Never Coming Back: a tale of loss and new beginnings

by Deirdre Palmer

  Inside the airy arena created by the ruined walls and arches, a bunch of foreign language students wearing identical backpacks jostled one another in a high-pitched frenzy of chatter. Maybridge was full of them at this time of year. One of the boys – fair-haired, the tallest of the group – held his arms high above his head, flexing the muscles. He had the look of a younger version of Harvey.

  The lightness of the day shrank away, leaving something dull and heavy in its place. Layla was wondering how to detach herself from Morgan without it seeming like a pointed gesture when he said something that brought her up short.

  ‘I’m not with Kate any more. We’ve split, she’s moved out of the flat.’

  Startled, she let go of his hand. ‘Oh. Well, that’s… I’m so sorry.’

  ‘It’s all right.’ Morgan rubbed the top of his head. ‘It was bound to happen, in the end.’

  They were standing close to the tallest, most intact, of the priory walls, where ivy scrambled over the flints and waved mocking tendrils through the gaps where the windows used to be. Morgan leaned his back against the wall and turned his face up to the sky, as if that was the end of the conversation, and yet Layla didn’t feel as if he was blocking her out. She thought about trying to draw him out, to get him to talk about Kate, in case it helped. No, bad idea; she hardly knew him. If he wanted to confide in her about the state of his relationship, then he would.

  Again she felt a heaviness descend. The clouds came back, smothering the remaining sun. The air was humid. The students had trailed away towards the gate leading to the city centre, leaving the two of them alone in the green space.

  Morgan ceased his inspection of the sky. ‘It’s going to rain again. Shall we go back inside?’ He indicated the direction of the café with a nod. ‘Or we could go to the boathouse?’

  Layla thought about the picnic rug spread out on the wooden floor, the chuckle of the kettle, the tang of linseed oil, the river slinking by, and knew that the boathouse was where she wanted to be more than anywhere else in the world. With Morgan. Which was precisely why they couldn’t go there.

  ‘No, I don’t think so. Not today. I have to get going soon, anyway.’

  ‘Look, Layla…’ Morgan stepped out in front of her so that she had to stop. ‘I’m not here with you because Kate’s gone. It’s not like that at all. I’m not that kind of bloke, although I wouldn’t blame you for thinking otherwise. And I never meant to deceive you, yet I seem to have done just that. The truth is, I was deceiving myself, thinking of you as a friend – just a friend, I mean. Somebody to talk to, keep in a separate compartment, if you like.’ He slapped a hand to his forehead. ‘I was kidding myself. I’m an expert at that, got a natural talent for it.’

  ‘Okay,’ she said, drawing the word out.

  ‘And now,’ Morgan continued, ‘I’m probably about to make a complete prat of myself, but I’ll have to chance that.’

  Layla waited.

  ‘I’ve wanted to kiss you ever since I walked into the café – no, ever since you walked onto that boat – and I don’t think it’s going to go away, the wanting, I mean.’ He shrugged, gave a self-effacing smile. ‘So there it is.’

  Layla glanced across at the river, then looked back at Morgan, daringly, right into his eyes. Her heart performed a drum-roll.

  ‘Well, if that’s what you want…’

  She smiled.

  It was the sweetest kiss, the sweetest ever. While it lasted, Layla lived in the moment, let all that had gone before slip away, and almost forgot to be afraid.

  Chapter Seventeen

  Morgan’s previous qualms over Kate chipping in the lion’s share of their living expenses were nothing compared to the way he felt about it now. ‘Kept man’ wasn’t even close. He’d expected any day to receive a message from her, saying that the payments into what used to be their shared bank account – and still was in name only – would shortly cease. But no, there it was again, the figure Kate had come up with, showing efficiently on the credit side of the account.

  Without further thought, he renewed his log-in status and transferred the amount right back where it belonged, in Kate’s own account, before closing the lid of the laptop with an efficient snap.

  He supposed he should let her know, although she’d find out soon enough. He used to rib her about her constant, rigorous checking of the account’s activities and she would retaliate by jokily accusing him of living under a stone. He didn’t imagine she’d changed her habits that much.

  The next step would be to pull apart the account – an important step in separating their names from each other for eternity. Important, but not final, because there was still the flat. He hadn’t been putting it off on purpose, not exactly. It was just that there’d been no need to travel down that potentially rocky road until now. Now being the point at which Morgan silently acknowledged – to himself, to the seagull which seconds ago had landed on the balcony and deposited a large dropping onto the concrete, and to the world at large – that Kate wasn’t coming back. And, more to the point, neither did he want her to.

  This last crumb of truth had been hard to swallow. It smacked of weakness, of giving up too easily and admitting that Kate was right; they had fallen out of love. He’d got there in the end, sooner than expected, if he was honest. After all, he could hardly carry on deluding himself that he was broken-hearted over Kate while he was so desperately, headily, uncompromisingly, in love with somebody else.

  So, the flat. He picked up the laptop from the desk, took it across to the sofa and sat down, but a sudden violent coughing fit had him up again and heading to the kitchen for a swig of the foul-tasting medicine the doctor had prescribed. Back again, wheezing slightly, he gazed around the room which immediately after Kate’s departure had felt as vast and empty as a prairie. Now it was simply a place to be, the proverbial roof over his head. He wouldn’t miss the flat. In fact, it would be a relief to be shot of it. But where to live instead?

  He smiled as the wild fantasy entered his head of him and Layla moving in together, building their own forever little love nest. The fantasy stretched further, to the boathouse which, miraculously, had acquired such luxuries as running water, cooking and washing facilities, and heating. He indulged his daydream a little longer, then pushed it aside, opened the laptop and began to search the property websites.

  The results were depressing. Once again, he’d been deluding himself. He’d imagined a light and airy studio flat with space to swing more than the legendary feline, either here in Haverstone or in the nearby town where the bookshop was. But the rents for such places, even those which fell way below par, were beyond ridiculous. How could people afford them? He certainly couldn’t, not on his present income, and he wasn’t going cap in hand to his father either. He’d never done that before and he wasn’t going to start now.

  ***

  Something about the bookshop had changed, even in the week since he was last there. He had returned to work once the worst of his illness was over. Then the annoying chest infection had flared up again, and after a grim morning spent coughing over the stock and the customers, he’d been packed off home for the rest of the week. Now it was Friday, a writing day rather than a bookshop day, but he couldn’t settle down to write with the threat of imminent homelessness hanging over him. Clearly, he’d have to take action.

  As soon as he entered the shop, he noticed a desultory air about the place. The three-for-two paperbacks were jumbled on their table and nobody had bothered to pick up the books that had fallen to the floor. Another table held stationery, greetings cards, and children’s toys, all with red, marked-down stickers, in carelessly raked piles with no attempt at demarcation. A young male assistant Morgan didn’t recognise was listlessly shuffling the top twenty hardbacks about on the display stand in a futile attempt to disguise the gaps in the chart. He knew the girl on the cash point – she’d worked there almost as long as he had. Her head was bent over her mobile phone. She barely glanced up as he passed.


  Continuing up the four flights of stairs, he raised his hand in greeting at several of his colleagues as he went, but didn’t stop to chat. He needed to get this over with. On the café floor, the coffee machine stood silently behind the unmanned counter and a forest of chair legs pointed ceilingwards above the empty tables. The tightness in Morgan’s chest wasn’t entirely viral in its origins as eventually he reached the half-landing which served as the manager’s office.

  Neil, the manager, sat at an ink-graffitied desk, the pale dome of his head framed by the grimy window behind him. As Morgan approached, he looked up, completely unsurprised, as if he’d been there all the time. Morgan lifted out the wooden chair in front of the desk with one finger and sat down without waiting to be invited.

  ‘I’d like to come back full-time. Work the Fridays as before, and the Saturdays. All of them, if you like.’

  There was no point in prevaricating. No point in even saying it at all – he’d known that as soon as he walked in – but he was here now.

  ‘Sorry, son, no can do.’ Neil shook his head and took a mouthful of greyish coffee from a thick white mug depicting the chain’s logo, before putting it down with a grimace of disgust. ‘It’s all gone arse-upwards. They’re closing branches down right across the country. This is one of them. Don’t you read the papers?’

  Morgan allowed himself precisely forty minutes to feel sorry for himself. During that time, he’d pushed into Starbucks and bought a hot chocolate, trudged back to the car, crushing the empty drink carton in one hand as he reached it, and driven as far as the road-sign that signalled his return to Haverstone. And then it was over.

  Reaching the flats, he left the car in the car park but, instead of going straight upstairs, he set out along the road and down the main street to the seafront. Immediately the salt air made his chest felt looser, his breathing easier. He stayed on the opposite side of the road to the beach, walking purposefully to create the illusion for himself that he had to be somewhere by a certain time. The activity helped his thought processes along, much as his walks along the riverbank helped to keep the plot of his novel flowing.

  A plan. He needed a plan. By the time he reached the end of this stretch of pavement, where the road turned inwards, curving away from the seafront, he would have one.

  Lit by a shaft of sunlight, the gold lettering embossed on the glass revolving doors of Haverstone’s largest hotel crackled against his pupils as he passed the entrance. Seconds later, he stopped and doubled back.

  He went straight to the kitchen on his return to the flat and put on a pan of pasta. There was half a jar of sauce in the fridge. He took it out, along with the cheese, then scurried in the drawer for the grater. He hummed a tune as he went about preparing his meal.

  He had a job. Part One of the plan had been achieved. It was only kitchen portering but he was lucky, the duty manager had told him, that they weren’t already fully staffed, considering the number of Europeans seeking summer jobs along the coast. He didn’t care how menial it was, nor that he’d be working long hours for the minimum wage.

  His meals would be provided while he was on duty, and the best part was that the job came with the option of accommodation. Not in the hotel itself – all the live-in positions had been snapped up – but there were rooms to rent for a pittance above a row of shops at the back of the hotel. The management had an arrangement with the landlord, and overflow hotel staff had first pick.

  So, Part Two of the plan was also taken care of. Morgan congratulated himself and took a beer out of the fridge to have with the pasta. There were two weeks left at the bookshop, then he’d start at the hotel straight away. Meanwhile, he would give notice on the flat.

  Buoyed up by the progress he’d made this afternoon, he fired up the laptop as soon as he’d finished his meal, and worked on his out-of-date CV. By the time he was satisfied he’d done his best with it, tiredness overcame him and the tightness in his chest set him off coughing again. Part Three of the plan, the part where he searched for a decent job with career prospects – something in journalism or publishing, perhaps – would wait for another time.

  ***

  The next day, Saturday, Morgan drove up to Maybridge with a lightness about him that he hadn’t felt for a long time. Even Kate’s snappy email last night had not brought down his mood, an email in which she reminded him – rather accusingly, he felt – that she had paid twenty per cent more towards the deposit on the flat than he had. His reply had been short and businesslike, assuring her that her share of the refund would be adjusted accordingly.

  After he’d sent his reply, he’d read her message again, word by word, and tried to work out what was behind it. There was something, he could tell. Kate’s previous generosity over money didn’t fit with this nit-picking. He hadn’t needed reminding that she’d stumped up the extra deposit and she should have known that.

  For some reason she had felt the need to attack him, which pointed to one thing: Kate was unhappy. Well, if that was the case he was genuinely sorry, but there wasn’t a damn thing he could do about it. He wouldn’t go so far as to say that Kate was no longer his problem – his heart could never harden to that extent – but neither was he going to ask her what was wrong and invite her confidence, when that was the last thing he needed. There was such a thing as self-preservation, and pride.

  Any niggling doubts he had about Kate’s wellbeing faded away as soon as he unlocked the door of the boathouse and stepped inside the warm, woody cavern. Dust motes spun in the disturbed air as he crossed to the sun-flooded desk and set out the laptop and his writing notebooks. The old office chair creaked as he sat down.

  His mind flew to Layla. It was only a week since she was here. In one way, it seemed like a lifetime had passed in between; in another, it seemed as if she’d never left. He spun round on the chair as if he expected to see her standing there, waiting. She wasn’t, of course. He wouldn’t be seeing her today. She was taking her mother out for lunch, she’d told him when she’d rung him the night before last. He’d tried not to mind, but already he was missing her.

  He turned back to the desk and opened the laptop. His gaze strayed to the scene beyond the window where spring-bright branches cast stippled patterns on the fast-moving water. Last Saturday, she had asked him about Kate – straight out, no messing about. She wanted to know if he still had feelings for her. Not that she expected there not to be feelings, considering the break-up was so recent, but what kind of feelings, and what would happen if Kate suddenly changed her mind, or if he changed his mind…

  It had been quite a speech, as if a dam had been breached. It had cost her something, spilling it all out. He’d waited quietly until she’d finished speaking, then he’d waited some more in case it turned out she hadn’t finished. And then he’d taken both her hands in his – they’d been standing right here, beside the desk at the time – and told her, with equal sincerity and, he hoped, clarity – the whole story of Kate and the break-up and how their relationship had foundered long ago, only he’d been too blinkered to realise it.

  Layla’s hair had fallen across her face as she turned her head away from him. It was only a moment, and when she looked back at him, the honesty between them was so palpable that he’d smiled with relief and pure happiness. It would have been the perfect moment for a kiss. Instead, still holding hands, they had drawn close and leaned their foreheads together in a shared moment of such intimacy and tenderness that no kiss could have rivalled it.

  Morgan smiled, remembering. He reached for his phone to send her a text. Stopping himself in time, he put the phone back in his pocket. I want to take this slowly. That was something else she’d said last week when, eager to kiss her again, he’d taken her into his arms and felt almost mortified when she pulled away. She’d brushed her mouth against his as she was leaving, but that was all. She wasn’t playing games with him. He’d seen something in her eyes, something secret that she wasn’t ready to share with him, perhaps never would. But he wanted
to be with this girl, on any terms. He could wait for whatever was to come.

  Opening his notebook, Morgan read through the research notes he’d made during the week, then turned his attention to the screen. He was hardly aware of time passing as he hammered out three thousand words almost without hesitation. A rap sounded on the door. Morgan turned round, flexing his shoulder muscles, to see Connor standing in the doorway.

  ‘Sorry to barge in,’ he said, letting the door swing shut behind him as he came towards Morgan. ‘I can see you’re busy.’

  ‘It’s cool, I could do with a break. You want me to take a boat out? Great day for it.’

  ‘No ta, we’re covered. I’ve taken on a couple of blokes for the summer season. One’s a student who was here last year. He’s a good worker, reliable. The other’s a bit of an unknown quantity. Please God he knows one end of a boat from the other and his tattooed head doesn’t scare off the punters.’ He gave a half laugh before the serious expression returned. ‘As it happens, I’ve bigger problems than the boats.’

  ‘Oh?’ Morgan got up and filled the kettle from the water container. ‘Got time for a coffee? It’ll have to be black. I forgot to bring any milk.’

  Connor passed a hand distractedly over his head and glanced at his watch. ‘Go on then.’

  Morgan made the drinks. He sat in the office chair while Connor sank down onto the floor, his back against the cupboard.

  ‘Grandad’s in hospital. Had another funny turn right outside the kiosk yesterday. Maureen called the ambulance, so he didn’t have much choice.’

  Connor’s problems concerned much more than the daily running of the riverside business. He’d spoken to the doctor and it seemed that Ted had suffered a minor stroke.

  ‘He’ll be okay for now, according to the doc, but he has to stop work,’ Connor said. ‘Altogether, not just cut down. How the hell am I meant to persuade him to do that? He’s seventy-eight but he’s always had so much energy I’ve tended to forget how old he is. It’s not only the physical stuff, the actual graft. He keeps on top of the accounts, the health and safety, all the boring, essential crud that keeps the place afloat.’