Never Coming Back: a tale of loss and new beginnings

by Deirdre Palmer

  There was something about the flat that deadened his creativity. Perhaps it was its bland, boxy shape, the constant stomping of the two blokes overhead, the agoraphobic view of endless sea, the perpetual shopping list pinned to the fridge by a heart-shaped magnet, or a combination of all these things. If Kate thought he was being pretentious, she kept it to herself.

  Kate was a staff nurse in the mental health unit of the district general hospital, a few miles north of the town. Mostly she worked on the psychiatric wards, but now she’d qualified as a psychotherapist, she spent part of her week dealing with her own out-patient caseload.

  Kate worked so hard. Her dedication outshone anything Morgan might accomplish, which was why it was a surprise when she’d peeked out one day from behind the edifice of her career and exhorted him to make a start on his own. Not his job in the bookshop nor other vague ideas that smouldered quietly in the background, but his ambition to be a writer.

  And then she’d gone a step further, surprising him even more.

  ‘Why don’t you take a year out? Stop flogging books to other people and write your own? I’m earning enough for both of us. You owe it to yourself to give it your best shot, Morgan.’

  Shoulders tense, eyes shiny with anticipation, it was as if she’d handed over a massively exciting Christmas present and couldn’t wait for him to open it.

  Morgan had been tempted, he couldn’t deny that. A year to sit with his feet up – or under a desk, at any rate – and spend all day, every day, doing what made him happier than anything he’d ever done in his entire life. Apart from being with Kate, of course. What was there not to like? Well, being a kept man for a start. Kate didn’t see it that way but Morgan did, and the idea didn’t sit easily with his conscience, or his pride. Besides, being – or trying to be – a writer was a lonely business. His job at the book shop may not qualify as a lifetime’s career, but he enjoyed it. He liked chatting to the customers about the books they’d come to buy; he liked tracking down the books they couldn’t find on the shelves, and the least amount of information they could provide, the better – it added to the thrill of the chase. He liked the other staff; well, most of them. He even liked the sheer physical toil of shifting and sorting crates of books, and found satisfaction in their final arrangement on the shelves.

  After much debate, they’d reached a compromise. Morgan would reorganise his working hours to allow him two clear days off a week, Friday and Saturday, days he would dedicate to his writing. He knew his manager would agree. Others had done it; a precedent for flexible working had been set. As for potentially busy Saturdays, he only worked one in three of those so getting people to fill in shouldn’t be a problem. If he wrote in the daytime, he and Kate would still have their evenings together, when she wasn’t on duty. Kate thought it was sweet of him to consider that aspect. Morgan thought it was essential.

  Much later, he began to wonder, probably unfairly, whether there was an element of wanting to be in control in Kate’s offer to support him. It was hard not to think that way, at times.

  Three months on, and already he felt like a con-man. The book wasn’t going well. After a decent spell of reading and meticulous research, he’d stopped procrastinating, taken a deep breath, and faced the blank page. At first, the words had chugged out of his brain faster than his fingers could record them. And then he had hit a number of problems, none of which he was anywhere close to solving. It happened, he knew that. Any writer would tell you. This wasn’t first-hand knowledge since he didn’t know any other writers – apart from his father, who wrote academic books on geology – but he’d built up a satisfying wodge of information from creative writing handbooks and the internet.

  For reasons he couldn’t now recall, he had thought his psychology degree would be useful for his writing. It wasn’t long before he’d discovered that his limited understanding of the human condition was nowhere near enough to see him safely across the landmines of character and structure and plot. He had quickly learned that writing, for which he could quietly boast a certain talent, was one thing; writing a novel quite another.

  One way or another, though, he would crack it. Besides, he couldn’t stop now, even if he wanted to. He was addicted. Writing had become a perpetual itch that demanded regular and thorough scratching.

  It was Tuesday today, not one of his ‘official’ writing days, but he’d taken the week off as holiday and the luxury of the extra time stretched enticingly before him. Turning his attention back to the computer screen, he scrolled through the pathetically short distance to the end of the document and began to type. If he produced some words straight away, it was a usually a prelude to more words, whereas if he began by reading what he’d written previously it could be ages before he got going, if at all.

  He’d added two hundred words to his latest chapter and was about to read them back to see if there was any danger of them moving the story on when the front door opened and banged shut again.

  ‘I’m ill,’ Kate announced, coming into the room and dropping onto the sofa. ‘And before you say it, I know I shouldn’t have even tried to go in.’

  Morgan stared at her, momentarily baffled, until he remembered she’d said something this morning about feeling lousy. Through the thick wall of leftover sleep, he had registered the mention of a headache. Clearly he should have taken more notice, been more sympathetic. He watched her now, tearing impatiently at clips and elastic bands, finally releasing a frenzy of Titian curls that billowed out in a crazy halo before settling around her shoulders. Kate had so much hair. It got everywhere, on the carpets, in the plug-holes, everywhere.

  He got up from the desk and sat down beside her, cupping her face gently in both hands, turning her towards him. She looked pale, paler than usual, yet her skin felt hot to his touch.

  ‘Poor Kate. You do look awful. What do you need? Aspirin?’

  ‘Took some before I left.’ Extricating herself, she stood up. ‘I’m dead on my feet and I ache all over. I’ll go to bed, if that’s all right with you.’

  There was some kind of side to her tone, as if he’d done something wrong.

  ‘Okay,’ he said. ‘I’ll bring you some tea later.’

  ‘Don’t bother. I expect I’ll crash out.’

  The door closed decisively behind her.

  Back at his desk, Morgan heard the muffled jangle of voices as the television went on in the bedroom. Daytime telly always sent Kate to sleep, she said.

  He typed a few more sentences, read them through, deleted them, then leaned back in the chair, hands behind his head. After a while, his hand strayed to the bottom drawer of the desk and felt inside for the crumpled edges of a photo wallet. He brought it out and opened it, letting the small collection of photos fan out onto the desk. They’d been taken last December during a pre-Christmas visit to Suffolk to see his parents, who conveniently happened to be under the same roof at the time.

  Separating the pictures with his thumb, he picked out the one he always looked at first, of him and Kate on the beach in front of the house, grinning, watery-eyed, at the camera while white-plumed waves whipped up behind them on a sea the colour of spat-out chewing gum, and ragged clouds chased across a threatening sky. Morgan’s arm was round Kate’s shoulder. She was leaning in, with both arms around him. The wind was grabbing her hair, whisking it into a frenzy below her green beret – the beret that moments later he had chased and eventually caught as it bowled towards the sand dunes.

  Kate had doubled up with laughter, her hands on the knees of her cord trousers, and they’d carried on laughing as the wind grew even stronger. They’d clung to one another, struggling to stay upright as they staggered back to the house, his father and his partner crunching up the beach in front of them, his mother behind, hand-in-hand with hers.

  They hadn’t laughed like that since, not that Morgan could remember. To him, the photo was truly significant because it was of the old Kate, the Kate whose open face laid bare every nuance of every feeling she’d ever
had. The Kate so full of love and life she made him dizzy. The Kate who, when he looked into her eyes, gave him his inner self reflected back.

  Perhaps, Morgan thought, Kate had changed because nature and the passing of time decreed that she should, that this was how it was meant to be when you were firmly settled into life as a couple. It wasn’t her fault that he had not changed along with her.

  Without looking through the rest of the photos, he pushed them all back inside the wallet and replaced it in the drawer then, on impulse, got up from the desk and went to the bedroom. Tapping lightly on the door, he put his head round. The TV was still on, with the sound turned down. Kate was on her side, half lying down beneath the nautical-striped duvet, facing away from him. She was wearing an old grey t-shirt of his. She turned as she heard him.

  ‘All right?’ he asked.

  ‘Yeah.’ She smiled wearily.

  ‘I was thinking, if you’re better by then, I might go up to Maybridge on Friday instead of Saturday.’

  ‘Of course. Go on Saturday as well if you want to. I’ll be asleep most of the day, anyway. I’m down for a shift Friday night, covering for Tracey.’

  ‘Oh, okay. Sure?’

  ‘It’s cool. I said.’

  Pleased, although slightly puzzled at the casual, almost disinterested, response, Morgan padded back to his desk. Kate had a problem with Tracey, said the reason she took so much time off was because she was such a dimwit at managing her personal life and if she was given an inch she would take a mile. So why was Kate, Tracey’s senior, covering for her? And why had she not told him about the extra shift instead of waiting until he’d prompted it? It wasn’t like her.

  ***

  On Friday morning, Morgan parked in the pot-holed yard behind the riverside outbuildings and went to find his mate, Connor. There was no sign of him in the office, nor anywhere outside. He walked towards the little jetty and met Ted, Connor’s grandfather, coming out of one of the huts with a coil of rope over his shoulder.

  The old man was Connor’s closest relative, his parents having died in a road accident when he was twelve. He had family in Ireland who would gladly have given him a home, but he hadn’t wanted to go, and so his grandparents had taken him in. Connor and Ted were close, as close as grandfather and grandson could be; even more so since Connor’s grandmother died five years ago.

  Ted and Connor held the franchise of the riverside enterprise which included the pleasure boats, the café and gift shop, and the kiosk which sold teas and ice-creams, as well as issuing daily fishing permits and tickets for the river cruises.

  The older man peeled a flattened roll-up from his lips and raised a hand in greeting.

  ‘Hey, Morgan. Good to see you. Con’s taken Princess Delilah out. Got a load of Spanish kids on board. He was well chuffed.’

  Morgan grinned. ‘Tell him I’ll do a turn later.’

  Ted tapped the side of his nose. ‘Keep your head down till this afternoon, I would, lad. The kids’ll have gone and it’ll be all creaking old dears filling in time between their lunches and their cream teas. Nice and quiet, like.’

  The old man went to walk away, then stopped and turned back to Morgan. ‘I’ll stand you a pint in The Swan, lunchtime, if you’re about. Be good for you to meet some of the locals. Game of darts, too, if you like.’

  ‘Thanks, but I’ll be busy. Another time,’ Morgan said.

  He gave Ted a cheery wave and headed along the path towards the boathouse.

  It had been a close run thing, getting to Maybridge today. Kate’s illness had turned out to be quite a virulent bug and she’d stayed in bed all of Wednesday and most of yesterday until she’d emerged, whey-faced, around six and said she thought she could eat something. He’d fed her pasta and ice cream, neither of which she finished, and they’d had a quiet night in front of the telly.

  Not wanting to seem too eager to get away, he’d casually asked if she planned to go to work today, as if it didn’t matter to him one way or the other. She’d looked at him as if he was mad. Of course, she said, and she’d be doing the double shift. She couldn’t let Tracey down.

  Oh no, we mustn’t let Tracey down, Morgan had felt like saying. He had no idea why he felt resentful because he’d really wanted to come up here today. Perhaps it was because she’d made it so easy for him.

  Heaving the plastic container of water from the floor, he filled the kettle and threw the switch, then set up the laptop on the old trestle table in front of the window which served as a desk. The laptop blinked into life and the page sprung up, giving him his constant companion – a middle-aged, spectacle-wearing man whom he’d named Poodle Chafferty.

  Poodle was a private investigator – the nickname derived from the large, woolly brown dog that was his constant and devoted companion. He hadn’t so far given the dog a name, neither had he revealed his master’s real one, deliberate omissions which, Morgan considered, added a nice touch of mystery. Sometimes he pretended the dog was his and was right there beside him whenever he took a walk along the riverbank in search of fresh inspiration. Kate would think he was mad if she knew. Quite possibly, she’d be right.

  Kate. His mind drifted back to the first time he met her. It was the year before last, July, and he and a bunch of university mates had been in Brighton celebrating their graduation. Kate was there on a hen weekend. The two groups had converged on the bumper cars on the pier at the same time. Somehow, he and Kate had found themselves jammed together in the last available car. She had wrested the wheel from his grasp as they slewed around the track, forcing a crash at every obstacle, while the girls shrieked and the boys jeered at one another and the poles sparked a manic light show above their heads.

  A shred of pink candy floss had been stuck in her hair. The sugary smell of it, combined with the hot, oily smell of the cars, was intoxicating stuff. It seemed the most natural thing in the world for his arm to sneak around her bare shoulders. And there it stayed for the rest of the day and long into the night, until he left her on the steps of her hotel, which was when he’d kissed her.

  He felt inexplicably sad, remembering. He reached for his phone, intending to send her a text but he couldn’t think what to say. Besides, she’d be busy and unlikely to read it, let alone text back. Unlike him, Kate wasn’t prone to distraction; she couldn’t very well be, given the nature of her work. He should leave her alone to get on with her day.

  He shouldn’t be thinking about Kate, anyway. Not now, not here. The boathouse wasn’t about Kate, or about life in the flat in Haverstone. Sometimes the boathouse was about Connor or Ted, or the benign troupes of river trippers, or the soft green edges of the small, landlocked city. But mostly it was about Morgan himself. The boathouse was his space, his time, his chance to do something worthwhile with his life, and he mustn’t waste it.

  Despite the internal pep-talk, he didn’t feel like starting work yet. He made a mug of tea and drank it, then sat with his elbows on the makeshift desk and gazed through the smudged window at the river. He liked the way the water changed colour, from olive green to navy blue and pewter, always slicked with silver. Today, with the sky dull overhead and rain clouds banked up behind the cathedral spire, it was a gleaming khaki.

  A light wind parted the reeds on the opposite bank and a pair of moorhens emerged. Morgan watched as they circled before busily paddling away. Then he turned back to the laptop and began to type.

  Kate wasn’t in when he got home around five. He hadn’t expected her to be – when she worked a double shift she usually ate in the hospital canteen and crashed out in the staff room – but the flat felt empty and forlorn, and he wished she was there.

  Dumping his laptop on the table, he took out his phone and sent her a message:

  How are you feeling? xxx.

  The reply came back almost immediately:

  OK. x.

  She must be on her break.

  He waited for another message to appear. Sometimes she sent a second, longer one, as if she’d just rememb
ered something she wanted to say. Nothing came. Perhaps he shouldn’t go up to Maybridge again tomorrow. She had only said she was okay, not fine or much better. She would need to sleep after the night shift. He could stay around and do some work here, make her a nice meal for later. But Kate wouldn’t expect that. She seemed to need so little from him.

  ***

  Morgan woke the next morning to the sound of the loo flushing, then the gush of the shower. Rolling out of bed, he padded to the bathroom.

  ‘Hi.’

  ‘Oh, hi.’

  She seemed almost surprised to see him. She peeled off her knickers and dropped them in the laundry bin. Her badge and nurse’s watch were on the bathroom shelf, the rest of her clothes slung over the edge of the bath.

  Shooting him a provocative smile, she stepped into the shower cubicle. ‘Coming in?’

  ‘Yeah.’

  Morgan flashed a smile back, already half out of his boxers. He’d hardly closed the door of the cubicle when she pulled him to her, locking her body against his and engaging him in a deep, ferocious kiss that sent a great surge of desire through him. His mouth moved down her neck, across her shoulder, then to her breasts, his tongue finding her nipples, until she pushed his head away and raised herself up against the wall of the cubicle, her body undulating beneath his, while the powerful jet of the shower cascaded down.

  Minutes later, they collapsed together onto the floor of the cubicle in a slippery tangle of limbs.

  ‘Wow,’ Kate said breathlessly.

  He smiled, and scrambled to his feet, pulling her up after him, feeling pleased that she still had the capacity to surprise him, that they could still surprise each other. He stepped out of the cubicle, leaving the door open.

  ‘Kate?’

  ‘What?’

  ‘Nothing, doesn’t matter.’