Alex Turner had just bought a secondhand car and, in the noble act of cleaning the interior, discovered a slim notebook tucked under the passenger seat.
Are you having a laugh, Alex? the diary began, scrawled in a hurried hand. Seriously? The whole marketing team spent three months on this campaign and now you say the brief has changed?
Alex stood in the managers office, fists clenched until his knuckles turned ghostwhite. Oliver Irving, a stout man with a permanent scowl, didnt even glance up from his paperwork.
Alex, cut the drama. The brief changed. Clients can have a change of heart, and we have to roll with it. This is business, not a hobby club.
Roll with it? Thats not rolling with it, thats tearing the whole thing up and starting from scratch! All the calculations, the whole dossier tossed in the bin? People have been pulling allnighters!
We paid for the nightshifts. If anyones unhappy, HR is open from nine to six. You can go. Im not holding you.
Alex turned on his heel, slammed the door so hard the window rattled, and stalked past bewildered colleagues who offered sympathetic looks. He snatched his jacket, burst into the damp October air and thought, Enough is enough. He was angry at the boss, the client, the whole system. He was fed up with anyones whims, with the timetable of the everlate bus, with everything. He wanted something his own a tiny patch of personal space untouched by the next new concept.
That thought led him to the sprawling car market on the edge of Manchester. He drifted between rows of battered bangers and gleaming import sedans, not really knowing what he was looking for. Then he saw it: a modest, cherryred Kia, about seven or eight years old, spotless on the outside and clearly loved.
Interested? a cheerful thirtyyearold salesman called Ben piped up. Top condition. One previous owner, used it for commuting, never smoked in the cabin.
Alex circled the car, peered inside. It wasnt sterile, just livedin, as if the previous driver had cared for it. He slipped into the drivers seat, rested his hands on the cool plastic and, for the first time that day, felt the tension loosen.
Ill take it, he said, surprising even himself.
The paperwork took a couple of hours, and soon he was cruising through the twilight streets in his very own vehicle. He turned on the radio, cracked a window, let the chilly air rush in. Life didnt suddenly become a comedy, but it felt a little less bleak.
He parked in the courtyard of his old council flat, sat for a long while just absorbing the novelty. Then he decided the car needed a proper clean, a proper fresh start. He popped into the 24hour convenience store, bought some carcare fluid, rags and a vacuum, and got back to work.
He polished everything to a shine: the dash, the door cards, the glass. When he reached the space beneath the seats, his hand brushed a hard, darkblue cover. He pulled out a small notebook. A diary.
Alex turned it over, feeling oddly intrusive. It was someone elses life, someone elses secrets. He could have tossed it in the back seat and forgotten, but something stopped him. The first page bore a neat, tiny script: Mabel. Just a name. He opened to the first entry.
12 March.
Victor shouted again today. I think I forgot his favourite yoghurt again. Sometimes I feel Im living on a powder keg one wrong step, one misplaced word and the whole thing blows up. He then came over, hugged me, said he loved me, that it was just a rough day. I believe him or I pretend to. This cherryred Kia is my only escape. I turned on the music and drove wherever my eyes could see. Just me, the road, and no one yelling.
Alex set the diary down, a strange unease settling over him. He could almost picture Mabel behind the wheel, sad eyes, fleeing domestic storms. He kept reading.
2 April.
We fought again. This time because of my job. He hates that I stay late. Proper women stay at home and bake pies, he said. I dont want to bake pies. I love my work, the numbers, the reports. I like feeling useful beyond the kitchen. He doesnt get it. He warned that if I dont quit, hell go to my boss himself. Humiliating. That evening I went to the Old Orchard Café, sat alone, sipped coffee and watched the rain. It was peaceful. The cakes were lovely.
Alex recognised the café; it was a short walk from his flat, a cosy place with big windows. He imagined Mabel there, watching droplets race down the glass.
The next weeks blurred. Daytime work, endless rows with Oliver; evenings the diary. He learned Mabel loved autumn, jazz, and Remarque. She dreamed of painting, though Victor dismissed it as childish mess. Her best friend Sophie was a constant on the phone.
18 May.
Victor was away on business. Silence, at last. Sophie called, we bought wine and fruit and stayed up chatting until midnight, laughing like we were teenagers again. She said I should leave Victor. Mabel, hell swallow you whole, youre fading fast. Shes right. But where would I go? No parents, his flat is his. Im thirtyfive. Sophie says age isnt a barrier, its a fresh start. Easy for her shes married to a banker.
Alex sighed. He understood the fear. At fortytwo, the idea of a radical change made his knees tremble. He, too, lived on a predictable loop: workhome, occasional meetups with his mate Sam. And now this car, this diary.
One Saturday he could not hold it in any longer and went to the Old Orchard. He ordered a coffee and a slice of cake the very one Mabel seemed to love. He stared at the empty chair, wondering what she looked like. In his mind she flickered between a tall blonde and a petite brunette, but her eyes were always melancholy.
The entries grew darker.
9 July.
He raised his hand on me for the first time. Because I was on the phone with Sophie instead of him. Just a slap, but it cracked something inside me, not my cheek but my soul. I spent the night in the car, parked in the yard, unable to go back inside. The windows flickered on and off. He was probably looking for me, or maybe not. I felt terrified and utterly alone. If it werent for my cherryred escape, Id have gone mad.
Alex put the diary aside, his chest tightening with a sense of injustice. He wanted to find Victor and He didnt even know what to do, just to protect her. The woman hed never met.
That evening Sam rang.
Alex, mate! Whereve you vanished to? Gone fishing for the weekend?
Hey, Sam. Cant say. Too many things on my plate.
Too many? You havent even taken a holiday. Whats with the secrecy? Bought a canoe and vanished?
Alex chuckled.
Almost. Listen, theres something
He told Sam about the car, the diary, Mabel. Sam listened in silence.
Youve really got yourself into a rabbit hole, havent you? What do you need it for?
I dont know. I just feel sorry for her.
Feel sorry for him. Its been ages, Alex. Shes probably married a millionaire by now and has forgotten about that Victor. And youre sitting there pining. Toss the notebook.
I cant, Alex admitted honestly.
Fine then. Keep it. Just dont end up in a madhouse over it. Ring me if you need anything.
Sams call didnt sober Alex up; it only cemented his resolve to finish the diary.
The entries grew shorter, more frantic.
1 September.
Summers over, and so is my patience. He smashed the vase my mother gave me the last thing I had left of her. Called it tasteless and said it ruined his designer aesthetic. I gathered the shards and realised that was it. End of the road. I have to leave.
15 September.
Planning my escape like a spy thriller. Funny and scary. Sophie will let me crash at her place for a while. Im moving a few books, a couple of sweaters, my cosmetics the good stuff. Victor doesnt notice; hes too busy with himself. Ive signed up for an aquarelle course starting in October. Maybe thats a sign?
28 September.
Tomorrow Im gone. Victor leaves for a twoday conference, giving me time to collect the rest of my things and bolt. Ive handed in my resignation. New life starts: easel, paints, autumn leaves, grey skies, and my cherryred car in the rain. Scary as hell. What if it fails? What if he finds me? But staying is scarier.
The diary ended there. Alex turned the last page blank. The next page was also blank, and so on, until the book ran out.
He sat in the quiet of his tiny kitchen, wondering what happened to Mabel. Did she manage to get away? Did Sophie find a flat for her? Had she started painting? Dozens of questions swirled. It felt like hed watched a series to the very end, only for the finale to be cut.
He reread the final pages and finally noticed a folded slip tucked between them a receipt from The Artists Shop on Mira Street, dated 29 September. It listed a set of watercolours, brushes, paper and a small tabletop easel. So she had bought them. She was preparing.
The diary was a year old.
What now? He could try to find her, but there was only a first name and a friends name. No surname. Why bother? To intrude on a life she might have rebuilt? He set the diary aside.
A week passed. He went to work, sparred with Oliver, returned home. Yet the world seemed a little larger. He started noticing the way sunlight bounced off puddles, how the leaves on the ash trees turned gold, how the barista at the local café always smiled. He was seeing things through Mabels eyes, the eyes of someone who longed for an ordinary, simple life.
One evening, aimlessly scrolling through the news, he stumbled on an announcement: Autumn Vernissage Emerging Artists of Manchester. Among the listed participants was an M. Volkov. He clicked, and a modest gallery of paintings opened. Among landscapes, stilllives and portraits, one caught his breath a watercolour of a cherryred Kia parked under an autumn rain on a quiet lane. It was vivid, a touch melancholy, but brimming with hope.
He smiled. Shed made it. Shed left. She painted. She lived.
He found M. Volkovs social profile. The avatar showed a smiling woman in her midthirties, short hair, bright eyes. She posed beside her canvases, no sign of Victor, no trace of past misery. Her feed was full of exhibition photos, snaps of her cat, sketches of city streets.
Alex felt a weight lift off his shoulders. He didnt write to her, didnt add himself as a friend. Her story was finished, and she seemed happy. He simply closed the page.
He picked up the diary again. It was no longer just a collection of strangers secrets, but a tale of courage proof that its never too late to change everything.
The next day, after work, Alex dropped into The Artists Shop. He wandered among the aisles, eventually buying a small canvas and a set of oil paints. Hed never painted before, but a sudden urge made him reach for the brush.
Back home, he set the canvas on the kitchen table, squeezed out bright colours, and began. He had no idea what would emerge perhaps a mess, perhaps the start of his own new story, inspired by the voice of a woman hed never met, found under the seat of a cherryred car.
Rain began to patter against the window. Everyone has their own road and their own autumn. Sometimes, to find yours, you have to stumble into someone elses.
