Thank you to everyone who tuned in for Sunday night’s reading at the TIF summit. It was a fantastic experience (lots of kind comments) and a little nerve-wracking. That said; it’s something I enjoyed doing and I plan to do it again in the future.
Here’s the full story below.
It was a simple order, hand-written on a slip of paper and pushed into the hardbacked spine of The Great Gatsby. Tim discovered it when he picked up the library book from his nightstand, ready for his three-page stroll before bed.
“YOU HAVE 20 LETTERS TO WRITE A WISH ON THE REVERSE SIDE. IT WILL COME TRUE. MAKE EVERY ONE COUNT.”
Tim chuckled as he passed it to Aliana. She put on her glasses and peered down. The action caused her chin to dip and wobble as she mouthed the words, frowning. Tim smiled to himself. Aliana was vain, forever looking for the best angle in the mirror. Over the years, her beauty regime had broadened to gels, pots, creams, false nails and blow-dried hair. Since she had turned fifty, it had accelerated to lipstick at breakfast. So, now Tim treasured these small moments of ugliness before sleep. It was a private intimacy only he got to see.
“It’s an old-fashioned chain letter,” Aliana pronounced. “Probably from a poor secondary student who had to suffer through the book before you.”
Aliana was not a fan of Tom’s reading, mostly because he shared it with her. He was on a classics binge. She preferred her TV crime dramas. There was one frozen, mid-scream, right now on her touchscreen iPad.
“Why bother stuffing it in the spine?” he asked her. “Doesn’t everyone post ten-second TikTok memes now instead?” Aliana motioned to throw the strip away, and he hastily plucked it back. Despite its ill-treatment, the paper was smooth as though it had just been separated from its scribble pad. The edges were jagged in the same way movie stars had designer stubble; the fake scruffiness needled his fingertips.
“It’s almost a time capsule,” he went on. “Like something from the 80s. It’s a pity to throw it away. I’ll make a note and leave it for the next reader.”
“More like book graffiti,” Aliana muttered. She was already back on her screen, and Tim could hear the squeal of tyres from a car chase. Shrugging, he flipped the paper over and wrote in capital letters “NEW CAR.” Satisfied, he slid the paper back into its hiding place and started reading.
‘In my younger and more vulnerable years…’
The next day was Saturday, which meant getting up for the dental clinic he ran at weekends, with a mug of tea on a tray for Aliana. Clinic times ran from eight-thirty, which meant being on the road for seven. Usually, it was a quiet trip into the city centre, but today there was a domino effect of irritations: roadworks, cyclists, a diversion due to flooding, then more roadworks. At eight-sixteen, he had made it to the outer suburbs of the city, swearing in time with the radio songs. At eight thirty-five, he swerved into the reserved parking space outside the clinic’s doors next to the disabled bay and the cycle rack. He made it into reception huffing, with muttered apologies to Sue, the weekend receptionist and his first client, a teenage girl with her mother. Sue looked relieved, the mother looked annoyed, and the girl was head down on her phone.
Tim edged between them, wishing - not for the first time - that he had taken up that gym membership with Aliana. The paunch was growing faster than his bank account. “Give me a moment, Mrs Bertrund,” he said, trying for cheer and settling for efficiency. The horrible commute had robbed him of his set-up time, not to mention his second coffee. The day was going downhill; he could feel it.
“Aye, Mr Danvers,” the mother said with raised eyebrows. He could almost read the thoughts rolling off her brain in a self-righteous heat. ‘Two referrals, a ten-month wait and a thousand-pound loan to get Grace’s teeth done, and now the consultant was late. Disrespectful, that’s what it is.’
“I need to review the paperwork and arrange the X-ray,” he said out loud, before escaping to the treatment room.
It turned out he would do neither. Because, from outside the window came the squeal of tyres against the tarmac, followed by a grinding crunch of metal and a muffled thud against the clinic’s wall. The window-panes shook, and dust drifted down from the ceiling.
Sue and Mrs Bertrund stood in pale silence, whilst Grace looked up with mild disinterest.
“Stay there,” he warned them. He went outside to survey the mess.
His Volkswagen was a write-off, with the front mashed into the brick wall of the clinic and the left-hand side a mosaic of glass, metal and paint on the floor. The assailant’s car was in oddly better shape; it was a Mercedes-Benz with scratches on the grill and a wrecked bumper. The driver was unconscious, face down on the airbag. Tim could see a trickle of blood edge down the side and a mass of of dark-brown hair.
There was a squeal of tyres and two more cars came around the corner. A blue BMW and a silver Jaguar coupe. A tanned woman with ombre hair erupted from the Jaguar, and three men from the BMW with various states of scruffy beards and jeans. She said something rapid and incomprehensible to the men, who dragged the driver out of the crashed Mercedes and into the boot of the BMW. Tim watched, open-mouthed, as they recovered two small black courier bags from under the driver’s seat and a shotgun. One of the men casually pointed in Tim’s direction. For a moment, the world slowed down. He could feel his mouth dry up, even as he choked something out - a plea, a denial? - whilst the fear fizzed down his body towards his bladder.
“Sctuzp!” The sound came from the woman - something between a rebuke and a cat’s hiss - causing her minion to step back and shoulder the gun. He glanced at the door and Tim realised through his haze, that Sue and both the Bertrunds were peering out.
The gang’s woman approached. Despite the weather and the early morning start, her make-up was point-perfect, as though she were about to start a photoshoot. She looked vaguely European - as though she had come from the Czech Republic or one of the border states. “Your car, hmmm?” she asked, waving her hand at the wrecked Volkswagen.
“Um, yes, I should call…”
“The police, yes. After we leave. Give us - uh - thirty minutes?” She pointed to the Jaguar: a silver hymn of 300 horsepower designed to prompt a mid-life crisis in dentists everywhere. “You can have this. Green papers in the front, to tell the Government. A gift to compensate. All legal.”
She patted the roof as though she were taking her leave of the metal beast and gracefully got into the BMW. The driver’s seat, he noticed. The rest of her crew followed, via the passenger doors. The guy with the gun was last. Doors slammed, the engine started…and they were gone.
After a moment, Tim walked into the clinic on legs that weren’t quite his own. “Everyone OK?” he asked shakily. He looked at the clock on Sue’s desk; 8:55 am. He’d only been at work for twenty minutes. It somehow felt like a lifetime.
“We’re fine,” Sue said, scrutinising him with concern. “You?”
“Um. Yes.” Tim felt for the nearest chair and sat down, as his body started to crash from the adrenaline high. Fear-purging, that’s what the Greeks called it, after battle. The odd fact, swimming up from memories of The Iliad, made him want to laugh. “Coffee and police, I think. I’m sorry, Mrs Bertrund, but we may have to postpone Grace’s fitting.”
In the end, it took two hours to get a police response out, once the operator had been reassured no-one was left on site who was hurt. In that time, Tim was able to down two more cups of coffee, take an x-ray and measure Grace’s upper plate for her braces. The male constables, when they finally came, barely looked like they were out of school. They took pictures, asked for licence plates (no one could remember) and swiped most of Sue’s biscuit assortment as they recorded statements.
“Looks like the Albanians,” the taller one of them said at one point. “Probably drugs.”
“Why did they leave the car?” Tim asked. It had been bothering him. “They could’ve just shot me.”
The constable shook his head. “As soon as a gun is involved, the prison sentences get higher. Right now, it’s just a car crash and - potentially - possession of an illegal firearm. That’s a slap on the wrist and a community order. If we could prove intent to endanger life, the gang would be looking at five years or more. Playing nice and offering the Jag is their get-out-of-jail card.”
“So what do I do about it?” Tim asked.
The two policemen looked at each other and shrugged. “If you’ve got the logbook, it’s yours,” the short one replied. “It’s not directly involved in any crime, and we’ve checked it on the database - it’s not reported as stolen. You’ve got witnesses saying she verbally gifted it to you. We’ll check there’s nothing dodgy inside before we go.”
And that seemed to be that.
Tim had far more trouble convincing Aliana, when he drove up to their house in the silver intruder.
“I can’t believe they let you keep it,” she kept saying, stunned. “For free!”
That was the key word she kept repeating; free.
Tim shrugged. “Hardly free. I’ve spent most of the afternoon sorting insurance and ringing around garages to take away the wreck.” Now that the shock had worn off, he was a little sour over how much paperwork had been involved. Most crime dramas just skipped over that part. The thought of paper triggered another musing. “It’s like that wish I wrote down last night. The chain letter.”
Aliana tipped her head to one side. “Let me get this right, you crazy, crazy man. You asked to get caught up in a gangster car cash?”
“No - who would want that? I asked for a new car.”
Of course, that precipitated more questions, the fetching of the book and Aliana scrutinising the strip of paper from every angle (over a glass of wine, of course, as it was Saturday and Tim had given her a shock).
“It still looks like a student’s joke,” she announced, flattening under her palms on the table.
“Probably,” Tim agreed.
“But stranger things have happened.”
“Well, they are happening. We got the Jag outside to prove it.”
Aliana glared at him and took a slurp from her wine glass. “But that just a coincidence. Correlation and causation and all that bollocks. No; I suggest we do this properly, with something that can’t be luck.”
“What do you suggest?” Tim asked. He didn’t like the look of barely concealed glee on Aliana’s face.
“It’s a chain letter, after all. So, I’ll write something down and stick it in my book. If it works - well: then we’ll know.”
“What are you going to write?” Tim felt like a pit was opening up at his feet as his wife fumbled on the kitchen side for a pen and stopped over the paper, pushing her glasses back on her face.
“Something good,” she said, after a pause. “Something you can only get from a real wish.” She took a moment to outline the letters, breathing hard, then pushed the result over to him.
Under his words was now: “NEW FACE.”
Smugly, she got out one of her cookery books from the cupboard and slid the slip inside. “This’ll be interesting.”
The pit was yarning now and Tim swore he heard something chuckle in the darkness.
“Yes dear,” he said, praying they would both be proved wrong.
*
Nothing happened overnight. Tim woke up to an empty bed and Aliana sitting at her dressing table, rubbing in moisturiser. “Still me,” she said, meeting Tim’s eye with a mock scowl.
“I’m glad it’s still you,” he said lazily. “Why are you up?”
“I promised Kate I would help her set up a stall at the local park run today. I’ll be back in an hour.”
Tim dove back under the covers. “Good luck, then. Why don’t you take the Jag? Drive everyone crazy with curiosity?”
Aliana brightened up at that. “Really? Well - why not? Am I insured on it?”
“Did it yesterday,” he mumbled.
*
Sunday morning ritual meant a trip to the local shop for a print newspaper, coffee, and Eggs Benedict. Tim left Aliana’s plate and portion ready to cook on the side, keeping an anxious ear out for the Jaguar’s growl. It was taking much longer for her to return than he had thought. By 10am his imagination had raced from kidnapping and road crashes to Aliana losing track of the time. By 11am, he was typing and deleting texts in a fit of indecision. Aliana hated neediness. She was probably driving back, then and there.
At 11:30, he broke and phoned her. No answer.
He called Kate, next. No answer there, either. The phone rang out.
Heart racing, he called up the Facebook page for the local park run. There was a new post.
“URGENT
There was a chemical attack today at today’s race, resulting in a number of injuries. Our thoughts are with the organisers and injured runners at this time. The police are on the scene and appealing for witnesses. Please call them on 01456 723444, if you saw or heard anything. The attacker has been apprehended. Police are treating this as a terrorist incident.”
Tim swore out loud and tried Aliana’s phone. Still nothing, but his efforts were interrupted by an unlisted incoming number.
“H-hello?”
“Mr Danvers? I’ve got you listed as the next of kin for Aliana Danvers.”
He pressed the tips of his fingers against his forehead. Please let her be alive.
“I’m her husband.”
“I am Dr Williams. I’m sorry to say your wife was brought in by ambulance an hour ago, with extensive burns to her face and torso. We’re doing our best to stabilise her, but it’s going to require surgery.”
“Will she be all right?”
There was a pause.
“There’s been a lot of damage. We’ll know more in a few hours. If you make your way to the hospital, I’ll be happy to brief you in person.”
“Right….right. I’ll be there.”
Tim clicked off the phone, unseeing. His eyes darted around the room; the potted flower clippings on the windowsill, the messy fruit bowl and the magnets on the fridge door. All evidence of Aliana: the home they had built. His eyes came to rest on the cookery book, still on the worktop where she had left it.
In a fit of rage, he picked it up and threw it against the opposite wall. The book slapped the framed picture of them both, breaking the glass screen and falling to the floor with thump. The chain letter slip fluttered free from the crushed pages, coming to rest under his chair.
Tim picked it up. He thought about tearing it up: burning it maybe.
Something - anything that could undo this terrible morning.
He looked at the sentence again. Twenty letters. Make every one count. And underneath:
NEW CAR
NEW FACE
Seven letters left.
He picked up the pen - the same one Aliana had used to seal her fate; and paused.
The pen hovered for a long time.
How long, he couldn’t say. How long do you need to define a lifetime in just seven letters?
Finally, it descended, and he wrote. It wasn’t really a wish the chain letter could grant, but at least it would prevent something worse from happening. A tear dropped down from his cheek, smearing the final R. He hastily blotted it; he had not even been aware he had been crying.
With weary care, he picked up the cookery book again and placed the paper at the centre fold. The words stared back at him; a statement of stark intent.
They said: LOVE HER.
