Be Careful What You Wish For

Sensitive Content: Traffic accident/Substance abuse/Violence

My Gran had died and left me a collection of memories in an old case. She had spent her last few years in The Poppy Fields Nursing Home, just outside the Medway Towns. After I lost mum with Covid, there was only me left to visit her. All Gran’s friends had long since past. There was nobody else.

The young nurse looked sympathetic as she handed me a battered brown leather case. All I had left of an amazing woman who had travelled the world. Gran had been one of the first women journalists of her era. She never spoke of the places she had visited and her achievements. ‘Some things are best left in the past,’ was all that she said. I thanked the nurse and put the case in the back of my car. A lump formed in my throat as I pulled away to the familiar crunching of the gravel.

I climbed the stairs to my top floor apartment; the lift was out of order again, and put my key in the lock. It opened too easily. Someone had been in my flat! We were always getting broken into, it went with the neighbourhood. Another expensive call out for the locksmith! I carried the case in, put it on the coffee table, and unsnapped the lid. A heady aroma of old paper and cloth rose into my nostrils. The case was packed with notebooks. Worn cloth covers tied up with faded ribbons. They looked ancient. Small photo albums and pen filled wooden boxes stuffed into any gaps in the case. ‘Gran’s life,’ I thought. She had always kept journals.

As I walked over to put the kettle on, I saw it. A brown paper parcel with my name on it in Grans unmistakeable handwriting. Whoever broke in, must have put it there. Looking around I could see that nothing else had been disturbed by my mystery guest. I had few possessions, and nothing of value. My flat was always clutter free and spotless. I gingerly opened the parcel. It was a crackled tan leather-bound book with a strange symbol on the cover. Inside the front cover was an inscription.

‘Dear Maggie, I am leaving this book in your care. I discovered it whilst travelling around China, many years ago. It is extraordinary so take care how you use it.…and be careful what you wish for!’ Love always, Gran xx

‘What did Gran mean by that last bit?’ Towards the end she had become increasingly confused and said some strange things. The Doctor said it was onset Dementia. When we were alone, Gran would wink at me and say, ‘Bloomin rubbish!’

I turned the page of the book to see what she had written in it, expecting to see dates, times, and descriptions of places that she had visited. But the book was empty. The pages were as crisp as if they were brand new. I bent my head down and breathed in the paper. It even smelled fresh. Not a musty aroma like the books in the case. I opened one of the pen boxes and took out a pen. I had no idea what I was going to write, but as a journalist, I had always wanted to write more than reportage. A novel had always been my goal. This beautiful book was enticing me to write in it.

I opened the book to the first crisp page. The white blank space yawned before me. It was intimidating. As soon as I put the pen to the page I began to write. I was hardly moving my hand, but I was writing, and fast. As fast as I was thinking, the words were appearing on the page in seconds. I heard my Gran’s words, ‘so take care how you use it…’ But I couldn’t stop.

Hannah had been suspicious of her husband Geoff for a while. The unusual late nights at work, the whispered calls on his mobile and his renewed attention to what he wore and how he smelled. She was sure he was cheating on her with a work colleague. But she couldn’t prove anything. Until today. Geoff had forgotten his lunch. Left it on the drainer again. Hannah was meeting a friend for coffee at midday. It was close to Geoff’s office so she could drop off his lunch. And that was when she saw them. They were sitting in his car, their car, and they were kissing. Not a friendly peck. Oh No. Full on tongues down the throat looking for tonsils snogging! She banged on the driver’s side window, hard. Held up his sandwiches, removed them from their bag and squashed them all over the windscreen. She was so glad she had made him fish paste sandwiches that day. Geoff jumped out shocked and furious.

‘What the bloody heck Hannah?’ He began, and then, his unbuttoned trousers slid down to the ground in a puddle of shame. Hannah looked at him and then into the car. Mandy, a secretary from his office was trying to slink out of the passenger door.

‘Where d’you think you’re off to Mandy?’ Hannah called after her. But Mandy was already half-way down the street dropping bits of clothing in her hurry to getaway. As she disappeared towards the high street, Hannah shouted ‘Don’t get run down by a bus!’ Then, ‘Stupid cow!’ under her breath.

‘Hannah, honey?’ Geoff’s voice was whiny. She glared at him.

‘Don’t, don’t you dare Hannah honey me you hypocrite!’ Her voice was breaking; her eyes filled with tears. She looked away to hide it. ‘Just go Geoff will you! Run after your ‘bit on the side,’ keep running, and don’t stop!’ Hannah walked off towards the taxi rank, tears streaming down her face, salty rivers of despair.

Maggie put the pen down and looked at her work. It seemed to have flowed from the pen more than her head she thought. How weird was that? She still hadn’t had that cuppa yet. She grabbed a mug from the cupboard and switched the kettle on. She had a Chicken Caesar salad already made up in the fridge. Maggie grabbed a tray and some cutlery, put her salad on it, and sat down on the sofa. She sighed. It had been an eventful day. She pointed the remote at the TV. A male voice shrilled out before the picture had even appeared;

‘In local news…A twenty-six-year-old female office worker was tragically involved in a collision with a double decker bus in the high street earlier today. She was pronounced dead at the scene. Her next of kin have been informed.’ Camera footage of the very street that, in her head, she had seen Mandy running towards appeared on the screen. But before Maggie could close her gaping mouth, the Newsreader continued…’In Gatsby Park this afternoon a thirty-year-old man was found collapsed and delirious from exhaustion. He had been running non-stop for hours and has been taken to a local hospital with severe dehydration.’

Maggie’s head and heart were racing in tandem. ‘No, it couldn’t be?’ She reached across, opened the book, and turned to the page that she had written on. It was now Maggie read the story in disbelief. ‘Be careful what you wish for’…’ her Gran’s words echoed in her head. ‘But I didn’t wish for anyone to get hurt or killed’ she said to herself. ‘It was just a silly made up story. I had no idea that there were a Hannah, Geoff, and Mandy out there! It must be a terrible coincidence’. Maggie didn’t know what to do. Should she go to the Police? Would they even believe her? She had no proof. The story she wrote had now vanished. She wished that she had never written anything in that blasted book!

Maggie needed to make amends. She would write something wonderful in the book. Something that would be positive and helpful. Yes, that’s what she’d do. She opened the book to the first page again, and began…

Sandra Brown was born into poverty and chaos. That was all that she could ever remember. Sharing a small apartment with her partner, their four children and her parents was not ideal or practical. There was no privacy, not enough room, and not enough money to go around. So, when she found a two-pound coin lying on the path, she knew what to do with it. ‘Morning Sandra, said Cyril behind the newsagents' counter, “How are you today love?’

‘Feeling lucky Cyril,’ I would like a lucky dip lottery ticket for tonight’s draw please.’ Cyril printed a ticket off and handed it to her in exchange for the coin. ‘Good Luck’ he called after her as she left clutching her ticket tightly. Later that evening as the family gathered around the small TV set, Sandra asked if they could listen to the Lottery results.

‘Whatever for?’ Asked her husband Bryan.

‘I was going to surprise you love but look, I found a two-pound coin on the path, so I bought us a lottery ticket!’ She held up the ticket waving it in the air like a victory flag.

Bryan looked unimpressed. ‘Well, what a waste of two quid, you’ll never win anything you know!’ He looked back down at his newspaper.

Sandra glanced down at the ticket and back at the screen as the lottery numbers were called, 9, 12, 22, 30, 36 and the bonus ball was…she held her breath, 41! Her heart almost stopped. She had all six numbers! Bryan heard her gasp and looked up from his paper. ‘Didn’t get any then?’ He said in a ‘told you so’ voice. Sandra couldn’t speak for a few minutes, and then finally she said, ‘I only bloody got them all!’

Maggie stopped there. If there were a Sandra and Bryan struggling out there somewhere, they had just won the jackpot! She felt that she had righted the balance that the book had overturned. This was a good thing to have written she decided.

Maggie had put the book in the case with the rest of Gran’s belongings and slid it under her bed. She had no intention of ever writing anything else in it.

Several months later she picked up her usual newspaper from the stand as she boarded the train to work. She flicked through it from her seat by the window. A headline stood out. Maggie read the story in disbelief.

‘Rags to Riches, A Lottery Winners Tragedy.’ ‘After they had won the lottery, Bryan and Sandra Collins moved to California. It had always been Bryan’s dream. Since moving there, Sandra had gone through continuous cosmetic surgery to ‘fit in’ with her glamorous neighbours.’ Underneath this was a photo of her parents looking heartbroken, and a quote which read, ‘Sandra was so unhappy since moving away from her life in the UK and everyone that she knew back home. She said that she had felt like a fish out of water amongst the glitz of Californian life.’ The report continued;

‘Bryan had begun to drink and gamble heavily; after all, he had no need to work ever again. He unfortunately had no hobbies or outside interests and became bored sitting around the pool all day. Their two eldest children were out all hours partying and taking recreational drugs. Bryan and Sandra never knew where they were and had never met any of their friends. The two younger children were constantly glued to their new phones and games consoles and had both been excluded from school. Sandra struggled to keep up with their demands and the exhaustive expectations of their new life.

Whilst staying in a cosmetic surgery clinic, Sandra caught sepsis. She was later admitted to hospital, her condition deemed critical. The following day, Bryan had been discovered behind a casino, robbed and beaten badly. Their two younger children have had to be placed into temporary foster care. Their fifteen-year-old daughter has been reported as missing, and their eldest son is currently in custody facing drug dealing charges.’

The Newspaper fell to the floor. Maggie’s body felt like ice was running through her veins. Her hands and body visibly shaking.

‘Are you okay?’ The woman sitting opposite her looked concerned. Maggie unable to speak, shook her head.