A Novelist's Diary - Part 2
| Published: 12th May 2007 21:59 |
A Novelist's Diary - Part 2
Well diary here I am, back again. Now, if you are to understand how I went from dreaming about becoming a novelist to being one then I shall have to go back to the beginning...
So, put the kettle on, put your feet up and I shall begin...
Four years ago I was driving home late from work, around 10.30 pm after a long night taking minutes at a Board Meeting. The night was calm and clear and although I was a bit tired my brain was alert and my stomach eager to get stuck into that large mug of hot tea and round of buttered toast that I had been dreaming of for hours.
I arrive at the small bridge that bends around the corner, a blind spot, leading into a long road and my house; only three minutes from home... suddenly I see it, a car racing towards me on my side of the road, the wrong side...
Before I know it the car is spinning off mine, flying through the air and landing on the other side of the road, while I'm left, totally shocked, my car in pieces as I pull myself together and ring my husband, Eddie...
There I am, surrounded by police, ambulance men and people, as Eddie tries to stay calm and assess the ‘damage'.
‘Look after the man in the car,' I cry as I watch them desperately trying to cut him out as he yells, ‘Sorry, I'm sorry.'
‘Come into the house while the police sort things out,' offers a kind couple.
The policeman confirms that that would be a good idea as it will be at least forty-five minutes before he can take my statement, although he is pretty sure by the layout of the cars and skid marks what's happened.
‘I need to go back and get my camera and take pictures and notes,' says Eddie so perhaps it would be better if you could go with Mr and Mrs... so that I know you are OK.'
Off I go into a house on the corner of the bend that I have passed hundreds of times over the years and yet never really noticed.
‘Here you are my dear, some tea and biscuits. Now you get stuck into that and if you need us just call.'
‘Thank you,' I say to the kind lady, who disappears along with her partner.
‘Will you be OK on your own?' asks the policeman.
‘Yes. Look after the man, he looks bad.'
‘I will back in thirty minutes to take your statement.'
‘OK. Let Eddie know I'm fine.'
Thirty minutes...
They say you see your life flashing before you when you die, but when I was in the car looking straight into the ‘eye of death', I saw nothing, just the other man's terrified face hurtling towards me.
I was calmer than I had ever been. Death was looming towards me and I felt absolutely nothing... just a momentary acceptance that this was it... I cannot avoid what is about to happen and if I'm going to die then that's it...
Now I'm sitting in large, cold kitchen on my own wondering how I came to be there. I sip the tea and I feel sick and want to go home and crawl into bed. The car keeps flashing in my head and his face; I keep seeing his face... I get up and wonder around the kitchen as I begin to feel faint. I need to get out, out into the fresh air, but as I make my way out of the kitchen into the landing I see another room just a little further down with its door half-open.
Something compels me to look inside this room... I don't why, I just know that I must... so I slowly make my why down the landing and into the room... and what I see chills me to the bone... it's a coffin, a room filled with coffins...
I am in an undertaker's house...
I rush back to the kitchen and sit down, my whole body shaking. But then after a few minutes I calm down, becoming really ‘out of myself', almost as if I‘m watching myself from another place. I see the coffins and then I realize that I have ‘no more time'. Today I escaped the ‘black box'. I was lucky, but tomorrow will come as sure as day follows night and the ‘black box' will be there again waiting...
I take out my pen and scrap of paper and write my list:-
1. Write that novel.
2. Learn the Tarot
3. NO EXCUSES....
It is short list and yet, at the age of forty-nine, I still had not managed to tick even one item!
A room full of coffins and thirty minutes later.... I was ready for the challenge....
Tune in next time for the continuing journey of the birth of a novelist...
Maureen Farenden
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