Never Coming Back: a tale of loss and new beginnings

by Deirdre Palmer

  Leaving Melody standing dreamily at the sink, Reece went through to his study. A pile of coursework scripts lay on the desk. He favoured them with no more than a glance before sitting down in the shabby old chair to gaze out of the window. Mel was right; it was a beautiful evening. The sun slanted across the yard, glowing rosily on the brickwork and turning the feathers on the solitary chicken within sight to a rich red-gold.

  His eyes lifted to the horizon, where the trees stood dark and still against a cloudless sweep of cerulean sky.

  Layla would be well on her way home by now. He pictured her in her sleeveless pink shift dress, brown arms extended to the wheel, the lower portion of her thighs exposing themselves as she operated the pedals. And here again came that feeling, rushing upwards from his feet to take his breath away, the same impossible feeling he’d had earlier when they were in the kitchen together, and had chosen to ignore. His mind went into overdrive as he fought to suppress his body’s natural reactions. His daughter’s friend, for goodness sake! What was he, some kind of perv?

  The logical part of his brain flagged up the likely reasons: grief, stress, worry, an imagined moment of intimacy after too much wine. All that, yes. All that. Reece nodded as if there was an audience he needed to convince as well as himself.

  But it wasn’t that straightforward. Another part of his brain was conveying a different message. Wanting something he could never have was a game, an enjoyable, harmless fantasy, so why shouldn’t he indulge it? Christ knows, he’d suffered enough, and it wasn’t as if he intended to do anything about it in reality. In a way, it made life easier for him as far as Mel was concerned. There’d be less pressure on him to wean her away from Layla if he, too, wanted the girl to keep coming here. And when, eventually, the visits stopped, he would deal with it then, not before.

  Reece sighed with something approaching real pleasure. Then, shunning the work piled on the desk, he left the study and went to find Melody in the garden.

  Chapter Twenty

  ‘Oh, heavens, Layla, I’m so sorry. Whatever must you think of me, crying off at the last minute?’ Melody used both hands to sweep her hair back – a gesture of exasperation, revealing threads of grey around her hairline and highlighting an alarming pallor to her skin tone. ‘And you’re only here for the one night!’

  Was that a dig? Whatever, Layla decided to ignore it. She’d worked until late last night, Friday, on a seven-course bash for the mayor of Maybridge and assorted dignitaries, then driven over to Foxleigh this morning, which had been some sort of feat considering how knackered she was. She wasn’t in the mood for Melody’s nonsense.

  Of course, it was her own fault she’d come here today, not Melody’s. She could have said no to this weekend, to all weekends to come. But she hadn’t, and she wouldn’t. Despite the fragile promises she’d made to herself, she still couldn’t see the way out. It was like crawling miles through a tunnel towards the light at the end, only to find that the further she crawled, the further the light receded. The whole thing smacked of utter defeat.

  She went across to the sofa, where Melody was sitting with her feet up.

  ‘No, it’s fine, really. The last thing you need is to be watching Shakespeare in the night air with a migraine. Why don’t you go upstairs and have a lie down? Reece and I can do supper. We’ll leave yours ready in case you fancy it later.’

  Layla looked at Reece for assent. He said nothing, and continued to stand loosely in the sitting room doorway as if he had no idea how he came to be there.

  Melody got to her feet. ‘Yes, I think I will. Thank you, Layla. You’re such a kind girl.

  Layla waited until Melody was on her way upstairs, then, sliding past Reece, who seemed both struck dumb and rooted to the spot, she went to the kitchen. Everything had been laid out, ready for their meal. Layla arranged slices of cold roast chicken on two plates with the salads, then put the pan of Jersey potatoes on to boil.

  ‘Busman’s holiday,’ Reece said, appearing beside her.

  He didn’t smile, and neither did Layla. She shrugged.

  ‘There’s hardly anything to do. She’ll be better after a rest. You could go up and see if she’d like a cup of tea, or some water.’

  Reece seemed as if he needed instructing. Besides, without knowing why, Layla wanted him away from her; the air between them felt laden with an oppressive, invisible mist. But he only moved as far as the dresser drawer to fetch out the mats and cutlery.

  The night was clear and still, and unusually warm for early summer; perfect for being outdoors. Layla sat in one of the fold-up canvas chairs they’d brought with them, with a soft blue rug draped over her knees that Reece had insisted on, although with her jeans and white chunky cotton jumper, she didn’t need it. She looked up at the deepening cobalt sky arching above the circle of woods that surrounded them. Shafts of light radiated from the makeshift stage, threading silver ribbons through the motionless trees and lifting the branches into sharp relief, as if they’d been sketched in black ink.

  ‘Did you do this one at school?’

  ‘What?’ For a moment Layla had almost forgotten Reece was there. ‘Oh yes, we did it in the first form. A Midsummer Night’s Dream was about all the Shakespeare we could handle at that stage, and even then I remember getting the characters muddled up in the exam because of those stupid disguises.’

  Reece chuckled. He’d seemed more himself, once they were in the car. Perhaps it was relief at being out of the house, away from Melody. She didn’t like to think it, but it couldn’t be easy for him.

  ‘Danni studied it, too.’ Reece drew invisible inverted commas around ‘studied’. ‘We took her to see a performance, hoping it would help, but they were very much amateurs and once the ass’s head had fallen off twice she couldn’t stop giggling and we had to take her out.’

  Layla almost started at the mention of Danni’s name. She covered it with a laugh.

  ‘Well, if it happens tonight you might have to do the same with me.’

  A silence fell between them. Reece looked down at his lap, then around the amphitheatre and, finally, up at the sky. Anywhere other than at her. Layla watched him surreptitiously, trying to work him out. Something was different about him, had been since she arrived at Foxleigh earlier. But what?

  The lights dimmed and the play began. Reece seemed to gather himself. He smiled at Layla, then turned his attention towards the stage.

  Neither of them spoke until the first short break between acts, when Reece asked her what she thought of the performance so far. She told him, truthfully, that she thought it was excellent. She was about to say how magical it was, watching Shakespeare on a perfect summer’s night in the middle of a wood, but she didn’t want to sound childish.

  Reece seemed to be studying her face, examining every part of it, as if he’d never seen it before. She wanted to look away but found she couldn’t. His eyes shone in the semi-darkness. He seemed closer to her, although she hadn’t noticed him move. He raised his arm, as if he was going to put it around her shoulders, then lowered it again, clasping his hands on his lap and staring down at them.

  Layla dropped her gaze to her own hands above the rug. They were luminous pale, the colour of moonshine, and seemed detached from the rest of her, as if they belonged to someone else. She could hear Reece’s breathing. Or perhaps she was imagining that, and it was only the expectant murmur of the audience around them as the actors arrived back on stage.

  ‘Thanks for bringing me,’ Layla said later, as they joined in the applause. ‘I really enjoyed that.’

  ‘Did you?’ Reece seemed surprised. ‘Well, that’s good then. And you’re very welcome. If we can’t treat our girl occasionally, then…’ He shrugged, a little embarrassed.

  Our girl. A vision of the birthday card with ‘daughter’ on it rose before Layla’s eyes. The words were out before she could stop them.

  ‘Reece, I wanted to say…well, I might not be able to keep up the visits to Foxleigh, in the future. Work’s re
ally busy, with the summer season, the weddings and everything. And then there’s Mum, having to cope with my sisters and Finn while she holds down a job. I don’t spend nearly enough time at home as it is.’

  Reece was visibly shaken. She hadn’t expected that from him. Melody, yes, but he was the stronger one, the more resilient; the one more likely to understand, and accept. Yet looking at him now, a deep frown furrowing his forehead, his shoulders sagging, it seemed she might have misjudged him. Unless it was Melody he was thinking about, not himself. Yes, that must be it.

  When, eventually, he spoke, it was in a half whisper so that she had to strain to hear amid the surrounding chatter. ‘You must do whatever you think best, Layla.’

  A second’s awkward silence, then he sat bolt upright and slapped both hands down on his knees. ‘Come on then, let’s get home.’

  Melody was still up when they got back, curled up on the sofa in her dressing gown. Her face was scrubbed clean of makeup but the colour had returned and she looked almost back to normal. Layla was glad to see it. She felt a rush of warmth towards her and gave her a kiss on the cheek. Melody smiled.

  ‘You were right. A lie down was all I needed, and I took a tablet. The milk’s in the pan for hot chocolate. I thought you might need warming up. Unless you’d rather have a glass of wine?’

  There was nothing Layla would have liked more than a glass of wine, a very large glass. However, Reece was already halfway to the kitchen, rubbing his hands together as if they’d come in from a very cold night.

  ‘Ah, hot chocolate, yes. I’ll put the milk on.’

  Layla wanted to follow him. She felt she needed to keep watch in case she missed something important, something which would confirm or refute the sensation she’d had all the way home, that Reece was engaged in some kind of internal battle, and that it involved her. In the car they’d chatted on and off about the play, ostensibly ordinary chat. The silences, when they came, had billowed into the confined space like steam seeking an escape route.

  Layla excused herself after she’d finished her drink, and went up to the attic room. She stood at the window, watching the moon glow behind the trees, and thought about the last time she was here. Had she imagined it, or had there been something extra – a kind of edge – to Reece’s jocular encouragement when she’d told him about Morgan? Imagined or not, she hadn’t felt she should mention Morgan this weekend, and Reece hadn’t asked.

  When they’d been out this evening, he’d seemed at a loss as to how to behave, how to be, with her. His relief when they’d arrived back here had been palpable; relief coupled with something else – disappointment, perhaps?

  She was over-thinking this, obviously. She was tired, and a bit stressed, not only from being back here again but from the strangeness of the evening. Even so, if she’d been looking for signs as to what was going on with Reece, they were there for the taking. He had developed a crush on her. She was eighty percent sure she was right. And eighty percent was enough. She couldn’t come back to Foxleigh again.

  ***

  ‘Stop, Mel. That’s enough now.’

  Reece gently extricated Melody’s mobile phone from her hand before she hit ‘call’ again and slid it into his own pocket. He tried to hold her. She stepped back on the path, eyes accusing, on the brink of tears.

  ‘She might pick up if I try again. If I explain about the anniversary, she might change her mind about coming on Saturday. Oh God, I’m so stupid! I should have mentioned it when I texted her.’

  ‘That’s the last thing you should have done. Of course she knows what day it is. She could hardly forget, could she?’

  ‘So why isn’t she coming, then?’

  Melody flung the question at him as if it was somehow his fault, which it possibly was. Reece ran his hand across his head.

  ‘She told you when she replied. She’s working. And besides, she might not want to come, knowing what day it is. Have you thought about that?’

  ‘I just need to speak to her.’ Melody stooped down, tugged a sprig of groundsel out of the soil, and put it in the pocket of her cardigan.

  ‘We’ve talked about this, Mel,’ Reece said. ‘We agreed we mustn’t put any pressure on her. If – when – she comes again, it has to be of her own free will, not out of any sense of duty.’

  Melody tossed her head.

  ‘I don’t remember that conversation.’

  No, you wouldn’t, thought Reece. Because it had never taken place.

  Melody sighed, and wandered further along the brick path that threaded through the rose garden.

  ‘Look,’ she said, brightening in that sudden way of hers that gave Reece more anxiety than hope. ‘Danni’s roses – they’re almost perfect. What wonderful timing! I shall cut some and put them in the silver vase, on the day.’

  June 24th. A week today. One year on from the day their daughter died. He’d been trying to shut it out, but that was never going to work. How on earth were they going to get through it? Reece felt as if somebody had prised his heart out of his chest and trampled it into the earth of the rose beds.

  ‘We should do something, go out,’ he said, matching Melody’s metal-edged brightness with his own. ‘Somewhere Danni used to like. What about the seaside?’

  Melody looked doubtful. ‘I don’t know. I think I’d rather we were in our own home. Oh, I would like Layla to be here. She will come, if I ask her properly. I know she will.’

  And wouldn’t I like that, too? Reece thought, as the battle within him gathered force again.

  He hadn’t acted naturally with Layla, the last time she was here. His manner had appalled him, as if he was observing it as an outsider, yet he’d felt powerless to stop. She must have noticed, wondered what was wrong with him. Was that why she was staying away? He knew Melody had suggested other weekends than this coming one; she hadn’t told him that, but he’d seen the texts. He’d got into the habit of checking them when he suspected that contact was more frequent than Melody made out. It was underhand, yes, but the need to keep a watch on the situation – for Mel’s sake as well as Layla’s – excused his actions.

  According to Layla’s replies, she was working every weekend for the foreseeable. She had warned him of that, when they were at the Shakespeare play. And she had a boyfriend now; she’d want to spend her free time with him, wouldn’t she? Presumably she was still seeing him – she hadn’t said, and Reece hadn’t wanted to ask – but Melody, of course, knew nothing about that. Even so, Reece couldn’t help feeling that Layla’s absence was partly due to his own wacky behaviour.

  She had become his shining light; his spot of warmth in a cold climate; his harmless fantasy. Harmless as long as she knew nothing about it, which, please God, she didn’t. However, far from enjoying his little secret, now it threatened to eat him up. He missed her. Irrational though it was, he missed Layla, every second she wasn’t here. He felt like a sixteen-year-old boy caught up in the misery of unrequited love. Grief manifested itself in the strangest ways. Knowing that didn’t make his feelings any less real.

  Melody was coming back along the path towards him. He took her phone out of his pocket and handed it to her with a resigned sigh. She thanked him with a half smile, acknowledging the unspoken message: Okay, do what you want. If Layla was upset by Melody’s constant demands, it was regrettable, but he was powerless to stop it happening. He needed all his strength to control what was happening inside him. There was nothing left for anyone else.

  Chapter Twenty-One

  Layla had worked until three on Saturday, covering breakfast and lunch. Her next shift was Sunday afternoon. She was glad she hadn’t been forced to tell Melody a direct lie about having to work to get out of the weekend. It troubled her conscience a little that she hadn’t been completely truthful, either, but she refused to feel guilty about it.

  The anniversary of Danni’s death had been uppermost in her mind for weeks now – how could it not be? The invitation to go to Foxleigh this weekend was therefore no surprise.
Melody’s texts and voicemail messages had sounded increasingly desperate, but Layla had hardened her heart and refused to call her back. She knew exactly what would have happened if she had. She would have caved in and, setting aside her misgivings about Reece, swapped her Sunday shift and driven up to Foxleigh this afternoon. She would then have spent a miserable time haunted by memories, while trying to bring some small comfort to the Morlands, when what she really needed was to party hard and forget about it.

  Which was where Morgan came in.

  He’d been so sweet about breaking the news to her that he was moving to Maybridge. It had taken her ages to convince him that she didn’t feel rushed or pressurized into anything she wasn’t ready for, and that he mustn’t even think of turning down Connor’s offer for her sake. The fact that he would have done, had she said the word, alarmed and delighted her in equal measures.

  The river, and the boathouse, had become an irresistible draw these past few weeks. They had been to pubs, the cinema, and for drives around Maybridge and its environs so that Morgan could get to know the area. But mostly they walked along the riverbank, holding hands, not saying very much because it didn’t seem necessary to keep up an endless conversation. Then, likely as not, they’d end up at the boathouse, which was where Layla was heading now.

  It was her favourite time of day along the river, with the sun dipping below the trees and the silent water flowing coolly by, inky and mysterious in the fading light. A heron stood among the reeds on the opposite bank, as still as a statue. She stopped to watch it for a moment, unhooking the heavy backpack and setting it down on the path. The delicate grace of the bird reminded her of Danni. Fighting back the familiar sudden rush of sadness before it overcame her completely, she heaved up the backpack and hurried on.

  ***

  Layla seemed to be taking an age to get up the steps. When Morgan opened the door to her, he saw she was weighed down by a bulging backpack which turned out to contain a bottle of vodka, a bottle of lemonade, two clear plastic tumblers and a family-sized bag of salt-and-vinegar crisps.