The Reading List(74)
‘Come in, beta,’ he said, leading his family to the living room. Deepali settled herself in her mother’s favourite chair, and Jaya and Jayesh crowded at her feet. Priya wandered straight over to her dada, holding her book up to him, excitable. ‘I have only just started reading, but it is lovely. I know about Atticus Finch now.’ He beamed. For a moment, Mukesh couldn’t quite believe his luck. He couldn’t wait to tell Aleisha that the books she’d recommended were, so far, a big success with Priya. She had found him books he could read with his granddaughter after all.
‘Dada,’ Priya chirped. ‘What’s this book about?’ She held up Pride and Prejudice. He could tell she was trying to take her Deepalimasi’s mind off everything and anything.
‘It’s a love story, isn’t it?’ Vritti volunteered.
‘Ha, in some ways,’ Mukesh said. ‘Bossy Mrs Bennet wants to marry her daughters off to rich men. But one of her daughters, Elizabeth Bennet, she wants to marry for love, not money,’ he explained to Priya.
‘Dada,’ Priya said. ‘Do you think Ba read this book?’
Deepali looked up at her father. ‘I bet she did, even I’ve read it.’
‘Are you her Mr Darcy, Papa?’ Vritti and Deepali chuckled; Priya looked completely blank, but she smiled anyway.
‘I don’t think so! I’ve never been that suave. Besides, your mummy had no choice with me,’ he said, self-deprecatingly. ‘But, she was my entire world.’ In his mind’s eye, he saw Naina on their wedding day. He had been scared; he hadn’t known this woman at all but she was about to become his family. ‘She always knew how to make people feel comfortable, didn’t she?’
‘Why do you think the temple made her come to every event?’ Deepali said, rolling her eyes.
‘I remember my mother taking me aside the day before my wedding,’ Mukesh continued, ‘telling me what a lovely girl she was, intelligent, kind. I didn’t want to believe her – she just sounded too good to be true. And I felt so strongly that if I’d been given the time and freedom, I could have chosen someone better for me. But then I met her and, instantly, I knew …’
‘What, Dada?’ Priya asked.
‘I knew your ba was the only person right for me!’
Their courtship began after the wedding. Every day with Naina brought surprises. The first was what Naina looked like in the morning – remarkably, no one had braced him for the fact that she might look the same as any other time of the day. But even years down the line the surprises continued: when his father was dying of a slow illness, Naina knew what to say.
‘Mukesh?’ She appeared in the doorway one morning, a huge book clutched in her hands. She brought it towards him – a family album that she had put together. ‘It’s for you.’
He only had a few photos in there of his childhood, but there was one of him, sitting on his father’s knee – their faces were stern, but immediately Mukesh’s father came to life for him. He didn’t know where that album was now. Tucked away somewhere safe, he supposed.
‘What was he like? When you were young?’ Naina had asked.
‘He could be scary, I remember that. He was always telling me off if I ran around in the house, or got my shoes too dusty from outside. But he loved playing with me – we played cricket,’ he laughed.
Naina frowned. ‘But you’re terrible at cricket.’
‘I know – I took after him. He was terrible too.’ He smiled; he held the photo album close, peeling off that photo of him and his father, their eyes highlighted by kohl as though they were in some kind of awful Goth band. He hadn’t thought anyone would be able to soothe him in those months, but Naina did. Speaking about his boyhood, about his relationship with his father, was one way of coming to terms with the fact that his father wouldn’t be around for ever.
He only wished that when Naina had gone too, she could have been there holding his hand. Leading him through his grief step by step.
Though he’d held onto her in his own small ways, it wasn’t quite enough.
As Mukesh’s mind wandered into the past, Priya found her way over to her dada, and wrapped her arms around him as she used to wrap her arms around Naina, anchoring him in the present with his family.
They love you, he heard, in the distance. They’ve always loved you.
He’d know that voice anywhere – it was Naina. She was back once more.
‘Papa,’ Deepali walked towards him. ‘I’m glad you’ve found people, people to talk to, you know?’ She held the book up. ‘I’m glad you’re reaching out to people. At the library. The temple. Nilakshimasi,’ she pulled him into a hug. ‘Mummy would be so proud of you.’
PART VII
LITTLE WOMEN
by Louisa May Alcott
Chapter 25
ALEISHA
‘YOU ALL RIGHT, ALEISHA?’
It was ‘Call me Chris’ – Crime Thriller – approaching the desk, a heavy-looking rucksack on his back, no doubt laden with books.
‘Yeah,’ Aleisha said, wiping hair out of her tired eyes, her fingers frantically searching for the to-do list she’d left somewhere on her desk. ‘Just having one of those days.’