To his relief, nothing happened, but then he hadn’t even considered that Stevie would have done anything malicious until Jo had put the thought into his head. Everything looked nice, tidy–as it should be–and there was lots more room now that Stevie’s work corner had been
freed up and her boxes of books had gone. The hotel was plush but he had missed the comfort of his house and he couldn’t wait to climb into his lovely cosy bed with a lovely cosy Jo that evening.

  He took the suitcases upstairs and found the undressed bed.

  Oh hell, he thought as it put paid to his plans to carry Jo over his threshold and then straight upstairs to tangle her up in the sheets. Then again, it was probably a bit much thinking Stevie would make up a bed in which she knew he might soon be making love to someone else. Still, he couldn’t believe she hadn’t done it for him. He got a nip of guilt for being so mean and batted it away. He knew that if he stopped to think how horrible they had been to Stevie, it would ruin his first evening at home with Jo.

  He went back to the hotel for the rest of the cases, hoping that maybe Jo would have settled the bill. The holiday had cost him a fortune and he thought she might have stumped up for her share but no, she had merrily let him pay for the lot and thereby ruined his chances of borrowing a cash advance against his Visa for the mortgage. He couldn’t hope that Stevie would pay it for him any more now.

  It wasn’t that Matthew didn’t earn a good wage because he did. It was just that he had managed to accumulate quite a lot of debts that accounted for most of his outgoings. It was a typical story: boy gets a few Visas and goes a bit mad, boy gets a huge consolidating loan, boy blows consolidating loan on big-woofer stereo and plasma TV and designer clothes instead. Life was really too short not to have nice meals out and look the very best he could whilst he was young. A work colleague had dropped dead from a congenital heart defect when he was twenty-five; if there wasn’t a lesson there, where was there one?

  When Stevie moved in and offered to pay half the bills, he was determined to use the money he would save to finally become debt free, only to find that spending money on nice meals and flash clothes was even more fun with Jo. And he couldn’t stop buying her presents, especially when he found out how she said thank you. The long and the short of it was that he just liked to spend money, except that he did not have any to spend any more. At least, not his own.