Never Coming Back: a tale of loss and new beginnings

by Deirdre Palmer

  ‘I can row quite well but I’m not that good when it comes to parking,’ Morgan said, pulling on the oars and arrowing the boat out towards the centre of the river. He grinned, and flashed his eyes at her.

  ‘You don’t say.’ She looked away. No smile.

  She wasn’t going to make this easy for him, whatever it was he had in mind. Yes, she was the one at fault, but she had ended it, with no room for doubt, and still he’d had the audacity to virtually drag her into this daft little boat and sail away with her. Row, then. It was all the same.

  She shifted position on the uncomfortably narrow wooden seat and felt the ends of her hair. They were wet, too, but that would be from the rain. Around the boat, the brownish water swirled in the wash from the oars. She tried not to think about how deep it was out here.

  ‘You look like the Lady of Shalott,’ Morgan said.

  ‘What?’

  ‘The Lady of Shalott. You must have heard of her.’

  ‘Of course I’ve heard of her. Well, I hope I don’t come to a sticky end like she did.’

  ‘She was very beautiful.’

  ‘And very dead.’

  Layla scowled. She yanked her bag onto her lap and clutched it to her with both hands, like a shield. Morgan seemed not to notice her disapproval of the situation, or if he did, he chose to ignore it.

  ‘Soon be there,’ he said cheerfully, his chest heaving from the effort of rowing.

  Oddly enough, she hadn’t thought to ask where he was taking her. She did so now.

  ‘The boathouse. We need to talk.’

  Ha. Obvious, wasn’t it? The boathouse, the scene of the crime. Had he no sensitivity at all? She retracted the unfair thought. Morgan Hampshire was the most sensitive man she knew. She loved that about him. Loved.

  A bubble of panic rose within her. Despite making her peace with the Morlands, despite her new thoughts about Danni and everything that had happened to spin her world around, she needed breathing space to settle down and be herself again. Morgan was one complication she could well do without. Yet here she was with no more than a few planks of wood between them and her defences crumbling faster than cheesecake.

  She should have ignored him, turned her back on him and walked away. Or run. Except she’d had enough of running.

  It only took a minute or two to reach the boathouse. It seemed a lot longer. Morgan steadied the boat as she stepped out, far more easily than she’d stepped in. Retrieving his jacket from beneath the seat, he tied the boat to the mooring post and ushered her politely across the grass and up the steps in front of him. Neither of them had spoken a word since he’d announced his intention to bring her here.

  Once they were inside, he stood before her in the centre of the room, his smile uncertain, his chest rising and falling heavily beneath his grey t-shirt, and she saw how nervous he was.

  ‘Layla…’

  ‘Look, I…’

  Their voices collided. They laughed, then fell silent. She had no idea what was supposed to come next, and by the expression on Morgan’s face, neither did he. So much for talking, then. But they were marking time. They weren’t ready.

  She wanted to picture how it was when he found her. ‘You saw me walking, while you were out in the boat? Not the sort of weather for it, I’d have thought.’

  ‘No, well, it wasn’t quite like that.’

  He rubbed his chin. He had a habit of doing that, when he was thinking, or unsure about something. She wanted to ask what it was like, but thought better of it.

  Another silence, then she said, ‘It feels funny being here again. Funny-nice, I mean, not funny-peculiar.’

  He smiled, raised his eyebrows, his demeanour a little easier. ‘You have such a way with words, Miss Mackenzie.’

  ‘I didn’t mean to come here. I told myself I’d never come here again, ever. I don’t even know why I agreed to get into that damn boat.’

  ‘Because you thought I might drown in the attempt? Anyway, whatever the reason, I’m very glad you did. Thank you.’

  He glanced down at the floor, mildly embarrassed by his own words. She decided to help him out. Lifting her bag from her shoulder, walking across and putting it down on the desk, she gazed around.

  ‘There’s more stuff than before.’ She was looking at a small, leather armchair, cracked and creased with age. ‘Oh, and I love the little typewriter.’

  She spotted a red plastic bucket in the corner by the tall cupboard ‘What’s that for?’

  ‘Have a guess.’

  ‘No!’ Surely he wasn’t using that for…

  ‘I live here now. Had to do something. The trek to the bogs in the middle of night wasn’t an option.’

  She saw his face, the grin he was trying to hide. It broke.

  ‘Okay. It’s for the leak in the roof. I have moved into my own place, or rather I will be, today as it goes. Not here, though. That’d be a bridge too far, even for a dosser like me.’

  He told her about the cottage, belonging to Connor’s grandfather. She knew those cottages; they were lovely. She wondered if she would ever see it from the inside. And then, when she asked about his writing, he told her with some excitement about the agent who had been sufficiently impressed with his first Poodle Chafferty book to sign him up, and how he hoped a publishing deal wouldn’t be far off. She was delighted for him. He deserved success.

  When she’d finished congratulating him, he asked, ‘Would you like some tea? The biscuit tin’s empty but there’s milk for the tea.’

  ‘No, thanks.’

  ‘Well, at least sit down.’ He indicated the leather chair. ‘I got it from a charity shop. It’s very comfy.’

  She hesitated, then sat down. The leather creaked beneath her. Rather than taking the office chair, Morgan perched on the edge of the desk. His eyes locked with hers. She wanted to look away, but found she couldn’t. Heat travelled up her spine. She felt it reach her face. He still had the same effect on her, shockingly the same. She wasn’t supposed to be here, or anywhere, with him. Only now she was, suddenly it felt impossible to be anywhere else.

  ‘I did apologise. Only by text, I know, but it was all I could do at the time. I need you to believe that,’ she said.

  ‘I know you did, and I do believe you. It’s me who needs to apologise, for rushing things, for putting you into that situation. For scaring you. I don’t know how I managed to do that, I only know I did, and I’m so sorry, Layla.’

  ‘You didn’t scare me. It wasn’t you. I wanted to be with you, so much, and then when we nearly…well, I did get scared, but that was because of something that had happened in the past. To do with Danni, the night she died.’

  Finally, finally, she could say those words without her eyes filling with tears.

  ‘I see,’ Morgan said thoughtfully. ‘Would it help to tell me about it? Maybe not now, but some other time?’

  Some other time. When would that be? She couldn’t bear to think about that now.

  ‘Yes,’ she said quietly. ‘I do want to tell you. Now, if that’s all right with you.’

  Morgan got up from the desk. He went to the cupboard in the corner and brought out the checked picnic rug and the cushions, arranged them on the floor, and sat down. Layla took off her denim jacket and hung it over the arm of the chair, then got up and joined him. He sat cross-legged, waiting for her to begin, and when she was ready, she told him the whole story, from the night of the party right up until her last visit to the Morlands.

  When she’d finished, Morgan just nodded slowly. And then he moved closer and put his arm around her shoulders, resting his head against hers. She leaned in, her body remembering his, the warmth of him.

  ‘I can’t stop thinking about you,’ he said, after a while. ‘I’ve never stopped.’

  ‘Same for me.’

  ‘Really?’ He raised his head to look at her.

  She smiled. ‘Yes, really.’

  And then he kissed her, and her arms went around his neck, and her fingers strayed into his
hair as she kissed him back.

  ‘I love you,’ he said, kissing her again.

  She sighed. ‘And I love you. But it’s not that simple.’

  ‘Yes, it is. I love you. You love me, you said…’

  ‘I do. I do love you.’

  ‘Well, then, we can be together. How much simpler can it get?’

  Layla made some space between them, dropping her gaze, aware that she may be about to break Morgan’s heart a second time. And hers, too. But she couldn’t hold out on him any longer. It wasn’t fair.

  ‘I’m leaving, Morgan. In less than two months, I’m moving to New York. I have a place to live and a job all lined up. It’s always been my ambition, my dream. I can’t give up on it.’

  She wanted to add ‘even for you’ but that would have sounded cruel, even though it really wasn’t. He would never ask her to give up her dream. She knew him enough – loved him enough – to know that without a shadow of a doubt. And yet, he hadn’t spoken. She looked up at him. He was smiling, a little sadly, but his eyes shone with emotion and excitement. Excitement on her behalf, for her great adventure.

  ‘What difference does an ocean make? It’s only geography. If I can let you go, knowing you love me and we’ll be together properly, one day, then I can live with that.’ He kissed her again, tenderly, his forefinger lifting her chin. ‘Of course I’ll be right behind you, on the next plane, so none of it matters anyway.’

  ‘What?’

  ‘I can write anywhere. It’s the best thing about it.’

  Layla put a finger to his chest. ‘Let’s not plan too far ahead, make too many promises.’

  ‘No, okay, but—’

  She silenced him with another kiss. She loved him. He loved her. It was enough, for now.

  He pulled her to him and kissed her again, his lips hard on hers. Kneeling up, she reached for the hem of his t-shirt, tugging it up, running her hands over the smooth skin of his back. He pulled off the t-shirt completely, and helped her take off her dress. Then they lay down on the rug amongst the scattered cushions.

  Later – a long time later, it seemed – they lay on their backs, fingertips touching, and the light in the room became brighter, and patterned the wooden ceiling with ripples reflected from the river.

  ‘Christmas,’ Morgan said, still gazing upwards. ‘I’ll come to New York at Christmas.’

  ‘The flight will be expensive, and I’ll probably be working.’

  ‘Not every minute, though.’

  ‘No, not every minute.’

  ‘Happy Christmas, then,’ he said.

  ‘Happy Christmas.’

  They turned to one another and smiled.

  THE END

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