The table rocked, setting several glasses teetering, as he edged his way out. He stumbled to the double doors and pushed them open, taking a long, deep breath of cool air to steady himself.
No time seemed to pass at all between his leaving the pub and finding himself enfolded into the luxurious passenger seat of a BMW.
‘It’s all right. I’ve been on orange juice since six.’ Jemma grinned at him from the driver’s seat. ‘I’d never leave this little baby in the uni car park overnight. Now, where do you live?’
Melody smiled as she opened the front door to let him in. At least, he thought she was smiling, only he couldn’t seem to see too well.
‘I kept you some dinner. I could warm it up,’ he heard her say, as his eyes and ears began to function. ‘Or perhaps not,’ she added, looking him up and down.
And then, of course, he began to apologise, lots of times, until she stopped him.
‘Reece, it’s fine. I understand. You needed to let off some steam, take time out. You’ll have one hell of a head in the morning, though.’
‘Why are you being so nice to me?’ he heard himself say.
Melody just laughed.
Again, a swathe of time vanished, during which Reece had no idea what he’d done. Except he’d had a shower. Yes, he remembered that. And then he found himself in bed, wearing his pyjama bottoms and t-shirt, with a plate of toast on the bedside table along with a jug of water and a glass.
‘No crumbs in the bed, please,’ Melody said, lifting her shirt over her head and getting in beside him.
‘No, Matron.’
He started to laugh, a sudden rising of mirth, bordering on hysteria. And then, just as suddenly, the laughter died inside him, taking the bonhomie of the evening, the alcohol-fuelled sensation of well-being, and everything that was good in the world, with it.
Slowly, he turned towards Melody. She was lying on her side, her head propped up on her elbow, watching him.
‘She’s never coming back, is she?’ His voice was small, hardly there.
Melody stroked his forehead with her fingertip. ‘No, my love. She’s never coming back.’
Chapter Twenty-Eight
For once in her life, Kate hadn’t the faintest idea what to do next. No plan, no focus, no fervent wish to do something or be somewhere. Nothing. Even work had lost its shine. The psych wards were quiet. It was like that sometimes, usually after a spell of admissions taking place at a dizzying rate. All or nothing. Kate preferred to be busy, even though she sometimes felt as if she was asleep on her feet. The slower pace gave too much room for thought, too much scope for the whys and what-ifs.
What if she hadn’t got involved with Xavi? Would she and Morgan still be together? Sadly, no matter how many times the question asked itself, the answer was always ‘no’. So why had she gone chasing after him, ditched her pride and asked – no begged, almost – for another chance? It was exactly the sort of needy behaviour she deplored in others, the kind of thing she heard all too often in her clinic sessions. Her patients had an excuse; their minds weren’t fully functioning. As their therapist, she should be the one with vision, the one able to see a clear path ahead. She hadn’t been that person for a long time, and it was shameful, it really was.
Her own counsellor – the therapists all had counselling sessions of their own – had disagreed, told her she was being unkind to herself, and then praised her for her commitment. But praise was no comfort when you knew, deep down, you were rubbish.
At least she no longer had to run the gauntlet when Xavi was about. He’d left to go and work in a private hospital. It wasn’t because she’d let him down so badly – he’d taken great pains to explain that to her, and she believed him – but she couldn’t help feeling guilty over the way it ended. And it had ended, properly – she’d owed him that. She couldn’t let him carry on living in hope. It was unfair of her, and cruel.
One evening after clinic, when she’d been feeling braver than usual, she’d waited for him in the car park. They’d gone for a coffee and she’d spoken honestly about her feelings. Xavi had been quietly accepting. It hadn’t come as a surprise. He’d seemed sad, but relieved, and thanked her for telling him. Which, of course, made Kate feel even worse but it was no less than she deserved.
And then something happened which changed things for the better, not dramatically but enough to give her fresh hope. Arriving for her day in the clinic, she found a message asking her to phone Melody Morland. She was puzzled – Melody’s appointment wasn’t until next week and if she needed to rearrange, she would normally do that through the receptionist. Patients couldn’t phone therapists directly – their numbers were all protected.
Sitting down in the almost empty office, she made the call. Melody answered immediately, as if she’d been waiting. Kate heard apologies first, lots of them, as if Melody felt she was letting Kate down for ending the sessions so suddenly.
‘I feel,’ Melody said, once she’d finished apologising, ‘that I need to do this on my own now. Whatever’s to come, I have to face up to it and deal with it, and I’m ready to do that now.’ A breathy sigh, then, ‘Oh Kate, you’ve been so marvellous,’ – Kate cringed – ‘I don’t think I’d even be here if it wasn’t for you.’
Kate said nothing. Melody was over-dramatising; she wasn’t to be taken literally. There had never been any danger of that sort; she was as certain about that as it was possible to be.
‘Also,’ Melody said, saying what had probably been the main thing on her mind all along, ‘there’s only so much talking and sharing you can do, and what there is left I need to do with Reece, with my husband. I won’t let our daughter’s death drive a wedge between us. I won’t.’
Kate smiled. Melody’s new determination was a gift.
‘You’re ready, Melody. That’s the important thing. Remember, the door is always open if ever you need us.’
‘Yes,’ Melody said. ‘Thank you.’
Silence. Kate waited a moment. Melody must have gone. She was about to put the phone down when Melody spoke again. ‘And you, Kate, are you okay?’
Kate didn’t reply. This wasn’t the kind of conversation you could let happen.
‘Sorry,’ Melody said, laughing lightly. ‘It’s the mother in me. I am a mother, still.’
‘Yes,’ Kate said. ‘You are.’
Another silence, and this time Melody really had gone.
Usually, when a patient finished treatment, Kate closed them off in her mind, but something of Melody Morland lingered, like a waft of perfume after the wearer had left the room. Strangely, every time she thought about Melody, she thought about Morgan, and vice versa, as if in some unseen way the two were connected, although she couldn’t imagine how.
But there it was. She wouldn’t have to think about either of them any longer. Except that she would, of course. Especially Morgan.
One evening, she sat by the window in the sunlit, high-ceilinged flat she now shared with two other female nurses. The flat was in a converted Edwardian house. It had no view of the sea. Instead, it overlooked Haverstone Park and was only five minutes by bike to the hospital. Taking her phone, she scrolled through and deleted Xavi’s name from her list of contacts, and then Morgan’s. And then she deleted the number of the old flat – goodness knows why she’d kept it. Finally, she fetched her bag, took out the still unfolded piece of paper on which Morgan had written his new address, tore it up into little pieces and dropped them into the waste bin.
There was still the boathouse. She would never forget how it looked and smelt, and the inspiring beauty of the riverside setting. And that was fine, because it was Morgan’s special place; she’d seen straight away how he belonged there. She hoped he would continue to enjoy it. She hoped he would be happy.
For the rest of the week, her steps along the hospital corridors were lighter, her sleep less troubled, her laughter more frequent. But she needed something else. Melody’s last words to her played themselves back. ‘I am a mother, still.’
On Friday, Kate packed her weekend bag and went home to Milton Keynes.
Chapter Twenty-Nine
‘Where did you go, when you stayed out all night?’
Rowan looked up suddenly, surprised by the question Layla had no idea she was going to ask. They’d been talking about Mum and Jadine and Finn, having a giggle over this and that, like they used to do. Layla realised how much she’d missed that.
It was Monday, Rowan’s day off. Layla was on a late shift. Finn had broken up from school and had gone to play at a friend’s house. This morning, Layla had noticed that her sister’s face had a kind of lost look about it, which prompted her suggestion of an outing, just the two of them.
They were in the cathedral café, where leafy plants rose from giant pots, and people trod carefully on the stone floor to avoid unnecessary noise. Even the clatter of china seemed muted.
Rowan gathered up a handful of blonde hair as if she was going to make a pony-tail, before letting it fall again. ‘Nowhere, really.’
‘You must have gone somewhere. Don’t tell me if you don’t want to.’
‘It’s not a secret. I went to a hotel, the big one on the motorway. Alone, in case you were wondering. I needed to have a proper think, without… Well, you know what home’s like.’
Only too well, Layla thought. ‘Did it work?’
Rowan shrugged. ‘Sort of. It cleared my head a bit, anyway.’
‘I’m sorry, Row,’ Layla said.
‘What for?’
‘I haven’t exactly been the perfect sister. I thought you and Jeff would work it out, like always, and then when Mum told me… Well, to be honest I didn’t have the strength to get involved in all that. Which is stupid, I know, but it’s the truth.’
‘I know. It’s cool. I had a mad moment, fell for somebody I shouldn’t have – or I thought I’d fallen for him. Boredom, bloody-mindedness, whatever. Until I realised he wasn’t that great, not very nice at all, as it goes, and I ended it. You couldn’t have talked me out of it, though. No-one could.’
‘But I could have been there to listen, if you’d wanted to talk.’
Rowan smiled. ‘Don’t be daft. You’re off the hook.’
‘How d’you mean?’
‘There was no way I was going to burden you with my problems, nor was Mum, or any of us, except Jadine ‘cos she hasn’t got a clue. You’ve had a horrible time, losing your best friend. It must still hurt a lot.’
Layla sat back, biting her lip, as realisation dawned. Her family had been tiptoeing round her, shielding her from any unnecessary worries, because they knew she was still grieving for Danni. Did they suspect there was more to it than that? If so, all credit to them that they hadn’t pushed her into talking about it. She felt a rush of affection for Rowan. It brought a single tear. She wiped it away, but not before her sister had noticed.
‘Don’t be soft.’ She giggled.
Layla joined in. She hadn’t felt this close to Rowan for ages. The clock seemed to have wound itself back, set them to where they were before.
‘Why d’you keep looking at that phone? Expecting a message, are we?’
Rowan pushed the mobile aside. ‘Might be.’
‘Come on, then. Who is he?’
Rowan couldn’t stop the smile. ‘It’s Jeff. We’ve been dating.’
‘Jeff? Dating?’
‘Yes. As in, going out on dates? It was his idea. And no, before you ask, we aren’t sleeping together. He’s taken me to some cool places for dinner. We even went to your hotel. That’s not cool, though. Just freakin’ expensive.’
‘You went to Tidehall and you didn’t tell me? Was it any good?’
‘You’re the chef and you don’t know?’ More laughter.
‘Fair point. Are you getting back together, then?’
‘Might do. We’re taking it steady, not rushing into anything.’
Layla smiled. This was a change from Rowan’s usual method of charging ahead and damn the consequences. Perhaps the two of them were more alike than she’d realised.
The lost look Layla had seen this morning reappeared on Rowan’s face.
‘I wish,’ she said, glancing out of the window, ‘that Jeff was Finn’s real dad. Finn’s one reason I want us to get back together. He worships Jeff.’
‘Finn’s not the only reason, though?’
‘No. Jeff’s the one for me. I only hope he sees me the same way.’
‘I’m going to miss you, when I go to New York.’
‘I should bloody well hope so,’ Rowan said.
***
Layla put down the pan she was holding and glanced across at Big Barry, who was coming out of the cold store. She felt a bit guilty about Barry; she hadn’t told anyone at the hotel she was leaving, other than Abe. There was still time before she had to hand in her notice – her visa hadn’t even come through yet. Once she went public, she’d have to talk about it, and she couldn’t do that without her voice catching.
Danni had wanted to be a journalist; she’d planned to look for an internship in New York. They were supposed to have embarked on the big adventure together. She should be here. It was so unfair that she wasn’t.
‘Coffee break?’ Abe broke into her thoughts.
‘What? Yes, in a minute.’
‘No, now.’
They sat on the wall at the back of the service area.
‘I wanted a word, Sunshine,’ Abe said.
‘That sounds serious. Oh, go on then, if you must.’
Abe put a hand on her shoulder. ‘Look over there.’
‘Where?’
He was pointing across the flower-edged lawns towards the wide gravel drive, the tall, wrought iron gates between soaring stone pillars.
‘Right. Imagine the Hampshire guy is walking in through those gates now. What do you do? Quick. No thinking time. Gut reaction.’
‘I run away and hide, and I don’t come out until he’s gone.’
Layla sensed the tension in Abe as he worked his way up to the next stage in the game. She froze him with a look. His eyes searched her face for a moment, then he relaxed his shoulders.
‘Okay. Just testing.’ Then, after a beat of silence, ‘I’ll miss you, you know.’
‘Will you?’
‘Well, I might a bit. Would you miss me, if I was the one buggering off to the other side of the world?’
‘Stop fishing. You won’t be here, anyway.’
Abe himself would be leaving Tidehall Manor, and Maybridge, at the end of the year. The next stage of his training would be conducted in a London hotel, under the keen eye of his father, in person rather than from a distance. Abe was pretending to dread it, but it was all an act, a transparent one at that. Time to move on, and up. For both of them.
‘It’s hardly the same thing. London.’
‘No, but still…’
Abe was right. It wasn’t the same thing at all. She gazed unseeingly across the expanse of lawn. If New York hadn’t felt real before, it did now. All this talk about missing people was chipping away at her confidence. A lifetime’s ambition it might be, or one of them, but the whole thing had an unmistakable flavour of running away.
First, there was Morgan. She’d already run away from him, literally, and only succeeded in narrowing the metaphorical distance between them. Even Abe could see that.
And the Morlands. Had she spent more than half a year trying to break away from Danni’s parents, only to discover that she needed them more than they needed her? Because she craved their forgiveness?
Who, then, was she running away from? Herself? She was defined by that night, by her unspeakable act of selfishness. However far she ran, there was no escape from that.
She glanced at Abe. He had his head down, scrolling through his phone with his thumb, his eyes narrowed in concentration. Suddenly, she longed to pour it all out to him, the real story of the night Danni died, not the expurgated version she’d fed him and everyone else. She half opened her mouth to speak, but the thou
ght of Abe’s shock, his distaste, hijacked the words before they formed. He would protest that he didn’t think any less of her, but deep down he would surely wonder what kind of a person she really was, and he’d have every right. She couldn’t bear that. Not on top of everything else.
A shudder ran through her. Noticing, Abe shuffled along the wall a bit so that they were shoulder-to-shoulder, but didn’t look up from his phone. He was looking up cheap flights to New York. Chatting on about coming out to visit her.
Enough.
Layla slid down off the wall, retrieved her coffee cup and walked quickly back to the kitchen.
***
At home that evening, when everyone else was occupied, Layla retreated to her thinking place, the back doorstep. It wasn’t quite dark yet. The trees stood out like charcoal drawings against the fading glow of the sky. The air was soft and still. Still as death.
She rested her elbows on her knees, steepling her hands to her mouth. It was some minutes before she realised she was crying. She didn’t try to stop the tears. Instead, she let them flow, wetting her fingers. It didn’t matter that she was crying because she was alone out here; there was no-one to see. After a while, she sat up and rubbed her eyes with the shredded remains of a tissue she’d found in her pocket.
There was movement at the end of the garden – a fox. It turned its head towards her, fixing her briefly with its orange gaze, its ears on full alert, before it slid away as silently as it had arrived. In that split second, when Layla’s eyes met the animal’s stare, something stirred inside her. A voice came out of the darkness, out of her head. Her own voice.
They deserve the truth. Tell them, before it’s too late.
Layla looked up to the midnight-blue sky. A single star had appeared.
‘Yes,’ she whispered. ‘Yes.’
Chapter Thirty
‘Blimey, what’s going on here, then?’ the taxi driver said, gawping at the scene in the street. ‘The road’s blocked. I’ll take you round the other way.’
‘No, this is it. Here…’
Never Coming Back: a tale of loss and new beginnings Page 20