Words in Deep Blue(41)

I find a lot of people in the Letter Library this week. Even in the nameless lines, I read stories. One person has gone through Pablo Neruda’s The Captain’s Verses with the same hot-pink pen and I was halfway through cataloguing it when I realised everything they’d marked was a reference to sex. At least, I think they were references to sex. Or maybe I’m just thinking that because Henry’s on my mind again.

Henry’s letters in Cloud Atlas this week aren’t romantic. They’re about death, mostly, but strangely, they’ve made me feel like those pink highlighted lines. I love getting them. I go on breaks so I can come back and find one. If I go on a break and there isn’t a letter when I get back, I’m disappointed.

I’ve wanted to talk to Henry more and more as the week’s gone on. I don’t know whether I like him again or whether I’m looking for distraction or if the love letters I’ve found in the library have set off some kind of madness. Henry is a kind of madness, I’ve decided.

I’ve started searching for the love notes in the library, while I’m waiting for Henry to write. I’m not working in strictly alphabetical order anymore. I’m skipping around, looking for the interesting notes.

On Monday I read a series of letters from A to B in The Fault in Our Stars. At first they don’t call themselves A and B. At first they’re just lines on the page, written in different coloured pens. A writes in blue, B writes in black. They write underneath each other – Funny, A writes near a particular sentence. Hilarious, B writes underneath. By page 50 they’re telling each other their favourite lines. By page 100 A says he’s a guy and B says he’s a guy too. By page 105 it’s clear they both like each other. They met, according to the last page of the book, out the front of a club called Hush, on 2 January 2015.

Every night this week I’ve gone home thinking about A and B, and the pink on the pages of Pablo Neruda. I think about F and what happened to him when E died. Those thoughts lead to Henry, which are thoughts that keep me awake. It’s as though I’ve slipped back through time. I’ve fallen back into thinking about Henry as I drive to work, as I drive home. Things happen and it’s him I want to tell.

I’ve fallen back into thinking about him at night. The only way I’ve been able to sleep in the end is by distracting myself with Cloud Atlas. Whenever I’ve thought about kissing Henry, I’ve read a page. It’s 544 pages long. I’ve almost finished the book.

On Friday, I’m looking at the note where Henry has asked me to dance. ‘I want to say yes, but I’ve been here before,’ I say to Lola, who’s lying on the floor while I catalogue this afternoon, lost in her own thoughts about Hiroko leaving. She sits up and goes to take the letter, but Henry’s in the store watching, so I shake my head.

‘You don’t want to talk about it?’ she asks.

‘I want to talk about it, but pretend we’re talking about something else.’

‘This is the problem,’ she says.

‘With us?’

‘With everything. No one’s saying what they want.’

‘I don’t know what I want.’

‘You must know what you want or you wouldn’t want to talk about it while you pretended we’re talking about something else.’

‘Amy’ll come back,’ I say. ‘Don’t you think?’

‘She’ll definitely come back,’ Lola says, and flicks her eyes at the letter. ‘But maybe Henry does something different this time.’




I drive Martin home and lift the talking ban because I like Martin but also because he and Henry have become friends, and I’m wondering if they talk about Amy or me. I can’t ask him directly, but I’m hoping he’ll spill something by accident.

We discuss the cataloguing at first. Martin’s finding things in books too, but not like I am. He’s finding things people leave by mistake, the accidental histories of people.

Mostly, we talk about George on the way home this afternoon. He fills me in on what happened after the party, how they made up and then he blew it by telling her she had a problem. He’s been buying her coffee all week as an apology, and today he made progress. He does this double punch in the air that reminds me of Cal. ‘She smiled at me today when I handed over the coffee, so I asked her if maybe she wanted to meet up tonight and she said yes. We’re going out later. Just as friends, of course.’

‘Of course,’ I say.

He looks so excited that I feel like I should say something to him. If it were Cal sitting next to me, about to go out ‘as friends’ with a girl he really liked, I’d tell him to be careful. I don’t tell Martin that, though. It’s not like I’m being careful about my feelings for Henry.




I’m smiling when I walk into the restaurant, an Italian place not far from the warehouse. I’m looking forward to seeing Rose. She’s been working all week, and we’ve hardly had a chance to talk. I’m looking forward to seeing Henry. I liked helping Martin. I’m thinking about garlic bread and smiling even more when I see Mum sitting at the table with Rose.

‘Surprise! I missed you so much that I took the day off school,’ she says, in a voice that sounds falsely cheerful.

When I kiss her on the cheek, she tells me I smell nice. I feel guilty for finding the energy to use make-up and Rose’s perfume this morning.