Forever maybe, p.10
Forever, Maybe, page 10
He was still dressed in his police uniform. The thick stab-proof vest made him barrel-chested, and the baton in its holster unthreatening, though he’d drawn it for Chrissie once, and she’d flinched, the sound a whip-crack through the air.
Their father maintained a protective stance in front of the cake. “I don’t trust him, Chrissie!”
“Neither do I,” she said, whisking the cake from the table and onto the counter. Dad would have taken fabulous pictures, and she was super-proud of the three tier wedding cake with gold and silver petals spiralling from the top to the bottom. The cake had not been commissioned by anyone—yet!—but Chrissie hoped that once she uploaded the pictures on her newly established Instagram account @chrissiecakes, orders would flood in. Then, and only then, would she allow Mikey to get his greedy mitts on it.
Her brother—jammy git—had the world’s fastest metabolism. Capable of consuming cakes, burgers, buckets of chicken nuggets and massive packets of crisps without gaining a single ruddy kilogram.
Mikey burst out laughing, the sound of it—a weird huck, huck, huck—too much for her and her dad to resist. They joined in, swallowed up in the joy of the moment, delighted to be here, to forget about the sadness of Mum’s death and rally round Dad, encircling him with love and protection.
“Who’s making dinner?” Mikey asked, swirling his fingertip in the air before theatrically pointing it at Chrissie.
“Fudge off,” she retorted. “I just spent five hours lovingly crafting this cake. My culinary energy is officially spent. It’s your turn, you blooging bucktard.”
Mikey’s eyebrows shot up and down in rapid succession, his lips quirking into a grin. Their ongoing game of inventing substitute swear words was one of their greatest shared joys. For all their loving tolerance, Ma and Pa had drawn a firm line at the f-word, the c-word, the b-word and a colourful assortment of others. But that didn’t stop the siblings from creatively pushing the boundaries.
Their dad, ever perceptive, caught on and gave Mikey a light thump on the arm. “Kittens,” he offered, “I could make dinner?”
“Ah, no, no, no!” Mikey exclaimed, all mock solemnity. “The real artist in the house has done all he can for the day and should retire to the living room. Perhaps, take a small nap?”
Dad protested, half-heartedly, that he wasn’t that old, but Mikey was already herding him toward the sofa. Chrissie smirked as she uploaded the cake photos to Instagram, listening to Mikey’s exaggerated attempts to coax Dad into relaxing.
She hadn’t pressed Mikey about what happened during his conversation with Mum that time, but she knew their mother must have told him the same thing she’d told her. That was what had set Chrissie on her current mission: tracking down the woman who had given her name to social services, signalling she was open to meeting her son—if he wanted to.
Chrissie loved the deep, bare bones of Mikey, but God, he could be infuriating. Shutting down when anything personal came up and shoving it beneath the surface. Typical man, as Chrissie’s friend Luce, also adopted, announced, world-weary. It’ll come back to bite him on the bum at one point, you know. His refusal to find out anything about his biological parents, even though your dad’s given his blessing…
Chrissie had agreed, though she hadn’t said so out loud. And that was why, with her trademark tenacity, a bit of cunning and an unshakeable belief in her own rightness, she’d taken matters into her own hands. Hours of combing through online records, piecing together scraps of information, all with a single goal: finding the woman named on Mikey’s birth certificate.
If Mikey wouldn’t do it, Chrissie would because sometimes love meant charging headfirst into situations, even when the person you’re doing it for might not thank you.
Chapter twelve
April 2016
Nell jolted awake as her phone buzzed to life at half-past eight. She groaned, the dull thud in her head echoing every heartbeat, and fumbled on the bedside cabinet. Her hand knocked the phone onto the wooden floor with a clatter. It rang off before she could reach it.
The master bedroom, situated at the front of the house, had been one of the reasons she and Danny fell for the place. Its bay window bathed the room in morning light, making the already spacious area feel even more open and inviting. Elegant cornicing framed the ceiling, a detail Nell had adored on first sight.
The built-in wardrobe loomed at one side. The cavernous storage solution was meant for a couple with wardrobes to rival celebrities. So far, Nell had barely managed to fill her half.
No sign of Danny. She hadn’t heard him come in last night. He must have crashed in the spare room again.
With a sigh, she swung her legs over the side of the bed, leaning down to retrieve the phone. The missed calls list glowed with a single name: Artie. Her oldest half-brother. He called so rarely it was practically a solar eclipse.
Her thumb hovered for a moment before she jabbed the green call button. “Sorry, Artie. I didn’t get to the phone in time. How are you?”
Corrie, displeased by the commotion, leapt off the bed and padded out of the room, tail high and flicking. Across the hallway, the spare room door creaked open, and Danny appeared, hair mussed and eyes half-closed. He peeked around the doorframe, mouthing something about getting started on breakfast.
“Fine, fine,” Artie muttered, as Nell waved Danny off before turning her attention back to the phone.
Artie didn’t bother repeating her question. She’d been born a week after his twelfth birthday—a surprise he’d never wanted and certainly hadn’t celebrated. By the time he turned eighteen, he was out the door and away from family life altogether. When he declined to come up to Glasgow for Nell’s wedding, citing his busy schedule, it hadn’t come as a surprise. In all the years she’d lived in the city, he’d made the effort to visit twice.
“How’s Lorraine? And the boys?” Nell asked.
A better aunt might have kept track of whether Artie’s kids still lived at home, worked or attended university. But then, better brought-up nephews might have remembered to thank their aunt for years of overly generous Christmas and birthday gifts. Artie’s sons never had.
“Fine too. I’m calling about Mum.”
“What about her?” Nell pushed herself up, shoving the pillows against the headboard as a back rest. The disgusting taste in her mouth brought back last night’s events in gruesome technicolour details.
Cringe.
“As you’re not down here much, you probably haven’t noticed,” Artie went on, the barb unmistakable. “But Lorraine and I are about ninety percent sure she’s in the early stages of dementia. Bobby’s in total denial—calls it a ‘senior moment’ every time she forgets something. Which, frankly, is most of the time.”
“What’s she forgetting?” Dread curdled in Nell’s belly. Artie’s news was something that had lingered on the outskirts of her consciousness for a while.
“Names. Words. Switching the oven off. Directions to places. Asking the same question three or four times during any conversation. Then on Friday night, we were in the chippie for the usual, and she asked Bobby, ‘Daddy, please can we get vinegar on our chips?’, and he just brushed it off, like it was nothing. She also confuses him with Lenny a lot.”
“Dad hasn’t said anything to me.”
“Well, he wouldn’t. Everyone has to tip-toe around delicate little Nell, don’t they?”
Nell pulled a face Archie couldn’t see. After all these years, her half-brother’s continued hostility still rankled. The ten-year-old boy furious at his mother for remarrying so soon after Lenny, her first husband, died. Cate seldom talked about Lenny, but her sister had told Nell Lenny was handy with his fists. No wonder she’d greeted his death with relief.
But as Nell recalled the last few phone calls with Cate and her parents’ New Year visit, plenty of things raised red flags that she had noticed and dismissed at the time.
Cate confusing Nell’s graduation from the Art School with her other half-brother’s graduation from Manchester University several years earlier. Cate forgetting the recipe for Delia Smith’s pavlova, a dessert she had made hundreds of times since it first appeared in the early 1980s.
Cate not phoning her on Thursday night to wish her a happy anniversary, something she’d always done. Having no knowledge of it when Nell called on the Saturday morning. Forgetting it again two thirds of the way through the conversation. Bobby taking the phone away from her at one point, ostensibly to speak to his daughter but now that she thought about it, because Cate kept muddling things up.
Artie had a point, however underhandedly he’d brought it up.
“How can I help?” Nell asked.
“Not much, seeing as you’re stuck up there in Scotland,” Artie replied, his tone clipped. Apart from a brief stint in the States during his twenties, he’d never left Norwich, their hometown. “Lorraine wants Bobby to take her to the GP. The sooner these things get diagnosed, the better.”
Lorraine worked on the geriatric ward at the local hospital, so presumably, she knew what she was talking about.
“Has she mentioned that to him?”
“Well, of course she has!” Artie snapped, his frustration crackling through the line. “We’re in and out of that house all the time! I wouldn’t have called you if I didn’t think this was important.”
Nell pushed the phone away, letting Artie’s voice drone on while she stared at the ceiling. She only brought it back to her ear when his sharp, “Are you still there?” jolted her out of her thoughts.
“Yes, I am,” Nell said firmly. “Artie, I try my best. I wish I lived closer to Norwich.”
She caught muffled whispering on the other end—Lorraine, most likely. The woman must have the patience of a saint to deal with him. Perhaps she was urging her husband to soften his tone.
“Okay, fine,” Artie relented after a pause. “Bobby’s more likely to listen to you. Just make sure you bring it up when they visit you next weekend, alright?”
“No problem. Though maybe Dad’s right, and it is just old age. Mum’s in her late seventies now,” Nell offered, her voice tentative.
“Maybe.” Artie let out a long, heavy sigh. “But we went through this with Lorraine’s mum a couple of years ago. The signs are the same, and it’s... it’s fucking awful, Nell. I can’t face the thought of doing it all over again.”
In the background, she heard him sniffle, followed by Lorraine’s quiet voice asking if he was okay. The raw emotion hit Nell like a gut punch, tugging at her heartstrings and leaving her with a gnawing sense of shame. She rarely returned to Norwich, avoiding the memories it dredged up, which meant she was clueless about the practicalities of her parents’ ageing. Artie’s anger toward her wasn’t entirely undeserved.
“Artie, I’m sorry,” she said softly. “I promise I’ll talk to Dad about it.”
“Good. I’ll talk to you next week.” The abrupt parting shot marked the end of the cessation of hostilities. There would be no more revealing of vulnerabilities when she phoned him after next weekend.
Aware she still hadn’t checked on Stephanie—who might well have been axe-murdered by either Grant or Tadgh last night—she gave her a call. Stephanie always brushed off Nell’s attempts to check up on her, insisting that while her taste in men was undeniably dodgy (she had a knack for picking the unreliable, unfaithful and ungrateful), she was confident in her ability to sniff out rapists and murderers, and wasn’t about to end up with one at the close of a night out.
“Morning! How are you? Is Grant or Tadgh your new squeeze or… oh God, are you still with them? I mean, him. Although no judgment if you’re in bed with both.”
There was a snort down the line, followed by a sigh.
“Ach, I went home with Grant. He seemed dead keen to get into my knickers. But while he was in the loo, a message popped up on his phone from Tadgh—‘How’s your grab-a-granny night going.’ Prick.”
“That’s outrageous!” Nell said, wishing she were there to offer a hug.
At twenty-one—the age she’d been when she first met Stephanie—forty-two had seemed like some far-off land of faded dreams and sensible shoes. Now, staring down the other side of it, she often wondered if she’d (her and Stephanie) ever really progressed past being fourteen.
“But Grant didn’t mean you, surely...?”
“Oh, he did. There was even a reference to a bet. And while I might think of myself as a prize worth winning, I’m not about to be anyone’s joke shag.”
“Quite right. Honestly, he doesn’t sound like a loss. Plenty more fish in the—” She cringed mid-sentence. If she had a pound for every time she’d said that to Stephanie, she could probably buy an entire salmon fishery. “Sorry. That was a rubbish thing to say.”
Daniel poked his head round the door, eyebrow raised. She held up a finger in reply.
“You’ll be coming along to the annual barbecue next weekend, won’t you?”
“Absolutely. Anyway, I’d better go. I’m off to Keto Nate’s gym for a workout—which seemed like a good idea when I signed up but now feels like the worst decision I’ve ever made. The only reason I haven’t cancelled is because Nate probably expects me to.”
Nell signed off with their usual ‘love you’, ‘love you, too’, and Daniel took that as his cue to enter.
“Everything okay? I’ve made you tea.” He held the mug in front of him. “And downstairs, I’m in the middle o’ making the greatest breakfast known to mankind and womankind. After which, I’ll do all the cleaning and washing up, then spend the entire day doing whatever my lovely wife desires. No Stuffed! stuff. None. Penance for my many, many sins.”
“No Stuffed! stuff?” Nell raised an eyebrow. “I’m deeply honoured.”
He ducked his head in a mock bow. She patted the bed beside her, and he sat down, handing over the tea. It was perfect, just the way she liked it. The teabag barely steeped, the liquid a pale red-brown, with the tiniest splash of semi-skimmed milk.
“That was Stephanie,” she said, wrapping her hands around the mug for comfort. She filled him in on the conversation, including the grab-a-granny comment, which made Daniel wince.
“And before that, Artie phoned.”
Danny sucked in his cheeks and furrowed his brows, his uncanny impression of her oldest brother’s habitual grim expression drawing a brief laugh.
“Take it he was in his usual fine fettle?”
She nodded.
“Someone needs to tell him about this groundbreaking new app called a sense of humour and suggests he downloads it.”
“That’ll be the day,” Nell said, though her smile faded as quickly as it appeared. “He’s worried about Mum.”
Danny’s playful expression sobered. “What, the forgetfulness?”
Oh, he had noticed too. Artie was right to berate her. What a rubbish daughter she was.
“Yes. Lorraine’s convinced she’s in the early stages of dementia.”
Daniel reached for her hand, squeezing her fingers together. “Och, Nell. That’s shite. But aren’t there drugs these days that can slow it down?”
“I don’t know. Guess I’ll be spending the next few days tapping up Ms Google for the answers. If only I didn’t live so far away from them!”
He gave her fingers another squeeze. “Aye, I know. Tell you what. Why no’ invite Cate and Bobby here a few days early? Then you’ll have more o’ a chance to see what Cate’s like. If they’re only here for the party, you’ll no’ see her much by herself.”
“The party’s still going ahead then? Not going to be called off at the last minute because of work demands…?”
The Murrays threw a party every year before the music festival season began. To Daniel’s credit, he’d never cancelled it, no matter how chaotic life became.
“No, swear to God.” He crossed himself with exaggerated solemnity. “It’s awfy hard for you. You’ve made so many sacrifices for me and the business over the years.” His voice was soft, almost wistful, and his dark eyes searched her face, as if pleading for forgiveness.
Forgiveness for what? For Nell choosing to settle her life in Scotland—a choice she’d made eagerly to escape Norfolk all those years ago? For working himself into the ground so they could afford a beautiful house and a comfortable life?
The idea that he might have fathered a child in some distant past felt more absurd than ever. Danny’s work consumed him entirely; there simply wasn’t room for anything else. Fidelity wasn’t something she took for granted, but she’d never doubted him.
“Not really, Danny,” she said gently, cupping his cheek. The rasp of his unshaven stubble was familiar, almost comforting. She’d always found it irresistible. “You wanted kids. I didn’t. That’s the sacrifice you made for me.”
“Ach, I’ve no regrets,” he replied quickly.
But his glance flickered away for the briefest moment, betraying the lie. God, he was such a good man. She didn’t deserve him.
Danny reached out, brushing his fingers against her cheek. “Are you okay otherwise? You’re awfy pale. You always are, but more so today.”
It was Sunday morning, and for once, Danny didn’t have his phone on him. Miraculously, Stuffed! didn’t require his attention today—a promise he’d made in the early hours of Friday during yet another too-familiar argument about his relentless work hours.
She could tell him. Confess everything.
The thought gnawed at her, as it had since she’d checked the White Lightning Instagram account yesterday. Beneath the celebratory posts marking the company’s twenty-year milestone, one comment stood out like a flashing neon sign:
GOD, the hangover I had the next day was EPIC, Curtice, you tosspot! Can’t imagine how YOU felt the next day. Or should that be who…?! 😉 @johndraws
The profile picture for @johndraws was a black Labrador, but a quick scroll revealed the man himself. He’d been there that night too, lingering as long as she had. The comment felt pointed, as if he knew something. But he hadn’t tagged anyone, and no one had replied, except for @QueenAbi79, who echoed the epic hangover sentiment.
