by Daniel Hurst
It’s all very innocent and innocuous, and I would have stopped reading it a long time ago if it wasn’t for the fact that I know the two people involved so intimately. As it is, I am reading on feverishly, desperate to know exactly how this little love story between Anna and Craig developed. But just like a good film can be spoilt if you go into it knowing the ending beforehand, so too can a diary lose its magic if you know how the story ends. While I don’t yet understand what happened between my husband and my best friend before I met either of them, I do know what became of them. Anna is in a graveyard, and Craig is on the other side of this locked door.
The question is, how did we get here?
55
CRAIG
2005
This house party sucks. The music is crap, and we have to keep the noise down because of the neighbours. I can’t wait to finish sixth form and get to university. The parties there will be epic. Much better than this.
But at least Anna is here.
Not that it means anything. I still haven’t plucked up the courage to go and speak to her yet. I can see her now across the room, standing by the window and holding a plastic cup as she talks with one of her friends. She looks gorgeous, and she has already caught me looking at her a few times. But she doesn’t seem to mind it. She always seems to smile at me.
I just need to do something about it.
I’m not entirely inexperienced with the opposite sex, but I’m not exactly a Casanova either. But I’m only seventeen, so I have time on my side. The problem is, I’m impatient. I want to make a move on Anna before this house party is ended abruptly by the neighbours calling the police. I just need to find the courage.
I just need to drink more alcohol.
Heading into the kitchen, I see the host of the party sitting at the table surrounded by empty cups and half-filled bottles. He’s looking a little worse for wear as I reach over him and pour myself another drink.
“Good party?” he asks me, his bleary eyes probably not even registering who it is that he is talking to right now.
“Awesome,” I tell him, not wanting to ruin whatever buzz he currently has going on in his body.
“That’s good,” he says, before putting his head down on the table, presumably to stop the room from spinning, or maybe just to go to sleep.
Downing my drink, I cringe at the bitter taste of the strong liquor before pouring myself another one and preparing to go back into the other room to try and talk to Anna. But when I turn around, I see that she has already followed me in.
“Is there a drink for me?” she asks me.
“Of course!” I reply, quickly scrambling to pour her a drink of her own. But in my haste, I end up knocking over several cups, including my own, and the table is now covered in sticky alcohol.
“Don’t worry, I’ve got this,” she tells me, grabbing some kitchen roll and helping to mop it up.
The host at the table doesn’t look up as we wipe down around him, and he is either asleep or soon will be. With the mess quickly taken care of, Anna pours herself a drink, and I expect her to walk away and out of my life again. But instead, she asks me if I want to go outside.
“Yeah, definitely!” I say with a big grin on my face, failing miserably at playing it cool.
Stepping out into the back garden, I instantly feel the chill in the night air, but I make sure not to say anything or even shiver, lest Anna thinks of me as a wimp and goes back inside before we have had more of a chance to talk.
“So how are you finding sixth form?” she asks me, before sipping her drink and fixing me with her beautiful eyes.
“It’s alright,” I reply, shrugging my shoulders. “Better than school.”
She laughs a little, which is music to my ears, even though I wasn’t aware that I had said anything funny.
“It’s miles better than school. But I can’t wait to go to uni.”
“Me too! Where are you thinking of going?”
I bite my tongue, aware that I am coming off as way too keen. She’s just come over to say hi, yet I’m already asking where she is planning to go to university as if I’m some stalker who will follow her around the country wherever she might end up. But then she smiles, and I can see that she isn’t put off by my enthusiasm. In fact, she seems to like it.
“I’m not sure yet. Either Bristol or Leeds. But I need to get the grades first.”
I’m disappointed with her answer because I’m planning on staying closer to home and continuing my education in Manchester. But I do my best not to show it.
“Cool,” I say, sipping my drink and trying to look hot.
“What about you?” she asks me. “Oxford or Cambridge?”
I laugh at her joke a little too hard and just about manage to stop myself before booze comes flying out of my nose.
“Not quite. I’ll be applying to Manchester.”
“Well, that’s almost the same.”
We share a smile. This seems to be going well.
“What are you planning on studying?” I ask, genuinely interested to learn more about her.
“Art,” she replies, and her answer seems perfect because someone this beautiful shouldn’t be chained to a desk in an office. They should be in a gallery surrounded by equally beautiful works of art.
“And you?”
“Finance,” I reply, hoping that my answer doesn’t put her off.
“Wow, we have a banker on our hands!”
“I’m just going for the social life,” I say, trying to regain any street-cred that I might have lost since revealing that I am going to spend the next three years of my life pouring over financial textbooks.
“I bet you are.”
We share another smile. Actually, it’s more than that.
It’s a moment.
“Are you going to kiss me?” she asks me, as if it’s the most obvious question in the world.
“Okay,” I reply, because that is the most obvious answer in the world.
Then our lips touch, and if I hadn’t been in love before, then I certainly was then.
56
CRAIG
I took out my frustration on the squash court. Danny never stood a chance. The poor guy doesn’t know what just hit him, nor does he know the real reason for why I just played as hard as I did. It’s because it’s the hardest day of the year for me.
It’s Anna’s birthday.
She would have been thirty-two today. Like all the birthday’s since she passed, I like to think about what she would have looked like now as she aged. Still beautiful, no doubt. More confident, perhaps. More assured in herself, most definitely. I also wonder where she would have been at with her artwork. Probably running a large gallery in Manchester or London and probably making good money from selling her paintings to art lovers from all over the country. She was so talented.
It feels like such a waste.
When I’m feeling down, like I am today, I think about what she would have been like as a mum. She had so much love to give; it’s terrible to think that she will never hold a baby in her arms and cradle it to sleep. More specifically, I think about what she would have been like as the mother to my children. It would have been perfect. A boy and a girl. Me at work and her looking after them, not because of any sexist stereotypes, but because she would have done a far better job raising them than I ever could have hoped to. An idiot like me is best sitting behind a desk pressing buttons on a keyboard, not nurturing young and vulnerable life. Alas, I will never know what Anna would have become, nor will I ever experience what it is like to have kids.
I lost my interest in a family on the day I lost her.
“Is everything alright at home?” Danny asks me when we are back in the locker room after my easy win on the squash court.
“Fine,” I reply, peeling off my sweaty t-shirt and opening my locker. “Why do you ask?”
“You just seemed a bit pissed off out there.”
“Everything’s fine,” I say, repeating the word as if th
at will make it more believable. Then I grab my towel and head for the shower before he can ask me any more questions. I don’t want him prying. I don’t want him asking about my personal life.
I don’t want him suspecting that my wife is locked away in the garage.
Megan has been inside that room for six weeks now. Six weeks of me bringing her one meal a day. Six weeks of her sleeping on that camp bed and me sleeping upstairs. But that’s nothing. It’s been many years since I lost Anna.
Six weeks is just a mere speck on the timeline of my life.
Twisting the handle on the wall, I feel the cold water hit my sweaty face. The water temperature will heat up in a few seconds, but for now, I am happy to stand and freeze. It’s painful, but then so is life. We can’t be comfortable forever.
Some things get better.
But some things only get worse.
57
MEGAN
I have to believe that things will get better. I have to think that there will be good times for me on the horizon again. I can’t just give up and accept that it is over.
I have to keep fighting.
With that in mind, I haul myself off the camp bed and cross over to the treadmill. I’ve been using it every day, and I’m almost beginning to enjoy it. I never thought I would say that about exercise, but then again, I’m not the same person that I was six weeks ago.
Setting up a ten-minute session at a light pace, I feel the treadmill begin to move under my feet, so I start jogging. I’m doing it in bare feet but getting an injury is the least of my worries now. I need to keep moving. I need to stay active.
If Craig expects me to just curl up on the camp bed and accept my fate, he has another thing coming.
As I run, I think about the diaries that I have been reading ever since Craig left them in here for me to peruse. I’ve read through the part when Craig and Anna got talking at the house party and have learnt about the early days of their courtship. I forced myself to keep reading when she described the first time they had slept together, and I even managed to keep turning the page when she started spouting off idealistic dreams about what the future had in store for her and her new boyfriend. Now I’m up to the bit where she is preparing to go off to university, and I imagine this is where things aren’t quite so perfect for the young couple. I know that Anna went down south to Bristol because she told me that. But I also know that Craig stayed up north to study in Manchester, so that would have been the first real test of their blossoming relationship. I wonder how things will develop.
I will find out after my workout. I can’t spend all day reading the diaries, even though I know that is what Craig will be expecting me to do.
He has surprised me.
But if I carry on like this, then it won’t be long until I get to surprise him.
58
CRAIG
2006
They say absence makes the heart grow fonder, and it is certainly true in my case.
I just hope the same is true for Anna.
I have been missing her every day since she went down to Bristol. It’s only three hours to get there on the train from Manchester, but we agreed that we wouldn’t see each other all the time. Instead, we have decided to meet up halfway through the first term, when she will come back up north and spend a weekend with me here in my halls. But that’s still a couple of weeks away, and it feels like forever.
All I can think about is how she must have met another guy. I’ve certainly met plenty of girls since starting uni, not that I have gone any further with them than polite conversation. I have a girlfriend, and I have made sure everybody knows it. But has Anna been as restrained? She must be getting a lot of attention from the guys in Bristol. Maybe there’s somebody on her course that she has found herself sitting next to on several occasions. Or maybe there is somebody in her halls who she is beginning to develop a soft spot for. I wouldn’t blame any of the guys there for being attracted to my girlfriend, but what I want to know is if she is attracted to any of them? It would break my heart if she ended things with me, but I have to trust her when she tells me that she misses me as much as I miss her.
I’m sure we will be fine.
But only time will tell.
Then an idea comes into my mind. Maybe I could go down to Bristol and surprise her instead of waiting another couple of weeks for her to come up here. She would like that, wouldn’t she? I can’t see why not, so I instantly begin planning out the logistics of it.
My last economics class on a Friday ends at three, so I could be on a train from Manchester Piccadilly by four. That would mean I would arrive into Bristol in the early evening, probably getting to her university before eight with a bit of luck, although I have never been there so I will have to find my way. I already know the name of the halls she is staying in so finding that shouldn’t be a problem. Then all that will be left for me to do is surprise her with my appearance.
I hope she won’t mind me visiting her out of the blue. I am her boyfriend, after all. It would be considered romantic, I expect. I know I would certainly like it if she surprised me by coming to visit me unannounced.
My mind is made up. I’m going to Bristol.
Anna, I’m on my way to see you.
59
MEGAN
As much as I hate him right now, I have to admit that it was pretty sweet of Craig to go all the way to Bristol to surprise Anna. For someone who I have since learnt can be so cruel, he can also be exceptionally romantic. Anna seemed to enjoy the show of spontaneity from her boyfriend too, at least if her diary entry is to be believed.
She has written about how Craig walked into the kitchen of her university halls completely unannounced, startling her as she stood by the hob cooking pasta and chatting to her friends. She has also written about how she ran towards him and leapt into his arms, kissing his neck and telling him how amazing it was to see him.
Theirs really is a classic love story.
Just like I thought mine and Craig’s was.
I’ve had enough of reading this diary for one night. The light is still on, but I’m ready for complete darkness again. Hopefully, Craig will turn it off soon. Or maybe he will leave it on to disturb my sleep.
It depends on how spiteful he is feeling today.
Closing my eyes, I lay my head down on my pillow and silently pray to sleep through all the way until the morning when I will hopefully be another day closer to getting out of here. But then I hear footsteps on the other side of the door and my eyes open, peering towards the small gap at the bottom of the door.
I can see two dark shapes blocking out some of the light and know that they are Craig’s shoes as he stands by the door and listens in. He does this sometimes, mainly when he is bringing me food. I wonder if he is going to unlock the door and give me something to eat, even though he already gave me some rice earlier today. But then the dark shadows leave, and I hear him walking away. Five seconds later, the light in the garage goes out.
He isn’t coming back in today.
I roll back over on my pillow, relieved that I won’t have to deal with him again until tomorrow. He is probably expecting me to be disappointed about him not coming in, but I won’t give him that satisfaction. I presume he is on his way up to bed now, looking forward to a good night’s sleep in our lovely double bed. Or maybe he is going to relax on the sofa for a while and watch a movie, his choice of viewing no longer influenced by whatever I suggest we watch instead. I’m sure he’s having the time of his life out there, whatever he is doing right now.
Enjoy it hubs, because it won’t last forever.
When I get out of here, it’s all over for you.
60
CRAIG
I’m glad today is over. Anna’s birthday is always the most challenging day of my year, and this year was no exception. I thought it might feel a little easier this time around considering what I have done since the last one, but it wasn’t to be.
I still feel angry, I still feel bitt
er, and I still feel depressed. I imagine I will feel like this for the rest of my life, but if that is the case, then so be it. They say it’s better to have loved and lost than never to have loved at all, and I think that is true. I wonder if Megan is feeling the same way as she lies in the garage and thinks about what she has lost.
Then again, who cares?
I almost went in to see her tonight, but I changed my mind at the last minute. With the mood I’m in, it probably wouldn’t end well for either of us. We would just get into an argument, both saying things to make the other one feel bad. But I’m feeling bad enough already without her making it worse. That’s why I walked away from that garage door and came upstairs to bed. I just want to fall asleep quickly and wake up tomorrow.
Tomorrow will be better. The sky will look brighter, and the bird’s songs will sound a little chirpier. But one thing will be the same.
Danny will still be making excuses for the beating I gave him on the squash court.
It was nice of him to ask if everything was okay in my personal life when we were at the gym earlier, even if a question like that could lead to all sorts of trouble for me if I actually answered it honestly. It shows me that he cares and that he isn’t as selfish as many people in the office think he is. But it also shows me that I am not keeping myself as composed as I should be.
It’s not easy being a husband with a wife locked away in the garage but I need to do a better job of making other people believe that nothing is out of the ordinary in my private life. Therefore, there can be no more moments where I am caught staring into space by colleagues in our meetings, nor can there be any concerns from Danny about by my overly aggressive play on the squash court. People at work know me for being calm, focused and always in control, so anything outside of those personality traits will only raise red flags.
