The Reading List(94)

Mukesh let the words hang in the air, and for a moment he felt a comforting hand on his shoulder. Naina’s.

Aleisha kept staring at her desk. She refused to look up at him.

‘Aleisha,’ Mukesh said softly. ‘Please try to remember that books aren’t always an escape; sometimes books teach us things. They show us the world, they don’t hide it.’

That’s a proper Atticus moment, Mukesh, Naina whispered in his ear, louder than ever before. He steadied himself against the desk for a moment.

Mukesh waited for Aleisha. She didn’t respond and continued to scroll. Eventually, she let her phone sit beside her and just watched her screen.

Every so often, it would buzz and flash, sitting on the table in front of them and, while normally she’d turn it over, today she picked it up. Every single time. Her mind was somewhere else. It was understandable.

Mukesh didn’t want to upset her, but he thought it would be better for her not to look at her phone. His daughters were always doing this too. Always looking at their phone in the middle of conversations, like they were never really present.

‘What is it?’ Mukesh asked, trying to keep his voice light.

Aleisha showed him the screen. A photograph of Aidan, a girl and a boy, both squinting in the sunshine. Aidan had sunglasses on.

‘Lovely.’

‘It’s not lovely – look what they’ve written underneath.’

Mukesh could just about make out some typed words, but he couldn’t for the life of him work out what they said. ‘I can’t see,’ he admitted, and Aleisha read it out for him, hashtags and all.

‘Always there for me, always cared. Miss you Aid. Won’t ever forget you. #RIP #GoneButNeverForgotten #RestInParadise #Depression #TimeToTalk.’

‘That’s a nice tribute to him,’ Mukesh said.

‘No, it’s not,’ she sounded furious. ‘It takes five minutes to do an Instagram post, if that. They’re splashing my brother all over the internet, claiming a right to grief. They’ve even put the funeral on their story!’

Mukesh had no idea what that really meant – ‘story’ – but whatever it was had clearly upset Aleisha.

‘Who hashtags depression? They don’t even know it’s depression. And why the fuck would they tag him in it? Because he’ll see it from wherever he is? Paradise?’

‘I don’t know what that means.’

‘Look,’ Aleisha passed the phone to Mukesh. ‘Scroll down.’ Mukesh did as told, his fingers fumbling about until the image started to move.

There were dozens and dozens of photographs of Aidan with various people – there were some photos of the flower arrangement spelling out his name, and he recognized Nilakshi’s dining-room table with the food spread out all over it too. Everything. They had documented it all.

‘For everyone to gawp at. Everyone. Even people who didn’t know him. We wanted a small, intimate ceremony for friends and family, and now everyone has a piece of him.’

One tear, just one, slid down Aleisha’s cheek. She left it there so as not to draw attention to it. But Mukesh saw – he’d had three teenage daughters, all of whom had tried that same trick once in their lives, whether in response to the ending of It’s a Wonderful Life (the saddest film ever), or because someone had decided to slap them on the way home from school because of the colour of their skin and they needed to pretend that they were okay with it, that there was no one to blame.

‘I’m sorry, Aleisha, it is just their way of paying respect I think.’ Mukesh passed the phone back.

Aleisha began to obsessively scroll. She tapped a few things and started to type. He worried that she might be typing horrible emails to the people; he wondered if they would understand, if they would forgive her.

‘My dad has put a photograph of Aidan as a baby up on his Facebook profile. He hasn’t had any evidence of any of us on his Facebook since he got married again. Does a dead kid earn you respect, or something?’

Mukesh noticed that Aleisha’s natural tone had vanished – she was enunciating in a way she never had before.

‘Aleisha, I think you should go off these internet things. Please. For a little while, not just today.’

Aleisha looked him in the eye for the first time since he’d started talking about The Time Traveler’s Wife. Her face screwed up, she rubbed her eyes and she took three deep breaths.

‘You’re right,’ she said eventually, turning her phone face down on the table.

Mukesh nodded – yes, he was.

They sat alone in silence for a while, tucked away in a corner of the library. Mukesh looked around him – it was quiet now, but he remembered seeing people, people he felt he knew, a little community he felt a part of.

He took himself away to a separate part of the library, wanting to give Aleisha some space, but not wanting to be too far away. He stepped back into Beloved – he’d already finished reading it, but he didn’t want to ask for a new book. He didn’t want to put the pressure on her right now.

He flicked through the pages of Denver’s plan as she looked to escape the boundaries of their house, 124. Denver, who hadn’t left the house in twelve years; Denver, who had a terrible fear of the outside world – she had gone for help. She’d overcome her fears, and thirty women from the community turned up to help Denver in any way they could.