The Reading List

by Sara Nisha Adams

  After ten minutes, she’d already succeeded in forming two piles. Stuff to chuck: a few train tickets, old receipts and a torn ticket to see Stormzy dated 2017. Stuff to keep: one lonely chicken shop loyalty card – with just one stamp left to go. Poor Kyle would be gutted he’d missed out on this piece of treasure.

  Just as she began to open a particularly disgusting copy of War and Peace, she spotted, out of the corner of her eye, an old man on the other side of the library’s glass doors. He was trying to push the doors open. When that failed, he tried waving his arms around.

  Bloody hell, she thought to herself, there’s a push button right in front of you. Just when she thought she might be left alone for the rest of the day. She rolled her eyes and waited for him to work it out. With enough luck, he’d lose patience and wander off on his next errand.

  But she was wrong. He persisted, fruitlessly. He stood there, reaching up, one hand on the small of his back, his neck as long as it could go, peering at every inch of the doors, searching for a clue. His eyes went from left to right – his head followed, just a moment behind.

  Nothing.

  She waited a little while longer, but as his hands began to reach up to the top of the doors, she gave in. She didn’t need Thermos Flask Dev yelling at her for neglect if this guy toppled over or something, trying to climb through an upstairs window.

  She pulled her earphones out, walked over to the entrance, and pressed the button to open the doors. She watched as they slid apart. ‘Aha!’ the man said, from the other side, delighted with himself.

  ‘I just pressed the button. There’s a button outside too.’

  ‘Oh, thank you, miss.’ He nodded his head.

  Aleisha wandered back to the desk, plugged her headphones in again, latex gloves at the ready.

  But when she looked up once more, the old man was standing exactly where she had left him. On the wrong side of the doors, which had now closed automatically behind her. She rolled her eyes, and resolved, this time, not to help him.

  ‘Excuse me, miss!’ He was now knocking on the door with one hand, frantically feeling around with the other, looking for the button he’d missed. She didn’t get paid enough for this.

  After thirty seconds of him fumbling and knocking on the door, the mum decided to take her toddler home, letting the old man in on her way out. He didn’t miss his chance this time and hopped straight in, walking right up to Aleisha at the desk. She fixed her eyes on her scrap-paper pile, pretending to concentrate, hoping he’d realize she was busy and leave her alone.

  Even through her music, she could hear his repeated, ‘Excuse me, miss.’ Then he started tapping on her desk. When his finger began to worm its way over to the bell, she looked him straight in the eyes.

  ‘What can I help you with, sir?’ she smiled, sweetly, using her polite ‘look at me I’m a librarian’ voice.

  ‘I am wanting to return …’ and after a moment of silence, his face blanched. ‘No, sorry, actually,’ he shook his head vigorously, ‘I said I am looking for some books.’ She noticed him clutching a little canvas bag tightly to his side, as though clinging on for dear life.

  ‘You’re in the right place,’ she smirked.

  ‘No, miss, I need your help. Please do help me.’

  She sighed. ‘What do you need help with?’

  ‘I …’ his voice quivered, almost inaudibly. His cheeks had adopted a faint pink glow, and she could see his ears turning a fluorescent red. ‘I’m not sure … what … books, can I get some stories?’

  ‘You can use the self-service machines for that.’ She pointed to the computer desks.

  He looked at the computers, and down at his hands. ‘I don’t think I will know how to use them,’ he said.

  ‘Do you know what books you’re looking for?’ she sighed, turning to her screen, minimizing Instagram, briefly glimpsing the new photo her ex Rahul had posted, and opening up the correct database.

  ‘No, that’s where I need some help too.’

  She was trying so hard not to lose her patience.

  ‘I’m afraid I can’t help you if you don’t know what books you want. I’ve just got a search engine.’

  ‘But don’t you have knowledge of books? Librarians know what people want to read. I know the sort of thing. I want books to read that I will enjoy. Maybe even something I could share with my granddaughter too … Like, something classic, maybe? Novels, I think. I have read The Time Traveler’s Wife.’ His hand flew to his bag and he clasped it tightly. ‘Yes, I really liked that one. It helped me a lot, that book did.’

  ‘Never heard of it. I’m really sorry, but I’m better with non-fiction, books for school and things. Things that teach me stuff. I don’t read novels.’

  The man looked horrified, his jaw dropped. ‘You should know novels. It is your job. Can you point me in any direction? Any direction at all?’

  ‘No, I think you might need to use Google or something.’

  ‘I—’

  She stood up from her chair, an aching throb in her temples. She thought back to last night – to her mum, shut in her room, her brother pacing the hallway outside, listening out, checking in on her. Worry written on his face. Aleisha’s eyes felt sore, tired, her head heavy. ‘Please, sir,’ she snapped through gritted teeth. ‘Do feel free to browse the shelves if you want to find something to read. The novels are over there.’ She waved her arm in the general direction.

  And with that, she sat down and watched as the man made his way over to the shelves, slowly but surely. He glanced back at her a few times, his brow furrowed. She glared at her screen, determined to ignore him. She could feel something that might have been guilt start to bubble up in her throat, making her cough. What had come over her? She plugged her headphones in, shoving them firmly into her ears.

  She pulled one latex glove further up her arm, feeling it pull the tiny hairs on her skin. She was ready to forget the last few minutes, when someone else accosted her. It was one of the five library regulars: The Crime Thriller guy. He was almost always found in the Crime Thriller section, sitting at the tables overlooking the park. It was sheltered a little from the rest of the library. Tucked away, quiet. Sometimes, when the library closed, Aleisha liked to sit there herself, looking out. Just for a minute or two. Just for a tiny bit of a break before she went home. A moment to brace herself.

  ‘What?’ she snapped. She knew she was being rude but didn’t have the energy to care.

  ‘Hey, sorry,’ he said, mumbling. His hair was long – too long for an adult man, in her opinion – and it covered a lot of his face. He liked bright T-shirts but almost always wore a thick black hoodie over them. Just looking at him, in this sweaty summer weather, made her wilt. ‘I just wanted to return this book.’ He held up a copy of To Kill a Mockingbird.

  She pointed with her latex finger to the returns pile. ‘Just put it there and I’ll get to it,’ she said.

  He nodded. ‘Not my usual crime book, of course. But it’s really good. I’ve read it a few times now – I keep coming back to it … It helps me get out of my head – well, all stories do that, you know? This place does that for me.’

  She frowned – if dark crime was his escape, what on earth was he escaping from? She nodded in response.

  Crime Thriller stumbled on, awkward and shy. ‘This book … you know … I’d recommend it.’ He raised his eyebrows and nodded almost imperceptibly towards the old man, framed by the shelves. Aleisha frowned again, and Crime Thriller waved the book once more in the old man’s direction. ‘It’s a classic … a book everyone should read.’ He laboured each word, before carefully placing the book next to the other returns – like it was some sort of precious gift – and turned away from her slowly.

  What was his problem? Was he trying to flirt with her?

  When he finally left, Aleisha picked up To Kill a Mockingbird, scanned it on the system to log it back in, and started to shake it in search of any illegal scraps to be binned. When a piece of paper fell out, she
half expected it to be his phone number or his Instagram handle or something. But as she unfolded it, she saw it was some kind of shopping list. She sighed, she wanted to call him back, tell him off for adding to her workload. But then Aleisha looked closer – the handwriting was nice, curly in all the right places. It wasn’t how she imagined Crime Thriller to write. She scanned the words again: it was a list of books.

  A reading list.

  There were eight titles scribbled there. It began with To Kill a Mockingbird, the book she was holding in her latexed hands.

  Just in case you need it:

  To Kill a Mockingbird

  Rebecca

  The Kite Runner

  Life of Pi

  Pride and Prejudice

  Little Women

  Beloved

  A Suitable Boy

  At first, she dropped it on the chuck pile. But as she went to dump the whole lot in the bin, something stopped her. She took one of her gloves off and carefully ran her fingers over the delicate words To Kill a Mockingbird, before stuffing the scrap of paper into the back of her phone case, along with the chicken shop stamp card.

  She held up the book, taking in the cover and feeling the weight of the pages in her hands.

  Then she got up and headed over to the old man, her heart pounding in her chest, ‘a book everyone should read’ ringing in her mind. Here it was, her olive branch.

  Chapter 3

  MUKESH

  MUKESH HAD FELT THE girl’s eyes boring into the back of his head as he stomped towards the shelves. He had no idea where to begin in his ‘search for a novel’ – the colours of the books all blurred into one. He ran his hands over the spines, feeling the different textures – mostly shiny and soft, silky. He thought of Naina’s neat saris piled up at home. The words written down the spines washed over him, ran away from him, laughed at him, as though they knew he didn’t really belong here. Was the girl still watching him? He wandered between shelves, trying to get out of her eyeline.

  He heard someone whispering. He didn’t know where the sound was coming from, but it felt as if they were whispering about him. His cheeks grew hot. Desperate to hide himself away, he quickly grabbed a book, any book at all, from the shelf.

  The Highway Code and Theory Test for Car Drivers. Well, he certainly hadn’t been looking for that. It wasn’t even a novel, though it might come in handy for his granddaughter Priya’s driving theory test in six years’ time. Reluctant to admit defeat, determined to pretend he didn’t need the librarian’s guidance anyway, he sat down at a table and started to read: ‘Introduction: The Highway Code is essential reading for everyone.’

  ‘Oh, Naina,’ he said, out loud. ‘What am I doing here?’

  Someone, hidden away in the corner, shushed him quite aggressively and his head jumped up in fright. How long did he need to wait here for it not to look as though he’d made a silly mistake? It was obvious he wouldn’t be taking a driving test any time soon! What would people think of him, panicking like that? He read the entire contents page, and then some of the Introduction, which was interesting, though entirely irrelevant to his day-to-day life. He’d long since given up driving. His daughters had seen to that.

  As he sat there, he could feel The Time Traveler’s Wife burning a hole through his canvas bag, drawing his attention. He’d been unable to give the book back at the crucial moment. He knew, if he gave it back now, he’d get into so much trouble for keeping it so long. Maybe he could escape into its pages, to take his mind off this terrible, awkward, embarrassing trip …

  He heard footsteps behind him, the only sound breaking the silence, and, with no time to pull out The Time Traveler’s Wife, he delved back into The Highway Code. Something was clack, clack, clacking – he glanced over his shoulder, trying to be as inconspicuous as possible. His eyes opened wide in horror as he saw it was the girl. She was holding a book between her hands – probably to mock him. Her nails, long and pointy, were doing the ‘clack, clack, clacking’ on the cover.

  ‘Sir?’ she said. She sounded polite this time, but he couldn’t trust her. His head snapped back to the pages. He wanted to read this fascinating book in peace.

  ‘Sir?’ she repeated. ‘Is that what you were looking for?’ She pointed down at The Highway Code. ‘I could have found that for you if you had told me.’

  ‘Don’t call me “Sir”, I am not your “Sir”!’ Mukesh stood up, bristling with anger and embarrassment.

  With that, he picked up The Highway Code and marched towards the door as quickly as he could manage, pressing the automatic open button (hardly automatic open!) to let himself out. His head held high, he ignored the beeps from the detectors, forgetting the stolen book in his hands.

  Arriving home, Mukesh opened the door to emptiness; he was calmer now but his eyes were prickling with tears, his ears burning with shame. Slipping off his shoes at the door, he threw his canvas bag down onto his chair in the living room with unexpected force before checking his landline for messages. There was another from Rohini, ending with ‘Papa, call me when you get this. We need to know what to cook when we visit on Friday, I’ll need to do the shopping tomorrow. I hope you’ve been eating properly.’

  He slumped down onto his sofa. Rohini’s message only served to increase the pounding of his heart. Last week Priya had begged him for something to read. She’d left her own book at home and had nothing to pass the time. He’d suggested watching Blue Planet. She’d groaned at him.

  ‘I wish Ba was here! She had so many books.’

  Priya and Naina had been forever wrapped up in books. Naina would hole up with Priya in their downstairs bedroom – they’d make a fort out of sheets and cushions and sit together and read. He would hear them talking about characters as though they were real-life people. He thought it fanciful, but completely lovely. He watched his documentaries with the same passion instead. Just as educational, but easier on the eyes. He really wanted Priya to love David Attenborough as much as he did.

  ‘I have a book,’ Mukesh had said to his granddaughter, as he hurried upstairs to his box room. The bookshelf now showcased only the dusty plastic-jacketed copy of The Time Traveler’s Wife.

  When he brought it down to her, held out in his hands, Priya’s face showed nothing but outrage. ‘Here, Priya. Even I have read this one, it is the most beautiful story.’

  ‘Dada, this is too grown-up for me!’ Mukesh could see her cheeks start to glow red with frustration. ‘I wish Ba was here. She would know. You don’t get books, Dada,’ her bottom lip began to quiver, and then, eventually, she sniffed: ‘You just don’t care!’ Priya slapped the book out of his hands and commenced an uncharacteristic temper tantrum.

  His heart crashed, a punch to the chest. He let his eyes glaze over, wishing to be spirited away, desperate to hear Naina’s voice once more, to feel her sitting beside him.

  No. He couldn’t bear a repeat of that. He’d felt so ashamed, so useless … Naina would be so disappointed in him. ‘What can I do?’ he called out to the silent house.

  Now is not the time to give up, Mukesh.

  Mukesh stopped in his tracks, knowing his mind, his disappointment, was playing tricks on him, but it felt like Naina had said that to him.

  Everyone needs to ask for help sometimes, Mukesh, her voice came to him once more, and he felt the hairs stand up on the back of his neck. She was right, she was always right.

  His heart sank at the thought of Priya sitting in an armchair, or tucked up on Ba’s side of the bed, with a book – miles and miles, and worlds and worlds away from him.

  ‘Does she enjoy coming to visit me?’ Mukesh asked out loud.

  He waited, hoping for Naina to come back to him, to tell him it was all going to be okay – but there was only silence.

  He slumped himself in front of the television, turning on Blue Planet. Usually David Attenborough’s voice, the deep blues of the sea, the funny noises from the creatures, helped him to focus and to relax. But today, he couldn’t concentrate on D
avid Attenborough, and wandered back over to his canvas bag, pulled The Time Traveler’s Wife out and clutched it to his chest. He shuffled to his bedroom and flumped onto the bed. He let the novel fall open in his hands and allowed himself to be transported back to the world of Clare and Henry; they had been warned in advance – a blessing and a curse – about Henry’s death. That was the starkest warning anyone could be given. They knew their days together were limited – they were waiting for the end to come.

  But from Mukesh’s own experience, he knew that a warning, no matter how stark, was never a comfort; it was only the slow drip of fear through all the good and all the bad times. A ticking time bomb. He remembered when the doctor had sat him and Naina down after her last scan.

  ‘I’m sorry, Mrs Patel,’ the doctor had said, his voice solid; yet under the surface Mukesh heard a quiver. He wore glasses, which sat neatly on the bridge of his nose. He looked how Mukesh imagined his own son might have, had they had one. That familiarity, it made it worse somehow. They’d always wanted a doctor in the family, for moments like this, for an expert to say to them, ‘Don’t worry, Papa, often doctors get these things wrong.’

  Naina and Mukesh had both known this doctor was not wrong.

  Rohini came to collect them both from the hospital; she’d bombarded them with interesting facts from the news, trying to deflate the sadness in the car, while Mukesh and Naina sat in silence. This was their moment – the moment equivalent to when Henry travelled into the future and watched himself die – wondering how long they had until that day finally arrived.

  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.’