Southbank Stories

Jack was aimlessly wandering along the Southbank. He didn’t know where he intended to end up all he knew was that he was searching for something, anything. Anything to give his life a bit of meaning, give him a reason to stay on this earth. It’s not that he was suicidal as such, he was just feeling completely desolate, fed up and over life. Everything felt like such a chore. Ever since Amy left Jack couldn’t bring himself to do much other than work, sleep, repeat. He knew that it wasn’t healthy, he knew that he needed help, but he just didn’t know how.

Nobody ever teaches you that, how to actually get help. It’s always just ‘get help’ ‘speak to someone’ but nobody ever tells you who you’re meant to be speaking to. When he Googled mental health support in South London there were billions of results and he was so overwhelmed that he pretty much benched that quest forever in his mind.

It was a wet windy day and the Southbank was eerily quiet, even for a rainy day. London was never really quiet and that’s why Jack felt so at home here. Even though he was completely and utterly alone, he was never really alone.

When he was around strangers, Jack made up stories in his head. Endless potential lives played out in his imagination. There was a guy running towards him and Jack imagined he was training to run a marathon to try and impress his new girlfriend who was super into running. The guy looked like he really hated the run but he had this hardcore determination on his face that suggested he was going to finish it even if it killed him. Jack admired this guy and his imaginary determination. He wished that he had determination for something, anything. It didn’t have to be a hypothetical marathon.

Jack had been walking for two hours so when he reached the Tate modern he decided to take a seat. As he walked up to a bench he spotted a little black notebook laying on the ground as if it had fallen out of someone’s pocket. Jack, intrigued and pretty bored, picked up the notebook and started reading.

The notebook was full of scribblings and notes, little observations and stories. It felt like the pages were so old that they might crumble in his hands and the writing was quite old fashioned. Jack sat and read the notebook from front to back, carefully turning each page, it felt like an invasion of privacy but he couldn’t stop himself.

Snippets of stories oozed out of the pages and into Jack’s mind. He felt exhilarated by this mysterious book of stories. Who wrote them? Who’s mind do these words belong to? Would they be frantically searching for this treasure trove of ideas?

As he was about to put the book down he noticed the last two pages were slightly stuck together, he peeled them apart to reveal a note that said ‘reward if found please bring to 4 Cheyne Walk, Chelsea’.

The first thought that entered Jack’s mind was why wouldn’t you just leave a phone number or an email address? And why wouldn’t you add this information to the start of the book? So many questions. It started to rain heavily and Jack was about to leave the book on the floor where he found it and then his phone buzzed. It was the bank telling him was about to go over his overdraft, again. Amy leaving didn’t just leave Jack emotionally empty, it also left his bank account empty too. Moving is not cheap and Jack, in attempt to minimise the emotional turmoil of the situation, just let Amy keep everything. So he’d spent all of his money on buying the essentials for an overpriced, horrible, studio flat in Stockwell. Jack sighed. Money was always on his mind and he thought it was somewhat unfair that his bank could now contact him in multiple, instant ways. Back in his early 20s, the bank had to send you letters, which meant you only had to face up to your financial troubles when you felt up to it.

Jack wondered what the ‘reward’ was for finding these stories and, although Chelsea wasn’t exactly on his way home, he figured that he had nothing else to do on this depressing Sunday then walk with purpose an hour in the wrong direction.

The walk was long but as he approached the address he realised where he was. He knew that Cheyne Walk rang a bell but he didn’t realise he had been heading towards literally one of the most expensive streets in the entire country. He was dressed in over worn jeans which had rips that weren’t meant to be there, his old Adidas trainers that he should have thrown out three years ago, and a raincoat that looked like something from a teenage camping trip. Brilliant. But he hadn’t come this far to turn around and go back, plus on his way he’d received two more messages from his bank and one from his boss saying ‘meeting with HR tomorrow’ which was literally never a good thing.

With the impending doom of the thought he might be getting fired tomorrow, he approached the door and rang the bell. There was a long wait and he realised that it was still pretty early to be knocking on someone’s door on a Sunday, but just as he was about to give up an old, frail lady opened the door. She smiled at Jack as if she knew him which made him feel awkward so he started talking really fast about the little black book he’d found. The woman said nothing while Jack blurted out about how he’d found the book by the Tate on his walk where he’d been trying to clear his head although that wasn’t working. He didn’t understand why he was explaining his life to this woman but she continued to smile politely and when he finally finished she simply said “come in dear it’s wet and cold out there.” With seemingly no other choice, Jack followed the woman into the warmth and heat of this grand house.

The woman made some tea without saying anything other than “milk or sugar?” She handed Jack the cup and said, “so you found my book?” Jack, already having spoken way more than he should have done on the doorstep, simply replied with a feeble “yes.”

The woman gestured at Jack to hand over the notebook, he retrieved the book from his pocket, where it had been mostly but not entirely protected from the rain and gave it to her with an apologetic look on his face.

The woman carefully place the book on the shelf, where there were many other black notebooks like it, all with varying levels of wear and tear. The woman followed Jack’s eyes to the other books and said “do you want to have a look?” Jack, again with nothing else to do for the rest of the day, took the opportunity and replied “yes please.”

The woman slowly got up and that she had somewhere to be in an hour but that he could stay until then. He briefly thought about mentioning the reward but it wasn’t in Jack’s nature to ask for things like that, he wished it was because then he might be in a better situation in his life but now was not the time for a new found confidence.

He started from the left and picked up one of the newer looking notebooks. The pages were again filled with ideas and stories. Each page left him feeling like he’d had an insight into another person’s life. Some of the thoughts weren’t too dissimilar from the stories that enter his own mind, passing thoughts about strangers on the street, a hypothetical insight into someone’s life, a profound thought about a morning cup of coffee.

Jack got lost in the stories and barely even noticed when the woman reentered the room an hour later, she gently whispered “they’re magical aren’t they?” Jack jumped slightly and nodded. He felt a wave of disappointment that he had to leave the stories behind.

As the old lady shuffled towards Jack he noticed she had a piece of paper in her hand. She guided him out of the room and said it was lovely to have him there. The situation was absolutely bizarre from an outside perspective but being in the middle of it, it felt completely normal and like a visit to an old friend.

On the doorstep, she handed the paper she was holding to him and started talking, it was her turn for the doorstep ramble; “the notebook you found today belonged to George Eliot. It’s one of the most valuable literary artefacts in the world. It has all her first thoughts and ideas in and is worth a fortune. I placed it there for somebody to find because I knew that it would make its way in the right hands. I wanted it to be out in the world again one last time before it goes to a museum to spend the rest of its life. I want you to take comfort in knowing that it was meant to find you. Stories find the people that need them most.”

Jack was stunned to silence, he had no idea what any of this meant. He simply replied “you mean the literary great George Eliot?” The woman laughed softly and said “promise me you won’t open the cheque until you’re home? And, young man, stories are your purpose now” before closing the door with a degree of force that was surprisingly strong for such a frail woman.

Jack was left out on the doorstop with a million questions. What just happened? Was it a dream? Did he really just read the notes of George Eliot? Surely not. It just all seemed so implausible. With no idea what else to do with himself, Jack just started putting one foot in front of the other until he somehow managed to get home. He felt like he was in a weird trance and wondered if the loneliness finally had sent him mad.

As he reentered his dark, lonely flat, he got another text from his boss that he refused to open. Why did his phone only go off with bad stuff? Jack turned it off and unfolded the cheque. He almost yelped in disbelief. The cheque was for $20,000. A simply life changing amount of money. He made himself a strong drink and sat on his bed and stared at it for a while trying to decide if this could possibly be real or not.

He felt completely and utterly bewildered and didn’t know what to do with himself. He opened his laptop and attempted to pay in the cheque via online banking. He felt so sure that it wouldn’t be real so didn’t have time to feel bad about taking $20,000 from a stranger but suddenly the cheque was accepted and he had $20,000 pending in his account.

Jack couldn’t believe his eyes and so picked up a book and tried to read, this was his go to activity when the world felt too much and he was desperately trying to make some sort of sense of it all. After trying to read the same sentence three times he put the book down and logged back on to his laptop.

He went online and ordered his very own little black notebook and almost as if someone else was controlling his body, he text his boss ‘I’m not coming in tomorrow, or maybe ever again’ and deleted Amy’s number. He suddenly felt like he had found what he was searching for.