Never Coming Back: a tale of loss and new beginnings

by Deirdre Palmer

  He remembered that day. The storm had struck without warning, peaking around midday with the sky so dark they’d had to turn the lights on. The ferocity of the wind had loosened some of the roof slates, but living virtually on the beach as they did, this was nothing new. And in the days following, the slates had slid further down the roof to lodge in the guttering, which was where they remained.

  Ellie had been in her studio under the eaves, her easel set up before the window, swishing away with the brush to capture the violent waves and the boiling purple clouds. In reality, there weren’t any boats, but it was art, and she could paint what she liked; that’s what she’d said when, with an eight-year-old’s logic, Morgan had queried the absence of real-life boats out at sea.

  He had felt extraordinarily pleased to see the tall figure of his father waiting on the station platform yesterday evening, hands behind his back in his usual stance, grey head turning this way and that as he waited for Morgan to appear. And then the familiar lit-up smile. The twenty minute drive was conducted in friendly near-silence, and by the time they were jolting along the unmade road leading to the house, for the first time since Layla’s defection, Morgan found he could say her name inside his head without the clawing sensation in the pit of his stomach.

  An enormous pot of fish stew had been waiting on the stove.

  ‘I even remembered to buy bread.’ Nick had said, producing a stone-baked loaf from the enamel breadbin with a magician’s flourish.

  After they’d eaten, Nick brought out a bottle of whisky and they had sat on the veranda in the ancient deckchairs, watching the darkening sea shimmering beneath a netting of reflected stars. They’d spoken little – father and son had always been at ease in each other’s company, without the need for constant talk. The conversation they did make was easy and inconsequential.

  Scarcely able to keep his eyes open, he’d gone to bed before ten, and fallen into a deep, dreamless sleep, leaving his father to migrate to his study, where he would remain until the small hours, content among his papers and books and fossils and lumps of quartz.

  This morning, Morgan had been woken sharply by the screech of seagulls, and for one confused moment had imagined himself back at the flat in Haverstone. Waking fully, he’d climbed over the bed and looked out of the window to see Nick standing alone on the beach. His head was thrown back and his arms outstretched, as if he could capture the sea and the sky and the wind. Morgan had thrown on some clothes and hurried down to the beach to join his father.

  They’d walked a little way, then Morgan said, ‘It’s a funny thing, but when I lived in Haverstone, in the flat, I hated that it had a view of the sea. For some reason, it made me feel anxious and I couldn’t wait to get away from it. Yet here, now, it’s kind of okay.’

  ‘Why wouldn’t it be?’

  ‘Because of Ellie, because of what I saw, that day, when she was with her lover…’

  ‘Ah, yes. But that wasn’t her fault. She didn’t mean you to find out like that. You shouldn’t go on punishing her.’

  ‘Is that what I’m doing? By having a phobia about the sea, I’m subconsciously showing how upset I was?’

  ‘What do you think?’ Nick spoke gently, his eyes kind.

  Morgan thought for a moment. ‘Yes, I guess it could be that. I’m not angry with Mum, though. I got over that a long time ago.’

  ‘These things have a habit of sticking around without you realising it. Especially things that happen when you’re young and impressionable.’

  ‘Why didn’t you fight for her?’

  The question had slipped out unintentionally. Nick didn’t seem thrown by it, but he thought for a moment before answering.

  ‘I believe I did. It’s a long time ago now. Why do you ask?’

  ‘I don’t know. I was angry at the time because you’d let her go so easily. That was how it seemed to me. Sometimes, I still remember that feeling and it raises the question.’

  They’d reached the wooden breakwater separating them from the next beach along. Nick swung easily across it, despite his stiff leg, the one with the steel pins. Morgan followed.

  ‘You were happy, though, you and Ellie, before all that? We always seemed like a happy family.’

  ‘Yes, of course,’ Nick said, ‘and we were.’

  A small crab lay at Morgan’s feet, thrown up by the tide. Its claws flailed wildly as it tried to regain the water. Stooping to pick it up, he deposited it carefully where the surf licked the sand. He watched as the next wave swept it into the sea.

  ‘So how did she get to change so completely? How could you accept that?’

  ‘You mean, how could I accept her leaving me for another woman rather than a man? It’s a fair question.’ He slid his hands into the pockets of his jeans. ‘You can’t help who you fall in love with. The potential is there, all the time, and often it’s the person you least expect. If the person who triggers that response happens to be of the same sex, it doesn’t have to be an issue. Granted, it might be for some people – repressed people, mainly – but Ellie was never going to be bound by convention, was she?’

  Morgan laughed. ‘No, I don’t suppose she was.’

  Not for the first time, he marvelled at how simple it had all become: his father settled with somebody new; his mother and her lesbian lover coming to dinner, bringing chocolates and wine like old friends or occasionally-seen relatives. The whole thing could have turned into a mish-mash of bitterness and affronted silences. Instead, they’d made it seem normal, and ordinary.

  Morgan glanced at his father as they crunched along the pebble-strewn sand. He felt slightly embarrassed by their conversation. They didn’t usually talk about the deep stuff. Even after his mother had left and the two of them had banded together, united by drama, the talk had been about homework, snapped bike chains, and what to have for tea.

  They walked on. It was still only 7:30 but they no longer had the beach to themselves. A woman threw a ball to a small brown terrier. It dashed in and out of the shallow surf, eager to play. A young couple wandered, hand-in-hand, along the strip of sand where the tide was starting to turn, sandals dangling from their fingertips.

  ‘So now you have the river. I must come and see it one day.’

  ‘You should,’ Morgan said. ‘She came to the boathouse. Kate. Turned up out of the blue and asked me to take her back.’

  ‘Ah, Kate, yes. I liked her. Wonderful hair.’

  ‘I said no, of course.’

  ‘Of course?’

  ‘She’s lonely, that’s all. She doesn’t want to be with me. She only thinks she does.’

  ‘Do you think she’ll try again?’

  ‘I don’t think so. Anyway, I’ve got other problems.’

  ‘Which is why you’re here.’

  ‘Yep. More or less.’

  ‘Do you want to talk about it?’

  Did he? What use was talking? He’d done all the talking he had words for, not with anyone else but here, inside his head. And a fat lot of difference it had made. He thought about what his father had said, about there being more than one person – any number of people – you could fall in love with. He was right, but you had to meet them first. And he had met Layla. She hadn’t even given him a chance. She’d left him as stranded as that crab, with nothing to cling onto, no way back and no way forward.

  He thought about Kate’s revelation that there’d been somebody else. He hadn’t believed her at the time. Then later, thinking about the way she’d acted in the weeks leading up to her departure, he’d decided it was probably true. So why lie to him in the first place? At least if he’d known that, he would have had something to fight against. But his thoughts were dispassionate and purely theoretical. If you’ve fallen out of love, what happens after that is irrelevant.

  With Layla, everything was relevant because in his mind she belonged to the present; he couldn’t bear to consign her to the past, not yet. Every word, every look, every action, every nuance of body language; it all mattered. It all
added up to something important, something momentous.

  ‘There’s not a lot to talk about,’ he said. ‘Unless you’ve got a crystal ball.’

  ‘Ah, the great unknown. We are still talking about women, then.’

  ‘Or not.’

  ‘Indeed. Let’s get back. Breakfast awaits.’

  Morgan yawned and stretched, lifting his arms high above the back of the deckchair. The paperback he’d been reading lay face-down on the decking. They’d been out on the veranda all afternoon, reading, and watching the swimmers and the distant container ships gliding in and out of Felixstowe. He listened to the cries of the seabirds, the sighing of the waves, the clicks and creaks of the weatherboards. He’d done nothing all day except drive with Nick to the supermarket and back, and yet he’d never felt so tired.

  Out on the road, a car approached. Its engine stilled, and a car door closed. Nick, who’d been nodding over his geology magazine, suddenly hoisted himself upright in the deckchair, poised on full alert. The magazine slid to the floor.

  Fiona appeared round the side of the house. Nick was already out of the chair, arms outstretched, his beam as bright as the sun. Fiona walked into his embrace and the two of them stood there, folded into one another as if they’d been apart for months.

  ‘You’re back! I thought you weren’t coming till tomorrow.’ Nick held her by the shoulders, casting his eyes over her face.

  ‘Yes, I’m back. Unless I’m a hologram.’ Fiona smiled. Her hazel eyes twinkled. She detached herself from Nick and stooped to pick up the bag she’d put down on the decking. ‘There’s only so much screaming you can take from one uncontrollable two-year-old.’

  ‘Two-year-old?’ Morgan said, looking up from the deckchair.

  ‘Yes. My sister was babysitting her granddaughter. She’s very sweet, but only when she’s asleep and, believe me, that’s not very often.’ She laughed. ‘Let me get this unpacked, then I’ll make us some dinner.’

  ‘No, no.’ Nick took the bag from Fiona’s hand and went to follow her indoors. ‘This calls for a celebration. We’ll go to The Lobster Pot.’ He glanced back at Morgan. ‘Is that all right with you, son?’

  ‘Perfect.’ Morgan slumped down in the deckchair and closed his eyes.

  ‘Morgan Hampshire is a very good name for a writer,’ Fiona said, with the careful emphasis of someone who had recently downed several glasses of champagne.

  ‘Is it?’

  ‘Yes.’ She nodded vigorously, and flipped open the lid of the laptop.

  ‘When I was in junior school,’ Morgan said, ‘I told everyone our family owned the whole county of Hampshire, and that was why Hampshire was my surname. I think I’d talked myself into believing it was true.’

  ‘So how did you explain living in Suffolk?’

  ‘I made up some story about my father wanting to step away from a family feud that went back centuries.’

  Fiona’s laugh bubbled up from the depths of her throat. ‘Your story-telling skills started early, then.’

  The pair of them were sitting snugly on the faded tapestry sofa. Snugly was the only option; any attempt to sit separately was thwarted by the relentless downward slope of the cushions. At the far end of the room, a rod of light showed beneath Nick’s study door.

  It was late, very late. Returning home from The Lobster Pot in almost total darkness, they’d picked their way along the ankle-cracking unmade road with the sea lapping in the background. The rinsed feel of the night air had invigorated them; going straight up to bed had seemed out of the question. Nick had disappeared into his study, nightcap in hand, leaving Morgan and Fiona to continue a conversation they’d begun over dinner.

  ‘Come on then.’ Fiona held out her hand. ‘Give.’

  Morgan fished in his jeans pocket and brought out the memory stick. He gave it to Fiona and she posted it into the port. Normally, he didn’t show his work to anyone – not that anyone had asked to see it, apart from Layla and she’d been drunk as well.

  As his words flooded onto the screen, he sank back into the cushions and let Fiona get on with it.

  There was a woman at the writers’ group he’d started attending in Maybridge who had asked to hear him read some of his novel. So far he’d resisted, and intended to go on doing so. It was an informal group; nobody had to read aloud if they didn’t want to, but most of them did. It had seemed a good idea to get it over and done with, and so he’d read out a short story he’d written ages ago, before he’d started on the novel.

  The woman, Ruby, whom he guessed was around forty, had long, dyed jet-black hair and an eye-popping cleavage which supported a cluster of necklaces. She was a prolific writer of romantic fiction, and laid claim to a number of published books before the publisher in question had gone out of business overnight, taking Ruby’s four-book contract with it.

  Ruby had no inhibitions when it came to sharing her latest opus – or her cleavage. When she read, Morgan had formed the impression that her words were directed personally at him, since she kept her eyes on him practically the whole time they weren’t on the page. At times, this close attention, coupled with her somewhat overheated prose, made him physically squirm in his seat. Poodle Chafferty wouldn’t have stood a chance.

  But he liked the group generally, and planned to keep going whenever he could.

  ‘This is good,’ Fiona said, lifting her eyes at last from the screen. ‘Seriously good.’

  ‘Seriously?’

  ‘Yes. I wouldn’t say so otherwise.’

  Morgan was flattered, but at the same time he wondered about Fiona’s credentials for making such a statement. She didn’t seem to read much fiction, so where was her yardstick? Tiredness, and the beginnings of a champagne hangover, were weighing down his whole body. He sank further into the sofa cushions, at one with the shabby tapestry.

  ‘Thank you.’ He yawned. ‘It’s only the second draft. It needs a lot of work still.’

  ‘Even so, I’d like to show this to a friend of mine. He’s a literary agent, based in Norwich.’

  Morgan was awake at once. ‘Really? He’s a friend, you say?’

  Fiona chuckled. ‘I haven’t seen him in a while but I’m sure he’d take a look at it for you. No promises, mind. He doesn’t take on many new clients.’

  ‘What’s this?’ Nick came out of his study, a journal under his arm. He switched the study light off and closed the door behind him.

  Fiona told him.

  ‘Ah,’ Nick said, waving his forefinger in Morgan’s general direction. ‘That’s what you want, a leg up the ladder. Not that you’ll need it but it does no harm to cut corners.’

  Morgan and Fiona laughed.

  ‘We are mixing our metaphors,’ Fiona said, ‘which means it’s time for bed.’

  ***

  The following morning was grey and drizzly, not a day to be setting foot on the beach. After a late breakfast, Morgan packed the few things he had brought with him. Fiona gave him a lift to the station, and he thought again how good she was for his father, and how well they fitted together. It had all worked out well for Nick, and for Ellie. It gave him hope.

  A rush of gratitude had him kissing Fiona on the cheek as they stopped on the station forecourt.

  She laughed. ‘What’s that for?’

  ‘Oh, nothing,’ he’d said, and got out of the car.

  The train wasn’t long in arriving. He felt lighter, and a great deal calmer, than he had on the journey up. Gazing out of the train window, he watched the blurry landscape unfold. As he continued staring, he caught his own reflection staring back. He smiled in recognition. He was Morgan Hampshire, cruise boat skipper, some-time manager of a riverside enterprise, and writer. His future – his happiness – depended upon himself and what he made of it. Nobody else.

  And with that, Morgan fell asleep.

  Chapter Twenty-Seven

  Grief, Melody decided, was like perpetually swimming against the tide. She could see an island, a place of safety, in the distance, but each t
ime she was about to reach it, the current sucked her down, carrying her back to where she started.

  There were times, too, when she was moving along quite smoothly and then something would come at her out of the blue – a certain colour nail varnish, cereal on a supermarket shelf, a song on the radio, even the sight of her own feet, so like Danni’s – and whoosh! A Niagara of sadness would descend, crushing the breath out of her. Triggers, Kate called them, which made Melody think of guns. It didn’t help.

  But alongside all of this, Melody detected the arrival of something new, something fragile, suggesting change. She was beginning to feel more centred, more like her former self. She didn’t know how it had happened. Was it the result of the therapy, or simply the passing of time?

  They had left Danni’s room almost as it was, after she’d died – died, she hadn’t used that word in a long time, if ever! Now, Melody went upstairs, along the landing where the floorboards creaked, and towards the back of the house. She opened the door and stepped inside. The sunlight squeezing through the closed pink curtains shed a rosy glow over the pale walls. The room wasn’t completely untouched; they hadn’t wanted a shrine. The Glastonbury poster had gone from the back of the door, the chest of drawers cleared of everything except Danni’s childhood collection of little glass animals standing on top; the wardrobe, although she couldn’t see inside, was empty, its contents long gone to the animal charity shop. But the bed was made up exactly as it had been on Danni’s last visit home, the pink and green checked bedding washed and aired and put back on.

  After it happened, Melody used to come in here and lay on the bed for hours, gazing up at the ceiling, as if she was trying to fill the space that Danni had left. She hadn’t done that in a while.

  She went to the window and drew back the curtains. Light flooded in. Turning to the bed, she denuded the duvet of its cover, and removed the sheet, mattress cover and pillowcases. The bed looked raw. Unveiled, exposed to the light, it seemed to flinch. Melody repositioned the pillows against the headboard and arranged the duvet squarely over the mattress. She folded the bedding into a neat pile, carried it along the landing and put it away in the tall linen cupboard. Coming back, she noticed she’d left Danni’s bedroom door ajar. She left it as it was.