The Writer and The Artist: The Diary

Chapter 11: The Diary

 

THE DIARY

 

1

 

Laura took Ethan upstairs to her bedroom, to the oak cabinet that sit beside John’s side of the centrepiece – the double bed. She knelt down and pulled open the bottom of the three drawers and revealed the contents of John’s most prized possessions. He kept a number of photos of himself with his family – many included Laura; documents like his birth certificate and his passport and even his bank details He was never a security-conscious person, Laura thought. She dug deep into the drawer and found beyond all this galore of information the A4-sized blue denim-covered diary. She stared at it for a brief moment, almost in shock at the sight of it.

Ethan stood watching behind her. ‘Have you ever read his diary?’

She quickly shook her head. ‘I haven’t even touched it.’ They had always respected each other’s privacy. It was a sign of trust that had resulted between them, gradually perfected over many years.

Carefully, for the first time, Laura grasped the diary with both hands and lifted the treasure from the chest. The documents scattered around it fell away like sand.

It was thick; as chunky as you would expect the width of a regular ruler to be. It was crammed not only with pages upon pages of diary entries scrawled in with ink, but it contained pages of scribbled paper, shoved awkwardly between random pages. Laura gripped the diary tighter.

‘These...’ she stuttered, ‘these can’t be.’ They are.

Ethan did not have to ask. ‘His writing?’

Laura could not manage a nod, staring nervously at pages untouched for what might feel to some as eternity.

Ethan followed her gaze and traced it back to the source. He felt perplexed at what possible emotions she could be embracing right now. He dare not ask. There had been enough questions so far.

It was time for answers.

‘Laura,’ he said, unable to murmur what he thought to say.

‘It’s okay,’ she replied wearily, ‘they are for another time. I don’t need to reminisce. Not yet.’ She then held out the diary to Ethan, only too glad for it to leave her fingers.

He accepted the diary in his hand, feeling the bulge of information inside paper stuffing. He felt a strange essence of insecurity as her husband’s secret treasure was now transferred into his grasp. Except this diary was merely another chest. The pages inside contained the real gold.

Laura stood up, seeing the frown imprinted on his face. ‘Don’t worry,’ she said. ‘I trust you, Ethan. You need to do this.’ She placed a hand on his shoulder. ‘I need you to do this. Find the reason you came here to me.’

‘If you have never touched it before,’ Ethan said, as Laura scratched her fingers against the rough surface of the denim, ‘how did you know where it was?’

Laura smiled. ‘If you were married to someone you love so dearly, you would understand.’

‘Every wife knows the location of her husband’s diary?’

She nodded. ‘But not every wife knows the contents of it. I allow my husband’s secrets to remain that way, even to me.’ She paused. ‘It is the only way to keep secure trust.’ She held the diary up towards Ethan. ‘That is why you must read it. Find what you are looking for.’

‘And are you ready to keep looking?’ Ethan asked.

‘I am,’ she said. ‘I am slowly getting there.’ She eyed the diary. ‘I suppose painting is like writing. It just takes time.’

‘Just like anything else, then.’

‘Yup.’ She thought about John lying in the hospital bed, wondering how much time he had left.

 

2

 

Ethan returned to the kitchen, with diary in hand. Laura returned to the living room, picking up the paint brush she had kept in a jar of dirty paint water on the mantelpiece.

Two weapons – the writers and the artists, with one common goal.

            Laura held her breath and winced as she imagined the creatures she had already begun to detail. They were horrific - soldiers carved out of shady-coloured acrylics.

Their shadow’s were twisted purples mixed with yellows and greys, blended together to form what could be seen as toxic. They discoloured the roses into sickness as they soldiered by, marching towards the viewpoint Laura created in her imagination. They were the guardians of the cottage – well protected within her darkest fears.

            Steadying the grip on her brush, she dabbed it into a mixture of navy blue and black…

 

3

 

The diary remained closed on the kitchen table for quite some time. Ethan had to brew a second cup of coffee before he could even contemplate opening it. The smell of the sweet coffee accompanied his flaming curiosity for what lay inscribed those withered pages. He stared at the gold engraving of the word ‘DIARY’ across the middle of the front cover. He rubbed it under his itching thumb. It felt like a statement. Whatever lay inside is personal, pure and simple.

It was not for him to delve in to.

He looked towards the patio windows that looked over into Laura’s beautifully kept back garden. It was done with marvellous craftsmanship: a straight cobbled path led into a large circular stone arena where a patio table sat with its green crinkled cover across the top. Around the circle sprung radiant plant-life; purple lavenders clashed brilliantly with yellow dandelions that sparkled against the brushes of well-trimmed vibrant grass. At the back of the garden was a small wooden shed, fair coloured, with a dark mahogany door that stood next to a square-frosted window.

            But what if he were meant to delve in?

            Ethan’s attention was immediately drawn back towards the diary. What if John wrote an entry with me in it? After all, that’s why it’s here. He went to open to front cover, but his other hand immediately clamped it shut again like a mousetrap. This is impossible, he thought, what if I’m not mentioned?

            But you are. You have met John.

            That is not to say he thought it important enough to write it!

            Not wanting to debate with his own thoughts again (as the feeling of what could be insanity started to settle), Ethan blinked and restored concentration on the diary. His mind felt more at ease with one thought.

            She wants me to look. She has kept his world a secret within his diary. She has chosen me to venture into that world. He was surprised at what he considered next.

I owe it to her.

            He slowly turned the front cover over, trudging through layer upon layer of paper until he reached the first page that read ‘MAY’ in large bulky letters.

            He gulped. Better start reading.

            He started from the first entry and continued on, skimming through each sentence for a mention of himself: a name; a description of a new face; any sort of detail that would lead Ethan to believe that John had been referring to him.

            But at first he found nothing. There were consistent entries of his hours at work in the office, specific events like trips to publishing houses or meetings with senior editors and lower staff for upcoming projects. Most of these were written carefully with a fine black ink; words were placed with military position across the lines of the page. These were few and far between; they only concerned highly important events, which suggested to Ethan that he did not take his diary with him to work all the time.

The ink and the style would change when anything referred to his tube journeys in and out of Central London (as much as John loved to drive, trying to park in the very heart of London just for an hours meeting was not always worth the patience); these entries were messy and scrawled with a cheap biro he must have carried round with his diary. These entries were also fairly short for good reason; keeping your face pressed within a diary for too long grows the possibility of having a valuable possession removed whilst on the London Underground.

            The best entries, those Ethan found easy to read, were those that mentioned the house, or ‘my beautiful, gorgeous wife, Laura.’ These words looked as though they were written with such ease; they were written in the same cheap biro but each sentence looked and read as more relaxed. He used similar sayings over and over, like ‘I am at peace, here,’ or ‘I feel better here than at the office,’ which said something about the writing. No matter how many times Ethan admired the beauty of his entries of important editing meetings – that was all he could do. He could not take in the meaning of what was said, he was too distract by the neatness of it all. It felt so false, as though John were trying so hard to convince himself that all of those meetings were indeed as important as the words try to suggest they are.

            But the entries at home, surrounded by ‘comfort’ and ‘peace’ and his ‘darling wife’, the words felt so right. John was obviously content within his home. He felt more himself.

He also loved his wife very much. Ethan smiled. He was glad he was helping her.

This distracting thought nearly made him miss that crucial entry. He had to go back a few sentences before his mind caught up with his brain.

He gave an hmpf as he read the sentence over and over again. This was it. It made sense. What made him even more certain was the type of entry it was. It had been written on the tube; the sentence was constructed in quick blue handwriting. He had met John in London.

            The entry read:

 

Went to see Briggs again about the charges incurred to him from the first proofread. He was a little tetchy but he understood. Went to see Laura, my honey, at the old café, but she had been held up. I met a man whilst I waited, though. We had a good chat. I forget his name now (Eddy? Earl?), but he gave some good advice. Maybe I’ll bump into him soon.

 

The old café.

Ethan blinked.

‘The café on Oxford Street!’

 

4

 

He had been in a hurry.

            So many people crowded the pavements of one of London’s busiest streets – Oxford Street. With it being nearly a mile and a half long, it managed to cram over 300 shops, making it an ideal tourist attraction, especially with such places as Chinatown only a short walk away.

            But Ethan was not worried about Chinatown.

His train from London Liverpool Street was sooner than he had expected. He needed to get a tube from Oxford Circus Underground Station on the corner by Regent Street in the next two minutes or he would never stand a chance of getting there in time.

But boy was he cutting it fine. He still had another six blocks to travel. And people were not exactly exerting courtesy by diving out of his way.

Clutching several bags of shopping, he pushed his way through the crowd as quickly as he could, avoiding as much offence that the general public felt like throwing at him. But even if the streets had been completely clear, he still would not have made it on his train out of London (To where? Where was I going?); by the time he was two blocks away from Oxford Street Station, he realised it. He slowed down and moved himself to the side of the pavement, allowing the crisscrossing herd to charge past.

He was tired; all that running had taken a lot of his energy. He looked down at his body and felt disgraced at what he saw. I really should keep fit, he thought through fits of panting. He just never had the time. Not even for a tube to London Liverpool Street.

He reached into his jacket pocket and unfolded the scrunch of paper that was his train timetable. The time had been twenty-two minutes past three. The next train was at twenty-five minutes past four; Ethan knew he needed some time to kill before he made that train.

But what to do? Ethan had already hit the shops all the way down (Had I?) and had checked out some of the nearby tourist hotspots (When did I?). Besides, he was not in the mood to be rushing about everywhere again. So what to do instead?

Ethan’s answer came when he gazed up at the ‘Old Café’ sign above his head. What the hell, he thought. I might as well spend a little more. I’m broke, either way.

 

5

 

He entered the cafeteria and immediately smelt the pleasing aroma of bitterly-refreshing coffee. It was not an exceptionally big cafeteria; it felt like the downstairs floor of a house, with a varnished staircase in the far left corner of the room leading up to the men and women’s toilets. Ethan easily imagined a fireplace being installed in here, to complete the homely sensation.

            To no surprise, as with how it was outside, the café was crammed full of people, as they sat together around the abundance of wooden tables beside the front entrance and the two rectangular windows either side. Everyone here was mindlessly chatting: to friends; relatives; maybe complete strangers for all Ethan knew. But nearly everyone had a smile on their face. Within these walls, the world seemed more at peace compared to the jungle outside.

            He stood in the short queue leading to the counter at the back of the café. Whilst waiting to be served, he admired the rotating fans on the ceiling, providing a cool breeze through his hair and a pleasant chill down his body. He smiled as he felt his heart rate settle to a more acceptable level. He wiped the remainder of sweat from his forehead and relaxed.

            Closer to the front of the queue, he gazed around at the surrounding buzz of chatter and noticed how many couples there appeared to be in here. The most obvious ones were with children on their laps, most of which were being told off by both parents for misbehaving. The other obvious couples were those that leant across the table for a kiss, whilst holding each other’s hand like typical Hollywood romantics. Ethan had never felt disheartened by this sight, being a single man. He had always been intrigued by the power that love gave between two human beings. One day he hoped to have the same feeling, but he was happy as he was (Had I really been happy? I can’t quite remember…).

            There were the less obvious couples, those that could be considered as merely mutual friends of the opposite sex. Ethan was intrigued by them the most, for they were the two that sat together, opposite one another like couples do. They talk to each other and smile like couples do. They even confide about personal things to each other, as couples do. But what caused the mystery was that neither shared a hand or a kiss, or even a sign of romance.

Ethan had had a friendship like that in the past (Did I?) when he was just a teenager; he was friends with a girl named Janie. At one time they had been inseparable best friends, the kind that told each other everything. Well, almost everything.

When Ethan had realised he liked Janie more than just as friends, he had found he used to wonder at any time whether Janie had felt the same way back. Maybe they were friends because they were too scared to admit to the other their feelings. Or maybe they were just friends because that was all they ever could be.

They used to do so many things together, like going to the cinema or hanging out at each other’s houses every other day. But it was times like when they used to grab a quick bite to eat, or when they would have perhaps gone for a coffee, did Ethan start to wonder whether other people saw them as a couple. Perhaps if other people saw them that way, then maybe it was fate that they should be together.

Unfortunately, that had not been the way it turned out. The consequence of Ethan admitting his feelings to Janie had been for their friendship to go downhill ever since. As much as Ethan tried to patch things up, it only seemed to make things worse. Janie stopped calling him, he stopped calling her as much to make it seem like he was not interested in her anymore (even when he still was). Janie never went to his house anymore; Ethan never invited her over.

And that had been that. A friendship had been destroyed because of love. Ethan had become intrigued about love ever since. He wondered, whether these ‘are-they-or-aren’t-they’ couples were like him, always wondering whether each gazing eye, for a split second, considered them perhaps as lovers and not friends…

‘Sir? Can I help you?’

Ethan’s eyes immediately returned to the assistant, a young twenty-aged male with combed-back hair. He had made his way to the front counter without even realising it. ‘Sorry,’ he said, ‘miles away.’ He looked up at the large board of drinks available above the assistant’s head. He ordered a medium latte with a chocolate cookie. As he waited for his coffee to be brewed, he looked around again for any available tables. There were none; the place was still as stuffed.

            That was when he first saw John; the lonely needle amongst a coupled haystack. He sat at a table beside the window, with his fingers around a coffee mug as he gazed blankly through the mess of people outside. He wore an elegant black suit and tie over a white shirt, with neatly creased grey trousers. Ethan noticed how every dozen seconds or so he would gaze at his watch and the back out at the window again.

            This man is definitely coupled, he thought, as his latte was placed on the counter beside him.

 

6

 

Ethan paid the assistant and took his latte over to the man sitting alone by the window, carefully observing his facial expression. He did not want to interrupt an angry man having a quiet coffee. But his face told a different story. He looked anxious yet excited as well. As Ethan approached, not only did he realise how young the man was (he looked to be in his early twenties, as was Ethan), he saw how heavy his breathing was, constantly in and out through the mouth rather than solely through his nostrils. His quick glances out the window, up and down the passing pavement indicated he was definitely waiting for someone.

            This man was in love without a doubt. Perfect, Ethan thought, that gives us something to talk about.

            Ethan stood beside the man’s table and waited for him to make eye contact. As he nervously glanced up at him, Ethan gave a smile and said, ‘Sorry to interrupt, sir, but may I sit here? I promise I’ll be gone before your partner arrives.’

            The man blinked for a second as their eyes remained locked. But then he smiled and said, ‘Is it that obvious?’

            ‘Is what obvious?’ Ethan asked, playing dumb.

            The man looked out of the window again, smiling. He then looked back at Ethan and said, ‘Sure, sit down, I could use some company.’ As Ethan lowered his cup to the table and pulled out a chair, the man asked, ‘So what can I call you, mister?’

            ‘Ethan.’ No surname… ‘Yourself?’

            ‘John Henderson,’ he said formally.

Ethan suspected he was used to giving out his name that way, which, suggested by his suit, John was a proper businessman of some sort. He sat himself in the chair and shook hands with John. ‘Pleased to meet you John.’ He hated the small talk routine, but it was the only way he knew to get to know somebody. ‘So what are you doing here in London?’

            John gave a quizzical look. ‘I thought you already knew that.’

            Ethan smiled. ‘I mean in general, unless of course you always come to this café to meet...err…’

            ‘Laura,’ he said, ‘my beautiful flower.’ Ethan did not know if this meant they were married, but he thought it best not to pry too much into the life of a man he had only just met. Instead, he took a sip of his latte, as John went on: ‘No, you’re right, I’m here in London for other reasons also. I’m an editor for a firm just outside of the city, but we have a lot of clients here in Central London, as well as our hired proof-readers.’

            ‘Good stuff,’ Ethan replied, feeling a tad jealous. ‘I can only say I’m here to do a bit of shopping. Sounds boring, huh?’

            ‘Not at all,’ John said, looking towards the window. ‘You see most people come to London for the shops rather than for the attractions.’ He peered up and down the street again, as he drummed his fingers across the wooden table.

            Ethan suddenly felt awkward, as though John did not really want him sitting here in case Laura (I knew her before she knew me...) showed up any time soon.

As he was about to suggest that maybe he should leave, John faced Ethan and asked, ‘How did you know I was waiting for someone?’

Ethan said nothing for a moment, as he felt a little shocked. ‘Well,’ he said, before describing to him everything he had noticed about John whilst waiting in the queue: consistently checking his watch; the constant glances out of the window; even the heavy breathing Ethan noticed as he came to the table.

‘You saw all that?’ John replied.

‘You stand out pretty well in a room full of couples. It was hard not to.’

‘Well I do get a little nervous at times like this. I wonder if she’s okay. She’s been over twenty minutes late and I’ve only had one text to tell me she will be a little while.’

‘You also seem excited about seeing her.’

‘I sure am,’ John replied. ‘I love her to bits. She means everything to me.’ He paused. ‘You see, there’s this connection we both share that is just amazing…it’s...well it’s hard to explain.’

‘Love.’

‘Sorry?’

‘The connection you talk about,’ Ethan added, ‘it sounds like love to me.’

John leant back and smiled at him. ‘Something like that,’ he said. He then reached into his trouser pocket and pulled out his wallet. Ethan thought for a moment he was going to go and order another coffee, for he suddenly noticed that John’s mug was empty. But instead he pulled out a small passport photo and pushed it along the table towards Ethan. ‘This is her,’ he said, giving a smile that only a man with feelings of true love could ever express. ‘My Laura.’

Ethan picked up the photo and admired the young woman staring back at him. The first thing he thought of was how beautiful she was: her hair perfectly combed back; her round mesmerising eyes; her flushed cheek bones. He remembered saying she was beautiful to John as he regarded her smile. It was the same content smile that John had on his face as he sat opposite Ethan. ‘You two are made for each other.’ He then looked up at John and said, ‘You’re like most of the couples in this room.’

John grew intrigued. ‘How do you mean?’

‘Let me explain…’

 

7

 

Ethan recounted to John the obvious and less obvious couples he noticed as he queued in the cafeteria. He even subtly pointed to a few at the nearby tables: a blatant young couple holding hands; the middle-aged man (not so subtly) rubbing his partner’s legs up and down; and a young man and woman sitting together with smiles on their faces merely chatting away but each with beaming enormous smiles that mirrored the others.

‘But they’re not as likely a couple,’ Ethan whispered to John, as the young woman laughed hysterically at the young man’s funny story.

            ‘Why not?’ John asked, leaning in closer to Ethan.

‘They don’t have the look.’

‘What look?’

‘The look that lovers have – that your Laura has.’ Ethan than returned their attention to the passport photo of Laura. ‘Look at her eyes,’ he said. ‘I bet you anything that you were just outside that booth. You were saying something to make her smile, or something amusing, right?’

John smiled at the corner of his mouth, recalling the wonderful memory of that time. ‘Yeah,’ he replied, squinting an eye, ‘we were in our local shopping mall and I dared her to make some stupid faces in the passport photo machine.’

Ethan gave an inquisitive look as he bit into his cookie. He had never fully understood the logic of young lovers. He wished at some point in his life he would learn for himself.

‘Anyway,’ John continued, attempting to ignore Ethan’s expression, ‘she did do a few. She stuck her tongue out, flapped her hair, that sort of crazy thing. I was laughing so much. I kept trying to break her stupid expressions by making her laugh, too. I think I made a funny remark. I can’t remember what it was now but it just made her smile that way. It was my favourite of the four that were taken.’ He then smiled, showing his pearly teeth. ‘We put the other ones and some copies in a stupid scrapbook of silly stuff we did when we were young.’ He sniggered. ‘Sometimes it’s a shame we have to grow up.’

‘It is a shame,’ he replied after a while, noticing how two of the edges of the photo were cut jaggedly with scissors. He had been too busy gawking at this stranger’s wife to have even noticed such a miniscule detail. ‘But it must be wonderful to grow up with somebody.’

‘It is. I don’t know how I would be without Laura.’

(Probably the same way Laura is without you, now). ‘You’re lucky to have each other.’

‘What about yourself?’ John asked, taking the photo and placing it carefully into his wallet. ‘Have you got anyone to play the grow-up game with?’

Ethan shrugged. ‘I’m not a relationship kind of guy.’

‘Why do you say that?’

‘Women don’t seem to…get me.’ (I had been lying…they just never really saw me that way.)

‘Really?’

‘I don’t know (No, really, I didn’t). Maybe I’m just not born with the lover instinct.’ He then quickly recalled to John his relationship with Janie and recounted how things ended so badly between them.

‘I’m sorry to hear that,’ John replied. ‘That must have been hard on you.’

‘It was,’ he said. ’But you know what? I’m kind of glad it happened that way.’

‘Why?’

‘Well because it told me that I shouldn’t be chasing after girls, especially those that are my best friends. It made me own up to my own feelings and I’m damn proud I got the courage to admit how I felt. But it taught me an important lesson.’

John was caught on those last few words like a fish on a hook.

‘It told me that friendship is sometimes better than love. Friends have a different sort of intimacy that lovers do not have, unless of course you treat each other as friends.

‘Friendships are more likely to survive a rocky road of good and bad times, I think. As soon as you involve feelings in a friendship, things can become awkward. I know the only evidence I have for that is what has happened to me, but I think it’s true. I take it by the look on your face that that wasn’t how it happened with you and Laura.’

‘Not exactly like that, no,’ John replied. ‘We sort of just…happened! We met and instantly realised we were right for each other. It was like from an old Hollywood text-book of some kind, but that was how things came to be.’

He then glanced out the window again into the busy crowd. ‘Do you believe in true love…?’

‘Ethan.’

‘Sorry, Ethan, do you believe in that sort of thing?’

‘You mean like soul mates?’

‘Precisely.’ He focussed his attention more and more on the parade of people outside, as though they began to move in slow motion. ‘Soul mates,’ he said. ‘Two separate people, born in a world of a thousand busy Oxford Street pavements, can somehow find each other within that same busy world.’

Ethan laughed. ‘You mean like in a cafeteria?’

To Ethan’s surprise, John belted a laugh. ‘Exactly this cafeteria. Do you see what I mean?’

Ethan nodded. ‘I do.’

‘We found each other like it was the last two jigsaw pieces of a magnificently huge puzzle. We became one – part  of a bigger picture.’ He suddenly became weary. His eyes closed and his mouth folded into a frown. ‘I fear the rest of the puzzle will suddenly break, separating us from one another.’

‘You think so?’

‘I know so. If you have ever read anything about soul mates, Ethan, it is that two people are driven apart at the birth of life and their whole life is an attempt to bind together again. But the forces of nature will keep them apart as much as possible.’

‘Why?’

‘Because that’s how life was born and that is how it is.’ He leaned towards Ethan again. Ethan saw he was starting to sweat. ‘You want to know why I felt so anxious about meeting Laura? It’s because I fear something might have happened to her. I fear I’ll get a call from the mortician or somewhere telling me she’s been stabbed or…or seriously injured.’

Ethan shocked himself with what he said next. ‘Don’t think like that, John.’ he said. ‘Remember, even if a puzzle is broken, there’s always a chance two pieces will remain intact together.’ He smiled. ‘You are a hell of a lucky man, my friend. Maybe you deserve it, maybe you don’t. The point is…’

As he was about to say, ‘Don’t let go of it,’ John’s jacket pocket became alive with beeps and vibrations. He said it would be Laura as he reached into the pocket to find his mobile phone. Holding the hash key to unlock his phone, he found he had a new text message, from his one and only true love. It read:

 

I’m four blocks away. Finally got a parking space. Be with you shortly. Love yoooou XXX.

 

‘She’s nearly here!’ he spoke with delighted breath. He placed his phone back in his pocket and looked towards Ethan again. ‘It was very nice to have spoken to you, Ethan, but…’

‘Say no more, my friend,’ Ethan replied, as he finished off his warm latte and wrapped the remainder of his cookie in his napkin to take home (Home…). Stuffing it into his trouser pocket, he held out his free hand and said, ‘Hope to see you again, some time.’

John shook his hand gladly and said, ‘Me too. Have a safe trip to wherever it is you’re going.’

Two minutes after Ethan left the café, Laura had entered with a beaming smile on her face, the one that only John could match from ear to ear.

But Ethan had not seen that. He was on his way to London Liverpool Street with a half-eaten chocolate cookie to get a train to a destination he could no longer remember.

 

8

 

Ethan sat alone in Laura’s kitchen and felt the edges of his cold coffee mug, wishing now he could go back to the café at that time for real and warn John of what was to come. But he knew there would be no point; it would happen regardless.

            Because that was the fate for all soul mates.

            Ethan now believed what John had said to him then, what Laura had said to him not so long ago. They were soul mates who had found each other amongst the crowd, only to have the world crash around their ears. John had been so worried about Laura back then in the café that he had not thought of his own safety.

            His life was in jeopardy.

            And Ethan was responsible for it.

            I remember his face now…

            It was all coming back to him now, for Ethan discovered in a crummy corner of his memory that he had met John one other time.

            Less than 48 hours ago.

9

 

There had been the distinct smell of burning rubber and suffocating smoke; and the mighty feeling of nervousness as his heart raced at an exponential rate. There was also the feeling of consistent, throbbing pain.

But what did it all mean? Ethan’s memory of the second time he met John was scratched, scrambled and shattered. There were details that seemed to fit with no other information. But they all missed the important details that would fit it all together, like the main attraction photographed on a jigsaw box.

Concentrate, Ethan. Concentrate on what you know.

John.

That’s right. John.

And the image of John’s face for their second meeting suddenly explained a hell of a lot, something he wished he did not have to face.

Everything turned blank.

He was standing on a road side, listening to the distant sound of a lonely stretch of tarmac.

His face...

Ethan looked down at himself inside his memory and saw slight blood stains dribbling down the front of his shirt. He checked for the source of bleeding. It was coming from his face. His right cheek felt heavily bruised and his nose was bleeding deep crimson across his lips. It tasted bitter.

He closed his eyes.

Look at him!

‘I…I can’t…this can’t be happening.’

No…not now, but it did.

Ethan struggled to open his eyes and see the wreckage that awaited him. Time froze still inside his mind. The sounds dissipated along with everything else. It was now merely a painting, lifeless in all aspects.

What lay about ten metres before him was a heavily crumpled black Nissan Micra that lay diagonal to the main road at the road side. The right of the car was smashed inwards. The front right door was completely concaved.  Its window had smashed, leaving only icicles of glass along the bottom of the window frame. The front tyre that had faced the impact had now become slanted inwards.

Ethan looked away, trying to blank out the demolition he had just witnessed. Instead, he saw another ruin: his red Rover, on the other lane next to central carriageway. The bonnet was arched upwards in the middle like an arrow. The front headlights were shattered and pressed into the car like bellybuttons. The license plate was hanging from a screw thread.

Ethan calibrated what must have happened. ‘I must have knocked him across the road.’

That’s not all you did.

 Without a sound around him, Ethan faced the Micra and gradually walked towards the wreckage.

I can’t look!

You can!

Ethan walked to the front of the car, where the windscreen had become frosted. Dark smoke blew from the car bonnet. He could not quite make out at first the driver, still sat motionless in the driver’s seat.

This was bad – really bad.

He went around the car towards the driver’s seat and peered through the gaping wound in the door.

There he was: his head rested awkwardly on his chest; his eyes and mouth were shut; his forehead was completely bruised and scratched; blood bubbled and seeped from the right side of his head above his ear. It was a horrible sight to behold.

‘I’m so sorry, John. I never meant for this to happen.’

Before he could walk away, his memory spoke to him.

Look towards the steering wheel.

Why?

You did at the time. You saw something.

Ethan turned his attention, only too glad to look away.

But what he saw made him feel worse.

Clear against the black leather interior, John had stuck a small passport photo of his beloved, his one and only, beautiful Laura, who smiled the smile that only true lovers could have.

Ethan’s heart sank.

Everything returned.

 

10

 

Ethan came to from the nightmare and sat upright, alone in Laura’s kitchen. The truth was starting to settle in. He could not deny it. It could not deny him. There was nothing that could be said, except for one thing:

            ‘I put John in his coma,’ he whispered, as he thought of how he was going to pan this story to Laura.

            I’m so damn sorry, Laura.

            Ethan started peeking holes into what had happened after the accident. He was not there for long. He had got back in his car and drove as quickly from the scene as he possibly could. But what happened to his car? He could not remember. It suddenly dawned on Ethan that he had experienced amnesia from the crash. He could not remember a great deal of what happened directly after the accident. But what was stranger was that Ethan could hardly remember anything that happened before the accident as well. A combination of retrograde and anterograde amnesia: his whole life had been eradicated.

            But he focussed again on what might have happened after he left the car. The only true memory he had next, where it seemed his life had been reborn, was where he found himself in front of a hospital, in a place where he did not know, for reasons he was uncertain.

            And yet he did know. Something had led him to that hospital: John in a coma; his guilt; Laura.

            Who am I, exactly?

            He knew who he was, the sorry b*****d that had wrecked Laura Henderson’s perfect life less than 48 hours ago. But he had been given a chance to make amends. After all, that was why he was here in the first place. But it made little sense to him.

            But something was becoming clear. The passport photo John had taped to the interior beside his steering wheel, the one he had kept within his wallet the first time they met. That was how he knew how to find her.

            Which could only mean one thing.

            Ethan reached into his jean pocket and pulled out his wallet. Unzipping the front wafer-thin compartment of it, he reached in with his thumb and index finger and found exactly what he was looking for.

            As the memories after the accident started to return, Ethan could not help but smile.

            The photo of Laura smiled longingly back at him.

 

11

 

Ethan waited for Laura to return after finishing The Cottage. He did not know if it would take minutes, hours or days, but no matter what he was willing to wait. He owed it to her. He owed so much.

            He thought considerably of the ways in which he could recall his story to Laura, the ways he could discourse the accident in ways that would shed the blame away from himself and onto simple fate. But that is not what happened. He was to blame. If he were not, he would not be here now, holding a gift that may potentially lead John back to reality.

            His coffee mug became stone cold, as he held it between his hands, which shook more and more with anxiety as every minute passed. He listened out for Laura, for any sense of movement: a creak of a floorboard; a sound of a paintbrush thrown tiresomely into sloshing water; perhaps even the words ‘Finished!’ passed from her lips. He thought to go to her himself, to break the silence and get this over and done with. But he could not disturb her. She needed all the concentration she could muster in order to depict the painting that petrified her the most.

            Instead he waited.

            But luckily not for long.

 

12

 

Laura leaned back on her stool, making conscious effort not to fall backwards completely. But there was a concoction of fear and buzzing excitement running through her body in mixed proportions. She had done it. The Cottage had been built.

            The painting that would unlock the whereabouts of here husband was ready to be entered. But she could not stare at it a moment longer. Ultimately she could not go through this alone. Placing her brushes and paints aside, Laura clambered off the stool and went to see Ethan in the kitchen.

            She found Ethan in a state she had hoped to see him in – one that had an answer, whether it was good or bad.

            She was about to speak, to tell him that the end was in sight, but then she stopped, seeing the tears that ran down Ethan’s cheeks and dropped bit by bit into the cold mug between his palms, collecting rain in a bucket. Something told her she was not going to like the answer she was about to receive.

            He pushed the mug away and beckoned Laura over to the table. She sat down beside him and placed his shaking hands in hers, warm and painted.

            ‘Tell me,’ she said, allowing a gentle smile to form on her face. But that smile soon disappeared, replaced by the smiling image of herself, displayed on a passport photo she noticed upon his lap.

            ‘I am so sorry, Laura,’ he said, trying desperately to keep himself together as he recognised the horror in her eyes.

            ‘What happened to him?’ she asked, gripping his hands harder with caring hatred.

 

13

 

He told her everything he could remember, from the time they met in London to the body of John sprawled across his seat, to how he had seen the passport photo of Laura taped beside the steering wheel and decided to take it with him.

            But there was more to tell.

            ‘I knew I needed to find you. I saw that image of you and realised that I would need to find you. I don’t fully understand what was going on in my mind at that time. I was being led to you and I followed blindly. At the time I did not understand why.’

            He told her of running from the accident like a coward, away from the screeching cars that came towards the scene minutes after the collision. Nobody realised he was the driver. He had escaped so easily and yet only now he began to understood.

            ‘I got away so I could find you. It is only now that I remember what happened next. I walked towards the nearest town, it must have only taken me twenty, maybe thirty minutes, but when I got there I followed the sound of a busy town centre crowd and looked for a clue that would lead me to you. It was a long shot, but I knew something was on my side. It had led me safely from the accident and with a photo of you in my hand. I walked along a busy high street, looking for an answer.

            ‘And it came to me. The heavy sound of twelve different televisions in an electrical shop window blasting the same channel – the local news of an accident on a nearby A road, with one unconscious man in a Nissan micra and an abandoned red rover.’

‘The news reporter stated: The police had identified the man as John Henderson, who has been diagnosed with a coma. He was taken nearly half an hour ago to the local hospital in Cherington. The wife of Mr Henderson is currently at the hospital and is said to be in much distress…

‘I asked several passers-by where the hospital was and eventually, after lying that I was John’s brother, one woman very kindly drove me to the hospital. That is when my memory for the accident suddenly fizzled out, as though the memory of it was no longer necessary.

‘I saw you at the hospital and knew I would need to speak to you alone. I was extremely anxious, as part of me did not really understand what I was doing there. I said I wanted to meet you at your home, in hope that I might learn why I was brought to you.

‘But the answer came sooner than expected. After I left, I asked for directions to Westwood Drive and started to hike in that general direction. On the way I took a stop in a local park and sat on a bench to clear my head. It was pretty empty for the time of day, kids were in school and most people were probably at work. I must have dozed off, because I then found myself experiencing the most surreal dream.

‘I dreamt of being in a room full of paintings. There were stacks and stacks of canvases around me, placed upon the floor and mounted upon various-sized easels. The window of the room shone an incredible white light over me.

‘And then I saw you. I saw you wearing dirty clothes, covered with splotches of bright-coloured paint. I saw the paintbrushes wielded in one hand and a coloured palette in the other. I saw the beautiful smile on your face as you looked at me and then over my shoulder to the canvas directly behind me.

‘I turned and saw a magnificent artwork of a field under a purple sky with images of young and older men dancing in a circle, holding hands with pure joy. I looked closer at their faces and realised they were the same person – John Henderson, your loving husband. This room was the view room that I knew I would find at your house. It was the first step into finding out why I was brought to you.

‘But the dream wasn’t over. It had one more clue to give. I heard you from behind he whisper something. I turned and faced you, asking what you said. You simply replied, ‘Touch it’. I turned back to the painting and took a step forward, wondering what was about to happen to me.

‘I touched the painting and everything became alive. I suddenly found myself amongst the picture; the yellow grass below my feet began to flicker in the invisible wind. The sky above began to turn and the clouds merged with one another. But what I found most exciting was the realism of the images of your husband moving together in front of me, how the older John’s tie bounced up and down on his shirt; the joyful expression on John’s younger self. Not only was it alive, it was real.

‘And I was ecstatic.

‘I understood then, surrounded by painted beauty, what had led me to you – the need to fulfil this newly-discovered gift. It had a purpose and it was obvious. From looking at the various paintings in the room, each depicting John in a different light I had only the need for myself to work out the reason. You painted John in many different forms. From the number of paintings there, you must have done this for a long time. I was here to bring these paintings to life, to find John amongst your paintings. It did not make complete sense to me at the time but I knew it made sense to the gift. I followed the gift and it led me towards my purpose.

‘But when I awoke from the dream, like with many dreams, I instantly forgot what I had dreamt of. But the gift remembered. It kept with me the reason for my being and what it was I was about to achieve. I then went to your house and found you fragile. But I was eager and hungry to fulfil my purpose.’

He found he could say no more, as he waited for a reaction from Laura. She had listened intently the whole time, clinging on to rope a cliff edge. She had given no sense of hate or indication of bloodshed emotion. She waited patiently for every sentence to be formed.

And as the room grew silent, Laura gave her answer.

She leant over to Ethan and kissed him hard on the lips.