Page 39 of Forever, Maybe

Chapter thirty

Trish lingered in the doorway, the very picture of someone itching to speak their mind. The sausage rolls had been a diversion.

“I know it’s awfy difficult, being married to a busy man,” she began.

Nell’s blood simmered. What would Trish know? In all the years she’d known them, Jack had never been busy. Not once. Trish must have caught wind of the Liza conversation and realised the timing of the supermarket pitch.

“But this house”—Trish gestured expansively—“and your part-time freelancing, and the designer dresses”—her other hand swept up and down, taking in Nell’s outfit.

Second-hand. Second. Hand.

“…doesn’t come cheap. And Danny’s always worked so hard for you. It’s a pity you never had children. Maybe that would have given you more to occupy your time and—”

Nell barely heard the rest. This wasn’t off-the-cuff.

Trish had been hoarding these grievances, just waiting for the perfect moment to air them.

Months, years, maybe even decades of resentment lined up and ready to fire.

Stephanie’s impression of her earlier, which Nell had laughed at, would have fuelled the flames.

The simmering in Nell’s veins surged into full-blown, red-mist fury.

“And how do you think,” she said, her voice brittle as toffee apple coating, “our children would have felt, growing up with an absentee, useless father? Like Danny did? Hmm?”

Trish scowled. The deep-set wrinkles on her forehead, usually hidden beneath that heavy fringe, must have been working overtime.

“My Jack did his best,” she snapped. “You know he did. But if I’d been lucky enough to marry a hard-working, successful man like my eldest, I’d have thought all my Christmases had come at once. And I’d have spent every day grateful for it.”

There were plenty of possible replies to that—smart, cutting, logical replies.

But Nell went with the most satisfying one.

“Trish,” she said sweetly, “you know nothing about Danny and me. Now go find a toilet to scrub. Or, preferably—” she smiled, slow and deliberate—“fuck off.”

Ooh. So worth it.

Danny, returning from the kitchen—where, presumably, he’d managed to locate the sausage rolls and shove them in the oven—caught the tail end of it as Nell strode past him and out of the room.

“Nell!” he called after her.

She didn’t stop.

Behind her, Trish erupted. How dare she? Did you hear that? Are you going to let her speak to me like that? The outrage followed Nell all the way up the stairs, mercifully cut off only when she slammed the bedroom door.

What now?

Outside, laughter and conversation drifted in through the window at the back of the room.

People ate, drank and mingled, blissfully unaware of the storm raging within these walls.

The bed beckoned—a sanctuary of soft sheets, a thick duvet, and a stack of unread novels gathering dust on the bedside table.

The thought of shutting the door, locking it and shutting out Danny—shutting out all of them—hummed like a siren’s song.

“Nell? Nell?”

Her mother’s voice rang out from the garden, laced with urgency.

“Cate, where are you?” Bobby now, then Joe chiming in, his tone carefully soothing. “She’s here somewhere. Why don’t you come chat with me and Nicky?”

Bless him. He’d clocked the tension immediately. Must have figured out that his boss and his boss’s wife were mid-argument.

Still, Nell would bet good money that Joe already knew the date of the supermarket pitch, and probably way before she did. Danny’s work “wife” always got the memos first.

“Nell? Nell!” Her mother’s voice cracked now, on the edge of panic.

Nell hurried back downstairs. Cate stood in the hallway, clutching a coat that didn’t belong to her. She stared over Nell’s shoulder, addressing the air. “I need to go home. Your dad needs his dinner.”

Danny emerged from the living room, closing the door softly behind him. Cate turned to him, blinking. “Oh, hello, love. This is… this is…” She gestured vaguely around her, her confusion tightening the air.

Danny stepped closer and gently took her hands, his much larger ones enveloping hers.

Cate’s hands were as small as Nell’s, fragile in his grasp.

When she looked up at him again, he smiled—a warm gesture that still had the power to break Nell’s heart.

“This is our home, Cate,” he said softly.

“You remember? Where I live with Nell. You’re at our party. ”

Bobby joined them, red-faced and out of breath, avoiding Nell’s gaze. Cate nodded hesitantly. “The party… I thought we’d run out of… things. Milk, maybe. I should go and get some.”

Nell kept her voice steady as she assured her mother the fridge was fully stocked. Danny gently let go of her hands, and Bobby slid an arm around her shoulders. “Why don’t we sit down for a bit, Cate?”

Cate nodded again, her movements jerky, and allowed Bobby to guide her back to the living room. He eased her onto the sofa and plonked himself beside her, his arm still protectively draped over her shoulders.

“I’d better get back to the guests,” Danny said, his voice low.

Nell exhaled sharply, her shoulders rising and falling with the effort of holding herself together.

There was never a perfect time for a fight, but mid-party, moments after a loved one’s forgetfulness became painfully clear, was undoubtedly among the worst.

She gave him a curt nod, and he retreated, leaving her in the hallway. In the kitchen, Mark’s voice rang out, oblivious as ever. “Is there another beer somewhere?”

Nell let the moment hang in the air before she moved. Upstairs still beckoned—a sanctuary. But this wasn’t a battle from which she could run. Not yet.

She joined Cate and Bobby in the living room, brushing off her father’s quick, concerned “Is everything okay?” with a nod that silenced further questions.

As she sank into an armchair, her mind churned, replaying last weekend’s argument that had followed Danny’s cancellation of their wedding anniversary dinner.

You don’t think I’d do it again, do you? she’d asked. Danny had looked at her, bewildered, his silence louder than any denial.

Leave you. Her voice had been steady then, but the words burned.

You think I’m now too wedded to the lifestyle—the money, the comfort, the nice restaurants and the credit cards with their ridiculous limits.

But what’s the point of all this— she’d gestured around at the carefully curated luxury of their home— when only one of us ever gets to enjoy it?

Her anger had sharpened as she continued. We haven’t had a week’s holiday in years. Years! Even when we planned this New Year away, you cut it from four days to two at the last minute because you had to be back on January second. As if anyone in Scotland works the day after Hogmanay.

A vision had risen, unbidden but vivid: her, living alone in a small London flat.

Charcoal drawings adorned the walls, with unfinished sketches leaning in stacks against the skirting boards.

She was within easy reach of her ageing parents, her life quieter but freer.

And there was someone else—a faceless, dependable partner who shared evenings, weekends and birthdays.

Someone who made her feel like she mattered.

She’d brought herself back to the argument with a final warning. But swear to God, Danny, if you cancel again— her voice cracked then, but she forced herself to finish— I will leave. I mean it.

That was the thing about threats: if you didn’t follow through, they became hollow. A liar’s promise. And she’d called Danny undependable, hadn’t she?

So what now? The room hummed with quiet conversation, Cate’s murmur to Bobby blending with the muffled sounds of the party beyond. Her options were stark: stay or go. But staying meant staying like this, and going meant proving to herself—and Danny—that her words hadn’t been empty.

And yet, lurking behind her anger, there was another “what if,” one she never allowed herself to dwell on for too long. It was the unspoken reason she’d tolerated his workaholism all these years, the excuse she’d quietly handed him again and again.

Her mother sat gazing blankly at the wallpaper, the fog of her forgetfulness thickening with every passing day. Maybe that was what scared Nell the most: that she’d waste her best years waiting for a change that would never come, only to find herself older, lonelier and full of regrets.

What should she do?