After a quick shower, instead of her longed-for bath, Ella set about tidying her room and packing her suitcase. What she couldn’t fit into the suitcase from the new belongings she’d acquired over the summer, she crammed into large carrier bags for the charity shop. She texted Nick, apologising and saying she had a migraine and didn’t feel up for celebrating. She felt horrible about the lie, but her time in Porthkara had come to a finish, and she didn’t want to prolong the agony of leaving. It would be better to make this a cut-off point.
She went down to the kitchen to see Jessie, but as there was no sign of her and Oliver, she sat down at the table and scribbled a letter of farewell on a notepad by the phone. Then she called a taxi.
After that she sat in Jessie’s chair by the Aga and talked to the dogs and the cats. Hughie sat with his head tilted to one side looking up at her sadly. She lifted Juno onto her lap and hugged her.
‘Please don’t mind too much that I’m taking you away from Porthkara. We’re going to miss this place so much.’ She hoped her friends wouldn’t hate her for taking the puppy with her. Jessie loved Juno as much as she did, and so did Layla and Nick. Of all the litter, Happy and Juno had been everyone’s favourites.
Wanting to cry, but keeping it together, she sat motionless on the back seat of the taxi with Juno in a pet carrier. She lowered the window to get a good look as the taxi drove past Old Rose Cottage. Goodbye pink hydrangeas. She refused to look back as they passed through the gateposts of Karadow Hall for the last time. She couldn’t. When the peacock shrieked, tears formed in the corners of her eyes. She blinked them away, closed her eyes and pressed her head against the back of the seat, not looking at the road ahead and the scenery she’d come to know so well.
Observing the speed limit, the taxi crawled through Porthkara. Her stomach was in knots. Bye, beach. Bye, hotel. Scooting up the winding hill, across the old iron bridge where Layla had told her there’d been an incident involving Mervin, Nick and a set of handcuffs, she smiled to herself, but she didn’t look back at the view. Bye, village.
In the nearby town, before they reached the station, she asked the driver to stop at a charity shop where she left the bags of things, the ones she couldn’t take with her, in the doorway next to a couple of other donations.
Sitting in the dark on a bench at the station with a cup of coffee in her hand and a stale-looking, day-old almond croissant wrapped in a paper napkin balanced on top of her suitcase, Ella forced back tired tears. A train which wasn’t stopping rattled through the station as she listened in a blur to an announcement. She watched the other people on the platform. If she was doing the right thing, then why did she feel so eaten up with disappointment and doubt?
On the opposite track an express train flew past with a loud blast on its horn. She sat there unnoticed by people carrying bags, reading papers, waiting for trains – a nomad with a huge, heavy, broken suitcase. It had travelled everywhere with her. Her life was in that suitcase, it was her anchor, and unlikely as it seemed she loved it, in spite of its irreparable wheel. She looked at the stickers. “I Heart Paris.” “When in Rome.” “Have we no wine here?” – a Shakespeare quote from a visit to Stratford-upon-Avon. Each one represented memories of good times, fun with lovely people, friends, but right now she felt friendless, with nowhere to go. She’d bought a one-way ticket to London. She would stay in a dog-friendly hotel for a few nights, figure things out, rent a place. After Callum, getting on a train was the only sensible thing to do. He was a chance meeting. It wasn’t supposed to lead anywhere. Away from Cornwall she would forget about him.
With ear buds in she played her father’s new song, “In the Between”. She hadn’t had a proper chance to listen carefully to the words earlier in the day.
Without a goodbye,
I flew from you,
Where to?
Some place new.
I forgot to look behind me,
In the between, for you.
I was lost, it was me,
And I glued my eyes on
Too many horizons,
Better – oh yes, I should have been,
Kept you closer, instead of left in the between,
One day, some way, said hi,
Too much time went by.
Bye. Bye. Bye.
Don’t wait for the good time,
Every dawn is day one,
No sleeping in the sun.
Follow, follow, follow,
Follow your own dream
Be the best you can be
Follow, follow the dream.
Girl, you’re a space,
A face, too far away,
Left you in the between.
A flower, a rose, a day,
A life, a star, unseen.
Bye to the lost girl in my home.
Where’d you go? Are you alone?
Rolling in with the tide,
Dancing under the moon,
May you let your heart shine,
No sunset in the room,
Because you are the best,
Better than anything
I wished for, drifting through time.
Don’t wait for the good time,
Every dawn is day one,
No sleeping in the sun.
Follow, follow, follow,
Follow your own dream
Be the best you can be
Follow, follow the dream.
Shine brighter, brightest, bright,
My soul’s wish, this from me to you,
Don’t wait for the good time,
Hold on to what is there, head high,
Not lost in the between, cos time flies by.
The years of discontent are gone,
Fragments of me,
Past memories, my melodies,
Dreams trapped in the between,
The secrets of happy times and glad,
My life, my lies, the sad, the bad,
My trip? Jumbled footprints in mud,
I left you, didn’t forget you,
In the between.
Don’t wait for the good time,
Every dawn is day one,
No sleeping in the sun.
Follow, follow, follow,
Follow your own dream
Be the best you can be
Follow, follow the dream.
Without Ella noticing at first, tears streamed down her cheeks. She blotted at her face with a tissue until it turned wet and soggy. She suppressed a sob, trying to keep it together, and failing, crying with regret for something started and unfinished, and for everything that would never be.
Her emotions were high. Her dad had never expressed how he felt about leaving her behind to make his dream come true. She’d assumed that he had followed his heart. The words of the song and the melancholy tune told a different story. In fact, he had been torn in two. And more poignant than anything, he didn’t want that for her.
Suddenly she glimpsed Nick on the platform. He looked calm and confident and self-assured. She admired how he’d got his life together. A combination of pain and irritation with herself swamped her, and even though she felt more lost than ever before she didn’t want to be found. She had a plan. Kind of. And she didn’t require his interference, no matter how well meaning.
At that moment her train pulled into the station and she lost sight of Nick as some passengers got off, and others moved forward on the platform ready to board. She put the disintegrating tissue in her pocket, stood and through the blur of tears, Juno’s puppy carrier in one hand, she dragged her heavy suitcase towards the closest open door with the other.
‘Ella, stop.’ Nick ran towards her. ‘You can’t go yet.’
‘This is my train.’ She set down the pet carrier and dragged a hand across first one, then the other, wet cheek.
He handed her a fresh tissue. ‘There’ll be another one. Please stay.’