The Reading List(58)
‘Lucy,’ he called over, and the woman looked up. She smiled big too. Everyone here was a smiler. ‘I’ve got a lady looking for The Kite Runner!’
The woman hurried over, holding her own copy – ‘Oh my, yes, you’re in for a treat! We’ve got a couple of copies on the shelf. If you are interested, you could come along to our book group.’
‘What day is it?’ Indira asked, cautiously, not quite sure what she was signing up for. She only came here for a few books.
‘We meet every second Thursday of the month.’
Indira knew she was free then – Indira was always free.
‘Yes, okay – I will … I will read the book, and then, if I like it, I can come?’
‘Of course,’ the woman, Lucy, said. ‘But if you don’t like it, that’s fine too! We love a good discussion, we do! We have a young woman called Leonora who joined the library specially because of the book club. And we have a girl called Izzy; she’s such a voracious reader, always in here with a long list of books, a bit like yours actually, but she’s already read The Kite Runner – she’s got so many little sticky notes on it – the rest of us aren’t like that! She’s like a detective or something … anyway, she’s already told us she isn’t a fan. So, whether you like the book or not, you’ll always have someone on your wavelength. It’s a good way of connecting with people.’
The librarian lady smiled warmly, but she lingered on that last sentence, staring straight into Indira’s eyes. Or was it just Indira’s imagination?
‘Lucy is one of our volunteers so she knows this place like the back of her hand. Would you like me to grab the rest of these books for you?’ The Indian librarian was looking Indira up and down, her Zimmer frame his obvious concern.
‘Erm, no, actually – maybe I will take this one, first of all. See how I get on.’ She looked at the book in the woman’s hand and wondered whether she would be able to manage concentrating on a whole book. It had been a long time since she had read that much in English. ‘Do you have this one in Gujarati?’ she asked the Indian man, hoping he might understand.
‘Not this one, but we do have quite a few books in Gujarati,’ he said, and he led her towards the shelf. There were about fifty books there. Enough to keep her going for a good long time. ‘Wow,’ she exclaimed. ‘Well, I will start with The Kite Runner, but then, I think I will need to come back for this.’
‘And the other books on your list?’
She looked down. ‘Oh, yes, of course. I will come back.’
‘It’s been really nice to meet you … sorry, what’s your name?’ the white woman said to her.
‘Indira,’ Indira replied. ‘Nice to meet you also, Lucy. I am looking forward to the book group.’
‘Oh, we’re a lovely bunch of people, if I do say so myself! You’ll love it. We bring cakes and snacks too, so if you ever fancy sharing anything, you would of course be more than welcome to.’
‘Thank you!’
‘We’re a little community, we are,’ Lucy said, beaming still. Indira wondered whether her cheeks were hurting from all her happiness.
As Indira left the library that day, she knew she’d be back – that shelf of books was so exciting to see. She liked reading English, and she could read it well, but she missed reading Gujarati novels.
The list was still held in her hands, tucked into The Kite Runner. ‘Thank you,’ she muttered to it. ‘Thank you for bringing me here.’
PART VI
PRIDE AND PREJUDICE
by Jane Austen
Chapter 19
ALEISHA
SHE GLANCED OVER TO her bedside table. Pride and Prejudice was staring back at her. It really wasn’t her kind of thing. She’d picked it up twice now and couldn’t get into the early nineteenth-century world of dances, of balls, of marriage matches, of interfering mothers. But at the pace Mr P was reading, he’d have caught up with her in no time, so she forced her eyes to focus on the words, on the images of the Bennet family house, Mrs Bennet, bossy, overbearing. Elizabeth, pretty uppity herself actually, and Mr Darcy, the love interest, the Colin Firth character in the BBC series … pretty uppity too. She tried not to, but she couldn’t help comparing him with Zac. He’d been popping up in her head ever since she’d started reading this cheese-fest of a book. She couldn’t work out why, but he kept appearing on her mind’s horizon, wearing period costume, his face brooding and moody, just like Mr Darcy. She imagined Leilah in Mrs Bennet’s place … would she approve of him? She caught herself, her imagination already wandering too far. What was she doing, thinking of Zac, and Leilah, in this way?
She heard the upstairs floorboards creak. Aidan’s room was directly above hers, but she was sure he’d be fast asleep by now. He had an early shift tomorrow, according to the Post-it notes stuck on the fridge. It sounded as if he was pacing his room, frantic. She’d lived in the ground-floor bedroom long enough to work out what every creak meant. Usually, it was the ones from Leilah’s room that she was most attuned to. She sneaked out of her bedroom, leaving the book face down on her bed, and wandered upstairs, trying to be as quiet as possible. She didn’t want to be the one to wake Leilah up. She stood outside his bedroom door. She put one hand out, ready to knock, but she could hear the pacing clearly now, as well as a soft, choked sobbing. Her heart crashed to the pit of her stomach. Part of her wanted to rush in, envelop her brother in a hug. But the other part of her, the cowardly part, told her that he’d hate that, that he’d just want to be left alone. She let that second part win, and she tiptoed back down the stairs.