Page 36 of Forever, Maybe

Chapter twenty-seven

S tephanie waited until they were both outside—the weather still dry and warm—before handing Nell her glass. With the smooth efficiency of long habit, she shook out a cigarette, snapped open a Zippo, and lit up, the flame briefly casting her face in gold.

Nell took a generous gulp. It was her first drink all day, on top of barely eating, and it surged through her veins like rocket fuel.

The front garden lacked the sprawl and splendour of the back, but its scatter of wildflowers nodding gently in the breeze, while bees weaved in and out of their sunlit petals, offered a quiet charm that soothed the eye.

“Absolute rubbish,” Stephanie said fiercely, her voice low but resolute as she exhaled a stream of smoke from the corner of her mouth.

“MacLennan’s Galleries wouldn’t have taken you on if they didn’t believe your work would sell.

They are not a charity. Don’t let that old git rewrite history.

Come on, Nell, you know what he was like.

Strutting around Glasgow like he was the Big I Am.

I doubt he was ever half as powerful as he made out. ”

But the sting lingered, raw and unshakeable, as though Shane’s words had peeled back layers of confidence Nell hadn’t even realised that she still needed.

She leant against the wall, eyes on the road, as a cobalt blue Volkswagen Vista crept past, nosing its way along the street like it had all the time in the world.

A fresh wave of mortification crashed over her.

Danny must have known—must have known all along—that the exhibition had been nothing more than a favour pulled by his uncle.

He would have been the one to ask. How would he have phrased it?

Uncle Shane, any chance you could ask your pals if one of them might consider putting on an exhibition o’ my wife’s stuff? Just to keep her happy?

Worse than the favour itself was the deceit, the fact that he’d sat through that conversation with her—her excitement, her out-loud wonderings about how her work had been picked up after all this time—without so much as flinching.

That rankled more than anything.

With a sigh, Nell turned to her friend, gesturing towards the cigarette in her hand. “Can I have one?”

Stephanie arched an eyebrow, the universal sign for are you sure—are you really sure?

But she flicked out a second cigarette and the lighter anyway.

Smoking was like riding a bike. Muscle memory took over.

The lips knew how to purse, how to inhale, how to exhale.

The body, despite all common sense, remembered not to cough and splutter, as Nell’s did now.

The first hit of nicotine sent a rush through her empty stomach, dizziness blooming behind her eyes and her heartbeat thumping a drumroll behind her ribs. She blinked, swayed, then took another drag. Two more. Enough. She handed the cigarette back to Stephanie and wrapped her arms around herself.

“Sorry.”

“Don’t apologise.” Stephanie dismissed it with a wave, flicking ash onto the gravel.

She launched into a scurrilous tale about Shane’s so-called glory days—the time police had stormed a basement flat he owned on Blythswood Square, flushing half-dressed women and men (including senior officers and lawyers) onto the streets in the middle of the day.

Jennifer Frazer seemed to have slipped from her mind, and Nell let it lie. She doubted the information would be welcome.

The Volkswagen Vista had finally claimed a space on the opposite side of the street, thanks to a neighbour pulling out. It reversed in smoothly—Nell sent the driver silent kudos for the precision—and the engine fell quiet.

Stephanie, shading her eyes from the westering sun, squinted at the man emerging from the driver’s side. “That’s Josh, isn’t it? Liza’s fella?”

Nell nodded.

The man—slight, kitted out in double denim—jogged round to the boot, popped it open, and hauled out Liza’s wheelchair with practiced ease.

He wheeled it to the passenger side just as Liza swung open her door and extended her legs.

The transfer from car to chair was fluid, a routine clearly honed over time.

With Liza settled, Josh ducked back to the boot and hefted out not one, but two crates of lager.

Oh, hell. Nell bit her bottom lip. Six o’clock already, and party guests were still rolling up fresh as daisies and clearly in it for the long haul.

The exhaustion of the past few weeks had settled into her bones, and the thought of more hostessing felt about as appealing as a bout of extra itchy thrush.

“Yoo-hoo!” Stephanie bellowed. Those several, generous glasses of rosé had kicked in and she waved at the approaching wheelchair like she was greeting homecoming heroes.

Oh well, Nell told herself. Soon enough, the first wave would start to peel off, as the parents of small children, all of whom would be thoroughly wrecked from overzealous games of tig in the garden, a chaotic session with Calamity Jean and sugar highs courtesy of Trish’s fairy cakes and the candyfloss machine, called it a day.

The rest would splinter into their usual factions: the drinkers drifting out to the garden to make further inroads into the still-impressive mountain of bottles and cans; the quieter crew curling up indoors with teas and coffees, half-watching something gentle and forgettable on the telly.

If she could just get her mum and dad settled, Nell might be able to slip upstairs and, please, universe, in your infinite mercy , crawl straight into bed.

Liza, a bouquet of flowers resting on her lap, rolled towards them, as Josh staggered behind her, one crate held under each arm. They came to a halt before Nell.

Liza beamed, deploying the same wide smile her mother used to wear, as if she were about to sink her teeth into one of those over-stacked burgers every gastropub seemed to churn out these days.

When Nell had painted Brenda’s portrait from that old photograph after her death, the resemblance to Liza had struck her more than ever.

Both had the same thick, wiry auburn hair, coal-black eyes, hamster-like cheeks and that porcelain skin that demanded Factor 50 from March to October—even in Scotland.

“Hiya, Nell. Stephanie. Love that dress,” Liza said, and Nell knew she didn’t mean the one from Reiss.

“Do they do it in size crippled?”

Liza, being Liza, was allowed to make that kind of joke.

Stephanie snorted. “If you’ve got the money, they do it in size-whatever-the-fuck-you-like.”

“Ha!” Liza cackled. “Here.” She thrust the flowers—a glorious riot of red, yellow, orange, pink and purple: roses, stocks, sunflowers, solidago, craspedia, and statice—towards Nell.

“These are for you. Not your awfy husband.”

“Thank you!” Nell buried her nose in the bouquet, inhaling the heady floral scents. “Come on in.”

She stepped aside. Danny had borrowed a wheelchair ramp just for today, so Liza could manage the short flight of steps typical of their Edwardian sandstone villa.

Nell knew better than to offer help. The childhood accident that had left Liza without the use of her legs had forged an ironclad independence.

Any attempt to assist was usually met with a “fuck off”—sometimes said with a grin, sometimes with a snarl.

Fortunately, the Murrays’ hallway was wide enough for her chair to glide through with ease, and the kitchen, despite being stacked with food and drink, had clear pathways around the furniture and out onto the patio.

But Liza’s chair came to a halt before it reached the French doors. She turned as Nell, Stephanie and Josh followed her in. Josh dumped the beer boxes on the floor with a grunt and cracked open two cans. He must be planning to pick the car up the next day.

Liza jabbed a finger toward the garden. “Christ. What’s he doing here?”

Oh dear. Shane. Nell had completely forgotten that Liza hated her stepfather (was he still technically that, now that Brenda was gone?)

“Sorry,” Nell said quickly. “I didn’t know he was coming either. Trish made Danny visit him earlier in the week, and he must have wrangled an invitation.”

“Wanna bail, Leese?” Josh asked. His London accent had stuck firm despite his mum dragging him and his siblings north years ago for a now-defunct relationship with a Glaswegian. “We could hit the park, smuggle the beers in under your chair.”

Nell liked Liza, but Daniel’s Hyndland shop manager and his sort of cousin was a one-woman party engine. Part of her couldn’t help hoping she’d say yes.

Liza puffed out her cheeks and let out a slow, rattling sigh. “S’pose I had tae face the auld bastard at some point. Gimme a beer, will ye? So’s I can fortify mysel’.”

Josh handed over one of the already opened cans.

Liza grabbed it, downed half in one go, then let out a thunderous belch.

“Doon the hatch! Got these at the big Asda near yours,” she said, raising the can vaguely in Nell’s direction.

“Imagine, eh? If your man convinces them to take Stuffed! ’s dips and salads at that pitch on the twenty-seventh, next time we’re there, we might see ’em on the shelves! ”

Nell froze.

As did Danny, on his way back into the kitchen yet again for more sausages to grill.

His eyes locked onto hers. The dismay in his gaze was instant, unmistakable.

A thin smear of tomato sauce marked his forehead—evidence of him brushing back his fringe while barbecuing and doling out sausages.

The vein there throbbed, as if trying to will words from his brain to his tongue, words that might stitch this moment back together.

When he does that pitch on the twenty-seventh…

He’d mentioned Asda. But never the date, which meant…

Behind her, Liza sucked in a breath. “Aw, shite. You did know about that, didn’t you?”

And just like that, everything clicked into place.

Danny, showing up unannounced on Tuesday. Danny, home for dinner with her parents— twice . Danny, splurging on those musical tickets. Danny, playing the perfect partner, all charm and sweetness.

All of it. Buttering her up. Softening the ground. Bracing himself to break yet another promise.

And she’d sworn—again—that she’d leave him if he did.