Page 69 of Forever, Maybe
He eased her back slightly, his gaze searching hers. “Are you sure? I can cancel. Iwillcancel. You’re more important than—”
She pulled back just enough to meet his eyes properly. “I mean it. It’s fine.”
It was too easy to go along with it, the memory of yesterday’s uncomfortable meeting with his bank manager fresh in his mind. (“You’ve expanded too far, too soon, Mr Murray. This is not good. Not good at all.”)
A pause. Then Nell’s voice again, softer: “Can we just go to bed?”
“Aye, c’mon then.” He took her hand, his grip firm but tender, relief and love tangling into something he couldn’t quite name.
So they wouldn’t have children. That was okay. He could live with it.
Chapter thirty
April2016
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. “Youknowhe 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 daygratefulfor 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 knownothingabout Danny and me. Now go find a toilet to scrub. Or, preferably—” she smiled, slow and deliberate—“fuck off.”
Ooh.Soworth 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 outallof them—hummed like a siren’s song.
“Nell? Nell?”
