Timothy knew about Martha’s pain. He had similarly suffered over the years since the fire, running over and over the scenarios that didn’t play out. Was there a way he could have saved them all? Should he have worked out what was happening earlier? Could he have stopped Samuel?
His way of handling the pain was different from Martha’s. He had written down what had happened to him in two places, each with their own variations. On his computer, he had written a diary of sorts, as clinical as he could manage. He had begun his diary long before investing in the care home but it had been a sporadic endeavour, entries coming in a blur when the mood took him, several hundred words per day. Then there would be gaps when he wrote nothing at all for weeks or months on end before the urge took him once more.
The entries became regular after the fire, detailing his attempts to understand what had happened combined with the knowledge he had gained from studying the contemporaneous reports published in the aftermath.
He kept a second diary and that wasn’t where he left it. He had left it in the bedroom of the holiday cottage before informing Jenny that he was going out for a walk. He had left her alone in the house with some qualms but had decided, based on some instinctive desire deep within him, that he needed to check on Martha, something had niggled at him for some time that she was in trouble and he was finally unable to ignore the feeling. He told Jenny he wouldn’t be long.
She had replied that her books would keep her occupied for as long as he was gone. They did at first. She had gone to the bathroom upstairs ten minutes after he left and as she stepped out onto the landing she heard a noise outside. She walked into his room and around his bed, peering out through the window and finding herself face to face with an inquisitive looking barn owl perched on the windowsill outside. She froze in place as it stared at her imperiously. Holding her breath, she watched it in silence until it suddenly swept its wings apart and took off into the dying light of the late evening.
She walked backwards a step before turning and that motion was enough for her heel to catch the edge of the bed and jolt it slightly. Turning towards the door, she noticed something sticking out from under her Granddad’s pillow. It was a book.
Curious as to what it might it, she never thought that perhaps it might be there to remain hidden from view. She was just intrigued as to what it was. Picking it up, she found herself looking at Timothy’s second diary, one that recorded in vivid detail his thoughts and feelings.
Flicking through the pages, she felt as if she was invading his privacy and a wave of guilt washed over her. She was about to put the book back when a name caught her eye. It was her mother’s name.
She paused, wanting to return the diary to its home but unable to, unable to stop herself from reading. She stood in the bedroom with her eyes scanning the page, oblivious to the opening of the door downstairs.
She read with a growing sense of disbelief, turning back through the pages, each paragraph making her want to know more, making her need to know more.
I tried to atone for what happened. Cathy told me not to but I ignored her. I visited and the sight of her bandages burned me deeper than the flames of the inferno. I was in the same hospital and was able, though it took some time, to find out where she was being kept.
Jenny flicked back through the pages, reading on, not hearing the door to the holiday cottage closing quietly.
He tried to justify what he’d done when I found him in there. Sitting there with them, her half naked, blood running down her back, tears on her cheeks and he tried to justify it. Even thinking about it makes my blood boil. Told me she loved it, told me it was her choice, her way of showing her devotion to him, her atonement for her sins, for his sins, for those of all of mankind. Did his best to convince me he was right. All the while they sat there and me barely able to believe what I was seeing. I tried to help but he was stronger than me, shoved me out of the room, locking the door.
I only went in there to find the old figures for the audit. He locked me out. I can’t begin to describe how it felt to hear that door lock. I had a key but he’d snapped his end in the lock.
I should have broken it down. I shouldn’t have gone for help. By the time I got back, the smoke was already filling the corridor and the door was red hot to the touch. I thought I had time. He had said he’d three days to prepare them for what he had planned, for the comet. I thought it was the ramblings of a madman. He’d flipped. He was always an eccentric one but I had no idea, not a single clue of what he was really up to.
Jenny paused. She’d heard something. “Granddad?” she shouted. There was no answer. Just the wind, she thought, returning to the page.