The Reading List(4)

Rohini took the lead, shouting instructions to Vritti to root out the boxes under the bed, while she dashed around the room, returning a comb to its rightful place in a shoebox on the top of the wardrobe, folding up shawls and tidying them away into a big wheely suitcase, and packing away handfuls and handfuls of bangles. Mukesh watched as they dragged box after box out from under the bed. Vritti knelt to the floor, her cheek pressed against the carpet, and ran her hand to the left, and to the right.

All of a sudden, there was a clinking, clattering crash.

‘Oh, God! What have you done?’ Rohini groaned, staring down at her sister. Vritti pulled the box out, revealing a now half-emptied yoghurt pot of mismatched earrings. Next came the Clarks shoebox of photographs that had entertained them all for hours on end when the girls were little, sitting on Naina or Mukesh’s knees, asking about their paisley patterned clothes and garish flares. Mukesh had always thought they looked rather fashionable. The girls laughed at that.

Then followed several pieces of empty Tupperware. And finally, one lonely, dust-covered library book.

Vritti slowed her pace for a moment and held it in her hands, as Rohini knelt down beside her sister.

‘Papa,’ they called, loudly, still oblivious he was only a few feet away. Deepali trotted into the room then too.

‘Mummy’s book – well … library book,’ Rohini said. ‘I thought I’d returned them all, but I must have missed this one.’ She held it up to him and he walked forward, not quite believing it. As though this dusty, icky, sticky book was some kind of mirage. When he’d seen the other relics of her life, he’d barely felt a thing. But here, seeing this book, the grey dust sticking to the plastic cover in splotches, it was like Naina was here in the room with them. Here, with his three girls, and one of Naina’s beloved books, for a moment, just a moment, he didn’t feel so alone.

Once upon a time, a huge stack of library books sat on Naina’s bedside table. They’d kept her company in her last year. She’d read the same ones over and over again. Her ‘favourites’. Mukesh wished now that he’d asked her what they were about, what she loved about them, why she’d felt the need to read the same ones again and again. He wished that he’d read them with her.

And now all he had left was this one library book: The Time Traveler’s Wife.

That night, with the room devoid of Naina’s mess, Mukesh cracked the spine, feeling like an intruder. This wasn’t his book, it was never chosen for him, and perhaps Naina would never have wanted him to read it either. He forced himself to read one page, but had to stop. The words weren’t making sense. He was trying to turn the black letters and yellowed pages into a letter from Naina to him. But no such message existed.

The next night, he tried again. He put Naina’s reading lamp on and turned to page one once more. He flicked through the successive pages, trying to be gentle, trying so hard not to leave his own mark on this book in any tangible way. He wanted this book to be Naina, and only Naina. He searched, forensically, for a clue – a mark on the page, a drop of chai, a tear, an eyelash, anything at all. He told himself that one day he would have to return it to the library – it’s what Naina would have wanted. But he couldn’t let it go. Not yet. It was his last chance to bring Naina back.

He took it page by page, chapter by chapter. He met Henry, a character who could travel through time. Through this gift, he could meet a past or future version of himself, and it was also, importantly, how he met Clare – he travelled in time to meet her when she was just a girl, and returned again and again over the years. The love of his life. And Clare had no choice but to love him, because he was all she had ever known.

He began to see these characters not as Henry and Clare but as love itself – that kind of love that feels fated, inescapable. That’s what he and Naina had. Eventually in the story, Henry leaps forward into the future and learns he is going to die. He tells Clare he knows when it will happen, when they’ll be separated for ever.

As he was reading about Clare and Henry’s tragedy, the phone beside him had begun to trill. It was Deepali. He’d not been able to speak, he could only cry.

‘I knew she was going to die, my beta,’ he said to her, when his voice could finally escape. ‘In the same way Clare knew Henry was going to die in that book. They could almost count their last days together. I had that warning, too. But did I do enough? Did I make her last few months happy?’

‘Dad, what are you talking about?’

‘Your mummy’s book – Time Traveling Wife.’

‘What about it, Dad?’ Her voice was soft, he could hear the pity ringing through it.

‘Henry and Clare … you know … they loved each other ever since they were very young, just like me and your mummy. And they knew when he was going to die. And they lived their lives as best they could, making the most of every moment. I don’t know if I did the same.’

‘Dad, Mummy loved you, and she knew you loved her. That was enough. Come on, now. It’s late, Papa, go to sleep, okay? Don’t worry about it at all. You gave her a good life, and she gave you a good life too.’

Naina had died. But this book felt like one little glimpse into her soul, into their love, their life together. A snapshot of the early days of their marriage when they were still all but strangers to each other. Married, with no idea of what the other one was really like. Naina would do everything – she’d cook, she’d clean, she’d laugh, she’d cry, she’d sew, she’d mend, and at the end of the day, she’d read. She’d settle into bed as though she’d had the most relaxing day, and she’d read. From their first few weeks together, he knew that he loved her, and he’d love her for ever.