Page 56 of Forever, Maybe

Chapter forty-two

Joe and Nicky had moved to Springburn in Glasgow’s north-east several years ago, drawn by necessity rather than choice.

Like Daniel, Joe hadn’t had much time for house-hunting, but he’d shared the details of each place with him. Daniel had reckoned Springburn was their best bet.

It was the only area where they could find a house big enough for their ever-expanding family. The sandstone terrace villa on Broomfield Road wasn’t grand, but it had space, and it backed onto a small park—a rare patch of green in the concrete sprawl.

It wasn’t Pollokshields, but it wasn’t the estate Joe had grown up on either, with its boarded-up windows, graffitied walls, flat-roofed blocks streaked grey with grime and litter-strewn streets.

Parking a hundred metres from the house—the best he could manage—Daniel spotted one of Joe’s kids on the swings.

Cameron, nine years old and sharp as a tack, was his favourite of the lot.

Too far away to notice him, but Daniel waved anyway, the gesture half-hearted, tinged with something bittersweet.

Joe opened the door, grinning wide, his usual cheerful self. He wore his off-duty uniform: a Celtic away strip from the 2006–07 season—the year they’d made it to the UEFA Champions League knock-out stages—paired with baggy grey trackie bottoms and bare, bony feet.

“C’mon in!” Joe said, clapping Daniel on the back.

If they’d been women, or men of a different age or nationality, maybe they would have hugged. The thought struck Daniel with a pang of wistfulness. Four weeks of wifelessness had left him acutely aware of how much he missed simple human contact.

From the kitchen came the unmistakable sounds of Nicky in full flight, her voice sharp and cutting, locked in a row with the couple’s oldest child.

“I dinnae care if everybody else has yin! You’re no’ gettin’ yin! Have ye any idea how expensive they things are?”

“You’re such a bitch!” Kylie shouted back. “When ah need counselling in the future, ah’ll tell the counsellor everything that’s wrang wi’ me is your fault!”

The kitchen door slammed, and a lanky figure emerged. Kylie, almost as tall as her father now, paused at the bottom of the stairs. Her bobbed sandy-brown hair—the exact shade Joe’s had been before he started losing it—framed a face that screamed trouble.

Kylie spotted him with her dad and the belligerent expression turned wary.

“Go back in there and apologise to your mum,” Joe said evenly.

Daniel had never heard him raise his voice to the kids. Joe and Nicky’s parenting styles were polar opposites—Nicky, all fire and heat, Joe, steady as a cold loch on a still day—and somehow, they balanced each other.

“But Daaaaaad!” Kylie’s whine was pitch-perfect, the hallmark of a beleaguered almost-thirteen-year-old who believed she had drawn the short straw in the universal lottery of parents.

“Now.”

Her sigh was theatrical, a full-body performance that seemed to rise from the soles of her feet and escape in a huff of martyrdom. With a dramatic about-turn, she stomped back into the kitchen.

From the hallway, they caught her voice drifting out, telling her mother she regretted calling her a bitch—but it was still so unfair that everyone in her class had a mobile phone, while her parents were too stingy to buy her one.

“Everyone?” Daniel murmured, raising an eyebrow at Joe.

Joe snorted. “Aye, bit o’ poetic license there. Becca, her best pal, got yin for her birthday a fortnight back, and we’ve no’ heard the end of it since. Reckon we’re no’ the only parents cursing Becca’s folks.”

Message grudgingly delivered, Kylie emerged from the kitchen with her best air of dignified martyrdom. “Hi, Uncle Daniel. Nice to see you.”

“And you, Kylie,” he replied. He’d always enjoyed the honorific title, even if it occasionally came with pre-teen drama attached.

She clattered up the stairs, leaving a wake of muttered grumbling behind her.

Nicky appeared in the kitchen doorway, her hands bracing her hips.

The huge bump in front of her transformed her into a toffee apple on legs.

Her fine ginger hair formed a frizzed halo around her face, as though the argument with Kylie had left her electrically charged.

“Hiya, Daniel. ‘Mon in. I’ve made a big pot o’ chicken and mushroom casserole.”

The kitchen air was heavy with the warm, savoury fugue of garlic and chicken.

The back windows above the sink were fogged with steam, and on the floor near the table sat the couple’s youngest, not yet two, dozing peacefully in a car seat.

He was dressed in a Celtic FC onesie, a tiny emblem of team loyalty.

“Didn’t the shouting wake him up?” Daniel asked, nodding toward the sleeping toddler.

Nicky shook her head with a grin. “That yin could sleep through an earthquake. Thank the Lord God Almighty for his wee mercies.”

Daniel offered to help serve, but Nicky waved him off, already bustling with purpose. He took a seat across from Joe at the battered kitchen dining table, its surface nicked and worn from years of family life.

“If it helps,” Daniel said, lowering his voice, “I could buy Kylie a mobile. Pay-as-you-go. No strings attached.”

Joe leaned back in his chair and shook his head. “Naw, ta. Kylie needs tae learn that things don’t come for free. She acts like the world owes her a favour.”

“It wouldn’t be free,” Daniel replied. “Not with her helping out—sorry, volunteering—at Largs next weekend.”

That had been the deal with Nicky, way back in April, when his biggest problem was finding ways to pacify Nell for him working all the hours God sent.

“Even so,” Joe said, unconvinced.

From the counter, Nicky added, “Anyway, she’d burn through the credit in a week, texting her pals and checking Instagram. We’ve got enough on our plate wi’oot that nonsense.”

Daniel nodded, even though part of him still wanted to argue. But this wasn’t his call. They knew their own kids better than he ever could.

Instead, he leant back in his chair, letting the comforting aroma of the casserole fill the silence. The kitchen’s warmth eased the tension in his shoulders.

Joe watched him, steady and quiet, teetering on the edge of saying something. When he finally spoke, it wasn’t what Daniel expected.

“Mind Darren McCardle fae school? Dropped dead. Heart attack.”

“Jesus. He was forty-four.”

Both of them touched their chests, instinctively.

“Funeral’s Thursday week. St Roch’s. I’m gonnae go. D’ye want tae come wi’ me?”

Daniel shook his head. Joe had always been better at keeping in touch. Daniel hadn’t seen Darren in years. Besides, someone might ask about his wife. It was bad enough fielding questions from family—he couldn’t face them from former classmates too.

“Buy some flowers,” he said. “Stick them on the company account.”

“Makes ye think, though. Doesn’t it? Life’s awfy short, and mebbe no’ worth—”

Whatever philosophical point he was about to make—Daniel would’ve bet good money it was headed straight for ‘forgive Nell’ territory—was cut off by Nicky setting down a shallow bowl of casserole, its glossy surface flecked with yellow oil, followed by a heap of roast potatoes.

“Right, lads,” she said, “fill yer boots! D’ye want tae stay the night, Daniel? We can turf Kylie oot her room.”

“No, thanks. That’s no’ fair on the lassie,” Daniel replied, sure that he didn’t want to stay, anyway.

Every inch of the house screamed ‘family’.

From the crude felt-tipped and crayoned pictures sellotaped to the fridge door, to the Lego fragments scattered across the living room carpet, which the unwary stepped on with bare feet (and never made the same mistake twice).

Living with his mother might not be fun. She tutted at him all the time, forcing him to spend even more hours in his office, but at least it didn’t shove family happiness in his face.

“Muuuuummmm! Kylie’s stolen my ice-cream!” one of the kids wailed from the living room, and Nicky raised her eyes skywards and headed out, off to sort out her squabbling offspring once more.

Joe cracked open another beer and took a long swig.

“Can I have one?” Daniel asked.

Joe’s bottom lip jutted out. “You sure? You dinnae want tae turn intae an alkie. Darren McCardle was a bevvy merchant all his life. It was always a toss-up what’d go first—his heart or his liver.”

“A few beers aren’t going to make me an alcoholic.”

Joe paused, weighing his words, then plunged on. “Aye, but after Amsterdam, when you—”

Daniel cut him off with a raised hand. “We’re no’ talking about that.”

“Fine.” Joe held his hands up in surrender.

He grabbed the weakest beer in the fridge and slid it across the table.

Daniel popped it open and took a sip, the light, hoppy fizz washing away the lingering taste of cream on his tongue.

For a moment, he allowed himself to remember how much he used to enjoy a beer at the end of the day.

Joe sat back down, his expression tightening. “Eh… Nell phoned me last night.”

Daniel froze, his grip tightening on the can. Joe seemed determined to make his point after all, shifting uncomfortably on his seat but pressing on. “She was greetin’. Couldnae get a word out o’ her for ages. Look, I know you’re awfy upset, your pride’s taken a bashing, but—”

“It’s not about pride!” Daniel snapped, his voice cracking. “It’s… it’s…” He trailed off, throat closing.

To his dismay, tears welled up and spilled over.

He hunched forward, resting his elbows on the table as they dripped silently onto the wood just as Kylie appeared in the doorway.

Her eyes widened at the sight of her honorary uncle crumbling, and she beat a hasty retreat, the door clicking shut behind her.