First published back in 2009 on Time Out, the serial, written by Kentishtowner editor Stephen Emms, built up a cult following on its first outing. Read more about it in an article here on The Guardian.
1. The Notebook
Happiness, mused Archie Bryant, as he stepped out onto Queen’s Crescent market, was not worth thinking about: distant, glamorous, an aunt he had never known.
It was Saturday lunchtime, and words cracked and split all around him. Mothers scolded infants, a teenage couple argued, and bull-necked sellers with ringed hands battled cheerily for trade: you could buy anything here, even a wig to wear as you hovered over the discount electricals or leopard-print trousers.
Archie sighed. Three days since Rose left, but still the sunshine flooded the pavement. He circled the Irish matriarchs outside the halal butcher, and took a right at the flower stall, where kids attacked a couple of black bin-liners. By the basketball courts, a gang spread themselves over a wall.
Soon he reached the petticoat of leafy streets beneath Parliament Hill. Climbing, the wind whistling away his hangover, he was pleased to find his favourite bench unoccupied at the summit. Heavy clouds staggered over the playing fields below, and beyond the sprawl, he could just make out the spectral outline of the South Downs.
Taking a seat, he ran through the facts again. On Tuesday night their relationship had been fine. Slugging back bottles of beer, Rose had purred, ‘I want a baby, Archie’, in his ear. But in the half-light of Wednesday morning, flying round the kitchen, her mood had changed.
‘Where’s my purse? Why do I always forget everything? What’s wrong with me?’
Before he could respond, she was downstairs, slamming the front door. Why, he remembered thinking, did it always feel as if the air was ambushed; as if their words, once uttered, conspired against each other?
And he hadn’t seen her since. Rose, who for five years had slept by his side.
Sighing again, he leaned back. The sky was as grey as an old woman’s skin: it moves so quickly, doesn’t it, compared to time? After all, three days had seemed an eternity. About to leave, he spied a notebook lying on the ground: forgotten rather than abandoned, normal in size, a blue plastic cover. Glancing around, his fingers reached down. Marianne Templeton, read the girlish scrawl on the first page. Haircut, said one entry; essay work, another. Pete’s wedding. Rosa christening. Fix taps, sort clothes, Mum card, paint room. How reassuringly ordinary.
But he was curious; had it been left on purpose? Was the owner spying from the brambles? He dug out a pen and, on a whim, scribbled his name and email address in block capitals. Who knew where it would lead? A hurried addition of a smiley emoticon (he was a recent convert) made him grin too – for the first time, in fact, since Rose had left.
Was this fate? After all, our lives can be transformed in a second. Stillness swayed; and then, as if to wash away the week’s pain, the rain started.
Who is Marianne Templeton? Find out in Chapter 2 overleaf.
