Page 115 of Forever, Maybe
“Got anything exciting planned for the weekend?”
She brightened. “Me and Dode are off tae the SSE tomorrow. There’s a model railway exhibition on—biggest one in Europe, he says. Awfy lot of folk’ll be there.”
She wrinkled her nose. “I just hope the loos are decent. Mind, the ladies’ might actually be fine for once, seeing as there’ll no’ be many of us compared to the men. They’ll probably be queuing forever, and when they do get in…” She shuddered theatrically. “Dinnae fancy what they’ll find when they get in there.”
“Mmm,” he said, at a loss for a better response.
Holly tilted her head, studying him. “You could come wi’ us, if you’re no’ busy? Dode’s pal was meant tae go but pulled out last minute. His ticket’s spare.”
Daniel hesitated, a flicker of temptation he immediately crushed. Wandering through stalls, admiring miniature trains, buying Holly and Dode lunch, dodging the flat caps and anoraks… it wasn’tentirelyawful.
Get agrip. Yes, it was. The day he willingly spent a Saturday at a model train show was the day hell froze over.
“Thanks, Holly,” he gestured towards the papers scattered across his desk, “but I’ve got a mountain of paperwork to plough through for Asda. Maybe next time.”
Holly shrugged, adjusting the strap of her ever-present oversized tote bag. “Suit yoursel’. We’ll fill you in on Monday. Dode’s fair chuffed about it. And dinnae stay too late here. All work and no play makes Jack a dull boy!”
And with that, she was gone, the front door of the office slamming behind her, her footsteps faintly audible as she clattered down the stairs.
All work and no play. Of all the things she could’ve said, why that?
The refrain his mother had hammered into him during the early years of building the business. The words echoed now, just as they had that night he first met Nell.
He shut down his iMac, the screen fading to black as he sat there, marinating in his own irritation. He locked up the office and the shop, the metallic click of the door echoing through the empty street. For the millionth time, he wondered: had he been too hard on Nell? Marriage was supposed to be a balancing act, wasn’t it? The scales tipped one way, then the other. Didn’t his relentless work ethic offset her infidelity—or had it, instead, tipped everything irreparably out of balance?
What is thisreallyabout?
No one asked him that, but he answered it in his head anyway. It always came back to the same thing:Nell wouldn’t have children with me.And deep down, he’d wanted them. Desperately. She wouldn’t even discuss the possibility.She refused to even discuss the possibility o’ having one when we were older, when I had all the money in the world to make it easy.
And yet. He had to admit, she was always consistent.
“No,” she said when he proposed, “I don’t want kids.”
“No,” she said when she thought she might be pregnant early on, “I can’t have this one either.”
“No,” she said again, years later, when he’d tried once more, after meeting the pregnant Nicky for the first time.
“Please, Danny,” she’d said, exasperated. “I’ve been honest from the start. If you want kids, we shouldn’t be together.”
The shop door swung shut behind him. The street was alive with scents and sounds: fenugreek, cumin and garlic wafted from the Indian two doors down, mingling with the damp chill of the evening. Across the road, a pub blared out karaoke—some group of women enthusiastically massacring The Killers’Mr Brightside.
He crossed the street, his shoes scuffing against uneven pavement. His car waited in the NCP lot, its fees ticking upwards by the second. Fingers crossed, he thought, that his mother was still out at some church committee meeting or fundraising for Mary’s Meals. If she started on about Father Reilly again tonight, he’d lose it. He could already see it: a grim-faced Detective Inspector leaning over the table in an interview room, advising him to stay silent as they processed him for matricide.
“Sandwich King!”
The woman strolling up the street stopped in front of him, grinning and sending vanilla-cinnamon fumes his way.
Jennifer Frazer. Her eyes were glazed. Someone who’d been out on the ran-dan for a few hours.
She wore a camel trench coat cinched tight at the waist, with a dark red hem—either a dress or skirt—peeking out beneath. Shiny black patent boots completed the look, their stiletto heels so razor-thin they seemed incapable of supporting even a pound of butter, let alone a fully grown woman.
And her hair. How did women do that? Jennifer’s blonde curls fell in flawless spirals, framing her face and cascading just past her shoulders. The makeup he’d once dismissed as overdone now looked perfect: smoky grey eyeshadow blended seamlessly; tawny-red lipstick accentuating teeth that gleamed unnaturally white.
“How are you? And how’s Nell?”
Daniel bristled at the question, heat rising in his chest. He marched past her. “Fine. Both of us are fine. No thanks to you.”
Her hand shot out, palm pressing against his chest to stop him. The force of it wasn’t much, but it startled him enough to pause.
