31October2025
I bought a secondhand car yesterday and, while giving the interior a good onceover, I felt something hard under the front seat. It turned out to be a tiny notebook a diary, no less, belonging to the previous owner.
Are you kidding me, Alex? Seriously? The whole department has been chewing over this project for three months, and youre now saying the concept has changed?
I was standing in the managers office, fists clenched until my knuckles blanched. Oliver Irving, the hulking head of the department with a perpetually sour expression, didnt even glance up from his paperwork.
Alex, lets drop the theatrics. The client can change their mind; we have to adapt. This is business, not a hobby club.
Adapt? Thats not adapting, thats starting from scratch! All the calculations, all the paperwork tossed into the bin? People have been losing sleep over this!
Theyll be paid for the overtime. If anyones unhappy, HR is open from nine to six. Youre free to go. Im not holding you up.
I turned on my heel, slammed the door, and the glass in the frame sang. Colleagues gave me sympathetic looks as I snatched my coat and stepped out into the damp October air. Enough, a voice throbbed in my temples. Enough. I walked without looking where I was, angry at the boss, the client, the whole system. I was sick of being at the mercy of other peoples whims, of the punctuality of the packed commuter train, of everything that wasnt my own. I needed something small but entirely mine a sliver of personal space untouched by new concepts.
That thought led me to the massive car market on the edge of Manchester. I drifted between rows of used vehicles, not really knowing what I was looking for. Polished foreign hatches glittered beside battered veterans of the British motor industry. Then I saw her: a modest, cherryred Kia, about seven or eight years old, its paint still gleaming as if someone had truly cared for it.
Interested? a cheerful thirtysomething sales lad asked. Its a top pick. One previous owner, driven gently, mostly commuter trips. No smoking inside.
I walked around the car, popped the door, and peered inside. It was clean, not sterile, and you could tell it had been lived in, not simply used as a metal box to get from pointA to pointB. I settled in the drivers seat, rested my hands on the cool plastic, and for the first time that day I felt the tension begin to melt away.
Ill take it, I said, halfamused at my own sudden decisiveness.
The paperwork took a couple of hours. Soon I was cruising through the twilight streets of Manchester in my very own car. The word my warmed my chest. I turned on the radio, rolled down the window, and let the chilly breeze wash over me. Life suddenly seemed a little less bleak.
I parked the Kia in the courtyard of my old terraced house, sat there for a long while, and let the new feeling settle. Then I decided the car needed a proper clean, a proper start, so there would be no trace of the former owner. I popped into the 24/7 Auto Supplies shop, bought car shampoo, cloths, a vacuum, and went back to the vehicle.
I polished everything until it shone: the dashboard, the door panels, the windows. When I got down to the area beneath the seats, my hand brushed something hard. I pulled out a small notebook bound in dark blue leather a diary.
I turned it over in my hands, uneasy. Someone elses life, someone elses secrets. I almost tossed it onto the back seat and walked away, but a faint, tidy scrawl on the first page caught my eye: Mabel. I opened to the first entry.
12March.
Victor shouted again today. Over something trivial I think I forgot to buy his favourite yoghurt. Sometimes I feel Im living on a powder keg. One wrong step, one misplaced word and it could all blow up. Then he comes over, hugs me, says he loves me, that it was just a tough day. I want to believe him. Or at least pretend to. This cherryred little car is my only escape. I turned on the music and drove wherever my eyes could see. Just me and the road, and nobody shouting.
The diary slipped from my grip, and a strange knot formed in my stomach. I could almost picture Mabel behind the wheel, her eyes sad, fleeing the storms at home. I kept reading.
2April.
Another argument. This time about my job. He doesnt like me staying 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 threatened to go to my boss if I dont quit. Humiliating. In the evening I went to the Old Park café, sat alone, sipped coffee and watched the rain. It was peaceful there. The cakes were delicious.
I knew the OldPark café a cosy little place near my flat with big windows. I imagined Mabel there, alone, watching the rain trace lines down the glass.
The days that followed were a haze. By day I fought with Oliver, by night I read the diary. I learned Mabel loved autumn, jazz, and the novels of ErichMariaRemarque. She wanted to learn to paint, but Victor dismissed it as childish dabbling. Her close friend Sophie was her confidante; they could talk for hours on the phone.
18May.
Victor was off on a business trip. Silence was a strange, sweet thing. Sophie called; we bought wine, fruit and stayed up till midnight laughing like teenagers. She told me Mabel should leave him. Lena, hell swallow you whole, youll fade away. I knew she was right, but where to go? No parents, his flat was my home. I was thirtyfive. Sophie said age didnt matter, it was just the beginning. Easy for her to say shes married to a banker.
I sighed. I was fortytwo, and the thought of a radical change made my knees shake. Id been living in a groove: workhome, occasional meetups with my mate Sean. Now I had this car and this diary.
On Saturday I couldnt hold it in any longer. I went to the OldPark, sat by the window, ordered a coffee and a slice of cake the very one Mabel seemed to love. I stared at it and tried to picture her. Tall blonde? Petite brunette? Her eyes were always sad.
The entries grew darker.
9July.
He raised his hand against me for the first time. All because I was on the phone with Sophie, not him, when he called. A slap, but it felt like something inside me cracked. I spent the night in the car, parked in the courtyard, unable to go back inside. His flats lights flickered on and off. He was probably looking for me. Or not. I was terrified and alone. If it werent for my cherry car, I think Id have gone mad.
I put the diary down, feeling a surge of injustice. I wanted to find Victor and I didnt even know what to do. Just protect her. The woman Id never met.
That evening Sean rang.
Alex, where have you vanished to? Fishing this weekend?
Hey, Sean. Too many things at work.
No holidays? Youve been burning the candle at both ends. Got yourself lost in some what? A kebab shop?
I laughed.
Almost. Listen, theres something
I told him about the car, the diary, Mabel. He listened in silence.
Youve gotten yourself into someone elses mess, havent you? What do you need that for?
I dont know. I just feel sorry for her.
Feel sorry for him too. Its been ages. She might already be married to some millionaire and have forgotten Victor. And youre sitting there, moping. Toss the notebook.
I cant, I admitted.
Then keep it, Romeo. Just dont end up in the loony bin over it. Call if you need anything.
Seans words didnt calm me. If anything they pressed me to finish the diary.
The entries grew shorter, more frantic. Mabel seemed to be at her breaking point.
1September.
Summers over, and my patience too. He smashed a vase my mother gave me the last thing I owned from her. Said it clashed with his designer décor. I gathered the shards and realised that was it. It was the end. I had to leave.
15September.
Im mapping out an escape plan like a spy thriller absurd and terrifying. Sophie will let me crash at her flat for a while. Im moving a few books, a couple of sweaters, some makeup the essentials. Victor never notices; hes too wrapped up in himself. Ive found an eveningwatercolour class starting in October. Maybe its a sign?
28September.
Tomorrow. Tomorrow I go. Hes off on a twoday conference. Ill have time to clear out the last of my things and disappear. Ive handed in my resignation. Ill buy an easel, paints, and start painting autumn yellow leaves, grey skies, my cherry Kia in the rain. Its my symbol of freedom. Im scared out of my mind. What if it doesnt work? What if he finds me? But staying is far scarier.
The final entry. I turned the page blank. The next page blank. And so on, until the diary ran out.
I sat in the quiet of my tiny kitchen, wondering what had become of Mabel. Had she managed to leave? Did Sophie find her a flat? Had she started painting? Dozens of questions swirled. It felt as if Id watched a series to the very last episode, only for the ending to be cut.
I reread the last few pages, and then I noticed something Id missed before: tucked between the final sheets was a small, folded receipt from The Artist on Mira Street. Date 29September. It listed a set of watercolour paints, brushes, paper, and a small tabletop easel.
So she had bought them. She was preparing.
The diary was from the previous year exactly a year ago.
What now? I could try to find her. But I only have a first name, no surname. A friend called Sophie. Little to go on. Do I want to disturb whatever new life shes built? Or simply remind her of the past?
I put the diary aside. A week passed. I argued with Oliver, drove home, but everything felt different. The world seemed larger. I began to notice the sunlight glinting off puddles, the way the leaves on the plane trees turned golden, the baristas smile at the corner café. It was as if I were seeing through Mabels eyes, the woman who craved an ordinary, simple life.
One evening, scrolling aimlessly through my news feed, an advert caught my eye: Autumn Vernissage Emerging Artists of Manchester. Among the list of participants, the name Mabel Walsh appeared. I clicked. A modest gallery of works opened. Among stilllifes and portraits was a small watercolour of a cherryred Kia parked under an autumn rain on a quiet street. It was vivid, a touch melancholy, yet full of hope.
I stared at the painting and smiled. She had made it. She had left. She was painting. She was living.
I found Mabel Walshs profile on a social network. The avatar showed a smiling woman in her midthirties, short hair, bright eyes. She stood before her own canvases, no trace of the frightened woman from the diary. Her feed was full of exhibition photos, snapshots of her cat, sketches of city lanes. No Victor. No pain. Just a calm, creativelyfilled life.
Relief flooded me, as if a weight had finally been lifted. I didnt message her. I didnt add her as a friend. Her story was hers, and it had a happy ending. I simply closed the page.
Back on the kitchen table, I held the diary again. It was no longer just a collection of someone elses secrets; it was a story of courage, of the fact that its never too late to change everything.
The next day, after work, I went into The Artist shop from the receipt. I lingered among the aisles, then bought a small canvas and a set of oil paints. Id never painted before, but an urgent desire stirred within me to try.
At home I set the canvas on the kitchen table, squeezed out some bright colours onto a palette, and took the brush. I had no idea what would come out of it perhaps a ruined canvas, perhaps the start of my own new story, inspired by the voice of a stranger whose diary Id found under the seat of a cherryred Kia.
Rain began to tap at the window. Everyone has their own road and their own autumn. Sometimes, to find your path, you have to stumble upon someone elses.
