The Destiny of Matthew Read online

The Destiny of Matthew

  Jason Nevercott

  Copyright Jason Nevercott 2009

  Chapter One

  It was just after 4 p.m. on Friday and Matthew was queuing to buy an entrance ticket in the Kunsthistorisches art museum in Vienna. He had been happy to go in there to get out of the mid-December cold but his main reasons were to tick another sight off his list and to use up some time. He was not really interested in art, though even he could see that it was a very beautiful building. Its entrance hall had an ornate beige-coloured, umbrella-like, high ceiling with a big hole in its middle, which presumably led to the building’s dome. It also had a marble circular floor with a sleek white, grey, and black design on it.

  As Matthew continued to wait, he reflected that he now felt much better than when he had first left his hotel where he was staying with his parents to visit the city alone. He did not feel fantastic – he never felt like this about himself – but he did not feel too bad either. He had been very nervous this morning. It had been the first time he had toured a foreign city alone and he felt sure that he would easily be spotted by the many thieves and dangerous people he believed were waiting for vulnerable tourists like him. This was why he wore his hoodie under his warm jacket: he thought it made him look tougher.

  He had been angry with his parents for bringing him here, which made him feel braver as he walked down the Praterstrasse from his hotel towards the centre. They thought it would be good for him to have a change of scenery: it would get him out of his rut. But what did they know of his problems? he had asked himself. Ok, so he did not have many friends, had not yet had a girlfriend, and did not go out much. But this was his lifestyle at the moment; he did not feel like doing anything else.

  He had also been angry with himself for coming. So why, he had asked himself, had he? He did not know the exact answer. He did not necessarily agree with his parents but thought it would be good to have a new experience, which ironic as it might seem for someone with his lazy lifestyle, he knew was important in life, to grow as a person. But now that he was here, he was not enjoying it and had not been from the time they had flown in that morning.

  As the queue in front of him got smaller, he almost laughed to himself when he thought about these reasons and the other one why he had felt angry. This was his decision to see the sights of Vienna without his parents, which he had known would make him more vulnerable. But it was bad enough that he as an eighteen-year-old was travelling on his own, never mind being chaperoned by his parents as well: that really would be embarrassing. This was typical of him, he thought.

  He then reflected that he had not done badly today in terms of seeing the main sights, considering it was his first time doing so on his own. This was even though at times he had felt a little lonely. He had been to the old royal palaces of the Hofburg, where he easily killed over two hours. Here, he had seen the Spanish riding school, and the varied collection of sometimes historical but sometimes weird exhibits in its museums, including a bowl thought to be the Holy Grail, and a spear that had allegedly pierced the side of Christ while he was on the Cross.

  Then having had enough of museums, he went to St. Stephen’s Cathedral and Square, which, despite there being none of the snow he had expected, he thought was very Christmassy in a way his home city never was. This changed his view of Vienna, which he had thought was beautiful with its old buildings but was lacking something in atmosphere in its clean Germanic way. He had stayed in the Square for a good hour, enjoying the hustle and bustle of its market, and eating a couple of nice Austrian hotdogs for lunch.

  In this better mood, he had decided he was now ready for another museum. On the way he stopped to see the outside of the Staatsoper Opera house. Here he noticed a traditional coffee house nearby, which his guidebook told him was an essential part of the Vienna experience. He was nervous about going in on his own, but eventually forced himself to.

  But now at the museum he believed he had made a mistake in going there and felt a little negative about the memory of the two pretty waitresses seemingly giggling at him for some reason. Why did this always happen to him? he had asked himself. Ok, so he was not the best looking teenager in the world, being tall and skinny, which girls did not like. But his face was not bad-looking and he had a good head of black fashionably dishevelled hair. They had probably thought he was a weirdo, he thought: in Vienna all on his own.

  ‘Bitte,’ someone said behind him, interrupting his thoughts and pointing him forward to the now free ticket kiosk.

  ‘Sorry,’ he said feebly, as he returned to the real world and went to buy his ticket. He then headed closer to the three sets of stairs leading off from the grand entrance hall. He decided to take the ones leading to the left wing, as he wanted to see the entire museum and thought this would be the best place to start.

  On his way he continued to admire the magnificent decoration, noticing that the hole in the ceiling did indeed lead to the museum’s dome. He could hear the echo of people talking and their footsteps as they walked through the museum. He checked his watch: it was 4.16 p.m. He knew he had to take his time, as he was not due back at his hotel to meet his parents for dinner until 7 p.m.

  This part of the museum was filled mainly with old statues and stonework. Matthew did not really take much notice of them, merely glancing at most of them. He could see that a lot of skill had gone into making them but they did not move him in any way. He then went to the right wing of the ground floor, which he was relieved to see contained more interesting exhibits from Egypt and Rome. He looked at his watch: it was now 4.55 p.m. Only 40 minutes gone, he thought. I will have to be slower on the first floor, at least an hour.

  He returned to the entrance hall and walked up the wide main stairway, looking around him as he did so. There was a large statue of a muscular man about to club some strange half human/horse at the top, and a couple of big marble lions on either side of the staircase. ‘Sorry,’ he said as he nearly bumped into some tourist with a small video camera.

  At the top, two smaller stairways led back on either side to the first floor. He took the right one and when he reached this floor admired the dome and its decoration in front of him. But he did not go into the cafe underneath it: he had had enough of cafes and their waitresses for one day.

  He then turned left into some galleries he discovered were full of Italian art. As he walked through them he recognised some famous names: Raphael, Titian, Caravaggio. The pictures were beautiful but he was not sure what he was supposed to be looking for when he viewed these pictures. Was it their lifelikeness, their subjects, stories, or different styles? He did not know and as much as he tried to find some meaning in them he could not. But still, he thought, at least I’ve seen them, and ticked them off my list.

  Next he went over to the left wing of the first floor, which contained paintings of northern European artists. Again, he recognised some famous names as he walked through the many galleries: Rembrandt, Rubens. But again nothing really appealed to him until...

  He could not stop staring at it. It was a woodland scene. There were two big trees on either side in the foreground. Behind these there were other trees, which gradually met at the back of a bowl-shaped clearing. It was quite dark but very appealing.

  He moved towards it, almost involuntarily. He could not believe the effect it was having on him. He had been to a few art galleries before but never had any picture affected him like this.

  The closer he got to it, the more it seemed to come alive. There was something so incredibly beautiful and mysterious about its darkness; he wanted to explore it, to become part of it.

  He could see a large broken branch on the floor from the big tree on the left, and underneath and beyond that a
pond with some reeds around it in the Clearing. The bottom third of the scene was brown with the trunks of the trees. But the top two thirds were green with leaves, with a little, very little, thin show of sky from the left.

  He seemed to be entering the picture. What the hell! The outer edges of his vision began to swirl. But he did not feel unsteady. It felt calming and peaceful. He began to feel a soft woodland breeze and smell the duskiness of the forest.

  He was nearly there. He could see the trees swaying a little and some ripples in the pond. Am I having a hallucination? he asked himself. If I am it feels great.

  Then suddenly, an image of a girl came into his head. ‘Help me. Please help me. You must save me...’ she appealed. But he could not see her face or where she was.

  Suddenly the loud noise of horsemen galloping replaced this vision. He knew they were far away but they, coming after the image of the girl, freaked him out.

  They got louder and louder. He became very scared. He tried to force himself away from the woodland clearing, which was no longer so appealing.

  But he could not. The hooves were now almost deafening but he could not return to the museum no matter how much he tried. It was too late!