Bring Me Back (B.A. Paris)(26)

I go downstairs, weary from all the mind games, and push open the door to the kitchen, planning to shake the dust from a chair and sit for a minute. I pull one out from the table and stop, my hand on its back, remembering the last time I’d sat on this chair, the day I wrote the letter to Layla, the letter I left for her to find in case she came back. Suddenly my ghost is there, and I watch as he takes a ring from his pocket, the ring he’d been planning to give Layla on her twentieth birthday, and puts it in the envelope along with the letter. I watch as he seals the envelope and places it in the centre of the table, ready for Layla to find. But – my ghost disappears as suddenly as he came – the letter is no longer there, all that remains is a rectangle of brown oak where the envelope once lay. Yet the rest of the table is barely discernible, covered by a thick layer of dust. I reach out, run my finger over the rectangle and find it almost dust-free. Which means that, fairly recently, someone took the letter.

I shake the dust from the chair and sink heavily onto it. For all I know, the letter could already have been gone when I came here two days ago, to see Thomas. Is that why Rudolph Hill knows so much about me, from my letter? Is that why there was something so real about his last messages, why I thought for one crazy moment that they were actually coming from Layla? I’m gutted I fell into his trap – how he must have laughed at my desperate Layla? But what had that been about, the one that said the email address had been chosen so that I would know who was sending the messages? Wasn’t I meant to think they were coming from Ruby? If that wasn’t the sender’s intention, the address must signify something else, something I should know. If it isn’t a person, what else could it be? A place? I know lots of hills but none of them are called Rudolph. So some other hill?

With infinite slowness it dawns on me. Not Ruby and dolphin but Russian doll. Russian doll, Pharos Hill. The Russian doll on Pharos Hill. I feel momentarily stunned, as if I’ve just witnessed a miracle. Other than me, only one person knows that Layla likened the tree-stump on Pharos Hill to a Russian doll and that’s Layla. Tears flood my eyes and I dash them away fiercely. It isn’t true, it can’t be. The emails can’t be coming from Layla. And yet, they must be.

I don’t remember leaving the cottage but suddenly I’m back in the car. Pharos Hill is thirty minutes away on foot but only ten by car. Please don’t let her be gone, I pray, as I ram the car into gear and drive off. Please don’t let her be gone.

It takes me eight minutes to get there. I pull to a stop near the foot of the hill and start sprinting up it. By the time I get to the top my breath is coming in ragged gasps and my lungs feel as if they’re about to burst. I look around wildly. I can’t see anyone, but the stump, the one shaped like a Russian doll, isn’t visible from here. I run past the bench we put up all those years ago, its struts etched with the names of friends and lovers, and disappear over the brow of the hill, my leg muscles trembling from the demands I’ve just made on them. The stump comes into sight and I run towards it, even though I can see no one’s there, and there’s nowhere for anyone to hide. Just as I’m wondering if it’s all some hideous joke, and that she was never here, I see a little Russian doll, perched meticulously on top of the stump.

‘Layla!’ Her name tears out of me, half-sob, half-cry. ‘Layla!’ I snatch up the doll and turn in a circle, calling her name over and over again, Layla! Layla! Layla! willing the breeze to carry it to wherever she is. I call until my voice is hoarse, but she doesn’t come.





TWENTY-TWO

Before

I’m going to have to finish this letter, Layla, because Harry is coming to pick me up to take me to the flat in London. I’m leaving the cottage, you see. You’ve been gone for six months now. I’m not giving up on you, please don’t think that. It’s just too hard being here without you.

Now that you’ve read my letter, I hope you’ll understand how sorry I am for what happened that night and find it in your heart to forgive me. I’ll be close by, waiting for you. If I move on from London, Harry will always know where I am. So come and find me, Layla, and when you do, we’ll get married.

I’m leaving you a ring, the ring I was going to give you on your twentieth birthday, when I asked you to marry me. I love you. I always have, I always will. No matter how long you are gone, I’ll never stop loving you.

Finn





PART TWO





TWENTY-THREE

Layla

I should never have gone back to St Mary’s. If I hadn’t, it wouldn’t have come to this. I blame Finn. If he hadn’t decided to marry Ellen, I would have stayed away.

The truth is, I could have returned to the cottage any number of times over the years; I had the keys. But I hadn’t, because it had been enough to know that Finn had never sold it. In my mind – and I’m the first to admit that my mind isn’t what it used to be – it meant that he wanted to hang on to a vestige of our life together. But about to embark on a new life with Ellen, the thought that he might sell the cottage without me ever seeing it again was unbearable.

After, as I sat on the station platform, my heart beating crazily from the near-miss with Thomas, it seemed incredible that I had just risked everything for a fleeting look at the place where I’d spent a relatively short amount of time. But I had been happy there. That’s not to say I’m not happy now, because I am, happier than I deserve to be. All I’d wanted was a glimpse of a past long gone. But Fate had been waiting for me in the form of Thomas. It was only when he’d come hobbling towards me, saying ‘Layla, is that you?’, his rheumy eyes wide with surprise, that I realised my mistake. How could I have known he would still be around? He’d already seemed ancient all those years ago.