The Reading List(10)

For weeks after, in the pitch black of the night as Naina lay asleep beside him, Mukesh’s mind replayed those words: ‘I’m sorry, Mrs Patel.’

‘Naina,’ he’d whisper to her, ‘how can I swap places with you? How can I tell God to take me instead?’ Mukesh knew what was coming, just like Henry, just like Clare. But he refused to admit it to himself.

‘Mukesh,’ Naina said to him one morning. ‘We should talk about arrangements, for after …’ She’d said it softly yet so matter-of-factly. She was hurting him. Henry never let Clare dwell on that moment, on his death, did he? Mukesh wasn’t sure any more; his memory of the story had merged with his own life. Henry was Naina, and Mukesh was Clare. The one left behind.

‘Naina,’ he would say, smiling. ‘Don’t you worry about any of that, let’s just enjoy this beautiful day.’ He said the same thing, whether it was stormy outside, or brilliant sunshine.

‘We should talk about the girls, what they will need. Priya, and Jaya and Jayesh too. I have things I want to give to them, for when they are older. I should show you.’

Mukesh just shook his head, sipped his tea. ‘Naina, it is okay. You need to rest, we can do all that another day. Let’s watch something, one of those films, a nice one.’ The words tumbled from his mouth like a waterfall, trying to wash away Naina’s practicality.

‘Mukesh,’ Naina’s voice had been stern. Every few days she tried to speak to him, and every few days he dismissed her. ‘We’ve been given time, we should use it.’

Despite it all, she had never once tried to talk to him about how he should feel when she was gone, what he should do for himself, to bring her back. That was all he had ever wanted to know.

Now here he was alone, still without any clue as to what he should do now she was gone, left in a lifeless, soulless, bookless house that had once been their home. Naina had given her personality to this house, her heart hung up among her saris, her possessions decorating every surface – fabric and cardigans draped over every chair, books stacked in every corner and jewellery trailed from the bedposts.

He laid the book down, hopped off the bed and opened some of Naina’s cupboards, pulling out infinite saris, more roughly than he wanted to. He told himself he was looking for books, for something to give Priya to read, but really he was hoping it might bring Naina back to him. As sari after sari tumbled to the floor, he could smell the warm, musty tang of Naina’s perfume. It surrounded him like a cloud. For a moment, she was here again. She was everywhere.

He was wallowing for no reason – Rohini would want to give him a firm shake, saying, ‘Papa, life must go on. Mummy would have wanted that for you.’

He lay back onto the bed, looking up at the ceiling, and immediately regretted his decision. Would he ever be able to stand up again? He watched as the cracks in the ceiling grew before his eyes, as cobwebs began to overwhelm every corner of the room, as the shadows cast by the window pane developed into thick, inky-black lines, and he waited, waited for the ink to drip on him, obscuring him completely. He thought back to Henry, to Clare, to a time when his wife lying next to him wasn’t just the wish of a grief-stricken man.





THE READING LIST


CHRIS


2017


HE FORCED HIMSELF OUT of bed, his head heavy with sleep. But this was progress: it was the first time he’d been awake before midday in weeks. He felt the empty space beside him – Melanie’s side of the bed – and he immediately wanted the ground, the mattress, to swallow him whole and take the pain away. On the floor, a pile of crime books sat staring up at him, taunting him, a thin layer of dust collecting on the top.

Usually, Chris’s books were all he needed to get himself out of a funk. But when he’d first picked up a novel after the break-up and encountered a detective who was smart, tall, elegant and beautiful – all he could think about was Melanie. She was smart, tall, elegant and beautiful too. He’d shut the book in frustration, hearing the pages slam together. He’d stared up at the ceiling, his eyes unfocused, and stayed like that for the rest of the night, images of her running through his mind. Melanie … happy. Melanie … sad. Melanie, Melanie, Melanie.

Today, however, he was determined to put Melanie from his mind; his embarrassment, his weakness, his inability to ‘emotionally connect’ with people. He needed to tuck it into a little box, with a tiny wooden lid. He hoped and prayed that something would keep that box shut. He just needed a few hours to forget, to be another version of himself.

So, he pulled on his trousers – freshly washed ones today, and a new T-shirt, also just out of the cupboard, and headed for Harrow Road. He was in a reading slump, but every day he’d still dragged himself to the library: a little sanctuary in this lonely city. Since the break-up, his phone had been buzzing with messages from friends: ‘Hey, do you and Melanie want to join us for dinner tonight?’, ‘Hi Chris, let’s go for a walk. Joanna is missing Melanie and you!’, ‘How are you? How’s Melanie’s new job going? Hope you’re both good. Miss you guys x’. Melanie, Melanie, Melanie. Everyone loved Melanie; he loved Melanie. But in the library at least he could breathe, he could escape the onslaught of messages, just be for a little while.

Today, as he sat down in his usual spot, he saw something – a book, just sitting there. Some people were careless, stacking up books to ‘peruse’, never returning the discarded ones to their rightful places, leaving it all down to the library staff. He would do the good deed and return it to the shelves.